All good things..

We have returned home safely. I'm currently trying to catch up on email and bundle up our gifts that we brought back into neat little stacks for shipping later this week.

Rome - V

Today was great. We woke up around 10:00am and spent the day wandering
back to all the good shops we had seen over the last few days. It
started pouring buckets on us half way through our shopping day so we
made a quick return to camp and began taking shorter trips out. Up
until about 3:00pm or 4:00pm the rain carried on with its
unpredictable down pours every five to twenty minutes and then finally
gave way to a semi clear sky. We went back to the restaurant that we
had dinner at the first night we got in to town and had them modify
their minestrone with some added pasta. It was a great last meal.
After one last scoop of gilato, we tried to haggle with one of the
stand owners for a purse that Liz liked (not loved) but we couldn't
get him to go low enough to match the "leftover cash" we had on us.

Now it's on to an evening of creative packing and an early night so we
can start up bright and early to catch the first of two or three
flights home. I'll let Liz answer for herself on the topic, but I know
that this trip has been amazing in so many different aspects for me.
Experiencing other cultures and learning to appreciate the differences
between each (and my own) has been something I will not soon forget.

Our next update (if any) will most likely be from inside the states.
Thanks for checking in on us from time to time. We loved reading the
comments and feedback (sorry again to the people who had comments
removed). If the pictures sucked, I'm sure Liz will have some sort of
powerpoint within a week or two of our full res shots, so stay tuned
(or email her if you're really interested).

Rome - IV

We had originally selected dinner from a guidebook written by Rick
Steves, our general time, money, and life saver (seriously, the guy
writes a good guidebook, and I'm typically not a fan of them). But
ended up walking a little bit past the Pantheon to a place in between
the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps that we had seen the night
before. Named for the tourism I'm sure, "That's Amore" had a good menu
with prices that rivaled some of the other 'cheap eats' in Rick's
book. The quality was easily better than most places along our stay in
Rome.

After dinner we took a slightly modified path through Campo de Fiori
to look for a watch dealer. Unfortunately all we found were executive
pens and some sort of cashmere scarfs (shawls maybe?). When one of the
"pushers" delivered his "I give you very good price my friend" line, I
jokingly replied to him "that's ok, I'm looking for watches". He
whipped out a cell phone and in broken Italian asked someone on the
other line essentially "yo, where you at?" Before we could get five
feet away, he hung up and said "five minutes, he(they?) be here". Holy
hell, I just inadvertently summoned more of these people through what
appeared to be a full on networked operation. I guess it makes sense
though, as they always seem to have whatever item fits the time of day
or weather condition. Getting back to our story, I told the guy thanks
buy no thanks and we made our way back to the hotel. I have a feeling
more of an effort would have been made to get some money out of me,
but there was a police car making its way down the street and everyone
quickly closed up shop.

Interesting..

Rome - III

Slower day with a couple of sights. Galleria Borghese, National (Art)
Museum of Rome, and my favorite, the Capuchin (sp?) Crypt. We weren't
allowed to take pictures in most of the places we've been to over the
last two days, so unfortunately there isn't much to upload but I'll
send what's left before we take off for home. Tomorrow we have a whole
lot of nothing planned except for shopping and relaxing from all our
running around. I think Liz could do this stuff for weeks but I'm
looking forward to not having an itinerary for at least a day or two.
Also, I think my upper respiratory system has finally caved to the
increased nicotine and carbon monoxide intake.

We had a rather 'merkan'd out lunch today at the Hard Rock Cafe while
we were waiting for the crypt to open for the evening. I love Italian
food but the selection between American-Italian and Italian-Italian
menus is different enough that I (/we) needed a changeup. While we
were waiting for the check to arrive a group of about 10 (younger / 20-
ish) women walked in with Nike-Bauer jackets on. I stopped one to get
the story and it turns out they are a team from Minnesota that wasn't
going to have the chance to travel abroad (in school maybe? I kinda
missed that part) so their coach arranged for them to play a number of
other women's hockey teams across Europe. It wasn't Roman history, but
it was cool to see a little bit of home that I can relate to, walking
around the city just like us.

