Parma to Germany!

Sasa's place was really nice! He works for the European Union and as a photographer, so he gets tons of pay. He took us out to breakfast and gave us a map of Parma, so we checked it out for a little bit before we headed off to Zurich, Switzerland to get to Germany. Parma was really cool, with nice buildings and parks, but it was super hot (forecast said 104F)! Sasa warned us the day before that it would be hotter than crap. We got on a train that we thought was the right one, but it wasn't so we jumped off, but Hayley got smashed in the door! There is a funny picture of her "door mark" on facebook. We got a train to Milan from Parma to get a train to Zurich to catch one to Frankfurt! We have made it that far and are on our way to Frankfurt for the night. We found a hostel in the red light district for 20 euros a night...Tomorrow we are going to make our way to Berlin!

Venice!

We made it to Venice! We stayed there for two nights just off the island of Venice, because property there is some of the most expensive in the world and we figured everything else would be too! We had the internet and requested a lot more couch surfers, including one in Parma, Italy for when we left Venice. Then, we showered and got some sleep! The next day, we woke up just for breakfast, but went back to sleep until about 1pm...it was much needed! We headed out to the real Venice by train (about 20 minutes) it just had to cross the water out to the island. We got there at the perfect time! About 3pm everybody was leaving and there were a lot of cool shops and it wasn't beaming sun straight down on us. We got a map and went exploring. We made our way to the famous Rialto bridge, seeing a lot of canals and bridges on the way. Madonna made a music video there (and through the canals) there were lots of cool alleys and buildings. There hasn't been a newly constructed building in Venice in forever (~200 years). We stopped for some pizza and a Pepsi on our way to Piazza St. Marco, which is a huge square and church. We found the church that one the Indiana Jones movie was filmed (the one where they go into the church and break through the "X" in the floor to find the Holy Grail). Then we walked around taking pictures and checking out the many Murano glass shops, because Venice is famous for their awesome glass blowing. We found a cool canal with the sun setting right in the middle of it, so we went down to the end of it and watched it. It was awesome! We hopped on train and went back to the mainland for the night. The next day, we slept in again and headed for Milan, Italy on our way to Parma. We walked down the "Haute Couture" streets in Milan and looked at all the rich people, we didn't buy a thing! Then we got the hottest, slowest, train in the world...again. When we got to Parma, we called Sasa Maric, our host for the night and he came to the train station to pick us up! We ate pizza and got huge Coke, talked about camera stuff all night because he is a photographer. Tomorrow, it's time to get the heck out of Italy!

Pisa and Florence! (Pictures Coming...)

We got to Pisa about 10:30pm and found a hostel (no internet for a few days, so no couch surfers either)! They only had one bed left, ONE BED, so we payed $30 and shared a bed on the top bunk with rails around it. It was really nice and brand new with a full kitchen and 2 bathrooms with hot showers and WiFi for free! No A/C though! So, we went out to the Leaning Tower of Pisa at about 1am. We saw rats, bats, and ate pizza in Pisa! It was awesome, handmade, and $5. The tower was sweet at night nobody was out there, and we could do whatever we wanted, so we double-handedly straightened the tower...at least it's straight in all of Hayley's pictures of me, because she lined up the shots on the tower and not the ground :) We went back to the hostel and took cold showers and woke up with wet pillows because it was so miserably hot! We kinda slept in (about 8am) and sent out a bunch of couch requests, most of them have said no by now, but...we went to Florence and got tickets to see the Galleria Academia which is the museum with Michaelangelo's statue of David (that killed Goliath). The line was 3 hours long unless you already had tickets, so we found another museum that sold tickets to that one and went back later without waiting in line! It was nice, but you were not allowed to take pictures of it AT ALL. So I took some "sneak attack" style until security reminded me that it was strictly forbidden. 800 ISO and shooting from the hip, they came out nice! We checked out the rest of the gallery and the city, deciding that we are ready to get back to America: The land of a ton of food for cheap and free refills on drinks for 99 cents! We hopped on the EuroStar Italia train to Venice!

Alps to Rome! (Pictures Coming...)

Ok, got to get caught up here! We fell asleep on the train back into Switzerland :) We were woken up at the last stop of the train, which just happened to be the one we needed, Chur. I was woken up by a Swiss train worker guy yelling at us in German to the heck off the train! He woke us up so fast I didn't even know where the heck we were, but we were the only ones an the train! We checked out Chur again, went to a Victorinox store. We got a bus (with our Eurail pass) over the Alps through the St. Bernadino pass. It was pretty sweet we got off in Bellinzona, a city with a bunch of castles that we still are not sure if it is in Italy or Swizerland... The train there took us to Milan, Italy where we finally got our night train to Rome! It was 150 degrees in that train when we hopped on, we shared a room with a guy from Denmark and a guy from Africa that spoke French and we finally got the AC turned on. When we got to Rome, we were dropped off at Roma Tiburtina station, which is the most run down homeless shelter on Earth! We left our bags there in security and went exploring. We walked all of Rome! From the far east side all the way to the Colosseum, Paletine Hill, Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Piazza Navona, and through the Vatican and St. Peter's Square! Then, we found out the Vatican was closed to visitors on Sunday, so headed back across town to see the Boca de Veritas, Circus Maximus, and the Colosseum again. We stayed the night in a sweet room to finally catch up on some sleep and showers. We washed our clothes in the sink and were ready for battle the next day. The line to get in the Vatican was around 4 hours wait in the sun, but we booked a tour for $26 that gave us "no-line" entry and number coded audio tour of each item/room/painting in the whole place! We just saw something cool, typed the number in the headset thing and it told us all about it. Even sneak attacked some pictures inside the "Absolutely NO Photos Allowed" Sistine Chapel! We headed back across town to get our stuff from the nastiest train station on Earth, caught a train to Pisa, and relaxed as it stopped at every single city between  Rome and Florence over the next 3 dang hours! Next up is Pisa!

