the day julia mounted farm animals

we arrived in rome in the evening and finally had an easy time finding our hostle. we met our roommate, his name was enrique and he was from mexico, and we invited him to go to dinner with us. (a bad move on our part because after that we unofficially became his tour guides of rome) we went out for pasta at i buoni amici then returned to our hostel to enjoy some wine and play cards on the terrace.

as usual we got out day started early and off we went, mexican in tow, to the vatican city. we made stops along the way to see some churches, fountains and other sights of interest. oh man was rome hot! the arrival at st peters basilica only brought relief from walking but not from the heat, we still had to wait in line for a while to get into the basilica all the while waiting in the sun. it was worth it though! first we climbed the over 500 stairs of the cupola to get a spectacular view of the city. our descent brought us into the heart of the basilica and we made our way around (counterclockwise julia is told by erica is the proper way to do it) admiring all there is to see, most notably being michelangelos pieta. the walk back to our hostel was supposed to be as sight filled as our journey earlier but the heat had gotten to us so we opted for gelato and the pantheon as must sees and then just went home. that night we met our new roommate tymon, he was from australia. we enjoyed the evening chatting with him and some dumb americans.

the next day was just as hot so we kept the walking to a minimum, which for us is still a lot. we had breakfast in a park that had a neat view of the colosseum. acting on a tip we had recieved from an experienced traveller, we went to the palentine first and bought a combo ticket for it and the colosseum so we didnt have to wait in line at all! the palentine was beautiful, it was a huge area of ruins that you could wander through and imagine how massive and excellent the buildings once were. next came the colosseum and boy was it a sight to see. ah to be an ancient roman and see the gladiators in action.

GERMANY!

the overnight train brought us into munich at an ungodly hour (6:30 am). nothing seemed to open until 10am so we wandered around finding the sights we wanted to see and planned out our route for our very short visit to munich. a climb up the south tower of petersirche (a church of course) gave us a panoramic view of the city and a perfect way to restart our day. next over to spielzburgmuseum, a toy and teddybear museum, and then into the heart of marienplatz where we got to watch the glockenspiel in action. we then made our way to the deutches museum, where we spent most of our day. we saw demonstrations on glass blowing, got a tour of the history of the camera, and saw an electrifying demonstration on electricity! what a shocker! our walk back across the city brought us back through marienplatz and past the glockenspeil, where it was chiming again. (it only goes off at 11am, 12pm, and 5pm) on the walks along the way from place to place julia found a heard of cattle and a pig to mount.

another overnight train brought us into berlin. one of the awesomest places weve been. due to lack of time in the city combined with a forecasted temperature of 31 and so many sights to see, we agreed that berlin was the place to try a bus tour of the city. good move! the tour began and ended right at the train station, how lucky for us. on way to the first of five stops we drove through tiergarten, (one third of berlin is green!) past the zoo and into one of the cities many places to get rid of money fast, shopping. none of that for us though so we cruised on through to stop two. here we got off and had a look at the crazy architecture of the sony centre at potsdamer platz. there also brought us our first look at sections of the berlin wall and lego land berlin. hopping on the bus again to stop 3, checkpoint charlie. off again to see a large stretch of uninterupted wall and checkpoint charlie which is the third checkpoint to get through from east to the west side of berlin. (alfa, bravo, charlie) hop on to alexanderplatz where the is a huge fountain (stop 4), hop off to get good pics of berliner dom, fernsehturm and scheunenviertel. hop on to brandenburger tor (fifth stop) and hop off to explore the memorial to the murdered jews of europe, a monument of 2711 concrete pillars that are all different heights and at different angles. with not much time left we went over to the parliment building called reichstag where we were able to go inside and climb into the dome and do one of our favourite things, get a birds eye view of the city. hop on for the last time to get back to the train station where we were oh so very excited to finally make the journey to see manny!