10/30/2009
Today is Mama Lou’s birthday. Happy Birthday Mama Lou! I planned to go to Neuschwanstein Castle for my daily activity. Going to this castle is the whole reason I decided to leave Italy and come back up north to see it. Katherine and I missed it the first time we were in Munich and since we left, I had heard nothing but rave reviews about this castle. I was having a hard time letting it go that I had missed out on it. So since I had my two-month, unlimited travel Eurail pass and some time to kill before I met my mom, I decided it would be a perfect time to go back and see this famous castle. It is after all the castle that inspired Walt Disney when he was designing the magic kingdom castle.
I knew this castle would be a long day trip adventure, so I got up at 7 to get my day started. When my alarm went off, no one was up in my room. I felt kind of bad about making noise when I was getting ready for the day, but that’s what happens when you stay in hostels. While I was getting ready, I looked over and realized that there were two people in a top bunk bed. I thought this was interesting because the beds are not very big. It caught me off guard because when I looked out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a guy holding up a dread lock wig. It turns out that the dread lock wig was actually a person that was on top of the guy. I just turned away. The free breakfast that the hostel offered was very good. I made sure to fill up for the day. The internet was still not working in the morning, which was annoying, but I knew I could always go to Burger King in the train station if need be.
The train ride from Munich to Fussen was 2 hours. The times that my timetable book gave me for trains to Fussen were not correct (this is the first time I have ever encountered this problem) and when I went to check the information desk, they told me that I had 45 minutes until the next train. I would have to make a connection in order to get to Fussen. While I was at the information desk, I also made my reservation for my train ride for the next day from Munich to Bologna, and then also inquired on times of possible trains to take after Bologna. Even after getting a lot of sleep the night before, I slept for most of the train ride to Fussen. It was a very cold, foggy, morning, so there was not much to look at outside.
I have officially decided that I think German takes longer to speak and get your point across of what you want to say than English does. It is either that or the intercom give a message with a lot more information in it in German than they do in English. Also I have noticed that in the suburbs of most European cities, a lot of the structures do not look structurally sound. It is quite different looking from the country of the US.
When I arrived in Fussen, I knew I had to take a bus to the town that was below the castle, where you bought entrance tickets. While I was on the train, I noticed that there was also a tour on the train with me, so I just followed them to make sure that I was going to the right place. The bus cost 1.80 to get to the town and said that it cost 4.20 for the return trip. I thought this was ridiculous, especially because it was only a 10 minute bus ride.
At the town below the castle, I bought my entrance ticket. I could only get into the castle if I also did a guided tour, but since I was a student, it only cost me 8 euro. So far my day trip had been the cheapest day trip so far and it looked very promising and worth the money. From the town, you could look up the mountain and see the castle and then another schloss, which Im not really sure what it was used for because I didn’t go to it 9it wasn’t nearly as pretty). You had to walk up the hill to get to the castle. It ended up being a 30-minute, moderately steep walk, but I needed some exercise after Italy and the fall foliage was gorgeous. The temperature was brisk and in general it was a pleasant walk.
I had time to kill before my tour started, so I walked back down the hill a bit to get a sugar-covered pretzel from a stand just below the castle. Pretzels are a German thing, so I figured I might as well. I also bought a sparkling apple juice drink, which I also thought was appropriate because apples seem to be fairly common in Germany too. I had brought an apple and roll and honey along with me from breakfast as a snack. Together all of these would make acceptable day food.
The tour started at 1:30 and lasted for only a half an hour, but it was pretty good. King Ludwig II “mysteriously” died while the castle was still being built, so the third floor was never finished. It is not the biggest castle ever, so we were able to cover all of the finished room in that time no problem. The castle was really something else. I think I would like to live there. It is decorated in Roman style, not Gothic, so there is a lot of bright, colorful, cheerful paintings and beautiful woodworking. There was gold trip on everything and some unbelievable chandeliers and mosaics. Plus it had some pretty advanced technology in it for the time like a telephone and running water. Ludwig wanted the castle to be a magical place and that is exactly what it is. It is a pretty amazing building and totally worth the trip back to Munich to see it. Our tour guide was a weirdo that looked like the Shermanator from American Pie, but he was super timid and shy. He did an ok job with the tour, but in reality the castle spoke for itself.
After the tour finished, I walked a bit more up the mountain to a bridge that gave a great view of the castle. The bridge was called Mary’s Bridge and was suspended over a waterfall. Being on the bridge, suspended high up over a ravine like that was a cool feeling and gave an even better view of the mountains, castle, and countryside.
At this point, I felt like I had seen everything I needed and wanted to see so I headed back to the small town below the castle and started inquiring about ways to get back to Fussen so I could catch the train back to Munich. I thought paying 4.20 for the bus’s return trip was highway robbery and the bus didn’t come for another 40 minutes. So instead of standing around waiting, I decided to walk a 5 k “foot path” that would supposedly take an hour and a half back to Fussen. I figured I could use some more exercise too and I had time to kill, if anything I would be moving and not waiting for the stupid bus. Looking back, I find it interesting that I made this decision for two reasons, my foot had had a lot of work today and it is not really in my personality to go take the more energy exerted path.
At first, it was an incredibly enjoyable walk through the bright fall colored forest in very pleasant fall temperatures. Then all of a sudden the path veered uphill and the nice stroll down a footpath became a full-fledged uphill hike, switchbacks included. I realized that I was on a pretty extreme route when I passed by mountain bikers and rock climbers. 50 minutes later, I was a sweaty mess, but I had made it to Fussen in record time. I stumbled out of the woods and onto a road, which then I had to make the decision of which was to start walking because the signs were gone.
My gut told me to go right and I eventually came hffing and puffing to a girl, who thankfully spoke English. She assured me that I was in fact in Fussen and was only a 7-minute walk to the train station. As I walked through Fussen to get to the station, I passed this bakery that was selling the most unusual sweet treats. They looked delicious, so I treated myself to a caramel one of whatever this baked good was as a reward for my hard work. Fussen is a very cute quaint town, but in the German sense, not Italian… think Busch Gardens for both. I got to the train station just in time to catch the train back to Fussen. Perfect timing on my part, thank you very much, haha, and wouldn’t you know it, I was ended up on the same train as the tour group that I rode on the morning train with.
When I got back to Munich, my legs were exhausted. The Internet in the hostel was finally up and working so I was able to catch up on all of the things I needed to do. One thing I have noticed is that unlike Italians, Germans do not dress for the cold. Either that or their coats are deceptively warm. After getting everything done that I needed to, I hit the hay hard! What a day!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Back to Munich
10/29/2009
This morning I woke up extremely early so that I could make my 7:05 am train from Milan to Munich. I had to take the metro from Gabrielle’s apartment to the train station and was quite surprised about how crowded it was so early in the morning. When I arrived at the train station, I had a little bit of a difficult time figuring our how to get out of the metro part and into the train part. Eventually I did figure it out, got my reservation (which at first I wasn’t sure if I really needed it because it was so cheap, but as the train ride went on, I was glad that I had it), and boarded the train in perfect timing.
I had not booked a hostel for Munich yet and was planning on doing that right when I got in. So ahead of time I knew that my first priority in Munich was to find some place with free wifi, book my hostel, and catch up on Internet things that I fell behind on when I was in Milan. I was hoping that this plan would work out ok. Traveling with the Gorntos was a good way for me to transition into traveling on my own. I really like hanging out with them.
The train ride went from Milan, through the Austrian alps (a favorite place of mine on this trip), and into Germany. I had a second thought that I probably could have just gone to Innsbruck, Austria, stayed there, and took a train from there to Fussen to see the castle. Oh well, I had some things that I wanted to buy in Munich in addition to giving Munich another chance. The train ride was gorgeous. The fall foliage is out in full force and up against the background of a clear blue sky and snow capped mountains, it was breathtaking. I realized that I have seen a lot of the scenes from a puzzle sample I bought once in Walmart when I was bored one night. I thought that was pretty cool because I bought the particular sampler because I thought the pictures were so pretty. The train ride was over 7 hours so I had a lot of time to occupy myself. I ate three apples, which I had bough from the grocery store the night before, fixed all of the pulls in my scarves, wrote three journal entries, which I intended to post to the blog when I got in Munich, slept, listened to a great party shuffle on my ipod, and read a little bit. It was very relaxing.
When I arrived in Munich, the first place I saw that was advertising free wifi was Starbucks. This was the first Starbucks I had seen all trip and it made me unexpectedly excited. I ordered a light chai tea latte because it is my favorite and reminds me of fall and studying for exams (it gives me a nice sense of calm and comfort) and went to get started on my Internet work. That is when I realized that Starbucks is set up just like the MacDonalds in Italy are. I needed to have a German phone number in order to have the login name and password texted me. I find these situations to be so annoying and unfriendly to travelers. At this point, I said screw it and just bought and hour of internet for 8 euros (I know that is a ridiculous point but I just wanted to get things done right then and quit monkeying around). Turns out if I had walked 20 feet to Burger King, I could have gotten free wifi there, which I did later on in the night because the hostels internet was broken, but that is all water under the bridge.
I enjoyed my chai tea latte, booked my hostel, which was located very close to the train station and offered a free breakfast and free Internet, and used up the rest of my hour catching up on my emails. After the hour was up, I walked to the hostel and checked it. It turned out to be a very nice hostel and was definitely on the cheaper side, making it a winner in my book. Unfortunately, the wifi was broken that night so I had to postpone my Internet work till it was fixed. I feel like I am becoming oddly dependent on my computer and I don’t know if I really like that feeling. Oh well, I only have a little less than two more weeks of if being my main form of communication, so hopefully it wont be a full fledged addiction by then.
I decided to spend my night walking around Munich, because Katherine and I never really did this, get dinner, and then get my shopping errands done. We took the Metro everywhere. I was still craving Asian food, so I ate at the first legitimate Chinese place that I came across with an English menu. I ordered hoisen sauce chicken and it was ok. However, my waiter was terrible. My plan was to walk in the direction of the Hofbrauhaus. When we were here the first time, we only went to the Oktoberfest tent, not the actual Hofbrauhaus. I figured it would be a good place to begin looking for what I was shopping for. Don’t worry mom, when I was walking I stuck to very populated places.
I was actually very surprised about how populated the streets were, but then I remember Katie and Mike telling me about how wild Germans are and how they stay up partying all night all the time. I walked down a main shopping street and eventually cut over to where the Hofbrauhaus is located. I saw a bunch more Starbucks and MacDonalds. Munich is really first city that I have come across so many American things like this. I really enjoyed walking around Munich because it totally changed my opinion of the city from the first time I visited it. I would really like to have a friend, who is a local there, that could show me around the city. I think Munich would be reach an awesome level if someone could show you all the hidden treasures of the city. The Hofbrauhaus is located in a pretty cool area that is where a lot of other beer houses too all on a cobbled street area. I found exactly what I was looking for in this area (it is a surprise, that is why I am being vague) and popped in the beer houses to look around.
At this point it was getting very cold. Germany is transitioning from fall into winter, unlike Italy who is still going from summer into fall. So I walked back to the hostel. I knew I had to go to bed pretty early because I had woken up extremely early this morning and was going to get up early the next day to go to the castle. I went to the bar in the downstairs of the hostel and had a beer before I went to bed, in hopes that it would help me sleep well.
There was another guy sitting at the bar by himself so I started talking to him because he looked lonely. He turned out to be a complete Looney tune. He was from Italy originally, but then his family moved to Brazil, and speaks Portuguese, Italian, and German fluently (oh yea he is 23 too). He is traveling for 5 weeks and has a strict schedule to stick to because everything is all booked. So far Iceland has been his favorite. To quote “I left my heart in Iceland”. Now one would think that he found a ladylove there, but no he fell in love with the extremely blue water. He had an extremely interesting accent and energetic personality to go with it. He kept complaining to the bartender about the music that was playing and had her change it to something he liked. Then he went on a rant to me about how he did not like wii. Needless to say, after the first five minutes of talking to him I realized that it was not going to be the interesting conversation I had hoped for and decided that I would prefer to be sleeping rather than talking to. So I finished my beer quickly, wished him all the best and said goodnight.
This morning I woke up extremely early so that I could make my 7:05 am train from Milan to Munich. I had to take the metro from Gabrielle’s apartment to the train station and was quite surprised about how crowded it was so early in the morning. When I arrived at the train station, I had a little bit of a difficult time figuring our how to get out of the metro part and into the train part. Eventually I did figure it out, got my reservation (which at first I wasn’t sure if I really needed it because it was so cheap, but as the train ride went on, I was glad that I had it), and boarded the train in perfect timing.
I had not booked a hostel for Munich yet and was planning on doing that right when I got in. So ahead of time I knew that my first priority in Munich was to find some place with free wifi, book my hostel, and catch up on Internet things that I fell behind on when I was in Milan. I was hoping that this plan would work out ok. Traveling with the Gorntos was a good way for me to transition into traveling on my own. I really like hanging out with them.
The train ride went from Milan, through the Austrian alps (a favorite place of mine on this trip), and into Germany. I had a second thought that I probably could have just gone to Innsbruck, Austria, stayed there, and took a train from there to Fussen to see the castle. Oh well, I had some things that I wanted to buy in Munich in addition to giving Munich another chance. The train ride was gorgeous. The fall foliage is out in full force and up against the background of a clear blue sky and snow capped mountains, it was breathtaking. I realized that I have seen a lot of the scenes from a puzzle sample I bought once in Walmart when I was bored one night. I thought that was pretty cool because I bought the particular sampler because I thought the pictures were so pretty. The train ride was over 7 hours so I had a lot of time to occupy myself. I ate three apples, which I had bough from the grocery store the night before, fixed all of the pulls in my scarves, wrote three journal entries, which I intended to post to the blog when I got in Munich, slept, listened to a great party shuffle on my ipod, and read a little bit. It was very relaxing.
When I arrived in Munich, the first place I saw that was advertising free wifi was Starbucks. This was the first Starbucks I had seen all trip and it made me unexpectedly excited. I ordered a light chai tea latte because it is my favorite and reminds me of fall and studying for exams (it gives me a nice sense of calm and comfort) and went to get started on my Internet work. That is when I realized that Starbucks is set up just like the MacDonalds in Italy are. I needed to have a German phone number in order to have the login name and password texted me. I find these situations to be so annoying and unfriendly to travelers. At this point, I said screw it and just bought and hour of internet for 8 euros (I know that is a ridiculous point but I just wanted to get things done right then and quit monkeying around). Turns out if I had walked 20 feet to Burger King, I could have gotten free wifi there, which I did later on in the night because the hostels internet was broken, but that is all water under the bridge.
I enjoyed my chai tea latte, booked my hostel, which was located very close to the train station and offered a free breakfast and free Internet, and used up the rest of my hour catching up on my emails. After the hour was up, I walked to the hostel and checked it. It turned out to be a very nice hostel and was definitely on the cheaper side, making it a winner in my book. Unfortunately, the wifi was broken that night so I had to postpone my Internet work till it was fixed. I feel like I am becoming oddly dependent on my computer and I don’t know if I really like that feeling. Oh well, I only have a little less than two more weeks of if being my main form of communication, so hopefully it wont be a full fledged addiction by then.
I decided to spend my night walking around Munich, because Katherine and I never really did this, get dinner, and then get my shopping errands done. We took the Metro everywhere. I was still craving Asian food, so I ate at the first legitimate Chinese place that I came across with an English menu. I ordered hoisen sauce chicken and it was ok. However, my waiter was terrible. My plan was to walk in the direction of the Hofbrauhaus. When we were here the first time, we only went to the Oktoberfest tent, not the actual Hofbrauhaus. I figured it would be a good place to begin looking for what I was shopping for. Don’t worry mom, when I was walking I stuck to very populated places.
I was actually very surprised about how populated the streets were, but then I remember Katie and Mike telling me about how wild Germans are and how they stay up partying all night all the time. I walked down a main shopping street and eventually cut over to where the Hofbrauhaus is located. I saw a bunch more Starbucks and MacDonalds. Munich is really first city that I have come across so many American things like this. I really enjoyed walking around Munich because it totally changed my opinion of the city from the first time I visited it. I would really like to have a friend, who is a local there, that could show me around the city. I think Munich would be reach an awesome level if someone could show you all the hidden treasures of the city. The Hofbrauhaus is located in a pretty cool area that is where a lot of other beer houses too all on a cobbled street area. I found exactly what I was looking for in this area (it is a surprise, that is why I am being vague) and popped in the beer houses to look around.
At this point it was getting very cold. Germany is transitioning from fall into winter, unlike Italy who is still going from summer into fall. So I walked back to the hostel. I knew I had to go to bed pretty early because I had woken up extremely early this morning and was going to get up early the next day to go to the castle. I went to the bar in the downstairs of the hostel and had a beer before I went to bed, in hopes that it would help me sleep well.
There was another guy sitting at the bar by himself so I started talking to him because he looked lonely. He turned out to be a complete Looney tune. He was from Italy originally, but then his family moved to Brazil, and speaks Portuguese, Italian, and German fluently (oh yea he is 23 too). He is traveling for 5 weeks and has a strict schedule to stick to because everything is all booked. So far Iceland has been his favorite. To quote “I left my heart in Iceland”. Now one would think that he found a ladylove there, but no he fell in love with the extremely blue water. He had an extremely interesting accent and energetic personality to go with it. He kept complaining to the bartender about the music that was playing and had her change it to something he liked. Then he went on a rant to me about how he did not like wii. Needless to say, after the first five minutes of talking to him I realized that it was not going to be the interesting conversation I had hoped for and decided that I would prefer to be sleeping rather than talking to. So I finished my beer quickly, wished him all the best and said goodnight.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The high quality of Italian food
10/28/2009
Today Miles and I slept in till about 10. It was so nice to do because I was exhausted from the day before. Unfortunately, I accidentally set my alarm to go off , then my phone rang, and then Gabrielle had to come in and get a shirt so the morning was pretty happening. Sandro and Gabrielle had given us some ideas for what we could do during the day. One set plan we did have was to meet Gabrielle at 1, after his yoga class, and have lunch with him. I give Gabrielle big props. He is so active. Even in his elder years he is taking yoga, English, and bridge classes. I hope I still have the will to learn new and improve at things when I am his age.
Since we woke up on the later side and took our time getting ready, we decided to spend the morning walking down a shopping street that Sandro suggested. This street was not nearly as expensive as the high fashion one we walked down a couple of days earlier with Gabrielle, but it was still pretty pricey. It seems that other than wine, every thing is a bit more pricey in Italy compared to the US. The stores were just so, so and we weren’t coming upon any stores that had what we were looking for. We wanted to get thank you gifts for Gabrielle and Sandro for their incredible hospitality. They were so incredibly generous to us. Miles was also looking for something for his girlfriend. We decided to leave this shopping street, take the metro to the Duomo area, and try our luck there. At the Duomo, we went into a department store that carried all very nice designer brands. We ended up deciding on a very nice tie for Sandro because we figured it was nice and practical.
