I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I haven't actually been on my own computer to upload any blogs or photos since Berlin.
I'll give a quick overview of Berlin because, even though the city is amazing, I was ready to go after a couple days. Not because of something I didn't like, but because I didn't really have anybody to wander the city with. I've come to realize that the amount of enjoyment I get out of the cities late in this trip has everything to do with how social I am (or am able to be). When you travel solo, you are never really alone. But sometimes you get hostels with groups of people rather than soloers and they aren't very open. This is how Berlin was: a cool city with tons of history, but nobody to really hang out with.
Anyways, I stayed downtown right of of Freidrichstrasse, the main drag of the city. There were lots of expensive shops and I even got to see my Bugatti Veyron within the first hour in the city. (Yeah, I pretty much melted. I've been waiting to see one of those cars since I got to Europe.) After I found my hostel I took a two hour walk around the city for the evening. I realized the next day that I seen many of the major monuments that night, which was interesting to me. Downtown Berlin wasn't as big as I expected. The second day I took one of the free tours to make sure I'd see everything important and visited the Holocaust Memorial.
The memorial is an interesting work of art. It's right in the middle of the city and uses NO symbolism. None. It has no “meaning” except to be a monument in honor of the Jews killed. This lack of symbolism creates a lot of controversy about it, but I like it. It really allows people to apply their own interpretations. I learned a lesson back at Boys' State: things only have meaning because WE give them meaning. It's a very powerful experience to walk through the Monument the Murdered Jews (yes, through, this thing is huge) and determine your own personal feelings on the monument, holocaust and whatever else may cross your mind. It's thought provoking.
The last day in Berlin I visited the East Side Gallery. The Wall. Or, what of the wall remains standing, covered in art. It stands for about a mile in a...part of town with a lot of character, to say the least. Walking along the Berlin wall was one of the coolest things I've done in a while. The art has meaning, it conveys hope, love, peace and acceptance all along the way. More than that it is modern history. People only one generation ago built and destroyed this wall and the entire world watched, waited. It created a ripple in history that I can feel. Nearly everything I'd seen up until then was, well, old. Which is still great, but maybe not as close.
And that was it for Berlin. Like I said, a very cool city. Lots of history that changed the world. I needed more time. I just need to go back with someone!
My trip out of Italy was the beginning of another shotgun blast of cities: Vienna, Budapest and Prague. I had only a day or two in each city.
The train to Vienna was only slightly better than the train to Venice. This time, we had a sleeper car (but we couldn't put the beds down for some stupid reason!) and a cabin full of people who spoke English! We didn't get much sleep, but we had a good conversation during the ride.
On Vienna: It's hard to talk about Vienna. There aren't a lot of touristy things to do in the city and it's not that big of a stop for visitors. It is, however, someplace that I'd love to live. The city is clean, the people are friendly and there are parks. Oh, there are parks. I spent well over half of my day in Vienna wandering around the sprawling palace gardens and museum parks. It was a cool day, perfect for a stroll. In fact, I didn't do much else BUT that, as there isn't a lot to do for a one day visitor. But it was still nice. That night I went out with a guy from Mexico and an Aussie girl to a travelers bar around the corner from our hostel and had my first ORIGINAL Czech Budweiser. It was delicious!
On Budapest: Buda and Pest (separated by a river, combined by a name) were much the same as Vienna. There aren't many touristy things to see and do, but it is a fun Eastern European city. I was only supposed to be there for an afternoon and then take a train to Krakow, Poland (to visit Auschwitz) but the lady at the information desk gave me the wrong information. So, I missed Auschwitz and spent another day in Budapest. The second day a German and I went on the free walking tour around the city. It took us nearly everywhere that I had been the day before, but provided the history and explanation as well. We were both going back to Vienna that day, so we caught a train at three back to Vienna. He stayed in Vienna, I continued on to Prague.
On Prague: Prague got the best of this rush with two days and three nights. It only got the third night because it was cheaper for me to stay a night in Prague than it was to pay for the night line ticket! So I got to Prague half an hour before midnight had a (cheap) beer and went straight to bed.
