August 1, 1999 Living La Vida Roma

The titles for my e-mail are getting worser and worser (as my dad would say - Hi Dad!).  But it's funny because there are some things you can not escape from even when you travel overseas... like Ricky Martin.  I even heard this faster dance version or Vida Loca or something, I don't know if they have that in the states yet.

So anyhow, Hello, or as they say here in Greece, "Hello."   Yeah... they say hello, it's mostly Americans at the Pink Palace where Nadine and I are staying, and the staff is mostly American and Australian.

Well, first of all, I wanted to clarify some things from my last e-mail.  I didn't really get to polish that one as much as I wanted because my hour was almost up and I either had to send the message then or pay more Lire!  So I just sent it, but some of you were confused (sorry).   So... I absolutely loved Prague.  It is a very cool city, just filled with tourists, that's all.  Vienna was OK too, it was only the 2nd day that we were wandering around, the 1st and 3rd days were quite good (I even ate a Wienerschniztel - it's fried pork, it has nothing to do with hot dogs).

So anyhow, hopefully this e-mail will be more clear, I even wrote down a couple things I wanted to say and planned a bit for your maximum entertainment!  I'm so nice!

OK.  As planned, after one more day in Venice, Dine and I took a night train to Munich and stayed with her uncle.   Her uncle was really cool and even looked like my uncle, Bill - Hi Bill!  He bought us groceries and drove us through the foothills of the Alps to get to Neuschwanstein Castle.  This is the castle that Walt Disney based the Disneyland Castle on.  It's quite impressive.  The tour was actually interesting too (sometimes castle tours are boring).  The funniest part was the throne room.   There was this Jesus painted on the ceiling, but he looked just like Richard Dreyfuss!  I couldn't stop laughing.  I dunno, try and picture Richard Dreyfuss with a full beard and flowing robes with his arms outstreched surrounded by the 12 apostles.

So anyhow, Munich was really cool.  There's still some things I want to see there, so I might go back for a day or so if it's convenient. There were even people there dressed in traditional German clothes, you know... the shorts and suspenders and little hat and stuff.  Apparently not many people really dress like that so I guess the people dressed like that are tourists.

So after Munich we went to Rome... and crap the clock is ticking again, I gotta write fast!  Rome was pretty cool.  There was lots of famous things to see there and I'm actually interested in the Roman Empire and ancient Rome so it was cool to see all the ruins and things.  The only thing that sucks about Rome is the traffic... I've never seen so many scooters in my life and they zoom right past you.  Crossing the street is taking your life in your own hands.   Also what sucked about Rome is that there's going to be a big celebration things for the year 2000, so everything was under scafolding for restoration.

And now we're in Greece on the island of Corfu.  But I'm going to just write one e-mail for all of Greece, so that should come in about a week and a half when we leave.  So far, so good though.

OK, time's out, but I think this one was better than the last one.  I hope you're all having good summers. Gotta go!

Alan