The Hills are alive...I guess..

So we are in Austria after another AMAZING trip to Switzerland. Seriously...I love Switzerland. We went canyoning for Nancy's birthday which is torture but oh so fun. You repel down cliffs, jump off of them into water, climb, slide (in my case, fall) and swim through essentially melted snow. It was so cold and so awesome. We had to gear up with a wetsuit, boots, 2 wetsuit jackets, lifevest, helmet, harness and all of them were still cold from the day before. It was so cold and so fun. It was also the last day of the season so it was probably colder than usual. The guys that take you are incredibly strong. One guy picked Nancy up with one had by pretty much a flick of the wrist. Then later when we saw him in the bar, he picked me up too. I am not a small person and he did it with one hand. Canyoning makes you strong apparently...I know I'm sore. Anyway, point of the story: Switzerland is my favorite country.

We got to Salzburg last night and got some food at our HUGE hostel. We even saw a guy that was at the same place as us in Rome. Kinda funny. This morning we are at the train station and found a semi cheap internet cafe and so we're just here til our train to Munich arrives. We should get to Munich around 10:30am or so and then hit up the tents at Oktoberfest...Hopefully we get in. You have to be seated in order to get served so we're going to do our best.

Anyway...I guess that's all for now.

Sorry these aren't going the right way..I don't understand Italian Computers.

Sorry for these going the wrong way...but you're lucky to have them...the internet is expensive. Haha.... (Also, theyre out of order.)


Before running off the mountain in Switzerland. Kinda scared.

Paris...at the Eiffel Tower.

Nancy and I before going Paragliding. At the Base camp.

In the Sistene Chapel

With some giant Head

The cars are sooo tiny! Its awesome. (In Rome)

Tea for 2 in Venice. So Awesome.

1.50€ fruit cup! Delicious. (Venice)

Heading back to Switzerland..

So, Nancy and I have some time before our train to Switzerland so we stopped at an internet cafè we found and we get to catch up on stuff before heading out. You might ask why we're going BACK to Switzerland and there are two answers to that.

1. Switzerland is absolutely beautiful and we LOVED our hostel when we were there. There's a bar IN the hostel that has an awesome happy hour and the staff was awesome. Also, Nancy wants to go canyoning for her birthday since we didn't get to go last time. We went paragliding instead.
2. Finding lodging anywhere within 100 miles of Munich on a weekend during Oktoberfest is impossible. We're going to stay in Switzerland for the weekend and then head for Salzburg on Monday and go to Oktoberfest from there. Nancy doesn't get to spend her birthday AT the festival but it will be celebrated by going TO the festival. It works out.

Let's see.... Highlights that I might have skipped out on recently.

Paris: Went to see the Arc, Eiffel Tower, etc. Didn't go to the Lourve but that's ok. Paris is very pretty and very expensive. We did a lot of pedestrian sightseeing and it was fun.
Switzerland: Met some awesome people at the bar in our hostel. We hung out with them both nights and had a great time. We went paragliding over Interlaken and then went to Bern (the capitol) to walk around. Switzerland is beautiful
Bolzano/Nova Levante: The place was beautiful. We had to hike to it and there was this amazing view of the mountains but it wasn't near anything so we went to Venice and Rome for during the week. We did spend 3 nights there though and cooked some delcious pasta there last night.
Venice: We didn't have a place to stay but we found a place and it ended up being really nice. Like I said before, the reception man made me tea and let me use his video player. I paid way too much for coke there though. Oh well.
Rome: When we go to Rome, we just thought it looked like LA meets Mexico. Kind of disappointing. We walked to the Colosseum on the first night and then walked around a bit more and then went back for dinner. Free dinner at a hostel is a brilliant idea. On the next day we walked to the Trevi fountain, made wishes...got some gelato and then made our way over to the Vatican. We walked through St. Peter's and then got lunch before going to the Sistene Chapel. You can't take photos of that super famous fresco...but its small. After, we headed back and had dinner. A bunch of people in the hostel were going to go on a pub crawl and Nancy and I decided by literally thr flip of a coin that we would go too. We went to a total of 3 places and got as much beer as you could drink at the first place for an hour, then a shot at the next and then just went to a club. It ended up being a lot of fun. You got a free tshirt too! We went with 2 Aussies, 2 girls from Spokane, Wa and a guy from Norcal. I think I speak for both of us when I saw it made Rome a hell of a lot more fun.

