Roma- tourist hades (April 7th)

Ahhh, Roma! I awoke at about 8:00 AM and spent a few hours in the outside of the compartment in looking at the view. There wasn't much of one, but it was more breezy and light than the top bunk in which I was somehow forced into by shotgun rules. I suggested coin flip, but who wants that when they've already won with with a boastful proclamation? To avoid travel buddy hostility, I accepted my uncomfortable fate. I suppose this is my destiny for shot-gunning so many car rides.

After the conductor came by with our passports/rail passes (whew, we found out later they do this every time), we were good to go. We left the train station and managed to find our way rather painlessly to the place of our stay, Hotel Rex. Once there, we were informed that our room wouldn't be ready until much much later: 3:00. This is quite unfortunate as we hadn't even had the time to get a shower in, since there wasn't one on the night train. In the mean time, we decided to check some stuff on the wifi (2E/Hour), like Ted's credit card status.

Since yesterday, Ted has been moneyless due to some shenanigans in the french credit card system. They probably went on strike. As a result, I have become the temporary soul benefactor of this trip.

After a series of errands in the world wide web, we had a stroke of luck where our room was ready much earlier than stated (10am!). The room we received was very very nice. A huge bedroom area with a gigantic bathroom (complete with a "bidet" to clean that lovely area in which food leaves the human digestive system). After an hour or so of waiting, at last we were finally able to set out! Hooray!

two toilets? no.. just a bidet

One of the first things I noticed when we came into the city, was that you had to literally hurl yourself into traffic or else no one would stop for you. Even then, the motorcyclists navigated through the pedestrians to get through as fast as humanly possible. The streets were literally flooded with people (Ted compared it to Paris). There were also food stands everywhere, for delicious panini (grilled sandwiches) that were cheap as can be. I was a big fan. I could probably eat these for five meals a day. Of course, what's a big city without tourist trap stands, with "authentic" folexes, purses, and belts.

Old rome the place to be in one during the reign of one of the coolest/greatest empires of all time. Colosseum... go! Of course, instead of viewing plays of war where men battle with nets & tridents against exotic beasts, it was just a bunch of tourists like us wielding cameras instead of swords... so many in fact, that we were forced to wait in a line for an excruciating amount of time.

At last.. the coliseum.. in 45 min..

Upon exiting this ancient theatre of blood, sweat and tears we happened to run into a couple of Ted's friends who also happened to be touring in Europe. The four of us explored the rest of the ruins in the area but then we soon parted ways since our brisk pace was far too much for them to keep up with.

Rome is now ruined, but it still has cool ruins

As we found it was going to be raining tomorrow, we decided to do a grand blitz of Rome. This involved us dashing throughout the city in a whirlwind being sure to see every important fountain, ruin, monument and statue. This was probably one of the most tiring days for me, but I suppose all trips have one of those.

The "pantheon", now only home to 1 god since he sucks at keeping friends.


A miscreant we encountered at the famous fountain..This guy is a prick, he wanted his picture taken with us, and then wanted 5 euro. I laughed and gave him 1, even though he didn't deserve the gravel we walked on. What is he supposed to be anyways? Note: Rome is full of cheats.

So, we decided to stop at a dine in restaurant. I ordered some Salmon pasta, which wasn't bad, but the portion was dreadfully small. The service was horrible, I think they marked us as "north american scum" (or cheapskates, cause I didn't want any wine.. learn to serve beer please). We asked for the bill several times, which they pretended to acknowledge, and then proceeded to serve everyone else while we waited an endless amount of time. Finally, we got our bill, but it was added with an additional 15% tip that was completely unmentioned in the menu. To top it off, the pretentious french/italian guy behind Ted kept making arrogant faces at me, lovely.

Eventually we managed to make our way back to the apartment, once again by donning my navigator helmet. At last, I am able to lie down for some sweet sweet sleep..

Atwixt two lakes, Zurich and an overnight train to rome (April 6th)

Oh man... I AM getting used to this... another approximately eight hours of sleep accompanied by another delicious buffet breakfast. Unfortunate, that this would be the last time, at least here in Switzerland.

God bless our Swiss room

Post face stuffing, we once again beseeched the wisdom of the B&B guru, Ursula, and said our farewells. I snapped a quick picture of her after asking permission, swearing to promote her establishment in the states. If anyone else is feeling adventurous, try it, you'll like it. Rugenpark Hotel!

