hitch hiking until..

I'm in Rome at the moment. We're moving on to Napoli tonight, so yeah, we're just going around Italy at the moment. Hitch hiking's supposed to be really hard here, but we don't actually know.

The trip started out fine. Filip's older brother dropped us off at the freeway and I didn't even finish writing "South" on the cardboard sign when someone saw Filip's thumb and curly, blonde hair. It was a Danish family going down to shop south of the border (common in Dk) and they just set us off there - far from the freeway though! So we were quite stuck at the biggest Danish shopping place in Germany. Funny thing happened: my (yes, Nili, she's my 'new') girlfriend was headed south with her family AND stopping to shop where we were at. So after basking in the sun (on the sidewalk) for some hours, they took us a couple of hours down into Germany. From there we slept behind the 'Rasthof's (gas-stops along the freeway) for two nights. The last Rasthof we got stuck for almost a full day because we'd apparently made it down a slightly inconvenient freeway just north of Freiburg, when considering we were trying to get to Southern France. In addition Filip got sick with headaches and puking and so on. I was quite sore myself from sleeping on the ground so spirits weren't high. Eventually we just took a ride with a business man (who bore striking resemblance to Al Pacino in Scarface and even smoked cigars branded 'Al Capone' the whole way) to Zurich, Switzerland. We stayed a night, watched the semi-finals of the World Cup and concluded that we'd started down a path of no return, bought EuroRail tickets (not cheap, mind you!) said goodbye to our newfound American friends (there are Americans EVERYwhere!) and took the night-train to Milano, then Florence (looked around here) on to Pisa, Livorno and Campigliari and then a bus to the small coastal town of Piombino from which a ferry took us to the incredibly scenic island of Elba - where my girlfriend was holidaying with her family and some friends! smiiiile

But we went on to Rome and are here now. The Sixteenth Chapel closed right in our faces so we're disappointed and sad. We've spent waaay too much money sleeping in hostels, eating out and buying water which annoys me. Our good experience last night, though, when we were in Circo Massimo (Rome's old race-track) with at least 30.000 other people to watch Italy win the World Cup! THAT was nuts.. nuts..

Anyway, I wanna go home but Filip reeeally wants to go to Napoli to see Vesuvia and Pompeii.. I guess I'll go along to monitor costs and luxurious expenditure. We've decided to sleep at train stations the rest of the time and buy canned food etc etc..

Okay, time's up here. Sorry its messy and stuff, but.. but.. who cares?! smile

vacation's here

Just a quick note to say the following:

Thank you to you who continue to read my blog despite my only very sporadic postings. I'm going on vacation now - hitch hiking around Europe for 2 weeks!! [smile] I'm going with a very good friend of mine with whom I've hitch hiked twice before. If I find a good internet café, I'll be sure to drop a note in here about where we are etc etc.. -yeah, just another boring travel-update (don't feel obliged!)

This is my 101'st post!

Take care of yourselves and keep thinking about it all..