Are you Afraid of Heights?

I am posting this from the top bunk of our beds on the train from Milan to Paris. Remember when I couldn't see how they could cram three bunks in one tiny berth? They can! The view from up here is really awesome if I don't hit my head looking over the side. Sweet dreams? I sincerely doubt it. They sway from up here feels like a boat.

Ques (Lines for you non-Brits)

We are currently standing in a LOOOONG line for tickets to the Uffizi & Accademia art galleries in Florence. I am typing this entry into my phone. That's how boring this line is. Also, we've decided to take up smoking in this particular line since everyone in front of us in the line already smokes. It's really working out great, I already think I am developing a hacking cough. Rach can self diagnose any other symptoms we develop before we get tickets. I really like both of these museums, but I am starting to wonder if we should just buy postcards of their most famous works and call it good. It's like running a marathon, even if the last few miles make me bleed and/or puke I will finish it just out of spite. I am already bleeding. My right ankle had a run-in with a bus door this morning and I'm pretty sure the door won. Nice camera angle, I don't now nor have I ever had cankles, it's just the angle.

"Go to the Back of the LINE!"

Today I did a short post from my phone while we were standing in a long line waiting to go into the Uffizi Gallery. We had already been in line about three hours when I noticed a nice family of four had sidled up near us in the line. I quietly leaned over to Rach and told her I knew they were butting because I knew I had seen them at least an hour or more earlier passing us in the opposite direction. I knew it was them because the mother was wearing something that did not appear to be doing her body shape any favors. I don't want to pass any judgements, but there really are some people who should not be wearing tank tops. Rach and I just giggled a bit and gave each other the look that says we are annoyed someone has not followed the rules. While I might be annoyed I won't usually take up an argument with some really tall guy and his heavy-set wife and their two children. It was a LOOOONG line and we had been in it a long time, but I wasn't going to worry about it. Turns out I didn't need to. Maybe twenty minutes later, the American guy behind us noticed they had sidled up to us near the frontish area of the line and he took issue with it loudly and publicly. The parents argued with him in Italian that they had been in line for four hours or that there were just four of them - I'm not sure which point the mom was making - but American guy would not let it drop. When he could not verbally persuade them to go to the back of the line he threatened to go get a museum employee. By then some other woman of Italian? heritage jumped into the conversation, as well as the obnoxious American girl, who smokes a lot, had to throw her two cents worth into the mix too. Rach and I just stood in the middle of it trying not to laugh. We did not get involved. We didn't need to, American guy behind us made good on his threat and went to fetch the college-aged kid who was doing his job of crowd control at the entry door. This poor kid, who didn't even really look like he could do much about it, came and kept telling the man to go to the back of the line. They really held out for a long time, the wife seemed determined to stand her ground. I felt sorry for their kids, clearly waiting to see how it would end. Then, they started to move back, but not actually turn around and go to the back of the line, they just moved back a few people behind the American guy behind us. The poor employee kept telling them to go to the back, but they didn't. They stayed right there. Then some Italian guy behind the American guy said something really rude about what a great example they were setting for their kids by teaching them to be dishonest. He said it in English, which was nice for us, but not so much for the offending family (Italian) who sort of pretended like they didn't understand any of it. I think it was the highlight of our day. The employee said he wasn't going to let them in, but we had already gone in by then so he could easily have let them in later. I never did see them during our tour, so maybe he got the police involved like he said he would. If it had turned into a fist fight, it would be a highlight of the trip. I whispered to
Rach at one point, "If it weren't so obvious I would have been making a video of it for posting, but I was afraid I would end up rolling around on the ground with "heavy set woman in tank top" for filming it. The funniest part is that the line really did seem to be ending not that far back from us, anyone who got in line even right then would only have had to wait about an hour, not three like we did.