At 1, we went back to Gabrielle’s apartment and met him to go to lunch. We hopped in his car, which was an experience, and he took us to the local malls food court. At first I was intrigued that this was where he chose to eat, but after lunch I was pleasantly surprised. The food court had pretty much any type of food you could imagine. There was German, Sushi, Mexican, American, regular bars, coffee bars, Italian (obviously), Mediterranean, kebobs, and wild wild west. We chose to eat at an Italian place and I ordered a salad because I needed some vegetables in me. The salad came with ham, mozzarella, corn, carrots, and tomatoes. It really hit the spot. When we were telling Sandro later on about how surprised we were that the food court was so good, he told us that it has to be. With all of the good food available around Italy, if a restaurant offers poor quality or flavor food it will fail miserably.
We grabbed a quick espresso after lunch at one of the coffee bars. I am really becoming accustomed to drinking espresso. It really does the trick for quick energy. When I add a little bit of sugar, I actually enjoy the taste the taste. Plus it is extremely cheap, much cheaper than a cup of coffee and its never so hot that it burns your mouth.
We got back in Gabrielle’s car to drop it back off at his apartment so that we could take the subway back down town for our afternoon activities. We decided to spend the afternoon at a famous art museum in Milan called the Brera, but first we wanted to stop by Grom and get some gelato. I have had gelato all three days that I have been in Milan. I have also had gelato from many different places while I have been in Italy and I think that Grom is the best I have had. It is a chain, so that is good news for anyone traveling to any major city in Italy. Keep your eyes peeled for Grom because it is definitely worth it. I have been pretty surprised at the amount of Italian I can understand from my Spanish, cognates, and hand gestures. Normally, if I come across someone who doesn’t speak English, we can normally get our points across. I like to think of it as a neat, fun game.
After we got our gelato, we walked to the Brera. When we walked into the courtyard of the museum, I was pretty surprised by the scene. There were a bunch of students (must have been about college age) all gathered together around a guy playing guitar, singing Bob Marley. All of the students looked like ruffians and it was obvious that the Brera doubled as an artsy school. It cracked me up. When we went to pay for our entrance, the admission fee was much more than we expected it to be. We had seen on the map of the city we had that it only cost 5 euro to get into the museum, when it really cost 10. Gabrielle got into a fight with the people at the desk about this misadvertisement. It was entertaining to watch them speak to each other in heated Italian. In the end, we ended up paying the 10 euro, which was ok with me. I had run into this misadvertisement problem before in different cities. Another bummer was that the museum only offered student discounts to European Union students, which is pretty whack if you ask me. A student is a student.
Even though the Brera was a lot of religious art, which isn’t exactly my favorite, I still enjoyed going there. They had people restoring paintings on display, which I had never seen that process before. Im not quite sure how I feel about it because it seems like they could have quite a bit of artistic liberty with colors and shading and such and then in the end it is not the original artist’s original work. Would it be better to look a something original that had cracks and is dull? That is the question. For whatever reason, a lot of thoughts about art in general were coming to me, so I spent a lot of time writing in my brown book.
We had plans to meet up with Sandro for dinner, but we weren’t sure if we would go back to Gabrielle’s apartment in the time period after lunch and before dinner. I decided to use today as a foot tester day. Even though my sneakers have been a life saver on this trip with my cranky foot, I don’t like wearing them out at night because I think I look like a totally goober. I knew Sandro would be taking us to a decent place and so I decided I would try out walking a bit in my Sperry’s. I loosened the shoe of my bum foot up and bit and it actually did very well walking around. I was quite pleased.
After the Brera, we walked back to the Duomo and said goodbye to Gabrielle. I didn’t know that we had to say goodbye then, but he had to run. He had bridge class that night and could not join us for dinner. We walked around a bit through the glass arcades, which I think are just such a great and beautiful idea. There are so many positives to glass arcades, they are easier to keep clean because they are out of the elements, along with that the architecture is better preserved, you can create such an nice atmosphere with decorations and lighting, and lastly it is extremely convenient to go shopping in if the weather is bad. I wanted to stop by a grocery store and a bakery to get some food for the train ride tomorrow, so we thought it best to get on the metro and go to the stop where we were planning on meeting Sandro and look around for those things there.
There was a grocery and a bakery right outside Sandro’s metro stop, which allowed us to be extremely successful in our mission and gave us quite a bit of time to spare before meeting up with Sandro. We came across this little hole in the wall dive bar that we decided to get drinks in. We had been looking for a place to get drinks and all of the other bars we passed were offering extremely expensive happy hour deals. This one bar was the cheapest we had found and Miles and I are both big fans of dive bars. This particular one was also playing fantastic music (classic dance music and then BB King) and they gave us very good bar food (different types of bruscetta and potato chips) with our drinks. We were totally pumped on our find and played Rummy at the bar until it was time to meet up with Sandro.
We walked up to the metro station right as Sandro was getting off his scooter. We just started walking around his neighborhood and eventually came across a place that looked good. I don’t think Sandro had ever been there, it just looked like a good random place. We all ordered off the “plates of the day menu”. I had spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli that was topped with a truffle cream sauce and was delicately delicious. Everyone tried what everyone else ordered and before we had out main courses, we all shared a very good antipasta platter. Like me, Sandro is also a big fan of dessert, so of course we all ggot something sweet too and tried what everyone else ordered. I ended up with an apple with ice cream deal. It was a great night with great company and conversation. Although Sandro did tell us that he does not prefer to be called Sandro (only his mother calls him that) and that he likes Alexx better. Haha, oh well, he never corrected us, and we only learned this information because it randomly came up in conversation. It makes sense that we would only know to call him Sandro because the Gornto’s started being family friends with Alexx’s mother.
After dinner, we walked around Alexx’s neighborhood to help digest. He lives in a pretty happening place with a lot of night life. There were two futball matches going on when we were walking so it was pretty quite, but Alexx said afterwards it will get really rowdy. We walked back to the metro station, where Alexx had left his bike and said our goodbye and took the Metro back to Gabrielle’s apartment, which actually took a very long time because we got delayed at a stop.
I really enjoyed meeting Alexx and Gabrielle and am so thankful and appreciate of their hospitality. I will never forget how generous these Italians were. I hope things work out so that our paths cross in the future. Gabrielle is heading to the US to meet up with Etzia around the same time that I am flying back, so maybe I will have them over for dinner to show off some cooking skills that I learned at the school and Sandro is a just a baler and comes to the US a lot. I told him that is he ever was in Virginia to let me know.
Today Miles and I slept in till about 10. It was so nice to do because I was exhausted from the day before. Unfortunately, I accidentally set my alarm to go off , then my phone rang, and then Gabrielle had to come in and get a shirt so the morning was pretty happening. Sandro and Gabrielle had given us some ideas for what we could do during the day. One set plan we did have was to meet Gabrielle at 1, after his yoga class, and have lunch with him. I give Gabrielle big props. He is so active. Even in his elder years he is taking yoga, English, and bridge classes. I hope I still have the will to learn new and improve at things when I am his age.
Since we woke up on the later side and took our time getting ready, we decided to spend the morning walking down a shopping street that Sandro suggested. This street was not nearly as expensive as the high fashion one we walked down a couple of days earlier with Gabrielle, but it was still pretty pricey. It seems that other than wine, every thing is a bit more pricey in Italy compared to the US. The stores were just so, so and we weren’t coming upon any stores that had what we were looking for. We wanted to get thank you gifts for Gabrielle and Sandro for their incredible hospitality. They were so incredibly generous to us. Miles was also looking for something for his girlfriend. We decided to leave this shopping street, take the metro to the Duomo area, and try our luck there. At the Duomo, we went into a department store that carried all very nice designer brands. We ended up deciding on a very nice tie for Sandro because we figured it was nice and practical.
At 1, we went back to Gabrielle’s apartment and met him to go to lunch. We hopped in his car, which was an experience, and he took us to the local malls food court. At first I was intrigued that this was where he chose to eat, but after lunch I was pleasantly surprised. The food court had pretty much any type of food you could imagine. There was German, Sushi, Mexican, American, regular bars, coffee bars, Italian (obviously), Mediterranean, kebobs, and wild wild west. We chose to eat at an Italian place and I ordered a salad because I needed some vegetables in me. The salad came with ham, mozzarella, corn, carrots, and tomatoes. It really hit the spot. When we were telling Sandro later on about how surprised we were that the food court was so good, he told us that it has to be. With all of the good food available around Italy, if a restaurant offers poor quality or flavor food it will fail miserably.
We grabbed a quick espresso after lunch at one of the coffee bars. I am really becoming accustomed to drinking espresso. It really does the trick for quick energy. When I add a little bit of sugar, I actually enjoy the taste the taste. Plus it is extremely cheap, much cheaper than a cup of coffee and its never so hot that it burns your mouth.
We got back in Gabrielle’s car to drop it back off at his apartment so that we could take the subway back down town for our afternoon activities. We decided to spend the afternoon at a famous art museum in Milan called the Brera, but first we wanted to stop by Grom and get some gelato. I have had gelato all three days that I have been in Milan. I have also had gelato from many different places while I have been in Italy and I think that Grom is the best I have had. It is a chain, so that is good news for anyone traveling to any major city in Italy. Keep your eyes peeled for Grom because it is definitely worth it. I have been pretty surprised at the amount of Italian I can understand from my Spanish, cognates, and hand gestures. Normally, if I come across someone who doesn’t speak English, we can normally get our points across. I like to think of it as a neat, fun game.
After we got our gelato, we walked to the Brera. When we walked into the courtyard of the museum, I was pretty surprised by the scene. There were a bunch of students (must have been about college age) all gathered together around a guy playing guitar, singing Bob Marley. All of the students looked like ruffians and it was obvious that the Brera doubled as an artsy school. It cracked me up. When we went to pay for our entrance, the admission fee was much more than we expected it to be. We had seen on the map of the city we had that it only cost 5 euro to get into the museum, when it really cost 10. Gabrielle got into a fight with the people at the desk about this misadvertisement. It was entertaining to watch them speak to each other in heated Italian. In the end, we ended up paying the 10 euro, which was ok with me. I had run into this misadvertisement problem before in different cities. Another bummer was that the museum only offered student discounts to European Union students, which is pretty whack if you ask me. A student is a student.
Even though the Brera was a lot of religious art, which isn’t exactly my favorite, I still enjoyed going there. They had people restoring paintings on display, which I had never seen that process before. Im not quite sure how I feel about it because it seems like they could have quite a bit of artistic liberty with colors and shading and such and then in the end it is not the original artist’s original work. Would it be better to look a something original that had cracks and is dull? That is the question. For whatever reason, a lot of thoughts about art in general were coming to me, so I spent a lot of time writing in my brown book.
We had plans to meet up with Sandro for dinner, but we weren’t sure if we would go back to Gabrielle’s apartment in the time period after lunch and before dinner. I decided to use today as a foot tester day. Even though my sneakers have been a life saver on this trip with my cranky foot, I don’t like wearing them out at night because I think I look like a totally goober. I knew Sandro would be taking us to a decent place and so I decided I would try out walking a bit in my Sperry’s. I loosened the shoe of my bum foot up and bit and it actually did very well walking around. I was quite pleased.
After the Brera, we walked back to the Duomo and said goodbye to Gabrielle. I didn’t know that we had to say goodbye then, but he had to run. He had bridge class that night and could not join us for dinner. We walked around a bit through the glass arcades, which I think are just such a great and beautiful idea. There are so many positives to glass arcades, they are easier to keep clean because they are out of the elements, along with that the architecture is better preserved, you can create such an nice atmosphere with decorations and lighting, and lastly it is extremely convenient to go shopping in if the weather is bad. I wanted to stop by a grocery store and a bakery to get some food for the train ride tomorrow, so we thought it best to get on the metro and go to the stop where we were planning on meeting Sandro and look around for those things there.
There was a grocery and a bakery right outside Sandro’s metro stop, which allowed us to be extremely successful in our mission and gave us quite a bit of time to spare before meeting up with Sandro. We came across this little hole in the wall dive bar that we decided to get drinks in. We had been looking for a place to get drinks and all of the other bars we passed were offering extremely expensive happy hour deals. This one bar was the cheapest we had found and Miles and I are both big fans of dive bars. This particular one was also playing fantastic music (classic dance music and then BB King) and they gave us very good bar food (different types of bruscetta and potato chips) with our drinks. We were totally pumped on our find and played Rummy at the bar until it was time to meet up with Sandro.
We walked up to the metro station right as Sandro was getting off his scooter. We just started walking around his neighborhood and eventually came across a place that looked good. I don’t think Sandro had ever been there, it just looked like a good random place. We all ordered off the “plates of the day menu”. I had spinach and ricotta stuffed ravioli that was topped with a truffle cream sauce and was delicately delicious. Everyone tried what everyone else ordered and before we had out main courses, we all shared a very good antipasta platter. Like me, Sandro is also a big fan of dessert, so of course we all ggot something sweet too and tried what everyone else ordered. I ended up with an apple with ice cream deal. It was a great night with great company and conversation. Although Sandro did tell us that he does not prefer to be called Sandro (only his mother calls him that) and that he likes Alexx better. Haha, oh well, he never corrected us, and we only learned this information because it randomly came up in conversation. It makes sense that we would only know to call him Sandro because the Gornto’s started being family friends with Alexx’s mother.
After dinner, we walked around Alexx’s neighborhood to help digest. He lives in a pretty happening place with a lot of night life. There were two futball matches going on when we were walking so it was pretty quite, but Alexx said afterwards it will get really rowdy. We walked back to the metro station, where Alexx had left his bike and said our goodbye and took the Metro back to Gabrielle’s apartment, which actually took a very long time because we got delayed at a stop.
I really enjoyed meeting Alexx and Gabrielle and am so thankful and appreciate of their hospitality. I will never forget how generous these Italians were. I hope things work out so that our paths cross in the future. Gabrielle is heading to the US to meet up with Etzia around the same time that I am flying back, so maybe I will have them over for dinner to show off some cooking skills that I learned at the school and Sandro is a just a baler and comes to the US a lot. I told him that is he ever was in Virginia to let me know.
COMO...lago
10/27/2009
Today Miles and I got up very early to being our day trip to Como. Originally we had thought that we would spend the night in a hostel in Como, but when it got time to make a decision, we thought it would be easier if we left our packs in Milan and just went out for the day. We planned to take the train to Como, which is on Lake Como, then take a boat to Bellagio, have lunch there, possibly take another boat to another town and look at this cool mansion and gardens that Miles had been to before, go back to Como to have dinner with Sandro’s boyfriend, Paulo, and then take a late train home. The train we took was on a different line than my eurail pass, but it only cost 7 euro. The boat buses around the lake were a different story. They ran on the expensive side and if you wanted to travel on a high speed boat, which made a lot of sense so you didn’t waste the majority of your day traveling on a boat, you had to pay even more.
It was a beautiful day on the lake and we got through about half of our list of things to do. We started walking around in Como and found an outdoor market to look at. It was very cheap compared to the markets in Florence. I wanted to find an Internet café because I had some emails that I needed to send out. Gabrielle’s apartment does not have Internet, but Etzia’s does. I felt bad asking to get on the internet often, so finding a café, where I catch up on some things, was imperative. At first we tried MacDonald’s because they normally have free wifi. Well in Italy, MacDonald’s only offers free wifi to people who have an Italian phone number because in order to get the login name and password, they text it to you. Eventually we came across a café and I was able to get done what I needed to.
After lunch in Bellagio, we walked around a bit, found a great point that gave us a beautiful view of the lake, and then walked back up to a gelateria we passed earlier. All of the towns around Lake Como seem like very cool places. Bellagio and Como are quite quaint and seem like a great place to have a get away vacation. Apparently George Clooney agrees because he has a house there. The boats that run around the lake include regular transportation boats, boats that you can put your car on, and hydrofoil boats. The hydrofoil boats were surprisingly very rocky. It was a very relaxing day. We got back to Como around 4 and there was a train heading back to Milan shortly after that. We were pretty tired from waking up early, so we decided to get on the train and just have dinner in Milan with Gabrielle. It would have been cool to have had dinner with Paulo, but we would have had to kill at least three hours walking around Como until he finished work and we would have gotten back into Milan extremely late, making for a very long day.
On the train back to Milan, Miles and I played a bunch of Rummy. I ended up winning the game by scoring exactly 1000 points. Very few times in my life have I ever scored the exact winning amount with cards. A bunch of high schoolers got on the train after us and were very loud, but pretty amusing also. Once again, it seems like teenagers act the same all over the world.
When we got back to Milan, Gabrielle wanted to take up to his favorite Japanese restaurant. I was pretty excited about this because I have been craving Asian food for a while now. The restaurant was a couple of blocks away from Gabrielle’s apartment, so we were able to walk there. He told us that he eats there two or three times a week. I thought this was hilarious because he is surrounded by so much good Italian food, but I suppose you could get tired of it. The Japanese restaurant was not what I expected. It was an all you can eat buffet, which had raw meat on it that you picked out what you wanted, handed it to a chef behind a grill, and he cooked it up for you. It was surprisingly good. They had a good very skinny noodle dish and egg rolls. In addition to that they had sushi (which I was a bit weary of), lo mein, veggies, fried rice, ribs, wings, and a bunch of other things. For my meat choices, I opted for shrimp, chicken, and steak. I was very full and pleased at the end of the meal and totally tickled that I was able to fulfill my Asian craving in Italy. I was planning on waiting until I got back to Germany to do this.
Speaking of Germany, Sandro made me feel much better about excluding Berlin from my plans. He did not have very good things to say about the city. Come to think about it, other than the cool history and art of the wall, I have not heard that many other good things about the city. I would love to go there eventually, but its just not going to happen on this trip. I am sure the winter has hit Berlin in full force by now, and I am very much enjoying the slow adjustment from fall to winter in Italy. Even this week in Milan, I have experienced 65-70 degree weather. Shocking myself with the cold in Berlin could be bad for my health. Hopefully when I get there eventually (I would also like to go to Russia, Prague, and Budapest then) that it will be the spring or summer. Lastly it would be such a long train ride to get there, it really is not worth it to stray too far from Italy. As for Heidelberg, sorry, I would have liked to have seen you, and maybe we can meet on that next trip.
After dinner, Miles, Gabrielle, and I went back to the apartment to start our evening activity of a rousing game a scala quarenta (sp). Gabrielle is quite the card shark and even had a green felt cloth to go over his table for card play. It was a fun night. We played for a little bit of money and ended up playing two very long games. Unfortunately, the language barrier made it very hard for Gabrielle to explain the end scoring of who won the money. The way he scored it up and the way the game went didn’t seem to match up to Miles and I. Somehow Gabrielle always won due to the results of the last two hands in each game. It didn’t really make sense to us, but we just figured it was ok and let it go.
