Blog of "epic" proportions

I'm sitting here in the hostel in Bern (not at McDonald's, surprisingly!) The internet here is being kind of ghetto...I have about 15 pictures that I'm trying to upload while I blog, so we'll see if I am able to get them all or not. I can't really complain about the wireless that we "hacked" into because it is free The hostel charges 1 Swiss Franc (equal to one US dollar) for 10 minutes, and apparently the McDonald's here only let you online for 30 minutes and it is 4 Francs for a medium drink, which is ridiculous.

I haven't updated in a while and since I like to write, this might be pretty long. You may want to get a snack or something. :)

Anyway, the past couple days have been crazy and amazing and just fantastic. Wednesday we went to the Louvre, which to be quite frank, I wasn't overly impressed with. The place was huge and crowded and had a lot of junk. Plus, I was tired and hungry, so that didn't help my temperament much because I'm a bit grumpy when I'm tired and hungry...as my mom can attest to! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed looking at some of the artwork. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa and some of da Vinci's other works, which were cool. And the Venus di Milo. We spent about 4 hours there and only scratched the surface of the stuff. Ray on the other hand loved the place. He stayed until it closed and they had to kick him out!

Andrew and I came back to the hotel and tried to deal with our "Laundry Woes". Being the conservative travelers that we are, we brought stuff to do laundry in the sink with us. Our first night in the hotel in Paris, we did a load of laundry. We were very proud of ourselves...washed in warm, rinsed in cold, wrung them out, and hung them up to dry. The next morning they were still soaked and that afternoon they were still damp AND were starting to smell. We didn't know what to do with them, so we took the hair dryer to them...it was working, slowly but steadily. Unfortunately, we still had to do ANOTHER load because we had hung some of the first load above the other load and those clothes were wet and icky too. So I washed away on load #2 (not having a clue what to do with them to get them dry) while Andrew dried the first load. After about 15 minutes of this, it hit me to take the iron to them and steam the looming water out. This actually worked, but we got smart with the second load and hung them by the open window and they were dry within hours. but with the first load, I was ready to throw all the clothes out the window and say forget it all. I think we still may do the laundry in the sink, but from now on we'll "splurge" to dry them.

We worked up an appetite doing the manual labor, so about 10 PM, we decided to walk towards the Eiffel Tower and find some food. Every hour, on the hour, they light it up and make it all sparkly and such, so we were able to see that. Then we came across a little alley way with a cheap Chinese restaurant and a PERFECT view of the tower. The food was pretty good, but the view was amazing. I felt like a true Parisian by drinking wine with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. It was an amazing sight and by far my favorite experience in Europe thus far. After our "gourmet" Chinese food, we walked down and checked out the tower up close and by that time it was 11 so it sparkled again. It was truly a sight to behold.

Friday morning Andrew and I ventured to Moulin Rouge and explored that district for a little while. We saw some interesting things that we would have never seen in downtown Paris. Next was the Musee' d'Orsay, which I liked much better than the Louvre. It had stuff by Monet, Manet, Renior, Degas and Van Gogh. Not just one or two, but whole collections of their stuff. It was really neat getting to get close and see the actual brush strokes. When we got done there, we went back to that same market that Andrew blogged about in his last post. The were about to close up shop so we quickly grabbed some cheese, wine, and bread and headed towards the Eiffel Tower for a picnic there.

Our picnic was incredible. Apparently we were doing as the Parisians do because we saw several French-speaking families picnicking who had what else, but bread, wine, and cheese. It had just rained so it was a bit chilly (and I was in capris and a polo...I hadn't planned for cool weather because it had been hot the first two days). The sun was out and the sky was blue and it was just a beautiful sight. We watched the sun set on the lawn of the tower (amazing), then got in line and went to the top. I cannot put into words how breathtaking the view from the top of the tower was. Paris is HUGE and I felt like I could see for miles. It was a lot of fun picking out the various landmarks that we had been to and they all looked so tiny...except for the Arc de Triumph, which still looked massive, even from 330 meters in the air. Although it was cold and windy and I was only slightly warmed by the wine from earlier in the night I would not have picked another time to see all of Paris. I'm sitting here sighing and smiling just remembering it from 2 nights ago. The Eiffel Tower is definitely my favorite European landmark so far, although it's not quite as impressive during the day.

All together Paris was a great time and Andrew and I came up with a little analogy for it. "Paris is like a one-night stand...people fall in love with her at night, then in the morning realize how dirty she is and can't wait to leave." Heehee.

Yesterday was an early day of packing and hopping on a train to Bern. It was a 4 hour trip and I slept most of the way, but what little I did see of the Swiss countryside was beautiful. Bern itself is wonderful. It isn't a big city and it's not crowded, which is a big change of pace from Dublin, London, and Paris. The Old Town is one big shopping mall. Seriously...all of these old buildings are filled with hi end shops and stuff. Even the food prices around the area is ridiculous so we have hit up the grocery store quite a bit.

There really aren't many "attractions" in Bern, which I like. They have an old clock tower that is supposed to do all kinds of spiffy things, but we watched it yesterday and it was pretty lame. They also have a bear pit (the city mascot is a bear...apparently it was the first animal that the founder killed when he got here) which was also kind of lame. But the city itself is fantastic. There is a river that runs through it that is BEAUTIFUL...its a bright turquoise and there are no sticks, no dirt, no trash...no anything on it. And the city is full of all kinds of old buildings and such. Today we took a tram ride to Gurten, which is a "mini mountain" just outside the city. It is an actual mountain, but it's a small one. From it on one side you can see all of Bern and the swiss countryside while from the other side you can see snow capped mountains of the Swiss Alps. It was a beautiful day today so the three of us had lunch overlooking the city, then napped with a view of the mountains.

Our train doesn't leave until 11 PM tomorrow (it's overnight to Florence) so I think we may take a day trip to Luzern or Lusanne, which (I think) are both mountain towns. It's overwhelming to think of all the things we've done. As Andrew and I keep saying, we would be completely content if we were to go home now as far as everything that we have gotten to do. What's even more crazy is thinking about all the stuff that we have yet to do. Thank you everyone for keeping up with this and for your comments. As we keep saying, feeling like you all are taking this trip with us makes it even more special and (at least in my case) I always smile reading your comments.

This internet is being too temperamental for me to upload pictures, but I will soon, I promise!

On a side note to my family...its 6 PM Saturday in Etown right now. I'm assuming you all are having the 4th of July shindig and have imagined all of you gathered around the computer reading this, just anxious to hear what I have to say next...I know, I have an active imagination. :) Hope you all don't miss me too much and eat hot dogs and watermelon for me. (I would have had an "American" hot dog for dinner tonight in honor of you guys, but it would have cost 16 bucks). Oh, light a sparkler for me too...and don't listen to any rumors that my asshat sisters may start about me, they aren't true.

I miss you all.