the hills are alive...

that´s right kids, we´re in Salzburg, Austria, land of The Sound of Music and some guy named Mozart. pff.

We didn´t post in Venice because we couldn´t find an internet cafe that wanted less than 8€ for an hour of Internet, and hey, we´re trying to do Europe on a Shoestring here.

Venice, however, was fantastic. We booked our hostel in advance, on hostels.com, and when we had to ride buses for over an hour out of Venice to get there, we felt a little worried. However, when we arrived, we were at a big campground with little two-room trailers for 15€ a bed, and the site had a bar, a restaurant, a market, several Contiki tour buses, and, best of all, a 20-minute ferry service to Venice. No more buses for us!

Upon arrival in Venice, I immediately regretted our decision to only spend one night there, as it is every bit as cool as travel brochures would have you believe (unlike Naples, which is stinky and sketchy, but we had fun there too). However, I consoled myself on the bus by turning to Michelle and saying "really, this place is far too romantic to be visiting with you anyway." She agreed. If our future husbands happen to be reading this, they should know that we will be going to Venice sometime.

Anyway, back to the campground. We ate the baguette and Nutella and lemon soda that we had bought for dinner, and then purchased two bottles each of Hefe-weissen, the kind we distinctly remember drinking at the good-bye party in Germany two years ago. We wandered around the campsite for awhile, and finally found a dock, where we sat and drank and discussed important things. It was divine, and innapropriately romantic as Venice might be, we both wished we had not booked our trains for today just so that we could stay at the campsite and hang out a few more days.

Oh well, we wandered for a few hours around town this morning, visiting more Murano glass shops than should exist in the world (they´re particularly adventurous when you have a backpack on your back and another one on your front...) and then jumped on the train.

Nothing to report yet about Austria, other than that it looks like BC, except somehow more...refined? Mozart saw these mountains, after all (and Julie Andrews).

More to come!