As it will likely be a while before I HTMLize any of my honeymoon travel journal, here's a brief day-by-day of the events. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll soil yourself. Or something like that.

Monday 28May Flight supposed to leave SF Airport at 12pm. Flight is delayed until 3pm. Must be me -- my last long flight was also delayed three hours. Will I ever break the streak? Nonstop flight to London Heathrow on United. Decent food. :)

Tuesday 29May I think I slept about one hour on the flight. (My achilles' heel: inability to sleep on planes.) Shortly before we landed, Bruce had walked back to ask something of the flight attendants, and mentioned that we were starting our honeymoon. They mentioned that they "had something for us," and brought us a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne!! Now that's a wedding gift. Now, to figure out how to lug it around with the luggage...

We landed in London but were staying in Bath. On the way there, we dropped by Windsor to look at the castle. At the time, we had no British currency, but we couldn't find a non-pay parking area... what to do? We finally sneaked into some residential street parking, found a cash machine, and got a paid (and legal!) spot. Saw the castle, made the way out to Bath -- much longer than we'd hoped with little sleep. Especially since the B&B's directions didn't quite work -- Bath was trying out an "experimental traffic system" which meant that half of the street signs weren't there. Not an experiment I wished to participate in!

Greasy pub grub for dinner. Hey, it was a short walk from the hotel. We were certainly beat.

Wednesday 30May First night at a really great B&B, the Lavender House in Bath. The hosts are extremely gracious and great to talk with! (Unfortunately since it's 15 minutes from the city center, it doesn't make it into many guidebooks.) Spent the day touring the Roman baths -- a fabulous experience if you forget about over-dramatization on the audio tour. Hard for us Americans to fathom something like this, 2000 years old! Then, we went to the Costume Museum. While some might find period clothing uninteresting, Bruce and I found the museum to be an interesting commentary on society through the ages. Had to have a Thai food fix, and ended the evening with the hilarious Bizarre Bath walk.

Thursday 31May Road-tripped today to Stonehenge and Avebury. I thought Stonehenge was going to be "just a bunch of stones," but the information given was much more than that. While in Avebury, I experienced my first (of many) real cream tea. Better not have too many, if I want to fit in my clothes by the end of the trip! We went on another walk this evening, the Ghost Walk, led by a young college student who showed his inexperience. Greatly recommend Bizarre Bath over the Ghost Walk.

Friday 1June We were sad to leave the hospitality of the Lavender House, and we hoped that our other accomodations would be equally as nice. Drove through western England and part of Wales up to Chester. What a gorgeous valley!! We didn't stop in any of the little Welsh towns, but Tintern will need a visit on a future trip. Partway up, we were able to reserve B&B's in Chester and York, meaning all accomodations were accounted for. We thought we were about an hour out of Chester, so we spent some time at Stokesay Castle -- way out in the boonies, so it was pretty untouristed. When we left here, found out that timidity of British drivers would lose us some time, and it took us much longer to get to Chester. Not knowing whether the host would stay beyond 6pm, Bruce quickly adapted to local driving customs, passing within lanes and such, and got us there rather quickly. We got there at 6:15, and luckily, we were able to get a room. Dinner that evening was at a great pub in town.

Saturday 2June Was raining in the morning, but that wasn't going to stop us form a short walk around Chester before going on to York. While eating breakfast, we shared a table with three college-age Welsh girls who had come to Chester because "the shopping is better." They were our "first" Welsh people, and we wonder if we were their first Americans, the way they were amused by pretty much anything we said. I mentioned that most American tour books show that Wales isn't that different from England, except that the book will show a sign with a really long Welsh name on it -- that's the impression most Americans get. They liked this.

Our stroll around the city wall included a stop at a used book store, but knowing that we'd have to tote all of the luggage for a month (including purchases) I bought only one small book. Soon after, we left for York on a rather uneventful drive, other than Bruce polishing up the techniques he'd learned the day before. We ate unimpressive Indian food (which I'd hoped would be good in England) and went on the York Ghost Walk, which was a HOOT!

Sunday 3June Full day in York, including stops to the Jorvik Viking Centre, the Minster, and the Castle Museum. The Castle Museum was very impressive (but made for a long day). The Viking Centre... it was a joke. The only "fossils" of the past they had displayed seemed to be "Viking poo," their words. I was hoping this would be better...

York is chilly, even in summer. Reminds me of the years I lived in San Francisco. Yum.

