Soo... Update!

Hey everyone!

So its been a while since I've done an actual update, so I will start from our adventures in Switzerland, after leaving Germany.

We decided to do Switzerland kind of last-minute since we both really wanted to see it... So we went to Zurich and did some sight-seeing that Jannett recommended to us. Our first stop was the hostel, of course, which only had pay-internet... And it was a very nice hostel, which pissed me off. 1 Euro for every ten minutes... A total rip-off if you calculate the exchange rates. But we needed the internet to figure out the train times for our next destination: Prague. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Zurich was absolutely beautiful... Our first stop after the hostel was the university, which had a very awesome view of the city. We attempted to take pictures of ourselves but it kind of failed, I think... Well, you can be the judge of that!

We walked around for about two or three hours and then headed back to the hostel to get a recommendation for a restaurant... Of course, all they told us was, "Go to this street. There are a lot of restaurants," despite the fact that we had just come from there. So we hopped aboard the tram and went back, anyways... There were so many restaurants to choose from, including a lovely strip bar, but in the end we went with the Swiss-fondue restaurant with a bunch of pictures of cows. Actually it was a very fancy place, I think a bit on the pricey side... But hey, we had just spent 3 days in Germany without paying for a hostel and getting food for free from Jannett, so why the hell not? The food was very delicious at this restaurant... I'm very glad we went there.

The next morning we got up at 5:30 to get to our 7:15 train, where we would spend the next 11 hours or so on the train... This does not include the 1 hour layover in Munich. But we slept and met some cool people on the train, which made us happy. When we finally arrived in Prague, we were pretty exhausted and slightly frustrated when we couldn't find our hostel. I even called the reception and asked for directions, but it ended in him telling us to get a map of the city and look for the street name. Oh, and he also told us to ask the reception at the hilton, which was right next to the station exit we came out of. I was pretty irritated, given it was nearly 9 at night. We eventually found it and rejoiced. We moved into our room, room 10, and set up our beds and brushed our teeth and chatted with our new roommates, and... Well, there was a mix up, because there were not enough beds and too many people. As it turned out, we were supposed to be in room 12. The most the receptionist did for us was give us two free beers. Crappy Czech beer at that, in a can... Just a side note, I thought it was creepy that we got room 12 because the last 3 hostels before that gave us rooms 212, 12, and 212... And there we were in room 12 yet again. Isn't that creepy? I thought so...

So we got up the next day at about 8 AM, checked out and left our stuff there for the day. We walked around Prague with some people we met in the hostel... Prague is surprisingly small. But it was really cool. Almost as cool as Amsterdam. I think what made Prague awesome was the castle-cathedral thing. That was really REALLLY awesome. Lots of pictures, promise.

We ended up having about 2 hours to spare so we went to the grocery store and picked up some snacks for the train... I was really grateful that we did, too, because I was really hungry for some reason... Well, I guess massive amounts of walking can do that to you. The train ride from Prague to Vienna was almost 5 hours... We arrived in Vienna with only a phone number and an address to our next hostel. And my prepaid phone was out of minutes (its actually pretty expensive... argh), so we had to rely on a pay phone. As it turns out, there are several "main" train stations in Vienna, and we were at the wrong one in relation to our hostel. So we hopped on the #18 tram, suggested by the lovely information desk (who also supplied a free map, AFTER I purchased one for 4 Euros =\ )... And we met a guy from So Cal who was studying in Vienna and told us how to get to our hostel from the West Train station... And that we needed to be careful with the tram tickets (we did not purchase one, just hopped on since we couldn't find the ticket machine) since the employees check frequently and charge you 70 Euros if you are caught without a ticket. But luckily we made it, scotch-free. We really like the hostel here in Vienna... Its very nice and we get our own bathroom here in the room. Its like a luxury, having your own bathroom...

This morning I woke up at 10 AM. Oh, 10 AM how I love you... We left the hostel by 11 and made our first stop at a local cafe where we had some vienna coffee. It was pretty good, but I think my first choice will still have to be Kona coffee.... After that we walked around. A lot. We used a map a little but mostly just looked to where the giant steeples were on the cathedrals.... I think we visited like 4 or 5... I'm not sure, I lost count. The first one we went up to the top, but it was a bit pricey... 4.50 Euros just to go up there. But the view was awesome. We also took a tour of parliament, only 2 Euros thanks to our lovely student ID cards. That was pretty cool, as well... The architecture here is really gorgeous. I know that I will be coming back to Vienna... On a side note, one of the songs we heard in the hostel bar last night was "vienna waits for you," which I thought was both ironic and cool. No, I really don't have a choice in the matter (coming back to Vienna). This person, not giving me a choice... You know who you are!! =) (Vienna waits for you!) In the square near one of the cathedrals, the first one we went to, there were some interesting people... The first guy we noticed was a mime-type guy except he only made little squeaky noises, like a mouse... Me and Kana laughed at him a lot. Then there was the guy who was acting like a wind-up type doll thing with his violin. It was amazing that he could hold a pose for that long... That was pretty crazy. And of course he would start playing once you put some money into his little box-thing. And then there was the dancer guy painted like a silver robot. But you see those guys in San Fransisco all the time... Oh, and we also went into this really cool museum. I think its the old Palace, but I'm not sure... My favorite displays were the old instruments. I didn't listen to the explanations as much as the music samples. My favorite was track 300... I think the composer, or whatever, was named Robert Schumann or something... It was a piano song. I quite enjoyed it for the rest of the stay at the museum.

By the time we got back to the hostel it was about 7... We checked the train times for tomorrow morning and discovered the shortest trip to get to Venice is the train leaving from the station we arrived at, at 6:20 in the morning... Ugh. So naturally I'm staying up writing this blog for you guys since I feel bad about not giving you a real update in a while.

So, on to the pictures... I have to warn you, there are quite a lot of pictures. More than I expected... I've been doing the ghetto-photography by using my sunglasses as lense filters since they are poloriod and have color variation to make the picture look cool. You may have seen this in one or two of my pictures from Japan, but I have been going crazy since I came to Europe. So, I sincerely hope you enjoy them! I enjoyed taking them... =)

Here are the albums for August 7 - 10, in Germany and Swizterland, and August 11 -12 in Prague and Vienna. The latter has a ridiculous amount of pictures, so no complaining! =)

Headed to Venice tomorrow and then Rome! Woo!

This post should keep you guys good for the next couple of days, right? Well, it better... And now I'm going to bed since its midnight and I have to be up at 5. Ugh...

Cheers! (as they say in London...)