well, campers. i think this is going to be my very last post. which is exciting and sad. i'm ready to go home, it's been a long trip and i'm looking forward to some of the comforts of home, a kitchen, a refrigerator, my own bed, a shower shared by less than 8 people, a couch, tv in english, the x-files, free internet, people who speak and understand english.... i'm looknig forward to many things. i'll miss cheap wine, sunshine (unless summer has arrived in NE in my absence.... i doubt it), and the excitement of seeing new things.

yesterday and today i've pretty much been kicking around sorrento, taking it easy, napping in the afternoon, and finishing my book. my big purchase for today was a pair of sandals, which i got to choose the heel, the style of the straps, the color and *then* (as if that wasn't enough) they were fitted to my foot. very cool. and i'm so pleased.

so a lazy afternoon today, maybe a nap, and tomorrow morning i start my trek home. i'll see you all soon.

:)

oof. so the computers at my hostel are completely unreliable AND have very old, very buggy browsers that crash when i try to: 1.login to my e-mail and 2.post here. so needless to say it was a little frustrating to be paying for not being able to do anything. but here i am at a real computer that works and stuff. so exciting. who knew such fabulous things existed. anyway.

so i've been taking it super easy so far. lots of sitting around and spacing out, i'll give you the highlights of my last few days:

sunday: when of course everything is closed, and transportation is unreliable (doubly so, because there was another train strike this weekend) i had the perfect day planned. i walked out to the capo del sorrento, where there are some un-impressive roman ruins and i sat in the sun for a while, being careful not too burn on the first day and thought about going for a swim (the water was too cold, even for this northerner) and did lots of reflecting on my trip so far.

monday: took a bus to the town of positano, which is built into the side of some cliffs with a little beach. needless to say, i sunned. and then had a lovely meal (i like to take myself out every so often) and walked up and down endlessly, exploring the town and its' shops. sat up late chatting with a welsh girl and an australian girl from my hostel.

tuesday: went to capri. which should have been great. but capri's only redeeming quality is it's beautiful coastline. on the ferry ride over they were trying to sell us drinks, souvenirs and tours the whole time (this was a 25 minute ferry). when i got on the island the guy at the ticket booth ripped me off on my ticket for the funiculare to the top of the cliff. so that really pissed me off. there were far too many people and only expensive shops. so i took some hikes in the less touristed parts of the island which were beautiful, thoroughly tired myself out and then got the hell off that island. had a huge pizza for dinner.

wednesday: hump day. and i'm glad of it. am very tired today.... honestly quite ready to get home. so after today the week should fly by, i'm hoping. despite my laziness, i am in amalfi today, where it is lovely. will most likely lay on the beach for a little while. am too tired to do anything else.

sigh. so there it is. i'm not sure how long it will be before i find another computer on the entire coast that actually works, but i will try to post at least one more time before i come home on sunday.

ciao.

seems like forever since i've posted! and it might have been longer, they guy at the desk earlier told me the computers were broken, and the internet cafe is only open in the morning on saturday and not at all on sunday.

so after my initial, rainy, crappy day in naples things got a little better (because i left naples). thursday i went to pompei, despite the forecast of rain. when i first arrived it was quite windy and i thought it would be a miserable day. but soon after it stopped raining all together and the sun came out for a little bit (!). so it rained off and on and was actually sort of warm while i explored pompei. which i though was FANTASTIC, by the way. better than the ancient ruins in rome. maybe because it seems so much more personal, you can really see the roads and houses and shops. it was very, very cool. plus i kind of dug the petrified people... :P

friday i took a day trip to the island of ischia, which through my hostel i got a little deal. see the ferry costs 12 euro each way and i got a package through my hostel that i paid 28 euro for and it included roundtrip ferry and a full meal at one of 4 restaurants. only i didn't get to spend as much time on the island as i wanted to... there was some confusion about the ferries... the annoying man at the hostel (who kept giving me creepy-man-on-the-street looks) told me i could take this certain ferry and so i thought i would be able leave naples at 10:30 and stay on ischia until 6:40. but when i arrived at the port i learned that i was mis-informed and the next ferry wasn't until 12:30, and the last ferry back was at 5:10. so after getting to the island (it's an hour ride) and taking a local bus to the center where the restaurant was, actually *finding* the restaurant and eating, i had barely enough time to get back to the port and take a short walk. so a little dissapointing. but ischia was beautiful.

