Venice: Regaining Our Apetite for Adventure

Have no fear, we are both alive and well. Apologies for the two days without an update. Get ready for a swift summary of our last day in Interlaken and our time in Venice.

Beautiful Lake Brienz

After Heather came down with a virus, likely the same, we decided that canyoning would not be as much fun when you already feel like you want to die. Luckily Heather did not seem to have it as bad as Janelle did, or perhaps because she didn't try to eat or drink anything (lesson learned from the first incident) she wasn't as sick. She resembled a sloth for a good part of the day. Good thing Janelle didn't fall from a tree and need to be rescued! Nap on the hostel couch. Walk around town and take breaks. Attempt jumping photos. Nap on grass. Buy food for lunch. Attempt to eat soup, but briskly wave your white flag when your stomach charges again. Retreat to hostel couch to nap again. Wake up and switch couches. Nap another hour. Wake up and hear stories of how one person had been airlifted out of the canyons after breaking his ankle, a girl had crashed her moped and injured her hip, another person fell off their bike and ripped up the side of his face, and a final guy had smashed his chin canyoning. Maybe it was a good thing Heather had no energy to go canyoning (because we all know Janelle would have been one of those casualties)!

Poor attempts at timed jump shots

The Boys skipping stones.

Heather awoke to a note Janelle had left saying "I've gone for a walk, see you in a bit!" and soon joined Janelle with some new friends from Georgia Tech who are studying for a semester in Oxford. They had gone to visit beautiful Lake Brienz, one of the lakes of Interlaken (literally translated to mean "between lakes") and took some pictures to send home to mom. We celebrated one guy's birthday at Hooters (Yes, they have Hooters in Interlaken) before going out to the bar at our hostel. We decided that a good dose of dancing was just the treatment to kick the sickness, and got sweatier than RMC boys at Stages "Beach Slam". We got a few hours of sleep before waking up at 4:45am to make our early train to Venice. It was smooth sailing, but quite the long journey. We left Interlaken at 5:26am and arrived in Venice at 3:05pm. It feels a little like we've been living on the trains! We are so thankful that tomorrow's train to Florence is only 2 hours. Piece of cake!

When we arrived in Venice we followed directions to the hotel, which were misleading as Venice has the fewest streets signs and most convoluted streets. We stopped into a random hotel to ask for directions and a map, per favore! Much better! We then began the long walk along the main street of Venice (~ 30 minutes down narrow and over-crowded with people), only stopping temporarily under a store canopy to avoid the downpour of rain. We caught a bit of the shower before we were able to check in and take a proper one in our air-conditioned (WOOO!) hotel room. Well-priced and well worth it!

Our appetites slowly gained their strength and we have helped to fuel them with some pizza, fresh fruit smoothies, and gelato! We tried to make our way to a pizza joint that promised good food as Venice is known for having poor food at high prices, even by non-foodie standards. However that was simply too hard to find for our hungry, tired selves (Hungry Janelle = grumpy. Tired Heather = grumpy. Combination = Not likely to be friends when we return to Canada) and we settled for some pizza and house wine at a small snackbar. Perfecto!

Pizze and wine :)

Delicious Gelato

To-die-for smoothies

Taking the advice our mom's and pseudo-mom's had given us, we stayed in to rest and watched "Letter's to Juliet." A perfect tale of love in Italy with just enough plot to keep us awake but not make us think. Then we crashed for a solid 12 hours of bliss.

Dear Air-Conditioning, 
You were great last night. Keep up the good work. 
Sincerely, H Sizzle and J Tizzle.

Clock tower

Outside the Basilica

A picture we sneaked in at the museum

Today we started out with a natural kick of fruit smoothies to get our mojo going and help us navigate the streets and crowds to Piazza San Marco. From the top of St. Mark's Clock Tower we took in breath-taking views of the city, and caught a nice breeze to cool us off. We explored more of Venice's labyrinths and made our way to Palazzo Grassi. This is a contemporary art museum with displays of works that made you think. We also checked out Santa Maria del Salute, one of the most beautiful churches in Venice, and then took an AquaBus as a budget version of the gondola. Completely different. Probably not comparable in the slightest. Our ride: hot, sweaty, crowded with people who don't shower or shave. Our perception of a gondola ride: breezy, romantic, and 100 Euro more than we want to pay.

