"how are the boys supposed to kiss you when you get onion pizza??"

Confession: I used to love NSync. I was a multiple concert attending, Lance Bass loving, poster displaying fan. Embarassing, but true. This is going somewhere, I promise. So, in Rome, Sarah and I were in search of a particular restaurant recommended to us by our friend Rick Steves, when we heard a loud obnoxious American accented individual saying "speak ENGLISH!". Independently of each other, we both turned to give this person a dirty look, when we realized that it was Joey from NSync. Sarah was walking in front of me, so I hissed "Sarah!! "..."I KNOW!" she replied. We were then flooded with 15 year old memories. Hilarious.

Anyway, where were we? Italy?

Venice was lovely, but crowded and pricey, as expected. We decided it was worth at least a day though, because, like Rick Steves says: "it's a medieval cookie jar, and nobody's looking". It's charming in its own dirty, crowded way, but it's the kind of place you could arrive in the morning, say you saw it, and be out before you can say 'gondola'. And €30 doesn't buy much in the way of accommodation either. It buys a bed and a pretty crappy shower. We walked in, and, being a bit tired, wondered "...why are there shoe prints on the ceiling and walls?". Later, upon closer inspection, there were also tons of dead mosquitos on the walls...clearly having met their demise from said shoes. Lovely. But, we had a nice dinner, went for some nice walks, and got some souveniers, so, it was a nice time.

The next day we headed to Rome. We arrived, got lost trying to find the hostel (this is a trend for us in Italy), attempted to check in, only to find that our booking was for the next two days, not that day, and, no, they didn't have free beds for that night. Angry at ourselves and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, we asked if there was anywhere else we could stay. Luckily, this wasn't Berlin, and the nice boy at the desk found us another place 10 minutes away. Thank goodness. After dropped off our things and partaking in the free pasta, we opted to go for a walk, as there is much to see in Rome. We found our way to the Trevi fountain (it was on the top of Sarah's list), which really is incredibly beautiful. We found spots amongst the tourists and sat for a while; basking in Triton's glory. The experience was somewhat soured, however, by the handfuls of ,en trying to sell tourists random crap that nobody needs. No, I don't want to buy 3 roses or a clay funny face that moulds into 20 different expressions...I want to enjoy the fountain in peace.

The following day we headed out for Vatican City, as we heard it was best to do either early or pretty late. We waited in line for about an hour, got inside, and began to go through what is apparently 4 miles of art leading up to the Sistine Chapel. There would be a sign saying "Chapel this way" and we would turn a corner, walk through a hallway, turn another corner, see another sign...by the time we got to the actual chapel, we were exhausted. And it was kind of disappointing, after all that lead up. And there were all these guards repeating "sshh!!!" and "NO PICTURES!!". But, it was a very impressive museum, and something you should see once. After the museum, we headed for St Peters Basilica, which I found to be much more fantastic than the museum, and it was FREE. Later that night we found the Pantheon as a landmark for where we would have dinner, thus the Joey story. The dinner was very good, inexpenisve, and the waiters had funny things to say about Sarah's choice of pizza topping.

The following day we headed for the Colloseum, which was...big. And the forum ruins, which were...ruined. And got gelato, which was...delicious. I could go into detail, but its really not that interesting. We went to a bone crypt, which was interesting in its creepiness, Sarah and I were both accused of not paying the 'recommended' €1 at the door (which we both paid, by the way, because who tries to cheat a church??), and we went to the same retaurant for dinner. We went to a bar later, and were approached by two guys who heard us speaking English, and have a guess where they were from? L.A. Go Dodgers.

The next day we headed up to Florence, the final destination to get lost and pay for a hostel in. And, man, did we get lost. The directions were terrible, and no one would help us. After asking several people, to no avail, we bought a city map, found our street, found our hostel, and grumpily dealt with the lack of internet or kitchen that the hostel claimed to have on the website. 'Tomorrow will be better', we thought. We left the hostel in the morning, found the streets to be packed with demonstrators (I'm seeing a trend, here...), protesting something about budget cuts in the university system, from what we could gather. We decided it was a good day to go to Pisa, as it is only an hour away, and we still had Eurail passes. Saw the tower, which was cleaner than I thought it would be...looks like they've been doing a lot of renovations on it...got some more gelato, did some shopping, and headed back to Florence.

The next day we spent shopping...until later in the day when we caught the night train back to Paris. Florence actually is quite beautiful, it would have been interesting to see it at the beginning of the journey, rather than the end when we were tired of museums, tired of hostels, tired of the crappy exchange rate, and probably a little tired of each other, as well. Perhaps someday I'll go back with fresh eyes and a rich husband.

Now we are back in Paris, which is almost like being home. Thursday Sarah heads home, which will be really sad, she's been an amazing trval buddy and partner in crime. She' so easy to be around and has such an amazing heart. She also has incredible patience, as I know I'm definitely not the easiest person to deal with sometimes! Thursday morning I'm off on the infamous chunnel to London, then Manchester to see Anchal. I'm so excited to see her!! We lived together for 2 years in LB and she is in MAN getting her Masters. I haven't seen her in a year, and have missed her ridiculous amounts.

The Simpsons is playing in French at Amélie's. I've kind of missed t.v.