After the crypt we made our way back to the hotel, providing
navigation to another confused visitor along the way. It's always nice
to see how much of a bearing we've gained on the city in such a short
amount of time. Especially after an episode of "wait.. where does that
bus go?" or "how did that road we walked down last night disappear?"
The roads here are easily the biggest mess either of us have seen, and
the public transportation system doesn't seem to fall to far from that
tree. Though somehow it all falls into place and works without people
jumping out of their cars or off their Vespas and stabbing one another
which is nearly as amazing as the monuments that grace the city.

Rome - i

Today was our holiest day so far - we went to the Vatican, and I
managed to leave with no more than a postcard with the Pope on it (I
was thinking about the full set of dishes). St. Peter's was really
beautiful, and very different from a lot of the other churches we have
been in. I especially liked the Bernini stained glass in the front,
and how the marble statues seemed to be in motion. We spent a few
quiet minutes in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament (for praying
only) and it was spectacular! (I may have finished praying quickly to
look around) The chaple is gilded all over, has huge angel statues
guarding the Sacrament, and an intricately decorated ceiling. One of
the coolest things about being in Europe at this time of year (besides
missing out on huge crowds and awful heat) is that all of the churches
still have their decorations up from Christmas. St. Peter's had a huge
nativity up in the square, and then another, smaller one, inside.
Anyway, from there we wound our way through the Vatican Museum, seeing
tons of familiar statues from Art History class, past quite a few
rooms that provided visual overload with frescoes on 5 walls, to the
Sistine Chapel. It was beautiful and quiet. I had heard horror stories
about shuffling through without having a chance to enjoy the space due
to crowds, but we were able to find a spot to just stand, crane our
necks, and then ooh and aah.
After gelato and a brief siesta, we went for an evening walk towards
the Pantheon, but ended up walking all the way to the Spanish Steps
for the second time in two nights because someone asked us for
directions, and we couldn't explain, so we just walked with her, and
finally figured out which bus takes us back to the Campo de Fiori
(near the hotel) and got dropped off in front of a gelaterie that
served pineapple flavor (we haven't seen it in too many places).
Andrew tried to buy a "Rolex" but I guess that will have to wait for
another day.
<3 Lizzy

Rome - II

Lots of walking today, starting off with a stroll down the Tiber river
to the Colosseum where we picked up our Roma Pass(es) and began the
sightseeing. Along our route we toured the Forum, Pantheon, and Trevi
Fountain. All were much larger than I had imagined and simply amazed
with the amounts of pure grace and intelligence that went into such
powerful structures built nearly two millenia ago. We had lunch near
the Pantheon and slowly made our way back to the hotel for a quick
rest and some planning of tomorrows itinerary. Don't know what's on
tap for dinner yet, but since we may do our nightwalk tonight (Piazza
Del Popolo down to the Trevi Fountain passing by the Spanish Steps),
I'm hoping to find something interesting along the way.

New pictures soon..

I think I found a decent hotspot in Rome to upload some pictures. I'll have to walk by it again tonight, but if it works you should see a bunch of new pictures in the slideshow (and also be able to click on it to see the full resolution).

Rome - I

The train ride to Rome was rather pleasant and didn't seem to take the
full five hours we originally signed on for. The car we sat in was
neat and definitely newer with electrical outlets built into the
tables. On our way down we made a stop in Florence, and while we
didn't actually get off the train it was very nice to pass through.

Upon arrival there was a shaky bus trip down the ever so busy roads of
Rome and a short walk to our hotel. The room is average size for what
I now understand to be the standard in Europe however the ceiling is
probably a good 15ft. high. While unusual, the windows do the same and
overlook the street with markets which makes it very cool and I can't
wait to see what it looks like when the crowds are moving through
tomorrow.

We had dinner at Saby's inside Fiori Square and found a small gelato
cremery for desert. From there we decided we would wander down past
the Largo Argentina ruins (which is also a feline sanctuary) and maybe
back to the city museum we had passed earlier but still had luggage in
our hands. The Argentina ruins were definitely full of cats as
promised and when we made our way over to the museum we decided to
walk even further to investigate more ruins that ran along side it.
After not much walking at all we discovered that the ruins we were
looking at belonged to the Forum and that we were walking towards the
Colosseum. Both are spectacular at night, especially the Colosseum.