 We unfortunately missed out on St. Mark's Basilica because it had just closed by the time we returned to the square. We are devastated :( and kicking ourselves for not checking the time it closed. Since we depart at 9:30 tomorrow morning we won't be able to visit before we board the train. While we are disappointed that we missed this "can't miss" spectacular, we are very excited to go to Florence!

We are meeting up with two of Heather's friends from elementary/high school who are as clever as they are fun. Alexandra has a whirlwind tour of Florence's historical landmarks planned for tomorrow afternoon, which includes dinner at her favourite restaurant and gelato to blow our minds. Wednesday we are going on a Tuscan horseback adventure before indulging in some amazing pizza and then an outdoor club. It will be a great break not having to plan what to do or how to get around, as well as a perfectly marvelous reunion!

Now that our legs are rested, we have cooled off in the AC and teased our tummies with milk and cookies (yes, we bought milk and cookies at a corner store...we are children at heart) we are heading out for some wine and a small dinner. If we are feeling up to it we may stay up past 10 like grownups do and check out some night life in Campo San Magherita (as recommended by our Georgie Tech friends).

Salute, Prost, Cheers!

Dobry den (“doh-bree den”) from Prague!

We have endured a few more soggy days, but the architecture of the city remains just as stunning when painted with raindrops. The best piece of advice we received was to “look up”. The centrum of the town is the largest single area that is preserved by UNESCO, which essentially means it is a very important part of history worth preserving. We imagine one of the hardest parts to maintain would be the cobblestone found everywhere. Not ideal for walking in heels or riding a bike without a proper sports bra.

We arrived early afternoon and checked into our hostel, Mosaic House, with ease, and while our accommodation was a 26 bed female dorm, we were enamoured by the huge bathrooms, mirrors, and hair dryers!

The Astronomical Clock!

Using our handy map from the concierge we navigated our way around the crooked streets to Old Town Square. With umbrellas and camera in hand, we admired the Astronomical Clock, which has a fascinating story. There are 365 names on the clock (one for each day of the year), so each Czech citizen celebrates not only their birthday but also their “name day.” Likely just a second excuse to go to the bar, not that you need to as drinking in public is entirely commonplace! We ventured up the winding staircase to get a view from the top of the entire city. Not bad in spite of the foggy skies.

We muddled around the square before heading to our meeting point for our EPIC Bike Tour. We changed into leggings for the bike ride and fuelled up with a pre-tour pilsner. When in Prague! We were the only two indomitable (or pre-paid) people on the tour in the rain. Our guide (a friendly guy from California) gave us the option of doing the Classic Tour or Panoramic Tour. We naturally opted for the one with more hills, biking and less history. What a great choice! Since it was just the two of us we were able to chat the entire time and learned a ton about the city. We pedalled our way up to the Prague Castle, which is no longer enclosed by a moat or turreted walls, but holds the Guinness World Record for the largest “castle” in the world. Through Letenske Sady Park we saw incredible views of the city and the Metronome, (where interestingly there once was a giant inflatable statue of Michael Jackson). Other sites we took in during the bike tour included the Charles Bridge, the John Lennon wall, a bridge with lovers’ locks, the Pissing Men, and a cool podium that magically amplified your voice in the castle.

The bike tour was followed by a traditional Czech meal – chicken stuffed potato pancakes with a side of cabbage and pint of pilsner. Not our standard fare but enjoyed and followed with dessert of pancakes and “forest fruit,” or field berries as we refer to them. After dinner we changed back into our drinking pants and strapped on our wristbands that permitted us to an hour of free drinks at the Pub Crawl company’s bar. We made more friends with travellers from the Netherlands, France and Italy, and played a game (21 or Monkey) we recently learned in Berlin. We will definitely be bringing back the rules we remember to Canada! While we were happy with the amount of free drinks we took advantage of, we were definitely not the winners of the drink-your-face-off competition. Oh to be young and reckless again! We travelled with the large group to two other bars before retiring to our hostel. A solid night out and sound sleep sealed our first night in Prague.

