I love it here!

Wow, I am definitely going to stay in Florence for a while. I just signed up for a 6 week Italian lanuage program which starts on October 16. It was recommended to me by an American who works at my hostel, he took it a while ago and he became fluent. 6 week course+ accomidation for only $1400!

ALSO I just saw this flier for a Tool concert here in November. I practically have a religious experience every time I listen to them, and I've never seen them live! I have to go.

*Originally written on Thursday, September 28, 2006*

Wow, let me just say that I love Italy. Florence is an amazing city, and I am staying at a wicked cool hostel.

Shit, I love it here.

Yesterday I took the train down from Venice. That is a very beautiful city. It was sunny and the canals had such a wonderful teal color to them, which is a nice change from the brown water that I am used to back home and in northern Europe. I walked around Venice for a few hours with this Australian girl and New Zealand guy, at which point I realized that there is absolutely jack-sh*t to do in Venice so I moved on to Florence the next day.

This is such a beautiful city! I can’t believe it sometimes. I walked around all day with the New Zealand guy, who stayed here in the afternoon. I went to that famous dome, which I can’t remember who built it or why, and went up a hill which overlooks the entire city.

Anyways, I went back to the hostel and the manager/owner of this place is a super nice guy named Marcos. He took everyone in the hostel out to a wonderful Italian restaurant where I had Spaghetti with wild boar and a plate of assorted meats. Venetian steak is an interesting dish, pretty much raw beef, but Marcos and this other guy who is living her absolutely love it. We all went through a couple bottles of red wine (there was 12 of us, so that wasn’t hard) and then we went up and bought a couple bottles of this local hard licker and more wine and drank that in the park.

Everyone here is so nice, and I love Italians!

I came back to the hostel for a quick shot of the Absinthe, which I bought during the 3 hours I stayed in the Czech Republic, and I went to a bar with this guy from Hawaii, a couple people from chili, some guy from Australia, and another dude from the UK. The bar was pretty lame actually, but I was drunk enough to not care. I ended up walking around with the UK guy for a while because we got lost while he was buying cigarettes and ended up stumbling back into the hostel about a half an hour after everyone else. This is most definitely hangover number 2, but I have never been so content with a hangover in my life.

I came, I saw, I got the hell out

Wow, I've had a long couple of days. I've been travelling for 28 hours, but now I am here in Venice and it is absolutely beautiful.

Here's the story in a nutshell - On the train to Prague I ran into a girl that I met in Seattle once at Annie's 21st birthday party. It was totally random and it worked out that she was with a school group, so I had like 40 Americans to hang out with in Prague. We got there, it turns out that Czech Republic doesn't honor my Eurail pass and I had to pay extra. I was confused on my stop and stayed on when everyone else got off. Nobody at the stop I got off at could speak English, or they were just choosing to ignore me, so it took me 3 hours to work my way by train back to the stop I was supposed to get off at. By that point I just decided that the Czech Republic just wasn't for me so I got back on the train and headed to Vienna. I had to spend the night in the Vienna train station on a metal bench with metal arm rails, and caught the early morning train to Venice. 26 hours of travel isn't bad.

It was totally worth it this morning when I saw some of the south Austrian countryside from the train, some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. I regret not staying in that country, I will have to try to make time for it again someday. For now I am going to head south to Florence and see how I like it there. Maybe I can hang out for a while, explore around the city, learn some Italian and get a little work done.

German Food

I think the food in Germany is the best I have had so far. Today for lunch I had a whole wheat roll with cheese and ham, an 18 inch weinerschnitzel, a deep fried bread thing, some kind of pepper stuffed with a feta-like cheese, a super creamy soft serve ice cream, and washed it down with a half-liter if dark beer. I think I could get fat here.

I needed it though! Yesteday I went for a 30 kilometer bike ride along the Elbe, that along with all the walking/hiking I've been doing, I don't want to get too low on my calories. I am f*ing sore though, I've barely touched a bike for like 5 years, and the one I rented was kind of falling apart. It was fun though!

Deep in Nazi territory...

*Originally written on Thursday, September 21*

Dresden is actually a pretty kick ass little town. I wish I had a group of friends with me because I don’t much care for going out at night when I am by myself. But it is the perfect mix of old world vibe and small college town. I don’t think there is actually a college nearby, but this street that I am staying in has over 150 bars/restaurants and a lot of young people. I’m also on the same street as a couple of record stores and about 3 bookstores. It is difficult for me though, because almost nobody here speaks English. Somebody explained to me that the town is so far east that most people choose Russian as their second language. If I could actually talk to the people here, I think this would be the place for me.

Yesterday was actually a pretty big day for me. I went hiking at this national park that is nearby. It was pretty funny though, when I was packing for the day trip I was making a much bigger deal out of it than it had to be. I was thinking in my head “Ok, if this shit goes south I need to be prepared for the worst. I might have to spend the night out there if I get lost.” I packed my good jacket and my compass and a supply of food and water. When I got out there I found myself on a paved path in a sea of geriatrics. Not to say that the hike was easy, I am pretty impressed at the difficulty of the mountains that those old Germans can climb. It was very beautiful out there too; I think Dad could have gotten some great pictures.

When I got back to the hostel I met a group of California guys that are out here on vacation. They were actually all really cool, I ended up staying out and drinking with them until 5:30 in the morning. Needless to say, I finally woke up with the first hangover of my trip.

They all headed to Prague this morning, the invited me to come but I am staying here through Sunday night. There lot of boring sh*t that I want to get done right now. I found this Italian language program that I really want to attend which starts October 23, and I am already a little late to apply. If I can start then, I can take the 6-week program and have 1 day left to get off the continent or else they will kick me off for 10 years. Or at least, that’s the idea, I have heard of a lot of people staying longer than 3 months with no problem. Seems like Europeans make a lot of rules that nobody really enforces. But I think I will try to leave to England at that time anyways, immigration policies are not something that I want to mess with. It’s a shame though, I really would like to have a few more months to practice the material that I spent 6 hours a day learning.