Greetings!

The internet in Italy is more expensive than the pasta (1.5 euros for 15 minutes!). So we scraped together some coins, and put some photos up on our blog.

We are still in the Cinque Terra... We will leave in a day or so, and on the way to Rome we will spend some time in Pisa.

The weather is beautiful, the food great, and we dont really want to leave. All of the other cities we have been to have been large commercial and touristy... Levanto, where we are now, is a small town, and it seems as if we are the only english people here.

Well, we will write more soon. Until then, we will be on the beach...

8 minute blog...

OK.

We have 8 minutes to use the internet... We will put as much as we can.

Sorry for not having updated lately. We have been in some pretty interesting places, and internet access has been slightly difficult or expensive.

We spent some time in Budapest, Hungary. The castles, architecture, and roman ruins were all amazing. Unfortunately, Budapest is a hard city to get out of. Corruption is everywhere, with people working buses, trains, and multiple other modes of transport all pocketing money. To get a ticket out of Budapest, they tried to charge us nearly 300 american dollars! Really, once we got to Vienna, the same ticket cost only 40! Just have to be careful...

Since Budapest, we spent some time in Venice. Apparently, this city has 15 million visitors annually! It was quite obvious that this was the most touristy place we have been to yet. Nevertheless, the city is beautiful and the italian food addictive. To give you an idea how expensive this place has gotten, gondola rides now cost 8o euros (approximately 100 american dollars) for 1 hour. If we have called other cities difficult to get around, we lied. Venice takes the cake, or the pasta, or whatever it is, it wins. We were lost probably 1/3 of our time in Venice. The canals, dead ends, back streets, tunnels, confused us and mislead us to the point where we no longer knew where were. It was all beautiful none the less, and was actually quite a pleasent place to get lost...

Now we are at the Cinque Terra. So far, as far as beauty goes, this place wins. So far, this is our favorite. Lovely little fishing villages perched on steep hills overlooking the sea...

We will update you soon.

Poland...

Although we had a rough start in Prague, we recovered nicely...

The last couple days were full of meandering, sight seeing, and good ol' Czech beer (which is cheaper than water, and can serve as a meal too). Apparently, the real Budweiser was founded in the Czech Republic hundreds of years ago, and an ongoing legal battle is still occurring today over their name with the American beer company.

The castle was beautiful and overlooked the entire city. Unfortunately, this was where a protest was occurring as a result of President Bush's visit regarding the escalating situation between Russia and the US. Apparently, and I would have to check my sources, the US would like to put a defense system in the Czech Republic for "Iran." However, Russia has responded by saying that if a war were to start, Prague would be the first city to be bombed as a result of the implementation of such a system (sounds like the cold war never ended). Once again, I would have to check my sources (difficult when all credible information is in a different language).

After a couple of days, we caught a train over to Krakow, Poland. Unfortunately, we found out that our extremely expensive rail pass was not valid in Poland or the Czech Republic. Nevertheless, we had made plans to see Krakow and Auschwitz, and we were going to stick to them.

Krakow, thus far, seems to be the most untouched by western influences of tourism, television, etc... Although it is a city of 700,000 people, it is comfortable, safe, and relatively small compared to most western cities. English is typically only spoken by the younger people, but nevertheless, people are friendly in trying to help you find your way and get situated. Just by chance, we happened to fall into town on the towns 750th anniversary for reestablishment. The towns square, which is the biggest in Europe, was completely filled with nuns, priests, orchestras, and thousands of community members. At night, we attended a classical concert in the square. This concert, although the music was soft, seemed more like a rock concert by how many people were shoved into such a small space. We managed to follow an old man pushing a bike through the masses, and weasel our way at least halfway to the front.

Unfortunately, Auschwitz and Birknau were somewhat disappointing due to our tour guide. First of all, we understand that it is difficult and intimidating to speak in a foreign language. Our guide, struggled to speak English, and repeated similar things over and over, and quite frankly, read the captions under the pictures. Sentences were drawn out to make it more dramatic, and long pauses were added for effect, alongside intense (and somewhat uncomfortable) eye contact.

Here is a sample of what he would say:

"As you can see in this photograph, there is an old man (pause), this old man cannot work (pause), therefore if he cannot work, he must go and they will kill him, and he will die (long pause/eye contact)."

The history lesson was equivalent to that of about a 1st grader. We felt as if we could have provided more information to our group than he had. Auschwitz and Birknau alone demand respect, and any additional drama is unnecessary. Simply provide the facts, human emotion will take care of the rest. Both of us agreed, the historical exhibitions in London and Washington DC were more moving than the actual place...

All in all, it was still an amazing experience to actually see and be inside the compounds. To see rows and rows of barracks burned to the ground that were once overcrowded with suffering people. To touch the firing range with your own hands, walk beside and into the gas chambers, to see the holes were poison gas was dropped, and to see the exact furnaces that eliminated all of the evidence of human life. To make the place even more eerie, a storm rolled in and thunder, lightning and rain echoed throughout the compound.

It was a great experience. Come and see it, just don't pay extra for a guide...

Tonight we are off to Vienna, then either Budapest or Venice. We never really have any idea of where we are going until we are there.

We will keep in touch!

Czech. Repub.

Hey fans.

We have continued our world tour and today we are in Prague, Czech Republic.

Once again, we struggled to get our bearings on a new city. This time, we traveled 10 hours from Innsbruck, Austria only to figure out that we had booked our hostel for the wrong night. We were homeless, again... After a little scrambling to try to find a place at 1:00 AM, we kinda figured we were out of luck. We thought to ourselves, we have 3 options:

1. Rent an expensive motel for about 6 hours of sleep.
2. Somehow get in touch with the people we know in Prague.
3. Pull an all nighter and check in to our hostel at the earliest opportunity the next day.

After evaluating option number 1, we figured that it wasn't worth sacrificing approximately 7-8 meals.

We searched the possibility of number 2 by sending numerous e-mails to our friends in Prague, after a couple hours, it seemed as if option number 3 was our best choice. However, after about a half of an hour, Allison began to get tired... Luckily, our friends had managed to stay up late that night, received our SOS message, and responded. By 3:00 or so, we had a roof over our heads.

All of this simply makes traveling a little more exciting, or for some of you, maybe more stressful. To add to the fun, Prague is a maze. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful maze. A maze that somehow, during World War II, managed not to get bombed. The streets are lined with statues, ancient bridges cross the river, and on top of a hill lays a giant castle. The architecture here is amazing, and to give you a hint on how old this place is, the "new" part of town was built in 1300.

The adventures will continue. We have another 3 nights here in Prague... We will surely add photos and some additional stories as soon as we have a chance...

As they say in Mexico,

Adios.

Or here...

Ahoj (pronounced like a pirate).