Florence, January 15th, 2006

Current mood:	tired
Current music:	'Goodbye My Lover' by James Blunt

Sorry, I know I've been kind of lazy. It's only that we've been busy and stuff.
SO. Denmark. After Christmas, we mainly had lazy days. Saw Narnia again with Sara, and cried eleven times, bought more stuff at H&M that I'm going to have to cart home etc etc.
We said goodbye to Leif and Martin on the 28th, and left at 4am in the morning on the 29th; Bodil drove us to the station and Inger met us there, so that was nice, and I hope I'll see them when they're next in Australia.
JUST caught the train, and lucky too: there were snowstorms in Denmark to the extent that public transport was completely shot, so we only just got out in time. After a few changes and a hideous fourteen hours on board having had about three hours sleep the night before, we finally arrived in Amsterdam. Guus met us at the station, and drove us back to their house in Almere, where we ate and fell into beds (we had the luxury of separate rooms, which did us a world of good!) before Linda got home. But we did see her in the morning, so that was OK. We spent most of the next day wandering around Amsterdam, getting aquainted, seeing the shops, eating at Vlaam's Frites, where you HAVE to get fries one day as they are actually the BEST FRIES IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD.
The next day was New Year's Eve, and we visited the tourist office to see what would be closed the next day. Consequently, I visited the Rijkmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, while Tegan went to the Dungeon which is some ride thing or something.
The Rijkmuseum was pretty awesome, although the exhibition was small, as they'll be doing renovations until 2008. Not that crash hot about Rembrandt, but I got to see some lovely Vermeer, as well as some dollshouses and cradles which were very interesting.
The Van Gogh museum was even better. Not just for the Van Gogh, which was of course spectactular, but also for the Manet and Monet and Pissaro and everything. It was all in such riotous colour - just gorgeous. I wanted to buy something there for Laura, but all the prints were impractical for carrying purposes and everything else was just a rip off.
New Year's Eve we spent very quietly, with Linda, Guus, Linda's mother, three of Linda's brothers and their families. At midnight though, the whole neighbourhoos set off their own fireworks! It was really amazing is a hideously dangerous way. Also, Tegan and I almost got hit by one of the fireworks, being fired off by a niece of Linda's in a most haphazard way. Also we both had this instinctive *BUSHFIRE* concern, even though there are very few trees and it's THE MIDDLE OF WINTER. With snow and everything.
So we went inside and ate and drank a lot instead.
I slept until 1pm the next day, which rather precluded doing anything particularly exciting, but we had booked tickets to Boom Chicago!, which is an improv comedy group in Amsterdam who perform in American... I mean Amenglish... I mean English. That was actually really funny and we both enjoyed it thoroughly.
On the second, we did one of my favourite things from Amsterdam, namely the Anne Frank House, which was just amazing. Really well set up to begin with, and also... just because I've been reading that book since I was about nine or ten, it was incredible to see where it all took place. I got quite teary, a la the Uffizi. Maxed out in the gift shop, and have been reading the definitive edition, which is excellent.
We also visited a market, but that wasn't so good.
Linda and Guus had very kindly offered to take us out for dinner that night, so we got home earlyish and went to dinner in a lovely homey feeling bar/restaurant, which also had the advantage of having excellent food. It was a really nice night.
When we got home, we said goodbye, as they were both leaving early the next morning, and went to bed.
Got up later than planned (again - could a theme be emerging?) and had to pack and stuff, so we did end up seeing Linda again after all! Caught the train into the city (did I mention how INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE that train is? TEN EURO FORTY. OMGWTF.), spent some time arguing with the Eurail lady, trying to get her to put an extra day on our tickets (it was worth a try), then Tegan went and waiting for the train, while I took a stroll to the post office to post some stuff home.
This was severly hampered by the fact that I couldn't put the box together. After about twenty minutes of fruitless struggle, I burst into tears and gave up. Walked back to the station, stopping on the way to buy two... pizza/hotdog/disgustingly overpriced... things from a sleazy Italian looking gentlemen who gave me a packet of M&Ms for free, possibly because he was aware that he was completely ripping me off in the worst way. Got back to the station, ate our lunch, then Tegan decided she wanted ice cream, so I went and bought some of that. Eventually we caught our next train to Berlin.