today i arrived in sorrento, which is a million times lovely-er than naples. though my room seems like it will be a little... cozy? it's pretty small, and i have to be on the top bunk - which i hate. oh well. so today i just explored a little bit and bought......

flip-flops!!

very exciting. so tonight i'm going to paint my toenails and tomorrow i'm take a walk to the point of sorrento and hopefully get some sun for a change!!!!!!

sigh. so i think i can say with certainty, despite having only been here for 24 hours and despite the cold weather and rain, that sadly i do not reccomend naples.

it's just kind of a dirty, crowded city with crazy drivers and not a whole lot to see or do. so i'm pretty disapointed, and looking forward to the day trips i've planned to take from here.

so i'm off to get some true neopolitan pizza, and i'll go back to the hostel to eat my ciocolatta con peporocino, chocolate with chilis, and cozy up in my bed to read for the afternoon. oh well.

even having seen pictures of the colleseum and the roman ruins, i was not prepared for what i saw when i stepped out of the subway station - wow. much the same sort of wow i had stepping out of the train station in venice, you know what it's supposed to be like, but you have no idea...

so today i explored the ancient city of rome. i started at the roman forum, which is the site of many temples and ruins of old civic buildings and arches and such. after i went to the palantine hill, which is supposedly the hill on which romulus and remus were raised by the she-wolf and the site of the original city of rome. it became a very posh neighborhood in the early 100's and later was solely home to palaces of emporers, so now the ruins of those palaces are there. then the colleseum. which is cool, the biggest amphitheater i've seen, but i think the best part is the area that used to be under the main floor, where the animals were kept and stuff. then i went to see the fountain of truth, which was made famous by audrey hepburn in "roman holiday", so if you haven't seen that movie, you should.

so that was a lot of walking.... and i am quite tired. someone left a book near the tv, so i took it and left the books i've been trying to unload for a little while now. so i'm reading "jackdaws" by ken follet. could be interesting, at least it's long. it's sad when something i look for in a book to read is how long it'll last.... ;P

tomorrow is my final day in rome, and a pretty laid back day, i'll be doing some people watching and some shopping (it's really time for sandals now)

my first full day in rome. i really like this city, and there's so much history to it, which is great. although there are also a lot of people on the streets trying to sell you the same old crap everyday all the time. some of the most common are - ball on a string, sunglasses, watches, knockoff designer handbags, and a bubble gun. although today i was approached by a man who was holding some string in his hand... i'm not sure i understand what he was trying to sell, and actually speaking to these people just encourages them, so i didn't find out.

i went to the vatican museums this morning (well, morning is a relative term, i was *forced* to go out to the pub last night with some people from the hostel....) which were kind of cool. it was rather amusing actually, because it's all very orchestrated, sort of like herding cattle, you just sort of follow the roped off path. and from the very beginning the signs say (top to bottom) this museum, that museum and always at the bottom is sistine chapel. so there are of course people who are just racing through to get to the chapel and not even looking at anything. but for what a ticket costs, i was going to check out the museum as well. what i found the most interesting was the "modern" religious art. i've been seeing so much classical, medieval, and renaissance religious art it was cool to see some really modern stuff, there was some stuff by salvador dali, picasso, and a lot of traditional subjects (the crusifiction, crowning of the virgin, etc.) in completely crazy and modern styles.

