Thanks Dad!!

I awoke early Friday morning to start my spring break. My first stop was alone (eek!), I was spending Friday and Saturday by myself because dear ol' papa wasn't going to arrive until late Saturday night. So I was off to explore my individuality in Fussen-the home to the real inspiration for Disney's Cinderella's castle! But I digress-I awoke early Friday morning got dressed grabbed my already packed bags and prepared breakfast and lunch and went outside to catch the bus-I checked the time table (alas the bus was unexpectedly on holiday hours) There was luckily a bus scheduled to come at 5:30 am and then 5:50 am-my train was at 6:15, I checked the time and it was 5:28 (this was on my iPhone so it should have been very accurate) PERFECT TIMING! Or so it would have been if a 5:30 bus had shown up on time... or at all. No buses arrived until 5:50 am. This got me to the train station just in time to bolt from the bus run through the station onto the platform and watch my train pull away-without me on it. Fortunately I was able to take a train a mere 30 minutes later. Unfortunately this meant taking six trains instead of two including 3 of which were 20 minutes or less, and stations that were no more than two tracks and a cement platform. Eventually a made it to Fussen a mere 2 hours later than planned. I checked into my hostel which was run by a small asian woman and her son (who enjoyed crying a lot) and her husband. My room was really cute and I had my own shower-though I shared the WC which was in fact a C (c being closet-it was as wide as I was and not quite as tall). After dropping my stuff off I walked around Fussen a little bit, by the river and through the town. Most things were closed-probably for good friday, but there were lots of Easter decorations and the weather was beautiful. I walked around looking for something I could take back to my room to eat (I wasn't really into the eating alone in a restaurant) but all I could find was some really crappy pizza, so I took that back and called it a day at about 5:45-giving me adequate time to finish my paper that was due at the end of break-and it was especially entertaining as there was no internet.

The next morning I woke up early to see the castles in Fussen. I killed time until what I thought was the tourism office that sold the tickets opened, coffee, pretzels, meandering, when the office finally opened I learned the office I had actually wanted was about 5 km away and I could have been walking there the whole time. So I started walking to where the castles were, it was down this more or less quiet path and you could see the alps all around, the weather was beautiful and it was an enchanting walk especially when the castles came into view it was actually magical (cheesy enough?) I knew when I got to the right area because the tourists were actually everywhere-including many of the infamous Japanese tour buses. Unfortunately because I spent so much time waiting for the wrong tourist office to open I only had time to do one of the castles-so I picked the one that inspired Cinderella's castle. I had a while until my tour time (you could only get into the castle with a guided tour) which gave me time to walk up the hill and over to the bridge with a full view of the castle. Inside the castle was just as beautiful a fairy tale as the outside. We got to see the thrown room, a bedroom, even an artificial cafe that Kind Ludwig had built into the palace. After the tour was over I had enough time to head back down and walk the 5 km back to Fussen and wait for my train to Vienna.

The trip to Vienna went very smoothly, I took a quick metro ride into the city center and the hotel was only about a 3 minute walk (quite a nice change from our hostels in preschool basements train rides away from city centers) I checked into the hotel and waited for Dad to show up. Dad showed up shortly after 11 tired from his long plane ride (he's not used to our rigorous travel schedule) so he came we hugged and reunited and went to bed.

The next morning was Easter Sunday, so we woke up and had the hotel breakfast which was very good (amazing eggs). Then we went to mass at St. Stephan's Cathedral. We didn't get there until about 5 minutes before mass was scheduled to start which mean we got to stand. But, mass was said by the cardinal arch bishop of Vienna and there was an orchestra and choir who sang the hallelujah chorus for the recessional all the pomp and circumstance meant mass lasted 2 hours-but it was an amazing mass. After church we went over to the Hapsburg Apartments, and checked out the Spanish riding school-due to a cough there was no horse show (yes the horses had a severe cough) but we did tour the apartments which involved extensive cutlery exhibits (dad's favorite) and some cool royal apartments. Afterward I was hungry and the weather was beautiful so we sat outside and drank some beer and I had some cheese strudel. We sat enjoying the sun for a while and then walked around more of Vienna-we walked through the gardens and by the parliament and then we happened upon an Easter Market. It seemed like a really cool local thing with traditional music and lots of easter eggs (though way cooler than American Easter eggs) so we had some beer (which we got to keep the glasses) and listened to the music and enjoyed the ambiance. For dinner we checked out a restaurant I found online but there was a line to get in so we decided against it and found a restaurant a couple minutes away and had some amazing wiener schnitzel.