Monday 4June Last day with the rental car, which we dropped back off at Heathrow before going into London. On the way from York to London, we made a quick stop by Newark-on-Trent just to buy postcards (my grandfather helped found Newark, CA, so I figured he'd be amused). We made another stop in Cambridge -- we couldn't tour any of the schools due to exams, so we went into a textbook store and bought some textbooks (geeks!) -- mine music, his physics.

After dropping the car at Heathrow, we had the lovely experience of dealing with the Tube at rush hour with luggage in tow. I don't want to repeat that experience, but I guess it was a good introduction to dealing with all of our baggage on the trains for the rest of the trip. The tube took us almost directly to our South Kensington hotel.

Tuesday 5June After much debate on how best to see a city as extensive as London, we agreed on the London Walks. We tried a morning walk which told us about the humorous history of the current financial district area, and it was great, definitely a good choice. There's no way one can scratch the surface of London in three days, so we're doing what we can. After the walk, we climbed up the 500-someodd steps to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral... a bit spooky to be out on the top platform with a mere railing between you and a large drop. We cautiously walked around the viewing area and snapped a few pictures.

After that, we took a brief rest at the hotel, during which I became very worried. We were a week into the trip, and I was definitely having knee problems from the day's walking and climbing. (I'm missing some of the cartilage in my left knee due to a blowout/surgery/more injury in college. Never really bothers me much. Now is not the time to start.) If I was hurting this much now, what would I feel like three weeks into the trip? I figured I couldn't worry about that now, and loaded up on ibuprofen for another evening walk, this one around the pubs of London. (This was preceded by very good Indian food. I figured it was somewhere!) We stopped at four pubs of differing history and architecture, trying English bitters, finding out (to our delight) that bitters really aren't very bitter to us. We crawled back to the hotel that evening.

Wednesday 6June Knee feeling OK -- maybe it was all those stairs at St. Paul's. We'll take it day-by-day. We are becoming the poster children for the London Walks, since this was the day that we took the all-day city tour walk, hitting all of the highlights (at least on the outside). While starting on this journey, I actually ran into someone from home! She doesn't live in the area now, but we belonged to the same gym five years ago. Amazing who you run into when you're on a different continent!

We walked everywhere between Big Ben and Trafalgar Square, learning little facts and details along the way. This walk was being led by the same woman who led our Tuesday morning walk, and we were happy to have her lead again. The day culminated with a river cruise to the Tower of London, and a tour around there. Never thought I'd be so interested in seeing the crown jewels there, but they do a good job of explaining how each item is used during the queen's coronation ceremony, giving it all more meaning. Shortly after 5pm, we were beat from the whole day's activities, so we went back to the hotel and ate a local dinner.

Thursday 7June Our last full day here, in this fabulous city. We have somewhat recovered from yesterday's long day, so we take yet another "London Walk" out to Greenwich, home of the Cutty Sark and Greenwich Mean Time. Less interesting than the other walks, but got to see the "ball drop" on the top of the building indicating noon GMT. (More like "ball sag." Very anticlimactic. ;) Had authentic fish and chips after that, and having clogged our arteries thoroughly, we did a bit of souvenir shopping. Were going to go back to some of the main sights and go inside, but they were too expensive... so instead, we got on a city bus for a ride/sightsee adventure, then wandered through Harrod's. Complete over-the-top, but fun. Like the Disneyland of department stores. Bruce did, however, find a book he'd been looking for! Tired.

Friday 8June Out to Waterloo Station with our luggage, including champagne -- can't ship that home from the UK legally. Rode the Eurostar through the Chunnel to Paris. Chunnel trains are great, clean, new. Best orange juice we've had in a long time. Dare I say ever?

Got to Paris, where we didn't stay -- we were headed for Switzerland, and had to transfer to a Geneva-bound train. But since this train was departing from another station, we had to take the Paris Metro to get to the other train. I've heard from many people how "easy" the Metro is to use, and I could see that might be the case if one had the currency to pay for it in an easy fashion. (Since we weren't staying, we didn't want to change money there.) We eventually got through there with some time to spare, hustling through onto the Metro car.

