So now we landed in Marseilles at a very late hour.
It was dark, and once again we had no where to go. We arrived, asked the underground people if there was a hostel nearby and through laughs they told us one the ONE hostel, far off. Still not really having an idea of where we were off to, we walked up to a bus stop and asked the people there if they knew how to get to this loner hostel. We were a bit on edge since we had been traveling all day and it was dark, but we accepted the help of these two French guys. They argued with each other quite a bit, but drew us a map of how to get there. They told us to ride with them because we would be getting off at the same stop, we cautiously agreed.
On the bus I suppose we were talking about our stay and directions some more, because once we got off a tall, dark, German man came out of no where(he had gotten off the bus with us apparently) and asked us if we were looking for the hostel(he was also a traveler, he told us, and we could come back with him). We nodded and the guys we were with were happy enough to leave us with him with an "Au Revoir!".
Now from talking with the French boys we knew two things: the name of the hostel and the name of the street it was supposed to be on. By this time it was about 12 am and the streets were completely deserted and here we found ourselves with some stranger. We swapped the usual questions travelers ask each other: "Where are you from?" "How long have you been traveling?" as we started with him down some side street. Baillie was completely freaked out of her mind right off the bat because, as I had seen him on the bus with us, she just thought he had appeared from the darkness and suggested we, clearly lost and confused traveling girls, follow him into the night.
It took me a good 5 minutes until my senses were on high alert too. The things that were making me afraid and were just intensifying Baillie's fear were these:
When we started walking he made sure to keep a good 5 or so paces ahead of us, he walked very slow, his movements were careful and he'd only slightly turn his head to look at us every once in a while- not the most normal and fluid behavior.
It wasn't long until Baillie whispered orders at me to get my pepper spray out of my purse and keep it at the ready. My finger was on the trigger in less than a second. With the pepper spray in a firm grip and tucked up my sleeve I started to question our guide about the hostel and the things we knew.
Us: What was the name of the hostel again?
He: Oh, I can't exactly remember.
Us: Right. And the street, what street was it on?
He: St. Christophers I think.
(Baillie and I exchange horrified glance as that was definitely not the right street name that this one and only hostel was located on.)
After he screwed up the street name I was becoming more and more frightened and Baillie was "certain she was going to die". He turned down a street that the hostel "was on" but when it visibly lead to a dead end with some dumpsters, turned to look at us with an apologetic "Oops, wrong one". That was it. We took his 5 stride lead and turned it into a 15 stride lead.
Once we turned down "the right street"(which was some dark side street) he turned back, noticed the distance we put between him and us and said, "Girls I know this must be a little weird for you, but its right down here. It doesn't look like a hostel though. There are no signs, it looks like a regular house. You go inside and it's up some stairs, but trust me."
Yeah, right, that speech didn't definitely make him sound like a crazy serial murderer. The whole "it looks nothing like a hostel, but come inside anyway" made us think he was luring us into his lair to perform experiments.
We slowly, very slowly, made our way up to the door and looked in some windows to see that, yes, in fact there were a few mattresses on the floor and some young, unharmed girls sitting and chatting on them. Still, we entered with caution(because hey, the South of France does have a reputation). When we got up the narrowest stairs I've ever seen, we were greeted by a French Man, some registration forms, and other healthy backpackers. We turned to Cristoph, our mysterious German, with apologetic eyes and genuine Thank Yous. We had filled up our Bad Experiences in Marseilles quota...so we thought.
Now, since we were very tuckered out we decided to go straight to bed. This was obviously just a house that the owner, a large Frenchman, was using as a hostel. There we mattresses on the floor and you slept an arms length away from the next person, and for us they were two German girls, very nice, but recovering from sickness. Believing in our immune systems we curled up for sleep.
Now, if you ask me what Marseilles is like I will have nothing to tell you about the architecture, the shops, or the ocean, simply because I woke up the next morning sicker than I had been in years. It wasn't a vomiting kind of sick, but the kind where swallowing creates the most pain you've ever felt, your ears throb, a running nose(2 rolls of toilet paper a day) and a lot of crying. It got to the point where I was spitting into Kleenex because that automatic swallow you do every few minutes was making my cry in agony. Thankfully Baillie was there to take super good care of me, sacrificing sight seeing in one of the few places we visited that she hadn't seen before. Another reason it's nice to travel with your best friend :)
We ended staying a few days longer there just because I was unable to travel, a shame.
Because I was so sick, I wasn't able to socialize with many of the other guests, but Baillie did. The day after we arrived, and I slept a bunch, Beef got to know our Cristoph and discuss a little what had happened the night before. She told him just how scared we were, what we were thinking, and that we even got out pepper spray and were on the verge of blasting him.
Cristoph, who turned out to be this hilarious guy with a really great sense of humor, explained to us why he was walking and acting so stiff and bizarre(one of the reasons we became so afraid of him so quickly).
He told us that as soon as he suggested we follow him to the hostel in the middle of the night, he knew how unsafe that must have sounded to us. He said he decided to walk ahead of us because if we decided to run away from him, we'd feel as though we'd have a better chance of escaping since we would already have some distance. He said he was walking so stiffly and didn't turn around to look at us much because he felt that quick or sudden movements would scare us even more. He was doing all of that to try to make us feel safer, when in reality, it made us a whole lot more freaked out.
In the end we all found it pretty hilarious and it turned into a running joke.
A few days into our stay, when I felt a little better and was able to go down stairs to the common area, Cristoph got his guitar out while we were all just sitting(there was another English guy there) and he just started to make up some tunes. Like I said, Cristoph was pretty funny, and ended up with an impromptu song he called "Follow me to the Hostel" and later preformed at a live internet streamed concert. Very honoured.
And if the scary arrival(Baillie said she was so sure she was going to die, she had never been so scared in her life), my painful sickness, and us missing out on the city wasn't enough the owner of the hostel was a complete creep.
The German girls we were bunked with said he was constantly hitting on them and when I was sitting alone with him one night we very awkwardly overheard some people having sex. He instantly went off about how he loved hearing it(eww) and wished that everyone was having sex in all of his rooms all of the time, and then he would be happy(double eww). I would also like to add that while he was saying all of this he was spread eagle in his tiny little french underwear...only underwear(once again, eww). And the next night, when we were sitting eating dinner and Cristoph made up his song, he also looked at the owners personal computer's history and found it to ALL be porn.
Nasty...nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty.
Our last day we had to check out early and walk around a bit we decided I needed to go to the hospital because I was just not getting much better. We found one that looked more like an insane asylum but eventually found an info desk. We asked the ladies there where to go and they told us to go to another wing and ask for the "ORA".
We get to that wing(and this hospital seems totally deserted) and ask a woman we see in an office where the "ORA" is, and she helpfully informs us that SHE doesn't work there. Ummmmm, we try again. The "ORA" we ask. Again, a little more irritated on her part tells us that "ORA" doesn't work in that wing. This time we explain the situation and she tells us to go to a different floor. Great.
We get to that floor, search for signs of life, find a nurse and ask if we can see a doctor. "There are no doctors here" she tells us. Excuse me? What?? No doctors, IN A HOSPITAL?! She tells us to sit and lo! There is one left that might see me before he leaves for the day...before the last doctor leaves for the day...from the hospital...leaving the entire Eyes and Throat section of the hospital void of doctors. That was redundant I know, but seriously. I tell you the hospitals and law enforcement in France became very questionable to us.
