Over the River and Through the Woods

I have done a miracle: I spent a week in Italy without anything getting stolen. Woohoo! Anyway, so I’m back in Bordeaux, and while it’s nice to have some sense of familiarity I really do miss home a lot. So… here we go. (Insanely long blog post ahead; if you want a quick summary, go to the end.)

First stop: Rome! We leave Friday, the 23rd. Traveling is me, my roommate Danita, and my travel buddy Becky, who is the type of person where I wonder where she’s been all my life. We meet at noon, we take the bus, it’s all good. We get to the airport with about two hours to kill, which is just the way I like it. We relax, we read a magazine on Paris, I take pictures of planes, it was all good. The flight over was fine; we were in this petite, petite plane only three seats across, it was pretty cool. We had to check our backpacks as we walked up to the plane due to it being too crowded inside… Flight itself was uninteresting, a bit less than two hours. We landed, and they had just thrown our bags onto the wet ground. Lovely. We take this bus-thing to the main airport, with me and Danita staggering and tumbling with nothing to hold onto, since we were too short to reach the handles on top. It was pretty funny. Then we go through and we meet Giulio, Becky’s family friend who’ll be housing us for a few nights. He’s incredibly nice, very hospitable, an incredible experience staying with him and his family. Let me say this right now, though: Italian driving is insane. Absolutely bloody insane. Lanes are merely guidelines that no one follows, everyone just kind of wanders around cutting each other off every minute, weaving through traffic (doesn’t matter which way they’re going, they use all of the lanes, even the oncoming traffic lane!), and coming within inches of each other constantly. Heart attack. So we arrive fairly late in Rome, drop off Danita at her hostel, and have dinner chez Giulio. It was this French gateau, with mashed potatoes and pruischetta (how do you spell that?) and cheese and breadcrumbs and GOD. His wife, Vittoria, was an amazing cook. We decide to just stay in, since we were pretty tired.

The next day, Day One, we did EVERYTHING in Rome… We started from the Piazza del Popolo and zigzagged down, hitting up the Spanish Steps (I loved the view from the top, loved that in general), the Fountain of Trevi (not actually one of my favourite things, I wasn’t that impressed), and then we got gelato at a place frequently called Rome’s best Giolitti. And I’ll believe it; I got watermelon, chocolate, and hazelnut, and it was AMAZING. Absolutely fantastic. While eating this gelato, we got… really lost. Wandering around, we were just pulling out the map when one of us said, “hey… is that the Pantheon?” as we emerged from an alleyway. And sure enough, it was! So that’s our fun story of Rome; we just kind of stumbled onto that building. It was pretty cool, we couldn’t go inside because there was prayer but it was still cool to look at. Continuing, we went to the Piazza Navona, which I really, really liked, lots of life. Then we meandered, saw some ruins, saw some buildings, and ended up at the Giant White Thing (AKA the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II). This was one of my favourite parts of Rome; it’s freaking HUGE, it’s fun to climb, when you get to the top there’s this fantastic panoramic view of Rome, with Ancient on one side and New on the other. Positively incredible. We wandered around here and ended up at the Campidoglia, I think it was called, and we relaxed there for a good time. Then we meandered around until we hit the Teatro Marcello, some very cool ruins. We walked around there, got nice and lost, and after a couple tiring hours, made it back to ancient Rome. Can I just say that the Coliseum is as cool as everyone says it is? We paid the twelve euros each to get in (actually, I did – since Becky paid for the plane tickets, I was on the job paying for all the food, museums, etc to pay her back), we stood in line, and my god was it cool. We spent a good couple hours inside there, but first we ate pizza right next to there, with a gorgeous view of it. By this time it was around five or six, so the sun was setting and I was getting chilly. But I persevered! We wandered Rome at night, hitting up again the Pantheon (went inside this time, very cool) and the Fountain of Trevi. Still not that impressed. Then we took the metro back and crashed.

Rome’s metro system is very cool. I freaking love public transit; why can’t the United States (or hell, mostly just LA) get a clue? This one even has TVs with commercials and little stories with this thief guy. It was pretty cool.

Anyway. So day two, Rome again. We get up nice and early and go to Vatican City. We decided to do St Peter’s Basilica first, with only a couple minutes in line. That was very cool, though the Pieta was closed. We then got into the mighty line for the Vatican Museum… An interesting thing to do indeed. We were waiting, and we heard the British family behind us talking, since the father had gone and was talking about how humongous the line was. Now, this fact that I’m about to tell you is very important: Becky and I had spent the vacation speaking mostly French, including while in line. So we start chatting with them in French accents, and then our favourite game was started. It wasn’t to be mean, or to hurt anyone; we were just bored. But oh, did we have a good time with it! So an hour and a half later, we made it into the museum, which was overall very cool. Favourite part might be the Library, with the guys going “No Photo. No Video. No Noise.” Got some pictures anyway. We left there about twelve-thirty, missing the popes’ blessing (but he reminds us too strongly of the Emperor, so the blessing might have become a blessé if you know what I mean…) Anyway. We then went to Forum and we were there until sunset; the ticket cost was covered in the Coliseum ticket, so we figured we’d use it wisely. We then went back to Giulio’s and packed for our night train that night – we hadn’t been able to buy our tickets online (stupid Italian internet site) but Giulio had very kindly taken us to a travel agency, and I bought them there.