Then I realized: I put my Metro ticket *in* the machine, but I forgot to take it back out to exit at the other end. I had thoughts of $30 penalties for having lost my ticket, not to mention dealing with the situation in enough time to get to our train. When we got to the other end, I found an employee, who didn't seem to understand English. So I spoke slowly in French: I forgot my ticket in the machine at the Paris Nord station. He didn't get that, either. We finally gave up and, much to our surprise, we were waved through the handicap exit without tickets being taken. So much for brushing up on my college French!!

The train ride was rather unremarkable... nothing good or bad on which to comment. Got into Geneva around 6:30, and figured we should use the train desks to make the final train reservations which we couldn't make from home. We "took our ticket" to wait in line. We were number 787, and the "number being helped" was 690. Going to be a long night.

We finally got out of there, having realized that we actually *didn't* have most of the tickets we needed for our scenic Alps journey (losing faith in travel agent) and paying out the nose for the rest of those. Late dinner, off to hotel in pouring rain outside.

Saturday 9June I'd mostly stayed in Geneva because I'd heard good things about boat trips across the lake and visits to the Chateau Chillon. I added an extra day in there to "see things in Geneva." Yeah, right, a town whose biggest claim to fame is the highest waterspout in the world -- not that we could see it through all the rain. We took this day as a rest day. There are some great pictures of us playing life-size chess in the park, however, and we found a fabulously architected courtyard at the top of a hill. Will have to orchestrate an architecture trip in the future!

Actually, it was more like a wild goose chase around the city to find information on when and where boats would be leaving to the Chateau (free as a perq of our Eurail pass). We finally found out and rested in the room for the remainder of the day, trying not to buy much food-wise -- this is an expensive country. But we had to buy some chocolate. ;)

Sunday 10June Up early to catch the boat to the other end of Lake Geneva. Still pouring outside, can't see a whole lot. Of course, this meant we couldn't see a whole lot from the boat. Oh well, at least we didn't pay for it. But it was a long 5 hour trip, and we struggled to stay awake so that we wouldn't miss our stop.

After seeing some of the castles in England, the Chateau Chillon paled in comparison. It did look really cool on the outside. However, on the inside, there were many cases of "we think this may have been a bedroom, or perhaps a dressing room, or perhaps something else" that just felt cheap.

Rather than taking the boat home for 5 hours again, we boated to the neighboring town of Montreux to catch a train back to Geneva -- just over an hour. Much better. And the cheapskates that we are -- we ate at Pizza Hut down the street... but we had the most *fabulous* pizza, Pizza Indienne, lots of curry -- YUM!!

Monday 11June Out of Geneva today, where it's sunny for the first time since our arrival. We took a few trains (barely making the last connection) to the town of Zermatt, at the foot of the Matterhorn, near the Italian border. Now this is a cute little town. It's obviously quite touristy, and we were apparently lucky to hit it before peak tourist season, but it was still enjoyable. Small, no cars allowed in the town, we walked to everything. Views up the mountains obscured by too many ski lodges, but that was our only real complaint about the place. Ate authentic fondue for dinner.

Tuesday 12June Full day in Zermatt. After being visited in the breakfast room by the neighborhood cat, we headed for the hills. It was sunny and cool -- perfect conditions for a hike. We found the trail at the south end of town and just hiked UP. And up and up. We spent about 1 1/2 hours going up... and 20 minutes coming back down into town. Got more pictures of the Matterhorn as well as little valleys -- it was also neat to be above the gondola lines at one point. But the most amusing part of this journey -- every time we came to a crossroads, the signs would point all sorts of directions, with one pointing from where we came: "Zermatt 20 minutes." I couldn't believe it -- all signs said the same thing, no matter how high we climbed. But would you believe they were all right? ;)

Spent the rest of the day resting and souvenir shopping. Unfortunately, even though this is about the quintessential Swiss chalet town, nothing we could find, souvenirs-wise, could convey the cuteness. So we didn't buy much.

Wednesday 13June Wednesday the 13th... Today was the day of the Glacier Express ride, the much-touted train ride through the Alps, supposedly very scenic. Frankly, our experience sucked. The views from the train weren't all that different from the ground -- I was hoping to snake around sides of mountains, when all we did was go between them, just like a road could have. It wasn't until the end of the ride, the part *covered* by our Eurail pass, that we actually liked the scenery. Not only that -- it was advertised as having overhead window observer cars -- we didn't get one of those, just an ordinary train with a lousy PA system (so we couldn't hear any of the "look to your right and you'll see..." announcements). Apparently only *some* of the Glacier runs use the viewing cars, and we weren't told which one (even though we paid the same amount of money). Still feel horribly ripped off from that.