Ursula ... what a nice lady

Alas, her wise words were wasted on our young ears. We took a train to the other side of town like she said, and then even walked towards the lake she suggested. Or so we thought. Along the way, we managed to see a variety of duck wildlife, along with the works of aspiring young artists dying to be known (graffiti).

aspiring artists... actually most European graffiti is pretty awful (just words that look absolutely wretched) at least these guys put some style into it

Ducks along the way... Duck... duck.... grey duck!


About forty minutes later, we were back again at the Train station we had originally departed to get to the other side of town. Crap. Wrong way. Well, at least the train was back again... so onboard we went... and finally found what we were looking for. The beautiful Brienzersee, a lovely gigantic lake up in the alps. Only having the time to snap a few shots, we fast-walked back to the station, and went twards Luzern. This train was GREAT. There endless good views, going up and down through the alps, and we feasted our eyes on as much as we could.



Birenzersee in all of it's splendor...


After three hours of mountains, sheep, and alpine villages, our train finally came to a stop. Zurich! The capitol of the land of the Swiss Franc, Swiss plug, Swiss army knife, Swiss cheese, Swiss Fondu... you get it. Woo! I sure wish they'd just join the EU, or become a fake member, somehow and make us not have to trifle with power adapters, and their annoying currency. I can only IMAGINE what my parents and the rest of the previous generation had to deal with traveling country to country: francs, deuchmarks, lyra... etc.

I whole heartedly disagree.

Such talk of currencies brings back a painful memory, once AGAIN we needed change so we could store our luggage, only this time, i took the key out before even placing out luggage. Translation: I am an idiot and lost 8 franc, and had to put the key back in, put money back in, then put the luggage in then close it, and THEN take the key... ARSgkklfdsfjh. And this was after being forced to use a third party exchange machine (which robs you; fees).

At any rate, we finally submerged ourselves into city of Zurich. Tramping down the main street, our cameras and English jabber caught the eyes of quite the sketchy old man, walking the opposite direction. Due to his strange appearance, he caught my eye and I noticed as soon as he walked passed us, he flipped a 180 and started approaching us. Instantly I whipped my hands into my pockets, notified Ted and we veered into a less crowded plaza. Lovely, but at least we didn't get robbed.

Zurich has lanes... for bikes... every cyclers dream

At this point we decided to check around the town for various old buildings, churches and took some quick looks. We also decided to walk down the lake area, where the majority of the people of the city were hanging out on this lovely day (20 degrees celsius). Most were swigging beers, and at times, even the smells of reefer could be picked out of the air. I have to admit, it made me want to sit around on the lake and drink a beer in public. where else can we do that normally =(?

Afterwards, we decided to head back, as it was already starting to get fairly late, and we had a night train to catch.. OK it wasn't really that late. We were just a little bored, hungry, and ornery. Finally catching a some eats, we decided we could set up some other connecting trains before finally heading to our Gleis (terminal).

Upon arriving we stumbled upon a giant protest, apparently against Genoside in India, dealing with carpet bombs. Whatever it was, it made me want to look it up. Fortunately it wasn't blocking our train and after a slight mixup (the carts were incorrectly numbered) we were able to get inside just before the police officers started gathering around them (hopefully to just hang out and be neutral? XD ).

out of the protest....

...and onto the train



Now I am sitting on the night train, typing up the excursions of the day. The compartment itself isn't bad at all (it's small, but cozy?), although I don't have any power for my machine, which is running on practically red (they won't let me chage it on here, whee). I am kind of concerned that they took both our passport and our EUrail pass (I feel raped) but hopefully we'll see them again soon in the morning. So pretty quick here i'll just collapse...in a heap....zzz.. OK, not yet but yeah, that's that.

The Roof Of Europe: Finally one I can't hit my head on

mmmm, I could really really get used to lazily waking up after 8 hours of sleep.. it's pretty wunderbar. Free breakfast too? Niiiiicee... and all the while having a splendid view of a nice swiss yard, and many alpine peaks.

Mountains are splendiferous. I quite enjoyed the Rocky Mountains in Alaska, and I wasn't about to let the Swiss Alps cajole me to let them out of my grasp. And so, like any true self proclaimed mountaineer, we decided to reach for the stars, or maybe just settle for some clouds.

