The Gremlin's Grotto

Well here I sit in Venice... yup, Venice. I have spent the last 3 days sick as a dog (head cold, nothing serious), so not too much that has been entertaining.. well mostly. After we left Munich, we headed to see Neuschwanstein castle (the one that Disney built his castle after), so we ended up in this little valley-town in the alps called Fussen. The castle was amazing but the tour lacked something bad. I wanted to see the dumb waiter table, but that part of the tour wasn,t even shown, or mentioned!!!! Miserable. I may apply as an English tour guide there, Fussen is a beautiful spot, even if it is small as hell. Anyway... so we leave Fussen after a trek up the mountain and back, and get on a train, hoping to make it to Switzerland. So we go to Buchlau (see the theme yet? if not, you will get it soon), and wait for a train to somewhere west. We figure we can get on a train to Lindau and get a transfer to Zurich or something from there. Umm... nope!!! No more trains leaving Lindau until the morning. So, it is pitch dark, in a small town and no clue where hostels are. We go into a hotel and ask, and the lady says, " first, you have to get off the island"... ok... at this point I am totally lost, " what do you mean island?" She doesn,t speak good english, so I let it go and listen intently. We manage to find a hostel (remember, I am sick as a dog at this point), and that was about a 45 minute walk through the town, over bridges (islands... sigh), and to the hostel. The guys at the hostel were nice, even going as far as making us sandwiches to eat for free.

Next day, we get back to the train station and manage to get to Zurich, where we get on another train to go to Bern. Joe wanted to see Bern because of the Einstein house, apparently he discovered relativity there somewhere... guess what? the house was closed!!!!! Well, so much for that, and I am sick, so I stayed in bed all day. The next morning we went to the local gallery where we saw a Pollock, Dali, Mondrian (my fav), and Gertch (spelling is prolly wrong, but he was amazing and worth mentioning). Anyway, we finished up in Bern... oh by the way... EXPENSIVE!!!! not a little, nope... ALOT!!! don,t go, it is not worth it. Cost us 12$ CAD each for a Mcdonald meal... almost 30$ for a meal at a restaurant. Yeah, that was insane.

So, we moved on quickly and ended up in Padua, nice town, but holy shit, nothing happens there. The hostel closed at 11, we go there at 10 59. So, he gives us a room and basically tells us to go to bed... there was nothing to do anyway. So, we do and the next morning we went to see St. Anthony Basillica, where they said they had Donatello pieces... I didn,t see any!! I am not sure if that part of the cathedral was shut down, or if I just overlooked them, but regardless the cathedral was amazing. The interior was great, lots of reliefs, statues etc. We then went looking for Giotto,s frescoes... yeah right, I think it was closed anyway (fox meet grapes), but we couldn.t find it at all. So, we basically gave up, knowing I will get my fill of art in italy at some point. We got to Venice, but so far, no hostels are open until later, so we are lugging around our packs trying to waste time until we can get in. Venice is a stinky stinky town... reminds me of Korea in the morning. So, you see, nothing as exciting as Munich to report, but the little crazy adventure continues. By the way Lisa, yup... Austrian girls=German girls, hot hot hot. It must be a German speaking thing. So, off I go, since I am paying my left nut to write this. Keep the comments coming, it really does make my day.

So walks with calloused feet,
The Desk Gremlin

Any problems or comments for the Grotto should be directed to a dark place, or if you really must, daiunus@yahoo.ca