No Kangaroos in Austria

Helloo!!

We are in Vienna! We have free time today for a few hours, so it is nice to be able to catch up on emails etc. We could check them at the flash hotel we are staying in (the flashest of the tour) but it costs the equivalent of $4AUD for 10 minutes.

I am having a great time. I am sooooo tired, but it is all worth it. I must admit tha tI am happy that we have left Italy. As much as I enjoyed seeing the ruins of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, it is a really dirty country. Compared to France which was just stunning...

Rome. What can I say? We we staying quite a way out of town, so we got to experience the Rome Metro. That was fun. So many people!! We also got to go on a bus, which had so many people on it that every time we went around a left hand turn the side of the bus would grate along the road. Extremely funny.

We went to Vatican City. Saw the Sistine Chapel. We were standing there and an annoucement came over the loudspeaker, in four different languages and at some volume, telling everyone to be silent. Ironic really.

From the Vatican City we caught a bus into Rome itself for our walking tour of Imperial Rome. I was disappointed, as I was hoping the guide would paint more of a picture of what life was like and what the buildings were like. But I bought a book instead. Then we went to the Colosseum. Oh my God!! It really made me happy to just wander around. Sad as it sounds...

From Rome we travelled ALL DAY to Venice. We stayed on the mainland (in Hotel Vienna, run by Asians...go figure), but travelled there the next day for a full day on the islands. It was supposed to flood in Venice, as it does 70 times a year. So the main square was full of water, and we bought "emergency" gumboots. These are basically plastic bags with soles. Amusing though. And we have embarrassing photos to prove it. Speaking of photos, I will soon be burning my cd of photos from my camera, so i should have photos for you all to see soon.

And now we are in Austria. We had dinner in the hotel last night instead of going into town as we are tired. We had a picnic on our bed. It was fun.

And today is a free day!! A good day to telephone people.