We finished around 12 and by then I was exhausted. Miles and I decided that we weren’t going to set any alarms in the morning and were going to sleep in. We didn’t have any major plans for tomorrow, so it would be a good time to catch up on sleep. It was a very good day. It reiterated my thoughts that it is a very good deal to know some locals in an area to show you around, give good advice, and just hang out with.
Two random thoughts. In Italian the word “Alora” means “well”, like “well… I don’t know”. I really like this word a lot and love it when people use it. It just rolls off the tongue so nicely and a lot of times people put expressive hand gestures with it that I like watching. Second is that Italians don’t really like dealing with change. There is none of the silly .86 cents mess that happens in America. Also if you or they don’t have exact change, they just round it out, so sometimes you could end up getting more money back that you originally should have. What a nice and convenient cultural rule.
Today Miles and I got up very early to being our day trip to Como. Originally we had thought that we would spend the night in a hostel in Como, but when it got time to make a decision, we thought it would be easier if we left our packs in Milan and just went out for the day. We planned to take the train to Como, which is on Lake Como, then take a boat to Bellagio, have lunch there, possibly take another boat to another town and look at this cool mansion and gardens that Miles had been to before, go back to Como to have dinner with Sandro’s boyfriend, Paulo, and then take a late train home. The train we took was on a different line than my eurail pass, but it only cost 7 euro. The boat buses around the lake were a different story. They ran on the expensive side and if you wanted to travel on a high speed boat, which made a lot of sense so you didn’t waste the majority of your day traveling on a boat, you had to pay even more.
It was a beautiful day on the lake and we got through about half of our list of things to do. We started walking around in Como and found an outdoor market to look at. It was very cheap compared to the markets in Florence. I wanted to find an Internet café because I had some emails that I needed to send out. Gabrielle’s apartment does not have Internet, but Etzia’s does. I felt bad asking to get on the internet often, so finding a café, where I catch up on some things, was imperative. At first we tried MacDonald’s because they normally have free wifi. Well in Italy, MacDonald’s only offers free wifi to people who have an Italian phone number because in order to get the login name and password, they text it to you. Eventually we came across a café and I was able to get done what I needed to.
After lunch in Bellagio, we walked around a bit, found a great point that gave us a beautiful view of the lake, and then walked back up to a gelateria we passed earlier. All of the towns around Lake Como seem like very cool places. Bellagio and Como are quite quaint and seem like a great place to have a get away vacation. Apparently George Clooney agrees because he has a house there. The boats that run around the lake include regular transportation boats, boats that you can put your car on, and hydrofoil boats. The hydrofoil boats were surprisingly very rocky. It was a very relaxing day. We got back to Como around 4 and there was a train heading back to Milan shortly after that. We were pretty tired from waking up early, so we decided to get on the train and just have dinner in Milan with Gabrielle. It would have been cool to have had dinner with Paulo, but we would have had to kill at least three hours walking around Como until he finished work and we would have gotten back into Milan extremely late, making for a very long day.
On the train back to Milan, Miles and I played a bunch of Rummy. I ended up winning the game by scoring exactly 1000 points. Very few times in my life have I ever scored the exact winning amount with cards. A bunch of high schoolers got on the train after us and were very loud, but pretty amusing also. Once again, it seems like teenagers act the same all over the world.
When we got back to Milan, Gabrielle wanted to take up to his favorite Japanese restaurant. I was pretty excited about this because I have been craving Asian food for a while now. The restaurant was a couple of blocks away from Gabrielle’s apartment, so we were able to walk there. He told us that he eats there two or three times a week. I thought this was hilarious because he is surrounded by so much good Italian food, but I suppose you could get tired of it. The Japanese restaurant was not what I expected. It was an all you can eat buffet, which had raw meat on it that you picked out what you wanted, handed it to a chef behind a grill, and he cooked it up for you. It was surprisingly good. They had a good very skinny noodle dish and egg rolls. In addition to that they had sushi (which I was a bit weary of), lo mein, veggies, fried rice, ribs, wings, and a bunch of other things. For my meat choices, I opted for shrimp, chicken, and steak. I was very full and pleased at the end of the meal and totally tickled that I was able to fulfill my Asian craving in Italy. I was planning on waiting until I got back to Germany to do this.
Speaking of Germany, Sandro made me feel much better about excluding Berlin from my plans. He did not have very good things to say about the city. Come to think about it, other than the cool history and art of the wall, I have not heard that many other good things about the city. I would love to go there eventually, but its just not going to happen on this trip. I am sure the winter has hit Berlin in full force by now, and I am very much enjoying the slow adjustment from fall to winter in Italy. Even this week in Milan, I have experienced 65-70 degree weather. Shocking myself with the cold in Berlin could be bad for my health. Hopefully when I get there eventually (I would also like to go to Russia, Prague, and Budapest then) that it will be the spring or summer. Lastly it would be such a long train ride to get there, it really is not worth it to stray too far from Italy. As for Heidelberg, sorry, I would have liked to have seen you, and maybe we can meet on that next trip.
After dinner, Miles, Gabrielle, and I went back to the apartment to start our evening activity of a rousing game a scala quarenta (sp). Gabrielle is quite the card shark and even had a green felt cloth to go over his table for card play. It was a fun night. We played for a little bit of money and ended up playing two very long games. Unfortunately, the language barrier made it very hard for Gabrielle to explain the end scoring of who won the money. The way he scored it up and the way the game went didn’t seem to match up to Miles and I. Somehow Gabrielle always won due to the results of the last two hands in each game. It didn’t really make sense to us, but we just figured it was ok and let it go.
We finished around 12 and by then I was exhausted. Miles and I decided that we weren’t going to set any alarms in the morning and were going to sleep in. We didn’t have any major plans for tomorrow, so it would be a good time to catch up on sleep. It was a very good day. It reiterated my thoughts that it is a very good deal to know some locals in an area to show you around, give good advice, and just hang out with.
Two random thoughts. In Italian the word “Alora” means “well”, like “well… I don’t know”. I really like this word a lot and love it when people use it. It just rolls off the tongue so nicely and a lot of times people put expressive hand gestures with it that I like watching. Second is that Italians don’t really like dealing with change. There is none of the silly .86 cents mess that happens in America. Also if you or they don’t have exact change, they just round it out, so sometimes you could end up getting more money back that you originally should have. What a nice and convenient cultural rule.
Milanese Shopping Experience... check
10/26/2009
Today Claire, Miles, and I woke up early in order to catch a morning train into Milan. The Gornto’s have family friends there from when their mom lived there as a young lady. Claire was coming for the day and then taking an afternoon train back to Torino, which was able to work out really well because Katherine gave her her Eurail pass to use during her last week in Italy. We ended up taking a really nice, high speed train, and playing the card game that Claire learned over here, scala quarenta (sp?). I really love playing cards, especially with people who understand cards well, pick up games fast, and are good at cards in general. The Gorntos are these type of people and I really enjoyed myself playing with them.
When we arrived in Milan their family friend, Sandro, met us on the platform. So here is the Gornto’s family friends deal. When Claire’s mom, Sarah, was about the same age as Claire and I are now, she came over to Italy to live for a couple of months. She lived in an apartment across from a family, which included a Mom (Etzia) and her two sons (Sandro and Andrea). Sarah became good friends with the family. Etzia has a sister, who lives in Virginia Beach and owned a restaurant that the Gorntos frequented. Also both of Etzia’s sons worked at so the families became closer. Right now Etzia is over in Virginia Beach with Sarah and Brooks, while Miles, Claire, and I are over here with her son, Sandro, and boyfriend, Gabrielle. I think it is a neat switcheroo and an extremely cool example of having friends all over the world.
So Etzia and her family have been kind enough to show us some fantastic Milanese hospitality. Sandro took off some time from work to pick us up from the train station, lead us to Etzia’s apartment so we could drop our stuff off, and then have lunch with us. Miles and I are actually staying in Gabrielle’s, Etzia’s boyfriend who lives right across the hall from her, apartment. It is extremely generous and convenient of him to allow us to do this. It was so nice to get off the train and have some one lead you to where you are going instead of going through the frustration of figuring it out on your own with your heavy pack on your pack in the hot and stuffy metro. Claire did the same things for Katherine and I in Torino and it really was an extremely nice way to come into a city.
Gabrielle and Sandro took us to lunch at a place near the Milan Duomo that exemplifies the Italian take on fast food. The place was called “Ciao” and was almost equivalent to a KandK cafeteria deal, but with really delicious, fresh food that you were able to get fast and for cheap. I got a pasta sampler plate that included porcini risotto, tortellini, and pest spaghetti and then Miles and I split a plate of proscuitto and mozzarella. The meat and cheese plate was good, but not as good as what I was used to a Susan and Diego’s house.
After lunch we walked to the gelato chain, Grom, that we ate at with Claire’s friend. On our way, we walked through an arcade that had some really expensive stores like Prada, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes, and then a MacDonalds in it, go figure. There is a mosaic on the floor of the arcade of a bull, which you are supposed to turn on your heel three times on in order to get good luck. Obviously I did it because I need all the good luck I can get. Apparently Grom is a very famous and well known chain that delivers the highest quality gelato. This trip to Grom was even better than the last time I had it. I got a nutella and stracciatella (cream and huge chucks of chocolate chip like pieces) on a cone. We enjoyed our ice cream in a piazza in front of city hall and across the street from La Scala Theater (a very famous opera theater, so they tell me). Sandro had to go back to work, so we said goodbye to him and set off with Gabrielle to help Claire find an international phone for her mom.
By the way, Gabrielle speaks very little English. He and Claire can communicate pretty well and he and Miles realized that they both speak German, but he and I have some difficulty getting our points across to each other. We just do a lot of smiling at each other. I still think he is a pretty precious peach, all 5’4 sweet little Italian man he is. Sarah really wanted Claire to get her an international phone and had been driver her crazy about it, so we all just went to get it and cross if off the list so Claire wouldn’t have to hear about it anymore. The place where we went to buy the phone was similar to a Best Buy and was in a metro stop, which I thought was an interesting place for a large electronics store. While they were shopping for the phone, I found a very nice shiatsu massage chair and enjoyed a little nap in it. I felt like my dad.
After we got the phone, we headed back to the Duomo to take pictures of all of us together. Then Claire wanted to head on back to Torino so that she was home by the time Susan and Diego got home for work and she also wants to pack in as much time as she can with the kids before she leaves for Virginia on Saturday. She really doesn’t want to leave and is trying to figure out a way that she can get back over here as soon as possible. Susan is also really pushing for this. Claire is so lucky that she has had such an incredible experience.
Once we said goodbye to Claire, Miles, Gabrielle, and I popped into the Duomo to check it out. I prefer the Milan Duomo over the Florence one. It is much prettier to my eyes. The Milan Duomo is the 3rd largest cathedral and the largest gothic cathedral in the world. It had some unbelievable stained glass in it. We looked into walking to the top, but like the Florence Duomo, it was extremely expensive to do this and to me not worth it. Miles and Gabrielle agreed, so we stopped in to a little café for some coffee to recharge our batteries.
The three of us spent the afternoon walking around Milan. Milan reminds me a lot of New York City. There is a banking district, a lot of high fashion shops, the way people dress and walk around, the cafes and restaurants and hotels. It was more of a feeling than factual similarities, but I liked the vibe. After the Duomo, we walked down a famous high fashion street and looked in all the windows. Doing this was an interesting experience for me because I feel so out of touch with these incredibly expensive material objects and in awe of the fact that the market does survive because there are people (and apparently enough for the companies to be profitable) that can afford and do buy these outrageously expensive items. I also find the materials, style, and quality of a lot of high fashion pieces interesting to look at and consider. A 150 euro t shirt from Dolce and Gabana is a ridiculous thing in this world. We went into an Armani department store that sold everything from household furniture to flowers and chocolate, and as with the rest of Europe, the Beckhams we displayed in ads all over the store.
After the fashion street we walked to an extremely old castle, Castello Sforza and checked that out. Also on our walk we saw a gate, which belonged to the very old wall that used to surround Milan, and an 1000 year old church. Both of these landmarks were located randomly throughout the city and were surrounded by more contemporary things on all sides. We headed home around 5:30, because with day light savings gone it was starting to get dark fast. Miles and I had plans to meet Sandro for dinner at 8, so we hung around until 7:30, when we took the metro to meet up with him. Milan’s metro is pretty easy to use. Miles says its similar to DC’s.
Sandro took us to an authentic Tuscan restaurant that was a locals favorite. It was delicious. We ordered a salami and cheese platter, a bruschetta platter that had three different types on it, wine, and then fat, juicy, steaks that were served with French fries. It was close to heaven. I have not had a steak like that in so long and didn’t realize how much I had been missing red meat in my life. We all got dessert and I ordered a great meringue cake with chocolate sauce. Stick a fork in me, I was done. The restaurant was exactly set up exactly the way that I would want to set up a restaurant that I owned. Since it was a locals favorite, the restaurant can set up their own set of rules. The kitchen was open from 8-10 only and even on a Monday night the entire restaurant filled up. It was a very casual and relaxed atmosphere and it was obvious that they were able to do extremely well because the food spoke for itself. Sandro insisted on paying, which was so nice of him. Miles and I are brainstorming good thank you gifts we can give him and Gabrielle in return for their hospitality. Sandro is a card and I really enjoyed hanging out with him all night. He works for Deutche Bank and is in charge of investment banking for a gaming and media section. We talked about my trip for a while and all the place I have been. He made me feel better about skipping out on Berlin. I haven’t heard that many good things about that city and with the winter arriving up north I am sure it is freezing. Its probably a good thing that I have decided to catch Berlin in my next trip to Europe… in the summer.
Miles and I wanted to look into going to see the Last Supper while we were in Milan. Sandro looked up that information for us and it turns out that you cant even get a reservation to see the Last Supper until December. Cant say we didn’t try and oh well there is always next time. Its so nice to be able to hang out in a home for a while. I have been extremely spoiled the last 4 days.
Today Claire, Miles, and I woke up early in order to catch a morning train into Milan. The Gornto’s have family friends there from when their mom lived there as a young lady. Claire was coming for the day and then taking an afternoon train back to Torino, which was able to work out really well because Katherine gave her her Eurail pass to use during her last week in Italy. We ended up taking a really nice, high speed train, and playing the card game that Claire learned over here, scala quarenta (sp?). I really love playing cards, especially with people who understand cards well, pick up games fast, and are good at cards in general. The Gorntos are these type of people and I really enjoyed myself playing with them.
When we arrived in Milan their family friend, Sandro, met us on the platform. So here is the Gornto’s family friends deal. When Claire’s mom, Sarah, was about the same age as Claire and I are now, she came over to Italy to live for a couple of months. She lived in an apartment across from a family, which included a Mom (Etzia) and her two sons (Sandro and Andrea). Sarah became good friends with the family. Etzia has a sister, who lives in Virginia Beach and owned a restaurant that the Gorntos frequented. Also both of Etzia’s sons worked at so the families became closer. Right now Etzia is over in Virginia Beach with Sarah and Brooks, while Miles, Claire, and I are over here with her son, Sandro, and boyfriend, Gabrielle. I think it is a neat switcheroo and an extremely cool example of having friends all over the world.
So Etzia and her family have been kind enough to show us some fantastic Milanese hospitality. Sandro took off some time from work to pick us up from the train station, lead us to Etzia’s apartment so we could drop our stuff off, and then have lunch with us. Miles and I are actually staying in Gabrielle’s, Etzia’s boyfriend who lives right across the hall from her, apartment. It is extremely generous and convenient of him to allow us to do this. It was so nice to get off the train and have some one lead you to where you are going instead of going through the frustration of figuring it out on your own with your heavy pack on your pack in the hot and stuffy metro. Claire did the same things for Katherine and I in Torino and it really was an extremely nice way to come into a city.
Gabrielle and Sandro took us to lunch at a place near the Milan Duomo that exemplifies the Italian take on fast food. The place was called “Ciao” and was almost equivalent to a KandK cafeteria deal, but with really delicious, fresh food that you were able to get fast and for cheap. I got a pasta sampler plate that included porcini risotto, tortellini, and pest spaghetti and then Miles and I split a plate of proscuitto and mozzarella. The meat and cheese plate was good, but not as good as what I was used to a Susan and Diego’s house.
After lunch we walked to the gelato chain, Grom, that we ate at with Claire’s friend. On our way, we walked through an arcade that had some really expensive stores like Prada, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes, and then a MacDonalds in it, go figure. There is a mosaic on the floor of the arcade of a bull, which you are supposed to turn on your heel three times on in order to get good luck. Obviously I did it because I need all the good luck I can get. Apparently Grom is a very famous and well known chain that delivers the highest quality gelato. This trip to Grom was even better than the last time I had it. I got a nutella and stracciatella (cream and huge chucks of chocolate chip like pieces) on a cone. We enjoyed our ice cream in a piazza in front of city hall and across the street from La Scala Theater (a very famous opera theater, so they tell me). Sandro had to go back to work, so we said goodbye to him and set off with Gabrielle to help Claire find an international phone for her mom.
By the way, Gabrielle speaks very little English. He and Claire can communicate pretty well and he and Miles realized that they both speak German, but he and I have some difficulty getting our points across to each other. We just do a lot of smiling at each other. I still think he is a pretty precious peach, all 5’4 sweet little Italian man he is. Sarah really wanted Claire to get her an international phone and had been driver her crazy about it, so we all just went to get it and cross if off the list so Claire wouldn’t have to hear about it anymore. The place where we went to buy the phone was similar to a Best Buy and was in a metro stop, which I thought was an interesting place for a large electronics store. While they were shopping for the phone, I found a very nice shiatsu massage chair and enjoyed a little nap in it. I felt like my dad.
After we got the phone, we headed back to the Duomo to take pictures of all of us together. Then Claire wanted to head on back to Torino so that she was home by the time Susan and Diego got home for work and she also wants to pack in as much time as she can with the kids before she leaves for Virginia on Saturday. She really doesn’t want to leave and is trying to figure out a way that she can get back over here as soon as possible. Susan is also really pushing for this. Claire is so lucky that she has had such an incredible experience.
Once we said goodbye to Claire, Miles, Gabrielle, and I popped into the Duomo to check it out. I prefer the Milan Duomo over the Florence one. It is much prettier to my eyes. The Milan Duomo is the 3rd largest cathedral and the largest gothic cathedral in the world. It had some unbelievable stained glass in it. We looked into walking to the top, but like the Florence Duomo, it was extremely expensive to do this and to me not worth it. Miles and Gabrielle agreed, so we stopped in to a little café for some coffee to recharge our batteries.
