Salzburg

Our foursome has shrunk to a trio. Jamie´s three weeks with us ran out on Sunday and she flew back home to Washington. After dropping Jamie off in Zurich, we headed into Germany. We spent two nights in a small Bavarian town and toured crazy King Ludwig II´s three castles in the area (including the famous Neuschwanstein, which inspired the Disneyland castle). We had planned to spend the next two nights in Munich, but all of the lodging was booked solid due to some sort of convention going on in the city. Instead, we opted to head into Austria and will hit Munich on our way back through Germany. We´ve got lots more to tell, but the Internet cafe I´m typing from is closing, so this quick update will have to do for now. Ciao!

Katie the Groupie

This comes from the mouth of Mark. After reading the most recent blog written by Katie, he noticed one problem with the Rick Steves' story. It was mostly true until the part where she said that the rest of the group ''was not brave enough to go talk to him''. Actually, if you look real close to the writing she put about ten exclamation marks after everything she said, meaning she was head over heals over this ''superhero." To be honest, none of us really cared, we thought neat but no big deal - he's just another human, but inside Katie's little head she started to turn weird, which most of us would call ''starstruck'' and she started mumbling and foaming at the mouth. Well anyways, to make a long story short, she had to think of something to say to break the ice so she says to him ,''We are staying at a neat place that you could put in your book," with her eyes open wide, a blank stare and mouth open as if spotting a gelatto stand - and that's wide if you have not witnessed it. The response was ''Well, what is the name of the place?'' Her response was "Uhh...,uhhh...., the one around the corner," and for those who don't know, Venice is nothing but corners,at least she pointed in the direction of it though, and it only got worse because Rick Steves was going to charge her 5 dollars for the photo and she came back with ''fifty is a bargain'',so he realized her state of mind and felt bad for her and said,''OK,its free for you'',and from that day on we hear more about him than she eats Nutella and for those of you who don't how much that is...,well let's just say there aren't enough waterfalls where we are staying to compare it to. Well, The End.

Meeting Rick Steves!!!!!

Yes, this is the real Rick Steves... and yes we were really there with him!!!! For those of you who don't know... Rick Steves has become very popular in the traveling world. He spends a few months of every year in Europe doing research and shows etc... he has numerous books published every year (we have like 10 of them in the back of the car, because Bethany's cousin works for him) and what are the chances that between his schedule and ours that we would actually meet him???? Amazing!!!!!

ok... so here's the scoop... While sight seeing in Venice we were walking along in a piazza, and I walked by a guy just sitting in the square... and I thought "hey, that guy looks like Rick Steves" but then passed it off thinking "yeah right... I mean what are the chances" and of course didn't mention it to my traveling mates (they love to make fun of me any chance they get). Well, that evening we met a couple from the states traveling around Europe much like us... and they happened to mention that they ran into Rick Steves last night in Venice... then of course I told my story and what do you know... no one believed me.... big surprise!!!! A few moments later the couple we were talking to says "oh look... there he is" and sure enough there he was... the man himself... pretty much taking a picture of us!!!!!!! Well, I was the only one brave enough to go talk to him and get my picture taken... at first... then we got to talk to him a little and everyone thought that it would be a good idea to have a group picture taken to post on the blog!!!! Soooo... to make a short story long.... that's my version of it ;) I still can't get over it..... I mean... RICK STEVES!!!!!! Pretty cool!!!!!

Venezia, Italia

Here's a few Venice photos for your viewing pleasure, although pictures just don't allow you to be "lost in the magic" like when you're there in person (you'll be hearing more about that soon, but that's mostly Katie's story, so I'll let her tell). We actually left Venice today and are now in the breathtakingly beautiful Swiss Alps. It's a drastic change to go from Venice, where most of the greenery comes from planted window boxes and an occasional tree, to the cow-dotted hills, snow-capped mountains and waterfalls of the Alps. But for now, here's Venice . . .

Greetings from Venice!

It's interesting logging onto Blogger in Internet cafes in foreign countries, because not only are the keyboards different, but the entire Blogger Web site is in another language. Therefore, please excuse poor spelling because spellcheck is pretty useless when it's trying to correct my English using an Italian dictionary.

We reached Venice this afternoon after two nights in Florence. I spent the past couple hours wandering around the city - it's beautiful and a complete maze. There's little streets, alleys and bridges everywhere and you never know if they will lead you to another road or a dead end. And with no cars, buses or even bicyles competing for road space, it's the perfect place to be a pedestrian (unlike Rome, where you risk your life every time you cross the street). I carried my camera in hand and snapped lots of photos as I walked. I must have looked like I knew what I was doing because I was asked four times in about half an hour to take pictures for people. Unfortunately, I can't download photos here, so those will have to wait for another day.

Our accomodations here are the best we've had yet - we have a whole apartment to ourselves with a full kitchen! We were hoping to go grocery shopping and cook dinner for ourselves tonight, but evidently all the supermarkets close on Sundays (and they're nearly impossible to find - the maps here aren't very accurate). I guess it will be pizza or pasta yet again . . . I'm not really complaining. I do have a craving for Mexican or Chinese though.

Backtracking...