It was definitely a treat to get in earlier and have time to scope out
the surrounding area. Much like Venice, Rome has a level of beauty
that can only be experienced after sun and spectator have been peeled
back from its sights.

Venice wrap-up

Wow. Venice was pretty much everything people made it out to be (if
not a bit more). In between the church at Piazza San Marco and Doge's
Palace, we spent the entire day orienting ourselves within the puzzled
streets. By mid day we were pretty good at navigating and managed to
find a small chinese place off the beaten tourist path we had seen
earlier that morning. From there it was more window shopping and a
small trip out to Murano where we walked by the glass factory (it had
already closed) and made a trip up and down what I'm guessing was
their main street/canal of shops. The day was mostly foggy so it was
difficult to see much beyond where the boat was taking us, but still
offered plenty to see in such a short range. When it was time for
dinner we finally made our way over the Rialto bridge on foot, rather
than under it on a boat, to find a small street with more shops and
an Italian restaurant right along the grand canal. Even if the prices
hadn't been reasonable, we probably would have eaten there anyways for
the view.

We woke up a little on the early side this morning to find some
postcards for Liz to send home and have breakfast before we made our
way to the train station. We stopped at a small cafe we had found the
day before to have coffee and pastries. While sampling another
establishment might have been fun, we were getting a little tired of
the hole-in-the-wall places that charged €6 for a cup of hot
chocolate (that's $9.00 by todays exchange rate) and this place sat at
a much more affordable rate of €3.50 for a very well made cappucino
(plus the friendly staff). After checkout at the hotel and a slightly
early arrival to the train station we had found that the times to Rome
had changed and we could opt in for an earlier arrival if we (quite
literally) ran to catch a departure. Luckily the Paris metro and train
system had trained us for such an event and we made it with time to
spare. Total travel time today is upwards of five hours, but I'm
looking forward to enjoying the sights by day as we move on to our
final stay.

Last few might be out of order

Had a problem sending blog updates in the order we wrote them.
Connection or something weird. Just wanted to give you the heads up in
case our locations seemed out of order. Lauren we got your message and
will bring back a few Euro for your coworker.

Off to dinner on the canal!

Switzerland and Venice

I thought I'd put my two cents in...
It was great to really get to see the alps after visiting in the fog
10 years ago (the snowboarding was fun, but I think I am better at
other things like drinking hot chocolate and enjoying the view). The
Sauvains were as gracious of hosts as ever, and it was especially nice
to meet Cyrille's girlfriend, Natalie.
I like Venice already, and I have to say they did a great job with the
Venetian in Las Vegas. The casino is no where near as stunning, but
the architecture is the same. I'm looking forward to seeing inside
some of the buildings we saw this evening, and enjoying coffee and
gelato tomorrow. <3 Lizzy

Venice...

Is simply beautiful. We got off our train and made it to the hotel by
8:00p. After check in we went wandering up and down the streets and
eventually ended up at St. Mark's Square (which sounds much better in
Italian but I didn't want to murder the spelling). It ended up being
less than 500 feet away from the hotel, we had just started walking in
a slightly different direction to check out other shops. I haven't
seen the town by day yet, but I can already understand why a lot of
our friends favored Venice over other destinations.

A little catching up

Currently we're working on making all of our connections throughout
Switzerland and Italy to our stop in Venice. The Swiss Alps are
covered in snow but I have yet to see any actually fall from the sky.
For those of you who don't know the story with me and snow, it's
basically the one type of weather that I always want to witness but
invariably miss by days (or sometimes hours) to find it already on the
ground. I joke with friends that the California weather follows me
wherever I go but didn't think it would have long range effects in
Europe. Currently it is sunny with almost no clouds in the sky, which
is a decent contrast to the weather reports I read earlier this week
from Germany (and even a day or two ago from Fribourg) that predicted
a "decent amount of snow" along our route in Switzerland.