by the time i finally got to the sistine chapel (and that was really spectacular, it is just so intricate and beautiful) and moved along the path to the exit it was 1:30 so i took off to find the place i was planning on taking myself out to lunch at, which happened to be on the other side of the river, so i left st. peter's for later. had one of my all time favorite dishes for lunch, spaghetti alla carbonara... yum.

i checked out piazza navona, which is a place where in ancient times they would have horse races around it, or fill it with water and have mock naval battles, but now it just has three really cool fountains. and near there is the pantheon, which was a lot bigger than i had imagined, and has (i think) the largest half-dome on a building that isn't supported by any beams or arches. very cool. st. peter's is just humoungous - i think it's the biggest, or second biggest church in the world and wow, it is indeed big.

so tomorrow i'm planning on spending the day exploring the ancient city, which is luckily open on sunday(!) unlike just about everything else.

yesterday was supposed to be my day in a charming tuscan, hilltop village - montalcino. and indeed, that's what i did yesterday, only it was raining. all day. so i got no photos of a place that is supposedly terribly picturesque. i actually i did take one photo, of myself, in the fog holding my umbrella. just to say i was there.

and i was there, and i had a really great lunch - gnocchi in truffle cream - which was oh-so-divine, i have never had anything with truffle before, and now i think i'm hooked. :) and my main course was tuscan sheeps cheese, baked in honey, which was terribly good and i slathered it all over some bread. though i think later i came to the conlusion that cheese as a main course was a mistake.... and of course i had a glass of brunello. it's the famous wine of the town, supposedly the best italian red wine. and it was good. and i had more! after my lunch i wen to an enoteche (wine bar) and did a little tasting with an amusing american couple from the northeast. i got to try three different brunellos, and one "super tuscan". all very good, and all VERY expensive, especially for me!!! but worth it. :)

today i had to get up very early in order to get to my hostel in rome by the check-in deadline. ugh. but obviously, i'm on vacation, i'm getting plenty of sleep. ;P so after a change in chiusi, where it was freezing, i arrived in the humoungous termini (this train station is more like an airport!!! it's huge!) and at my hotel where it is warm and lovely. so now i'm off to go sandal shopping!!! ciao!

so yesterday was a travel day. leisurely morning at the hostel in florence, eating my breakfast and watching italian soaps. long-ish train ride and then the confusion of figuring out buses and such in siena. i had to first take a bus to the center of town (the train station is 2km outside the city center, which i normally would've walked, but my map didn't show the actual roads to the station) and then i had to take a bus to the hostel (after sitting around in the sun for a while, another nice day yesterday).

i have to say, with absolute certainty - having to take a bus to get to/from the center/hostel sucks. so i got there, settled in a little bit. now my guidebook said there was dinner available at the hostel, so i asked and was told they only had pasta. so i read outside for a while until my butt hurt from the bench and then went in.

the "pasta" that they had was like a frozen type thing, which they heat up in the microwave. :) whatever, so had that and a beer and watched italian television in the common room for the evening.

today i'm exploring siena (did i mention that's where i am? anyway). it's a little bit chilly today, the sun hasn't been out much. so i sat around a little this morning, taking in tuscany in what sun i could find. made myself a lovely tomato-mozzerella-pesto sandwich for lunch and then hit the pinoteca nazionale (something like that, it's the local art musuem) which was kind of cool.

i'm a little distracted, they're playing a song i really like in this cafe.... and i keep singing which might make my sentences not make as much sense... just a sidenote...

this afternoon i'll check out the duomo and wander about on the streets a little. tomorrow i'm planning on a little field trip, to monalcino, if i can figure out which bus it is and where it leaves from...

today i went to pisa. and there is was. a tower. that leans. actually, i was really surprised with just *how* much it really leans. pictures always feel a little decieving because the camera can be angled a little this way or that way, but when you're standing right there next to it... whoa. and it sinks more every year. that's a little scary. some day it'll just fall down. in fact my guide book tells me that all of the buildings in the "feild of miracles" are a little uneven, guess it just wasn't the best place to build.

