So here is my travel journal from my backpacking trip to Europe. It's more involved than my day log stuff that's already been up the site. There has been some complaining (you know who you are) that my daylog was rather boring and that it focused too much on the details of transportation. I can't promise that this is less boring, but's there's certainly a hell of lot more of it. Occasional parts of the journal have been omitted to protect the (not-so)innocent. These parts really weren't that common, but hey - use your imagination. Keep in mind that this is a journal and things like punctuation, sentence structure, paragraph breaks, grammar, and spelling may or may not been a part of the writing process. Not to mention my almost criminal use of parenthesis. Like my pictures, the writing is quite erratic as far as consistency of content. The journal style kind of mutates over the course of the trip. Read at your own risk.
 4/28 Cincinnati 4/30 Paris 5/02 Paris 5/03 Paris 5/04 Bayeux 5/06 Toulouse 5/07 Barcelona 5/08 Barcelona 5/09 Madrid 5/11 Salamanca 5/12 Salamanca 5/13 Barcelona 5/14 Portbou 5/15 Narbonne 5/17 Nice 5/18 Venice 5/20 Naples 5/21 Rome 5/22 Rome 5/24 Florence 5/25 La Spezia 5/26 Lucerne 5/29 Interlaken 5/30 Interlaken 6/03 Amsterdam 6/04 London 6/06 Salisbury 6/09 Nottingham 6/11 Edinburgh 6/13 Kyleakin 6/15 Dublin 6/17 Dublin 6/23 Hamburg 6/27 Brussels 6/29 Berlin 7/01 Prague 7/02 Munich 7/03 Munich |
5/22 - Rome, Italy Had an obnoxious start to the day, got woken up at around nine by a hostel employee, who said I had to change rooms (this meant I had to get up right then if I wanted to shower). The shower was horrible, low pressure at first and then the hot water ran out before I could rinse out my hair. Interesting quirk of Italian plumbing though, when the hot water runs out, the flow of water just stops, instead of changing to cold. You have to turn it to cold to get any water at all. After being moved one door over on the same floor, I set out. Kind of a boring day, since the plan was to see stuff I'd already partially seen. Ah well, I got a more detailed look at some of the ruins in the forum, before heading to the Colosseum.  I decided that for once I was going to try one of the guided tours. I've been avoiding them because they're more expensive and I don't like following a group; I like wandering wherever I feel like it. That and it just feels undeniably touristy (I know I'm a tourist, I just don't like feeling like one). The decision to do this was just kind of a whim to see what I was missing (the fact that I was kinda bored and the opportunity to bypass a 15 minute line may have also been factors). I'm glad I did it, it gave me a lot of background on the Colosseum I wouldn't have known otherwise, but I'm still not sure how many of these I'll do in the future. I think I would be better off if I just did my own research ahead of time (which of course Captain Preparation here didn't do). As I walked out, I eavesdropped on one of the other tours, and was amused to hear conflicting information. Reminds me of the internet. After that I decided to to continue with guidebook suggested food and find the 'front runner for the city's best plate of pasta'. I'm no judge of pasta, but it was still pretty good. I'm beginning to like following the guidebook on food, because sometimes it's nice to have goal when you're hungry (I have a tendency to wander for a long time indecisively looking for a place to eat). After that I swung back through the Palatine Hill before heading back to the hostel.
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