Between My Ears

Here is the last picture from the Europe trip. It is Greg and I outside our hotel.

Here are some pictures of our last night in Europe. Niklas and Lamia joined us in Rome. They had a tough time getting there because of the major storm that hit Germany.

After dinner we decided to walk around Rome. Along the way we had a few beers and saw some strange cars. Since we are tourists, we took some photos. The red car was actually a moped turned into a car. The picture is Eric looking at the parked car. Man the people in Rome need to learn how to parallel park their cars. The last photo is the guys in front of the Colosseum.

After the Colosseum & the Palace, we stopped off at the Pantheon before returning to the hostel. Here are some pictures and background of the Pantheon.

The Pantheon, Piazza della Rotonda - originally built in 27 BCE as a temple to all the gods of the Roman state religion, but has served as a Christian church since the 7th century. It is the only building from the Graeco-Roman world which has remained substantially intact and in continuous use throughout to the present day.

The inscription above the entrance to the pantheon reads in English "M. Agrippa Built This" The dome is now the third largest masonry dome in the world. The first is at St. Peter's and the second is at Haggia Sophia.

Here are the pictures of the Palace next door to the Colosseum. We went on the tour after the Colosseum.

Sorry, I am posting the last few pictures from out trip today.

We visited the Colosseum in Rome today. Instead of taking the metro to get there we decided to join an open bus tour. For $14 euro we could ride on a 2 story bus with an open top. They provided headphones and listened to an audio tour of Rome. The first picture is the three of us on the top level of the tour bus.

Our first stop was the Colosseum. Here is a picture of me standing outside of the Colosseum. Since we did not know much about the Colosseum, we joined a live tour of the Colosseum. For 20 euro, we had entrance and had a tour guide for the Colosseum and the Palace next door. Since we were part of the tour they included a picture with the actors outside. Here is a picture with some of them.

The last picture is inside the Colosseum.

We took a side trip from Florence to Pisa. After a 1 hour train ride we made it to Pisa. The goal was to see the Leaning Tower. Here is a picture at the train station in Pisa. From the station it is about a 10 minute walk to the tower.

There is an entrance fee of 15 Euro to take the stairs to the top of the tower. Since this was a great opportunity we decided to hike up the stairs. Here is a picture of the narrow staircase leading to the top of the tower. When we got to the top, we stopped to take a picture with the bell.

The last picture is me holding up the tower. Yes it is a classic tourist pose, but I had to do it.

This is our second day in Venice. We took a tour of the Jewish Ghetto in Venice. As we were waiting for our tour to begin, Eric noticed an interesting boat in the canal. The name of the boat was Hakuna Matada, I guess the Venetians love Lion King.

The next picture is Greg in front of a synagogue that we went into. After the tour we took a boat ride to the island of Murano. They are known for their glass blowing. Unfortunately they were not blowing glass while we were there, I guess it was a slow time for them. But we did have a chance to see them make small glass figures in some of the smaller shops.

The next picture is of me in front of the tallest glass tree in the world.

Germany is known for their beer and Italy for their wine. Here is a picture of the three of us in a wine bar close to our hotel. Behind us are a bunch of expensive wines and champagnes. So we had to pull a bottle of Crystal and take a picture with it. The last picture is of the front of the wine bar.

We arrived in Venice on January 15th. We took the train from Salzburg, Austria at 1:30 am and arrived in Venice at 8:30 am. Since this was an overnight trip, we booked a sleeping cart. The sleeping cart had 6 beds in one cart, so it was rather crowded.

Here is a picture of Greg and I outside the train station in Venice. Since we did not have a place to sleep in Venice, we needed to stop by an Internet Café to find a hostel or hotel. We were lucky because we found a 2.5 star hotel in Venice for just $60 a night, Hotel Scandinavia.

After we dropped of our bags we went to visit the Gough museum. It was a small museum on the Grande Canal. Here is a picture of me in the back of the museum with the Grande Canal behind me. The next picture is me sitting on a throne in the courtyard. All hail the king!!!

After the museum we strolled over to the Sam Marco District. Here is a picture of me in front of the church. This is where they have the famous church and the pigeons in the courtyard. In the courtyard visitors can purchase a bag of bird food for 1 euro. So Greg bought a bag and threw the feed at Eric and the birds swarmed him immediately. Eric freaked out, but unfortunately he had the camera so I did not get a picture of that. But here is a picture of the birds swarming a girl.

We took a shuttle from our hostel in Salzburg, Austria to Zell am See. The shuttle picked us up exactly at 8:00 am. It was scheduled to leave the resort at exactly 4:00 pm.

Greg and I got to the bus at 3:30 pm with no sign of Eric. At 4:00 Greg & I had to get off of the bus because Eric was not there and we did not want to leave him behind. We spoke to the tour guide and he could not wait any longer. The driver had another route after us. So the bus left at 4:02 pm. So I snapped a few pictures of the bus leaving. Greg can be seen in both pictures watching the bus drive off. I thought it was funny.

Eric finally got there at 4:04 pm. Since we missed our ride, we had to take a train back to Salzburg. We got a little lost in the town, but we finally found the train station. Luckily the train station had a bar where we could relax. We had about 1 hour to kill, so of course we had some beer.

I also posted a picture of the rental shop that rented my equipment.

We had a slight change in plans. We originally were going to Switzerland to snowboarding and skiing. However Europe has experienced an extremely warm winter. So we checked with our hostel in Munich and they said to go snowboarding in Austria.

In Austria they have higher elevations, so they will have better snow than Switzerland. The night that we left, the forecast called for fresh snow in the mountains. When we got there the storm did not arrive, so we did not have fresh powder. Just man made snow. Most of the lifts on the mountain were open, however a few runs were closed because of the lack of snow. As I went up a few lifts, I could see grass and dirt of a few runs.

Here are some pictures from our trip to Austria.