Petting Florence... missing the Fragolino in Florence.

Hey Guysss! We're back. Not so enthusiastic about being back in Ohio, but it has been nice to see our families and of course Florence. I missed that pup. She's at least five pounds heavier and I'm glad to be back to monitor how many snicker bars my dad is feeding her. But normally the more I wine about snickers being bad for her, the funnier he thinks it is. So I'm going to try to pretend I don't care that my dog waddles.

Anyways, Vienna, Prague and Amsterdam were all amazing. All three cities were beautiful. Vienna was extremely clean and everything was high end. All the top designers and restaurants. Aaron and I felt a little out of place in our sweats and tennis shoes. Praha was also very pretty and relatively inexpensive. Our roommates in Prague were total loonies. Billie was about forty, traveling for work and living in hostels. He spoke like he was on crack, or his 6th cup of coffee. He never slowed down. And out of all the cities he has traveled through, he insisted on showing us pictures of Huntsville, Alabama (looks a lot like Mansfield) for half an hour. I honestly didn't think he was going to let us leave the room.

We spent my birthday in Prague drinking beers in a beer garden and listening to a guitarist (try) to sing American cover songs. We toured the Prague castle and walked through a vineyard that overlooks the city. Then I had to pay 10 crown (about 50 cents) to use the bathroom (on my birthday!) I thought that was pretty rude. We figured out that if on average I had used the bathroom 6 times in a day, times by 1.50 euro in Venice, I would have spent 9 euros a day (about $12)! That's crazy. It makes perfect sense why many European streets smell like bathrooms. There are no street fairies collecting money to go in the streets. I digress.

Amsterdam was also beautiful. Before I had gone to Amsterdam I had the common misperception that it was nothing but "coffee shops" and the red light district. But the town is actually very pretty. It reminded me a lot of a nice area in Chicago with hundreds of tall, old brick town homes lining the streets. And I loved that EVERYONE rode bikes there. I've never seen so many bikes in my entire life.

So now we're home and not really sure what to do next. Aaron's making plans for the real world. I don't want to talk about it.
We saved a lot more money on our trip than we had thought we would, so I'm going to start looking at more plane tickets:)

Hey kids. We're in Budapest. Food is awesome, like really awesome and quite cheap. We ate a full meal of Goulash (the hungarian special) and a Chicken cordonblu concoction that pleased the tongue and curbed the hunger, for a grand total of 2632.00 ft, around $13, including two pintts of beer of course. As our freind on the train informed us, and our sightseeing confirmed, the city which was once the beloved beautiful vacation spot for Ernest Hemingway is now quite dreary and still dealing with the aftermath of the Iron Curtain and communist control. We're leaving ffor Vienna tonight, then on to Prague in the morning or the day after depending on Vienna. We can't go straight to Vienna becasuse we whould have to travel through Slovakia which of course is not a valid travel country on our Eurail Pass. Of course it's not. That would be too easy!

After the day around Budapest, our bellies are full, the people were very kind and helpful, and it has been nice to put a face to the Hungarian city, but I don't think we'll be returning anytime soon.

Venezia

So, because the planes have been grounded, everyone has swarmed the train station trying to find transportation out, ideally to France because it's a central transportation hub in Europe. All trains to northern Europe have been completely booked until Friday at the earliest. We heard a rumor that England is sending over military ships to retrieve all England natives! No idea if that's true or not. We've picked up the words "chaos in the train stations" in news headlines, but the rest is foreign to us, literally.
Because tickets are so hard to find right now, we've had to make some changes in our trip. The first train we could find out of here that will get us anywhere near Prague is tonight to Budapest. I'm super excited for the detour. We've heard only good things about Budapest and we've heard it's cheap, which will be a huge relief after Venice!
We weren't planning on staying the night in Venice because of how expensive is here, so when we couldn't find a train out last night we were a little dissapointed at first. But as soon as we left the train station we ran into another couple, Brad and Chelsea, from Boston who also just graduated and they're doing more of a world tour for an entire year! They were super fun people and we all had a lot in common. We decided to forgo the hostel and instead sleep in the train station. We all stayed up until about 4 a.m. drinking wine, wandering around Venice and talking to local drunks; but only the harmless ones of course. We fell asleep on the steps of the train station until they let us inside at 5 a.m. It was freezing!
Aaron and I have spent most of today sleeping in a small park ( more like the one sliver of grass in Venice). I'm pretty sure if we had a hat to lay beside us we would wake up with some coins because of how sorry we look.
It's been fun.
Hope all is well back home!
Ciao.

Firenze..

We made it to Florence! My favorite city in Italy! We drank some fagolino and another bottle of white wine. I'm trying to hang out. Aaron is sleeping. We're planning on going up to Piazza Michelangelo later tonight. It's a beautiful lookout point in Florence. I think we're going to watch a soccer game around 8. Aaron is trying really hard to get tickets to a soccer game but tickets are around 2,000 euro! So unless we can find something cheaper, that's not happening.

I told you I would write more about the people we have met. While in Munich we met a boy sitting by himself in the Hobfrauhause. His name was Reuben and he was one of the coolest people I've ever met. Reuben had come to Munich with his mom who was visiting a doctor she had seen on television. He told us something was wrong with his mother's mouth. We hung out the rest of the day together. We drank beers and visited the Munich Olimpic Stadium. At the end of the night we went back to the Hobfauhause and then headed over to another bar. Reuben bought us shots that tasted just like Jaeger. I pretended to like them. Right before we seperated from Reuben, Aaron said to him "God bless your mom." He started cracking up. I don't think the saying translated very well.
Reuben is planning on traveling to the U.S. to visit us! I really think he will come. I'm super excited to see him again. He's a cool guy.
Anyways, I'm going to go wake Aaron up so we can see more of the city. Miss you all!