The three of us spent the afternoon walking around Milan. Milan reminds me a lot of New York City. There is a banking district, a lot of high fashion shops, the way people dress and walk around, the cafes and restaurants and hotels. It was more of a feeling than factual similarities, but I liked the vibe. After the Duomo, we walked down a famous high fashion street and looked in all the windows. Doing this was an interesting experience for me because I feel so out of touch with these incredibly expensive material objects and in awe of the fact that the market does survive because there are people (and apparently enough for the companies to be profitable) that can afford and do buy these outrageously expensive items. I also find the materials, style, and quality of a lot of high fashion pieces interesting to look at and consider. A 150 euro t shirt from Dolce and Gabana is a ridiculous thing in this world. We went into an Armani department store that sold everything from household furniture to flowers and chocolate, and as with the rest of Europe, the Beckhams we displayed in ads all over the store.
After the fashion street we walked to an extremely old castle, Castello Sforza and checked that out. Also on our walk we saw a gate, which belonged to the very old wall that used to surround Milan, and an 1000 year old church. Both of these landmarks were located randomly throughout the city and were surrounded by more contemporary things on all sides. We headed home around 5:30, because with day light savings gone it was starting to get dark fast. Miles and I had plans to meet Sandro for dinner at 8, so we hung around until 7:30, when we took the metro to meet up with him. Milan’s metro is pretty easy to use. Miles says its similar to DC’s.
Sandro took us to an authentic Tuscan restaurant that was a locals favorite. It was delicious. We ordered a salami and cheese platter, a bruschetta platter that had three different types on it, wine, and then fat, juicy, steaks that were served with French fries. It was close to heaven. I have not had a steak like that in so long and didn’t realize how much I had been missing red meat in my life. We all got dessert and I ordered a great meringue cake with chocolate sauce. Stick a fork in me, I was done. The restaurant was exactly set up exactly the way that I would want to set up a restaurant that I owned. Since it was a locals favorite, the restaurant can set up their own set of rules. The kitchen was open from 8-10 only and even on a Monday night the entire restaurant filled up. It was a very casual and relaxed atmosphere and it was obvious that they were able to do extremely well because the food spoke for itself. Sandro insisted on paying, which was so nice of him. Miles and I are brainstorming good thank you gifts we can give him and Gabrielle in return for their hospitality. Sandro is a card and I really enjoyed hanging out with him all night. He works for Deutche Bank and is in charge of investment banking for a gaming and media section. We talked about my trip for a while and all the place I have been. He made me feel better about skipping out on Berlin. I haven’t heard that many good things about that city and with the winter arriving up north I am sure it is freezing. Its probably a good thing that I have decided to catch Berlin in my next trip to Europe… in the summer.
Miles and I wanted to look into going to see the Last Supper while we were in Milan. Sandro looked up that information for us and it turns out that you cant even get a reservation to see the Last Supper until December. Cant say we didn’t try and oh well there is always next time. Its so nice to be able to hang out in a home for a while. I have been extremely spoiled the last 4 days.
Agriculture Tourismo
10/25/2009
Today day light savings ended in Europe. This was news to me because for some reason I thought that the US only did daylight savings (and even some parts of the US don’t participate). Well it turns out I was wrong, so we gained an extra hour, which was an interesting thing to go through with kids. It’s a good thing that all of Europe goes through dealing with daylight savings at the same time because that could cause serious transportation confusion issues.
Our plans for the day included driving about an hour away from Torino to a farm that participates in agriculture tourismo. Agriculture tourismo pretty much is a farm that offers its serives to the public. The services can be anything to having lunch on the farm, to selling animals, to making product out of the animals. This was a great Sunday activity because there was something for everyone. On the farm, there were animals for the kids to see(which turns out are being raised to be eaten, but we didn’t tell them that obviously even though we heard some shrieking in the morning) and a playground and then there was an incredible five-course homemade lunch for the adults. It was a beautiful fall day in the countryside of Italy and it was just really nice to be outside in pleasant weather. It was the type of day that reminds me why I love fall so much. This kids really enjoyed seeing the animals because they don’t see things like that very often living in the city. The animals were pretty entertaining to Claire, Miles and I too. We heard a donkey let out the most ridiculous bray, saw a chicken freaking out because her chick went through a fence that she couldn’t get through so they were separated, some cute piglets including a little runt (the adult pigs were by far the biggest pigs I have ever seen), and a cat on the roof (which seemed pretty cliché to me).
We spent the majority of the afternoon there. The lunch that was served to us came straight off the farm. We had homemade bread, wine, salami, a cheese puff pastry deal, eggplant and peppers, a polenta and beef dish, homemade pasta with porcini mushrooms (I love porcini mushrooms), baked season chicken and potatoes, and then finally panna cotta for dessert. Everything was incredibly fresh, flavorful, and delicious. By the end of the meal, which ended up being over two hours, I was completely stuffed and content.
After lunch the boys went on horseback rides. They were pretty cute because they both were scared at first. Giacomo put on a brave face and took the plunge and ended up liking it. Luka was pretty much thrown/tricked onto the horse and tried to throw a fit, but then realized he liked it. It was funny because he tried his very best to hide his entertainment with the situation and keep up his unhappy face, but he just couldn’t do it and broke it with a smile.
Around dusk, we all got into the car and headed to an area of the countryside that is known for winemaking. The town we pulled into was extremely cool. It was on a hillside so it gave a great view of the countryside and all of the vineyards and then had a very old towne feel to it. The vineyard that we chose to visit had won some awards for their barbera wines. We tasted some wines, were shown around the production facilities, and then ended up buying some wine. I have decided that I do not care for a dry quality in a wine. It was very pleasant and interesting evening. I think that I could get into the wine business and enjoy it very much.
When we returned to the house it was pretty late. Due to day light savings, the kids internal clocks were off. They were exhausted because of the very busy day we had without naps. I was extremely impressed with how well they did today with their behavior. Even though we all were still full from lunch, we prepared another light yet so delicious dinner of some pasta with pesto, fresh steamed veggies, cheese, and cold cuts. Oh my lord they buy the most out of this world mozzarella and proscuitto. I love staying at Susan and Diego’s house. If I was Claire, I would have had to buy a completely new set of clothing because I would not be able to keep my hands off all the fantastic food. Its so fresh and I always want to keep eating it regardless of how full I am.
We spent the rest of the night checking out information on the internet concerning possible things to do in the future of this trip. Miles, Claire and I are heading to Milan tomorrow to meet up with some family friends of the Gornto’s. Im excited to have another local tour guide experience! Then Miles and I are considering heading to Lake Como and checking out the lake district between Switzerland and Italy. George Clooney has a house there near a town called Bellagio. Josh Diamonstein also told me that this is one of Dennis Manning’s favorite places. I figure it must be good. We played some yatzee ( a household favorite game), had some wine, and chatted. We all were pretty tired from the day and daylight savings, so we turned in early. In addition to that, we planned to get up early to take a morning train to Milan. All in all, it was a great day.
Today day light savings ended in Europe. This was news to me because for some reason I thought that the US only did daylight savings (and even some parts of the US don’t participate). Well it turns out I was wrong, so we gained an extra hour, which was an interesting thing to go through with kids. It’s a good thing that all of Europe goes through dealing with daylight savings at the same time because that could cause serious transportation confusion issues.
Our plans for the day included driving about an hour away from Torino to a farm that participates in agriculture tourismo. Agriculture tourismo pretty much is a farm that offers its serives to the public. The services can be anything to having lunch on the farm, to selling animals, to making product out of the animals. This was a great Sunday activity because there was something for everyone. On the farm, there were animals for the kids to see(which turns out are being raised to be eaten, but we didn’t tell them that obviously even though we heard some shrieking in the morning) and a playground and then there was an incredible five-course homemade lunch for the adults. It was a beautiful fall day in the countryside of Italy and it was just really nice to be outside in pleasant weather. It was the type of day that reminds me why I love fall so much. This kids really enjoyed seeing the animals because they don’t see things like that very often living in the city. The animals were pretty entertaining to Claire, Miles and I too. We heard a donkey let out the most ridiculous bray, saw a chicken freaking out because her chick went through a fence that she couldn’t get through so they were separated, some cute piglets including a little runt (the adult pigs were by far the biggest pigs I have ever seen), and a cat on the roof (which seemed pretty cliché to me).
We spent the majority of the afternoon there. The lunch that was served to us came straight off the farm. We had homemade bread, wine, salami, a cheese puff pastry deal, eggplant and peppers, a polenta and beef dish, homemade pasta with porcini mushrooms (I love porcini mushrooms), baked season chicken and potatoes, and then finally panna cotta for dessert. Everything was incredibly fresh, flavorful, and delicious. By the end of the meal, which ended up being over two hours, I was completely stuffed and content.
After lunch the boys went on horseback rides. They were pretty cute because they both were scared at first. Giacomo put on a brave face and took the plunge and ended up liking it. Luka was pretty much thrown/tricked onto the horse and tried to throw a fit, but then realized he liked it. It was funny because he tried his very best to hide his entertainment with the situation and keep up his unhappy face, but he just couldn’t do it and broke it with a smile.
Around dusk, we all got into the car and headed to an area of the countryside that is known for winemaking. The town we pulled into was extremely cool. It was on a hillside so it gave a great view of the countryside and all of the vineyards and then had a very old towne feel to it. The vineyard that we chose to visit had won some awards for their barbera wines. We tasted some wines, were shown around the production facilities, and then ended up buying some wine. I have decided that I do not care for a dry quality in a wine. It was very pleasant and interesting evening. I think that I could get into the wine business and enjoy it very much.
When we returned to the house it was pretty late. Due to day light savings, the kids internal clocks were off. They were exhausted because of the very busy day we had without naps. I was extremely impressed with how well they did today with their behavior. Even though we all were still full from lunch, we prepared another light yet so delicious dinner of some pasta with pesto, fresh steamed veggies, cheese, and cold cuts. Oh my lord they buy the most out of this world mozzarella and proscuitto. I love staying at Susan and Diego’s house. If I was Claire, I would have had to buy a completely new set of clothing because I would not be able to keep my hands off all the fantastic food. Its so fresh and I always want to keep eating it regardless of how full I am.
We spent the rest of the night checking out information on the internet concerning possible things to do in the future of this trip. Miles, Claire and I are heading to Milan tomorrow to meet up with some family friends of the Gornto’s. Im excited to have another local tour guide experience! Then Miles and I are considering heading to Lake Como and checking out the lake district between Switzerland and Italy. George Clooney has a house there near a town called Bellagio. Josh Diamonstein also told me that this is one of Dennis Manning’s favorite places. I figure it must be good. We played some yatzee ( a household favorite game), had some wine, and chatted. We all were pretty tired from the day and daylight savings, so we turned in early. In addition to that, we planned to get up early to take a morning train to Milan. All in all, it was a great day.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Back to Familar Places and Faces
10/24/2009
This morning the kids slept in late, which meant that we also got to sleep in late. Claire’s family has a typical Saturday morning routine that consists of running errands, going to swimming lessons, having a big fantastic lunch, and then taking a two nap afterwards due to the food coma that the lunch induces. Once everyone was up, we all left to start the errands. First we dropped Susan off to get her hair done while we ran the errands. The errands included picking up the food for the week. Susan had already called into the boutique shops and places the order of what she wanted so that we just had to run in, pick it up, and pay for it. I think that this is an awesome was to do grocery shopping and really enjoyed seeing the shops. First of all you get extremely fresh and great quality products from the boutique vendors, and second is that anyone can pick up exactly what you want in a very efficient amount of time because the order has already been called in and placed. Today we went to the meat and cheese shop and then the vegetable guy.
After running the errands, we went back home because the kids had swimming lessons next and they needed to pack their bags for it. Diego took the kids to swimming lessons while Claire and I stayed home, unpacked the groceries, caught up on things I needed to do with the internet (the internet connection at the last hostel was terrible because the walls were thick concrete and the signal couldn’t get through them) and started to get ready for lunch. On their way home, they picked up Susan from her hair appointment (she tried out a new stylist and they did a great job and it was cheaper than what she used to pay so a double win for her). Diego had plans to go with some of his friends and buy a lot of wine so he did not stay for lunch. I mentioned before that Diego is studying wine, so when he goes out to buy wine, he does it seriously and came back with cases of wine! As all the meals I have eaten with this family in Torino have been, lunch was fresh, delicious, and hit the spot. Pasta, veggies, cheese, deli meats, the works! I over ate, which I expected to do because it really was that good, and then went to take a great afternoon nap.
Miles’, Claire’s brother, train was getting into town around 7:45, so we left the house around 6:30 to take the buses and meet him at the train station. He was coming into a different station that we had not gone to before, so it was an experience getting our bearings around the area. The train was a little delayed so Claire and I played got a quick coffee and then played cards as we waited for him. Once we met up with Miles we had a heck of a time figuring out which way was the right way to exit the station and then where we should get on the bus, but eventually we figured it out and were on our way. While we were in the process of doing this, we saw some other Americans trying to do the same thing, so Claire went over to see if she could be any help to them. Turns out they went to school in Virginia, which I thought was kinda of a crazy coincidence.
We had plans to meet up with Claire’s friends the twins, Manuel, and some of their other friends and were a little bit late getting there, but it all worked out in the end. These were the same people that we had dinner with my first time in Torino and I was excited to see them again. We went to the great pizza place, Donna Rossa, that we went with them before. I ordered a four cheese pizza and added onions to it and it was better than I remembered it being, which is a great experience to have at a restaurant. I also had a half liter of wine to accompany my meal and was seated in a spot where I could watch a soccer game if I wanted to, all of which in addition to the company made the dining experience extremely enjoyable.
Everyone was pretty tired (Miles had been traveling for 30 hours from his business trip in India!) so we went to get a quick gelato and then headed home. I got nutella flavored this time because I am making a point to try as many gelato flavors as I can and it was delicious, as expected. The main piazza was so crowded because it was a Saturday night and there was crazy traffic everywhere. This worked to our advantage because we thought we had missed the bus we needed to catch in order to get up to the house and the next bus wouldn’t come for another hour. Luckily the bus we needed was also stuck in traffic and pulled up literally two minutes after walked up to the bus stop. Talk about good fortune. The bus ride home was pretty funny because there were all these punk teenage kids on it and it just amused me to see Italian teenagers and compare and contrast them to American teenagers.
This morning the kids slept in late, which meant that we also got to sleep in late. Claire’s family has a typical Saturday morning routine that consists of running errands, going to swimming lessons, having a big fantastic lunch, and then taking a two nap afterwards due to the food coma that the lunch induces. Once everyone was up, we all left to start the errands. First we dropped Susan off to get her hair done while we ran the errands. The errands included picking up the food for the week. Susan had already called into the boutique shops and places the order of what she wanted so that we just had to run in, pick it up, and pay for it. I think that this is an awesome was to do grocery shopping and really enjoyed seeing the shops. First of all you get extremely fresh and great quality products from the boutique vendors, and second is that anyone can pick up exactly what you want in a very efficient amount of time because the order has already been called in and placed. Today we went to the meat and cheese shop and then the vegetable guy.
After running the errands, we went back home because the kids had swimming lessons next and they needed to pack their bags for it. Diego took the kids to swimming lessons while Claire and I stayed home, unpacked the groceries, caught up on things I needed to do with the internet (the internet connection at the last hostel was terrible because the walls were thick concrete and the signal couldn’t get through them) and started to get ready for lunch. On their way home, they picked up Susan from her hair appointment (she tried out a new stylist and they did a great job and it was cheaper than what she used to pay so a double win for her). Diego had plans to go with some of his friends and buy a lot of wine so he did not stay for lunch. I mentioned before that Diego is studying wine, so when he goes out to buy wine, he does it seriously and came back with cases of wine! As all the meals I have eaten with this family in Torino have been, lunch was fresh, delicious, and hit the spot. Pasta, veggies, cheese, deli meats, the works! I over ate, which I expected to do because it really was that good, and then went to take a great afternoon nap.
Miles’, Claire’s brother, train was getting into town around 7:45, so we left the house around 6:30 to take the buses and meet him at the train station. He was coming into a different station that we had not gone to before, so it was an experience getting our bearings around the area. The train was a little delayed so Claire and I played got a quick coffee and then played cards as we waited for him. Once we met up with Miles we had a heck of a time figuring out which way was the right way to exit the station and then where we should get on the bus, but eventually we figured it out and were on our way. While we were in the process of doing this, we saw some other Americans trying to do the same thing, so Claire went over to see if she could be any help to them. Turns out they went to school in Virginia, which I thought was kinda of a crazy coincidence.
We had plans to meet up with Claire’s friends the twins, Manuel, and some of their other friends and were a little bit late getting there, but it all worked out in the end. These were the same people that we had dinner with my first time in Torino and I was excited to see them again. We went to the great pizza place, Donna Rossa, that we went with them before. I ordered a four cheese pizza and added onions to it and it was better than I remembered it being, which is a great experience to have at a restaurant. I also had a half liter of wine to accompany my meal and was seated in a spot where I could watch a soccer game if I wanted to, all of which in addition to the company made the dining experience extremely enjoyable.
Everyone was pretty tired (Miles had been traveling for 30 hours from his business trip in India!) so we went to get a quick gelato and then headed home. I got nutella flavored this time because I am making a point to try as many gelato flavors as I can and it was delicious, as expected. The main piazza was so crowded because it was a Saturday night and there was crazy traffic everywhere. This worked to our advantage because we thought we had missed the bus we needed to catch in order to get up to the house and the next bus wouldn’t come for another hour. Luckily the bus we needed was also stuck in traffic and pulled up literally two minutes after walked up to the bus stop. Talk about good fortune. The bus ride home was pretty funny because there were all these punk teenage kids on it and it just amused me to see Italian teenagers and compare and contrast them to American teenagers.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
And then there was one
10/23/2009
Last night a crazy storm raged. You could hear the wind and waves roaring. Katherine left early in the morning to catch her flight. My plans for the day included taking a train back to Torino to meet up with Claire. I got up shortly after she left, which was earlier than I thought I would need to get up, but it ended up being a good thing that I allotted myself more time. It took more time than I excepted to get to the main train station, but when I did get there, I realized that my train was delayed so everything worked out. I have come to find out that Italian trains are usual on the late side. As I was checking out of the hostel about 40 Mexicans checked in and were making all of these comments about me and my backpack. They were a little obnoxious and I was glad to be checking out as they were coming in. I think that three nights in one hostel is just a little over the amount of time that like staying in one place. The head lady at the hostel packed me a free bottle of water, two apples, and some cakes for the train ride. It was super nice and hospitable for her. So far, the majority of the Italians I have come across have been so nice and friendly. I really appreciated the free bottle of water because I have found it extremely hard to stay hydrated over here because water is so expensive and you cant drink the tap water.
As I was sitting in the train station waiting for my delayed train, I noticed that even though it was a nice 60 degrees out, everyone was still bundled up in their scarves and down coats. I brought this up to Claire later on and she said that once it reaches a certain date, it is wintertime for Italians and they dress accordingly no matter what the weather is. I thought this was so funny and then realized that I probably look like a total foreigner every time I strip layers on the train when I get over heated. Its just something in their culture to keep bundled up after a certain date.
