任是无情也动人

It looks like I still have some time for net access, so here's a quick summary of today...

Our first stop was the Coliseum, where we met our local tour guide for the day. We were able to go inside the arena and take photos, but the best views were of course from the top...of the first floor. My god the stairs were absolutely killer, each and every step being slippery and steep. It's easy to see how the Ancient Romans could have used it to control the crowds on the upper floors.

Then we headed over to the Roman forums and Basilica. Or at least the ruins thereof.

After that, we stopped outside of the Vatican for lunch. Which really was more expensive than it would have been across the street. Word to the wise - if a tour guide introduces you to a shop of any kind, first look around at the other shops in the same area. Chances are you're at the most expensive one and the tour guide gets a cut if you shop there.

Then, the Vatican Museum, which eventually leads into the Sistine Chapel. My god that was a long walk of over three miles. A very pretty and gilded long walk, but still incredibly long. Supposedly, you're not supposed to take any photos in the chapel itself; but no one apparently cared and there was no way to police all the people squeezed into that room, so I did take photos and video. :P Oh yeah, and to add - the place was absolutely packed, in the kind of tightly packed environment that you'd only find in popular Chinese tourist attractions. Also, it's one of the few places where it's not the Asians that are dominating the crowd. I guess there are a lot of devout Catholics out there?

Also, at this point, I need to stop and complain about our local tour guide for today. I have not had a single complaint about any of our tour guides, local and non, at any point before this. But today's lady was horrible. Her accent is thick, and she doesn't slow down, try to make things clear. She also does infodumps over her mike instead of anecdotes like all the other tour guides. This is horrible public speaking practice for the trade that she is in, because all of this information to anyone who cares too look online, and is absolutely useless at gaining the attention of her audience. Our guide yesterday was Italian with an accent too, but he was able to make the tour fun with anecdotes and facial expressions and a raw joy in the subject that is contagious. Also, whenever something goes wrong and a person on the tour doesn't do as she asks (like using the radio headphones or keeping up with the party), it's never *her* fault, but theirs. I can tell you right now that this is horrible customer service of any kind.

Anyway, the upshot of the rant above is that when we came out of the Sistine Chapel, she pointed out where the restrooms (toilettes) were for the group. Then she said something like the people who want to go should wait at the door for her to join them in 10 mins or so. So, naturally, some of us went. It wasn't until after a few of the party that didn't go to the restrooms rejoined us that we found out that she'd led the rest of the group onwards into the St. Peter cathedral, AND that once you got to the exit area with the restrooms, you are not allowed to go back. The guide insisted that she mentioned this caveat, and maybe she might have tried after we'd already left, but considering that 9 people out of 28 "misunderstood" her, that's her problem with not communicating clearly, not ours.

Anyway, the rest of us went back into line for just the cathedral, because that was one scenic spot that we should not be missing. Then afterwards, we all trundled back to the bus, only to find that we were missing one family (4 people) which held an elderly man in a wheelchair. So both our tour guides (our long term guide and our local one from today) spent the next hour looking for them while we spent that hour waiting, before deciding to move on.

Of course, that's when they finally called in to tell us that they'd already headed onto the next scenic spot on the tour a long time ago cuz they thought our group had already left while they were in the restroom. *sigh*

Anyways, better late than lost I guess. We met back up with our lost lambs at the wishing fountain place (formal name escapes me at the moment). Paused for wishes and photos. Then stopped by the Spanish Steps (I think it was called?) for a group photo. What was funny was that there was a group Finnish (Polish?) college kids at the place, who decided to invade our group photo. This lead up to a free for all of mixed group photos of mass hilarity.

Finally, we headed back for dinner, which was provided by the tour. This one was much better than the French cuisine one. It even had musical accompaniment with a nice lady who serenaded us several times throughout the meal. She also teased several of the male members of our party. Since the average age of our tour group was somewhere in the fifties (most are married with kids or even grandkids off to college), this was kinda hilarious.

Finally, we came back to the hotel, and tomorrow we say goodbye to Europe.

EDIT: OMG two more power outtages tonight. When calling in to the front desk, they're blaming it on someone using the wrong voltage plugs. No you idiots, if someone crashes their own room's outlet using the wrong plug, that's their fault. If a bunch of other unrelated customers are affected, that's YOUR fault, and YOUR responsibility. This is basic common sense in the service industry. What is wrong with you? In conclusion: do not book Holiday Inn.

I figure I've seen all I need to see of all the hotels we've been staying at on this tour to give a ranking of them. Unless there's something really abnormal at breakfast tomorrow, there's not likely to be anything that will change my mind. Now, given that I haven't been noting down the names of the various hotels we stayed in, other than noting that all except the current/last one were local brand names and not international chains, I'm going to reference them by the city instead. I guess they can serve as a starting point in the city comparison that I'll do later.

So here they are, from best to worst.

1. Paris - Had everything, including complementary slippers, which no other place had. Also had the most fluffiest bedding/pillows.

2. London - Best breakfast of all the hotels, with the most choices and omelettes!

3. (just outside of) Florence - Only downside was that the water pressure was a little weak but that seems to be true of all of Europe. The keys were heavy brass keys instead of normal keycards, but I'm not sure if that's supposed to be on purpose as a flavor thing. WIFI was a wee bit fidgety but not too bad, and the service was really good/responsive. There was no cable TV, but I don't watch TV so it doesn't affect me.

4. Lucerne - Only downside was that the WIFI was only available in the lobby and seventh floor. However, since the room we got was on the ground floor right next to the lobby, I could still get online from the room. :)

5. Milan - Main complaint here was that the staff was pretty unresponsive and took forever to get around to servicing you even when you're the only person at the counter.