The second day I got up and took a free walking tour of the city. It was three hours long and I pretty much seen everything there is to see. The tour guide was great and he left us down the hill from Prague castle, so I finished the tour and walked up the hill to explore the castle. The streets up near the castle were filled with people and shops which ate up the rest of my afternoon and I went back to the hostel for some food and a nap around six.
That night I decided to go on a pub crawl. Fifteen euro to drink and smoke shisha free for an hour and a half, followed by 3 more clubs. It was a good night. For the most part. I spend most of it with two Scottish girls and a guy named Fred who got too wasted to walk. It was good fun until somebody jacked my hat that I bought in Spain, the only souvenir that I have bought for myself this entire trip. I was too drunk and disorderly to get through the bar, so my hat was gone. At the end of the night (four in the morning) the the clubs closed and I walked home with one of the guys who was in charge of the crawl. We had a blast on the walk and he even bought me a cheeseburger from McDonalds!
Since I had basically seen all of Prague the day before (and had a long, long night out) I didn't get up and out of the hostel til nearly one. I wandered down by the riverfront and though some of the small backstreets around the city center. As I was heading back to the hostel, the guy from the pub crawl seen me on the street! I'm not sure what I did to make an impression, but I must've done a good job. I ended up going back on the pub crawl that night for half price, but turned in around two so I could catch a train in the morning to the last country I'll tour on my trip, Germany. Berlin, ho!
I was sad to see Italy go. Or maybe Italy was sad to see me go. Either way, I'm going to miss it.
My train to Venice was crap. It was a night train with compartments, six people sitting face to face in a very, very cramped space. And nobody spoke English but me. There were a cool, young couple beside me who spoke brokenly and it provided for a good enough conversation, but it was still a bit strained. So I sat through ten hours of hell. And a few more at the end of the trip. The train was supposed to go to Venice SL, the station on the island. However, we stopped at Mestre (the landside station) and the train began going the other way! I ran like hell out of my compartment to find a conductor and was told to get off at the next stop, where I could take a train into Venice SL.
I got into SL at seven in the morning and dropped off my things at the Fish, the hostel I had stayed at previously, and took a walk around town. Venice in the early morning is much different than the rest of the day. The streets and squares are empty and quiet. It's a very peaceful place. I came back at one to make sure I had a place to stay, then grabbed my book and found a secluded, canal-side dead end to sit and read for a few hours. It was needed after that train ride from Napoli, I hadn't slept at all.
The night at the Fish was just as it was last time. I met great people around the dinner table and one of the staff members took us walking around at ten. I think we finally crashed at two, but it was a great night.
My last day in Italy was one of the best. In the morning, I went with two people I had met last night – Freddy and Allison – to St. Mark's and actually went inside the basilica. We arrived back to the hostel just after noon and Allison, Esther (another girl at the Fish) and I wandered the city for the rest of the day. It's always great to have a relaxed day with good people. I said my goodbyes to the Fish crew, Allison walked me to the train station and I boarded a train to Vienna, Austria at nine.
I left Rome and arrived in Napoli early in the afternoon. My first impression: SHIT. HOLE. It was by FAR the most disgusting city I had ever seen. Trash and trashy people were everyhwere. The metro was hardly working (because nobody ever paid, I later discovered). The buildings looked like they were falling apart. I was honestly a bit afraid of catching something. Even walking to my hostel in the middle of the afternoon was a bit nerve wracking. Every third person was a shady character.
When I arrived at the hostel, two Aussie guys were cooking pasta and invited me to eat, so I tossed my bags on the bed and ended up spending the afternoon drinking with them and a Mexican girl. My first night in Napoli I had decided I MUST have pizza, so the four of us went out for what has been the cheapest and by far the best pizza I have ever eaten. Three euros for a hand tossed, flame cooked pie. Pizza back home will never compete. We finished up, bought some beers and wasted away the night in a plaza until two in the morning.
My first full day in Napoli wasn't really spent in Napoli. The Aussies, a French girl and I went to Pompei. The ruins of Pompei are a fascinating site, but I'm glad I went with a crowd. I think if I were to have been by myself, I would've been bored in a couple hours. Thankfully, we made the best of the day wandering the entire city and poking fun at the cheesy audio guide. That night, we went out for pizza and beer AGAIN. Unfortunatley, Michele's, the most famous pizza place in all of Napoli, was closed. So we wandered the streets of downtown until we found the next open restaruant. Just like the last time, the pizza was fantastic. And just as cheap. I turned in early that night so I could meet some friends from Rome who were coming down to Napoli to...eat pizza!