For those who may be thinking we burst out into the back yard, picks in one hand, ropes in the other.. you'll be sadly mistaken. Instead, we took a series of trains, to the city of Sulwald. From there, we played leapfrog up the mountains on a series of lifts, until arriving in the Alpine town of Mürren.

ho hum... just a view in Mürren

This city really is a literal translation of a town in the Alps. Resting on the mountainside, we were greeted by torrents snow along with a throng of downhill Skiiers from all over the place. Fortunately, the sun was on our side this day (sort of, we were warned of intense sunburn, but once again our wonderful landlady at the B&B pulled through, and gave us a bottle for free to borrow) and we quickly threw our jackets into the backpack, for it was too hot! We made our way slowly through, enjoying all sorts of views in this car-less village.

Now, if anyone wants to be appreciated as an amateur photographer, just take a bunch of pictures in the Alps and show them to your friends. Practically every shot on this trip was desktop worthy, or perfect on a facebook/blog especially if you somewhat enjoy writing about your exploits and wanting them to be seen.... *cough*.



Eventually we made our way to another tram which lead us to be packed into another slew of skiers, making us feel yet again out of place. I felt a little bit of regret not trying out any skiing during my time here, but my visions of myself hurdling down the mountain and dashing my brains on some rocks slammed those feelings back down. Still wish I tried it though.

altitude...rising... skiers... everywhere..

Finally, we made it. It was more through our credit cards than our blood sweat and tears, but it was still a good feeling. Schilthorn, part of the highest area in europe (not the highest, but there it was cloudy there all day... pass). Even at the peak, the weather was warm, or in Minnesotan: an inferno (8 degrees celsius)! We lucked out! After taking a photo album of pictures, we decided some delicious fare would be a good option, as we hadn't even eaten since breaking fast, and it was already the afternoon.

kickin it back at the top..nothing like harassing randoms to take your pictures for you

Where can one eat on the top of the mountain? Why, the rotating restaurant on top of course! But, why oh why are there 007 pictures everywhere? Apparently, this was a filming spot for one of the latest James Bond movies, so the restaurant, and the gift shop below was packed with secret agent periphonelia. The soup I had was great though, and of course, I consumed beer. I asked for some water as well, but once again I foolishly didn't mention tap water, and was given another bottle. So, I continuously have to pay for my water, thus I can no longer gloat about my free drinks due to my distaste for soda.

goulash und bier

Eventually, we took the lift back down to Mürren, and then decided to go on a bit of a hike through the mountainous paths. They were coated in snow, but since I'm such a badass, I trekked through in my well aired running shoes regardless of the consequences (cold + smelly feet). It was about an hour long ordeal, that ended in another small town, called Grütschalp. From there, since it was already late, we then went all the way back to Interlaken.

woefully unprepared

I thought I came to escape this stuff...


A spiffy alpine waterfall

I was craving something spicy, so we ended up feating on a bunch of korean/japanese food after searching around for a place to eat. We also decided to have desert at another swiss restaurant... which wasn't really a swiss restaurant. The owner was boisterous, and continuously rang a gigantic bell whilst merrily prancing about in his cow polka-dotted pants. It was there we ate the most swiss food of all, chocolate fondu! Ok ok.. it's not really swiss, but it was pretty good with swiss chocolate...

Despite doing things throughout the entire day, I was given a few hours respite at the end to catch up with blogging, and catch a bit more sleep to finally snuff my constant jet lag induced lethargy. Fin.

No pics yet, but tonight hopefully! XD
Edit: hot pix are up xoxoxo

Swiss Cheese (April 4th)

Holy catfish on a stick (St. Catfish tastes better)! Woke up a little hung over slightly. I don't know how? lightweight? Hopefully it was the Belgian beer that was that awesome. We woke up at 7:30 Am, to make a train at about 8:30 to Bern. No problem, right? Should be fine.. unless one spends the next 20-30 minutes debating whether or not to take the next train, and be vagrants by sleeping in later.

NO! We must press on! Otherwise, we've blown the day (or so the voice tells me). Quickly devouring a banana for sustenance (idiot) we set out on a mad sprint with our baggage to catch the train.