But Katherine, Berlin was never part of your plans!
Right you are, oh observant reader of mine. We are being spontaneous. We planned it three days in advance, but I'll thank you not to be so rude about it.
The journey was only four or five hours, and we arrived at our hostel around 9 or 10 at night. We'd booked beds in an eight person mixed dorm, and I at least was a little nervous, both aboud the dorm thing and the hostel thing, given our experiences in Hotel Richard. However, these fears proved unfounded. The hostel we stayed in, one of the Meininger city cahin, was clean, quiet, friendly, and the price included breakfast, lockers and bed sheets - a blessing not to be underestimated. The first night we were sharing with four or five guys who were travelling in a group before uni/jobs went back. They were onlx there for one more night, and gave us their museum pass, which had another day left on it, so that was nice.
On the other hand, they turned all the lights on at 6am in the morning, so that was not so nice.
We got up around 7, 7.30, and after locking everything down (pack zipper, pack cahined to bunk, everything else in locker) we headed out to see a little of Berlin. We started at the Jewish Museum, which was really very cool. I found the architecture a little obtuse, but the Jewish history exhibition was really interesting. The 3D film was terrible though - it professed to have English subtitles, but the talking was going a mile a minute and the captions... weren't. It'd be on something like 'in 1438' for about ten seconds. It was frustrating, because it meant that by the end of the sentence you'd have forgotten the beginning. Nonetheless, it was a very good museum.
After leaving and getting lunch, we headed over to Checkpoint Charlie. I knew absolutely nothing about the history or the Berlin Wall, so I found it really interesting.
I extraspecially liked the bits about Martin Luther King and Ghandi.
It was rather an emotional sequence of things to be doing though.
We visited a part of the Berlin wall briefly and then went to the Reichstag, where I had a bit of a sulk, being cold and tired. Eventually headed back to the hostel, and Tegan, bless her, did the laundry while I washed my hair and chatted to our new roomate, Dora from Bavaria, who was doing her dissertation in Mediaeval cartography at St. Andrews. Mmmmmm St. Andrews. Mmmmmmmm Mediaeval cartography.
Next day we checked out at ten and toted our bags to Berlin Zoo station, dumped them in a luggage locker, and then went to H&M. Bought stuff. Caught train back and had lunch.
Lunch was... well yes. We made the classic error of eating somewhere close to the station, which had an English menu. OH DEAR. I will swear to my dying day that the 'food' we ate was canned food heated up. Also the bathrooms appeared to be in the bowels of hell, and the service was not very friendly AT ALL.
We left as quickly as possible and went to a nearby Net Cafe/Dunkin Doughnuts where I continued work on this entry and also bought doughnuts.
We could see the bombed church too.
Tegan told me to say that. I think she feels I didn't really appreciate Berlin, which is quite probably true.
Anyway, we eventually caught our train to Munich, which was just not nice, because it was high speed and kept tilting and stuff. It made Tegan feel sick and we both got quite grumpy. Changed trains in Munich and ended up in a couchette with two American boys, who were very nice but also very drunk. We talked to them for a couple of hours until the Germans in the bottom bunk told us to have some respect and let them sleep. Which was fair enough as it was around one or two in the morning by this point.
Slept patchily until we got to Florence, where we bundled out, then got on the train for Rome.
Let me just take this opportunity to say how much I heart Italy. There was sun. SUN. And no stupid slushy snow. And Tuscan countryside. If I was the sort of person to go into raptures about rolling hills, I would, but I'm not so I won't.
Arrived in Rome, where jordan_and_kel were going to meet us at the station, but hadn't had confirmation and they weren't there, so we set off by ourselves to find the apartment. About a quarter way there, they called and caught up with us. So we all went to find the apartment together. After sitting at the door of the wrong house for about 30 minutes, we found it. We were early, tried to check in anyway, but the people weren't finished cleaning, so Kel and Jordan went to get their luggage while we waited.