The saving grace in that situation was that the doctor was super cute. A young, cute doctor. If there had to be only one....
So after he tried to check me out in one room and realized the EQUIPMENT WAS BROKEN and moved me to another room. I finally left with a prescription, no bill, and a few free pills for the road. A quick visit to a pharmacy and I was popping 9 pills(actually) a day for the next couple of weeks. Glorious.
Finally we got on another night bus bound for Spain, a favorite of mine.
And that, all that, is the tale of Marseilles.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Nice, France.
Our next French stop was Nice, France. We got on the bus and spent about 9 hours getting there. Now, I'm not the type to get car/sea sick in any way- but that road was so twisty and turny that by hour 8 I got pretty sick to my stomach. Not anything serious as in "pull the bus over!" but sick enough to keep me from talking and to keep my head in my knees. I could barely lift my head to take in Nice as it appeared from the hills. I also left my sunglasses in a bathroom because I was rushing and afraid of the bus driver. This was after I lost my camera and absolutely determined to take extra care of the rest of my possessions(while in Nice I also thought that I lost my guidebook and so we spent the rest of our trip without one. I found it tucked into the back of my bag once I got home. Oops.). I failed.
This time we were a little more organized and arrived in Nice with a place to stay. The hostel was right in the middle in the old city, perfect location. We only booked one night in Nice in hopes that a couchsurfer would answer our requests(they never do) and ended up in this awesome little suite a few streets from the main hostel. A nice Canadian guy lead us there and the room had a bunk bed, a mini kitchen, a bathroom and a little dining table. Very impressive! We had bought things for dinner and two cheap bottles of wine since it was a Friday(Saturday?). We had met these American girls who told us where the party was and after we ate we got ready in our room. During the getting ready/eating process we decided to have a few glasses of wine. As the time passed and I tried to get the 2nd bottle open with the cork thing on my Swiss Army knife I ended up getting wine all over the place. All over us, all over the table, all over the walls, on the floor. Since it was our second bottle(and we are light drinkers) we just laughed it off and left it for the morning. We grabbed our key and headed towards Wayne's Bar. Baillie was in high heels, and since she's not used to heels it doesn't take long to hurt her feet. Nice was mostly cobblestone(always funny when combined with drunk girls and heels) so it took us a bit to walk to the bar. When we got to the front of the line Baillie was carded immediately. We had thought it might happen since she's tiny but the American girls said that they had been studying there and knew all the bouncers, so if they vouched for us, we'd be let in. When the vouching time came, we looked at this girl and she just looked at us, kind of smiled and went in with a small "sorry". She got freaked out. So off we went, a little annoyed(Baillie is 21, and the drinking age is 18) we walked back to get her passport.
Luckily for me I have a driver's license that can fit neatly in my bra when I don't bring a wallet but Beef had a passport that only fits neatly in her pantie elastic. She was wearing a very tight skirt so when we finally got back and got up to the bouncer he looked a little confused when she stuck her hand down the front of her skirt and pulled out her ID and then again to get it back in place. We probably would have been a lot more secretive about the whole thing if we were less drunk. When we got in I had to go to the bathroom. Baillie came with me and I dragged her into the stall where she found 20 euro. Could have been mine if I had just let her wait outside. Regrets. Anyway it didn't take long or many more drinks until we hit the dance floor where an American DJ was playing very fun, sing-a-long type tracks. We worked our way to the front of the stage where some girls pulled us up. We spent the rest of the nights dancing up with the DJ and singing with the crowd. Goood times. Once we had enough we went outside and sat on the street(classy, I know) where some French guys approached us and we had a few words with them until it turned kind of hostile and we left. FYI, guys in Nice yell the dirtiest things at you when you walk down the street(maybe they did in all the places, but we could actually understand this). We we quite out of it by that point and Baillie kept on trying, very confidently, to get into random buildings thinking it was ours. Now, normally I have ZERO sense of direction. I mean I never, ever know where I am but I could navigate Nice no problem. It kind of freaked me out. Somehow during our walk we met a stag party on the street and had arranged to go out on their boat with them the next morning. A time, a place was set. Obviously we never showed up. We finally arrived and collapsed, happily, into our little French beds to sleep off the wine to awake perky and ready to face the day.
The second day in Nice it became pretty obvious pretty quick that we were not going to find a couch to surf, so we tried to book another night in our nice little room. We had to wait for the eccentric hostel lady to come back and she ended up letting us both sleep in this single bed in the dorm, since it was all she had(she also had this crazy old dog named Polo who didn't react to anything. Touch, noise, etc. Yet she would yell at this kid for upsetting the dog and you'd look down at the thing and it was just standing there unmoving an looking exactly the same as it did all the time. It was all a bit odd). The kicker was that the suit-place didn't have dish soap so the poor cleaner had to clean our dishes and wine covered room when we didn't get it the second night. In our defense we did ask the front desk for cleaning supplies but they told us just to leave it. Although I've slept better we were pretty excited to only pay half of what we would have and wished we could do that at every hostel we stayed in.
It has been a while but I know we went to the beach where we saw a lot of really old, really magenta, really leathery naked people. We also had to go shopping for new sunglasses for me and a new bag since my third one had broken. We went to Monaco and saw the casino and the palace and the wealth so that was pretty neat-o. Then we got some adequate sleep and moved onto our next destination: Marseilles.
This time we were a little more organized and arrived in Nice with a place to stay. The hostel was right in the middle in the old city, perfect location. We only booked one night in Nice in hopes that a couchsurfer would answer our requests(they never do) and ended up in this awesome little suite a few streets from the main hostel. A nice Canadian guy lead us there and the room had a bunk bed, a mini kitchen, a bathroom and a little dining table. Very impressive! We had bought things for dinner and two cheap bottles of wine since it was a Friday(Saturday?). We had met these American girls who told us where the party was and after we ate we got ready in our room. During the getting ready/eating process we decided to have a few glasses of wine. As the time passed and I tried to get the 2nd bottle open with the cork thing on my Swiss Army knife I ended up getting wine all over the place. All over us, all over the table, all over the walls, on the floor. Since it was our second bottle(and we are light drinkers) we just laughed it off and left it for the morning. We grabbed our key and headed towards Wayne's Bar. Baillie was in high heels, and since she's not used to heels it doesn't take long to hurt her feet. Nice was mostly cobblestone(always funny when combined with drunk girls and heels) so it took us a bit to walk to the bar. When we got to the front of the line Baillie was carded immediately. We had thought it might happen since she's tiny but the American girls said that they had been studying there and knew all the bouncers, so if they vouched for us, we'd be let in. When the vouching time came, we looked at this girl and she just looked at us, kind of smiled and went in with a small "sorry". She got freaked out. So off we went, a little annoyed(Baillie is 21, and the drinking age is 18) we walked back to get her passport.
