Ciao!!
It’s time for Episode 2 in Christina’s Europe Adventure…
First off, sorry for the incredibly long header, does anyone know how to suppress the headers in Yahoo???
Also, I appreciate the e-mails you have been sending me, even though I haven’t been replying individually, I enjoy them!
Before I get too far, this is a wonky keyboard, and anytime you see à I mean ‘
Last time I wrote I was in Nice. I’m now in Rome.
Ann and I took an overnight train to Venice and spent two nights there.  It is a great town and very peaceful since there are only a few cars on the outskirts of town. Itàs exactly as you picture it, canals with gondolas (not the ones on cables that go up mountains but these are the paddle boats that the men in stripped shirts are driving), mazes of streets that are easy to get lost in… I visited the Murano Glass factory where I got to see this amazing glass blowing by hand and I got to see the history of glass. It was amazing to see glass bowls that date back to 1 or 2 AD. They also had these hand blown glass pen that you use in dipping ink. They were gorgeous and it made me wish that I had nice writing to warrant buying one. But I didn’t.
Venice is also famous for their paper so I had lots of fun visiting paper and stationary stores… Visiting the Piazza San Murano was great, and it is exactly
like people say, filled with pigeons… I realized how immersed in science I’ve been for so long when I started pondering the genetics of their feather
patterns.  For about 30 seconds… then I decided that since I was on vacation I wasn’t allowed to think about it! (but there were lots of different patterns and I had a sample size of about 2 or 3 thousand…)
Next stop was Florence, we stayed at a really nice HI youth hostel. Itàs the best one so far, they had beautiful sculptures on the walls. Visited Michelangelo’s DAVID. WOW!!! It’s even more amazing than you think. I knew it was big but until I saw it I didn’t realize just how big. It’s stunning, I could have stared at it for hours. I also visited the Duomo and this Piazza Michelangelo which gave a great view of the city. I could have stayed for a week in Florence and still not see everything.
I spent a brief afternoon on a side trip to PISA to see the leaning tower. It really is leaning, I was surprised at how far over it is. It wont surprise me if it does fall one day, I’m impressed it’s still upright. I didn’t stay long in PISA since I had plans to meet up with friend I’d met in Florence Katrina and Laurel (from Winnipeg) for dinner.
I wanted to stay longer in Florence, but two nights was all I had time for… the call of other places lured me away…
I left Florence and went to Siena which is about 1.5hrs away from Florence by train. It’s a great old town with gorgeous burnt sienna colours for houses. It’s a very well preserved city with intact city walls. I met this Swiss German girl Manuela who’s there for two months to learn Italian. We spent the day together looking at the sites. The church there (another Duomo) is probably my favorite so far. It was very ornate but not as overdone as some churches. It was made out of black and white marble with beautiful frescoes and the floors were done in black and white marble pictures. Amazing. It was much simpler than Notre Dame or other Churches I’ve seen.
After spending the day in Siena I travelled to  Rome, where I am now. I arrived and the first people I meet are friends of friends (Jean it was Jav’s friend Trevor)!! I was never expecting to see people I’ve met before!  I hopped on the metro to go to the hostel, and was helped by four priests from the US. A pile of them are here because it’s a Jubilee year, and the Pope’s birthday tomorrow (80 years old).
I haven’t seen much yet, the spanish steps, and Trevi Fountain. I’ve also gone on a walking tour given by an Irish guy who is now in Rome, he studied classical history so he knows a lot. He told us about the Forum and the colleseum, the jewish ghetto, the pyramid (yes Rome has a pyramid), and he took us to the circus maximus where the chariot races was, and where they sometimes killed Christians and than had chariot races around them.
My plan is to spend a few more days here and then go to see Pompeii before heading to Greece.
I’ll e-mail again from Greece.
Talk to you all soon. Please feel free to say hi. I enjoy it, even if I don’t have time to reply.
Christina
PS I’ve been asked to include travel tips.
My hostel rankings so far:

1. Florence
2. Venice
3. Rome
4. Cheap Hotel in Paris (Henri IV)
5. Private hostel in Barcelona
6. Nice Hostel
7. Train

• I’ve found travellers cheques to work well, though many people are also using ATMs which give good exchange rates too (I’ll be doing that later probably).
• TAKE CARE on Italian trains, you can’t even trust the staff.
• Bring 2 padlocks with you, one for your day pack and one for the locker (or big pack for travel days).
• All Canadians have MEC equipment, and are easy to spot, even without the Canadian flag.
• Be careful on busy metros everywhere hang on to your stuff.