There are those stories in hollywood, where the person runs with all their matched luggage to catch the train/plane/dumb broad/dude and of course makes it. Well, those guys are con artists, it's not even real for them, they don't feel the agony of running on zero sleep, a sick throat and constantly swallowing the banana (chagrin.) that keeps wanting to come up my throat and say "hello!" every block or so.

Naturally, like any absolutely unique masterpiece of film, we made it with seconds to spare. The conductor was blowing the whistle and the doors were closing as we jumped on. My original plan was to write all about things on the train, but instead I decided that just letting myself die would be a better idea.

Of course, that didn't happen either. Instead I collapsed in a heap for the majority of the train ride like a hobo.... and awoke in Bern, city of Bears! Roar.

Luggage is heavy. Did we really want to carry it? Nein! Nyet! No! We packed it up into a luggage locker in the station.... and realized we had no Swiss Francs (convert to euros, PLEASE). The conversion machine is down? Gee, great. Luckily, the local pretzel (Bretzel König!) stand worker was more than willing to give me change after I payed her in Euros for a sunflower seed pretzel (it's good). Unluckily, she just gave me change back in MORE Euros, after looking confused at me with my poor german & hand motions and then grabbed a hidden tin box filled with Euros and was painstakingly converting the cost. Francless still, we turned around and managed to find a machine in the catacombs of the train station. It gave us some funky looking dollar bills... that we STILL COULDN'T USE. The machine took change! Once again our pretzel lady had to deal with us ..."OHHH... CHANGE!" and we at last, were able to enter the heart of the city unencumbered.

Following the wisdom of the tour guide, we set out onto the main street of bern. What a lovely street! There's no cars, just people walking around... "wait a minute.. what's these tracks that look like railways in the middle..." so there were rail cars that we could avoid. We saw one coming... and then nimbly moved out of the way of its path.... and then we nearly lost Ted. The BUS barreled towards us moving out of the rail line boundaries, unheeding our fear stricken eyes. If he hadn't moved one foot over, he might have been dead. True story. Soon we were looking back and forth franticly as we made our way down the street to make sure we wouldn't be in the warpath of these harbingers of doom.

Along with knives and fondu the swiss sure like their clocks. We saw many along our way and each was quite unique. This is where I'd put in a picture of a cool looking clock, to accompany a really boring paragraph. However, once again, I'm unable to load a picture of any sort... so whoever is reading this should just draw one in paint and write "cool clock" next to it, and then upload it in a comment to save everyone else some work. Which reminds me, feel free to express your enjoyment/distaste in some way on here. It makes it kind of interesting for me, and who doesn't love attention?

Astronomically correct clock

At any rate... this street was packed with all sorts of shops, and if by all sorts, I mean they came out of every orifice of the city. There were even these "cellar" shops, that came out of the ground. Neato. Too bad that all the shops on this street were secretly some breed of predator, designed to feast on the most naïve of tourists by robbing them of their money in exchange for a little snack, or perhaps a shiny trinket. Long story short, this cool looking but deadly road was soon abandoned.
- Come into my underground lair...

At this point, we were dehydrated, hungry, and of course crabby from being dehydrated and hungry. We managed to find a cheap, yet delicious falafel place in one of the back alleys of the city along with a split level target like store with very very cheap groceries and drinks. +1 for team Weaver. Choosing the unbeaten path sure has its pros! Alas... it extracts a terrifying price for your new power..



We decided to visit the city's famous bear pit, which happened to be right across this bridge, that was next to another bridge. So we went across, and promptly got lost, wandering residential areas looking for this so called pit. Eventually, we figured that it must be some other bridge, or it was a myth to keep everyone laughing at us.
At least getting lost got us some nice views.


Naturally, the world isn't centered around one or two people, no matter how much they wish it would be; so we eventually found the pit. Guess what? It had bears in it! Well... 1 bear. For all of the work, I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed. I suppose they can't really just throw people in there anymore for a good show. Dang. I could sure think of a few....
Bern's bear... he looks lonely

After being confused for a while and walking around more, we finally decided to get back onto the train so we could make it to Interlaken, the alpine village outside of Bern where we would be spending the night.

Upon arriving, we managed to only be lost for a short period of time, and then located the place of our staying. We were greeted by an exceptionally nice lady who was more than willing to help us out with anything. She gave us a few recommendations for places to eat for the night, and set us up with our room. After depositing our junk safely behind locked doors, we set out to once again suppress the rage in our stomachs, but this time, in style!

