She'll be comin' round the mountain(s) when she comes...

Have you ever found yourself in a place, at the beginning of an adventure, where–as thrilling as the excursion ought to be–you just aren't excited about it, on account of not being sure if it will actually come to fruition? [Have you ever found yourself in a place, at the beginning of a blog post, where the first sentence made no sense? Hehe…]

Anyway, what I mean to say is, there was so much doubt in my actually arriving in Freiburg to visit some friends that it was difficult to make myself excited for the trip.
>>First, there were problems finalizing the dates of the trip.
>>Then, there were issues with the tickets-- first the prices were raised, then I found out that they might not arrive (by mail) in time for the actual trip [that would be convenient, huh?], then when something DID arrive in the mail, I was unsure of how to present it at the station.
>>To top it off, the super long line at the train station leading up to my finding ^that answer made me worry of missing the train altogether.

Nonetheless, after a late night in the Venice/Vicenza area, and I hopped on a train with one old friend and three new ones. Our temporary destination: Milano. From there, I did catch a train to Germany, and the four recent UF grads headed to Paris. Someway, somehow, I managed to catch not just any train to Germany, but the right one, and I made the right connection, and finally made my way to the right Freiburg (apparently there are two). And I could not be happier that I did…

The journey itself was good. From Vicenza, it was ~2hrs back to the Milan station. There, I waited in the aforementioned [lengthy] line. I eventually boarded my assigned vessel, however, and here's what I saw on the ~6hr journey through Switzerland and into Germany:

 (^from my connection in Basel, Switzerland,

where I came to learn that the drink of choice for elementary 

schoolers worldwide was developed in Germany)

Unfortunately, I'm pretty doggone bad at taking pics whilst on a train, so a lot more of the route's picturesque backdrops didn't successfully make it onto my camera. Care to see what I mean?

 Yeah.

Anyway, clouds or not, this was a welcomed sight after a long journey:

Hallelujah.
-M