I took an intercity train from Rome to Torino. This meant that it was not a high speed train so it stopped more often and took longer to get to Torino, but it cost less to reserve a seat on this type of train and it was a direct route so I didn’t have to make a connection in Milan. The train was pretty crowded and the cabin I was assigned to was full. A concern of mine about traveling by myself was that I wouldn’t be able to get my pack up on the storage racks above the seats on trains. I was very proud of myself because I was able to successfully throw my pack up on the rack without too much trouble or knocking someone over. This train went up the western coastline of Italy, through Pisa, Cinque Terra (which gave me a sneak peak of what is to come in a few days), and then turned north towards Torino. As we went through all of these places, I noticed that it was a pretty ugly day all over Italy. I ended up having about 10 hours of traveling time total form leaving to the Hostel to getting to Claire’s. I spent most of the time on the train sleeping, then I read some, listened to music and enjoyed my snacks. Even though I couldn’t understand them and they didn’t speak any English, the people I was sharing the cabin with were extremely pleasant. Every time I went to take my coat on and off (due to my over heating problems) the woman sitting next to me would help me get my arms into the sleeves, which was nice of her to do in the cramped quarters. Going through tunnels in trains drives me batty because it seriously messes with my ears. We went through a lot of times so I kept on having to clear my ears. Im sure my fellow cabin mates thought I was a lunatic sitting there holding my nose and breathing out hard.
I successfully took the buses to Claire’s house just a little before everyone returned home. Claire was at a birthday party with Giacomo, so everyone arrived at the same time. I had just enough time to get unpacked, organized, regrouped, and changed for the night. The plans for the night were to go out with Susan’s colleagues, who are more like her good friends, because it was one guy from the group’s, who moved back to the States, last night in town. We went to a restaurant that was known for its Naples style pizza. Apparently Naples has the best pizza in Italy. I ordered a porcini mushroom pizza that also had four cheese on it and it was literally to die for. Claire and I swapped pieces so that we could try more types. She ordered a white pizza with grilled veggies on it, which was also very good. We had wine, coffee, limoncello, and tiramisu to finish the dinner off. The tiramisu blew all of the other tiramisu I have had so far in Italy out of the water. It is really becoming one of my favorite desserts.
One thing I learned from tonight is that Italians are very funny in the way that they take forever to do an outing. They gather outside before the meal talking for about an hour, then when the meal is over they gather again outside saying goodbye for about an hour. After dinner we walked around the city and eventually found a very cool bar to hang out in for a while. During our walk we passed the location of the Shrowd of Turin, which is apparently is the shroud of Jesus. It is only open to public viewing once ever 20 years or something like that and when it is, many people make the religious pilgrimage to come and see it. We had about three rounds of drinks (I ordered the Chimay Belgian beer) and just enjoyed everyone’s company. I really had a good time listening to all of the Italians talk and converse with they good friends, highly entertaining with all of the hand motions and passion and giving each other a hard time. Susan’s one friend, Pino, happened to sit next to Claire and I for most of the night. He was a very interesting individual and I very much enjoyed our conversations. He convinced me that Sicily is a wonderful place and as a result it has been bumped up in “my next vacation” list. A huge plus he told me about Sicily is that the prime time to visit is January because that is when spring starts and all the flowers are blooming, which is said was a truly breathtaking sight.
We got back home around 3 and then Claire and I stayed up chatting until about 4. With the kids being young and liking to get up early, I knew the morning would come soon. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. It was a good night.
Last night a crazy storm raged. You could hear the wind and waves roaring. Katherine left early in the morning to catch her flight. My plans for the day included taking a train back to Torino to meet up with Claire. I got up shortly after she left, which was earlier than I thought I would need to get up, but it ended up being a good thing that I allotted myself more time. It took more time than I excepted to get to the main train station, but when I did get there, I realized that my train was delayed so everything worked out. I have come to find out that Italian trains are usual on the late side. As I was checking out of the hostel about 40 Mexicans checked in and were making all of these comments about me and my backpack. They were a little obnoxious and I was glad to be checking out as they were coming in. I think that three nights in one hostel is just a little over the amount of time that like staying in one place. The head lady at the hostel packed me a free bottle of water, two apples, and some cakes for the train ride. It was super nice and hospitable for her. So far, the majority of the Italians I have come across have been so nice and friendly. I really appreciated the free bottle of water because I have found it extremely hard to stay hydrated over here because water is so expensive and you cant drink the tap water.
As I was sitting in the train station waiting for my delayed train, I noticed that even though it was a nice 60 degrees out, everyone was still bundled up in their scarves and down coats. I brought this up to Claire later on and she said that once it reaches a certain date, it is wintertime for Italians and they dress accordingly no matter what the weather is. I thought this was so funny and then realized that I probably look like a total foreigner every time I strip layers on the train when I get over heated. Its just something in their culture to keep bundled up after a certain date.
I took an intercity train from Rome to Torino. This meant that it was not a high speed train so it stopped more often and took longer to get to Torino, but it cost less to reserve a seat on this type of train and it was a direct route so I didn’t have to make a connection in Milan. The train was pretty crowded and the cabin I was assigned to was full. A concern of mine about traveling by myself was that I wouldn’t be able to get my pack up on the storage racks above the seats on trains. I was very proud of myself because I was able to successfully throw my pack up on the rack without too much trouble or knocking someone over. This train went up the western coastline of Italy, through Pisa, Cinque Terra (which gave me a sneak peak of what is to come in a few days), and then turned north towards Torino. As we went through all of these places, I noticed that it was a pretty ugly day all over Italy. I ended up having about 10 hours of traveling time total form leaving to the Hostel to getting to Claire’s. I spent most of the time on the train sleeping, then I read some, listened to music and enjoyed my snacks. Even though I couldn’t understand them and they didn’t speak any English, the people I was sharing the cabin with were extremely pleasant. Every time I went to take my coat on and off (due to my over heating problems) the woman sitting next to me would help me get my arms into the sleeves, which was nice of her to do in the cramped quarters. Going through tunnels in trains drives me batty because it seriously messes with my ears. We went through a lot of times so I kept on having to clear my ears. Im sure my fellow cabin mates thought I was a lunatic sitting there holding my nose and breathing out hard.
I successfully took the buses to Claire’s house just a little before everyone returned home. Claire was at a birthday party with Giacomo, so everyone arrived at the same time. I had just enough time to get unpacked, organized, regrouped, and changed for the night. The plans for the night were to go out with Susan’s colleagues, who are more like her good friends, because it was one guy from the group’s, who moved back to the States, last night in town. We went to a restaurant that was known for its Naples style pizza. Apparently Naples has the best pizza in Italy. I ordered a porcini mushroom pizza that also had four cheese on it and it was literally to die for. Claire and I swapped pieces so that we could try more types. She ordered a white pizza with grilled veggies on it, which was also very good. We had wine, coffee, limoncello, and tiramisu to finish the dinner off. The tiramisu blew all of the other tiramisu I have had so far in Italy out of the water. It is really becoming one of my favorite desserts.
One thing I learned from tonight is that Italians are very funny in the way that they take forever to do an outing. They gather outside before the meal talking for about an hour, then when the meal is over they gather again outside saying goodbye for about an hour. After dinner we walked around the city and eventually found a very cool bar to hang out in for a while. During our walk we passed the location of the Shrowd of Turin, which is apparently is the shroud of Jesus. It is only open to public viewing once ever 20 years or something like that and when it is, many people make the religious pilgrimage to come and see it. We had about three rounds of drinks (I ordered the Chimay Belgian beer) and just enjoyed everyone’s company. I really had a good time listening to all of the Italians talk and converse with they good friends, highly entertaining with all of the hand motions and passion and giving each other a hard time. Susan’s one friend, Pino, happened to sit next to Claire and I for most of the night. He was a very interesting individual and I very much enjoyed our conversations. He convinced me that Sicily is a wonderful place and as a result it has been bumped up in “my next vacation” list. A huge plus he told me about Sicily is that the prime time to visit is January because that is when spring starts and all the flowers are blooming, which is said was a truly breathtaking sight.
We got back home around 3 and then Claire and I stayed up chatting until about 4. With the kids being young and liking to get up early, I knew the morning would come soon. As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. It was a good night.
Friday, October 23, 2009
A Funny Thing Happened on The Way to Forum
10/22/2009
As beautiful of a day yesterday was as ugly of a day today was. We woke up to a drizzly, rainy weather that only got worse as the morning went on. This was a huge bummer since it was Katherine and my last day of sightseeing together. Really we have been moderately lucky with weather on this trip. Just a few bad days here and there, which is not bad for a whole month. The hostel we are staying at has ended up being middle of the road. The perks of it is that it is right on a beach, it has a great breakfast, and there is a kinda room service cleaning deal that happens. The negatives of it is that is does take a pretty long time to get in and out of the city and the walls are really thick so the wireless is super terrible, also in the stormy weather the rain leaked into our room a little bit.
Our first stop on our agenda for the day was back to the Vatican to go see St. Peter’s Basilica. We were unaware that it was free to go into yesterday when we were touring the Sistine Chapel, which was not free, and heard that it was really worth seeing. We took the subway to the Vatican this time, which made a little more sense to me and my sense of direction and made me feel a little more confident. We had to go through metal detectors in order to get in and they were not allowing pocketknives. There was a trashcan right by the metal detectors that had a ton of pocketknives in it. I was luckily able to sneak mine past the security person, which shows what a good job they are doing. I was really glad that we did go back to the Vatican to see this church because it really was something, also I don’t think we had gone in one church, cathedral, or basilica all trip. Normally I feel like they are something that once you have seen one you have seen them all, but St. Peters was absolutely beautiful. When we first walked into the Basilica there was a choir singing that really did sound angelic. I just settled myself up against a giant marble column and admired the magnificent, detailed, ornate decorations.
When we left St. Peters, it was pouring down rain. At this point I realized that my rain jacket has lost the majority of its waterproofing and the rain was going through my jacket and making my shirt damp. Luckily I had my umbrella and used it for the second time this trip. It is proving to be worth the trouble of carrying it along on this trip. Yesterday we had bought 24 hour metro tickets. We learned the hard way that 24 hours really doesn’t mean 24 hours, just a simple day pass that cuts off at 12. So today we decided we would just buy two one way tickets to get in and out of the city and then move about the city by either walking or hopping on busses, which nobody ever pays for. So we hopped on a bus to get out of the pouring rain and go to the Coliseum.
By the time we got to the Coliseum, the weather was miserable. Since it is just ruins, which you can see from the pictures on the post card, and we didn’t want to take advantage of the free access to Palantino Hill due to the rain, we decided to forget about paying to get into the monument and just admire it from a far and under some shelter. At this point we had also been texting Sara, Patricia’s daughter, about meeting up. The plan was to meet at 2 at the Coliseum metro station. This worked well for us because we were pretty much already there, so we killed 45 minutes hanging out in the front entranceway of the Coliseum metro station. As we were waiting for 2, I was looking at post cards. The majority of the cards with ruins on them show pictures of cats in the ruins. I noticed this also, there are a lot of cats hanging out in the ruins. This just tickles me.
We met up with Sara and went in search of a place where we could get a drink or something to eat and get out of the rain. After our experience at the “snack bar” yesterday, those were out of the running for acceptable places to stop and eventually settled on a pastria (I am totally butchering the spelling of that). Pastrias, which sell delicious baked goods, drinks, in addition to regular food, are money and cheaper than most of the other ristorantes that we passed and extremely delicious. We had a very pleasant time chatting with Sara. She is currently looking for work as an actress in Rome. She does to cinema, but prefers theater and was trained in London, where she is considering going back to soon if things don’t work out in Rome. Once we sat down, Katherine and I both became famished and both ordered four cheese gnocchi, which ended up being incredible. For dessert we topped it off with two deserts. I got one cream filled puff and another chocolate pudding like filled puff, both were to die for, but the last puff just about set me over the line.
Sara told us about a film festival that is currently going on in Rome and a good film, which was in English, and playing at five. The theater ended up being a bit of a walk down the main shopping street, but since the rain had cleared up we decided to go for it. It was a nice walk for window-shopping. There were some big names on the street, which was cool to look into. On the walk, I noticed that you never see euro coins dropped on the street. I wish that was not the case. The movie was called Skellig, featured Tim Roth, and was based off a book. It was a little bit of a children’s movie, but still extremely enjoyable and cute. There were a couple of moments I got some good goose bumps going on. I was very glad we spent the afternoon doing the things we did because how often did can you say that you hung out with an actress in Rome and then went to see a feature in a film festival.
Since it was Katherine’s last night in Italy and in Europe, we had decided that we would do a really big, nice, good final dinner. The first time we asked the main desk for a recommendation on a good restaurant around the hostel they pointed us to a restaurant that ended up being called “Eat and Go”. Needless to say, I deemed them a completely unacceptable source of restaurant information. So I emailed my friend Wheeler, who studied abroad in Rome one summer, to see if he had any suggestions. He did and was able to give me the coordinates of the restaurant, which I could then find on a map. The restaurant was actually located right near where we had lunch with Sara, so we walked back down the fashion street and headed towards Ristorante Mario’s.
Talk about a hidden treasure! Mario’s was fantastic. Katherine kept saying that she felt like she should write Wheeler a thank you note. It was really that good. Mario’s was this cute little place tucked back behind the Roman Forum. Our waiter was great and loved waiting on us. He knew English pretty well so we could converse with him. I think it is so funny how much national pride Italians have. Our waiter just loved being Italian and also told us that he goes to Texas to buy his winter jackets because around March, with the sales, he can get them for 70% off. Since it never gets cold in Texas a lot of people don’t buy the jackets unless they are going somewhere cold, the stores still sell them, and there are a lot of choices left for the sale. I might have to try that. For dinner, Katherine and I went back to our old ways of splitting (but this time done up big) and shared an antipasti platter that consisted of procuitto, coppa, tomato, mozzarella, basil, melon. We also ordered Parmesan to add to that. Then we had some bruscetta that was literally some of the best bruscetta I have had in Italy. The restaurant that I worked in in Colorado had some phenomenal bruscetta that I still haven’t been able to find anything over here that compares to it, but Mario’s was close. This is probably because Via’s bruscetta was loaded with garlic and I really haven’t had that much garlic over here yet, which is a huge bummer for my love affair with garlic. Then we split one fantastic lasagna and a side of spinach, which our waiter got made for us special. For dessert, I had tiramisu (which is creeping up to a favorite of mine) and Katherine had a white truffle ice cream deal. We both had a half-liter of wine. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and on top of all the greatness mentioned above, it was probably the cheapest best quality food that we have come across while eating out.
After making the trek back to our hostel, Katherine get everything ready to get up and go to the airport in the morning. She left me with the phone in case of emergencies and her watch, since mine has been broken forever, in addition to a few other odds and ends. We could here the weather start to pick up again as we said goodnight for the last time.
As beautiful of a day yesterday was as ugly of a day today was. We woke up to a drizzly, rainy weather that only got worse as the morning went on. This was a huge bummer since it was Katherine and my last day of sightseeing together. Really we have been moderately lucky with weather on this trip. Just a few bad days here and there, which is not bad for a whole month. The hostel we are staying at has ended up being middle of the road. The perks of it is that it is right on a beach, it has a great breakfast, and there is a kinda room service cleaning deal that happens. The negatives of it is that is does take a pretty long time to get in and out of the city and the walls are really thick so the wireless is super terrible, also in the stormy weather the rain leaked into our room a little bit.
Our first stop on our agenda for the day was back to the Vatican to go see St. Peter’s Basilica. We were unaware that it was free to go into yesterday when we were touring the Sistine Chapel, which was not free, and heard that it was really worth seeing. We took the subway to the Vatican this time, which made a little more sense to me and my sense of direction and made me feel a little more confident. We had to go through metal detectors in order to get in and they were not allowing pocketknives. There was a trashcan right by the metal detectors that had a ton of pocketknives in it. I was luckily able to sneak mine past the security person, which shows what a good job they are doing. I was really glad that we did go back to the Vatican to see this church because it really was something, also I don’t think we had gone in one church, cathedral, or basilica all trip. Normally I feel like they are something that once you have seen one you have seen them all, but St. Peters was absolutely beautiful. When we first walked into the Basilica there was a choir singing that really did sound angelic. I just settled myself up against a giant marble column and admired the magnificent, detailed, ornate decorations.
When we left St. Peters, it was pouring down rain. At this point I realized that my rain jacket has lost the majority of its waterproofing and the rain was going through my jacket and making my shirt damp. Luckily I had my umbrella and used it for the second time this trip. It is proving to be worth the trouble of carrying it along on this trip. Yesterday we had bought 24 hour metro tickets. We learned the hard way that 24 hours really doesn’t mean 24 hours, just a simple day pass that cuts off at 12. So today we decided we would just buy two one way tickets to get in and out of the city and then move about the city by either walking or hopping on busses, which nobody ever pays for. So we hopped on a bus to get out of the pouring rain and go to the Coliseum.
By the time we got to the Coliseum, the weather was miserable. Since it is just ruins, which you can see from the pictures on the post card, and we didn’t want to take advantage of the free access to Palantino Hill due to the rain, we decided to forget about paying to get into the monument and just admire it from a far and under some shelter. At this point we had also been texting Sara, Patricia’s daughter, about meeting up. The plan was to meet at 2 at the Coliseum metro station. This worked well for us because we were pretty much already there, so we killed 45 minutes hanging out in the front entranceway of the Coliseum metro station. As we were waiting for 2, I was looking at post cards. The majority of the cards with ruins on them show pictures of cats in the ruins. I noticed this also, there are a lot of cats hanging out in the ruins. This just tickles me.
We met up with Sara and went in search of a place where we could get a drink or something to eat and get out of the rain. After our experience at the “snack bar” yesterday, those were out of the running for acceptable places to stop and eventually settled on a pastria (I am totally butchering the spelling of that). Pastrias, which sell delicious baked goods, drinks, in addition to regular food, are money and cheaper than most of the other ristorantes that we passed and extremely delicious. We had a very pleasant time chatting with Sara. She is currently looking for work as an actress in Rome. She does to cinema, but prefers theater and was trained in London, where she is considering going back to soon if things don’t work out in Rome. Once we sat down, Katherine and I both became famished and both ordered four cheese gnocchi, which ended up being incredible. For dessert we topped it off with two deserts. I got one cream filled puff and another chocolate pudding like filled puff, both were to die for, but the last puff just about set me over the line.
Sara told us about a film festival that is currently going on in Rome and a good film, which was in English, and playing at five. The theater ended up being a bit of a walk down the main shopping street, but since the rain had cleared up we decided to go for it. It was a nice walk for window-shopping. There were some big names on the street, which was cool to look into. On the walk, I noticed that you never see euro coins dropped on the street. I wish that was not the case. The movie was called Skellig, featured Tim Roth, and was based off a book. It was a little bit of a children’s movie, but still extremely enjoyable and cute. There were a couple of moments I got some good goose bumps going on. I was very glad we spent the afternoon doing the things we did because how often did can you say that you hung out with an actress in Rome and then went to see a feature in a film festival.