By the end of that day, the 9 hour train ride, I had quite a headache -- also hadn't had much to eat or drink, since everything (including water!!) was expensive. So we settled down in our hotel in St. Moritz at the other end, and I went to sleep not too long afterwards. It's too bad, since the view from the room was GREAT across the lake and to the mountain on the other side, and there was a fabulous thunderstorm that night. It looked magical -- I'm glad we have pictures!

Thursday 14June I woke up feeling like I had a sinus infection. Completely congested and in pain on the left side. I dreaded having to find a doctor to get me antibiotics over here. But a few hours and much decongestant later, and I just felt mildly stuffy, nothing wrong. Whew.

We trained on from our overnight stop, into Italy. We had a scenic (free) ride down out of the mountains, and transfered to a train to go to Milan.

Took us a while to find our hotel in Milan, due to street names changing in inopportune places... So much for being cocky about our meager knowledge of Italian. We knew how to say "Dov'e Via Felice Casati?" but couldn't quite interpret the 50-mile-per-hour responses in Italian. We eventually found our way... And we were dressed for the morning's 50 degrees rather than the current 80 in Milan. We found the place (after struggling in our rusty Italian), put on shorts, and took a walk, finding a good gelato place that served as the evening's dessert.

Friday 15June A day in Milan. Most incredible church adventure in Il Duomo, the third biggest church in Europe. Not only were we allowed in the church, but we were allowed to climb onto the *roof*, putting us face-to-face with the architecture and all of the carvings. This was time well-spent.

The excellent exchange rate meant that prices were really good for everything. I couldn't resist, I had to buy some things -- jewelry, clothes, etc. There was a place we could ship from in the morning, so that would work well. More gelato to end the evening.

But my biggest victory of the day was going into the pharmacy (not many are English-speaking) and asking for contact lens solution in Italian. Didn't look at the book or anything. Somehow I had it all memorized and could do it!

Amazing that a major industrial city like Milan isn't very English-speaking. I was surprised... but the tourist industry is minimal here.

Saturday 16June Unfortunately, with all the Italian shipping regulations, our package cost $180 to ship home. Oy! On the other hand, we could legally ship the champagne home from here, so we took care of that.

Train down to the Italian Riviera today. Wanted to visit the Cinque Terre, and a friend had suggested staying in Santa Margherita, an hour train ride from the Cinque Terre. When we got to Santa Margherita... it immediately felt like a beach resort, overpriced, noisy. Our hotel, claiming to be a four-star, looked about as good as a Motel 6 (but cost a lot!). Our immediate response: we *had* to find someplace else. So we pulled out the trusty Rick Steves book, suggesting a few places in Vernazza, and headed for the train down there (the last of the day).

But we got partway there on the train, and stopped in one station where everyone got off. We got off, too, and saw that the track ended there... hey, what's happening? We asked a conductor how to get to Vernazza, and she waved her hand in the direction of the tracks that continued on, "that one." She didn't specify which one of the three, but we got on one, and hoped it would work. It eventually did.

The train ride took almost two hours, thanks to the transfer. We sat across from a German couple who only spoke a few words of English, trying to confirm with each other that this was indeed the right train. Unfortunately German is one language I can't even begin to speak!

We got there, finding out that we either had to take a train back in 40 minutes or wait until midnight. That left us little time to work. We asked around to a few of the obvious places (no hotels in this town, all little guest rooms) with no luck. So we entered a souvenir shop, assuming their English would be good, and ran into a waiter who said "come back by 11 tomorrow, I'll find you a room." Hm. Well, we decided to trust the guy, and figured that's what we'd do. Having come to the town, this *HAD* to be the place we were staying -- another cute, cozy-atmopshere town where we felt like locals.

We got back to Santa Margherita (eventually, after the same transfer) and notified our hotel that we'd be leaving after one night... but they told us no, that we had a two night minimum. Not that we'd been told about it. We argued and argued about it, finally deciding that we'd eat the money if we had to. I trust our travel agent even less.

Sunday 17June Out of Santa Margherita early, where the manager finally decided to make us only pay for one night... whew. I was happy to be done with that place.

When we arrived in Vernazza, we found our waiter, who made a good 10 calls and finally found us someone who would meet us after noon mass. Until then, we sat on the rocks and enjoyed the town, the small cove...

