Well I left off typing in the Munich, now magically we are in Florence, Italy. I tell Billy every time we get somewhere new, "I can't believe we actually made it here, it's really crazy thinking of where we started; with no idea of how we are going to get from once place to the next." There certainly are obstacles and not so fun of times. Normally those not so fun times pertain to transportation and the joys that come along with it. I'm reading up to where I left off, it looks like we were at lunch on the bike tour. Well at after we ate, we still had time before the castle tour and Alpine Slide so Brad, our tour guide, decided to show us some of his famous magic he is known for. We all gathered around and he amazed us with his tricks. Evidentally he is known in the "magic circle" and graduated from the German Magic Academy, pretty intense stuff, huh? One trick was he had some people of the group shuffle, shuffle, and more shuffle the deck to make sure we knew he wasn't cheating. He then split us up half and half, Team A and Team B. First Team A went and each person's turn they said "red" or "black", trying to guess what color card it was, he would then put it in the color pile we guessed. Keep in mind we were just randomly guessing, couldn't see the deck at all. When the cards ran out he said he was going to show us which team won. As he started flipping over the cards, it ended up that every card we guessed was right! It was really, really crazy. Can't really explain it. He is just very, very talented. He called it "divine inspiration." HAHA! But anyways, he is known amongst all the famous magicians and he even has his own DVD"s that he teaches the tricks in. After lunch we had time to do the Alpine Slide. Hard to explain but you basically sit on a "sled", then get dragged up to the top by this automatic pully system, and then we are let loose at the top down this crazy metal shoot. We had one stick in front of us to pull back if you wanted to slow down or you can not touch it at all and go flying around the corners and bends, it was really fun!!! Billy said he almost fell off because he of course never pulled the break, nice. We then boarded the bus one more time to bring us to the path to hike up the mountain to the castle. It was a really nice, natural hike. There were awesome tree's and scenery; we hiked next to waterfalls, gorges, and brooks. Truthfully, the hike got pretty intense the higher we got; there were tons of stairs, and lots of steep hills. This route was worth it though because it also took us to Marienbridge where we could see an awesome view of the castle and other great scenery. Eventually we did get up to the castle and do the standard tour through the few rooms that were finished before Mad Ludwig died for "mysterious reasons." His bedroom was one of the rooms we toured through, the biggest reason to go in the castle....his bed. His bed is handmade by 14 carpenters and was finished in 4 and ½ years. Crazy,huh? The details on it were amazing; it was a canopy style bed with the top being the main scene. The way back down the mountain wasn't ½ as bad as going up the mountain. We said our goodbyes to Brad and boarded the bus back to Munich. The bus driver had a side business and had a fridge full of beer to sell on the way back. I believe everyone took advantage of that since we had such a long day! I forgot to mention the nice people we talked to that were on the tour with us. Of course we didn't get names, but we talked with a couple on their honeymoon from Washington, 2 couples were from Lakeland, Florida, and there was also one guy we became friends with from Melbourne, Australia. He has been in Europe since May and plans on staying till August. He is one of those "free spirited" guys I guess. They were all super nice and again, we talked about our stories and our future countries, etc. We arrived back in Munich around 7:30 PM and had dinner before heading to the train station for our night train to Venice. Thank goodness this was our last night train. I don't think I could have handled anymore (just like the hostels.) Our past night trains were just normal car's with normal seats (almost like an airplane). We managed in those and finally figured out how we could both sleep comfortably. This train to Venice was much different! The train cars were split up into about 5 little rooms, probably the size of an average bathroom. In this room there were 6 seats, 3 on one side and 3 on the other, and luggage racks over our head. So you're basically stuffed in there with 4 strangers and expected to sleep on the train...right. Not my idea of fun. I think we may have got 2 out of 7 hrs of sleep, not bad I guess. I know, this is what the experience is all about, times like these. We "woke up" around 7 AM to find our train pulling through a station labeled, Mestre. Oooh! That clicked because we knew our hotel was near the train station Mestre. We weren't supposed to get off until Venice main train station, and then shuttle to the Mestre, and then taxi to the hotel. Instead we hopped off there, having no idea if this was the actual place, but hey, why not hop off a train randomly, sounded like fun at the time. Thankfully we ended up being right about this decision, grabbed a taxi to the hotel for a little less than 10 euro and dropped off our luggage because we were too early to check in. We were then pointed in the direction of the bus to the main city of Venice. We knew we got on the