A bed is a bed... but is that our shower???

Welp it was quite an adventure, my favorite part was the succession of hotels and hostels that we/I stayed in.  Here is a list of the places we stayed and an overview of the  accommodations.  

Night One: Venice

Best Western

A bit expensive for us, but so was all of Venice,

Two bedrooms 

Bathroom: Enclosed shower and tub, toilet and  bid-ay, sink filled with every toiletry imaginable and a few extra.

Breakfast... Delicious, beyond our wildest dreams.  

Night Two (and Three): Rimini

** hotel

cheap, 60 euros total.

One bedroom

Bathroom: Enclosed shower, toilet and sink.

Breakfast... Top notch, cereals, yogurt, breads, juice and coffee

Night Four: Florence

** hotel

cheap 60 euros total.

Two bedroom

Bathroom: Shower head on wall over sink, toilet and bid-ay.

Breakfast, not so wonderful...

Night Five (and Six/Seven): Rome

Hotel???

cheap 51 euros without "bathroom" 60 euros with. (we went "with")

One room containing two beds, a table, a lock box, a shower with sightly frosted doors, a sink... NO TOILET OR BID-AY. (also there was a sign on the door saying the room was worth 290 euros during high season... yeah right.)

Breakfast- 7euros per person extra... aka didn't eat there and have no idea if it was good or not

Part Two: Switzerland

Nights One-Five: L'abri

Chalet Bellevue 

45 swiss francs a night/day

Room with three other girls

Two showers and two toilets on our floor.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner... delicious/top notch.

Night Six-Seven: Geneva

City Hostel

32 swiss francs a night

Room with three other girls

two showers across the hall, in the same room with the TWO men's toilets and ONE women's toilet... what about that makes sense?

Breakfast: Not included

Part Three: Belgium

Nights One and Two:

Van Gogh Hostel, "newly renovated." (Or a better title would be, UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

Room with three other girls and sink 

Bathroom, down stairs... one men's and one women's. Showers, one MILE away in reception building.

Breakfast: TERRIBLE, dry bread and nutella and stale corn flakes with sour milk. YUCK!

Sign on entryway door: "FOR YOUR SAFETY KEEP THIS DOOR CLOSED AND LOCKED AT ALL TIMES"... was it? nope.

PTL I'm back in Madrid!!!

Travel

For the past two and a half weeks I've been out of Spain.  I travelled to Italy for a week, and then to Switzerland for a week and finally to Belgium for 3 days!  It's been a whirlwind of activities and over the next few days I hope to update everyone on the main events!  

I'll start with Italy:

What an amazing adventure it was.  Two girls from my school in Madrid and I planned to go through Italy about a two months ago.  Up until the time we left, the three of us had never spent more than twenty minutes together... it was a bit disconcerting for all of us I think.  Anyway, our flight to Milan was scheduled for 6:35 am.  Public transit in Madrid doesn't open until 6:30 am, so we decided to catch the last of the metro trains the night before and hang out together at the airport. (We got there about midnight...)  I'm not really sure what we talked about or did for the next five hours, but I know that I laughed a lot and was completely exhausted by the time we boarded the plane.  

We were flying with Ryan Air, a cheap airline company that apparently didn't hire the most skilled pilots.  As some of you could guess, I feel asleep as soon as I found a seat on the plane.  (The other girls slept a small bit as well, but according to them there was pretty bad turbulence the whole flight.)  As we landed, everyone jumped, my self included.  My immediate thought was that we had crashed, done a nose dive.  These fears were immediately interrupted but a loud speaker announcement... "Bum ba da BUUUMMMM" (trumpets), "Thank you for flying Ryan Air, we've had yet another safe and on time flight." As we got off of the plane, the three of us started giggling, each recalling our initial reaction to the landing and announcement.  Thus our adventures together started.  

We didn't want to spend too much time in Milan, just enough to see "The Last Supper" and the massive cathedral.  We decided to start with the museum that contained the painting.  It didn't take long to find, and as we headed inside we were told that the museum was officially sold out... for the next week and a half.  Who would've guessed that a museum would "sell out?" We each looked at the lady and then at each other, and back again... unsure of what to do next.  Thankfully none of us were completely disappointed.  We decided to grab a bite to eat, and as an afterthought we bought canolis from a local bakery.  And off to the cathedral.  It was an ornate cathedral.  With an over abundance of towers, each of them with hundreds of statues carved out, between each were numerous designs.  Seriously the only word I can think of is ornate.  Just too much.  

It was almost 2 o'clock so we decided we should try and get a train to Venice, our second destination.  Trying to stay awake on the train proved difficult.  We had heard that there was a lot of theft that took place on trains in Italy and wanted to be careful.  Thankfully it only took two hours to get to Venice.  We got off the train around 6 o'clock.  Headed down the main street trying to decide where we should stay for the night.  We came across a Best Western right away, we looked at each other, laughed and headed inside.  The first price the receptionist gave us made us laugh, 190 euros for the three of us.  She asked what was in our price range, and we said about 30 euros a piece.  She gave us a room for 35 a peice.  (Which was an incredible price for Venice, even hostels (which can usually be found for about 20 euros a night) were about 30 euros a night.  Giving us the key to the room we bolted upstairs to our beautiful bedroom, bathroom.  

We went out for some delicious pizza that night. (Pictures to come Alibaba :D) And then after being up for well over day and a half, we slept.

Day two "Venice" and "a bed is a bed... but is that our shower?" coming soon.