Heat wave

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Location: Southern Europe

Not only were we backpacking through Europe when the exchange rate was historically unfavorable, it was also during a record-setting heat wave. The heat mostly affected southeastern Europe, but temperatures were 10-15 degrees higher than usual all along the Mediterranean coast.

The heat when we were in Lisbon, Nice, and Rome was oppressive.

In Nice, we stayed in a large, historical home that had been converted into a hostel. Our room was on the top floor—essentially the attic. It had several windows and minimal ventilation. Heat rises, and it was probably over 90 degrees in the room at night when we were trying to sleep.

In Rome, we stayed in a hotel that advertised air conditioning. The air conditioner was pointed directly at my bed. Between the 100-plus degree temperatures during the day and the constant stream of freezing cold air throughout the night, I caught a cold. I was sick the entire time we were traveling in Venice, Hungary, and Vienna.

I started to feel sick when we went to Vatican City.

Lonely Planet said we should get in line at 6 AM to beat the crowd. (Doors open at 9 AM.) We weren't nearly motivated enough to do that, so we decided to sleep in, eat breakfast, and then check out how the line was doing.

We got to the Vatican Museum entrance at around 11 AM. The part of the line we could see was a couple blocks long, then it turned a corner. It followed the irregular stone wall that surrounds the "city." We started walking. After 20 minutes of following the various twists and turns, we still hadn't reached the end of the line, and we gave up. It's possible that the line was literally more than a mile long.

I wasn't feeling well, and blamed it on the sun. I became desperate to find sunscreen. We stopped in a couple shops, but they didn't have any. (Bizarre.) Eventually I found a pharmacy that was selling tubes of sunscreen: each tube was about the size of a lipstick, and cost $20. I bought one, and never heard the end of it from Mike and Jacob.

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