Dear All

Once again, many things have happened since I last blogged so this will be another long one.

I caught the overnight train to Budapest last Friday, which was fine, and arrived early on Saturday morning. I spent the morning wandering around Buda and went to the castle and the labyrinth inside Castle Hill. The labyrinth was particularly cool. The Hungarians have an interesting sense of humour. There was a whole section of the labyrinth devoted to "Homo consumerus" including "fossils" of computer, mobile phone and coke bottle imprints. I had a paprika covered lunch and then walked across the bridge to Pest for the afternoon. I went to the thermal baths in the city park for an hour or so. This was fantastic except that Europeans don't know much about personal space and don't think staring is rude. I then went for a walk around the city park, which included a circus and zoo. I didn't get too far, however, before I noticed something annoying and wet hitting me in the face. This was perplexing me greatly until I realised that IT WAS BLOODY SNOWING ON ME. A very exciting event. I think the Hungarians were very amused by me standing in the middle of the snow with one hand on my camera and one hand on my mobile phone, being very excited about being snowed on. About 10 minutes later I realised that I was really, really cold. That pretty much ended that day.

I caught the night train to Venice which involved being woken up by the passport police many times. The passport police from Croatia, by the way, are terrifying and carry large weapons. My passport is now somewhat hilarious. I have 10 stamps - 3 are from countries I only went through on the train (2 from Croation and 1 from Slovenia) and the Americans put the wrong date in my passport. Not a fantastically accurate record of my trip.

I arrived in Venezia early on Sunday morning and promptly pissed off the guy who ran the hostel for arriving before 8am. I mostly spent Sunday just wandering around Venice, marvelling at the costume and glass shops and contemplating how people with wheelchairs or prams would survive with all of the bridges. Sunday evening we just sat around playing Uno and drinking wine. The hostel had free dinner every night and everyone sat around one big table so it was quite fun.

When we woke up on Monday morning, it was snowing again. After it stopped snowing (but continued to be freezing cold), we walked down to Piazza di San Marco, the main square in Venezia. We went into the Basillica which was nice but I'm getting a bit church-ed out as every European has a million churches (usually an Arc de Triumph as well). After some soup and pizza, we retired back to the hostel in an attempt to avoid the cold.

Tuesday morning, we managed to flag down a gondola and talk him down to taking us out for 15 Euro each. I had previously proclaimed that I wasn't leaving Venezia without riding a gondola so I was very pleased. It started to rain and was raining quite heavily by about half an hour later but it was still fun. I then went to Verona, where it was not raining. In Verona, I went to the amphitheatre (second largest in the world) and to Casa di Guilietta (Juliet's house), Casa di Romeo (Romeo's house which was far less exciting than Juliet's - it was a wall with a plaque on it) and Tomba di Guilietta (Juliet's Tomb).

On Wednesday I moved to Firenze but stopped in Bologna on the way. They have Piazza di Nettuno and Fontana di Nettuno (Neptune's square and fountain) which I took pictures of to show my guinea pig. They also have two towers (take that Pisa). You can go up the tallest tower in Bologna but I didn't because I had a splitting headache. Instead I visited a farmacie and managed to tell them (in Italian) that I had a headache and they gave me drugs. My Italian is going surprisingly well. It's amazing how much is tucked in the back of the brain and only surfaces when someone speaks to you in Italian. Anyway, I found my way to the hostel in Firenze fairly easily.

I got up early this morning (Thursday) to go see David di Michelangelo who was very impressive. The Museo di Archaelogica was nearby so I went there as well. It was pretty awesome with lots of Egyptian sarcophageses (sp?) and some mummies. Too bad they stole them from Egypt. Europeans are good at that. I was wandering towards the Duomo when I came across a tiny Leonardo di Vinci Museum that had replicas of his inventions that you can play with. It was very fun. I went to the Duomo but once again am feeling churched out. They did have an archaelogical site underneath the Duomo though which was cool and full of old graves. My camera battery ran out again (you think I'd learn to carry the spare with me) so I had to walk back to the hostel to get the other one before catching the train to Pisa. Whilst walking to the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa, I saw a real life monk (Friar Tuck style) which was very exciting. Piazza del Duomo was very exciting due to the large leaning structure in it. I went up the tower which was fun. It has a spiral staircase and it's easier to walk up one side of it than the other thanks to the tilt. The view from the top was pretty awesome (as was the view from the train on the way). Not much else to do in Pisa so I caught the train back to Firenze and am currently lying around.

For those of you who have not yet asked, I am no longer going to Thailand and am in the process of finding somewhere else to go at the moment.

Love, hugs, etc.