When noon rolled around, the woman wasn't showing up. Our waiter called and called -- even called her mom to try to find her. (That kind of town!) When she didn't show by 12:30, we were told to go with another man who'd been waiting off to the side, said to have a better room, anyway. We followed the man up stairs, through narrow alleyways, rather quickly -- he had it easy since he had no luggage! We eventually got to a room that was quite nice! A full bathroom setup, plenty of room for the two of us, about $50 a night. Excellent! The guy didn't speak English, so it was a challenge with us speaking in halting Italian. He told me that he spoke French, which I tried, but he didn't quite understand me -- I think he speaks French with an Italian accent.

We set out to start the Cinque Terre hikes -- trails linking the five Mediterranean riviera towns together. This is the area where the water is a gorgeous turquoise color. Turn the temperature down by 10 degrees, and this would be heaven. First came the "two hours -- hard" to Corniglia. Yes, quite a challenge. Lots of up and down through terraced vineyards, narrow paths with a cliff dropoff to one side. I hoped I didn't have to learn to say "I broke my ankle" in Italian. But I certainly needed these hikes, as I can see that several pounds have found their way onto my body. We got to Corniglia, and continued on an easier, paved path to Manarola. It was about dinner time when we were finished with that, so we trained back to Vernazza and ate at our waiter's restaurant, the Trattoria Gianni. Pesto to DIE for, the best I've ever had. We learned that the waiter who did the search for us (who also waited on us) is Valerio, and that we're renting a room from Mario. Valerio speaks excellent English, and he seems to be popular with the tourists for chatting. Particularly single women. ;)

We feel much better staying here.

Monday 18June More Cinque Terre hiking today. First on the agenda was the next hard hike from Vernazza to Monterosso. This was definitely hard, and it was dusty and overgrown. Didn't like this one so much. But we hiked in swimsuits, since Monterosso has a beach, and we jumped in the Mediterranean once we were done with the hike -- that felt great. Before we hit dinner, we headed for the last of the 5 Cinque Terre hikes, the one from Manarola to Riomaggiore, known as the Via dell'Amore for the views. We saved it for the end because it's short and easy! We trained down to Manarola and found the route from the train station to be closed. So we hiked uphill through the town (ohhhh, our tired legs) to try to find an alternative route. We learned that this end was closed, that we'd have to take the train to Riomaggiore and walk from that end, and loop back to that town. Grumble. But we took the train down there, and the Via dell'Amore was closed for repairs. (Apparently a mudslide there last week.) Sigh. We did all of the hard ones, and now we can't do the easy one? This was disappointing -- it would've been cool to have hiked the whole Cinque Terre coastline.

Ate slightly inferior pesto that evening.

Tuesday 19June We were sad to leave Vernazza and the Cinque Terre, definitely a highlight of the trip. We hung out at the waterfront as long as we could before we had to catch the train.

We took the train through Milan to another recommended location, Lake Como. While en-route, we shared a train compartment with a couple from Oregon and had a nice chat. We found that we occasionally would find great people to chat with to pass the train time.

We arrived in Como, which felt... from the train station, like a run-down California town. We weren't too impressed. (Note to self: second-guess recommendations of others.) After dropping things at the hotel, we went for a walk around town, hoping to find a nice place for dinner (since it was our one-monthiversary!). Didn't find a whole lot, except a bunch of closed sidewalks and roads thanks to flooding earlier in the week. This definitely slowed our plans a bit, but it was good to take a break from constant sightseeing, anyway.

While we were out, however, I was finding the air extremely hard to breathe, maybe from all of the haziness. The air was pretty gross. I just wasn't getting enough breath the whole night. I *did* have asthma ten years ago, but have hardly ever had to use medication since, so I didn't bring it. Was that a mistake? I felt so bad that we just had to go back to the hotel and postpone the celebration dinner.

Wednesday 20June In Como for one day, decided to rest instead of doing a whole lot. We wandered the town, not really finding a whole lot to do what with flooding (even the church was undergoing refurbishing, so we couldn't look at that). We did find a GREAT gelato place, tons of selection, the owner had a great sense of humor. The one redeeming factor.

Also bought cherries from a streetside market. I wasn't realizing how much I was getting for a kilo, so I asked for one -- it was cheap, under $3 for the entire kilo! (Besides, I didn't want to resort to English for ordering!!) It was also huge... I knew I'd be eating cherries for days.