6. (just outside of) Venice - Only place where there was no flatscreen TV in the room but the old style TV. The front desk could not provide any adapters for US style plugs into Italian style outlets. There were stuff that was broken in the bathroom such as the step-button thing to open the trash can lid. Also, breakfast only had one warm dish and that was eggs.

7. Rome - This was the only US brand hotel - Holiday Inn. Also no adapters available at the front desk. Only hotel that didn't have a safe either (wtf!). WIFI is 14 Euros per 24 hours so I may or may not even be able to post something tomorrow. Also, the power went out for like 5-10 minutes while I was in the shower just now, which was awwkwaaard... EDIT: Also, the walls are paper thin and it's hard to sleep while listening to your neighbors talking and watching TV.

Some general notes...

Breakfast in general in Europe seems to suck a lot. There appears to be no attempt at all to make it "international". In London we started with warm dishes at breakfast including eggs, sausages, ham (bacon-like), potatoes, omelette station. Then in Paris it was just eggs, bacon, sausages, but at least they had some yummy croissants that are a specialty of the French. In pretty much everywhere in Italy there was just eggs and bacon. In the hotel outside Venice in particular there was just eggs, and that was it for the warm dishes.

I can't believe a lot of these hotels which are in tourist hot spots can't go the one small step further and offer something like pancakes or waffles (for US tastes) or something Asian-y to cater to the burgeoning Chinese tourist population. It seems to be very backwards to me. Or perhaps ethnocentric? Or maybe they just don't care about food as much as the Chinese do (going by any international breakfast offered by a Chinese hotel in a major city...)

Our hotel last night was actually just outside Venice. This morning we took the boat onto the island itself. Our bus paid a hefty 400+ Euros to get into the city, and that's apparently twice what the price had been two years ago. But given the large number of people on the islands, it doesn't seem like the raised prices has deterred anyone. I guess the money goes to upkeeping, since the water is surprisingly clear of any debris or trash at all, even in the nooks and crannies.

The trip itself to Venice was on a motor boat. From the top, the view was ok and there's less chance of sea sickness with the cold morning wind blowing at you.

Our first stop in Venice was the Murano glass factory, where we got a short demo on glassmaking and then were ushered into the official gift shop. Lots of very pretty stuff there, and the local guide explained the contents and quirks of specialties like Venetian red or the pink-turned-blue-under-lighting glass and the baroque versus Venetian styles and etc. I admit we were a little overly dazzled by the shinies everywhere and ended up buying quite a bit of stuff there, that on later retrospection, would have cost less than half of what we paid for in the shops outside of that factory. *sigh* I should stop thinking about that before I ruin my vacation.

Then we passed by the San Marco plaza and took a short boat ride on the gondola. One of our tour group members paid for a singer, so the entire tour (including the boats before/after that one) got to also enjoy the signature serenade on the gondola. That was kinda neat, and is probably the best part of Italy so far. :p

After the gondola ride, we had about 2 hours of free time to scour the shops. The less said about the prices there versus the prices we'd paid earlier the better. We were also supposed to get lunch. But after tasting a bite of the fast food type things my mom and one of our tour members bought, I decided to skip. My god how much salt do the Italians put in their food? The pasta last night was very salty too. It's incredibly sad that I think the pasta from Giovanni's in Berkeley is better than the actual pasta from Italy. Bleh.

After the motor boat ride back to the mainland, we drove onwards past Florence to our hotel... which I guess is just outside Florence (something about Tuscani?). Tomorrow we're to visit the leaning tower of Pisa and then circle back to do Florence.

Our hotel is a rather quaint one, with actual heavy brass keys instead of the usual key cards so far. I'm not sure if they're just that old or if that's supposed to be on purpose for regional flavor. They also provided dinner, which was a fair bit better than the stuff we've had outside so far, in that it was only a little too salty. Ah well.

Today was actually the Lucerne (Luzern in German) tour. We started early in the morning with a tram ride up Mt. Pilatus. Unfortunately, the normal cable cars that we were scheduled to take had been taken offline the whole day due to windy weather. It was also actually raining (as opposed to drizzling) for once in the morning, which didn't help either. All this resulted in the fact that once we got to the observatory at the top, there was nothing to see outside except fog and more fog. The only bright side was that on the way down, there were a few spots of less fog/rain which allowed some decent photos to be taken. I doubt it's as good as they would've been from the top though.

After Pilatus we took a boat tour of the Lucerne Lake. Lunch was served on the boat but it was kinda meh (way to salty). The scenery was pretty nice though, with the rain having stopped and the sun almost starting to come out.

After that we had about two hours of shopping before moving onto Milan. There were a lot of watch shops, as you'd expect. But I don't use watches, and I think they're being slowly replaced by cellphones anyway. We did end up buying a bunch of Swiss chocolates of various brands/types. Mostly for gifting of course. I'm certainly not going to be able to enjoy it while my tooth is still acting up.

(And yes, it is still aching. I'm starting to think that it's a problem with the fillings that had been renewed a few months ago. It seems to be centered around just one tooth and I really am not picking up any issue with the gums... Oh, and we also found a pharmacy in Lucerne where I was able to buy some more Aleve pills.)

Our bus later reached Milan in the evening. We stopped by a Chinese restaurant for dinner - fare was pretty meh. And then to the hotel. Tomorrow the schedule is to visit some place(s?) in Milan, and then a short stopover in Verona, before arriving in Venice.