To sum up

Okay. I realize this is a little belated, but I just felt I couldn't leave this unfinished, so here goes.


The Jeffs let us stay with them in Berlin, and to show our appreciation we cooked them schnitzel and they, in turn, made popcorn and cookies whose salt-content was perfect, despite what their creator had to say. Elise, Ed, Catrina and I visited the Berlin Wall. It was amazing to see the planned artwork as well as the graffiti. Elise, Ed, and I then got lost in the Memorial for the Holocaust Jews. Ed also got some great pictures of the sun setting on the slabs of rock before we were yelled at for standing on them.

The next day, Elise and I parted company with Catrina, who was headed to Rosenheim to meet up with the family. While trying to leave Berlin, Elise and I learned that German efficiency is all a lie. The city train we were supposed to take to the station was closed. The next one was late, and then delayed to let another train pass. We were ten minutes late when we sprinted from the top of the Hauptbahnhof to the bottom where our platform was. Luckily that train was 40 minutes late. We couldn't get to our seats since the train was so packed, so we ended up sitting in the aisle. When we had to switch trains, we just grabbed the first seats we could see. We hadn't eaten anything all day, but the nice people next to us took pity and fed us three of their delicious cookies. Thank you strangers.


In Prague we had great difficulty in getting a map and finding our Hostel since we had forgotten to write down what street it was on. The nice rail ticket guy helped us find our Apple Hostel, which ended up being in a great location. At dinner we tried Czech beer, not its biggest fans. On our adventure to see the dancing house, we passed by this great fountain and lo and behold, out comes a perfect rainbow. We also found a great hollow tree to play in.

The next day we traveled to Prague Castle, which is always surrounded by ominous looked clouds, fyi. While the hike there had us panting for breath, the view was spectacular. Elise made friends with a suit of armor and took pictures pretending I was in a cage. In response, I dragged her to the Jewish Quarter to look for the Golem that guards it. We didn’t find him, but I did get a tiny little clay statue of him. That night, since we’re failures, instead of going out, we ate gelato and went to bed. The next day we hung out in the square where we of course heard “Pokerface.” That Lady Gaga just wouldn’t leave us alone. After great difficulty checking the internet (we had to beg some internet café man to let us use the internet for real cheap), we headed to the station to wait for our train to Rosenheim. While napping in the grass, we made friends with a little Czech girl, about two. Her mother gave us each an apricot to say thank you.


Rosenheim was sweet. We hung out with Catrina’s family, especially Carina. We bought dirndls, ate delicious German food, drank some sort of local Wheat beer that was amazing, and even climbed the Alps. Okay, so we drove up most of it but still. AND I almost touched a mountain cow. Almost.

We also went to Munich, where oddly enough, we bumped back into Kevin. After visiting the English Gardens and seeing a really complicated coo coo clock, we had dinner and giant steins full of radler (half lemonade, half wheat beer) at the original Hofbrauhaus. Trina’s family was great; when it was time to leave, Uncle Tom and Carina met us at the train station with our luggage and a bag full of goodies (cookies, apples, beer). Saying goodbye to Catrina, Elise and I got on the night train to Florence. We shared some of our snacks with the two British boys who we shared our cabin. One was a Leonard Cohen boy.


We woke up in Italy, and were immediately told there were no trains leaving for Paris for the next four days. Not good since, out plane flew out in three. After my previous trouble with Italian trains, you’d think I would have been prepared. In desperation, we booked a train to Nice the next morning, figuring it was best to just try and get into France. However, this ruined our plans to go to Pisa.

When we got to our hostel we found out it didn’t open for another four hours. We ate our breakfast of cookies and apples in the Piazza (thank goodness for Tom) and spent out time wandering around with our heavy bags looking for a green space to lie down. Little known fact: there is no green space in Florence.

When we returned to the hostel no one was there and when the girl finally showed up, she didn’t have our reservation. After much confusion (she only spoke Italian and Spanish to go with our French and English), we got it settled and headed out to find the Duomo. It was so hot that as soon as we got inside the cool Duomo, we collapsed on a bench. Nice architecture, Italy, no air conditioning, but cool as could be. Chilling in the Duomo, we came to the pathetic conclusion that since we didn’t know where the David was and that it was 20 Euro to get in, our time would be better spent napping and our money towards wine and limoncello at dinner. Sad, I know, but we were so tired of museums and we’d never tried limoncello before.

After we visited a great open air market, we took a nap and then had a delicious dinner. The house wine was great, the bread sadly quite bland. Perhaps that is why they invented bruschetta. For my dinner I had this pizza with ham, pesto, porcini mushrooms and truffle sauce evenly spaced on it. To die for. Elise enjoyed her gnocchi and then it was time for our limoncello. Not at ALL what we thought it was going to be. Maybe the quantity of three shots, it was the most bitter, sharp and yet sweet thing I’ve ever tasted. The faces we made while drinking it were pathetic.

The next morning we somehow ended up at the wrong train station. Waiting in line at the help desk, there was some sort of Italian verbal brawl concerning the slowness of the woman in front of me. As it was all in Italian, the curse words were a bit above me, but I think I got the gist of the fight. Luckily, we made it to the correct station just in time to jump on the slowest moving train ever to get to Nice.


After bonding with the nice people from New Zealand, we hopped off the train in Nice and promptly bought night train tickets to Paris. Thank god. However, we then had several hours to kill, not enough time to venture out (sad), so we spent a significant amount of the time having a leisurely lunch at this café showing weird music videos on the TV. The trip to Paris was fine. We shared a room with a Parisian girl and her tiny, surprisingly well-behaved dog. We were delayed for a little while because some kids had apparently been on the train sans tickets and were quickly being arrested.

In Paris, after realizing we had acquired more bug bites in a sealed cabin, we quickly deduced that we had picked up fleas from the hostel in Florence. Damn that hostel. At our hotel, I had the concierge throw out my blanket right away. He asked if it was stolen. Really dude? I know I looked a bit of a wreck by then, but jeez.

Elise and I loved out hotel room. There were clean sheets and towels, a big bed, a beautiful bathroom, and a TV showing CNN. It was love at first sight. After throwing out my jeans and pillow and quarantining everything that had been exposed in Italy, I jumped in the shower and then headed to Versailles. My god. It was the most ornate, gaudy piece of architecture I’ve ever seen. In one room I spotted a bust of Jean Racine. Go me and my ancestors. I strolled around the gardens and watched the fountains, before filling up my bottle of water and heading back to meet up with Elise by Notre Dame. We then got ice cream and free back massages before going to pick up our suitcases.

Once in the suburbs, we stopped to eat dinner and buy wine. When we showed up at Elise’s friend’s house, they were just getting back from Provence. They drove us back to our hotel and we joined them for one last glass of wine before bed.


At the airport the next morning, there was a bomb scare. Just our luck. They had also overbooked our flight, but no way in hell was I delaying my flight back home. Reaching Chicago was awesome. We understood everything that was going on around us. Home sweet America.

We parted company then, Elise to Columbus and me to Cincinnati. My family was late to pick me up, and I was fiddling with the pay phone when they finally arrived. Oh the way home, I calmly informed my mother I might have fleas in my luggage and that maybe we should deal with that when we got home. I stayed up until 10 o’clock, pretty good as that is 4 am in Paris, and when I passed out in my comfortable, flea-less, clean bed in my solitary room, I was glad to finally be back home.