Since it was Katherine’s last night in Italy and in Europe, we had decided that we would do a really big, nice, good final dinner. The first time we asked the main desk for a recommendation on a good restaurant around the hostel they pointed us to a restaurant that ended up being called “Eat and Go”. Needless to say, I deemed them a completely unacceptable source of restaurant information. So I emailed my friend Wheeler, who studied abroad in Rome one summer, to see if he had any suggestions. He did and was able to give me the coordinates of the restaurant, which I could then find on a map. The restaurant was actually located right near where we had lunch with Sara, so we walked back down the fashion street and headed towards Ristorante Mario’s.
Talk about a hidden treasure! Mario’s was fantastic. Katherine kept saying that she felt like she should write Wheeler a thank you note. It was really that good. Mario’s was this cute little place tucked back behind the Roman Forum. Our waiter was great and loved waiting on us. He knew English pretty well so we could converse with him. I think it is so funny how much national pride Italians have. Our waiter just loved being Italian and also told us that he goes to Texas to buy his winter jackets because around March, with the sales, he can get them for 70% off. Since it never gets cold in Texas a lot of people don’t buy the jackets unless they are going somewhere cold, the stores still sell them, and there are a lot of choices left for the sale. I might have to try that. For dinner, Katherine and I went back to our old ways of splitting (but this time done up big) and shared an antipasti platter that consisted of procuitto, coppa, tomato, mozzarella, basil, melon. We also ordered Parmesan to add to that. Then we had some bruscetta that was literally some of the best bruscetta I have had in Italy. The restaurant that I worked in in Colorado had some phenomenal bruscetta that I still haven’t been able to find anything over here that compares to it, but Mario’s was close. This is probably because Via’s bruscetta was loaded with garlic and I really haven’t had that much garlic over here yet, which is a huge bummer for my love affair with garlic. Then we split one fantastic lasagna and a side of spinach, which our waiter got made for us special. For dessert, I had tiramisu (which is creeping up to a favorite of mine) and Katherine had a white truffle ice cream deal. We both had a half-liter of wine. It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and on top of all the greatness mentioned above, it was probably the cheapest best quality food that we have come across while eating out.
After making the trek back to our hostel, Katherine get everything ready to get up and go to the airport in the morning. She left me with the phone in case of emergencies and her watch, since mine has been broken forever, in addition to a few other odds and ends. We could here the weather start to pick up again as we said goodnight for the last time.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Roma Tomato
10/21/2009
Today we have been traveling for exactly one month. I am surprising not tired of traveling. I like being on the go and seeing everything. I really like Italy a lot too and am extremely enjoying being here. We were planning on getting up super early and doing two tours today, one in the morning of the Coliseum and Roman Forum and one in the afternoon of St. Peter’s basilica, the Vatican Museums, and the Sistine Chapel, but 6:45 rolled around and we decided to forget about the first tour. I was ok with that because I remembered not being too impressed with the Coliseum the first time I saw it. I just remember it being one of those things like yep there it is. We ended up sleeping till 9:15 and it was glorious. Even on my travels I still stay true to my sleeping habits and love of sleep. I feel pretty lucky that I am usually a sound sleeper and can pretty much sleep anywhere especially with the aid of my ipod and eye pillow.
Breakfast ended at 10, so once we got up we headed straight down to take advantage of the free breakfast. It was probably one of the best free breakfasts that I have come across. They had really fresh tasting delicious cereal and cold and must have been less than whole milk (Im guessing that because it didn’t taste like barn to me). In addition to that, they had a cappuccino bar, delicious pastries, and fruit. There were even things that we could grab to bring along with us for snacks during the day. Then we went back upstairs to take showers. Unfortunately a con of this hostel is that the shower does not drain well at all. At one point I had to turn the water off in the middle of my shower and let the bottom drain a bit because it was over flowing out of the shower and onto the bathroom floor. There is just something about standing in your own bath water while you take a shower that still makes you feel dirty. We headed out to take the train into the city a little after 11. It was a beautiful day and much warmer than the last week had been.
We were going to the Vatican City to meet up with the afternoon tour. We had a little bit of difficulty getting to the Vatican using the buses, but eventually made it. A nice man on the bus finally assured me we were going the right way and told me where exactly to get off. When we arrived at the tour meeting location there were only two Irish guys standing there holding up an umbrella that indicated that they were the guys we were looking for. Apparently their job was just to collect the money. The tour guide had not arrived yet. Katherine did not think that this situation looked legit at all, so we opted forego the tour and go through the Vatican Museum and see the Sistine Chapel on our own. It cost 8 euro to get in. While it would have been cool to hear some history stories on the tour, it was also nice to move through at our own pace. Religious art really does not get me that excited at all. It was neat to see the mosaics and detailed artwork but I feel like after a while everything starts to look the same. Also the Vatican Museums are gigantic and it took forever, going through tons of different rooms and galleries, to finally see the Sistine Chapel. We were lucky enough to find a place to sit in the Sistine Chapel so that we could admire it sitting down after walking miles through the museum to get to it. It really is a pretty amazing feat for Michelangelo, but after about 10 minutes we were ready to carry on.
Once we got out of the maze of the Vatican Museum, we decided it was time to dig into our snacks that we had brought from the hostel. They consisted of packets of the already toasted break and jelly. Half way through eating it, I decided that while this might have been acceptable in Munich, in Italy it just wasn’t cutting it. There was a gelateria behind us, so we gave the pigeons the rest of our toast and went to get some gelato. The area surrounding the Vatican does not look like how one would picture Rome and we were a bit let down by it being our first viewing of the city. We decided next to head to the Pantheon and were pleasantly surprised by the change of scenery. Over by the Pantheon was more like what we had pictured Rome to be.
We spent most of the day walking around Rome and seeing the sites. We saw the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon (as I just said), Piazza Navaro (which is supposedly a happening place for night life, but during the day it had a lot of street vendors selling art work set up), Camp di Fiori (which is an outdoor food market, but had just closed by the time we got there and they were washing away the traces of the food on the ground), the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps. Rome is a good walking city.
While we were walking, I found myself looking at a familiar backpack. It was the kids from Georgia, who we sat with at the Wine Tasting in Florence. I yelled “Hey Georgia” and they turned around. They were staying in the Rome Famous Hostel and said that it was by far the worst Famous Hostel that they had stayed in, so that is a plus for our far out of the city hostel. They also showed us some stuff on the map that we couldn’t find and other hostels close to the train station for my future information when Im back in Rome waiting to meet my mom. Scott had said that he had rerun into people that he had met in his travels, but it was still a pretty crazy situation to actually have it happen to you… small world again.
I noticed throughout the day that Rome is a very religious city. There were religious people like priests, monks, and nuns walking everywhere. We walked down a street that had a bunch of shops on it selling pope outfits. I thought this would be a great Halloween costume, maybe a little sacrilegious, but pretty funny in how authentic it would be. At one point we realized that we were right in front of the Roman Religious College. Patricia had told us that Indian people dominate the flower market. They walk around with roses and if you hold one they make you pay for it. I noticed that this was blatantly true in Rome. Also there were Asian people everywhere. Before Rome, I had hardly seen an Asian people at all.
We stopped at a “snack bar” for a bite to eat around five. If you see a snack bar in Italy do not stop in it because they are extremely overpriced. Katherine and I split a cheese and proscuitto pizza that actually turned out to be pretty good, but they charged us 3.50 for a small bottle of water. I asked how much a quarter liter of wine would be and they told me I could either get a glass for 6 euro or a half bottle for 10. Yea right, my quarter liter of wine at dinner last night was 1.50.
Earlier in the day we called Patricia’s daughter Sara, who is looking for work as an actress in Rome. Patricia gave us her number and said it would be neat to meet up with Sara if only for a drink. Sara told us that her day was pretty busy, but she would give us a call later on in the night. Unfortunately our phone’s battery died so we never caught up with her. Well try her again tomorrow and see if we can work something out. If not its no big deal, but I still think it would be cool to talk to a working person in Rome.
My mom sent me an email saying that so far we are the only two people signed up for the cooking school. Hopefully that wont mean that they will cancel it. I have a feeling that this cooking school might also double as a working farm that Patricia was telling me about. I gathered that a working farm means that the property gets to claim some extra benefits if they can also make some profit another way, actually Im not really sure and will be interested if I can figure out if it is one or not and what it actually is. Any who, cooking with others would be cool and cooking with just the two of us will also be cool. The possibility of having a little more of a personal spin to the experience is exciting, but if that is not the case, I will be excited to meet new people.
Im pretty excited to meet some new people on the second part of my travels alone. Since I will be by myself, I will probably be much more aggressive with talking to others because I will have been with my own thoughts all day. We all know its not that good of an idea to be inside your own head for too long. The girl in our room at our hostel told me a cool thing that she is doing. She sends herself a post card from every location that she goes to. That way she gets a really good picture of something famous from that location and a postage stamp from the location. I thought that was a really good idea and wished I had done that from the beginning. Oh well there is always next trip.
Tonight they are showing Little Miss Sunshine at the hostel. That is not my favorite movie so I might wander somewhere and get some wine. Tomorrow is Katherine and my last day of sightseeing together.
Today we have been traveling for exactly one month. I am surprising not tired of traveling. I like being on the go and seeing everything. I really like Italy a lot too and am extremely enjoying being here. We were planning on getting up super early and doing two tours today, one in the morning of the Coliseum and Roman Forum and one in the afternoon of St. Peter’s basilica, the Vatican Museums, and the Sistine Chapel, but 6:45 rolled around and we decided to forget about the first tour. I was ok with that because I remembered not being too impressed with the Coliseum the first time I saw it. I just remember it being one of those things like yep there it is. We ended up sleeping till 9:15 and it was glorious. Even on my travels I still stay true to my sleeping habits and love of sleep. I feel pretty lucky that I am usually a sound sleeper and can pretty much sleep anywhere especially with the aid of my ipod and eye pillow.
Breakfast ended at 10, so once we got up we headed straight down to take advantage of the free breakfast. It was probably one of the best free breakfasts that I have come across. They had really fresh tasting delicious cereal and cold and must have been less than whole milk (Im guessing that because it didn’t taste like barn to me). In addition to that, they had a cappuccino bar, delicious pastries, and fruit. There were even things that we could grab to bring along with us for snacks during the day. Then we went back upstairs to take showers. Unfortunately a con of this hostel is that the shower does not drain well at all. At one point I had to turn the water off in the middle of my shower and let the bottom drain a bit because it was over flowing out of the shower and onto the bathroom floor. There is just something about standing in your own bath water while you take a shower that still makes you feel dirty. We headed out to take the train into the city a little after 11. It was a beautiful day and much warmer than the last week had been.
We were going to the Vatican City to meet up with the afternoon tour. We had a little bit of difficulty getting to the Vatican using the buses, but eventually made it. A nice man on the bus finally assured me we were going the right way and told me where exactly to get off. When we arrived at the tour meeting location there were only two Irish guys standing there holding up an umbrella that indicated that they were the guys we were looking for. Apparently their job was just to collect the money. The tour guide had not arrived yet. Katherine did not think that this situation looked legit at all, so we opted forego the tour and go through the Vatican Museum and see the Sistine Chapel on our own. It cost 8 euro to get in. While it would have been cool to hear some history stories on the tour, it was also nice to move through at our own pace. Religious art really does not get me that excited at all. It was neat to see the mosaics and detailed artwork but I feel like after a while everything starts to look the same. Also the Vatican Museums are gigantic and it took forever, going through tons of different rooms and galleries, to finally see the Sistine Chapel. We were lucky enough to find a place to sit in the Sistine Chapel so that we could admire it sitting down after walking miles through the museum to get to it. It really is a pretty amazing feat for Michelangelo, but after about 10 minutes we were ready to carry on.
Once we got out of the maze of the Vatican Museum, we decided it was time to dig into our snacks that we had brought from the hostel. They consisted of packets of the already toasted break and jelly. Half way through eating it, I decided that while this might have been acceptable in Munich, in Italy it just wasn’t cutting it. There was a gelateria behind us, so we gave the pigeons the rest of our toast and went to get some gelato. The area surrounding the Vatican does not look like how one would picture Rome and we were a bit let down by it being our first viewing of the city. We decided next to head to the Pantheon and were pleasantly surprised by the change of scenery. Over by the Pantheon was more like what we had pictured Rome to be.
We spent most of the day walking around Rome and seeing the sites. We saw the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, the Pantheon (as I just said), Piazza Navaro (which is supposedly a happening place for night life, but during the day it had a lot of street vendors selling art work set up), Camp di Fiori (which is an outdoor food market, but had just closed by the time we got there and they were washing away the traces of the food on the ground), the Trevi Fountain, and the Spanish Steps. Rome is a good walking city.
While we were walking, I found myself looking at a familiar backpack. It was the kids from Georgia, who we sat with at the Wine Tasting in Florence. I yelled “Hey Georgia” and they turned around. They were staying in the Rome Famous Hostel and said that it was by far the worst Famous Hostel that they had stayed in, so that is a plus for our far out of the city hostel. They also showed us some stuff on the map that we couldn’t find and other hostels close to the train station for my future information when Im back in Rome waiting to meet my mom. Scott had said that he had rerun into people that he had met in his travels, but it was still a pretty crazy situation to actually have it happen to you… small world again.
I noticed throughout the day that Rome is a very religious city. There were religious people like priests, monks, and nuns walking everywhere. We walked down a street that had a bunch of shops on it selling pope outfits. I thought this would be a great Halloween costume, maybe a little sacrilegious, but pretty funny in how authentic it would be. At one point we realized that we were right in front of the Roman Religious College. Patricia had told us that Indian people dominate the flower market. They walk around with roses and if you hold one they make you pay for it. I noticed that this was blatantly true in Rome. Also there were Asian people everywhere. Before Rome, I had hardly seen an Asian people at all.
We stopped at a “snack bar” for a bite to eat around five. If you see a snack bar in Italy do not stop in it because they are extremely overpriced. Katherine and I split a cheese and proscuitto pizza that actually turned out to be pretty good, but they charged us 3.50 for a small bottle of water. I asked how much a quarter liter of wine would be and they told me I could either get a glass for 6 euro or a half bottle for 10. Yea right, my quarter liter of wine at dinner last night was 1.50.
Earlier in the day we called Patricia’s daughter Sara, who is looking for work as an actress in Rome. Patricia gave us her number and said it would be neat to meet up with Sara if only for a drink. Sara told us that her day was pretty busy, but she would give us a call later on in the night. Unfortunately our phone’s battery died so we never caught up with her. Well try her again tomorrow and see if we can work something out. If not its no big deal, but I still think it would be cool to talk to a working person in Rome.
My mom sent me an email saying that so far we are the only two people signed up for the cooking school. Hopefully that wont mean that they will cancel it. I have a feeling that this cooking school might also double as a working farm that Patricia was telling me about. I gathered that a working farm means that the property gets to claim some extra benefits if they can also make some profit another way, actually Im not really sure and will be interested if I can figure out if it is one or not and what it actually is. Any who, cooking with others would be cool and cooking with just the two of us will also be cool. The possibility of having a little more of a personal spin to the experience is exciting, but if that is not the case, I will be excited to meet new people.
Im pretty excited to meet some new people on the second part of my travels alone. Since I will be by myself, I will probably be much more aggressive with talking to others because I will have been with my own thoughts all day. We all know its not that good of an idea to be inside your own head for too long. The girl in our room at our hostel told me a cool thing that she is doing. She sends herself a post card from every location that she goes to. That way she gets a really good picture of something famous from that location and a postage stamp from the location. I thought that was a really good idea and wished I had done that from the beginning. Oh well there is always next trip.
Tonight they are showing Little Miss Sunshine at the hostel. That is not my favorite movie so I might wander somewhere and get some wine. Tomorrow is Katherine and my last day of sightseeing together.
Now we can finally say..."When in Rome..."
10/20/2009
Today we set the alarm for 8 and then said we were going to snooze till nine, but it was pretty loud in our dorm and we ended up getting up before the second alarm went off. We packed up our stuff, went downstairs, checked out and left our luggage in the luggage room while we walked around the city for the morning. We had plans to meet up with Tyler and Joe at a highly recommended restaurant called Mario’s at 12:30. Before we left the hostel, we both got a cute little cup of hot chocolate from a hot beverage vending machine. It was 60 cents and did the trick.
As we were walking around we came across the market that we found on Saturday night. Apparently it is a Tuesday/Saturday thing, maybe more day but I didn’t really look into it. We ended up looking at scarves. I was pretty proud of myself and my bargaining skills. I got three scarves for like 16.78. I used a trick that Scott and his buddies do. They just dig into their pocket and say that this is all they have and normally the vendors will accept it. We were originally looking for a food market that we had heard about, so we asked the vendor where it was. He told us to turn around and it was in a warehouse that we were standing right next to. This food market was by far the least impressive, but it still had free samples. I wanted to get a briosh for breakfast and when I went to pay for it with a 20 euro bill, they guy told me that he couldn’t break that and to just take the pastry for free. What luck I have been having with getting deals!
We continued walking. We looked into going to the top of the Duomo but it was very expensive. I figured I could get the same view for the Piazza de Michelangelo. As we were debating on the steps of the cathedral, we saw Scott and his buddies again with all of their packs and gear on their backs. I was glad that I was able to say a proper goodbye. They were heading towards Venice. Next we looked into the Uffizi gallery, but that also was very expensive. The only major thing that I would have liked to see in there that I heard of was the birth of Venus. If I really want to see it, I can always go back when Im in Florence with my mom. Next we headed over to the area where we walked by the art lady on Sunday. After much deliberating and talking with her, she also gave us some great deals on multiple pieces of art. We still had a little bit of time before we were supposed to meet up with Tyler, so we popped into a Café to warm up and have some hot drinks.
We walked over to find Mario’s and it literally is a hole in the wall kinda of place. The front door and window are collaged with write-ups of the restaurant praising it. There were some seriously prestigious sources too like Bon Appetite and Food and Wine Magazine. I was starting to get the idea that this is a world-renowned restaurant that I was about to eat in. Mario’s deal is that it is only open for lunch. There is normally a line out the door and you usually share tables because the little dining area is jammed packed. The menu changes daily, which you figure out because it is hand written on a piece of placemat paper on display outside and then the waiter comes and verbally tells you what is on the menu for the day. Also everything is amazing, so you really cant go wrong. They are well known for their reasonably priced and out of this world tasting humongous Florentine steak. Tyler said that you reiterated the fact that really cant go wrong with anything you order, but he also helped with advising us along the way. I ordered their bread soup for my first course and then the four of us split the Florentine steak. I have honestly never seen a steak this big in my entire life and it was delicious. Florentine people like to cook steak on the rare side, which I totally dig. Tyler says he thinks Florence has the best steaks in the world and I might have to agree with him after this experience.