We stepped (I ducked) into a nice authentic swiss restaurant in a less busy side of town, and promptly ordered some Swiss beer, along with a giant pot of fondu with mushrooms. After a few awkward attempts, our server was more than willing to snatch the poker from my hand and show us how eating fondu was really done. It was veeery tasty, but it was a LOT of food which catalyzed lethargy.
fondu for you! no... just for me

So, we went back to the B&B and went to bed. That's that. End Scene.

The Luxembourish Orgy (April 3rd)

Well.... woke up at 11am today... still tired... but must be awake and do everything, at once! Although, it would have been nice to have some peanut butter for breakfast, but nooooo.

It was stolen from me... well.. stolen by the terrorist police (peanut butter is a gel? that explodes? Maybe they thought I'd pour it onto a food processing plant's conveyor belt) and apparently, peanut butter is "weird" and the jar I bought was probably about 15-20 Euro in the local French grocery (~23-30 dollars).

Day trip ideas...Decisions decisions... "more France... or Luxembourg?" Lux? isn't that the size of my backyard? Yes, yes it is. ok not quite, just 30x50 miles or so. Lux it is! So, once again we enjoyed the luxury of the lovely trains (with plugs! and tables for laptops. drink holders. bathrooms.vending machines. these things are VASTLY superior to planes). Stopped for about an hour in Metz, saw some scenery... got back on the train...

Several hours later, we arrived in the lovely city of..... Luxembourg city! These guys are more linguistic than babelfish, fluent in: German, french, English and luxembourgish (the bastard child of German and french). To be fair, they're quite friendly people.... the tour guide was more than helpful, it was most unfortunate that we were on quite the time constraint, decisions resulted to just hang in the city and bypass a great deal of rural sites, since we'd be rocking it throughout the trip anyways.

This city is an orgy, not the sweet sweet loving everywhere orgy, but a literal fraking (lul) melting pot orgy (USA don't got nothing, we so arrogant) German, french, luxembourgish, English, Arabic, Japanese + more were all heard down the streets of this business Country as i rocked my USA accent... Which reminds me, apparently NO ONE can tell the difference between a british accent and an american one, so people think I'm British, which is great (mind games!).

The city itself is quite interesting. In the middle is a giant ravine, or the "moat" as ted calls it. At the center of the gorge there is an additional "moat"; a man made stream... that I could walk over....so, no real defense there.

The Ravine in action, and me contemplating a swift death.. or just hanging out


<-- A cool church in the wall of the ravine









<-- The grand duke's lone guard, he must know really good ju-jitsu



Like other European cities I've seen so far, there were packed streets, huge sidewalks, big squares and old architecture aplenty. There was the Grand Duke's (the only one in the world, zomg) palace (The DUCAL Palace), which has a whole whopping 1 guard on each side, but the people love him, and so there's no worries. Once in a while a man gets hungry. For me it's a constant exercise of my stomach muscle and I demanded substance! So of course, Ted brought me to the most luxembourgish restaurant in the entire city! What a pal! Wait a minute......this looks like a ENCHILADA!!!... CHI-CHIs??!?! Well... ok I guess.. just this once ( Ted needed his Mexican fix) apparently Mexican food is the rarest thing ever here, and Tex-Mex is just an exquisite, decadent treat ( THE PLACE WAS PACKED. Over 50 people sitting outside). There isn't a single one in Nancy, and they're quite hard to find elsewhere in Europe. Which brings me to another interesting point, apparently there's a Tex-Mex place called "Indiana Tex-Mex Café" Indiana? Pardon moi? hahaha. A few hours after being in the Lux, it was time to depart, such is the life of the day trip. Upon arriving in Nancy, we headed back to Ted's to get ready for the long voyage ahead (15 days of just travel and hotels). On the way we managed to see a fair going on. So we decided to waltz through the masses and see what there was to offer. I'll tell you what it had to offer, a bunch of stoic french folk refusing to do anything other than stare at the pretty lights. There wasn't even LINES for the rides hardly. They just watched, and watched, and watched, and then ate a churro (they love those too, <3s for tex mex)

The french love dem churros








Even their wine has corks!