We asked around to find a romantic restaurant for the evening, to continue our monthiversary plans, but the one recommended didn't have menu items we liked. So we ate local pizza in an outdoor cafe. Besides, once the evening set in, I couldn't breathe the air much again, so it wasn't a very celebratory atmosphere. I needed to get out of Como.

Thursday 21June We were finally getting out of Como! Took a later train (1pm) so we could get a direct train to Venice. Italian trains can run up to half an hour late, and we didn't want to have to trust enough time to transfer. But I was amused by the logo on the side of the trains... a blue and green pastel graphic, reminded me of a feminine protection logo. (Bruce had the same reaction!!!) Before we left, we stopped by our favorite gelato place once more. Really good strawberry and green apple...

We got to Venice around 5:30 (train was *supposed* to arrive at 5) and wandered out to the "bus" station, a boat that would take us to our hotel near St. Mark's Square. We got on the 82 line, which unfortunately stops at a lot of popular destinations and was quite crowded, I generally don't mind public transportation crowds, but with luggage, it's tougher. I must say, though, that it's been interesting watching the obvious small-town tourists dealing with public transportation and other big-city stuff.

The air feels much better here than in Como, at least for now. We got to our hotel, dumped off the bags, and headed for the waterfront, the Grand Canal. Getting there was a bit of a pain, since for some reason, the tourists think it's "cute" to be surrounded by the million pigeons on the square. Those things are *rats*! Why do people like them? And those that end up covered with dozens of them, having covered themselves in seed... I just don't get it, they're dirty!

Had another pizza dinner tonight (note: sit away from waterfront, cheaper meal!!) and enjoyed hearing the dueling bands at the outdoor cafes -- all playing American music, of course. Had gelato afterwards, ordering in Italian as we had at all other locations, and the server insisted that we order in English instead. A city where everyone speaks English. Hm. Don't know that I like that.

Friday 22June The air was feeling a bit thick again for me... sigh. Can't get air I can breathe anywhere these days.

In the morning, we took a boat over to the Murano glass factory. Amusing seeing the "boat gas stations" along the waterside. It's fascinating to watch the glass makers, and of course, we wanted to buy something. Unfortunately we had our hearts set on a $600 set of red glasses and a decanter... how to budget for this... Then we realized that Bruce's mom's neighbor wanted to buy us a fancy, showy gift and didn't want to spend under $500. We were so perplexed, wondering what to do, then realized, this is IT! So we bought it... and assume we'll be reimbursed.

Rest of the day was spent at streetside vendors, more cheap stuff to be found, gifts for ourselves, gifts for family. Hard to pry ourselves out of the tourist crowd. By midday, I wasn't feeling well again -- in fact, as we sat on the edge of a bridge near the Rialto, I was close to gasping for breath, felt a large weight on my chest, and just couldn't get enough air. A scary situation. We slowly walked back to the room (luckily walking around seems to help) and decided that we'd hit a pharmacy to see what we could find...

I was able to get the same medicine I was prescribed years ago, over the counter for $4. So we picked it up, I used it immediately, and got a bit of relief, although not a whole lot. It kept me from feeling quite so horrible, but it didn't solve the problem entirely...

Mostly rested for the remainder of the night. I hope I make it through the rest of the trip.

Saturday 23June A tough day to get through. I was needing to sit and rest fairly frequently, since I felt so bad, but we needed to check out of our hotel in the morning, and wouldn't be catching a train again until 9pm. So we had almost 10 hours that we'd be at loose ends in the city, a city which doesn't have much free seating (everything seems to be a cafe).

I am now understanding why so many people were telling me that I *had* to go to Venice, but that two days would be enough. I kept thinking, if it's so great, why not stay longer? The tourists are awful. So many "Ugly Americans." But the city itself has a good feel. Maybe we'll come back in January, or something.

Spent the day wandering as much as we could, taking advantage of seating as we could, sometimes in the lobby of our hotel (also a source of free, clean bathrooms!). It was tough for me to get through.

Our night train to Vienna left outside of the city, so we had to take a train there and transfer. Left lots of time in case the train ran 1/2 hour late, or something. Ended up with tons of time sitting on the station platform. Oh well.

