Bye-bye, Busabout!

Well!

After 12 countries, 21 cities, 7 islands, 34(!) beds,
about 6,130 miles worth of overland bus travel, and
one free fall from 11,000 feet, Michele has left the
circuit!

Woohoo!

I'm back in Rome, enjoying a day of absolutely nothing
but laundry and the logistical plotting and planning
of the inevitable "next adventure." (More about that
later.)

The last email, though started in Nice and sent from
Switzerland, only got me to Munich. Ian and I spent
our last day "in" Munich visiting King Ludwig's
massive (and massively over-the-top) Neuschwanstein
Castle, which is about a 2-hour train ride out of
Munich in the Bavarian Alps.

Neuschwanstein has a very familiar feel to it, thanks
to Disney using it as the inspiration for the magic
kingdom. Ludwig only lived in the castle for 140 days
before his mysterious death. Parts of the castle are
still incomplete, but the parts that have been
finished were decorated with tapestries,
ornamentations, and frescoes inspired by the operas of
Richard Wagner. "Mad" King Ludwig was apparently his
No. 1 fan. Swan Lake is right behind the castle, as
is Marien bridge (named after Ludwig's mother). Our
weather wasn't so great, but the rain and fog sort of
added to the ambiance of this truly, truly amazing
place. This castle was at the TOP of my "things to
see" list, and I'm glad it came towards the end of my
trip. A great way to start wrapping things up!

>From Munich we cruised back into Austria, stopping for
breakfast in a cute, but flooded town of St. Johann,
and finally arrived in Venice after a very, very long
day on the bus (one of the longest yet).

I only opted for one full day in Venice, thinking it
would be enough for me. It was and it wasn't. I saw
the places I wanted to see (St. Mark's Square, the
bridges, the canals, the gondolas), but found the city
cute, quaint, and very quiet (minus the gajillion
tourists, of course). I just liked the fact that
there were no cars. Yep! No buzzing scooter motors,
no trucks, no ambulances. I could have wandered
around Venice for days and days.

>From Venice, I had to take an extra trip to Nice in
order to get to Switzerland. I only stayed overnight,
and didn't really do much. This time, however, the
bus took us in via Monaco, so pictures will soon be
posted of the French Riviera, Monaco, the Monte Carlo
casino, etc. etc.

Because of the floods that affected Switzerland, we
got to blaze a new Busabout trail on the day we left
Nice. We headed back to Italy and traveled north to
Torino (host city of the 2006 Winter Games). After 10
hours on the bus, we finally made it to the tiny
Alpine village, Lauterbrunnen.

LB sits in a small valley, surrounded by sheer cliff
walls, a few green hills, 70 or so waterfalls (and
that's just in the summer, even more in the spring)
and looming behind them all, the Jungfrau region of
the Alps. Jungfrau is called the Top of Europe at
13,000+ feet and for an arm and a leg, you can take a
train up to the top. Me? I opted for a different
view.

Our first day in LB started out sort of gray, but the
sky eventually cleared and made this little part of
the world even more beautiful than I would have
thought possible. LB is a haven for extreme sports
enthusiasts, and at any given time you could look to
the sky and see a few parachuters (or paragliders)
making their way back down to earth. It looked pretty
cool and, if I remembered correctly, skydiving was
featured on my Things to Do Someday list. As I
learned later, the skydiving world considers the
Interlaken area of Switzerland among the top 3 jump
locations in the world (ranked with Hawaii and the
Great Barrier Reef).

Somehow I scraped up the required nerve and joined
another busabouter for this adventure. Our little
plane was packed with 8 jumpers (the two of us, our
"tandems," our photographers, and two "tandems in
training") and a pilot, but we easily climbed to
11,000 feet before opening the door. I don't know
who, if anyone, reading this has jumped from a plane.
If you did, and you were cool and graceful about it, I
admire you. Me? No way. No grace, no cool. I was
absolutely scared out of my mind. The first step's a
doozy, especially when you open your eyes and all you
can see is the ground getting closer and closer and
phenomenal speed. Oh, and by the way, there's a guy
who wants you to smile pretty for the camera. My DVD
and photos were sent directly home, so I have no idea
what they look like. Maybe I'll share them someday.
:)

Would I do it again? Probably not. Do I regret it?
Absolutely not. And that's what matters. Once the
parachute was open, we floated around and had
spectacular views of Interlaken, the tips of the Alps,
and the little valley where we took off from. So
incredibly cool.

I couldn't think of a better way to end this trip, and
even though it wasn't really THE END, it was a great
way to lead into it.

So what's next?

I'm in Rome until Wednesday when I fly back to London.
Originally I was going to spend some time in London
and then head to Ireland for 15 days before flying
home to California in early October. But then I got
tired of the constant travel (okay, I've exhausted my
funds as well), and decided to cut Ireland out of the
trip and change my flight to get me home in
mid-September. I was mildly bummed out about not
going to Ireland. I didn't like knowing that I was
this close to it and was still going to miss it. But
I figured I could get there some other time and stopped
dwelling on it.

So, I was all set to head to London for another week
at Joey's before flying home on 9/13. Unfortunately,
Joey had a family emergency and has returned to
Australia. So, since I still had this easily
changeable flight to Dublin and nowhere to stay in a
city I've already investigated, I changed plans yet
again! Being this flexible almost qualifies me for a
job in the circus! (And if the job market is as bad as
what I hear.....)

In a nutshell, here's the rest of my trip:
9/3 Hot date with Elton John in Rome
9/7 Fly to London
9/8 Fly to Dublin, rent car, explore, explore, explore
9/11 Return to London
9/13 California, here I come!
(SoCal for a while, NorCal eventually)

I hope everyone's enjoyed reading my (sometimes too)
long accounts of these adventures. I owe a HUGE
amount of thanks to my Uncle Frank for posting my
photos. (Even more were sent his way today, so Czech
them out soon!)

Thanks for reading, and especially thanks for writing!
It's always great to hear what's going on with YOU
(and you, and you, and, yeah... you too!)

Happy Labor Day weekend! I'll see some of you soon
and others later.

Love,
Michele