so seeing the tower didn't take very long. i sat in the sun for a while (in tank top! yeah!) to continue "priming" for my last week in italy, which will be a beach week on the amalfi coast. and i did a little shopping.

today was a sad day for my coat. actually, i brought it with me this morning when i left for pisa, because it felt a little cool. but by the time i reached the station i was ready to take it off. so after carrying it around all day, i decided something very important. today is the day. so tomorrow i will leave the santa monaca hostel and my coat will stay in the santa monaca church, where i hope it will be very happy. actually, it got a little birdie doo on it today, so it's not in as nice of condition as i had imagined. but anyway.

yesterday was quite lovely as well, went to the boboli gardens for most of the afternoon. it is humoungous. i thought i had walked around most of it, but the map i found on my way out showed that i had only been in this one small corner for the whole afternoon. those crazy medici's, always have to make things as big as possible. of to siena tomorrow for a few days and some sandal shopping. i think it's time. :)

another day in florence today, and another beautiful day weather wise! i'm definitely leaving my coat here. only thing is i can't find one of those clothing donation dumpsters (i know they have them in italy, i've seen them) so my second thought was to maybe "forget" it in the pew of a church or something, they'll probably give it to charity. or i could just leave it hanging on the hook in my room that it's been on since i arrived, but it would probably sit there forever before someone realized that it didn't belong to someone in the room, and then they might just throw it out. anyway...

went to a lovely english bookstore that lets you trade in your old, used books for other ones. well, not exact trade, but a certain percentage of the value to shop or something. anyway, i got a new book for 2.50. books in general are very expensive in europe, especially english books. your average sorta novel will usually cost (new) about 10 or 11 euro. oy vay. some hostels will have a book exchage where you leave a book take a book sort of thing, but not all, and not this one and i was starting to get a pile.

so i did a lot of sitting about in the sun today, went to a small museum with paintings and drawings and models of the city of florence since.... well, since a long time ago. so it was kind of cool. then a little lunch, a little window shopping. i opted *not* to go to another museum this afternoon, it's the one with michaelangelo's "david" statue, and that was the only reason i was going, because it was famous. but in reality, i'm not that interested in sculpture and i have not personal interest in the statue (unlike the venus painting). so i opted to save myself 6.50 and just sit in the sun.

tomorrow i'll do laundry..... yeeeeeaaah...... fun. and then there's a modern art museum with a renaissance style garden out back. should be good, especially if this weather continues.

so today i went to the uffizi museum here in florence, which claims to have the most art per square inch, or something. and there was certainly a lot there. and best of all, there was my *favorite* painting boticelli's "the birth of venus". :) so i've now seen it, in the flesh. and bought myself a silly little souvenir pen from the gift shop. and of course, there was lots of other stuff, and other famous stuff, but when you've seen one "annunciation" or "madonna with child" you've seen them all, i think. i'm actually getting to the point where walking up to a painting of the martyrdom of a saint, i can almost guess who it is without reading the plaque - and i wasn't even raised catholic!

in the afternoon i visited the duomo, the main cathedral, of florence. it is the third largest in the world, after st. paul's in london and st. peter's in the vatican. so after this trip i'll have seen the three largest churches in the world (surely that will make my resume shine...)

the weather has been just fantastic lately, i don't think i've worn my coat since last weekend, so it may be time to give it a new home, and i think florence is as good a place as any.

more sights tomorrow....

so i've eaten some good food in emilia-romagna (procuitto, parmegianno, tagliatelle alla bolognese...) and drank some good local wines (including the local sparkling red wine, lambrusco) and now i'm in florence for some culture.

i was able to find my hostel without *too* much difficulty (crossed the river via the wrong bridge, but managed to figure it out) and have put my bags down. i can't actually check in until 2pm, and the hostel is closed from 1-2, so i'm doing a little internet (which is fantastically right here inside the hostel) and then i'm off to find myself some lunch!

