throw off the bowlines. sail away from the safe harbor. catch the trade winds in your sails. explore. dream. discover. - mark twain

I'm going to write a more detailed "reflections" kind of post, but before doing so, I thought it would be good to write down my "conclusion" entry from my travel notebook. Word for word, these were my thoughts as I was sitting in the airport waiting to board my plane back to Boston. Some of it might make no sense because I was just writing my stream of consciousness, but it gives a good picture of all that happened in my three weeks abroad.

Paris

• great city for history, architecture, art
• not wild about prices for things and people on street trying to talk to you
• Notre Dame was my fave 
• hostel okay; staff wasn't the friendliest; bad breakfast
• Metro was good; got me places 

Tours

• Chateaus - gorgeous
• Tours' cathedral - cold, but really neat
• tour made me sleepy but I don't think I missed much of the English narration
• hotel - good; wish there'd been breakfast; far walk; shower took awhile to heat; best towel ever!

Pompeii

• really interesting place
• wish I knew booklet had descriptions of each place
• huge, but I saw most of it
• more detailed art/decor stuff made it fantastic rather than the architecture

Rome

• crazy city drivers
• very interesting things; both Ancient and Catholic
• Renaissance Art - fantastic
• sculptures throughout city - cool
• each church pretty distinctive
• monk bones!

Siena

• STUPID BUS SYSTEM
• Duomo etc. actually very nice and interesting; Tuscan overlook one of my fave places
• Piazza del Campo - very nice
• gelato!

Florence

• everything had an admission fee that wasn't cheap
• LOVED DAVID!!!
• black and white marble design of Tuscan churches
• all had fancy facades but plain sides
• illegal bag selling

Venice

• it's own planet and culture
• lots of churches
• getting lost is easy
• boat pass - wonderful
• flooding! so neat!

Munich

• overall - underwhelming compared to previous cities
• Olympic Tower - overpriced
• Marienplatz - neat/awesome
• Dachau - depressing
• had lots of little things with nothing overwhelmingly awesome
• Nymphenburg - HUGE

Innsbruck

• My FAVORITE place!
• gorgeous weather, gorgeous mountains
• cheap, cutest, central hotel. LOVED
• crystals were trippy/weird
• Nordpark my fave; trampling around 2 ft. of snow on the Alps with parachuters and rock cliffs

Salzburg

• such an awesome, old, old, city
• SoM!! - all the filming places
• wish mountain wasn't closed
• saw the Untersberg! Gorgeous! Alps diff!
• panorama painting and my poster

Vienna

• a lot like Munich
• not a lot to do for 3 days without spending a lot of money
• everything had admission
• enjoyed art museum a lot - wish I could have seen all, but I saw all paintings
• Karlskirche - best church
• a lot hindered by crowds and Vienna's lack of herding abilities and awful space layout
• royalty history- very interesting

And though this has nothing to do with my thoughts on my trip, I have to add the last comment I made in the journal, from the airplane, because I don't remember it at all and I find it hilarious. It's also a great conclusion as its not a conclusion at all..."someone keeps farting; it smells."