right one, but we got off at the wrong stop at first. We ended up walking a little bit, realizing there were no crazy canals anywhere, and then hopped back on a bus to "Venezia." Strangely enough these buses were free and no one checked for tickets or anything. We arrived in what we knew for sure was Venice; we actually ended up at the Venice main train station where we would have been if we had continued on that horrible train. Funny enough, we saw the two Spanish guys that were in our room walking by us with their luggage! Ha! We are smarter than the average tourist, yay! We realized we were not near anything famous of Venice, just a bunch of canals, so got a water taxi pass to go to Piazza San Marco. We hopped off there and the first thing we did was find our dock where we were suppose to meet at 2 for the island tour. We found the kiosk within the first 10 minutes of walking and decided to just stroll around, not doing anything particular. A brief summary of those 5 hrs of waiting for the tour: we watched people get attacked by pigeons for about 2 hrs on the steps of the Piazza, we sat in a park with SHADE people watching for about an hour, went back to the Piazza and had a snack at the outside bistro tables for an hour, and then walked around the square and down by the canals for another hour, sounds fun, huh? The main goal was not to pay any money to go in any museums, and to get out of the crazy burning sun! Well our tour finally boarded a water taxi type boat around 2:30 PM and we headed off to the 3 different islands. Our first stop was Murano, known around the world for its famous glass, and glass blowers. We watched a guy make a vase and a miniature horse statue. Both were amazing to see happen before our eyes starting with what looked like a small ball of fire. They also let us go through the store where they sell their pieces, yes-gorgeous, but extremely pricey. We boarded the boat and started off to the next island, Burano. This island was known for its hand made lace and multi colored fishing villages. It was a quant little village with many shops, cafés, and houses scattered amongst the canals. We were allowed to just walk freely so Billy and I just walked around and went into a few shops. The third island was not as touristy. It only had a couple churches and a basilica that had been there for a couple centuries. There were a few pieces in the courtyard on display that were original. Billy became friends with a cat on this island of course; as you know from this trip, animals seem to like Dr. Doo Little Hiegel. We got back to Venice and boarded the water taxi back to where we were this morning. We got on the right bus, but of course hopped off too early and ended up walking and stumbled upon the Mestre train station again. How do we do these circles? Who knows? Needless to say we got another taxi back to the hotel since we knew the price and didn't feel like getting even more lost. Even worse, we were still in the same clothes from the Munich tour, so nasty, we couldn't wait to get back to the hotel to change and shower! Our feet were pretty much BLACK. We arrived back into the hotel around 8 o'clock and almost passed out before we had a really yummy dinner downstairs in the hotel lobby. I had homemade pasta dish, flavors of a stroganoff and Billy had a lamb dish. Both were really good after the long day of being in the city. So this morning we woke up around 9, tried to sleep in a little bit. The free breakfast was yummy, a lot of fruit, homemade danishs', cereal, yogurt, juices, etc. We checked out around 11 and took a taxi back to the train station. There was a train leaving after we arrived in 20 minutes for Bolognese and then from there to Florence. We boarded the train to Bolognese, got there around 1 PM and then boarded a train to Florence. On this train we met a guy from Massachusetts, he knew where Belrica was Dad! He is stationed in Venice with the army and was just headed down to Florence for the weekend. We chatted most of the trip till we arrived in Florence. Well here we spent a good hour and a half trying to figure out how to get to our hotel. Our original plan, a taxi, was no good. Ahh yes, the taxi's were all on strike...lovely!! Next choice, bus, but we had no idea what stop, or what bus to get on. After asking ten different people we finally found our bus number and then found where to board to get outside the city. Billy found where we were driving on the map and we were able to find our hotel seemingly easy. So that brings us to here, right now, RELAXING. We went and grabbed a late lunch when we first arrived. We might go downstairs for a light dinner in a little bit though. Our room is nice, almost like a villa. Billy is watching "Deal or No Deal" in what we think is German, even though we are in Italy. It is just as intense as the American version! All in all we are here, healthy, and safe. We have had no real "problems" yet, just challenges. We are finding what we like better in each city and where we want to return to in the future. Tomorrow we will do a day of Florence, visiting the David statue by Michelangelo in the Academia Gallery and a few other places. It is our 3 year anniversary tomorrow! Awesome! Well we will get back in touch either tomorrow or while we are in Pisa. Take care everyone! We are counting down the days! Love you! PS- We might haved added pics to the Munich folder and Amsterdam folder without some of you knowing. Check just in case!