after some horrible confusion with my plans, i think i finally have everything straightened out, which relaxes me. it seems as though i have hardly any time left in italy, but at the same time feels like i've been here forever, it's strange, and hard to explain...

so more when there's more to tell...

have been having a lot of trouble with my plans, the trains and such, and so most of my internet time has been consumed by straightening these things out...

i am staying in modena now (of balsamic vinager fame) which is terribly boring, but i'm using it as a base to visit and eat in other cities in the emilia-romana region. also the weather has been lovely, and today i think i might even brave the park wearing only a t-shirt! which i desparately need to do, my hands are tan to the wrist, but my arms are pale, it's very odd looking. worse than a farmers tan for sure.

today i am heading to bologna for a big lunch and an afternoon in the park. tomorrow i leave for florence.

after a long day of travel (no strikes, but my train was delayed over a half an hour...) stepping out of the venice train station onto the canal was... breathtaking. venice is so un-like anywhere else i've been so far, and it's so beautiful.

had a little bit of trouble finding a place to stay last night (and trouble finding things in general... maps aren't much help in venice) but eventually found a place that had room for the evening, but after that they were full because of a group coming. so i dropped my stuff and went out to find an internet cafe to try and book the HI hostel (which was only *not* available on the first night i was going to be here - how perfect, huh?) for my next two nights.

so a good nights sleep - and a great free breakfast.... CEREAL!!! i haven't had cereal in forever! so it was only rice krispies and corn flakes, i was still really excited. then i took a water taxi over to the hostel to see if i could leave my stuff. the hostel is on an island and can only be reached by vaporetto, it's right on the water with an amazing view of the main part of venice.

so today i've been wandering around the city, not worrying so much when i didn't know where i was (the beauty of having to take a vaporetto to the hostel is as long as i can find a vaporetto stop, i can find my hostel, unlike my first night when i didn't venture farther than a couple hundred feet from the place so i wouldn't get lost!) and now my feet are pretty tired. i was only truly lost at one point where i ended up back in the very same spot two or three times before i found a vaporetto to somewhere else.

no sights today, or at least not the insides. this is just such an amazing city, i love it. :) and can you say.... shopping? i haven't bought anything yet, but i think i might. (obviously something not too big, since i have to carry it with me for another month)

i was sad to hear that we have actually escalated to a war, but i am not coming home and i am just as safe now as i was last week. i'm continuing to be careful and safe, so no worries. :)

it was a beautiful day to explore bergamo today. and with all the hill walking - i didn't even have to wear my coat most of the day!

bergamo is divided into the "citta bassa" (the lower city) and the "citta alta". the prices of hotels and restaurants go up with the altitude, so obviously i'm staying in the citta bassa and shopping at the supermarket. some traditional bergamese dishes are horse and donkey with a side of polenta. so i got a little polenta from the grocery store - don't think i'm quite brave enough for the horse or donkey...

there isn't really a whole lot to do in bergamo, but it is beautiful and it was a great day for sitting around and people watching... a couple of things worth mentioning are these awful backpacks that are for some reason "cool". they are big and flourescent with giant buckles. and they are hideous. and everyone carries them. everyone. even adults. to me they just look like something someone in second grade would carry. and then there are the beautiful girls walking around with guys who are wearing these backpacks. call me shallow, but i would not date a man who carried a bag like this.

also a lot of the men who consider themselves "well dressed" look strikingly similar to the women. and that's a little frightening. of course not all italians are this weird, but there are enough of them to let me know that this is at least exceptable. i'm scared.

tomorrow i leave for venice, and hopefully the strike on the damn trains is over!!!!!!

how do you say "oy vay!" in italian? i wish i knew... very long morning today.