After lunch, the four of us walked back to the hostel where we said our goodbyes and then Katherine and I picked up our packs and headed to the train station. We used the self-serve ticket reservation machines for the first time, which worked ok other than the fact that it reserved seats for us in very different cars. When we got on the train, we realized it was fully booked and we would have to sit in our assigned seats. I slept the entire 2-hour train ride to Rome. After looking at the directions to our hostel, we realized that getting there might be a little complicated and our hostel is definitely out of the main area of Rome. We had to take the metro, then a train, then a bus, and then walk a little to get to our hostel. The hostel happens to be located directly on a beach of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and really not near Rome although technically it is considered to be. I am hoping that this works out ok because we can just get up and go into the city for the day and come back to a nice, quiet, relaxing beach place. This hostel got great reviews, supposedly has a great breakfast, looks ok nice, and hopefully will be fine. It looked really good on paper when we were booking it. We shall find out. We are sharing a 4-bed girls dorm with one other girl from Canada, who is traveling by herself and seems nice enough. The room is ok and the internet access is below par, but oh well
We got in on the later side and unpacked. For dinner, we walked along the boardwalk and ended up at a place that’s name translated into Fried Green Tomatoes. You can only imagine how whack it was. I ended up getting bruschetta, a green salad that was literally only three types of lettuce, and focattia bread. It was not very satisfying, but my quarter liter of wine was cheaper than water and diet coke on the menu so that was cool. We got back to the hostel kinda late and they were showing the movie Crash, which we caught the last half of. I like that movie because if makes you think about how many people you can really impact in your life just by happenstance.
Tomorrow we will have a busy day touring Rome. At last we can finally say…”When in Rome…”
Today we set the alarm for 8 and then said we were going to snooze till nine, but it was pretty loud in our dorm and we ended up getting up before the second alarm went off. We packed up our stuff, went downstairs, checked out and left our luggage in the luggage room while we walked around the city for the morning. We had plans to meet up with Tyler and Joe at a highly recommended restaurant called Mario’s at 12:30. Before we left the hostel, we both got a cute little cup of hot chocolate from a hot beverage vending machine. It was 60 cents and did the trick.
As we were walking around we came across the market that we found on Saturday night. Apparently it is a Tuesday/Saturday thing, maybe more day but I didn’t really look into it. We ended up looking at scarves. I was pretty proud of myself and my bargaining skills. I got three scarves for like 16.78. I used a trick that Scott and his buddies do. They just dig into their pocket and say that this is all they have and normally the vendors will accept it. We were originally looking for a food market that we had heard about, so we asked the vendor where it was. He told us to turn around and it was in a warehouse that we were standing right next to. This food market was by far the least impressive, but it still had free samples. I wanted to get a briosh for breakfast and when I went to pay for it with a 20 euro bill, they guy told me that he couldn’t break that and to just take the pastry for free. What luck I have been having with getting deals!
We continued walking. We looked into going to the top of the Duomo but it was very expensive. I figured I could get the same view for the Piazza de Michelangelo. As we were debating on the steps of the cathedral, we saw Scott and his buddies again with all of their packs and gear on their backs. I was glad that I was able to say a proper goodbye. They were heading towards Venice. Next we looked into the Uffizi gallery, but that also was very expensive. The only major thing that I would have liked to see in there that I heard of was the birth of Venus. If I really want to see it, I can always go back when Im in Florence with my mom. Next we headed over to the area where we walked by the art lady on Sunday. After much deliberating and talking with her, she also gave us some great deals on multiple pieces of art. We still had a little bit of time before we were supposed to meet up with Tyler, so we popped into a Café to warm up and have some hot drinks.
We walked over to find Mario’s and it literally is a hole in the wall kinda of place. The front door and window are collaged with write-ups of the restaurant praising it. There were some seriously prestigious sources too like Bon Appetite and Food and Wine Magazine. I was starting to get the idea that this is a world-renowned restaurant that I was about to eat in. Mario’s deal is that it is only open for lunch. There is normally a line out the door and you usually share tables because the little dining area is jammed packed. The menu changes daily, which you figure out because it is hand written on a piece of placemat paper on display outside and then the waiter comes and verbally tells you what is on the menu for the day. Also everything is amazing, so you really cant go wrong. They are well known for their reasonably priced and out of this world tasting humongous Florentine steak. Tyler said that you reiterated the fact that really cant go wrong with anything you order, but he also helped with advising us along the way. I ordered their bread soup for my first course and then the four of us split the Florentine steak. I have honestly never seen a steak this big in my entire life and it was delicious. Florentine people like to cook steak on the rare side, which I totally dig. Tyler says he thinks Florence has the best steaks in the world and I might have to agree with him after this experience.
After lunch, the four of us walked back to the hostel where we said our goodbyes and then Katherine and I picked up our packs and headed to the train station. We used the self-serve ticket reservation machines for the first time, which worked ok other than the fact that it reserved seats for us in very different cars. When we got on the train, we realized it was fully booked and we would have to sit in our assigned seats. I slept the entire 2-hour train ride to Rome. After looking at the directions to our hostel, we realized that getting there might be a little complicated and our hostel is definitely out of the main area of Rome. We had to take the metro, then a train, then a bus, and then walk a little to get to our hostel. The hostel happens to be located directly on a beach of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and really not near Rome although technically it is considered to be. I am hoping that this works out ok because we can just get up and go into the city for the day and come back to a nice, quiet, relaxing beach place. This hostel got great reviews, supposedly has a great breakfast, looks ok nice, and hopefully will be fine. It looked really good on paper when we were booking it. We shall find out. We are sharing a 4-bed girls dorm with one other girl from Canada, who is traveling by herself and seems nice enough. The room is ok and the internet access is below par, but oh well
We got in on the later side and unpacked. For dinner, we walked along the boardwalk and ended up at a place that’s name translated into Fried Green Tomatoes. You can only imagine how whack it was. I ended up getting bruschetta, a green salad that was literally only three types of lettuce, and focattia bread. It was not very satisfying, but my quarter liter of wine was cheaper than water and diet coke on the menu so that was cool. We got back to the hostel kinda late and they were showing the movie Crash, which we caught the last half of. I like that movie because if makes you think about how many people you can really impact in your life just by happenstance.
Tomorrow we will have a busy day touring Rome. At last we can finally say…”When in Rome…”
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Tuscan Countryside
10/19/2009
Today Claire headed back to Torino so Katherine and I had to move out of our three bed private room (because we would have had to pay for the empty bed if we wanted to stay, so we would have divided the room by two instead of three) and into an 8 bed mixed dorm. We all checked out in the morning and Katherine and I left our packs in the luggage room until we could check back in later on in the afternoon.
For our daily plans, Katherine and I had lined ourselves to go on a wine tour through the Tuscan countryside. It only cost 35 euro and included a wine tasting, tour of a vineyard, lunch, and ride accommodations. It ended up being quite the deal. We said goodbye to Claire, who was catching her train later on in the morning and got in line to go on the tour.
Our tour guide, Paul, also worked at the hostel as an information man. Katherine had a run in with him the day before and was originally not excited about going on this tour with him. We had to walk a ways to get to the bus, which was a little confusing, but once we were on the bus it was very obvious that Paul was an excellent tour guide. He was an Australian living in Florence studying food and wine (with those facts alone, I already had a major crush on him). He was charismatic and informative the entire tour. His parents were in town visiting him so they were also on the tour with us, which was precious. I learned quite a bit on this tour.
Our first stop was a wine tasting at a vineyard. There were long tables for everyone to sit at and we had this wonderful stout woman telling us about the wines we were tasting, how to taste the wine, etc. Katherine and I sat next to a couple that was essentially doing the same thing we were because they are in the some life position that we are in. They were fun to talk to. Being from Atlanta, they figured out that it was cheaper for them to take a 12-day cruise back to the states after their European travels than to fly back. What a way to end a backpacking trip! We tried four wines in addition to 30 year old balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and truffle oil. I could probably eat truffle oil on everything. Originally a man was supposed to be doing what the woman was doing, but he was running late, so Paul and the woman took over until the man made an appearance at the end. They did a great job and once the man did get there he made a very touching speech. Paul told us that the first lesson he learned in his wine courses over here is that to truly understand a wine you need to go to the place where the wine was made, walk on the soil the grapes were grown, talk to the people who made the wine and really get a feeling for the place and how the wine was made because the wine will be extremely reflective of that. The man told us that in the Italian culture wine equals love. Italians love wine, they love making it, they love drinking it, they love sharing it, and when they speak about wine, they use their hearts. I really liked both of these ideas.
The next stop was at another vineyard where we got a tour of the wine making process and had a wonderful homemade Tuscan lunch, which the family of the vineyard prepared for us. We got to see how a mass production of wine works. I learned that technically all Italian wines are organic because they usually do not use insecticides, but they are not marketed organic because the vineyards to reserve the right to use insecticides if it is necessary. The way the Italians go about their wine making process is in a very delicate manner. They hand pick everything, using people who know wine and family members so that everyone is trusted to do a careful job. There is much attention to detail and pride in the whole process. Lunch was so good and it was outside on the vineyard, which was beautiful. Apparently fall just sprung itself on Italy, so it was a bit chilly and people were still a little shocked about it. Lunch consisted of different topped crustinis (like cheese and sausage, olive, olive oil, and another olive tomato paste), tomato pasta, salami, pecorino cheese with honey, and various tasty desserts. We also got to try more wine here. A woman on our tour was an opera singer and she sang for us. She was fantastic and so was lunch. My favorite was the honey and cheese.
Our last stop on the tour was the medieval town of San Gimignano. This town is up on a hill and over looks the Chianti region. It is a very beautiful town and famous for its towers, although there are only a handful of the many that used to be left. In this town is a gelateria that is a world champion of gelato. Even after our filling lunch, I still had to try this world famous gelato. I got raspberry/rosemary (I know a wild combination for ice cream) and peach gelato. It lived up to its famous name. At this point we were pretty tired so we just poked into shops and mosied our way back to the bus. I did observe that the town was pretty over priced compared to the cheap vendors in Florence.
The bus ride back to Florence was a little over an hour and our bus driver took a special route so that we passed the Piazza de Michelangelo because it was sunset on a gorgeous day and the view was beautiful. I will definitely be returning there at that time with my mother to enjoy a bottle of wine. The bus dropped us off at the hostel, which was nice that we didn’t have to do the random walk again, around 5. Katherine spent the next couple of hours relaxing after a day of eating and drinking. I was pretty surprised about how tiring it was. And by the way Australians are wild. I have run into so many of them that are on 6-month trips over here. One of them told us that they do it that way because it takes so long for them to fly anywhere out of Australia that what they do they make it count.
We went to find dinner around 8 and walked to a little place down the street from our hostel. We were sitting in the restaurant talking, obviously sounding American, and the table behind us was a couple that asked us where we were from. They were from Canada and we chatted with them for a while. Our food came and they still were chatting with us a pretty excessive amount, but we were pleasant. As they left they told us they really enjoyed talking talking to us, we reminded them of their daughters, that they paid for our meal, and to always remember the nice people for Canada. They really made our night and I hope that someday I will have funds to do things like that.
I tried knock on Scott’s door to say goodbye, but they weren’t in so I left a note. It was a low key night and I made the decision that if you are staying in a dorm in a hostel, it is best to stay in one without a bathroom in it, go for the ones that you have to go into the hall for (for obvious reasons).
The following things I learned from the tour. Truffles are aphrodisiacs. Fyi for all you wild people out there. They are no longer hunter by pigs, but dogs because the pigs wouldn’t stop eating the precious commodity. I would be really pissed if my pig came upon a great truffle patch and started gobbling them up. And that balsamic vinegar becomes thick and sweet when it ages and goes great with strawberries. Also learned a lot of random facts, but none were really that note worthy and I have just applied them to my cultural intelligence library. So maybe later on in conversation I will be able to enlighten you with them.
Today Claire headed back to Torino so Katherine and I had to move out of our three bed private room (because we would have had to pay for the empty bed if we wanted to stay, so we would have divided the room by two instead of three) and into an 8 bed mixed dorm. We all checked out in the morning and Katherine and I left our packs in the luggage room until we could check back in later on in the afternoon.
For our daily plans, Katherine and I had lined ourselves to go on a wine tour through the Tuscan countryside. It only cost 35 euro and included a wine tasting, tour of a vineyard, lunch, and ride accommodations. It ended up being quite the deal. We said goodbye to Claire, who was catching her train later on in the morning and got in line to go on the tour.
Our tour guide, Paul, also worked at the hostel as an information man. Katherine had a run in with him the day before and was originally not excited about going on this tour with him. We had to walk a ways to get to the bus, which was a little confusing, but once we were on the bus it was very obvious that Paul was an excellent tour guide. He was an Australian living in Florence studying food and wine (with those facts alone, I already had a major crush on him). He was charismatic and informative the entire tour. His parents were in town visiting him so they were also on the tour with us, which was precious. I learned quite a bit on this tour.
Our first stop was a wine tasting at a vineyard. There were long tables for everyone to sit at and we had this wonderful stout woman telling us about the wines we were tasting, how to taste the wine, etc. Katherine and I sat next to a couple that was essentially doing the same thing we were because they are in the some life position that we are in. They were fun to talk to. Being from Atlanta, they figured out that it was cheaper for them to take a 12-day cruise back to the states after their European travels than to fly back. What a way to end a backpacking trip! We tried four wines in addition to 30 year old balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, and truffle oil. I could probably eat truffle oil on everything. Originally a man was supposed to be doing what the woman was doing, but he was running late, so Paul and the woman took over until the man made an appearance at the end. They did a great job and once the man did get there he made a very touching speech. Paul told us that the first lesson he learned in his wine courses over here is that to truly understand a wine you need to go to the place where the wine was made, walk on the soil the grapes were grown, talk to the people who made the wine and really get a feeling for the place and how the wine was made because the wine will be extremely reflective of that. The man told us that in the Italian culture wine equals love. Italians love wine, they love making it, they love drinking it, they love sharing it, and when they speak about wine, they use their hearts. I really liked both of these ideas.
The next stop was at another vineyard where we got a tour of the wine making process and had a wonderful homemade Tuscan lunch, which the family of the vineyard prepared for us. We got to see how a mass production of wine works. I learned that technically all Italian wines are organic because they usually do not use insecticides, but they are not marketed organic because the vineyards to reserve the right to use insecticides if it is necessary. The way the Italians go about their wine making process is in a very delicate manner. They hand pick everything, using people who know wine and family members so that everyone is trusted to do a careful job. There is much attention to detail and pride in the whole process. Lunch was so good and it was outside on the vineyard, which was beautiful. Apparently fall just sprung itself on Italy, so it was a bit chilly and people were still a little shocked about it. Lunch consisted of different topped crustinis (like cheese and sausage, olive, olive oil, and another olive tomato paste), tomato pasta, salami, pecorino cheese with honey, and various tasty desserts. We also got to try more wine here. A woman on our tour was an opera singer and she sang for us. She was fantastic and so was lunch. My favorite was the honey and cheese.
Our last stop on the tour was the medieval town of San Gimignano. This town is up on a hill and over looks the Chianti region. It is a very beautiful town and famous for its towers, although there are only a handful of the many that used to be left. In this town is a gelateria that is a world champion of gelato. Even after our filling lunch, I still had to try this world famous gelato. I got raspberry/rosemary (I know a wild combination for ice cream) and peach gelato. It lived up to its famous name. At this point we were pretty tired so we just poked into shops and mosied our way back to the bus. I did observe that the town was pretty over priced compared to the cheap vendors in Florence.
The bus ride back to Florence was a little over an hour and our bus driver took a special route so that we passed the Piazza de Michelangelo because it was sunset on a gorgeous day and the view was beautiful. I will definitely be returning there at that time with my mother to enjoy a bottle of wine. The bus dropped us off at the hostel, which was nice that we didn’t have to do the random walk again, around 5. Katherine spent the next couple of hours relaxing after a day of eating and drinking. I was pretty surprised about how tiring it was. And by the way Australians are wild. I have run into so many of them that are on 6-month trips over here. One of them told us that they do it that way because it takes so long for them to fly anywhere out of Australia that what they do they make it count.
We went to find dinner around 8 and walked to a little place down the street from our hostel. We were sitting in the restaurant talking, obviously sounding American, and the table behind us was a couple that asked us where we were from. They were from Canada and we chatted with them for a while. Our food came and they still were chatting with us a pretty excessive amount, but we were pleasant. As they left they told us they really enjoyed talking talking to us, we reminded them of their daughters, that they paid for our meal, and to always remember the nice people for Canada. They really made our night and I hope that someday I will have funds to do things like that.
I tried knock on Scott’s door to say goodbye, but they weren’t in so I left a note. It was a low key night and I made the decision that if you are staying in a dorm in a hostel, it is best to stay in one without a bathroom in it, go for the ones that you have to go into the hall for (for obvious reasons).
The following things I learned from the tour. Truffles are aphrodisiacs. Fyi for all you wild people out there. They are no longer hunter by pigs, but dogs because the pigs wouldn’t stop eating the precious commodity. I would be really pissed if my pig came upon a great truffle patch and started gobbling them up. And that balsamic vinegar becomes thick and sweet when it ages and goes great with strawberries. Also learned a lot of random facts, but none were really that note worthy and I have just applied them to my cultural intelligence library. So maybe later on in conversation I will be able to enlighten you with them.
Firenze
10/18/2009
This morning after a wild night, we woke up around 9:30. This was pretty early considering how late we were out, but we wanted to jam pack as much of Florence as we could into our stay. Claire did not have a good morning. She woke up to find that she had lost her phone the previous night, her advertised indestructible camera’s screen was cracked, and she spilled her make up on the bathroom floor. I was very impressed of how she talked herself through all of the woes and still had a very good attitude throughout the day. I would have been bummed out for much longer than she was.
This morning was the owner of my first hangover in Europe. The liquor drinks last night are what did it. I should have stuck to the magical wine of Italy. The hostel offers a 5 euro all you can eat breakfast buffet and what they had out looked pretty solid so I took full advantage of that and stuffed my face. If it wasn’t for that mighty breakfast, I could have had a pretty ruff morning. There were scrambled eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, croissants, WATER, orange juice, coffee, cereal, meat and cheeses, and toasts and jelly. I got seconds on all of it and it was worth the 5 euro.