Rome if You Want To

Yesterday was crazy! We had to make our reservations to get a train from Florence to Paris (we are bypassing the Swiss, don't tell them). In order to get the night train we wanted, we have to leave from Florence to Milan on Wednesday night and switch to a sleeper again in Milan that will take us into Paris. We are hoping for no strangers again in our berth, but who gets that lucky twice? That decision about leaving Florence Wednesday meant we had to go to Rome yesterday and we had to make it count since we just had one day. We hopped on a train and went for it. We hit the biggies, The Colosseum and The Sistine Chapel. We saw the Roman Forum from a distance and a lot of other things really quickly in passing. We went to the Colosseum first, because I knew I could find that easier on the subway. We did the audio tour with the fast stops and then we had less than an hour to make it to the Vatican before the ticket counter closed at 4:00. We made it with five minutes to spare. The Vatican museum is cool, but really, really extensive even if we weren't stopping at every single room. We hit a couple of the more impressive (recognizable) paintings and wound our way to the Sistine Chapel. Literally, they wind you through about five stories and 50 rooms on the way to the chapel. It really is AWESOME! I was dizzy after about 30 seconds of tipping my head back to look at it, (and I assume they frown on nausea in the chapel even though it's not on the signs) I can't believe Michelangelo actually stood on scaffolding for years painting one section at a time with his head tipped back. Because the paint is actually painted onto wet stucco to make it permanent, his assistants only put up the cement mixture one small square at a time. It was only as much as he could paint in a single day. If something was wrong, the stucco had to be scraped away so he could do it again. We stayed there for a long time looking at all the panels on the roof and comparing them to the Day of Judgement painting he did on the wall by the altar many years later, when he saw Christianity through a more jaded lens than he'd had when he did the ceiling. Thanks to Rick Steves of PBS fame we had our own tour guide with commentary and bad jokes on the podcasts had loaded on her phone. I wish we'd had more time in Rome, there really are some great architectural things we totally had to skip in order to make our train back to Florence. Now that I have done a trip like this on my own, there are lots of things I'll do different the next time I act as a tour guide to Europe. I would definitely brush up on my Roman history a lot better. But, I think it has gone really smoothly so far. Who's ready to join me?

Lookout! The Birds Know...

Saturday we arrived in Venice by train. Weird right, since it is an island? Venice still might be my favorite city in Italy, if only for the great crowds of people there are to watch. We made our way from the train station to San Marco (large, main square) by following the signs that are posted randomly on the corners of buildings and have arrows pointing to San Marco. You can't really get lost in Venice, you just follow the signs back to San Marco from anywhere. It can take a while if you miss a sign or two. We made it in about 30 minutes. I like that I can be so directionally challenged and still find that square. We waited in a long line first thing, to walk through the church. But, we didn't know that they don't let you take bags or backpacks in the major sites anymore so I took the bag and Rach went through. It's a really short walk with some cool artwork and several mosaics, which I've seen twice, so that was no biggie. In the line I had been trying to convince Rach that it would be such a great photo for her to buy a bag of birdseed and then start throwing it all around her so I could take a picture. She wouldn't do it. She disliked these flying rats as much as the ones in Germany. I eventually gave up. Then we toured the former palace/government building. More importantly, we got to go through the prison which is attached to the government/court system by The Bridge of Sighs. Aptly nicknamed because if you were being walked across that bridge you were headed to prison for a long time and/or going to be executed. The tiny windows were probably the last time you could see your family on the bridge several yards down the canal... sigh. (Get it?) It is such a medieval looking dungeon of a prison. They even had cells that were like a hole in the ground that they used for prisoners and when the high tide came in the holes fill with water. Talk about being trapped in a watery grave. I guess that's one way to keep prison overcrowding down. After the tour we just wandered around the square and the shops. I forgot how great the jewelry is that they have from the island of Murano (famous for its glass). Someday I am going back to Murano to train as a glass apprentice. I'm pretty sure that's my next career, right after roller derby. I think the beautiful vase, bowl, and ashtray(?) I made in my glass blowing class are definitely enough evidence that I may have overlooked that as a viable career choice. Interesting that I made the third object and am not really sure what it really turned out to be and just called it an ashtray. I feel confident I am the next Dale Chihuly, only with better hair and both of my eyes. But let's face it, he wears and cool eye patch and it's fun to imagine how he might have lost his eye in some sort of freakish glass blowing accident instead of in a car accident. I recommend you Google him and see what I mean. I also suggest if you think he might have better hair than me that you don't say as much in the comments area of the blog. :P Are you starting to wonder about the title for this entry? Don't worry, I'm getting there.

After we were about done wandering around and trying to decide if we should make our way back to the train station or not, I suggested that we sit down on some steps so I could look at the map and figure out how to get there. They don't have handy signs for finding the train station like they do for San Marco, although that is one suggestion I might make to their department of tourism. I hadn't even been sitting there for five minutes when a pigeon way up above us on the top of a column let loose on Rachael. She had pigeon crap on her head and her hand. It was funny, but not funny. Well, I didn't laugh in the moment, except maybe inside my own head. It makes me want to giggle even now, but Rach is half-asleep and it would wake her and then she'd want to know why I am laughing. I'm not sure she really sees the humor in it just yet. I made one pigeon joke today and she didn't slug me so maybe by the time we get home she will thinks it's funny. I am not saying that all birds can read minds, but let's face it - carrier pigeons are called "carrier" for a reason and I think it's abundantly clear that some birds in the plaza in Munich sent word to their Italian, bird mobster pals in Venice. The next thing you know is that there is a finely targeted "hit" out on her. None got on me. They just want to send a message, loud and clear. After we cleaned it off with some baby wipes, we knew it was time to go back on the train. It really puts a damper on your whole day when that happens. Even after all that, Venice still might be my favorite city- definitely one of my all-time best travel stories. Even better than when it happened to a stranger sitting on a bench near me in France one time. I think I gave her some help with baby wipes too.