Luckily for me I have a driver's license that can fit neatly in my bra when I don't bring a wallet but Beef had a passport that only fits neatly in her pantie elastic. She was wearing a very tight skirt so when we finally got back and got up to the bouncer he looked a little confused when she stuck her hand down the front of her skirt and pulled out her ID and then again to get it back in place. We probably would have been a lot more secretive about the whole thing if we were less drunk. When we got in I had to go to the bathroom. Baillie came with me and I dragged her into the stall where she found 20 euro. Could have been mine if I had just let her wait outside. Regrets. Anyway it didn't take long or many more drinks until we hit the dance floor where an American DJ was playing very fun, sing-a-long type tracks. We worked our way to the front of the stage where some girls pulled us up. We spent the rest of the nights dancing up with the DJ and singing with the crowd. Goood times. Once we had enough we went outside and sat on the street(classy, I know) where some French guys approached us and we had a few words with them until it turned kind of hostile and we left. FYI, guys in Nice yell the dirtiest things at you when you walk down the street(maybe they did in all the places, but we could actually understand this). We we quite out of it by that point and Baillie kept on trying, very confidently, to get into random buildings thinking it was ours. Now, normally I have ZERO sense of direction. I mean I never, ever know where I am but I could navigate Nice no problem. It kind of freaked me out. Somehow during our walk we met a stag party on the street and had arranged to go out on their boat with them the next morning. A time, a place was set. Obviously we never showed up. We finally arrived and collapsed, happily, into our little French beds to sleep off the wine to awake perky and ready to face the day.
The second day in Nice it became pretty obvious pretty quick that we were not going to find a couch to surf, so we tried to book another night in our nice little room. We had to wait for the eccentric hostel lady to come back and she ended up letting us both sleep in this single bed in the dorm, since it was all she had(she also had this crazy old dog named Polo who didn't react to anything. Touch, noise, etc. Yet she would yell at this kid for upsetting the dog and you'd look down at the thing and it was just standing there unmoving an looking exactly the same as it did all the time. It was all a bit odd). The kicker was that the suit-place didn't have dish soap so the poor cleaner had to clean our dishes and wine covered room when we didn't get it the second night. In our defense we did ask the front desk for cleaning supplies but they told us just to leave it. Although I've slept better we were pretty excited to only pay half of what we would have and wished we could do that at every hostel we stayed in.
It has been a while but I know we went to the beach where we saw a lot of really old, really magenta, really leathery naked people. We also had to go shopping for new sunglasses for me and a new bag since my third one had broken. We went to Monaco and saw the casino and the palace and the wealth so that was pretty neat-o. Then we got some adequate sleep and moved onto our next destination: Marseilles.
Friday, July 16, 2010
South of France, Grenoble.
After we bid Switzerland adieu we walked over to the train station to be taken to Grenoble. We gave ourselves just enough time to board the train comfortably and I'm sure it would have gone over smoothly if we had actually booked a train and not a bus.
We walked around the train station very confused trying to find our departure, showed a few employees our tickets asking them to help us and couldn't(they thought they could, we followed wrong directions all over that station). We started getting worried when the 20 minute mark until the "train" departure went by, freaking out when the 15, then the 10...We were in a state of panic when, finally, a woman looked at our ticket, looked at us, and asked almost disbelievingly if we knew that this was in fact a bus ticket, and not a train. We could barely laugh at our mistake when we thanked her and ran like idiots(you can't look like anything but an idiot when you're trying to run with a 75 litre backpack on) to the bus part of the station and caught it just in time! We had bought the ticket the day before,not even 24 hours before, and we made such a ridiculous mistake. The only reason we could laugh at our stupidity was because we caught the bus, if we hadn't it would have been a whole different set of emotions.
It was a long bus ride so it's a good thing I could fall asleep with an injection of adrenalin to the heart if I wanted to. I am a great sleeper. When we arrived it was about 10pm, still dark, and yet again we had absolutely no where to stay. So Grenoble isn't a very big city and since we weren't in the centre, it was dead. Across the street from the station we saw a big map, so we walked towards it- and, thankfully, there was a sign on that map for a youth hostel. Not so thankfully it was out of town and the busses had stopped running by that point. We looked around and found the dingiest looking hotel we could and settled in for an interesting night.
Once we walked through the creepiest hotel ever..everything squeaked, the lights in the hall turned on one by one by motion sensors as you walked through them and some not at all.. and got into our room we decided we were hungry and needed food. The front desk guy(who would sit in the dark dinning room) told us about a place called the Indian Bazaar or something that would be open at midnight. So off we went to find an Indian grocery.
We were wandering down some side street that had these dark allies coming off them when we saw and heard an, about, 13 year old girl crying and an older(50?) man in a leather jackets holding tightly onto her wrist. As we walked by another man walked out of the same ally and asked us what was happening..we said we didn't know and all 3 of us started walking towards the scene. That's when we decided it might be some trap to get us into an ally so we told the guy we'd watch from the street. Without his 5"1' and 5"8' teenage backup, the guy got scared and just walked by the two fighting. We got even more freaked out when we could see the girl, still crying, trying to get her wrist free and the man leading her deeper into the ally. That's when I tried to take a picture and then we ran off to find a pay phone.
When we phoned the police, I was on the phone, it was clear pretty soon that the guy could not understand one heavily anglophone/wanna-be-Quebecois accented french word that was coming out of my mouth. The French was okay, it was the accent he didn't get- since Baillie understood every word. After about 10 minutes and he finally understood where we were, and what the situation was ("A 50 or so year old man is dragging a 13-something unwilling, crying girl into an ally...at midnight") he responded with "Well, if we send a car out now maybe they will have left that area by the time we get there." or aka "It's not worth sending a car". We told them we didn't care and they needed to send someone! We were in a state of shock that the Police, THE POLICE, were almost refusing to check out this situation(flash forward, they never came).
We didn't feel comfortable leaving on our food quest so we stood in plain sight a bit away and flagged down men to go check in on things. A few really nice guys stopped and they went to check out what was happening. We were also amazed how many people would stop to look at the girl situation, seem worried, then shake their heads and walk off. Anyway, apparently the girl had been broken up with and had run away from home and creepy jacket man was her dad. The guys left satisfied but we stayed until her grandfather came and she left willingly with him. Then we walked to the grocery store that was actually a restaurant and got greasy rice to eat in our greasy hotel room. End first night in France.
Grenoble round 2 was a distressing day for me. It started out really well(first we sent out a whole bunch of emergency couchsurfing requests so we didn't have to stay in that hotel again). We left our bags in some pub for "storage" that cost us about 12 euro each to leave in the doorway and then we walked the centre of the town to taken the sights. It was nice. We walked around the city, hing out in some nice parks and then I lost my camera. I had decided to keep it on my wrist so I would remember to snap some memories, but then I left it alone to defend for itself somewhere. So we spent the day seeing some sights, and then seeing them again as I frantically looked for my camera. I never found it. It was lost along with almost all of my pictures of Italy..a months worth of pictures. I cried. I cried by the bus station and then I cried on this bench in front of a restaurant in front of all the workers. Then we hit up a a grocery store and got some crackers and tuna and olives and returned to my crying bench and ate like hobos with our grubby hands as the restaurant workers, again, looked on. We were a bit of a mess. At 11 pm the guy who had answered our couchsurfing request came to pick us up and we spent an excellent night at his house. He played us some original music, gave us food and was very nice all around. We were his first ever surfers and his enthusiasm showed through. We, the jaded hosts, knew this kind of enthusiasm wouldn't last and were very grateful to him. He saved our behinds. In the morning he drove us to the bus station and we boarded for our next destination: the French Riviera, Nice.
