Gelato in the Rain

It has pretty much rained the entire time I have been in Venice. Rain is one thing, but cold rain is another. And flooding makes the whole situation worse. None of that has stopped me from eating incredible gelato until tonight when the places closed early to try to raise their stuff away from the potential harm of the water. The wole situation felt all too familiar to me, but was also so different. The flood here is only because of high tide. The people know exactly how high the water is going to get and at what time it is going to get there. 

This flood is a perfect example of one of the many reasons I don't think Venice is a real city. Everything here is based off of tourism.  The only people that legit live here are the old people. It is  like Disney World, Las Vegas, and a retirement community all rolled into one. There is no movie theatre here. There is nothing that real cities have. I havent even seen a grocery. 

What is does have is some of the most unique and beautiful buildings and settings I have ever seen. Coming here is almsot like looking back in time because this was once a real city. It was once a great city, and looking at what once made it a great city is what makes it so cool to come here now. 

Speaking of going back in time, I went to Montenegro with my mom and Aunt Joanie to find this village where Skobeljs live. Everything in Igalo, the town we went to, was old. It was not a good old though. It was a 60s, 70s, and 80s communist old. The cars were all crap, which was really weird because the terrain was pretty severe. We went to this hotel in the middle of Igalo because we knew that a Cognevich owned it, and his family lived in the same place as the Skobeljs. The guy, George, and his wife were extremly nice, but only his wife spoke English. Luckily our driver was able to translate for us and we could communicate with George some.

George led us up what seemed like the highest mountain around. The road was more like a trail, but the driver was determined to make it up there. Eventually the car over heated leaving us to walk the rest of the way while it cooled down. Once we finally made it to tiny village we were welcomed by some very angry dogs. I ran, but George showed up and calmed the dogs and walked us into the village where we met this large Cognevich guy who wanted us to take shots with him. They told us there was no Skobeljs still living there, but we met or at least saw one lade who they told us was a Skobelj on the way out.

Old town Dubrovnik was also like going back in time, but the views around the city are really what made it so awesome. The coastline with the mountains and blue water was incredible and made Dubrovnik one of my favorite cities. However, I'm too tired to write anymore right now.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Barcelona, and then down to Seville on Thursday.

PICTURES

The weather is terrible in Rome today, so I uploaded pictures to Facebook. There are captions on nearly every picture.

Pictures from Tokyo, Hong Kong, South Africa, London, Paris

Pictures from Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Munich, Vienna, Athens, Rome

NYT

the new york times has an article in today's paper about hostels in europe and how they are getting so much better. the 1st one they talk about is the one i liked so much in london. i stayed at the one they talk about in berlin too, and i'm at the one they list for rome.

would have been nice to have this a month ago.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/travel/19hostels.html?8dpc

good & bad, but way more good

Today is day 77 of being away from home. I'm in Rome now, and I think Italy is my 17th country. 

Going to Athens and seeing the Acropolis and Parthenon was a dream come true. Unfortunately, I never really thought about what the rest of Athens would be like. Nor did I bother to think about the fact that Greek Orthodox Easter is a week after Easter for everyone else, so while I did a good job planning ahead for normal Easter, Greek Easter messed up my plans for Greece. Worse things can happen than experiencing Good Friday two weeks in row.

The Acropolis and Parthenon turned out to be the only things I was really interested in in Athens. From the top of the Acropolis, I could see all of the other sights, and there was really no need to walk all around them when I already had such an awesome view. Luckily I stumbled upon a guided tour group and jumped in (at the rather steep price of 15 euro), but the tour guide explained what everything was.

I was hoping to go to a Greek island for two nights, but because of Easter and the mass exodus the Athenians particpate in there were no tickets left on the ferries to Mykonos or Sandorini that worked for me to go. I did go to Aegina, a closer island, for one day. By the fast ferry, it only took 40 minutes to get there. 

What made Athens so awesome though was the hostel I stayed at. There was this intensely social atmosphere that other hostels haven't had. All the hostels have been decently social, but I think this one socially overdrive because Athens was so dead because everything in Athens goes Easter crazy and either closes or does something special (or just becuase the city is so boring). I met so many people that were really awesome. After being alone for so long it was weird to be with so many people. While I was there, I never ate a meal alone. People would just come into the common area before going to eat or do anything really and ask if anyone wanted to join. 

There were tons of Americans at the hostel too. It was nice to not be overrun by Canadians. Many Americans studying abroad are on spring break right now, so they are traveling through Europe. These are mostly the people I hung out with. I hung out with 3 of the same people all 3 nights in Athens, but many other were coming and going. It is so weird to become friends with someone for such a short period of time. You do things with them like you do normal friends, but you only know for like 72 hours. Facebook friend requests were flying like crazy in that place.

The island I went to was not the greatest of Greek Islands, but was probbaly so cool becuase I went with someone from the hostel. We ran into eachother on the subway on the way out there, and decided to go together. (Before we went we actually poured some banana juice all over the entrance to the bar where he was scammed 90 euro the night before.) On the island we rented a fourwheeler and rode around. Motorbikes are more common, but I don't think they are nearly as safe. The day before a girl staying at our hostel was in an accident and got all scraped up. We rode the fourwheeler all over part of the island and found a beech. Nick went swimming, and I slept. My last night in Vienna and my nights in in Athens have been catching up to me,  and sleeping during the day has become common. I guess not sleeping at night will do that.