I have wireless access at the moment and was waiting for our laundry to dry, so I decided to do some photo posting from our trip so far. I only got Amsterdam (our first stop) posted before the dryer finished and now it's time to hit the road toward Florence, so I guess photos from the other cities will have to wait. So as not to confuse you by my out-of-order photo posting, here's a basic look at our itinerary thus far:
Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Nice, Rome . . . and now, off to Florence! Ciao!

Amsterdam

We spent the first two nights of our trip in Amsterdam and had fun wandering through this very picturesque city. Amsterdam is a very diverse, very loose (in more ways than one!) city. It was a great place to walk off our jet lag and have our first real taste of Europe (without the help of the city's many "coffeeshops*," mind you). We did visit the Anne Frank hideout museum, but otherwise mostly just wandered - there wasn't the pressure to see a lot of major sites as in cities like Rome and Paris. The last two pictures are "Where's Waldo?" poses of me and Katie.

*Amsterdam's so-called "coffeeshops" serve marijuana. It's technically still an illegal drug there, but it's been de-criminalized.

The tower that leans ;)

Yes... this is Pisa!!!!! And yes... it really does lean!!! We just made a quick stop here on our way through to Rome... How could we be so close... and not come at least see it.... oh... and we sampled a little gelato in Pisa... after all... it might taste different here, and how else would we know what to recommend?!?!?!? More on Rome later :)

Italia

A quick hello from Italy! We're enjoying lots of pizza and gelatto. Tomorrow, we're headed for Rome after three nights in the quaint Cinque Terra along the coastline. I'm writing from a little pub with pay-by-the-quarter-hour Internet access - there's no wireless where we're staying. Naturally, it's a European keyboard, so I'm having to hit backspace a ton. Hopefully we'll have a chance to write a more detailed update soon!

Nice ;)

Nice, France. No, that's not a description, it's a place. It's pronounced "niece" and it's beautiful!!!! Though it did feel very "nice" to get here last night after sitting in traffic for 2 and 1/2 hours because of an accident. We hung out a little bit seeing the town at night, and then hit the pillow and didn't revive till late this morning. Today has been kind of our slow down and kick back day. We hit a laundromat this morning, and then just walked around town and the coast seeing the sights!!! Today it has been sunny and warm. The ocean is soooo blue, it's amazing!!!!

Bonjour!

Here we are at the top of the Eiffel Tower (taken last night - April 2). The view was amazing, although you'll have to just take my word for it because this picture really doesn't show much of anything. This is the only photo I have on my USB drive at the moment (the rest are back at our hotel), so it will have to suffice for now. (I'm typing from an Internet Cafe in Paris, which we had to look very hard to find.) Hopefully we'll get a chance to post more photos soon - we've gotten a lot of great shots. We haven't had a lot of time to hunt for Internet availability - there's so much to see, we're doing good if we remember to eat dinner before midnight.

We've spent the last two nights (and will spend the next two) at a hotel outside of Versailles. Our room is tiny, and only supposed to sleep 3, but we snuck in a fourth. We'll have to post a photo - it's pretty funny. Mark gets the top bunk and us three girls share the bottom two single beds. The beds are pushed together and we sleep on it sideways. It's plenty wide enough - our ankles just hang over the edge a tad. The bathroom looks like what you'd find in a motor home. But we really can't complain - we haven't been bit by any bed bugs yet and we're only paying $9/night each.

We spent our first day in Paris seeing the big sights - the Louvre, Notre Dame cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, etc. Today has been a more low-key day in Paris. We slept in, visited the catacombs and have been wandering the city. Our legs have already logged a lot of miles on this trip (Katie was wishing she'd brought a pedometer) and we're starting to feel it. Well, there's lots to tell, but it will have to wait. We're paying for Internet by the half hour and still need to book hostels for the next leg of our trip.

Brussels, Belgium

Gabe, Rachel and Maggie are right - we were fooling in our last post. We're in Paris now, but here's an old post I wrote in Brussels before we decided to run an April Fool's message. (We haven't had Internet access for the past few days...)

Greetings from Belgium! I had planned to post a more detailed update last night, but instead opted for a late walk around Brussels. While Amsterdam is basically an “anything goes” city, Katie and I quickly learned that Brussels is a bit more high-class. We ventured out in our sweats just planning for a casual, late-night stroll, but felt quite out of place once we realized that the city was still quite alive – and well-dressed. We ran back to the hotel to change, although our tourist clothes really weren’t that much of an improvement. But the four of us enjoyed the city nonetheless, despite our obvious lack of Gucci and Armani labels.

Brussels was planned as a “drive-through” city on our itinerary, but we ended up booking a room here after having a difficult time finding a hostel with available beds for a third night in Amsterdam. Brussels has been well-worth the stop. And after spending two nights in little cabin bunks at a campground in Amsterdam, we slept amazingly well last night in our (heated!) hotel room with an indoor shower. Luxury, indeed.

Carless in Brussels

Well, we suffered the first major setback of our trip. We spent the night at a hotel in Brussels, and all was well until we came to load up our car this morning and it was nowhere to be found. Mark is frantically calling our rental company, and trying to find out what all our insurance covers. Looks like we might be spending a few more days in Brussels than we planned. Don't worry, they say that it's relatively safe here... I guess we'll see. We are all safe, and still have all of our stuff, so don't worry too much... all will be well... I hope. We knew that it wouldn't all be smooth sailing... but this early in our trip... well, it's a little disappointing.