We walked around the train station very confused trying to find our departure, showed a few employees our tickets asking them to help us and couldn't(they thought they could, we followed wrong directions all over that station). We started getting worried when the 20 minute mark until the "train" departure went by, freaking out when the 15, then the 10...We were in a state of panic when, finally, a woman looked at our ticket, looked at us, and asked almost disbelievingly if we knew that this was in fact a bus ticket, and not a train. We could barely laugh at our mistake when we thanked her and ran like idiots(you can't look like anything but an idiot when you're trying to run with a 75 litre backpack on) to the bus part of the station and caught it just in time! We had bought the ticket the day before,not even 24 hours before, and we made such a ridiculous mistake. The only reason we could laugh at our stupidity was because we caught the bus, if we hadn't it would have been a whole different set of emotions.
It was a long bus ride so it's a good thing I could fall asleep with an injection of adrenalin to the heart if I wanted to. I am a great sleeper. When we arrived it was about 10pm, still dark, and yet again we had absolutely no where to stay. So Grenoble isn't a very big city and since we weren't in the centre, it was dead. Across the street from the station we saw a big map, so we walked towards it- and, thankfully, there was a sign on that map for a youth hostel. Not so thankfully it was out of town and the busses had stopped running by that point. We looked around and found the dingiest looking hotel we could and settled in for an interesting night.
Once we walked through the creepiest hotel ever..everything squeaked, the lights in the hall turned on one by one by motion sensors as you walked through them and some not at all.. and got into our room we decided we were hungry and needed food. The front desk guy(who would sit in the dark dinning room) told us about a place called the Indian Bazaar or something that would be open at midnight. So off we went to find an Indian grocery.
We were wandering down some side street that had these dark allies coming off them when we saw and heard an, about, 13 year old girl crying and an older(50?) man in a leather jackets holding tightly onto her wrist. As we walked by another man walked out of the same ally and asked us what was happening..we said we didn't know and all 3 of us started walking towards the scene. That's when we decided it might be some trap to get us into an ally so we told the guy we'd watch from the street. Without his 5"1' and 5"8' teenage backup, the guy got scared and just walked by the two fighting. We got even more freaked out when we could see the girl, still crying, trying to get her wrist free and the man leading her deeper into the ally. That's when I tried to take a picture and then we ran off to find a pay phone.
When we phoned the police, I was on the phone, it was clear pretty soon that the guy could not understand one heavily anglophone/wanna-be-Quebecois accented french word that was coming out of my mouth. The French was okay, it was the accent he didn't get- since Baillie understood every word. After about 10 minutes and he finally understood where we were, and what the situation was ("A 50 or so year old man is dragging a 13-something unwilling, crying girl into an ally...at midnight") he responded with "Well, if we send a car out now maybe they will have left that area by the time we get there." or aka "It's not worth sending a car". We told them we didn't care and they needed to send someone! We were in a state of shock that the Police, THE POLICE, were almost refusing to check out this situation(flash forward, they never came).
We didn't feel comfortable leaving on our food quest so we stood in plain sight a bit away and flagged down men to go check in on things. A few really nice guys stopped and they went to check out what was happening. We were also amazed how many people would stop to look at the girl situation, seem worried, then shake their heads and walk off. Anyway, apparently the girl had been broken up with and had run away from home and creepy jacket man was her dad. The guys left satisfied but we stayed until her grandfather came and she left willingly with him. Then we walked to the grocery store that was actually a restaurant and got greasy rice to eat in our greasy hotel room. End first night in France.
Grenoble round 2 was a distressing day for me. It started out really well(first we sent out a whole bunch of emergency couchsurfing requests so we didn't have to stay in that hotel again). We left our bags in some pub for "storage" that cost us about 12 euro each to leave in the doorway and then we walked the centre of the town to taken the sights. It was nice. We walked around the city, hing out in some nice parks and then I lost my camera. I had decided to keep it on my wrist so I would remember to snap some memories, but then I left it alone to defend for itself somewhere. So we spent the day seeing some sights, and then seeing them again as I frantically looked for my camera. I never found it. It was lost along with almost all of my pictures of Italy..a months worth of pictures. I cried. I cried by the bus station and then I cried on this bench in front of a restaurant in front of all the workers. Then we hit up a a grocery store and got some crackers and tuna and olives and returned to my crying bench and ate like hobos with our grubby hands as the restaurant workers, again, looked on. We were a bit of a mess. At 11 pm the guy who had answered our couchsurfing request came to pick us up and we spent an excellent night at his house. He played us some original music, gave us food and was very nice all around. We were his first ever surfers and his enthusiasm showed through. We, the jaded hosts, knew this kind of enthusiasm wouldn't last and were very grateful to him. He saved our behinds. In the morning he drove us to the bus station and we boarded for our next destination: the French Riviera, Nice.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Switzerland
So I've been home now for about two weeks and no longer have the need to blog... but I have high hopes that one day I will become an old woman and, if I really am my father's daughter, senility will kick in soon after that and I wont be able to remember anything. So here's to hoping I'll still be able to read! Also, since I am unemployed(loving it) and unmotivated(in Calgary!), I have become nocturnal and have to fill the long, cable-less hours doing something. So I type. I type for me.
Switzerland will be a very short blog since we only spent a night there, it was over a month ago, and my memory is questionable(why the whole Alzheimer's thing seems probable).
Before I got to Switzerland, in my mind, I would imagine me near beautiful mountains, people on bicycles, clear blue water, watches, eating chocolate and fondue--now I would imagine me living on a box with a stolen child trying to get the homeless sympathy vote. If you want to go there, you have got to have deep pockets. Switzerland was so crazy expensive we spent our whole afternoon of our first and only day trying to find a cheapish bus to take us to France. I would love, love to go back- but only as a rich widow(I might settle as budget savvy traveler).
I flew into Geneva from Rome and met Baillie at the airport. She had arrived a few hours earlier and supposedly got the lay of the land before she had to meet me...this later proved false as we got lost in the rain for a good while at about midnight.
I arrived, we hugged, loud scene, etc. etc. When all that was over we realized that it was about 10 at night and neither of us had bothered to look up a hostel. So my last month of travel begun.
We got on the bus and decided to head towards a main part of town but got lost in the rain for a bit(as mentioned above). When we arrived in a decent looking area our only course of action was to wander until we found a hostel sign and we eventually did. We went in, got in line, asked about vacancy, were laughed at, discussed how likely it would be to get away with sleeping on the couches, inquired about horse ownerships, and were finally referred to another dwelling. When we arrived there they had a couple beds available and we paid a lot for them- thus beginning the milking of our bank accounts by Switzerland. This was the only time we arrived in a strange city in the middle of the night without a place to stay or knowledge of the area...and I would love that to be true- but we did it many other times and I'm sure we would have done it many more.
In the morning we decided to take in the sights..and once we saw the price tags on things we quickly realized that we couldn't stay the 5 days and see the other cities we had planned on seeing. (At this point Beef was on a 25 euro a day budget. At a later point that went down to 10). After we took the morning to find and book our bus to Grenoble we went down to the water(a turquoise clear blue, so clean for a city, so clean for anywhere) to take in a super underwhelming flower clock that turned out to be a few wild flowers and spinning hands, the big, famous jet stream that was broken or something and neither jet nor streamed, some fountains, and grass lounged. When it was time to eat I was really wanting to try some fondue, but it cost your first born and so we headed to the grocery store. Food is expensive, very, so we got some rice cakes and olives and sat on the curb to enjoy our feast. As we were eating a Roma woman approached us and we gave her a euro or two. As a reward for this selfless deed we got yelled at/lectured by this Swiss guy in a suit(they weed out the poor) about how we just helped devastate the country by giving this woman a couple coins. As if she could do much with them anyway. The game "I'm that crazy Swiss guy" was born.
