never say rome, its roma...

when we first got to florence, a very serious store vendor warned me this when i accidently asked for via roma. i took note.

coconut&mango, chocolate&raspberry, yogurt&lemon, cantoloup&pineapple, coffee&hazelnut...those are all the gellato combos i've had throughout the duration of my trip. fortunately we do lots of walking and its too hot to eat big meals, and i sweat a lot...so my clothing still fits. somehow i broke yet another pair of shoes. and today i treated myself to a new pair of berkenstalks! i really like them, they are quite the popular design here in eeurope too, so now iàm not so bum like.

today we went to see the david at galleria academia, we didn't take anyones advice(because we forgot) and didn't reserve so we waited in line for over 2 hours. but i think it was actually worth it. i was very impressed. then we went to this restaurant that a friend recommended (il latini) it was really good. we got the works (i had a porkchop,salad,wine,espresso,chocolate tort,and dessertwine). then we went shopping and viewed som really expensive items.

we got some food from a nearby grocery and then headed up to a lookout of the city once it cooled down some. its been very warm, i'd say 90s everyday and humid...so its hard to be too busy during the day.

cinque terre

some highlights of cinque terre= watching the final of the world cup in an outdoor cafe next to some crazy australians and some germans and italians. during the game a line of men wtih orange afro wigs on bicycles road by (routing for netherlands). yesterday we woke up at 530 to beat the avoid too much sunshine and did the 10km hike from our town (riomaggiore to monterosso) we made it through on the trail in about 5 hours. it was a really nice hike. we got gellato and swam some more in the mediterranean once we hit monterosso. the water was really really great, we had our first italian pizza and then went for a night swim. i could have stayed in the water forever. then on i did some yoga on this rock wall out facing the sea. after that we met our new hostel roommate who showed us the rocky beach in our town, we attended the towns live reggae performance with a bunch of other tourists in the town square. we learned that on friday when we first came into town, itd been 111 degrees...

nice

pictures- gardens in nice. -pride pink parade that we ran into on the beach (i got a flag in english by durex saying i heart sex and walked a little with them) not quite as good as pride in seattle. roman ruins in nice, we also went to a matisse museum.

Cannes et Monaco

today we took a train from Nice to Cannes, a swanky beach town with the coast lined with fancy fancy hotel resorts and soft sandy beaches. then to Monaco where we just explored off the train station to the beach boardwalk lined with a mini kids carnival and some adult hokey entertainment too. there was this weird crane thing and you could pay to eat dinner up on this hanging platform in the air, just strapped in dangling up there. we had to catch the train before we could see the fireworks and live music unfortunately. these towns seemed more populated by rich european tourists than anything. lots of designer shopping bags and high-heeled shoes to say the least. best part was that hannah and (maybe i should just speak for myself) i walked around like hobos. especially me, due to my floss shoe which broke (i later repaired it on the train between stops) but i had to walk the city barefoot amongst the designer labels. only got 2 wierd stares...then we didn't have a spoon for our grocery store dinner so i used an orange peel to scoop couscous. only a minute later, a pigeon (possibly recognizing my level of cleanliness after a day in salt water) skimmed the top of my head! i've never been touched by a bird in its landing course and was not thrilled. at least it was just its feet rather than something else. we weren't really motivated to find monte carlo, but we checked out some of the gigantic yachts owned by some of europes fufu class. not too shabby.

AArrr AAAH VU uaH PAR eeeee!

yesterday, hannah and i hopped a train (actually after much dramatic difficulties acquiring affordable needed train tickets last minute during high peak travel season, some how i always end up with a few stress tears per trip...BUT all is now well and we are past it) leaving paris. before leaving the busy city which has way too many museums and historic relics to consider ever conquering all of them, we did go o n some day trips to versaille and monet's garden. both were impressive. versaille was neat if you walked to the outskirts away from all the other tourists. we've been packing picnics everyday of baguettes and fresh cheese |(cheese is so much cheaper in france) and veggies. so we picnicked somewhere where i might imagine some sort of pride and predjudice lover's quarrell, or maybe some sword fight. there are big maze gardens and a huge man made pond. monet's garden had this cool apple tree that'd been made to grow side ways. it had apples on it that i wanted to steal. it also made me want more flowers in my own garden, and maybe a nice lily pond. its kind of sad however becasue the french seem to have decided to build a road in the middle of monet's garden.

we are now on the mediterranean. headed out for a day at the beach in nice!

BonJour!

Hello from Paris! I've been here for 2 full days now and seen A LOT. (yesterday we walked, according to googlemaps 8.75 miles) Which, doesn't necessarily seems like a ridiculous feet, however according to Sara's brother on the metro train ride home, and the level of pain in the right arch of my foot and me looking not like I'm dying but like death itself...is a lot of walking. First Sunday's in Paris are free museum days, so I've covered the Louvre, and the Musee d'Orsay. I still want to see the Thinker. But I've also realized that 1. I don't really remember any European/and/or French history that I might have ever happened to learn in my life and 2. A whole lot of old art gets boring to me fast. Maybe that makes me slightly less cultured and seemingly ignorant in a country so rich of history and culture (but I'll accept and move on). Yesterday we hit up a bunch of parks (good to rest your feet and nap), and big monuments such as the eifel tower and notre dam. Its pretty amazing to think how ancient some of the places are. Food high lights have been baguettes and the best cheeses ever which are really cheap. And yesterday we bought some quish from a little restaurant window that was really good. I'm staying at an apartment, on the top floor which Sara (a friend from GHS),, her brother has rented for the month. It is really nice, we take over the entire upper loft floor. Its a very old builiding and the stairs are warn and warped. Yesterday I think I heard a rat rumbling in the wall. But it is great to have a real home to stay. And this morning we are off to Versaille! More to come (hopefully).