Moving back a little bit, our second day in Fribourg was spent
strolling around one of the local malls and much of the old town
(district?). I was always told in my German classes that fashion
varied a great deal between the US and European countries, but I have
to say that I really don't see it. I can't tell if changes in
communication and travel have provided better traversing of the
"material world" from place to place or if its simply that my German
teacher was older and didn't understand either populations style
choices. Before that has a chance to be interpreted as an insult, let
me say that I agree with him (and his confusion) if the latter is
true. I was also able to pickup a charger for my phone that works so
now the remaining challenge will be to find wifi throughout Venice and
Rome. After the mall we took a short walk down to the old part of
Fribourg that offered numerous shops, an older church (with relatively
not so old stained glass), "funikular" (fr/de. sp?) powered by raw
sewage, and a number of roads so vertical that stairs had to be
installed to get up and down them. We met up with Cyrille and Natalie
after we finished touring the town for coffee and hot chocolate in a
semi-trendy lounge that was nice but unfortunately very smokey like
some restaurants we've encountered along the way. Of the things I miss
most from California, sending the damn smokers outside is by far
topping the list these days. It really is a great rule that some
european countries have been enforcing over the last year or so, while
others remain unchanged (or undecided). We finished up the evening by
celebrating epiphany with our hosts. Neither Liz nor myself landed the
piece of cake that had the King/Queen figurine that entitled the
possesor to wear a crown for the rest of the night, but we were happy
to see that both Cyrille and Natalie had found such winnings inside
their dessert.

After a quick ride to the train station this morning we're now back to
where I began. And since I have nearly (and unintentionally) completed
the Tarantino effect, it's probably as good a time as any to close for
now.

Busy, busy, busy

Sorry for the delay in updates. The battery on the iPhone died and
even if it hadn't we have been in the strangest places over the last
couple of days with no wifi. This one will be short and I don't know
how many pictures I got before the battery went out, but we made it to
Paris ok. The metro system there is crazy. In fact the only thing
crazier than the public transportation system is the hobos that hang
around in it. They were a blast to watch though, and it was great to
be in another country where it didn't matter language you spoke
because nobody truly understands "crazy". The Eiffel Tower was fun
and, like all the things we saw in Paris, really really cold.

From Paris we moved on to Bayeux (Normandie) where it was much
colder, but both of us agreed afterwards that we still would have done
it again to see the WWII beaches. There's some cool pictures that I'll
be excited to show when I get back. (there might be some in the
slideshow too, I'll have to double check).

From Bayeux it was about a half day trip to Fribourg that ended
around 11:30p last night. This morning we got up and left for the
slopes were Liz and I made sad attempts at snowboarding. Still lots of
fun and now we can both say we've gone skiing/snowboarding in the
Alps. I know for sure I don't have any pictures to upload (yet), which
is sad because its been probably one of the most beautiful and scenic
parts of our vacation thus far. Both Liz and I were guilty of spending
extra time in the snow after a fall to simply stare at the mountain
ranges all around us.

So I guess this was a little bit longer than I thought it would be,
but wifi spots have been few and far between so I wanted to get as
much as I could while I had the chance. I'll charge up the battery as
best I can and try to write more for whatever connection we stumble on
next. I'm thinking the hustle will start to slow after the weekend and
we'll have more down time to write once we hit Venice and Rome.

Wassenberg to Paris

After an early morning start around 11:00a, Liz and I woke to a full
force BBQ in the Bearmann's back yard. Apparently some time last night
between the hours of 2am and 4am, we had all decided that a BBQ was a
great way to bring in the first lunch of the new year. Regardless of
how American it might have been, it was great and we got to sample
Argentinian sausage (go gauchos) which has been aptly named "the
pharmacy sausage" of Wassenberg. Yes it's that good, and most
definitely just as bad for you.

The train ride to Paris was uneventful except for the group of French
speaking travelers in front of us who kept posing their passed out
friend (new years hangover) with assorted items and taking pictures.

Will write again when we get settled into Paris. I'd love to write
more but Liz is forbidding me to make fun of people and/or rant in the
blog, so I guess I'm done for now. Hopefully we'll make it to the
Eiffel tower and get some good night shots before we turn in.