Later, we looked through the old city, walked these beautiful green paths, took lots of beautiful pictures(that are gone forever) and eventually had to make our way to the bus station. We boarded the bus and headed off to the next city to again arrive in the middle of the night with no place to stay- because not only do we make the same mistake twice, but over and over again.
All in all, Geneva was a beautiful city and I've heard from friends that Switzerland is one of the most beautiful countries. I'm sorry we missed out on it. So I'll be back, Switzerland. I'll be back to make your Roma wealthy, eat carbs, ski off carbs, and enjoy everything you have to offer. And since I have recently decided to win the lotto, hopefully it wont take me too long to do. Ohhh to reminisce!
Switzerland will be a very short blog since we only spent a night there, it was over a month ago, and my memory is questionable(why the whole Alzheimer's thing seems probable).
Before I got to Switzerland, in my mind, I would imagine me near beautiful mountains, people on bicycles, clear blue water, watches, eating chocolate and fondue--now I would imagine me living on a box with a stolen child trying to get the homeless sympathy vote. If you want to go there, you have got to have deep pockets. Switzerland was so crazy expensive we spent our whole afternoon of our first and only day trying to find a cheapish bus to take us to France. I would love, love to go back- but only as a rich widow(I might settle as budget savvy traveler).
I flew into Geneva from Rome and met Baillie at the airport. She had arrived a few hours earlier and supposedly got the lay of the land before she had to meet me...this later proved false as we got lost in the rain for a good while at about midnight.
I arrived, we hugged, loud scene, etc. etc. When all that was over we realized that it was about 10 at night and neither of us had bothered to look up a hostel. So my last month of travel begun.
We got on the bus and decided to head towards a main part of town but got lost in the rain for a bit(as mentioned above). When we arrived in a decent looking area our only course of action was to wander until we found a hostel sign and we eventually did. We went in, got in line, asked about vacancy, were laughed at, discussed how likely it would be to get away with sleeping on the couches, inquired about horse ownerships, and were finally referred to another dwelling. When we arrived there they had a couple beds available and we paid a lot for them- thus beginning the milking of our bank accounts by Switzerland. This was the only time we arrived in a strange city in the middle of the night without a place to stay or knowledge of the area...and I would love that to be true- but we did it many other times and I'm sure we would have done it many more.
In the morning we decided to take in the sights..and once we saw the price tags on things we quickly realized that we couldn't stay the 5 days and see the other cities we had planned on seeing. (At this point Beef was on a 25 euro a day budget. At a later point that went down to 10). After we took the morning to find and book our bus to Grenoble we went down to the water(a turquoise clear blue, so clean for a city, so clean for anywhere) to take in a super underwhelming flower clock that turned out to be a few wild flowers and spinning hands, the big, famous jet stream that was broken or something and neither jet nor streamed, some fountains, and grass lounged. When it was time to eat I was really wanting to try some fondue, but it cost your first born and so we headed to the grocery store. Food is expensive, very, so we got some rice cakes and olives and sat on the curb to enjoy our feast. As we were eating a Roma woman approached us and we gave her a euro or two. As a reward for this selfless deed we got yelled at/lectured by this Swiss guy in a suit(they weed out the poor) about how we just helped devastate the country by giving this woman a couple coins. As if she could do much with them anyway. The game "I'm that crazy Swiss guy" was born.
Later, we looked through the old city, walked these beautiful green paths, took lots of beautiful pictures(that are gone forever) and eventually had to make our way to the bus station. We boarded the bus and headed off to the next city to again arrive in the middle of the night with no place to stay- because not only do we make the same mistake twice, but over and over again.
All in all, Geneva was a beautiful city and I've heard from friends that Switzerland is one of the most beautiful countries. I'm sorry we missed out on it. So I'll be back, Switzerland. I'll be back to make your Roma wealthy, eat carbs, ski off carbs, and enjoy everything you have to offer. And since I have recently decided to win the lotto, hopefully it wont take me too long to do. Ohhh to reminisce!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Rome.
Like I said, Rome was the last stop for the three of us traveling together. As you can imagine, our booking ahead and being preped and responsible kind of started to lose some steam. I'm pretty sure we had somewhere to stay for the first night or so, but for accom. Rome was just as expenisve as Amsterdam. As in Very. On the train ride to Rome we met three older ladies and talked to them basically the whole trip. They were really great and even gave us their addresses so we could come crash with them if ever in the area. Really one of the most pleasent train rides wa had. We also met some American girls who were our age. We shared hostel information but werent staying in the same one.
Once we got off the train, we ventured out in search of our hostel. We had the directions, but it took us forever to find the place. When we finally found a different hostel we just went in to as for directions, turns out we had tekan the wrong name down and spent forever looking for a hostel sign that was way across town. Oops. When we finally got settled, we went into our room and ran into the American girls we had met on the train. It was nice to see them. We then made plans to get food and go out on pub crawls and have lots of fun...we only ended up doing teh first bit. In the same room as us, we met a gril from the UK. She was great! She had done a bunch of her studies on the part of histroy we were going to go explore. She came with us to all the important sights and gave us a great amount of info on each. She was our own personal tour guide. Rome was great! So much to see, so much to learn. The Col was amazing.. trying to imagine the crazy things that went on there.. and thanks to teh movie The Gladiator it was a bit easier to do just that. We were trying to couchsurf in rome so we didnt book all of our hostels at once.we stayed two days in that one and then scrambled to find another. Did I mention how expensive it was? We enede up staying at this other hostel within a hotel and shared two beds for teh 4 of us(Kat had come with us to save some money).That night Ky and i decided to check out what Rome had to offer in teh night scene and went out and left the girls at the hotel. Lynds was feeling sick and Kat just wasnt up for it that night. Ky and I walked through, what we now know is a very bad part of town at night, to this funky little bar. It was weird though, as they didnt play any music..not even background music. You barely notice music in places,but when it isnt there you really, really do. We had a beer, felt a little put off by the whole scene,and called it a night.
The next day when we had to yet again scramble for a hostel, we eventually bit our lip and took the cheaper, bungalow option outside of town. We got there and realized that we really should have been there the whole time. As it was our last night together we decided to get very drunk at the bar and dance like madmen even though the floor was huge and there were about 4 other people there, haha ohh liquid courage. The end started out really well and ended crouched under a bed for cover. It was possibly the creepiest night we had.
With us at the hostel was a military squad(?)from the British Army. There were a bunch of guys but we only ended up really meeting two of them. When they finally closed the bar, Lyndsey and I had an arangement with one of the security guards to let us drive around the grounds with the golf cart. We had arranged to meet him at 3 am in the main area. The two boys decided to stay up with us utnil that time. One was majorly hitting on Lyndsey and we both started to get a little creeped out. When the security guard came to take us out and back to our room-thing,we all said goodnight. When the guard dropped us off, he told us to keep a watch out as someone was following us home. We looked over, and saw british boy crouched hidden tiger style behind a hedge! We told him to back the eff off and scrambled into our room. Once we recovered from shock and got out from under the bed, and told the guy to get lost, but he decided that the best plan of action was to creep back and forth outside our room for about half an hour and try to get in occasionally. We pushed our beds together, kept the pepperspray out and tried to fight off sleep. I, of course, was asleep within a few minutes but thankfully that was the last we saw of him. Kind of shook us up though.