Wasting Time in a Train Station

There isn't really a lot to do in a train station. There might be a couple of shops, a small store, maybe a cafe; that's about it unless it's in a major city and then it's like a small mall. We just killed two hours in the train station in Padova on our way to Florence. While we were reading, typing, and watching a movie there were a couple of guys playing electronic slot machines. I found myself watching them play over and over. It was weird. I wasted almost as much time as they did and I still cannot tell you how those slots worked. I don't mean electronically, I assume that's some sort of super computer throwing out random combinations on the five screen slots. I also assume the company that makes them can program the computers to only win like once every 30 days. I mean I cannot tell what combinations of fruit and/or scary faces was a winning combination. They actually did win a couple of times, but I'm pretty sure they weren't in the black. No one has ever complimented me on my superior math skills, "Wow that's a really nice set of quadratic formulas you got there." But statistically speaking, one of them was there for two hours and I know he fed a lot more in than he ever got out. I kept thinking what a huge waste of money and time that was for him. Then I realized I kept watching him play too, not just the five or six other random guys who were all watching one of them play; so, I had wasted almost as much time. I wasted two Euros on the slots too. I made a new friend in the train station. I had already seen her arguing with the bathroom attendant about why she shouldn't have to pay .60c to use the bathroom. The whole thing took place in Italian, but I feel pretty good about my ability to interpret arguments. I could especially read the attendant's eye roll that meant he had this conversation a lot, possibly repeatedly with her because she may or may not be homeless and hanging out at the train station a lot. She had been wandering around striking up random conversations with other people and then hitting them up for money. So I was less than surprised when she asked me about my iPad and introduced herself. (Fun Fact: She also told me the Italians don't like her because she is half black; later she told me she was Italian.) Followed quickly with a story about needing to take her medicine with milk and could I spare some money. I gave her a 2 Euro coin. She wandered off for a few minutes then came back and played the slots and lost immediately. Shocking right? I thought for sure she would spend it on milk (alcohol)! I also interpreted from the other argument that she might actually need to be on medication, but is not. So that's how I wasted time and money on Sunday in the train station in Padova, Italy. I just realized, that means I was essentially gambling vicariously on a Sunday. Does that make it worse? Does is take into account my "charitable" act of giving her money for "milk"? I will ask one of the priests or nuns on the street when I get to Rome and let you know.

The Midnight Train to Venice (sort of)

We are such seasoned train passengers now, it's like we've been living on the trains all our lives. We actually did on Friday night. The heavens are definitely pouring more than just rain on us. When we went to the Munich train station Friday morning we had to book reservations for the night train to Venice that night. It's not usually possible to get accommodations that don't involve sharing a berth with less than four strangers and the one bathroom with an entire car of sleeping berths. I think we got very lucky because the German man working at the English information desk, has been to and apparently liked the time he spent in Utah. All the sleeping berths were mostly full on the straight line to Venice, so he searched found us a three-man berth that included its own bathroom. All we had to do was take the train past Venice to Bologna and switch to local train that would back track to Venice at 6am. We had to be off our train at 4:30am and wait a bit, but it was TOTALLY WORTH IT! No one booked the third bed in our berth so we were on our own. I only had to share my bathroom with Rach. We slept on tiny bunks, I don't even know how they could get a third bunk in there, but I'm sure they do. It's a little like sleeping in a really tiny RV. The beds aren't really comfortable, but it's better than trying to sleep in a regular train seat. Rach has tried that out a couple of times with little success. I haven't bothered since I don't really sleep that much in my own bed. Our conductor was really nice and gave us boxed breakfasts before we got off (not for free, I'm sure it was part of our first class stuff, but he didn't have to since we were the only ones getting off the train. I was a little bit unsure about spending nights on the train, but it worked out well and cost us a lot less than a hotel and saved the time between two places that would have been wasted on a train anyway. We were in a car full of what I am guessing were very wealthy American and British women on a tour group. Many of them were dressed really nice and had gigantic suitcases that they could barely lift onto the train. The tiniest, skinniest women in the group was lifting everyone's cases in for them. It was sort of funny. We were able to get some sleep, even with the cheerful,. talkative women in the car most of the night. There really was a tiny shower stall, but we didn't use it since it didn't seem to drain well.