Switzerland!

Switzerland was AWESOME! We took a train from Brig to Chur that went over the Alps at the Oberalp Pass. It was sweet, we had two restaurant style booths to our selves (one on each side of the train) and I was like a dog running back and forth to each side taking pictures. The windows were about 4 feet by 4 feet squares but they slid down into the wall so you could have a huge open hole to hang out of. It was the best thing for the ride across the mountains. We got to Geneva, Switzerland at about 6am checked out the big lake in Geneva heading toward Brig. That's where we got the cool train to Chur. Before we left Brig, we got some Coke and a huge "baguette" of bread to break apart as we rode across. We stopped in Andermott and I really, REALLY wanted to check out a river in the Alps, so we found one not too far of a walk away and cooled off in the freezing cold water. It was sweet! Then we headed on to Chur and over the Oberalp Pass to take a million more pictures. We went over some awesome mountains, bridges, tunnels, etc. and went through the Grand Canyon of the Alps! Switzerland is Überexspensive! Their money is Swiss Franks (Francas) but they convert straight to US Dollars (1=1)...McDonald's there is $12 for a combo! We book a night train to Rome for the next day so we had the whole day and the night in Switzerland. We decided, since we have the rail passes, we should just go to Austria for the night! We messaged a couch surfer in Innsbruck, Austria and he said to come on over, so we headed over there from Chur. He said he would pick us up at the train station! But, when we got there he wasn't there so we found some WiFi and checked my mail to find out that he sent us a message saying "Sorry I have friends coming over tonight and can't host you"...So we got a room at the Goldene Krone in Innsbruck...it was crappy. We are on our way back to Switzerland now, then in Chur all day until our 6pm sleeper train to Rome!

Spain!

Last night we got our sleeper train from Paris to Barcelona. It was pretty cool, but we had reclining chairs instead of a bed. They slept ok, but we woke up every time our feet slid off the chair! We still have to pay revervation fees for really nice trains and popular routes if we want a seat (we can just stand the whole way on some trains that require reservations). Most of the trains we can hop on and off anywhere we want with just our passes.The Paris to Barcelona train cost us 1.50 euro each for the reclining seats. It took us through the Pyrenees mountains and into Spain while we slept and we got some awesome views once we woke up. We spent the day today in Barcelona walking around in the blazing sun of Spain! Our bags are heavy, but we packed light compared to everyone else we see backpacking. I put the waist bag on and strapped the other bag to it...finding out just now that the netbook has a white line of dead pixels running up the screen! Barcelona was hot and we didn't really want to stay there, so we got a night train to Geneva. Pretty awesome! We planned on going to Italy, but there is a train worker strike!! We thought we were going to be stuck in Spain! This train is sweet, we have beds and a locking room, guys and girls are separated though. It train was completely booked except the beds...which cost us 75 euro each! But, its better than the full fare of the Barcelona to Switzerland route which is almost 300 each! We will hopefully find some internet and get caught back up with pictures! We will wake up in Swiss country!

Well, funny story...we went to Paris the day before yesterday (July 5). It was pretty awesome, we saw the Arc de Triumph, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame cathedral, walked down the Champs-Elysees and even went to the Louvre! We walked EVERYWHERE in Paris! Hayley has a blister that is taking over her pinky toe (and she said she needs her mommy). On our way back to the station to catch the train back to Caen, we decided to take the last train back at 12:24am (after midnight) since it only runs one day a week on Monday. Well, we realized on our way to the Gare St. Lazare (1 of 4 train stations in Paris) that it would technically be Tuesday morning and NOT Monday anymore when that train ran...so it was only the night before! Then, we got on CouchSurfing and posted in the Paris group that we needed a place to stay ASAP! A guy named Paul messaged us back and said come on over, even though it was 1AM. So, we called him from a pay phone and got directions to his apartment on the 7th floor looking out towards the Eiffel Tower. He was a really nice guy and we slept good! Patrice (back in Caen) was glad we found a place and didn't have to sleep in the street too! We walked back to the station and headed back to Caen for dinner with Patrice, which was awesome! Now we are on a train to Paris and we have a night (sleeper) train to Barcelona tonight at 10pm. This Eurail pass is awesome!

Slow internet here, so check the pictures at this public link...more to come!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2314216&id=38420372&l=76980f3eb7