RSFBP

On my 'farewell to Peace Corps' tour I've reached the western front...of Europe that is. We've been to Rome, Sienna, Florence, Bologna, and Paris so far on this stretch and have 2 more weeks to go. Without a doubt Rome has been the favorite, just in case anyone is wondering. It just feels like magic is in the air there. Sienna was an amazing town to slow down and rest in. Since Rome was so hectic and packed with things to do it was a nice change of pace to lounge in cafes and stroll around aimlessly. The scenery there was gorgeous too. The Tuscan country-side is breathtaking. Florence was way over rated... sorry to all those people out there that just loooove it but I don't. One less tourist in your way I guess. It had nice architecture, and lots of art, but overall I was unimpressed. The masses of tourists walking around in chaotic zigzags with maps in one hand and gellato in the other, the massive lines for any and all museums, and the serious lack of outdoor cafes lessened my regard for it instantly. Plus it was hot. Real, real hot. I don't do well in extensive stretches of heat and 4-days is my max. Bologna was a quick stop over. Since we weren't expecting anything much from the city we were pleasantly surprised by it. It had a pretty center, with interesting architecture and lots of wide, shaded sidewalks. Basically it was a good shopping and eating town, so we did both and it worked out well.
We felt like we were on the Amazing Race trying to get to Paris though. It was ridiculous. People were pushing, shoving, cutting, and even elbowing us the whole way there...perhaps cheap airlines and the metro are not the way to travel. Once we got to Paris everything leveled out though. It's beautiful, but not quite as magical as it's portrayed to be (at least in my opinion). This is probably another one of those Florence things though, and I'll just say if you find Paris magical and wonderful I'm very happy you do but I'll be one less person in line for the Eiffel Tower the next time you visit. Speaking of the Eiffel Tower we almost saw someone commit suicide off of it. Just as we arrived to check out the line we saw a man with a helmet and lots of gear scaling the outside of the first level up then noticed him wrapping a rope around a person who was also standing out on the ledge with him who appeared to be a fanny-pack tourist (there was an actual fanny pack involved). We were wondering whether they were going to bungee or base jump so we stopped and watched. Then we noticed the heavily armed (i'm talking AK-47s) military and policemen standing along a roped off area at the base of the Tower. When the would-be jumper finally got talked down and climbed back off the ledge over the fence we realized what had been going on. It was crazy (and completely not covered by the media)!

Summer Sizzles

Today we had an adventure. Since we had two extra days in Budapest we decided to take a day trip- to Vienna. We took a train there and had no idea what to see or do. So after randomly finding the most famous church we headed down to the opera house, saw the parliament, got tired touring the fine art museum, then headed to a huge palace and gardens. The day was amazing. It was near perfect, in fact my cousin decided to say that it was the “perfect day” without knocking on wood. Big mistake. So after a wonderful sit at a café we headed to catch the 5.50 train back to Budapest. We get to the train station and find our train with 5 minutes to spare. Then I heard some girls speaking Bulgarian and I decided to chat with them. After a few seconds of chit-chat they said, “Oh good, we’re all going to Germany!” and I said, “Uh, no we’re going to Budapest…wait. Where does this train go?” And then we discovered we were on the wrong train. So we jump off with stuff in hands and 2 minutes until our train leaves. Luckily (or perhaps not so luckily) the Budapest train was right across from ours. So we ran into it and sighed, just then a man came up to us and kicked us off the train and told us to go further up. So we walked two or three cars up the train and got in again. Feeling very secure in our situation we actually sat down… then two boys ran through the train yelling something ending in “get off the train” in German. I caught their frantic spirit and rushed to get off the train, Chloe trailing behind me very confused until another man got on the train and said, “Follow me to Budapest!” This made us laugh and we followed. Then we realized that the train we were supposed to be on was in front/behind the train we had been on before and we had one minute to run to it. Finally we got on the right train and found seats and breathed a deep breath and went to take out the train tickets… which were nowhere to be found. As I tell Chloe that I can’t find our tickets she says, “Ha ha, good joke.” Then as I start to freak out she realizes it’s not a joke. After discussion of who will stay on the train, who will keep the bags, how much time we have, what we will do if we can’t find these tickets, and so forth we both get off the train. We decide the tickets must be somewhere on the second train we mistakenly got on, because I remembered grabbing them off the first. We run back to the train and it’s locked, but there was a conductor there who, after a brief explanation, unlocked it and let us look. We looked up, we looked down, we looked side-to-side, we looked back to front then front to back, we split up to look… then a worker found me and said I had to get off the train because it was leaving for maintenance in a couple minutes. Chloe was nowhere to be seen. As the guy asked me if I found the tickets I jumped off the train and shouted, “No! and my friend’s still on the train!” We ran down the train looking in the windows and finally found Chloe and motioned to her to get off the train right then. After reconnecting and realizing neither of us had found the tickets we resigned ourselves to buy new ones, and just as we did another workman (that bring the total number of workmen helping/following us up to 4) started walking towards us with something in his hand. Then he held them up and ta-da! It was our tickets. The man received his daily allotment of hugs in the five seconds following. We were so relived and happy, and then realized our train had left. Luckily the next train was only an hour later…and 20 degrees hotter with no a/c. But we have finally arrived at our hotel safe, sound, and full of adventure.