Much better!

The second morning we grabbed breakfast from Bohemia Bagel, and, armed with our umbrellas once more, we set out to do some more discoveries. We visited the Jewish Cemetery and Spanish Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Cemetery was used from 1439 to 1787 and is the oldest Jewish Cemetery in Europe. During Nazi rule all cemeteries, save for this one, were destroyed as Hitler wanted it left intact so he could build a Jewish museum in Prague after he had succeeded in his mission. There are over 12,000 tombstones and many more persons buried there.

We hopped on board another free tour around the city and took in more history, raindrops, and photographs. A walk across the Charles Bridge was a must! What a beautiful city with incredible architecture!

To finish off our night we made lightweight-rower-sized Greek salads (we had to push through to finish them) in Ziploc bags, and picked up some chocolate ice cream for dessert. Divine!

GOOD NEWS JUST IN. Munich’s forecast does not include rain! We will have to have a round of drinks for that! Until next time, stay classy San Diego!

Peace Out Berlin

Party on the S-Bahn

Cold, tired, wet, and slow.  Yesterday in Berlin reflected how we were feeling (not that drinking the night before helped). We took a trip out to a nearby suburb, Potsdam where we marveled at the peculiar architecture of the city. A past emperor decided to build the town’s structures to imitate buildings from all over the world. Nothing seemed to belong, which was exactly what he was going for. Due to the inclement weather and our lack of vivacity, we decided we would rather be idle tourists on a bus rather than drowned rats on bikes. With our international student cards in hand we received our first discount of 3 Euro :) We have been quite the proud, penny-savers!

Potsdam's own Brandenburg Gate.

 

Oh my! Bus tours rock! (not)

The city was beautiful with many palaces, gardens, barracks, arcs to the city, castles in the hills, and elegantly built mansions lining the streets. Although we could not get many decent pictures from inside the bus, we were still happy to have experienced the town with our headsets set to English and droopy eyes scanning the scenery.

After returning from Potsdam on the S-Bahn, we were feeling hungry and no more awake than when we left. Set out in search of a new hair dryer as we overheated ours the day before, and an optimistic dinner of salad, we hit up a department store. What type of department store, one with 5 floors nonetheless, doesn’t sell hair dryers? Preposterous! Not to mention Janelle’s fury that her hair straightener doesn’t work over here. Helloooooo one month of bad hair days!

Wake up sleepy head!

Heather bored on the S-bahn.

We left the department store with some cream cheese dip and bread sticks in hand and ended up finding a great little Thai restaurant on a side street close to our hostel. The food was absolutely delicious and served by a friendly man from Thailand who (guessed correctly by Janelle) had come to Berlin in pursuit of a love affair sparked with a tourist on vacation in Thailand. We decided we will only be bringing men back to Canada if they can cook as well as he did.

The rest of our evening was spent reading, blogging, finishing Janelle’s billing for work, facebooking, and sleeping (or trying to, at least). This was what we would be doing at home on a day like that, and exactly what we needed to refuel for today’s train ride to Prague and adventures in sight.

            This morning we woke with rain on the windows, a grey sky once again, and weather forecast from Prague not looking any better. Heather seems to have contracted a sore throat today so we may be taking it easy once again. We have finally made it to our seats on the train after annoyingly seat hopping due to everyone stealing or switching seats. Eventually a German mother took control and puppeteered the passengers into their rightful places. Danke! We are happy that we are simply moving towards Prague together, regardless of where we sit. “I would rather starve than miss the train” – as quoted by Heather. Well put!

            We have an “EPIC BIKE TOUR” planned for 5pm tonight with subsequent traditional Czech dinner and pub-crawl. Hopefully Mother Nature will be in better spirits this evening and let these girls have some fair-weather fun!

Farewell for now friends and family, we shall catch up with you when we get settled in Prague and have found our energy once again.