i got to sleep in a little this morning, leisurely breakfast, checked out and headed to the train station. the train i planned to take to bergamo was at 11:25, i looked up at the departures list and there it was, so i stood in line to buy my ticket. when i got to the front the woman at the desk told me that there was a strike on the trains, and she didn't know if the train would actually be going, so i should go check with information on the second floor.

so at "information" (imagine me making quotes with my fingers there) the womans says she doesn't know... there's supposed to be a train at 11:25 (i know) and the next one is supposed to be at 11:55, but there might not be any trains until after 5 because of the strike. so basically what i had to do was sit and wait to see if a track number showed up next to the train time on the schedule. 11:25, no. 11:55, no. so i decided i should maybe look for a bus instead of waiting until 5 o'clock to get a train.

well, according to my guidebook there are buses that leave right outside the train station and there's a schedule posted there. well i walked all around the station and i didn't see any bus schedules. so back to "information". she sends me to tourist information and they actually tell me where i need to go to get a bus to bergamo. (the same place i arrived in milan). so off i go, buy a ticket and i'm on my way. but this bus was packed! plus you'd think this was a city bus, there were so many people that some had to stand in the isle - you'd think it was a city bus or something. it was an hours ride.... glad i wasn't standing!

so i've finally arrived, i'm here. went to my first hotel choice and was able to get a room, though it was a little more than listed in my guidebook, i don't really care at this point. so hopefully by the time i leave for venice the strike will be over and there won't be as much confusion.

at first glance bergamo looks lovely. it's a nice day out and i'm going to explore a little bit and find a grocery store to stock up for some dinner.

tried to post yesterday... but there were some issues at the internet cafe i was at.... and then internet explorer ate my post and i didn't feel like re-writing it. mi diaspace.

so where to begin... the bus ride to milan was 13 hours long... and i was one of 2 people on the entire bus who did NOT have their own 2 seat row to stretch out it. some large, annoying boy decided he was going to sit with me. so ugh. needless to say got hardly any sleep, at least not for more than 30 minutes at a time... i arrived in milan around 8am and was able to manage the subway ride to my hotel (though i kept saying "merci" and "oui"... still mentally in france). and though reception was open at 9, i couldn't actually check in until 2 o'clock. though they did let me leave my bag, which was nice.

so i walked around the city a little bit, got a coffee at mcdonalds and sat there for nearly two hours writing in my journal and reading my guidebook. there was a big rally going on in the main piazza, which was for sure a peace rally - all the flags people were carrying said "pace", which means peace in italian, but what kind of peace i'm a little fuzzy on still.... see the flags were the rainbow gay pride sort, so i'm not sure what kind of peace exactly they were looking for. although, perhaps the flag doesn't have the same meaning in italy. who knows, i don't speak enough italian to ask any questions beyond "how much does it cost?".

needless to say i went to sleep rather early saturday. after checking in at two and the frustration of trying to figure out how to make a phone call i napped for the afternoon, then had a little dinner and went to sleep again.

sunday was a sunny, but cold day (as is today as well) and i walked around some and sat in the public garden for a while, looking in my guidebook and getting a little sun, despite the chill. though i suppose milan is sort of close to the alps and all that... i'll be moving south soon, though. :)

so tonight i'm going to make myself (there's a lovely, completely stocked kitchen in the hostel) an instant version of the local specialty - risotto alla milanese - which is risotto flavored with beef shank and saffron. and a bottle of cheap italian wine. should be good.

today is my last day of exploring milan, and frankly, that's fine with me. i'm not all that impressed with it here, it's just a city, with a coupla old things in it. tomorrow i move on to bergamo, which is a little smaller and, i think, a little cuter.

today is my last day in paris... and in france as well. it's been beautiful here, but a little bit cool. i've seen a lot of stuff here, as well as taking some time to just absorb it all.

i've been thinking of maybe publishing a sort of superlatives list for france, like best/worst hotel, worst toilet, best beach, best meal... etc. but i thought i'd open up the catagories to the public, so if you can think of anything that you think would be funny or something you're genuinely curious about use the "comments/feedback" link at the top right of the page.

