I am officially almost a real bum

I'm home now. It's not quite as fun as the last two weeks have been, but I suppose I'll manage. It was a long trip from Venice to Salt Lake, via Bristols, Holyhead, Dublin and New York on planes, trains, automobiles and ferries but I finally made it.

That' s Holyhead, England and the ferry I caught from there

The best part was on Friday night when I arrived late at night in Bristols, England. I didn't want to pay for a hostel so I went to the train station and thought I'd spend the night there. Everything was great as I slept in the warm, waiting room all alone; and then the stinking janitor booted me out at about 1:30 A.M. I went outside and slept on a bench close to the train station, I saw alot of interesting people. At about 3:00 all of the clubs started shutting down so all the drunk kids started to join me on benches and on the ground all around the station. So now I can say I've done it - I've been a homeless person for a night. I think that's the only interesting thing I have to say about the end of a good vacation.

Arivaderci

I don't know how to spell that word but arivaderci anywho. I also don't know what it means. So we enjoyed the rest of our night in Serbia, it was I'll admit quite frightening later in the evening. We were out just sitting in the square watching people and street performers when a group of political marchers walked by with their flags and singing songs. Apparently we chose to be there on the day the candidates for some large race were to give their speeches in the city center. All was peaceful at first but on the way back from using the internet we saw that the streets were lined with SWAT teams and anti-riot police, we took it as a hint that something was going down. We started walking back to the station but we had to go back through the center and right through the crowd. We passed through with only several scowls but it was obvious that tension between the parties was increasing, when we got off the train the next day in Zagreb, Croatia all of the papers had pictures of the riots that happened right after we left. That's pretty intense huh? Right before the train left we took baths (don't worry, just our upper bodies) in the drinking trough at the station, it was pretty hilarious but I don't think everyone was amused.
When we got to Zagreb we found out that we couldn't make it to Sarajevo and we were kind of bitter about that but we decided instead to take the short train ride to Ljubljana, Slovenia and see it really quick and then ride back to Zagreb and see that all in one day. Ljubljana was nice, one of the prettiest we saw and the fact that there was so few people there made it even better.

View of Ljubljana from the castle.

To be honest I don't really remember what we saw where until I look at the pictures. Zagreb was nice but it didn't make the list of favorites, there was one large church and of course a castle in the city center.

The church in Zagreb, stinking construction.

We rode in the train back to Zagreb with two sisters from Australia who were living in London, we hung out with them in the city and then we caught our train to Trieste, Italy.
Trieste was incredible, it's a nice seaside city with tons of beaches and sweet views. We spent the day on the beach, mostly sleeping off our exhaustion and swimming a little bit in between. We went to a palace on a cliff above the ocean and walked along the oceanside road and that pretty much took the whole day.

A view of Trieste from the palace (

Sunset in Trieste.

We found a nice hostel in which we nearly boiled to death over night and then we got on a train to Venice and that's where we are now. Venice as expected is awesome but we don't really have a lot of time to look around, because I have to go catch a ride at nine o'clock.

Gondola on the main canal.

Italy is a good place but they have got to do something about their rediculous store hours. There is no reason to not work in the middle of the day and no one does it anywhere else in the world, they are out of control.
Unfortunately my trip is pretty much over and I'm on the last leg. I should be in Bristols, England tonight at about 10:00 P.M. and then the next morning I'll get on a ferry to Dublin and then I'll catch my plane from there. Mom I'll be home at 8:11 on Sunday night, see you then. It's been fun and it will be even better when I can post some sweet pictures on Sunday.