Anyway, we got to the train station a couple hours early, talked (in French accents) to this Brazilian girl who was waiting with us. Standing on the platform, there was another train there, and these American high school students weren’t sure if it was theirs or not, so half of them were waiting on the platform and half of them were on the train asking. (You know where this is going.) After a minute and several loud whistles blowing, the train left, with the students yelling and then freaking out and calling each other. I giggled. Our train was at 22h30, or 10.30 if you prefer, and we’d get into Venice about 5h30. Not a happy trip. So we’re in these six-person compartments, with our backpacks in our laps before we stuck them under our seats due to it being crowded. Just sitting, your knees were bumping into the person’s across from you (except me, I freaking LOVE being short). So in this compartment are me and Becky, along with this sleeping woman on one side. On the other side, this guy who was between Middle Eastern and black, a guy who I think was Indian, and then a hobo-looking Italian guy who just slept. The light was off most of the night, so most of the train ride involved me and the Indian guy staring at each other trying not to fall asleep, while the other four snoozed. Around midnight or one I finally dozed off a bit, clutching my bag protectively. Nothing bad happened, thank god… But about two I woke up, and decided to start texting people about the Angels game going on. Sad that we lost. =( We arrived in Venice when it was still dark, so we decided to sit in the train station until the sun rose. At this point I kind of bent over and just fell asleep on my backpack, I was pretty exhausted. Slept for about half an hour while Becky kept watch, since she had slept on the train. Then we finally got up, tried to figure out how the vaporetti work, failed, got on one without tickets, got to our hotel. We couldn’t check in until noon, but we dropped off our backpacks and went to “explore the town” anyway.

So the vaporetti are essentially the buses of Venice; since cars aren’t allowed on the main island, they have boats instead. It’s 6.50 euros per person per one-way trip, so we decided to buy one and just not validate, and play the stupid tourist card if anyone asked. We never got checked, so no worries. Lets see… so we went to the main island, to St Marco’s piazza. No one was really there, not even the pigeons yet, so we just sat, I sketched (to look legit), and then around ten we started wandering, since we were exhausted and falling asleep. We came upon a Hard Rock Café, which sounded REALLY good to us, but it supposedly didn’t open until eleven. Okay, we sat, watched gondolas go by, came back at eleven. They still weren’t open, and weren’t until 11h45 or so. Whatever. We ate, and it was godly – the first real American food in two months? Heck yes. Anyway, we ate, it was amazing. Then we went back to our hotel and slept. It felt incredible. I woke up at five, took a shower, got all refreshed, we left at about 6.30. Wandered Venice at night, which was still even more beautiful. We ate dinner after a few hours at this really nice place, we each got a glass of wine, an entrée, and we shared a dessert, along with a bottle of water. The price? A whopping 50 euros together. Damn you, Venice, damn you. Totally worth it, but goddamn. Then we headed back to our hotel and slept.

So Day Four. Venice proper, I liked calling it. We got up and we had the free breakfast at the hotel, which was heavenly… bread and nutella and CREAM CHEESE and lots of other delicious things. We stole some bread for later food and then headed out. Becky met up with her old Italian friend, and they were speaking Italian and having a good time and I quickly became a third wheel, so I said I’d meet up with them in a couple of hours and headed off by myself. Had a good time meandering, shopping, writing postcards. Then I met up with them and her friend headed off, and the two of us went to Murano, the glass-making island. It was very cool, wandering the shops, seeing all the glass, admiring the gondolas. This is where over a hundred euros of my hard-earned money went… Worth it? Of course. I’m just not allowed to eat for the next year or so. And it was legitly about 80% stuff for other people, so I’m really pleased with it. Hopefully all that glass will make it home… We were there for several hours, for a little we watched glass being made, it was all good. We headed back to the main island when we got hungry, we ate at the train station. Bored and with about three hours to kill, we wandered around and ended up sitting in a park watching children play. Creepy? Perhaps. I just thought it was interesting that you can still understand what’s going on with the kids, even in another language. It was adorable and fun, leave me alone. Anyway, we left after a bit, got on our train. Much less shady this time, much more like an airplane. We sat with this couple from Buffalo, NY, who were visiting their daughter studying abroad in Venice, and then were going to Rome. We had a good time chatting with them, then got off in Florence after a couple of hours. Got to our hostel, and the guy there talked our ears off (mostly in Italian) before explaining to us that our room was actually a couple of blocks away in another building. Lovely. So we exhaustedly dragged ourselves over there, got to our room, which was REALLY nice.