We woke up Monday to another lovely breakfast then visited the Albertina museum with both some fairly cool impressionist art and some weird modern art. Afterward we tried the famous Sacher Torte at the cafe/hotel that claims to have invented the dessert-it was AMAZING-I wasn't expecting it to be so good! Then we went to drop our bags off at the train station-while seemingly simple this turned out to be a fairly complicated task. There was a metro stop with the same name as the train station but it was not in fact the train station. When we finally got to the right train station we tried to buy our train tickets but the train was all sold out. Fortunately there was another train that left slightly later but of course from a different train station so it was back to the incredibly complicated metro. We finally got the train tickets and dropped our bags off and then headed off to Schunbrunn Palace which was far superior to the royal apartments-at least the inside... The outside was cool too but at this point the weather had taken a fairly violent turn for the worse. While Dad thought I was far more miserable than I was (mistake wearing the moccasins... again) coming from Colgate I have experience with worse weather conditions-although the coffee and apple strudel at the top of the giant hill we climbed in the wind and rain was warmly received (I assume by both). After making our way back through the pause in the downpour we stopped at the 3rd of the 3 Easter Markets in Vienna and Dad got a really cute hand made print. We metroed (successfully) back to the city center and after wandering around for quite a while settled on the "Loos American Bar" for some drinks. Afterward we grabbed some Vienna sausages from a street vender-I got some curry sausage and Dad got what appeared to be a hot dog. Then we metroed (again successfully) to the train station to catch our train to Rome.

We booked a night train and due to the difference in prices we decided to book seats instead of beds. It was us and one other guy in this compartment-the seats didn't recline and we seemed to be in for a rough night. Luckily the other guy volunteered to sleep on the unmade top bunk (that wasn't really set up to be a bed) which gave each of us more or less a bed to sleep on (though the favor rested highly in "less") We switched trains in Venice and arrived in Rome. We checked into our hotel which was located in an old Roman tower dropped our stuff off and went to visit the colosseum and forum. We got audio tours in the forum as last time I had NO idea what anything was-this time with the help of the audio tour I had NO IDEA WHAT ANYTHING WAS!!! Nothing was marked at all-but we spent most of our time up on Palentine Hill which I hadn't visited the first time so that was new and exciting. We went back to the hotel to rest a little bit and then headed to dinner. Before dinner we walked by the Trevie and threw our coins in (ensuring a speedy return to Rome-hey it worked last time!) then got dinner near the Trevie (later learning that's the worst place to eat-though I though it was actually pretty good!) Then we went to San Crispino's and I got some tizasty gilattoness.

We woke up pretty early the next morning and had the hotel breakfast-lots of cheese and meat and fresh squeezed juice and then headed over to the Vatican. By the time we got there (an hour after in opened) the line was already beyond the corner of the walls aka really really long. So we decided to give in to one of the tour offers that skipped the lines. We ended up in a tour group with 2 texans, 2 french women, and 3 old people (maybe belgian and greek?) and our tour guide a Berkeley educated Roman woman named Velaria (rhymes with Mahleria) who was an archeologist and gave us a really great tour of the museum which was great since last time we were jogging through. We then visited the basilica and tried to find a priest to bless some stuff for us-a surprisingly difficult task in the headquarters of the Catholic church. By this time I was pretty hungry so we stopped to grab some pizza and then walked slowly toward the Pantheon through a street market and looking for old Roman coins (non existent in Rome believe it or not) After the Pantheon we had to go take a picture of the apartment Mom and Madeleine are going to be staying in when they visit Rome in June-it was right off a really nice little square where we sat and people watched (with some beer and) free hors d'oeuvres. We took a break at the hotel briefly and then went over to Trastevere for dinner-delicious pasta and tiramisu.

