in Vienna

It is the 10th day I'm away from Singapore. It was a little hard initially especially when I was in Hamburg in Ireneus's house because I was missing home and my family. However, things got better and although I still miss home sometimes I was able to cope with my emotions.

I am now very comfortable in Michael's place in Vienna. Jonathan and myself came to Vienna yesterday from Venice. Venice is a very beautiful place, suitable for honeymoon but some areas are too touristic, so Jon and myself set out to explore the rest of the water city for nicer places to relax and enjoy and we did find such places. :)

These are the places I have visited so far and my impressions of them:

Hamburg: our first destination after reaching Copenhagen. I was very happy to meet Ireneus and deposited my luggage in his home. :) He's the best host one can have. He collected us at the train station, brought us around the city, his mother cooked for us, gave us nice and comfortable beds to sleep on and brought us to the airport. His hospitality gave us warmth while away from home and we are very grateful to him. The weather is Hamburg was great, cooling like aircon in the summer and it was a great city because we have Ireneus with us. :)

Rome: we reached Rome by flight from Hamburg. It was freaking hot! Temperature was as high as 30 degree celcius or maybe higher in my impression. It was very tiring and draining due to the sun. We visited the colosseum, vatican city and some important churches in the city. The most tiring of all is touring the colosseum, palatine hill and Roman Forum in the GREAT SUN! My head really feels like it's breaking. Nevertheless, they are nice historical places even though what we saw are just ruins from the past. When we were at the vatican city, it was a pity that the Sistine Chapel which contains exhibitions was closed, so we only toured the St Peter's Basilica, the Pope's tomb and around the rest of the vatican city. The place was filled with tons of tourists and I wonder how the Pope made that his residence. :) It was a very nice place though, full of Catholic arts and beautiful architecture. We tried to go back to the Sistine Chapel on our last day in Rome before we set off to Pisa and Firenze (Florence) but the queue was winding almost one round round the vatican city!

Pisa: It was about 4 hours train ride from Rome and we visited the small beautiful town just for a short while (about 1.5 hours) to see the leaning tower. Outside of the leaning tower and the church, it was a small, beautiful and quiet town. I enjoyed the cooling weather - especially after baking in Rome for 3 nights!

Firenze: Firenze is just 1 hour train ride from Pisa and we reached it in the night. Our hostel staffs are super friendly and very eager to learn about Indonesian and Singapore culture, although I think they are more interested in the sexy girls in Asia. :) They are very warm people and they made our stay in Firenze a joyful, relaxing one. Firenze is also a small town, full of art and architecture and I like it more than Rome (maybe because of it's cooling weather too). The sun set at S.Michaelangelo square was an amazing experience, we saw the whole Firenze from the top and it is simply wonderful!

Venice: The trip from Firenze to Venice was a tiring one because we took a morning 6:03am train and we have to change trains twice! With the Eurail Pass, we have no choice but to take this route to reach Venice. Our train ticket was not checked for the whole journey and it was very surprising, but we saved one day pass for use in the more expensive Denmark. As expected, Venice was very beautiful but almost all things are overpriced-from hostel to food to attractions to water taxis and buses.

Vienna: To be explored today. :)

After Vienna, we will go to Salzburg (the birthplace of Mozart) and Prague in Cezch Republic. Next will be back to Hamburg to collect our stuffs and back to Copenhagen for orientation and study.

I will post all my photos shortly, maybe when I'm back in Copenhagen on 25th August because I'm lazy to do so now. :)