Well everyone, I made it safe and sound to Europe, though it has already been a rollercoaster of ups and downs. My flights were delayed 4 hours but at least I got my luggage when I landed in London. Immediately after making my way through customs I too the train to the EuroStar stations, waved hello to the London Eye, booked the next EuroStar train from London to Paris and was on my way to meet up with Kourtney that night. Afer grabbing a shower we headed out and did a power tour of some of Paris's sights. I got some great pictures of the Louvre and Champs de Elyse at night, but you'll have to wait to see them until I get to a cafe that will let me hook up USB. We got back to our hotel around 1:30AM and were locked out!!! As in we couldnàt even enter the lobby ofthe Best Western. So, we had to make our way back to the train station to ask the police officers what we could do and ended up calling from a pay phone. The guy said he was there so we booked it back, just to have him yell at us for not leaving our kroom key at the desk when we went out. Well, we wouldn't have had a problem doing that if he had actually TOLD us before we left. Lesson learned - don't expect people to tell you what you need to know about staying at their establishment. Grrr.

The next morning we got a workout at the train station. Kourtney had booked our reservations while I slept in a bit to get adjusted to the time change. We arrived at the station about 45 minutes before we had to leave which was great, except after looking for 15 minutes for our platform we realized we were at the wrong train station and had to dash through the metro and literally sprint down and around an entire set of tracks to make the train on time. Lesson learned - just because you booked your reservation at one train station doesn't mean that's where you're departing from. When we got to Lyon, we had an "interesting" time trying to not lose our tempers with another backpacker that tagged along to get some dinner. He was one of those people who can't stop yammering about everything, runs over anything you say, and is completely full of s***. Lesson learned - don't sacrifice your sanity just to be nice. Later that night after ditching said person, Kourt and I went up to the Basillica which was gorgeous. It's on top of a huge hill and has a panoramic view of the city below.

The next morning we went back up to the Basillica to go inside and later went to St. Jean's Cathedral before leaving. We wanted to go to Cinque Terre but the trains were all booked so we decided to take a night train from Nice to Venice. However when Kourt got up to book our tickets (I was grabbing some much needed pizza and water), the guy was being such a jerk at the ticket counter, making ridiculous faces and flailing his arms in the air saying it couldn't be done when Kourt was trying to show him in her Eurrail timetable that it said it was. He just waved her away to talk to someone who spoke English and just when we thought everything was great, our train was leaving in 12 minutes and we had to sprint again. Once on our train to Nice we looked at the connecting tickets and the guy had booked us to Ventimiglia which is just across the French/Italian border, NOT VENICE. So, we went with the flow and stayed in Nice which was really nice (ha). We had an amazing girl help us with booking a hostel at such short notice at the office of tourism. Lesson learned - be fliexble.

On the 9th we went to Monaco and saw the famous Monte Carlo casino as well as checked out the yachties and palace there. Back in Nice we layed out on the pebble beach (of the Mediterranean) for an hour, then took a tram tour all over the city and then wandered through the downtown craft market that had tons of cute restaurants serving in the middle of the street. Not bad at all...

The 10th we took a 10 hour train to Rome to meet Maggie, another friend flying in. More issues there because wehn we were checking in, they told us we had to pay for not showing up on the 8th. I said WTF, we didn't book on the 8th.... well apparently I did somehow so that was a nice big 75? fee. Lesson learned - TRIPLE check bookings. Damn. That night we basically laid out our game plan an got some rest.

The 11th we went straight to Vatican City and did a guided tour which was decent. Sisteen Chapel was amazing but I wished I had a mute button because all the tourists and tour guides were so damn loud. Lesson learned - August is s***ty to travel because of all the tourists. Then we went back to the hostel for a quick nap before showering and getting ready for a pub crawl. It was a tour as well so we got to learn about a few of the sights like the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, etc. Great night, great people, and the leader was from Iowa and actually knows where Denver is... crazy.

The 12th we got up and did another tour with the same group that ran the pub crawl which was great as well. We went through the Roman Forum, Colluseum, Jewish Ghetto, Pantheon, etc.

The 13th we left for Florence and unfortunately it was raining when we got in so we booked it to our hotel and luckily it was done by the time we stepped back out. Basically we spent the day wandering and took a tour of Palazzo Vecchio, walked over Ponte Vecchio, etc.

Unfortunately this morning Kourt spent several hours throwing up so that's kind of put the kibosh on going to the Ufizzi or really much of anything else. So, we'll see what happens before the girls leave on their night train to go back to Paris and I continue my journey alone.

I hope you've enjoyed this so far and I'll do my best to continue updating whenever I can. Ciao!