The next morning was a sad one :( The girls left me for Paris. I was really sad to see them go, even though Im a terrible and awkward goodbye-er. A nice hug and a "See you later" is about as much as they got from me :S
To tell the truth I was a bit worried about spending two months with the girls. I for sure thought Lynds and I were going to kill eachother and I didnt know Ky that well at all, nothing more than a few classes together in highschool. Now, though, I really couldnt have asked for two better people. Ky made it so Lynds and I could keep our cool when things could have gotten heated, and we always just ended up laughing it off about 4 minutes later. Senses of humor were very, very similar and that is so essential when you're forced to be with someone 24/7. Seeing humour in the small things is what makes some of the best moments and makes those long, tedious moments go by quicker. I will always consider myself really lucky to have had the opportunity to travel with these grils, and to have gotten to know them so much better in such an amazing way. Thanks for an amazing 2 months :) You are now both a part of my lifes history that I will never forget.
Back in Rome, I thankfully got to meet up with a friends sister who ended up staying at the same camp ground(tiny world!) and roomed with this really, really cool Australian gril.. so I didnt feel all that alone. i spent my two last days in Rome trying to hunt down imaginary Canadian Embassies and other non-important things. Lyndsey found out that 400 dollars was taken from her account by some messed up bank machine. A huge blow to any poor traveler. When my last two days were up, I took a bus down to the airport and got on my flight to Geneva to meet Baillie in Switzerland for our 5 or so days there. That was the plan anyway, Im sure its a very nice place.
Once we got off the train, we ventured out in search of our hostel. We had the directions, but it took us forever to find the place. When we finally found a different hostel we just went in to as for directions, turns out we had tekan the wrong name down and spent forever looking for a hostel sign that was way across town. Oops. When we finally got settled, we went into our room and ran into the American girls we had met on the train. It was nice to see them. We then made plans to get food and go out on pub crawls and have lots of fun...we only ended up doing teh first bit. In the same room as us, we met a gril from the UK. She was great! She had done a bunch of her studies on the part of histroy we were going to go explore. She came with us to all the important sights and gave us a great amount of info on each. She was our own personal tour guide. Rome was great! So much to see, so much to learn. The Col was amazing.. trying to imagine the crazy things that went on there.. and thanks to teh movie The Gladiator it was a bit easier to do just that. We were trying to couchsurf in rome so we didnt book all of our hostels at once.we stayed two days in that one and then scrambled to find another. Did I mention how expensive it was? We enede up staying at this other hostel within a hotel and shared two beds for teh 4 of us(Kat had come with us to save some money).That night Ky and i decided to check out what Rome had to offer in teh night scene and went out and left the girls at the hotel. Lynds was feeling sick and Kat just wasnt up for it that night. Ky and I walked through, what we now know is a very bad part of town at night, to this funky little bar. It was weird though, as they didnt play any music..not even background music. You barely notice music in places,but when it isnt there you really, really do. We had a beer, felt a little put off by the whole scene,and called it a night.
The next day when we had to yet again scramble for a hostel, we eventually bit our lip and took the cheaper, bungalow option outside of town. We got there and realized that we really should have been there the whole time. As it was our last night together we decided to get very drunk at the bar and dance like madmen even though the floor was huge and there were about 4 other people there, haha ohh liquid courage. The end started out really well and ended crouched under a bed for cover. It was possibly the creepiest night we had.
With us at the hostel was a military squad(?)from the British Army. There were a bunch of guys but we only ended up really meeting two of them. When they finally closed the bar, Lyndsey and I had an arangement with one of the security guards to let us drive around the grounds with the golf cart. We had arranged to meet him at 3 am in the main area. The two boys decided to stay up with us utnil that time. One was majorly hitting on Lyndsey and we both started to get a little creeped out. When the security guard came to take us out and back to our room-thing,we all said goodnight. When the guard dropped us off, he told us to keep a watch out as someone was following us home. We looked over, and saw british boy crouched hidden tiger style behind a hedge! We told him to back the eff off and scrambled into our room. Once we recovered from shock and got out from under the bed, and told the guy to get lost, but he decided that the best plan of action was to creep back and forth outside our room for about half an hour and try to get in occasionally. We pushed our beds together, kept the pepperspray out and tried to fight off sleep. I, of course, was asleep within a few minutes but thankfully that was the last we saw of him. Kind of shook us up though.
The next morning was a sad one :( The girls left me for Paris. I was really sad to see them go, even though Im a terrible and awkward goodbye-er. A nice hug and a "See you later" is about as much as they got from me :S
To tell the truth I was a bit worried about spending two months with the girls. I for sure thought Lynds and I were going to kill eachother and I didnt know Ky that well at all, nothing more than a few classes together in highschool. Now, though, I really couldnt have asked for two better people. Ky made it so Lynds and I could keep our cool when things could have gotten heated, and we always just ended up laughing it off about 4 minutes later. Senses of humor were very, very similar and that is so essential when you're forced to be with someone 24/7. Seeing humour in the small things is what makes some of the best moments and makes those long, tedious moments go by quicker. I will always consider myself really lucky to have had the opportunity to travel with these grils, and to have gotten to know them so much better in such an amazing way. Thanks for an amazing 2 months :) You are now both a part of my lifes history that I will never forget.
Back in Rome, I thankfully got to meet up with a friends sister who ended up staying at the same camp ground(tiny world!) and roomed with this really, really cool Australian gril.. so I didnt feel all that alone. i spent my two last days in Rome trying to hunt down imaginary Canadian Embassies and other non-important things. Lyndsey found out that 400 dollars was taken from her account by some messed up bank machine. A huge blow to any poor traveler. When my last two days were up, I took a bus down to the airport and got on my flight to Geneva to meet Baillie in Switzerland for our 5 or so days there. That was the plan anyway, Im sure its a very nice place.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Naples, Italy.
So the title may say Naples, but I have almost nothing to say about that city. WE riived in Naples, was showed to our hostel by some homeless guy, and slept here. That's it. Naples is a pretty rough city and so we spent no time there. For most of our stay it was only a base camp.
First day in Naples, after staying the first night in our funky little hostel, was spent at the Almafi Coast. We took the death ride up the coast. The roads were so narrow and the bus driver was crazy and everyone sat there writing their wills. When we got to the coast we hit the beach right away. And I didn't even get burned :) I did however pay way too much for this terrible drink that I didn't touch and then made myself happy by compensating by also buying myself a gelato...and then maybe some lemon candies. But thats what the coast is known for, lemons, so it'd really be a shame if I didn't. After we wandered, thought about buying my dad a giant blowfish light that I knew mum would be horrified by, we swallowed our fears and got back on bus ride of death home.
The next day we decided not to bake ourselves but take in some culture. We went up and visited the ruins of Pompei. Stupidly, we didn't see the booth that was handing out all the info booklets so for the next few hours we just kind of wandered the place not having any idea what we were looking at. It was awesome but it would have been more awesome to have that booklet. It was a long time ago now, but I can only guess we made ourselves feels better with gelato. That night we got all dressed up to have ourselves a good, good night since the music in the club was attached to our hostel was growing loud and we just couldn't fight that feeling. When we got down, the lady at the desk gave us a one over, and told us that No, we wern't allowed to crash that 18 year olds birthday party. We awkwardly walked back up to our room, brushed out our hair, washed off our make up and went to sleep. Total success.