i was thrilled to be able to do my laundry in the hostel today, and also to be able to leave my bag here when i was done, so i didn't have to drag it around with me all day.

and it is a sunny, beautiful day. i've spent most of it sitting by st. martin's canal and reading. walked around my "home" area in paris for the last time (near the place de la republique) and wrote some postcards.

in a couple of hours i'll be on my way to italy on a long, and most likely uncomfortable, bus ride. then the real struggle comes in communicating. though my french is nowhere near fluent i at least know a lot of basics, numbers, i can pose simple questions "do you have?" "can i?" "i'd like" "where is?" so we'll see how much italian i can beat into my brain on the bus.

wish me luck.

have i mentioned that my current hostel has free breakfast? (well, included in the price of the room anyway) and while i love this, because it means i don't have to buy a coffee somewhere, i get a little something to tide me over so that i'm not hungry for lunch by 11 (most places don't serve lunch until noon), there is one part i hate - they always have it early in the morning! at least this place serves breakfast from 7-9, the place in arles was from 7:30-8:30. but they're also very strict on the one cup of coffee per person rule. there's a woman who stands up there and gets you a cup of coffee and a cup of juice. no seconds whatsoever. also i have still not managed to get a cup of black coffee.

a little aside about coffee in france. when you ask for a "cafe" (coffee) you will most likely get an espresso. i think if you say "cafe americain" you'll get a regular black coffee (though i tried this once and ended up getting exactly what i wanted, for the price 3.40 euro). your standard coffee is pretty much going to be a cafe au lait

so the first morning she said "cafe au lait?" and i said "no 'au lait'". and she gave me a cafe au lait. this morning she said "cafe au lait?" and i said "cafe noir" (that means black coffee). and i *still* got a cafe au lait. oh well. i guess it's like they say "when in rome, be like the romans" or something. i'll get over it.

went to another picasso museum this morning, and this one was way better and bigger than the one i went to in antibes. it also had lots more of the picasso stuff that i like. after i went to a medieval museum, which was pretty cool. lots of stained glass windows, sculptures and illuminated manuscripts.

had lunch in chinatown. at a japanese place. oh well. actually there was probably more vietnamese restaurants there than chinese. france has a lot of vietnamese people. and since then i've been cruising around saint germain des pres and the latin quarter. bought a couple of grocery type things for my dinner and am thinking about heading back to the hostel soon.

i had more planned for today, but after a pretty full day yesterday i decided to take a few things off the schedule and just chill a little bit. and that's been good. tomorrow i'll have another full day to explore.

a fab first day in paris. and guess what?!?! i finally got all the way to the top of the eiffel tower!! can you believe it? was very exciting, and it really is so much higher up than the 2nd level, there are things you can't see from the 2nd that you can from the top. good times. but - i have a question for everyone: have you ever known someone who has gone to paris, more specifically the eiffel tower and after leaving they say "you know what? the one souvenir i *really* wanted to buy was a small metal eiffel tower/eiffel tower keychain - and i just couldn't find them anywhere!" i mean really! not only does every shop near the eiffel tower (hell, probably every shop in paris) have them, but in case you missed them in the shop, at least 50 men will approach you to offer them up for sale. i think if i really wanted a cheesy souvenir (but let's be honest, sometimes you do - but i don't) i think you would go out and find one in a shop, or up to some street vendor who had them - do you really need to be pestered every 5 feet???????

did a little museum hopping this afternoon. went to the musee rodin and the musee d'orsay. but alas, monsieur "le penseur" was not present at musee rodin. and musee d'orsay is HUGE, so now my little feet are pretty tired, i'm looking forward to getting some dinner and getting back to the hostel to put my feet up! then i do it all over again tomorrow. :)

thinking about having a falafel sandwich for dinner. yum. maybe with fries on the side!