Now, we're just waiting for Switzerland, like I said. If anyone is willing to donate to the "Mallory wants to go canyoning but also wants to eat for her last weeks in europe fund" please let me know. Haha.

bounjourno from italia

ok, so i'm really bad about the pictures thing but i might be able to get some on later. We're in italy right now. we went to the timeshare that nancy's auntgot us...it was absolutely beautiful but it was in the middle of nowhere. so we stayed there for 2 nights and then headed off to venice and then rome. we're in rome right now. venice was pretty awesome we stayedin this hostel and had our own room. i'm getting sick and on the second night we had nothing to do so we asked the front guy what to do and he loaned us his dvd player and the devil wears prada. it was aweosme. then he actually brought me tea! amazing. today, we're in rome and our hostel feeds us dinner! we got salad and pasta and wine. AND we get breakfast!! Friday we travel back to nova levante to the time share for the last night and then we are going to head to salzburg and use that as our base for oktoberfest.

sorry that these entries arent enthralling but i've only been getting about 15 min total of internet usage and ive had to use it for booking hostels and such. we're halfway through the trip though. i really do miss everyone and the foodof california. i need to get me some late night in n out or del taco. everything closes early. its killing me! also, i have gotten better at climbing tons of stairs and running with a 30lb pack on to catch a train. painful...but good since my diet is pretty much bread and currently gelato is replacing beer...probably only because im sick and beer sounds bad when your nose is running. gelato always sounds good though.

til next time! yay.

switzerland...yay

just leaving switzerland to go to italy this morning. Yesterday we went paragliding...we run off one of the mountains and then floated down to interlaken. it was pretty awesome. pricey though. we have an 830 train that switches about 5 times before we get to italy. hopefully we dont miss anything. no pictures as i cant plug my camera in, but i did get a lot from the paragliding. perhaps better interweb in italy.

Bonjour from Paris!

ok so im on some weird french keyboard and so the letters are out of order and the punctuation is in wierd spots.

anyway... today we went to the eiffel tower and such.. no lourve though. this is a pain in the ass trying to type on the keyboard so im going to make this short. we are going to go to switzerland tomorrow if we can make it on the train.

we have now been gone a month now though! 5 more weeks. i am beginning to miss everything but i am still looking forward to everything. nancy and i have a nice room in paris though. we were booked for a 6 bed dorm but we got our own room with shower! pretty cool. i cant take any more of this keyboard though. sorry.

Glasgow by foot

Band playing in city centre, the one guy had crazy arms!

On the way to Glasgow University

Inside the University. It's beautiful and people still go to school there!

Look's like a scene from Harry Potter! I wanted Ron Weasley to magically appear---Didn't happen.

The view of Glasgow from the University. I believe that is an art museum...It was actually really clear! I don't think we would be able to see that much on another day.

So Yesterday was our second day in Glasgow, but we did nothing on the first day so it was our first day exploring. We started out he day heading to the city center (the picture on the last blog of glasgow). It is this big pedestrian area where there's a mall, shops, restaurants, etc. It was pretty neat. One of the "bargain" fashion stores with really cute clothes actually had a tall section! I *almost* bought some new jeans. They were £25 which is about $50 so they wouldn't have been too outrageous, but I stopped myself. Boy, do I miss all my clothes/shoes at home and shopping. One month without them and I'm kinda going nuts! After leaving one of the stores, I heard some drumming so I went to investigate. There was a Scottish Band playing in the streets. Drums, Bagpipes, Kilts...It was awesome. We stayed for a bit and watched them and then headed off to get a snack. After getting some cookies and diet coke (my now usual £1.20 snack), we tried to find Glasgow University. It was a bit of an uphill (beautiful) walk but we finally got there. The school is unreal. It looks like something straight out of Harry Potter and people still go to school there! We hung out there for awhile and sat in the sun. It was actually sunny and kinda of warm! The first day without rain, cold and wind since we got here! We walked to go look at museums but fond out they closed at 5pm so we went to the grocery store and bought some dinner and headed back to Stevie's flat. After awhile, we went to the pub for a couple drinks, came back, and waited for Stevie. I think today we are going to go to the museums and then I don't know. Eventually he's going to take us to the countryside where his parents live and some other things. Should be fun!