Going North

Hi everyone! It's been the best part of a week since our last update, but we've finally managed to get a bit of extended internet time, so here's what we've been up to since we left the story at Rome. We'd just stayed in the dreadful Hotel Michigan, and decided we needed a little relaxation, away from the slightly over-the-top busy life of Rome. So we booked in a few nights into Camping Tiber, a couple kilometers North of the centre. The place was absolutely awesome. A bar, a restaurant, beautiful weather, a swimming pool, clean sheets... and all for just €9 a night. It was ridiculous.

On the way to the campsite for the first time, we walked through the North of Rome, and at a good lookout point of the city, a Japanese lady came up to us to ask if she could have a picture with the city in the background. Not a problem! The strange thing being, she also wanted Myles in the picture. So we did the only thing we should've done, and got a picture with her on our cameras too. We're unsure if she thought Myles was a celebrity or not - answers on a post card please, though suggestions of Rik Waller will be frowned upon.

Myles with a fan

Camping Tiber was only a 30 minute trip into Rome (and only €1 - take note London), and on a later excursion to Rome, we popped into the Pope's house, as well as seeing sights such as the Pantheon (awesome) and the Trevi Fountain. One of the other great experiences of Rome was Della Palma - one of the many ice cream shops in Rome. This particular one had about a million (probably underestimating..) different flavours, and while Dave went for the sensible (and delicious) combination of banana, chocolate and melon, Myles was a bit of a tool, and struggled through a champagne, amaretto and mars bar flavoured one.

Dave had fun with his ice cream. Myles struggled.

After a few days of drinking cheap white wine in Camping Tiber, we got the train up to Pisa where we spotted the most unoriginal collection of people in the world, all posing exactly the same way - pretending to hold up the leaning tower... Then we joined in and discovered it was actually awesome fun. Besides the (surprisingly impressive) tower, Pisa was an utter dump, so we hopped on another train soon after, where we were spending the night in Florence. After getting lost (even despite having a compass...) for an hour or so, we managed to find Locanda David - the hostel where we spending the night. The problem being, no-one was in. Ah.

Mad skills

As if by magic though, the woman who ran the place turned up around five minutes after we arrived, and after a brief language struggle with her, we were all checked in and ready to hit the town. That night was the first 'proper' meal we had - pizza! It wasn't quite as impressive as the chap on the table next to us, who'd ordered a traditional Tuscan steak (around 30oz), but considering we'd been living off bread and plastic cheese the past week - it was delicious. After the meal we headed into the city at night, and both discovered Florence was amazing. The buskers were good, there was a hilarious comedy act in the middle of town, even the tacky crap being sold for €1 was better than the typical tacky crap. The following day we popped up 400+ stairs to the top of the Cathedral in Florence, which was tiring, but worth it once up there. After an evening McDonalds of three cheeseburgers, and two fries each, we had to sadly leave Florence and were off on another night train, this time to Munich.

Loving life in Florence

Unfortunately, we accidently booked seat tickets, instead of beds. Which was rather unpleasant. Also, the train got into Munich at 6:30am, again, not the nicest thing in the world. But we were soon off again on a (ridiculously nice) German train up to Berlin, where we staying with Dave's mate Matt for the night. Germany was tough for Dave to start with. The only German he knew was "Guten tag", and so was using it for "Hello" (good) and "Goodbye" (not so good). Dave then managed to get in a fight with a pelican at Berlin zoo, before Matt (and his girlfriend Jess) treated us to a BBQ in the evening.

Typical Galloway...

And up till now, we've largely been on trains as we head up through Scandinavia to Norway. Yesterday we stayed in Malmö (after our train decided to get on a ferry - bizarre) with a couple of couchsurfers - Malik and Fredik, while we're now in Göteborg for the night staying with our host Caroline. Aside from Dave becoming an insomniac, and Myles developing an all-body rash, life is "straight-up bossing", and hopefully that will continue as we head to Norway tomorrow. Guten tag!