Rome was amazing. On our next day I saw the Spanish Steps, the Piazza Poppolo, Hadrian's Mauseloum, the Mouth of Truth, the Capitoline Museum, and many other things. On Wednesday Helen and I went to the Vatican for the weekly Papal blessing. We didnt realize that you needed to get tickets in advance so we ended up sneaking in, right past the police and swiss guards, and sitting in the 15th row back. It was interesting getting to see the Pope and to hear him speak in about 8 different languages. After the gospel was read and the homily in the different languages he blessed the 200 thousand-ish people in St. Peters Square. After escaping through the massive crowd we went into the Vatican Museums. The hilites of the collection (for me) were the Laocoon and the Sistene Chapel. Helen and I met up with Serena around 4:30 for a delicious Italian dinner near the Trevi Fountain. Thursday we took a trip out to Pompeii for the day. We took a train to Naples and another out to Pompeii. I didnt realize how large Pompeii was. There is a lot to see there. It was fun exploring the Ancient Roman city even though it was very hot out and we were all burning up. We caught an early evening train back to Rome so we were able to catch our sleeper train to Switzerland.

After getting settled into our hostel in Interlaken, Switzerland we decided to take full advantage of our Eurail passes and we went on a boatride on the Lake of Thun. We rode out to Spiez where we walked around for 2 hours. When we got back into Interlaken we just hung out for the rest of the evening as we were very tired. We spent all day Saturday exploring the city and searching out our Swiss Army knives since it was too expensive to travel to the top of Jungfrau as we had planned. We took a little tour of the city with some historical background and just walked around Interlaken and Unterseen. On Sunday we took another boatride. We went out to St. Beautus Holen where we took a 30 minute hike up the mountain with the hopes of visiting the prehistoric caves. We didnt realize that they didnt accept credit cards for the admission so we were out of luck. We took a 2 hour hike back into Interlaken instead. It was beautiful walking the trail through the mountain along side the lake. The views were gorgeous. I would love to go back to Interlaken again.

We had another night train into Germany and we arrived in Berlin on Monday morning. There was a little mishap with the hostel we had arranged to stay at. Needles to say "David's Cozy Little Backpacker Hostel" was not cozy at all. We ended up finding another hostel called the Circus which is apparently one of the top 10 hostels in Europe. Tuesday we took an 8 hour walking tour of the city. It was absolutely incredible. I got to see all of the sights that I wanted and then saw some things that I would never have found on my own. On top of that we got detailed history about everything from the beginnings of Berlin to the stories of the grafitti on the buildings we passed. I got to see Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the book burning memorial, the site of Hitler's bunker, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Checkpoint Charlie, the Wall and so many other things that were important to Berlin such as the architecture, historical sites and the different courtyards of the city. That night we went out with some of the guys we met on the tour, Brian, Jeff and Taiwan and their roommate Dermot. We went out for Italian food and then to a couple of pubs to try out the German beer. The next day we decided on going to museums and having a relaxing wander through the city. First we went to a contemporary art gallery which was unfortuanately closed at the time. We ended up going to the Pergamon Museum where I saw the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gates (the Gates of Babylon). After eating lunch we thought it would be fun to take the S-bhan to Potsdam. So we did. We didnt know what to do once we got there so we got back on the S-bhan and back into Berlin. We still had our day pass to the Museum Island so we went to the museum containing the Egyptian, Greek and Roman collections so we could see the bust of Nefertitti. We ended up wandering through some of the courtyards with little boutiques in them and found a neat souvenir shop and we visited the Amplemann Shop. Thursday Serena and I went out to the Berlin Zoo for the afternoon. It was so much fun. There were so many animals and almost all of them had babies! After the Zoo we met Helen at Potsdammer Platz to go shopping. Around 10 that night we had a flight into London where we took a bus at midnight and then a taxi out to our hostel.

Yesterday we went to Portobello Row to wander the market and to Hyde Park to find the Peter Pan statue. Then we ended up at Buckingham Palace where we went inside to see the Queens Collection. Her collection of Italian Renaissance Art was on display. After that we wandered down to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. We also walked along the Thames and saw the Eye before going to London Bridge to look at the Tower Bridge. Today we took Serena to Kings Cross and we visited Platform 9 3/4! After leaving Serena, Helen and I went to the British Museum where I got to see the Rosetta Stone, the Lamasus and the Parthenon Marbles!! I think my life is pretty complete after seeing the Parthenon Marbles! Tonight we might try to go on the Jack the Ripper Tour and then we're catching a 9:30 am bus to York as that was the cheapest way to get back.