The next day we moved out of Naples and into a funky little camp ground in Sorrento. Sorrento was nice but our camp ground was a bit outside of the area so we only spent one day walking around and seeing the city. We were going to go and try the nightlife there but it was yet another expensive cab ride home to our huts and so we decided against it. Our first day there we went to another beach. It was okay. I probably say this just because I got really, really burnt. My ears, my chest, my eyelids, my shins, my thighs, my neck were all a bright red. I sunscreened a lot, but I probably should have known to apply a lot more often since my fair skin can't even handel a Canadian sun, let alone an Italian one. Lyndesy got stung by a jelly fish. Not bad enough to have to get peed on though. When we got back from teh beach we made ourselves some dinner in the funniest little kitchen bungalow; ate, and were content.
The next day in Sorrento we decided to climb up Mount Vesuvius, the active volcano that has been due to errupt for the past 20 years. It was really cool up there, as teh volcano still smokes and you get a great view of the surrounding area. It is though, a huge money grab. You pay 10 euro to get up to the parking lot, another 6 euro to be able to walk up to the peak and then you only get to walk around half of the peak and if you want to walk the other half, you have to pay 6 euro more. It was amazing when we got to the top. There was rain, and thunder and we were level with the dark storm clouds and right after them was the sunny horizion. We took pictures and rocks from the top. We stayed up for lunch and made our way back down a hour a so later. When we got back to our Camping we found the pool, was entranced by the sight of it, and spent the next day or so there or in Sorrento. It was a nice, relaxing part of the trip. Filled with glato and expensive internet time and sun. After our stay there was over we headed to Rome. It was my last stop with the girls before they left for Paris. It's been a while since they've been home now and I still get sad that they're not here anymore. Couldn't have asked for better travel partners. Travel friends.
First day in Naples, after staying the first night in our funky little hostel, was spent at the Almafi Coast. We took the death ride up the coast. The roads were so narrow and the bus driver was crazy and everyone sat there writing their wills. When we got to the coast we hit the beach right away. And I didn't even get burned :) I did however pay way too much for this terrible drink that I didn't touch and then made myself happy by compensating by also buying myself a gelato...and then maybe some lemon candies. But thats what the coast is known for, lemons, so it'd really be a shame if I didn't. After we wandered, thought about buying my dad a giant blowfish light that I knew mum would be horrified by, we swallowed our fears and got back on bus ride of death home.
The next day we decided not to bake ourselves but take in some culture. We went up and visited the ruins of Pompei. Stupidly, we didn't see the booth that was handing out all the info booklets so for the next few hours we just kind of wandered the place not having any idea what we were looking at. It was awesome but it would have been more awesome to have that booklet. It was a long time ago now, but I can only guess we made ourselves feels better with gelato. That night we got all dressed up to have ourselves a good, good night since the music in the club was attached to our hostel was growing loud and we just couldn't fight that feeling. When we got down, the lady at the desk gave us a one over, and told us that No, we wern't allowed to crash that 18 year olds birthday party. We awkwardly walked back up to our room, brushed out our hair, washed off our make up and went to sleep. Total success.
The next day we moved out of Naples and into a funky little camp ground in Sorrento. Sorrento was nice but our camp ground was a bit outside of the area so we only spent one day walking around and seeing the city. We were going to go and try the nightlife there but it was yet another expensive cab ride home to our huts and so we decided against it. Our first day there we went to another beach. It was okay. I probably say this just because I got really, really burnt. My ears, my chest, my eyelids, my shins, my thighs, my neck were all a bright red. I sunscreened a lot, but I probably should have known to apply a lot more often since my fair skin can't even handel a Canadian sun, let alone an Italian one. Lyndesy got stung by a jelly fish. Not bad enough to have to get peed on though. When we got back from teh beach we made ourselves some dinner in the funniest little kitchen bungalow; ate, and were content.
The next day in Sorrento we decided to climb up Mount Vesuvius, the active volcano that has been due to errupt for the past 20 years. It was really cool up there, as teh volcano still smokes and you get a great view of the surrounding area. It is though, a huge money grab. You pay 10 euro to get up to the parking lot, another 6 euro to be able to walk up to the peak and then you only get to walk around half of the peak and if you want to walk the other half, you have to pay 6 euro more. It was amazing when we got to the top. There was rain, and thunder and we were level with the dark storm clouds and right after them was the sunny horizion. We took pictures and rocks from the top. We stayed up for lunch and made our way back down a hour a so later. When we got back to our Camping we found the pool, was entranced by the sight of it, and spent the next day or so there or in Sorrento. It was a nice, relaxing part of the trip. Filled with glato and expensive internet time and sun. After our stay there was over we headed to Rome. It was my last stop with the girls before they left for Paris. It's been a while since they've been home now and I still get sad that they're not here anymore. Couldn't have asked for better travel partners. Travel friends.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Lake Como and Florence.
More Italy.
After we left Bologna we made our way to Lake Como(don't look at a map, it doesn't make sense). I knew very little about Lake Como except that George Cloony has a place there, but Lyndsey, again, found a google image of the place while looking up Itlay and so off we went. And I'm happy we did.
Lake Como is very, very beautiful. We had the worst time getting there since we took a few wrong trains, passed stops, and turned a 3 hour trip into 7 hour trip. All I can say is that tempers were wearing thin. It's amazing, though, how a breathtaking view(and a few glasses of wine) can take the most troubled waters and make them calmly flow under the bridge. Truth be told we wern't actually staying in Lake Como but about a 30 minute bus ride outside in a place called Managgio. We stayed in a very poorly run little hostel right on the water. When we found out what bus to take from Como to Managgio we asked some guy to let us know when to get off. He did, we got off, and after walking about 10 minutes ona road without sidewalks we started to get a little worried about finding our beds. We saw some guys on the side of the road and asked them if they knew teh area. These guys weren't from Como, or spoke a word of English...they were French. I finally, after 2 years, got to test my French. I was shocked. It was terrible. It has gone way down hill since highschool, and even then, it wasn't the best. After they found out what I was asking them, they put the address into their car GPS and informed us that Hostel was 10 km away. We were frozen. There was no way we would make that walk alive, either we would die from the weight of our bags or we would be smashed by a car. So we did the responsible thing under the stress and accepted a ride from them. It was great! A free ride right up to our door. So we took their numbers, promised to call that night for drinks, and never did. Oops. I would now like to take a moment to say that we had every intention to call them, and I will blame the Ozzies that we later met over overpriced Hostel dinner and very reasonably priced red wine for keeping us entertained. Sorry French guys.
When we got to the hostel the people who worked there we really nice, even though they took you for everything and in teh end I would never go back. When we sat down for dinner we each ordered a side salad and brough us out one bowl, then when teh girls ordered a regular salad since the portions were nothing more than a leaf or two each, we got the same bowl. We paid 6 euro and then 3 euro for the same amount of salad. They did this to us later aswell when at at a 10 euro barbeque 7 of us got the exact same portion size and a table of three. It was redicilous. Later when we were playing cards over some wine they said they were tired and wanted to shut down early and "not to insist staying up past 12" and that we had to go to sleep or else we'd be locked out. It was just stupid.
