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restaurant and went CRAZY - zucchini and carrots and lettuce and tomato salad and watermelon .. the first vegetables since Madrid and before that, Tours. We certainly were pleased. We saw half the Uffizi Gallery (not quite as much of an "all our old stuff" collection with nothing left out as the sculpture in the Vatican museums), ..some really beautiful sculptures and MANY medieval and Renaissance paintings.
DAY 21: Got out early to catch a train for Sienna that turned out to run only on festival days. So we went to the academia and saw the gallery including Rape of the Sabines, several Michelangelos and David. He's even more impressive in person than anything else has been and really [been?] a basis for comparison for the statues seen since then, and he just keeps getting better and better in comparison. I [wanted?] to bring him home but Jules wouldn't let me. We finally got to Sienna and sat around quite awhile, missing the train we'd planned to take back and getting up to leave just as the pre-race parade started. Saw some of it, couldn't find our way out and finally asked for help and were directed to apparently the only exit which was filled by people about 8 abreast coming in - anyone for swimming upstream? We [had?] 2-3 blocks to cover [along?] that edge packed by people going the other way, but we did make it. Then a mad sprint, mostly up hill, through [town?] to catch a bus and just barely catch our train to get back to the hostel before we were locked out. Whew! Who said we do anything the easy way?
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DAY 22 (How did we get that far in this trip already?) (Today: Thursday July 3 - I keep losing track of days on this trip.)
Anyway, got up early again today, checked the bags and zipped over to the Pitti Palace to see still more art. [Again?] the main gallery to see more Renaissance art, then the modern gallery for things from then up to the early 1900s (mainly). That was really a refreshing change from all the Renaissance stuff (that sounds almost sacrilegious). Anyway we looked around at the Boboli Gardens out back for awhile and circled back to have lunch. REAL ITALIAN PIZZA - it was really good and covered with the appropriate topping (nice change from skimpy US pizza). Back to the Uffizi which turned out t be mostly closed (the part we hadn't seen that is) so we had some fruit and ice cream then to the Pan Am office for Hules and off to look at the open markets. I ended up with a dress and a hat - not super low priced but nice and fun then some rest and dinner and we're now on a train to Vienna which will arrive at 9:10 tomorrow morning. From there: FRI AND SAT VIENNA SUN AND MON SALZBURG TUES AND WED MUNICH THURS LAUSANNE FRI AND SAT PARIS SUN NORMANDY AND BRITANNY, NIGHT FERRY TO LONDON MON AND TUES LONDON WED IRELAND
That's got to be all for now, or else this will NEVER get in the mail. I'll get the next one off as soon as reasonably possible. Until then
Vickie
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train anyway.
O.K. Day 7 ended up being Thursday June 12 London to Tours on very little sleep (packing and saying good-byes) and then a milk train to Tours (3.5 hours instead of 2.5 from Paris). Got in 11:00 pm (23:00) and went back to the "vill" with Jules. She had a Philsophy paper to finish so we decided not to leave until Sunday.
DAY 2: [Saw?] Linda (here this quarter, knew Freshman year) and found out a Cliveden friend and brother will be through today or tomorrow. Got some sun - beautiful all day and started raining about 7:00 pm (light until 11:00 pm) great ham and cheese souffle for dinner (cooked by a Tourite friend of Jules) and Craig and brother Irwin showed up about 10:00, then a grad at USC Law I knew last year from the eating club [popped?] up - SURPRISE!
DAY 3: Went to a Chateaux with Craig, Irwin, Paul (see above) and Sister Sarah, split up 2 and 2 and 1 (Irwin) to hitch to another Chateaux - they made it but Craig and I didn't so we went home, had tea with Jules and Paul (of Souffle fame) and Craig (these pastries are going to kill me!) and then out to dinner at a nice, cheap but good restaurant (all 7 of us) home again and Sat around talking and keeping Jules from her paper (she did do some work finally).
DAY 4: (Sunday now if you've lost track (sorry)) we made reservations to Madrid and then the fearsome fivesome (Paul and Julie still working on Philosophy papers) decided to try to go to Le Mans to try and see the end of ye olde 24-hour race we left late, but found a woman on the train who told us how to get where we wanted to be and we traipsed the 3-4 kilometers (2 miles) out, then to find out that it cost 120 Francs ($30) to get in for 8 hours or less and we begged that and wandered around to try and find a place we could [peek?] from
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We're standing [in?] the middle of all of these official people and photographers and such - and Irwin was even better off, but we didn't feel like pushing our luck any more. The better position we were in the better the chance of someone wondering what we were doing there. Anyway, we got one brief down pour which almost got us all soaked but for rain gear and a rain shelter, but the whole thing was just so unreal nothing mattered; I just hope some of the pictures turned out decently, I've never tried that before and my reactions weren't fast enough but I did what I could and at least I was there, it made it not seem quite so [bad?] that I missed the Grand Prix in the Monte Carlo in May. Tomorrow is either Paris or in the Chateaux at Blois, who knows, then off to Madrid and environs, Toledo etc. Next is (Denise stop reading to the end of this page) North of Spain/South of France to the Riviera then down to Corsica then Rome and Florence and Pisa and Venice and maybe Sienna then Vienna and Salzburg, Switzerland, Chamonix (France), [Mamce?], Normany and Britanny (France), Paris and back to London again before the 14th. End of Part I: TRAVELS w/VICKIE
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DAY 10: Talk about a [boring?] day - spent the whole thing on trains (virtually). Train from Madrid to Barcelona made us switch stations to get to the border that train was [very?] over-crowded (not to mention what seemed like the entire Spanish army). We stood and sat on the floor virtually all the way and we got in late so that with the ONE French customs official for still almost a full train after about half the people had gotten off we missed our connection and how to sit around for an hour to get to Narbonne. [Another?] train to a small town named Sete got us in about 6:00 pm (we left at 10:30 or so the night before) and a good sized hike up to a youth hostel at the top of a steep hill. Froze that night and had to get up early again the next morning. I want to go back to Sete some day though, seems like a really great town when all goes well.
DAY 11: Up at 7:00 am AGAIN! No one wants us to be able to sleep on this trip I guess, but that's what happens when you have to travel by train schedules, they're usually quite inconvenient. Anyway got into Nice about noon, found a hotel - really great people and 2 double beds; might actually get a good night's sleep for a change (dream on sucker!) Anyway had lunch in a