Right after I checked into  my hostel in Rome today, I asked for the information to use the WIFI, and the guy explained to me that it wasn't free. However, the website I used to book the hostel made it sound like it was, so I told him that. He was really mean to me in response. I went to another hostel nearby. It looked cooler and has free WIFI. I checked in there, and went back to the other place to tell the guy offf. Surprisinly, I was nice to him though. He was still pretty mean. He is going to be really pissed when my credit card company stops the payment on the transactions.

I have had two awesome Italian meals already and am looking forward to more to come. But I what I'm really looking forward to is my mom's arrival in Rome on Monday morning. 

airport

I love free wifi at airports. Really I like it anywhere, but it is really nice when it is somewhere that I have to wait for two hours and have nothing else to do. I have been traveling by train lately, so it has been almost a month since I have flown. That isn't really that long, but considering how often I was flying before it kinda seems like a very long time. 

The Vienna airport is very weird. Each gate has its own security checkpoint. People are lined up forever to go through security and bored the plane so I feel like I should too. I hate lines though. I really hate lines that are pointless like this one since we are all going to the same place and nothing is going to happen until everyone gets through anyway. 

Vienna was a cool city to visit, but I'm glad I only had one full day here. None of the museums really interested me, but the city itself is really pretty. There are 3 major palaces here. One is pretty cool. The other two are kinda lackluster. However, after visiting Versailles, no palaces can really compare. 

I'm looking forward to seeing the Acropolis later today. I have wanted to see it since I studied about it with Greek mythology in 6th grade. 

Now, I'm going to get in line with the other ducks.

weird

I actually know where I'm going for the next week or so. 

Vienna tomorrow

Athens Wednesday

Rome Monday

Croatia Wednesday

back to Rome Friday

I haven't had this much planned out in a long time. It is very nice.

Perfect weather in Praha

Today is so beautiful. I could actually be wearing shorts. I'm just
sitting by a park on the river, and to be more eurotrash I do my my
jeans rolled up. The eurotrash even roll up their shorts like one
cuff. It is the kinds stuff you would never see in America. I would
definitely not roll by jeans up at home, but here it is more normal
than odd.

Prague is really beautiful, but people talked it up so much that I got
exactly what I expected. No one really told me how incredible berlin
was going to be before I got there, so I was even more impressed with
it. There isnt really much new stuff in Prague. Everything is old.
That is part of what is pretty, but the things that should be new
aren't new and that is what I don't like here. I knew this wasn't
going to be one of my favorite places when I got to the train station
and it looked like I was stepping back into the soviet union.

In some other language Prague is Praha. Praha isn't chech though, so I
don't know why it is used. Speaking of languages, the waitresses here
have to be some of the smartest I have ever incountered. At lunch
yesterday I heard my waitress speak in 3 different languages: Czech,
English, French, and German. Although she only new how to say
horseradish in 3. She couldn't get the French people to understand
what it was.

I finally decided to go to Munich next. I thought about going to
Vienna and bodapest best in the end I realized I want to be in a more
modern 1st world city.

Summer camp

After I posted the two months stats, I started to think about how as a
kid I couldn't even make it a whole week away at summer camp. I made
my parents come and get me early. It doesn't even seem like I have
been gone that long. I think it is because I just look at everything
in such small time periods. I only really consider one city at a time.
I have some idea where I'm going, but once I start to think about more
than one place at a time it all becomes overwhelming.

What does seem like it os taking forever is this train to Berlin. I
loved the train rides I had before this because the areas were so
beautiful. Germany is not really that beautiul.

One other thing. I haven't taken a taxi since I was in Cape Town. That
is almost 3 weeks without being in a car.

Amsterdam

It has been so long since I have written a post for real. If you notice on the other ones, the spacing is all messed up becuase I wrote them on my phone, and for some reason, when I send it doesn't get the formatting correct. Right now im at a internet place in Amsterdam. Trust me when I say you don't want to see a picture of it becuase it isn't that special. In fact, I'm fairly certain the CIA should be told about this place becuase it looks like a terrorist training camp. The internet is only 1 euro per hour which is really cheap for here so I'm just accpeting the setting.

The rest of Amsterdam is really incredible. There is daring modern architecture mixed with old. The mixture is what makes everything so interesting. Yesterday, I rented a bike and rode around the city. The weahter was so nice. It was the 1st time I was able to wear a short sleve shirt since leaving Summer behind in South Africa. Well, Winter is back today and it is so cold. I returned the bike a day early and put my sweater and jacket back on.

I got to Amsterdam by train. Surprisingly, I really like the trains so far. The view from the trains are so awesome. I saw some windmills, which were cool, but what was my favorite was passing farms. There were some that had giant fields of yellow flowers. The faster trains are obviously much better, but tomorrow I have a 6 hour train ride to Berlin. I'm thinking about stopping somewhere just to break up the 6 hours of travel time. On the way to Amsterdam from Paris, I spent the day in Brussels. It was nice, but there wasn't really that much to see there. The couple hours I spent there was all I really needed.

I probaly could have seen everything in Amsterdam much faster, but I'm getting tired of moving so much. I want to find somewhere I like and stay there in one place for a week. I haven't stayed in one hotel for more like 3 nights in like 3 weeks. A lot of that just had to do with the way I plan everything, but some of it has to do with the fact that I'm now in cities that don't really have tons of stuff to see.

2 months stats

11 counties
24 different hotels/hostels/places
13 flights
2 high speed trains
2 ferries (which were nothing like the chalmette one)
2 credit card statements

Hostel life

I'm staying a really cool hostel in Paris. See if you can tell what
this is.