Several 40s (or 75cl "En Français") later, the bars seemed like quite the plan and we decided it would be fun to meet up with some more of Ted's buddies, in the highschool division (teaching highschool, not highschoolers, ew)... and it's only 12:30 right? We're good to go. OOps. Bars close at 1. Good Game. QQ. Instead, I just stood tired as can be for several more hours while everyone talked french talk.... but then we finally headed back and promptly collapsed at about 3, having to wake up at 7.....

Note: I can't upload images,the Swiss internet is not being friendly, at some point they'll be there, in all of their glory/shame.

April 1st.....and 2nd... !#*&^*& jetlag

So, here I am. Sitting away several minutes prior to an overseas flight from MSP to Paris, France (Where else?). As a par for the course the flight itself requires its own plethora of waiting times. Thankfully, I spent the majority of the time quaffing Killian's Irish Red with my Dad, who stuck around until I had to go through the terrorism defense parameter. With luck, and swift blow to the back of the head, the flight should go by rather quickly... but I'll see in due time. In the mean while I'll curse the non-existent ($$$ filled) wifi and envelope myself in a few chapters of Dune Messiah...

At first I thought I'd have an entire row to myself. then AT THE LAST MINUTE someone else took my secondary spot... at least it was an interesting lady going to Saudi Arabia... apparently to hopefully start a combined effort to fight cancer... USA providing the knowledgeable manpower while black gold produces the revenue. Neat.

Yes! Nine hours of cramped legs annoying high school students later and I'm finally in Paris.
I even succeeded in navigating the airport and finding Ted. Finally I stepped forward into the outside (60 + Fahrenheit!) and was greeted with the sights and sounds of Paris after a short Train ride...

errrr.... and then I had a Milk shake. We had the HONOR of being able to have our first train layover in the lovely area of Disney Land Paris. Ted wanted to stay longer... but I wouldn't let him.

Ted... thinking we're spending the day here........


...and giving a last long look goodbye as I said no...

+1 train ride and +1 bus ride later..... In Teds current home of his residence, Nancy, at last! This was my first look into a French town and it was well... dense. The amount of people on the streets nearly rivaled the foot traffic of NYC.

There were several other similarities to the states such as the well fed homeless, hooch in one hand, and the other one open for handouts from an ignorant sot. Another thing was Ted's bathroom (apartment visited post drop off), which only held the slightest similarity to my own house, with the tiniest WC I've ever seen, only containing a toilet (apparently they're everywhere).
The Mighty Throne

To put it bluntly, st cloud is droll and all, but Nancy is a breathing organism of architectural expertise and merit. The ancient architecture is fantastic, and the French do have quite a bit of style.



<---Rentabikes and FLOWERS, in APRIL what a novel idea.










Despite the cool architecture I was greeted by the strange looks as I walked merrily down the streets (a poor choice..I found out later smiling is impolite..)gangly arms flailing, jumping off of random walls and pillars scattered about the city.

Fortunately, I received smiles and laughs (laughing with me, hopefully) when I gave my all at trying vainly to express orders or requests "En Français".










I also managed to learn some interesting things about the French, and strikes. They love them. If it was an organism, it would most certainly be kissed on both cheeks by every single passerby. Even Ted's school had faced the wrath of the mighty strike, as the doors were locked shut, and signs posted to convince students and teachers to commit themselves as well to the current "oppression".


<--- we're on STRIKE!








<--- Accompanied by










<--- Locked Strike chains









Post Nancy tour, I gratefully succumbed to collapsing onto soft objects upon returning to Ted's 200 year old apartment (they're all that old, or older). Shortly after, we were invited to partake in eating with a slew of Ted's friends, who all ended up being delightful people, hailing from our USofA as well as Mexico, Scotland and England.



I enjoyed one of the best pizzas ever. Peperoni has a new master... Chriso slices... mmmmmmm...I also used my water glass for wine, a gross sin. Also, there wasn't a good..errr ANY dark beer to be found... at least Stella is OK.



Well, this is the end of my first (and second) day 36+ hours of 2 or less hours of airplane sleep... and I'm going to pass out...

I lied

1 more post, to narcissistically (it's not a word) show off my tattoo
Is it
(A) An octopus
(B) God
(C)A Story
(D)?????
(E)A cry for attention