Love Michelle

Firenze, and a detour in Rome

We made it to Florence. We upgraded from a hostel to a one star hotel tonight and our very Italian balcony overlooks the Duomo! We may have one of the best views in town. Tonight we're going to drink Fragalino (strawberry vino) and probably go listen to an Oasis cover band.

Last night we ended up going out with a boy named Chris from Maryland who is in the military and stationed in Nurmberg, Germany. He was visiting Rome during his few days he had off. His macho mentality combined with his eagerness to get his mouth around any alcohol bottle around, scared me. I knew it was going to be a rough night. Chris didn't take no for an answer. Several drinks and hours later I had wandered off and Aaron was on the phone with my mom, trying to find me. He told my mom he thought he was calling me. He was confused. So was she. Sorry, Mom. When in Rome! :)

Love and Miss you all.

Roma!

Bathrooms are extremely hard to find in Europe. And when you do find them you normally have to pay a euro or so to use them. I've only peed my pants one time, but it was in front of our new friend, Siggy, who we had met at the hostel in Paris. I'm kind of glad it happened though because now Aaron takes me seriously when I tell him I have to find a bathroom and he'll help me search.

Though we have seen so many amazing things so far, it's the people we've met who have really made the trip.
In London, one of our hostelmates was named Dean Orange from, Nottingham, England. Dean was funny. He was on holiday from university and in London for a medical trial. He was basically getting paid 1,100 euros to try some new drug and then go through a bunch of tests to see what happened. Dean talked a lot about how fat Americans are and Dog the Bounty Hunter. That night Aaron, Dean and I went to dinner together. The first pub we went to was crowded so we walked a couple more blocks before Dean picked a Chinese food restaurant. Aaron and I weren't really craving Chinese our only night in London, but we liked the company so we agreed to eat with him. After we had sat down and ordered our waters, Dean gets up and tells us he's going to Subway. What a bloke. We tried to order something small and go to a London pub, but the woman was very angry with us and told us the limit was 5 euro a person. So we ate our Chinese.

We've met so many other people but I'll mention them later. We're heading out to find a hostel and then to the Vatican. Love and miss you all. Ciao!

Michelle and Aaron

Aaron and I overlooking Paris from the steps of Sacre Couer (we're not positive about the spelling).

Aaron and I in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. There were several wandering gypsies walking around the area. They would hand you a postcard written in english asking for money for food because their mother had died and they were hungry. Aaron offered to buy one a sandwhich (tourist!) but quickly realized the scam and saved himself the embarassment.

Most of the beggers in Paris have small animals with them to garner sympathy from the tourists. And it worked; one man was laying down with two puppies that looked just like Florence tucked under each arm. Actually we couldn't make it ten feet without Michelle making her "Awwww I missss Florence!" face.

A panaramic view of the Louvre and the glass pyramid entrance.

München

We made it to Munich! It was impossible to sleep on the train and it took about four hours longer than scheduled ( in all we rode for 14 hours), but we're just excited to be here. We're about to head out to find a hostel, drink some beers and eat some sausages. Prost.

French Fried

Aaron and I have learned the hard way why Americans are reluctant to do business with the French; The transportaion is anything but reliable. For the 5 days we've been France all train stations have been on strike. You can buy a ticket out, but there is no guarantee that it will actually leave the station. We were hoping to leave France Thursday night, it's now Sunday and we're still here. We currently have tickets to Munich tonight, so cross your fingers for us.

When we didn't get out of Paris Thursday night, we definitely thought we would be able to leave Friday. So when Friday night rolled around and we had no train ticket and no place to stay, we paniced.. maybe just a little. We got ahold of our friend from Miami, Nick, who happens to be interning this semester in a small town right outside Paris called Nangis. He was staying the night with his boss, Damian, and Damian's family. Damian and Angelique were kind enough to invite Aaron and I into their home for the night. We had a really good time seeing a part of France we would have never gotten to see and enjoying the night with people that treated us as immediate friends.

Damian is in the process of setting up an office for his business in Cincinnati, OH. He told us he had no choice but to set up an office in the U.S. because no one would do business with him unless they could ensure shipment of the product, and French transportation wasn't considered reliable. Apparently the railway strike occurs once a month and strikes in the bussing and truck driving industry also occur often.

In the morning Damian and Angelique made us pancakes, Angelique's new favorite American staple, and toasted baguettes with different bries and chesses. Aaron said "Hold the chesse, please." France would be a hard place for him to live considering chesse is a big part of nearly every meal. Good thing he brought his lactaid pills.

Though we are ready to be out of France, we have taken advantage of our extra time. Nick took us to a small midevil town outside of Nangis called Provens. We walked around the small town and toured a small midevil castle that was also once used as a jail. We ate cheese (sorry Aaron) and ham crepes and drank what Nick calls an "apple cider champagne." We went back into Nangis and met Frederick, the woman Nick rents a room with and drank a some red wine before catching a train back to Paris where we had expected to catch a train to Rome that night. As you know by now, that didn't happen.

My computer is telling me we have few units left.. I'm guessing units are minutes so I'm going to post this. We love and miss everyone. Hopefully the next time you hear from us we will be in Germany drinking beer and eating sausages. Luckily we have been running miles a day with 20 lbs on our back so we don't return with extra croissants around our waists.

We're here!

Just a teaser.

Here's a map of our journey!

Wander Map