We woke up the next morning and had breakfast and then walked to the train station to head to Naples and Pompeii. We caught our train to Naples no problem. We got to Naples and dropped our bags off at the "left luggage" center and then tried to get to Pompeii. This was not as easy as one would think. With no signs and incomplete directions in broken english it took us a while to figure out how to change train companies and find the right train-once we did buy the tickets and find the right train we got on-we stood for about 10 minutes before I realized it was the wrong train-at which point it thankfully hadn't left the station yet though we did have to wait about a half an hour for the next train (my train skills were very clear to my Dad at that point). We did eventually get to Pompeii though and went on a guided tour of the ruins seeing the forum, different houses and one of the brothels-complete with graphic frescoes. After the tour we got back on the train to Naples to pick up our luggage and then got hustled for a cab (which given my Dad's experience with my public transportation skills he decided we should take) We got down to the harbor and got onto the boat right before it left (which I fell asleep on). After about and hour we arrived on the isle of Capri. We took a funicular up to the town center and walked about 10 minutes to our hotel. Then we went for a fairly casual dinner at Verginello-it was the best caprese salad and ravioli I've ever had.

I slept in (all the way until nine o'clock!) and then we had breakfast-including fresh mozzarella. Then we walked around the island a little bit it was kind of warm and overcast. Then, we ended up in the town square and had some coffee while we watched people go by. Afterward we walked back down to the harbor to do a little bit of souvenir shopping and funiculared back up for some mediocre lunch. Then I decided I wanted to try and take one of the walks the man at our hotel recommended but it was a little bit of a bust-though it did lead us to an amazing viewpoint. We walked back to the hotel to rest a little bit and skype home. Then we went to dinner on the recommendation of one of Dad's coworkers- it was also really really good.

We went down to the harbor to take a boat tour of the island but again due to long lines Dad decided to let us splurge on a private boat tour of the island. This was really cool-the weather was beautiful, we saw the pseudo blue grotto with the really cool orange coral, the rocks that are the sign of Capri, all kinds of "natural animals"-parts of the island that looked like various animals. It was a tough life sitting on the boat in the warm sun getting a little bit of a tan. (did I talk it up right Dad? Has it been sufficiently addressed?) We grabbed a couple more souvenirs and then headed up to the town center again. We happened upon the oldest shop in Capri while looking for tiles to use as our new house numbers-the shop owner was so funny-she was the third generation to own that store (her daughter was the fourth) and she was so funny and nice and friendly. We dropped stuff off at the hotel and then took an incredibly scary bus ride along very high cliffs to anicapri. We walked down a couple streets and then did the chair lift. This isn't like when you go skiing-(I know from all my skiing experience-alright I took a chair lift up once to go sledding...) but it was a single chair and it went really slowly so you got to see this beautiful view. Then you arrive at the top of this mountain and it looks over most of the island. On the way down there were a ton of people in the chairlift all of a sudden-it turned out to be a Japanese tour bus and they were all very friendly and waved! We headed back to our hotel on the bus ride of death and then had dinner at Virgenello again (caprese salad and gnocchi)

The next morning we woke up and got on the boat (the last two people on that boat) to Naples. This time we took a normal cab to the train station (it turned out to be 5 euro cheaper and a much nicer car). We ended up with two extra hours at the train station (since I'm such a nervous nelly about being on time) so we sat and had coffee. We got on our train to Milan-not too bad and then had an hour in Milan where we got crappy train station pizza. Our last train to Geneva was crowded and we were sharing our car with some very loud karate kids but we made it back eventually!

Best Part of Spring Break: Spending time with my Dad (and relaxing on the isle of Capri)

Worst Part of Spring Break: Saying goodbye to my Dad (and missing my train the first morning)