We were standing around in the lobby of the hostel after breakfast and I saw a guy wearing a CU intermural championship t-shirt. I spotted this t-shirt a mile away because they are so coveted and Spencer wears his very proudly. So I walked up to him and we got to talking. He said that he was from Greeley, which naturally lead to us playing the “who do you know” game. Turns out he knows my friend Alan and was actually traveling with Alan’s roommate Scott, who I have had a couple of classes with in the business school. I was so happy to see him. This was probably the biggest small world moment I have ever experienced in my life. Kyle was the guy I ran into first and he and Scott were also traveling with Johnny and Ben. Claire, Katherine, and I got to talking to them and we decided that we all would spend the day walking around the city with them. It was also their first day in Florence and just walking around is a great way to get a feel for the city. We got a recommended route from the front desk and were on our way.
The boys also had had a wild night the night before and so one of our first stops was at a recommended gelateria. I had a delicious cone of mint and cookies and cream. We continued walking and they told us about how they had run into some polish kids in their travels. The one thing that they learned from these polish kids was how to “make a foto”. Making a foto consists of finding a good setting to make a very ridiculous picture, whether it is jumping or incorporating statues into goofy pictures. You get the idea. We attempted to make a lot of fotos throughout the day. I will have to say that it is not as easy as you would think and takes some coordination. One amazing foto opportunity that we did come across was the following situation. The boys bought Italian flag boxers with an image of the male genital from a statue on the front of them. They put the boxers on over their pants and posed in front of the replica of the statue of David that is in front of the Uffizi. It was hysterical and drew quite a crowd.
I saw a roasted chestnut vendor on our walk and bought some so that everyone could try them out. The consensus was that they tasted like chicken and looked like brain. We also passed a street artist who was extremely creative with her watercolors of poppy flowers. I didn’t buy anything, but the pictures are still on my mind. I can always go back. It was an extremely entertaining and enjoyable afternoon with the boys. I am so glad that our paths crossed. Florence is a fantastic walking city with much to look at, see and do. We headed back to the hostel around 4 ish I think to chill out for a while.
We had heard that the best time to go see the real statue of David was right before the museum closed at 6 ish, with the museum closing at 7. We knocked on the boys door to see if they wanted to come along. They had made a delicious smelling pasta dinner with camping equipment in their room. I was pretty impressed with it. They had all they gear needed for camping because that is exactly what they did at some of their stops by hanging up their hammocks. A true badass backpacking across Europe situation. The statue of David is in the Academia building, which we passed on our walk, and it did have a huge line outside of it. You would never think such a famous piece of art would be in this building. It is very unsuspecting. It cost 10 euro to go in to see him, but I would say it was worth it. He is huge. Im talking at least 12 feet tall. It is pretty amazing how realistic Michelangelo was with his muscles, veins, and ribs. Unfortunately he is a little disproportion in his hands, big toe, and lower region, which is misleading and a bummer for him. The museum was also putting on display a Mapplethorpe exhibit showing all of these very interesting looking photos. Some were interesting and held my attention and some were just a little too bizarre to look at, but I am glad that they were up as a little something extra the museum had to offer.
After the museum we stopped by a grocery store to buy some wine and snacks. We found a great spot by the Duomo to enjoy our wine and treats and the great view of the beautiful cathedral. We hung out there for a while and eventually realized that we were sitting on the steps of a hospital. Im not sure how politically correct that is, but oh well. It explains the ambulances that were on both sides of the steps and we were lucky that no trauma cases come in. Since the boys had already eaten and we had not, we separated after our wine and Claire, Katherine, and I went in search for dinner. We ended up at a cute little Italian (duh) restaurant off a side street near the Duomo. The three of us all split minestrone soup, gnocchi pomodori, and grilled vegetables. It was ok, not the best Italian meal I have had, but it did come with free flat pizza bread and a carafe of wine, so that shot it up a few notches in my dining experience book.
We headed back to the hostel, said hey to the guys, and then went back up to our room. Claire and I were up for a night of drinking wine and playing cards and Katherine had a lot of stuff to catch up on. Scott knocked on our door and he came along with Claire and I. Claire taught us a card game that she had learned while she has been in Italy. It put a little more complicated twist on rummy and was very fun to play. The three of us had a very good time playing cards and drinking wine, toasting to chill people, and having good conversation. Scott and I explained for hours how incredible of a place Colorado is to live and that we highly suggest that Claire consider it when contemplating her next life move. Before we knew it, it was 3 in the morning and they were turning the lights out on us. I had a great day!
This morning after a wild night, we woke up around 9:30. This was pretty early considering how late we were out, but we wanted to jam pack as much of Florence as we could into our stay. Claire did not have a good morning. She woke up to find that she had lost her phone the previous night, her advertised indestructible camera’s screen was cracked, and she spilled her make up on the bathroom floor. I was very impressed of how she talked herself through all of the woes and still had a very good attitude throughout the day. I would have been bummed out for much longer than she was.
This morning was the owner of my first hangover in Europe. The liquor drinks last night are what did it. I should have stuck to the magical wine of Italy. The hostel offers a 5 euro all you can eat breakfast buffet and what they had out looked pretty solid so I took full advantage of that and stuffed my face. If it wasn’t for that mighty breakfast, I could have had a pretty ruff morning. There were scrambled eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, croissants, WATER, orange juice, coffee, cereal, meat and cheeses, and toasts and jelly. I got seconds on all of it and it was worth the 5 euro.
We were standing around in the lobby of the hostel after breakfast and I saw a guy wearing a CU intermural championship t-shirt. I spotted this t-shirt a mile away because they are so coveted and Spencer wears his very proudly. So I walked up to him and we got to talking. He said that he was from Greeley, which naturally lead to us playing the “who do you know” game. Turns out he knows my friend Alan and was actually traveling with Alan’s roommate Scott, who I have had a couple of classes with in the business school. I was so happy to see him. This was probably the biggest small world moment I have ever experienced in my life. Kyle was the guy I ran into first and he and Scott were also traveling with Johnny and Ben. Claire, Katherine, and I got to talking to them and we decided that we all would spend the day walking around the city with them. It was also their first day in Florence and just walking around is a great way to get a feel for the city. We got a recommended route from the front desk and were on our way.
The boys also had had a wild night the night before and so one of our first stops was at a recommended gelateria. I had a delicious cone of mint and cookies and cream. We continued walking and they told us about how they had run into some polish kids in their travels. The one thing that they learned from these polish kids was how to “make a foto”. Making a foto consists of finding a good setting to make a very ridiculous picture, whether it is jumping or incorporating statues into goofy pictures. You get the idea. We attempted to make a lot of fotos throughout the day. I will have to say that it is not as easy as you would think and takes some coordination. One amazing foto opportunity that we did come across was the following situation. The boys bought Italian flag boxers with an image of the male genital from a statue on the front of them. They put the boxers on over their pants and posed in front of the replica of the statue of David that is in front of the Uffizi. It was hysterical and drew quite a crowd.
I saw a roasted chestnut vendor on our walk and bought some so that everyone could try them out. The consensus was that they tasted like chicken and looked like brain. We also passed a street artist who was extremely creative with her watercolors of poppy flowers. I didn’t buy anything, but the pictures are still on my mind. I can always go back. It was an extremely entertaining and enjoyable afternoon with the boys. I am so glad that our paths crossed. Florence is a fantastic walking city with much to look at, see and do. We headed back to the hostel around 4 ish I think to chill out for a while.
We had heard that the best time to go see the real statue of David was right before the museum closed at 6 ish, with the museum closing at 7. We knocked on the boys door to see if they wanted to come along. They had made a delicious smelling pasta dinner with camping equipment in their room. I was pretty impressed with it. They had all they gear needed for camping because that is exactly what they did at some of their stops by hanging up their hammocks. A true badass backpacking across Europe situation. The statue of David is in the Academia building, which we passed on our walk, and it did have a huge line outside of it. You would never think such a famous piece of art would be in this building. It is very unsuspecting. It cost 10 euro to go in to see him, but I would say it was worth it. He is huge. Im talking at least 12 feet tall. It is pretty amazing how realistic Michelangelo was with his muscles, veins, and ribs. Unfortunately he is a little disproportion in his hands, big toe, and lower region, which is misleading and a bummer for him. The museum was also putting on display a Mapplethorpe exhibit showing all of these very interesting looking photos. Some were interesting and held my attention and some were just a little too bizarre to look at, but I am glad that they were up as a little something extra the museum had to offer.
After the museum we stopped by a grocery store to buy some wine and snacks. We found a great spot by the Duomo to enjoy our wine and treats and the great view of the beautiful cathedral. We hung out there for a while and eventually realized that we were sitting on the steps of a hospital. Im not sure how politically correct that is, but oh well. It explains the ambulances that were on both sides of the steps and we were lucky that no trauma cases come in. Since the boys had already eaten and we had not, we separated after our wine and Claire, Katherine, and I went in search for dinner. We ended up at a cute little Italian (duh) restaurant off a side street near the Duomo. The three of us all split minestrone soup, gnocchi pomodori, and grilled vegetables. It was ok, not the best Italian meal I have had, but it did come with free flat pizza bread and a carafe of wine, so that shot it up a few notches in my dining experience book.
We headed back to the hostel, said hey to the guys, and then went back up to our room. Claire and I were up for a night of drinking wine and playing cards and Katherine had a lot of stuff to catch up on. Scott knocked on our door and he came along with Claire and I. Claire taught us a card game that she had learned while she has been in Italy. It put a little more complicated twist on rummy and was very fun to play. The three of us had a very good time playing cards and drinking wine, toasting to chill people, and having good conversation. Scott and I explained for hours how incredible of a place Colorado is to live and that we highly suggest that Claire consider it when contemplating her next life move. Before we knew it, it was 3 in the morning and they were turning the lights out on us. I had a great day!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
From the country to the city
10/17/2009
Today we are leaving Padua for Florence, where we will meet up with Claire for a weekend of F…U…N!!!!! We had a very relaxing morning. When we walked into the main house, Patricia had left a note for us explaining that everything was all set up to use and help ourselves. For the life of us Katherine and I could not figure out how to use a classic Italian espresso maker. Turns out we just didn’t leave it on the stove long enough. We had a delicious breakfast that included some homemade jam from her neighbors, eggs that were also from her neighbor’s chickens, and a persimmon from a tree in her backyard. I had never had a persimmon before and found it to be quite enjoyable. I love how everyone shares what they have and make with their neighbors. It makes for awesome and unique things to have in your kitchen and really creates a nice sense of community.
Patricia drove us to the train station, which worked out well because she had some errands in town that she wanted to run. Unfortunately we had to pay for a reservation on this train. Im getting really tired of paying for these stupid reservations. We don’t even need them because there are always empty seats on the trains. It is just a way for Italian trains to make money. When I am traveling on my own, I am going to make a point to travel on the trains that you don’t need reservations. A positive is that these trains had the most comfortable seats that we had come across so far.
On the train I actually heard an Italian say “Mama Mia”. Haha, I thought this was great. I love the way Italian sounds. I think it is a beautiful language. It has been by far the easiest language for us to understand on the trip. Having a bit of a Spanish background helps with this and also cognates. I just like the way the language sounds. So passionate.
When we got into the train station in Florence, we were planning on grabbing a bite to eat while we waited for Claire’s train to come in and then meeting her at her gate. Well as we walked to the end of the platform, Claire was standing there waiting for us. She had ended up catching an earlier train and had the wrong number for our phone so couldn’t get in touch with us. It was a wonderful surprise!
We headed off towards the hostel. This hostel that we are staying in Tyler recommended to us. Tyler is our friend from home, who is over here working as a club promoter. There were actually quite a few hostels in Florence that had great ratings on hostelworld, so we had a feeling that this one would be really nice… and it was, really nice. It has a flat screen TV in the room, a pool, Turkish bath, and all sorts of extras, in addition to having good free wifi. We got a private room, which is really nice so the three of us can just sprawl out and chill. When Katherine and I started this trip, we thought hostels would be around 10 euros a night. Patricia confirmed our feelings that we were sorely mistaken and hostels in Europe average 20-30 euros a night. On the positive side, that is still a whole lot cheaper than hotels. Its not the old days anymore where you could backpack around Europe on a 30 euro a day budget.
We decided to get a quick snack before heading out to wander around. Katherine and I split bruscetta and I started with a ¼ carafe of wine. I am taking full advantage of the fact that wine is cheaper than water over here and it is a miracle drink in the sense that it doesn’t give any hangovers. Then we started wandering around the streets and came across a vendors market. I gathered that it was a Saturday night deal. It was neat to see so many people selling their wares. Katherine was admiring a leather bomber jacket that happened to be at the stand of “the leather doctor”. She bargained with him and got a great price for the jacket. It was a great buy. He tried to outfit me with a leather jacket, but nothing was really making m e that excited. I needed to do some thinking before I make any major leather purchases in Florence and there will always be leather in Florence.
While we were wandering we came across a restaurant that Margaret had recommended that she knew of from her time studying abroad over here. We figured that since we stumbled upon it, we should eat there. This place was known for its pizza and steaks and was jammed packed when many other restaurants we passed were barely full. Putting all of this information together, we figured the place must be good. I ended up ordering a pizza that they had trademarked. It was called the Vesuvius and had proscuitto, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, arugula, and “prestigious” truffles on it. It was very good, but I thought it would have a bit more of a truffle flavor. They had a video playing on a giant flat screen that showed the chefs cooking all of their famous dishes. It was mouth watering. Unfortunately, the place was so busy that the service was pretty bad. We also ordered dessert that took forever to get and Claire and my tiramisu was frozen. It was kinda a bummer way to end the meal.
We went back to the hostel to change our clothes because we were going to meet up with Tyler for the night. Tyler also had a friend, Joe Napolitano, who is also from Virginia Beach, visiting him. We were going to meet them at the restaurant that we ate it, but since we just stumbled upon it originally, we got lost when we were trying to find it again. Tyler eventually found us and took us to an American bar that had a 3 drinks for ten euro special going on. We pregammed there and then Tyler took us to a typical Euro club, where we were VIP! We got to sit in the VIP lounge that looked over the dance floor and had all bottle service all night long. Since we were with Tyler, we didn’t have to pay for anything. It was quite the experience and there were some serious characters at this club. Im glad we got to see what clubbing in Europe was all about. Around 2:30, I hit a wall and realized that if I didn’t get into a bed soon, I would be in a bad way. So I caught an overpriced cab back to the hostel and hit the hay. I didn’t even hear Claire and Katherine come in.
Today we are leaving Padua for Florence, where we will meet up with Claire for a weekend of F…U…N!!!!! We had a very relaxing morning. When we walked into the main house, Patricia had left a note for us explaining that everything was all set up to use and help ourselves. For the life of us Katherine and I could not figure out how to use a classic Italian espresso maker. Turns out we just didn’t leave it on the stove long enough. We had a delicious breakfast that included some homemade jam from her neighbors, eggs that were also from her neighbor’s chickens, and a persimmon from a tree in her backyard. I had never had a persimmon before and found it to be quite enjoyable. I love how everyone shares what they have and make with their neighbors. It makes for awesome and unique things to have in your kitchen and really creates a nice sense of community.
Patricia drove us to the train station, which worked out well because she had some errands in town that she wanted to run. Unfortunately we had to pay for a reservation on this train. Im getting really tired of paying for these stupid reservations. We don’t even need them because there are always empty seats on the trains. It is just a way for Italian trains to make money. When I am traveling on my own, I am going to make a point to travel on the trains that you don’t need reservations. A positive is that these trains had the most comfortable seats that we had come across so far.
On the train I actually heard an Italian say “Mama Mia”. Haha, I thought this was great. I love the way Italian sounds. I think it is a beautiful language. It has been by far the easiest language for us to understand on the trip. Having a bit of a Spanish background helps with this and also cognates. I just like the way the language sounds. So passionate.
When we got into the train station in Florence, we were planning on grabbing a bite to eat while we waited for Claire’s train to come in and then meeting her at her gate. Well as we walked to the end of the platform, Claire was standing there waiting for us. She had ended up catching an earlier train and had the wrong number for our phone so couldn’t get in touch with us. It was a wonderful surprise!
We headed off towards the hostel. This hostel that we are staying in Tyler recommended to us. Tyler is our friend from home, who is over here working as a club promoter. There were actually quite a few hostels in Florence that had great ratings on hostelworld, so we had a feeling that this one would be really nice… and it was, really nice. It has a flat screen TV in the room, a pool, Turkish bath, and all sorts of extras, in addition to having good free wifi. We got a private room, which is really nice so the three of us can just sprawl out and chill. When Katherine and I started this trip, we thought hostels would be around 10 euros a night. Patricia confirmed our feelings that we were sorely mistaken and hostels in Europe average 20-30 euros a night. On the positive side, that is still a whole lot cheaper than hotels. Its not the old days anymore where you could backpack around Europe on a 30 euro a day budget.
We decided to get a quick snack before heading out to wander around. Katherine and I split bruscetta and I started with a ¼ carafe of wine. I am taking full advantage of the fact that wine is cheaper than water over here and it is a miracle drink in the sense that it doesn’t give any hangovers. Then we started wandering around the streets and came across a vendors market. I gathered that it was a Saturday night deal. It was neat to see so many people selling their wares. Katherine was admiring a leather bomber jacket that happened to be at the stand of “the leather doctor”. She bargained with him and got a great price for the jacket. It was a great buy. He tried to outfit me with a leather jacket, but nothing was really making m e that excited. I needed to do some thinking before I make any major leather purchases in Florence and there will always be leather in Florence.
While we were wandering we came across a restaurant that Margaret had recommended that she knew of from her time studying abroad over here. We figured that since we stumbled upon it, we should eat there. This place was known for its pizza and steaks and was jammed packed when many other restaurants we passed were barely full. Putting all of this information together, we figured the place must be good. I ended up ordering a pizza that they had trademarked. It was called the Vesuvius and had proscuitto, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, arugula, and “prestigious” truffles on it. It was very good, but I thought it would have a bit more of a truffle flavor. They had a video playing on a giant flat screen that showed the chefs cooking all of their famous dishes. It was mouth watering. Unfortunately, the place was so busy that the service was pretty bad. We also ordered dessert that took forever to get and Claire and my tiramisu was frozen. It was kinda a bummer way to end the meal.
We went back to the hostel to change our clothes because we were going to meet up with Tyler for the night. Tyler also had a friend, Joe Napolitano, who is also from Virginia Beach, visiting him. We were going to meet them at the restaurant that we ate it, but since we just stumbled upon it originally, we got lost when we were trying to find it again. Tyler eventually found us and took us to an American bar that had a 3 drinks for ten euro special going on. We pregammed there and then Tyler took us to a typical Euro club, where we were VIP! We got to sit in the VIP lounge that looked over the dance floor and had all bottle service all night long. Since we were with Tyler, we didn’t have to pay for anything. It was quite the experience and there were some serious characters at this club. Im glad we got to see what clubbing in Europe was all about. Around 2:30, I hit a wall and realized that if I didn’t get into a bed soon, I would be in a bad way. So I caught an overpriced cab back to the hostel and hit the hay. I didn’t even hear Claire and Katherine come in.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)