Part 3, Florence. Our big problem… our two roommates, a mom and son from Mexico, snored like bears. They were very nice and whatnot, but goddamn. So anyway, didn’t sleep much the first night, but after they got up at six and left, we slept until ten… we missed breakfast, but that sleep felt good. Then we got up, ate lunch (fruits and breads obtained in previous places, awesome) in a piazza, went to the Academia gallery. Loved it, saw the David, checked him out for a while, loved the sculptures there. Spent about two hours in it. Then we wandered, saw the Duomo, had some weird French woman take pictures of us eating gelato (tiramisu flavor for me), talked about M-Preg in the cathedral (probably the reason the pope didn’t bless us), went down to the river. We ended the day by climbing up to Michelangelo’s piazza and watching the sunset there, with a beautiful view of the city. Good times. The night, however, we found an American bar and were there from five-thirty to nine-thirty. We had dinner, it was empty and kind of awkward. But it got fun we started the drinks… We mostly shared eight, so that’s four a piece. It was a good night. We made the several kilometer walk back quite easily, and collapsed in bed.

Day Six, I woke up at three-thirty due to snoring, felt rather sick because it sounded like the guy was hacking up a lung. We got up around nine, packed, checked out at ten. Went down to the Uffizi gallery, got COMPLETELY lost, as in “hey, that’s the train station, that’s the opposite direction we wanted to be going!” lost. Why is it that drunk, we can find our way around fine, but sober, we get turned around? Anywho. We eventually made our way there, stood in line for an hour and a half or so. I was kind of grumpy about this, I wasn’t feeling too hot in the first place and there were a lot of things I wanted to see. We go into the museum, and after climbing the three flights of stairs (we felt like we were going to puke – what do you think the fine would be for upchucking on the lady taking tickets, or the Birth of Venus painting?) we split up. I did the museum in about an hour… I thought it was actually HIGHLY overrated. Met up again with Becky, and we had to pick up our luggage at two, so we made our way back there, then to the train station. In waiting four hours in a café, Becky and I had many deep, intellectual conversations, rather like the night before… Then on our train back to Rome, I got to sit in the corridor. It was fun. Getting back to Rome and seeing Giulio and family again was pretty damn fantastic, I must say.

Day Seven, day of sadness. =( I was on my own here, since Becky wanted to go to a gallery I wasn’t that interested in. Woke up at seven, got a text from Danita (who was also back in Rome), so we met up and went shopping together. We wandered, we got gelato, we went in the Pantheon. We had a really good time checking up, and then I went back for lunch at 2.30. Our flight was at 5.50, but we figured that, you know, it’s kind of annoying always waiting three hours for flights and trains, we might as well try the whole “get there an hour before your flight” thing. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. We did just that; we left at 3.30, got to the train station at 4.00, took the train to the airport and got there about 4.50. It took us a while to find the place to get our tickets, even though we had already checked in online, and then security wouldn’t let me through with this letter opener I had bought in Murano for my dad. I tried to run back to check my bag (without shoes on, I didn’t have time to put them back in after security) but the very cranky, snotty girl at the desk said I couldn’t, so I had to leave the letter opener. RIP, you were beautiful. Ran back to security, dashed through, Becky and I ran to our gate, ran down to the ground, ran to the bus to take us back to the plane, ran onto the plane. I then put my shoes back on, as we nervously laughed that thank god we didn’t miss it.

Being back in Bordeaux is nice, but it’s made me realize how much I really miss the familiarity of home. I’m at the stage where I really just can’t wait to be back there, not that I’m not having a good time or loving it here or anything. It’s just kind of feels like a long vacation that I want to have finished up now… but we’re at the half-way point now, and I have so much thrown at me in the next month and a half that I don’t think I’ll have much time to worry about it. So now I’m just relaxing; it’s Halloween and there are several things I can do, I’m not sure which I’ll do. My housemates are having a party, not sure how long I’ll be there; Sherlock’s having a party there, might drop in there. Not really sure. Enjoying just relaxing and not doing anything for the moment except writing this and listening to music. I really should go and buy some groceries, since I have no food except some cans of vegetables, but I am le lazy. No update on the medical appointment for my visa; I give them another week before I drop in. I apologize for the insanely long blog entry… I promise you don’t have to read it all. Here’s a summary:

Rome was really really cool. Ruins, giant white monument thing.
Overnight trains are shady.
Venice was exhausting, but beautiful and relaxing.
Florence was alright, not my favourite.
Almost missed my flight back home.

I now speak a little bit of Italian, it’s cool. Ciao.