apocow adventures in random places

We spent New Year's Eve in Florence Italy. Again, we wandered around aimlessly, somehow managing to run into countless cathedrals, piazzas, palazzos, and yummy bakeries. The amount of marble spent on these cathedrals could build entire planets. This is a bit excessive given that all of Florence could be sitting inside one cathedral and it could still look empty. After strolling around the streets in the morning, we hit the Uffizi to see some Renaissance art. They had a special exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci and an exporation of both his artistic and scientific mind. We treated ourselves to a fine dinner in a piazza (in the rain) and then watched the New Year's fireworks at midnight from a bridge over the River Arno.

After 2 days in Zurich, we were ready to get out of the cold and jet off to Italy. Being cheap grad students (or unemployed in my case), we decided to go for RyanAir's ridiculous $80 round-trip flight from Friedrichshafen, Germany to Pisa, Italy. Of course, that meant getting to Friedrichshafen, which is 2 hr from Zurich by train + boat ferry. Our flight wasn't until 5 pm, so we decided to stop off in St. Gallen to check out the cathedral and abbey library. The library is one of the world's oldest libraries and features books from as far back as 800 A. D. (No pictures were allowed inside, though).

After a couple hours in the rococo paradise that is St. Gallen, we hopped back on the train to Romanshorn, Switzerland, where we caugh the ferry across foggy Lake Constance to Friedrichshafen, Germany. At the airport in Germany, we learned (1) how terrible an airline can get when it offers you tickets for 5 euro + tax, and (2) how hard it is to make a phone call in Europe without a calling card.

On our second day in Switzerland, we decided to get out of the city and do a little hike in the hills surrounding Zurich. We took the train to Uetliberg and did the "Planet Walk", which amusingly enough, takes you past a scale model of the Solar System. While the planets were not as exciting as one would think (we missed a Jupiter of all planets), the views of the mountains, lake, and Zurich were stunning.

Our first day in Zurich was spent wandering around aimlessly but somehow managing to stumble into the main attractions even if we didn't know what they really were. Our cluelessness was partially due to the fact that we arrived into Zurich airport at 7 am after a whole day of flying, but we couldn't check into our room at the Zic Zac "Rock Hotel" in medieval Old Town Zurich until 2 pm. We spent part of the afternoon in the Kunsthaus museum and then, after a checking in and getting a much-needed shower, went out for some ridiculously expensive (and not that great) Swiss cuisine.