Annnyway(now that Ive ranted) we met these 2 cool guys from Australia while at the place and ended up spending the rest of our days there with them. We took the little ferry around to see the sights, ate, drank and were merry. One sight that we saw in particular was called (dont judge my spelling of this place) Barbienello. Or you might know it as "that villa where Bond hung out in Casino Royale" or, for the nerds amoung you, "the place where Ani Skywalker and Nat Portman kissed in the 2nd Starwars movie". We took a tour of the villa. It was like a museum, but the view was the money. So to sum it up Lake Como = beautiful and we just hung out a lot.
Next stop on the Italian trip was Florence.
We arrived in Florence but decided to stay cheaply outside of town in a place called Tavernelle. It was around one hour on a bus but the views of the Tuscan country made the 2 hour commute per day not unwelcome. The only bummer about staying where we did was that the last bus was at 7:50 and it was a 60 Euro cab ride back, so it killed any opportunities to go out and enjoy the nightlife. The Hostel was pretty cool, looked exactly like your elementary school, and was run by this super awesome woman. She just spewed sweetness. We only stayed two nights and we arrived late. So the first night we headed down to the owners favorite little restaurant and had the best dinner ever and were surrounded by locals(always a good sign). It was the best meal we have had on the trip yet. We ate, and ate, and ate and left feeling almost high with food delight. We slept well that night in what we had originally thought was 4 bed girls dorm, but Lyndsey soon found out mid wardrobe change that it was not. Thankfully the guy was asleep and he survived unscarded.
The next day, since it was our only full day, we had a very strict schedule of the things we wanted to do and see. There was the church and David and then, at the end of the day there was the leather market. This is not at all what happened. We ran into the leather market at the beginning of the day and then was totally consumed by cheap leather and wasted most of our time bardering prices. I spent so much money on a leather jacket for myself and gifts for family that when we took a breather for a kabab, I was shaking. The girls had to talk me out of a full mental breakdown about the money I spent. I feel pretty good about it now though and am totally happy about all purchases- and hopefully family memebers will be happy with them as well. Later, we raced to the church, was robbed of our breath, and missed the museum all together. We had to catch the bus. But we did have great gelato. Seriously, there is no sorrow that gelato can't cure. What we decided when we got back to the hostel was to go to the grocery store for dinner and walk along the country. The lasagna I got from the hot food section was really good too, it's like you can't go wrong there. We met a girl with a name I'm sure on the bus and walked around with her for a bit. It was stunning. We then called it a night and packed for our journey for Naples(or Napal as I kept calling it for some bizarre reason) where we saw nothing but lots of the surrounding area. Very cool.
After we left Bologna we made our way to Lake Como(don't look at a map, it doesn't make sense). I knew very little about Lake Como except that George Cloony has a place there, but Lyndsey, again, found a google image of the place while looking up Itlay and so off we went. And I'm happy we did.
Lake Como is very, very beautiful. We had the worst time getting there since we took a few wrong trains, passed stops, and turned a 3 hour trip into 7 hour trip. All I can say is that tempers were wearing thin. It's amazing, though, how a breathtaking view(and a few glasses of wine) can take the most troubled waters and make them calmly flow under the bridge. Truth be told we wern't actually staying in Lake Como but about a 30 minute bus ride outside in a place called Managgio. We stayed in a very poorly run little hostel right on the water. When we found out what bus to take from Como to Managgio we asked some guy to let us know when to get off. He did, we got off, and after walking about 10 minutes ona road without sidewalks we started to get a little worried about finding our beds. We saw some guys on the side of the road and asked them if they knew teh area. These guys weren't from Como, or spoke a word of English...they were French. I finally, after 2 years, got to test my French. I was shocked. It was terrible. It has gone way down hill since highschool, and even then, it wasn't the best. After they found out what I was asking them, they put the address into their car GPS and informed us that Hostel was 10 km away. We were frozen. There was no way we would make that walk alive, either we would die from the weight of our bags or we would be smashed by a car. So we did the responsible thing under the stress and accepted a ride from them. It was great! A free ride right up to our door. So we took their numbers, promised to call that night for drinks, and never did. Oops. I would now like to take a moment to say that we had every intention to call them, and I will blame the Ozzies that we later met over overpriced Hostel dinner and very reasonably priced red wine for keeping us entertained. Sorry French guys.
When we got to the hostel the people who worked there we really nice, even though they took you for everything and in teh end I would never go back. When we sat down for dinner we each ordered a side salad and brough us out one bowl, then when teh girls ordered a regular salad since the portions were nothing more than a leaf or two each, we got the same bowl. We paid 6 euro and then 3 euro for the same amount of salad. They did this to us later aswell when at at a 10 euro barbeque 7 of us got the exact same portion size and a table of three. It was redicilous. Later when we were playing cards over some wine they said they were tired and wanted to shut down early and "not to insist staying up past 12" and that we had to go to sleep or else we'd be locked out. It was just stupid.
Annnyway(now that Ive ranted) we met these 2 cool guys from Australia while at the place and ended up spending the rest of our days there with them. We took the little ferry around to see the sights, ate, drank and were merry. One sight that we saw in particular was called (dont judge my spelling of this place) Barbienello. Or you might know it as "that villa where Bond hung out in Casino Royale" or, for the nerds amoung you, "the place where Ani Skywalker and Nat Portman kissed in the 2nd Starwars movie". We took a tour of the villa. It was like a museum, but the view was the money. So to sum it up Lake Como = beautiful and we just hung out a lot.
Next stop on the Italian trip was Florence.
We arrived in Florence but decided to stay cheaply outside of town in a place called Tavernelle. It was around one hour on a bus but the views of the Tuscan country made the 2 hour commute per day not unwelcome. The only bummer about staying where we did was that the last bus was at 7:50 and it was a 60 Euro cab ride back, so it killed any opportunities to go out and enjoy the nightlife. The Hostel was pretty cool, looked exactly like your elementary school, and was run by this super awesome woman. She just spewed sweetness. We only stayed two nights and we arrived late. So the first night we headed down to the owners favorite little restaurant and had the best dinner ever and were surrounded by locals(always a good sign). It was the best meal we have had on the trip yet. We ate, and ate, and ate and left feeling almost high with food delight. We slept well that night in what we had originally thought was 4 bed girls dorm, but Lyndsey soon found out mid wardrobe change that it was not. Thankfully the guy was asleep and he survived unscarded.
The next day, since it was our only full day, we had a very strict schedule of the things we wanted to do and see. There was the church and David and then, at the end of the day there was the leather market. This is not at all what happened. We ran into the leather market at the beginning of the day and then was totally consumed by cheap leather and wasted most of our time bardering prices. I spent so much money on a leather jacket for myself and gifts for family that when we took a breather for a kabab, I was shaking. The girls had to talk me out of a full mental breakdown about the money I spent. I feel pretty good about it now though and am totally happy about all purchases- and hopefully family memebers will be happy with them as well. Later, we raced to the church, was robbed of our breath, and missed the museum all together. We had to catch the bus. But we did have great gelato. Seriously, there is no sorrow that gelato can't cure. What we decided when we got back to the hostel was to go to the grocery store for dinner and walk along the country. The lasagna I got from the hot food section was really good too, it's like you can't go wrong there. We met a girl with a name I'm sure on the bus and walked around with her for a bit. It was stunning. We then called it a night and packed for our journey for Naples(or Napal as I kept calling it for some bizarre reason) where we saw nothing but lots of the surrounding area. Very cool.
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