FINALLY got inside, sorted money and stuff out and fell in complete and utter love with the apartment. The entrance way was divided in two by a heavy curtain and the second half had two single beds and a dining table in it, and thus became the dining room/Tegan and my room. To the right was a room with a double bed, our only window, a couch and a television, which started out as the living room, but ended up also being Kel's or Kel and Jordan's bedroom when occasion demanded. The room also ajoined to a little hallway and a bathroom complete with shower.
Off the entrance hall to the left was a very low doorway opening onto a series of stone stairs leading down to the bomb shelter/kitchen which (thank goodness) DID have a stove, after all my worrying, and also a fridge, toaster, oven etc. Lovely. Down another smaller set of stairs was the biggest, nicest bedroom, which was Kel and Jordan's room, and also crockery storage. It had a little bathroom without a shower too.
Now I am going to have to stop the day by day thing, because Jordan lent me his notes but I forgot them (also my phone, and they're meant to be pranking me when they're at the Uffizi, so methinks I might end up missing that, which I HATE. Stupid brain). But I can tell you some of the things we did.
- The Monument of Vittorio Emmanuel and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier AKA giant wedding cake. Lots of stairs.
- The Argentinian Ruins AKA Kel's cat santuary
- The Colosseum, which was pretty awesome, and where we paid for a guided tour, which was totally worth it for all the historical information about killing stuff and filling the building with water to have sea battles and the crazy emperor who killed some of the audience to liven stuff up
- The forum. Another guided tour complete with the sotry of Romulus and Remus.
- The Spanish Steps. None of us found them particularly impressive. Or Spanish, actually.
- The Trevi Fountain. We met Nick and Jake here on maybe the second or third day. Nick is bald now. U threw a coin into the fountain.
- The Vatican Museums. Really very cool. Quite clearly, my favourite part was the Sistine Chapel which is INCREDIBLE, especially The Last Judgement and also especially being an art nerd and picking out who did which frescoes. Also nice to see 'The School of Athens', which Mrs Brotchie told us summed up the Renaissance for her. Mostly wandered with Nick, as Kel, Tegan and Jordan got bored.
- St. Peter's Basilica. Climbed it first. Pretty much killed my hips for the next two days, but ti was a great view. Only had a brief look around the interior. I think I spent about 45 minutes looking at the Pieta. I can't really remember very well, only that it's my favourite statue ever in the whole world ever.
- Met Nick and Jake's respective Rome girls, Shayla and Nicole. Nicole came to the apartment for a drink and she was really nice. Didn't really talk to Shayla.
- Nun counts. 69 was the highest, 6 the lowest for any given day.
- Pompeii. We went here on my birthday and I LOVED it, except that everyone else felt sick, so I ended up visiting about a quarter of it, and not finding the fresco I wanted to see. Bought a book though. Very ghost town ish. And the plaster casts of bodies were really distressing. But the frescoes in the Villa of Mysteries were AMAZING. SO well preserved. And the houses and... and... *dissolves in history geekiness*
- My and Nick's birthday. We went out for dinner, but Tegan, Kel and Jordan were still feeling awful, and Nick and Jake had met up with their girls, so I didn't go out or anything. Got some awesome presents though, including a book on subterranean Rome, lovely earrings, some t-shirts, a Danish fairy tale from the Damsgaard family, and some underwear from Sara (THANK YOU!). Also lots of nice birthday wishes by phone and email, for which I thank you all.
So now we're in Florence, established in a very nice hostel in Via Ghibellina, and I haven't really SEEN anything, but it's SO nice just to be back. Tomorrow I'll probably have a research day, traipsing around the churches of Florence looking for pictures of St. Catherine.
Tonight, Tegan and I have a big fat surprise planned for Kel and Jordan though. They know they're getting a surprise, but they don't know what it is.
Don't tell them, but we're taking them to see James Blunt, and my whole day yesterday was absorbed in getting tickets and hunting down the venue. Special.
Tegan and I had a terrible dinner last night. Just awful. So we had to have gelati to make it better.
Send them all get well wishes, especially Jordan, who is full of mucus and snoring like you wouldn't believe.
Lots of love and apologies for so late an update.
Miss you all (and happy birthday to Jessie!)
Katherine

p.s. Beth and/or Sarah, did you end up getting those tickets for us? Let us know ASAP so we can try and get some otherwise.