We got into the night train, and while the 6-person compartment is much cheaper, we definitely appreciated paying more for the private 2-person. Comfy bunk beds, our own sink, a sitting area -- a bit tight, but it's a train, after all. Ended up not sleeping too well, though, since the ride through the Alps was a bit rough. It was a fun experience. Once. ;)

Sunday 24June Got into Vienna South station at 6:30 am on a Sunday. Our hotel was downtown, just off the Metro, which luckily departed from the train station. But we needed cash to feed the ticket machines, and all *three* ATM's in the train station were broken... We hit the road, walking toward the next station, and we found a bank and working ATM.

Took the Metro to the pension I'd booked over email. But it ends up I hadn't really booked it: I'd checked for the availability, but apparently hadn't confirmed that I wanted the room. ARGH!!! I was so upset with myself. Luckily they could put us up for one night and would look around for us for the other two nights.

Killed time until the room was ready walking through the downtown area. Lots of parks. Lots of runners and people outdoors. I like this place!

Got our hotel room, but tried not to nap, to not disrupt my sleeping schedule. Unfortunately a lot of Vienna is shut down on Sundays, even restaurants, so there wasn't a whole lot to do. We *did* find a bookstore with English books and had a nice chat with a few people there. (Note to self: great city, great business to run in the future... maybe... ;)

Found an open restaurant, went to the 24/7 gelato place, and turned in for the night.

Monday 25June Got up and wandered 5 minutes down the street to the hotel that the Pension had kindly found for us. Another very nice place with a spacious room (and one of the cheaper ones of our trip) -- even had a chaise longue!

But not much time for resting -- needed to sightsee. We started by walking through the Stephansdom, the big church in the area. Definitely different architecture, including the sculpture of the martyr with many spikes through the body. We then went on to the State Opera House, for their tour. Shortly before the tour, however, I had more trouble breathing. I'd thought it was due to pollution, but this was a fairly clean city, so I was confused. Bruce was going to take me back to the hotel room instead, but I pushed on with the tour, and I'm glad! It was amazing to watch all of the stage hands set up for that night's opera, La Traviata. (We've decided we want to live there and work building the sets...)

Shopping outside the Opera House was great -- I got some music scarves to wear for performances, as well as a bunch of gifts for music friends. We went on to walk through the manicured gardens and take some pictures of those. I'd really wanted a picture of a scuplture of Mozart at the end of a red treble clef in a patch of grass... but when we got there, we saw that Mozart was under scaffold. Oh well, we can Photoshop that out? ;) Then, we returned to the Stephansdom for the tour of the crypts. A bit spooky to stand right beside the room holding the bones of the dead from the plague!

We ate dinner at Vienna's oldest restaurant, started in 1447. Wow! The room we sat in was signed by lots of well-knowns -- Beethoven, Bismarck, Strauss, Barry Manilow.

Tuesday 26June WHAT A BREAKFAST SPREAD!!!! Champagne, all sorts of meats and sausages, all you can eat... wow, I could get fat on this!!

Last full day of the trip, and I'm glad, as I've grown really weary. Today will be a record-heat day throughout the continent, into the 90's on the fahrenheit scale. We went out to the Schloss Schonbrunn, the royal palace. Their "new" audio tour of the palace kept on breaking and was less than informative, so we walked out on that and spent the remainder of our time in the gardens (which can take a full day in themselves!). Ate our last European dinner (including an interesting strawberry wine) and went home to bed to wake up early the next morning.

Wednesday 27June A day of dread, with lots of flying... yuk. We got up at 5:15 to be ready to be picked up at 7am by the airport shuttle. Our cheap route took us on a 45 minute flight from Vienna to Munich, a 2 1/2 hour layover there, and a flight from Munich to SFO. Now that's a long flight...

The waiting area in the Munich airport was very stuffy and rapidly filled with cigarette smoke, which again caused me breathing problems that weren't affected by my asthma inhaler. I moved around when I could, but it really got to me when we waited to board. Note to self to see doctor when I get home. Oh, and the boarding procedure was interesting, one I've never seen before: "All of Economy, Business, and First Class can board now." Imagine all of the 500-plus people getting on a 747, all squeezing through one little opening... that was a bit crazy.

Flight home was uneventful, except that the only time I got sleepy at all was right before they served lunch (and I didn't get sleepy after that -- DOH!) Watched The Wedding Planner (cute but predictable) and part of Miss Congeniality (hilarious, have to rent it!). Got in at 3:30 pacific time, 12:30am where we came from. It was much easier than I thought it would be to stay up once we got home -- I didn't get to bed until 10pm. But we were home and relaxing, with many adventures to tell...