STACY'S HERE!!! BCF (best cousins forever) EUROTRIP 2006 has officially begun! I've been keeping a travel journal, but I'm not ready to start writing yet. Here's the itinerary - Sept 15 - Stacy arrives, Tour of Turin (given by none other than, me!), go out and stay with Michele in Turin (highlight of the day - seeing my cousin!!!) 16 - train to 5 Terre, check into hostel in Manarola (highlight of the day - stacy's first train ride - woo woo! and having 5 hrs to catch up on everything that's happened in the past year) 17 - hike around the 5 Terre, eat, drink, be merry, etc (highlight of the day - having an old italian man show and explain to us how he makes his wine in this tiny little room with grapes hanging from the ceiling) 18 - train to Florence (1hr), explore! (highlight of the day - popping a squat in the middle of the street next to the Uffizi gallery, singing along with a street musician playing Simon and Garfunkle classics, drinking chianti, eating tiramisu, - and making friends with 2 really cool 50yr old couples from Virginia) 19 - More exploration, art appreciation, and cultural enrichment in Florence (highlight of the day - it`s a toss up - one would be having lunch in the best restaurant in Florence "on the house", and the other would be climbing the 417 steps up to the top of the "Campanile" (church bell tower) as the sun set over Florence and the rolling hills of Tuscany surrounding the city) Our first over-night train to Salzburg, Austria 20 - Our train to Salzburg was delayed, and so we had to re-route, and got to Salzburg around 11.30am instead of 6am. Sleep was just a little here, and a little there - so when we made it to our hostel we just crashed. We woke up at 6pm and decided to go find a place in town to download the photos from Florence, but instead we found a huge town festival, and sat down in the beer tent to sing along with all the local Austrians who celebrate this town festival annually. (highlight of the day - our new friends Mani and Marco, Salzburg locals, took us to have drinks in a bar on top of a mountain overlooking all of Salzburg!) 21 - Sound of Music tour (highlight of the day - toboganing!!!....and we have a video!) - train to Munich 22 - 24 Germany... Oktoberfest..... 3 Words..... OUT...OF..CONTROL....(highlight of the weekend - when the band started playing Jambalaya, Crawfish pie, File gumbo....and two New Orleans girls cajun danced in the middle of a German beer tent) 25-27 Chalet Martin in Gryon, Switzerland - fun in the Alps! Bunch of bloody aussies run the place. Stacy rock climbed for the first time, while I nursed myself back to health - my lost voice from oktoberfest turned into a nice sinus deal, no worries mate! (highlight of this place - sitting around the campfire) 28-29 Meet up with Uncle Vance and the guys in the Swench (swiss-french) town of Morges, Switzerland. So amazing to be surrounded by family after so long. Daytrips to Montreux and Geneva - it doesn't get any prettier than this - the lake, the mountains, the flowers - these towns are unreal, like walking into a postcard! (highlight - drinking good wine and talking about mamre and papere) 30 - Paris, what can I say, we'll try to see and do it all. Notre Dame - check. Eiffel Tower - check. Drink at the pub next to the Eiffel Tower with a bunch of rowdy Irishmen - check. (highlight of the day - 8pm - the moment the Tower started sparkling - incredible!) Oct. 1 - Paris day 2 - The Sien River batobus to the Louvre (on the free day!), with the Da Vinci Code audio tour - SO FUN!! I mean....educational. Lunch on les Champs-Elysees (I'm starting to realize how hard it's gonna be to leave Europe). Pictures under the Arc de Triumph. Wine at the Eiffel Tower - basically, our plan is to end each night at the tower. When it sparkles, it's the most wonderful thing you've ever seen in your whole life! (highlight of the day - using the self-timer at the Arc - always hilarious!) 2 - Paris day 3 - Sacre Coeur, Montmarte, Moulin Rouge, shopping, drink coffee, eat crepes, etc. (highlight of the day - the magnificent view of the city from Sacre Coeur) 3 - Amsterdam - basically one big Bourbon St. Our hostel was a groovy smokers bar with rooms upstairs. The view from our window - a sex shop and a marijuana store. Walked around the streets getting husled, went to the famous SexMuseum, unknowingly passed through the Red Light District.....scary place. (hightlight of the day - playing in gigantic wooden shoes) 4 - Hung out in Amsterdam till 5pm, and then took an hour train ride to the village of Smuckers which is called Bovenkarspel-Grootebroek. Right when we stepped off the train there was a windmill! So Dutch! Smuckers picked us up and showed us around his apt. - we each have our own bedroom! He cooked us dinner - meatball, potatoes and cauliflower - and gave us our bikes and the map of his village, so tomorrow we will ride around to see what kind of trouble we can get into. (hghlight of the day - seeing Smuckers after 3yrs) 5-8 Smuckers' village - ride bikes, run through fields of tulips, look at windmills, stick our fingers in dikes, dance around in wooden shoes, eat cauliflower?, and attend a huge dutch music festival in his neighbor village where he says all the people drink beer and sing-along to dutch favorites - does it get any better than that? 9- long freaking train ride back down to Turin 10- HOME! I think as we go along I'll just keep adding stuff to this itinerary, so just keep checking it - also watch out for pictures that will start showing up whenever we can get our cameras charged up and download our pictures. The weather has been amazing, the food and wine, the sights, the people, everything! WISH YOU WERE HERE! | 