I got up early on day two and met my friends at the rail station. Since they were only there for a short while, we walked about while I told them about the city for a bit before we grabbed lunch. The pizza was still great. It wasn't going to get old. My friends left back to Rome and I spent the remainder of the day wandering downtown Napoli before heading back to the hostel for a night of word games with the group from the day before. At about midnight that night, the hostel common room closed so a large group of us went out. We spent an hour in a plaza, another hour talking to an Italian man who was running a beer stand in the middle of the night and a third hour sitting at a metro stop, where we were climbing the tower in the middle of the plaza. Well, we were until one of the guys sliced his hand open. He had to go to the hospital the next day!
The last day in Napoli I went out with a couple Americans to the port. We started off the morning by working our way up the highest point in town to have an overlook then continued down seaside. We paid two euros to see the the last painting Carvaggio ever painted and had one more great pizza, sadly, my last from Naples. It was a very slow day. When we arrived back at the hostel, I and a couple others cooked some pasta for dinner before I took the train to my final Italian stop: Venice, again!
I showed up in Rome at two in the afternoon, and the hostel wouldn't take a credit card. For such a popular, well known place I was a bit surprised. I had a hell of a time getting cash, too, because a purchase I had made in Florence had put a hold on my account for a substantial sum. It was nearly the second time I was stuck in Italy without access to cash. But, an hour later, I was checked in and ready. I was tired from the previous night out in Florence, so I decided to rest that afternoon and meet people at the hostel.
The place was full of Americans. Which is okay, I had a good afternoon. I just didn't really come to Europe to meet more Americans. Later that night, I and a guy I had met decided to go check out the city at dark. Good choice. Rome is so much more beautiful at night. I got some great shots of myself doing a crappy thriller pose in front of all the famous places!
I woke up early the next morning – before everyone else – and took off by myself. I didn't feel like waiting for everybody else to get up. Rome was too big for two days and three nights already. My first stop was the Colosseum. The line was massive, so I bought a ticket at Palatine Hill and wandered around the Roman Forum for a while before heading down to the amphitheater. Though the Colosseum wasn't as huge as I expected, it was still impressive. The interior was incredibly designed, especially for something that was thousands of years old. The rest of the day was pretty chill. I wandered the Eastern half of the city until nearly eight, did some laundry, took a nap, and woke up again later to go hang out in the Yellow Bar with a Frenchman.
The second day was reserved for Vatican City. I took one of the two metro lines (really, only two metro lines for all of Rome?) over to the square and immediately jumped in line for entry to St. Peter's Basilica. The line must have been two hundred yards long, but I was up to the door in six minutes. I timed it. I was fairly churched out from spending the previous day going through every basilica I passed, but nothing could prepare me for the awe inspired by St. Peter's. It WAS (and still is) the most beautiful church I've seen. And that's saying something. I've seen a stupidly huge number of churches recently. After the basilica, I took a walk through the tombs of the popes. Seeing the place where John Paul II was laid was a fairly intense experience. I always get a chill when I stand in front of the resting place of great people.
Next: the Vatican Museum. I was fairly museumed out, too, and all I really wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel. I wandered through the museum admiring the building when I finally came to the chapel. I need a bigger vocabulary for all the things I've seen, because awesome doesn't work for that little chapel. I sat for half an hour admiring the paintings on the ceiling. And, yes, I took a photo. Even though I wasn't supposed to! After the Vatican, I hit up all the rest of the famous things in West Rome, which is mostly just the Pantheon, the only complete structure from the Roman times still standing. How they could create such a structure back in those days in beyond me.
The night ended with meeting a great girl from New York (who I MUST visit!). We walked to the train station for tickets, spend the night at the bar and crashed in the room around 2. The next morning I spent teaching her how to shop at the supermarket (LOL!) and we walked to the train station together. It was a good, slow paced ending to a rushed two days in Rome.
