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Published: November 27th 2006
Ok so back to English!
It is now Sunday night and I am writing this entry sitting in my room listening to the Italian radio and just chilling out.
As I reflect on the last three weeks (as I do when I try to write this blog) a lot has happened in this time. True to my style of not wanting to sit in the one place to long (thanks mum for reminding me of this). I have been in some serious giro (going around!).
So the story begins with a quick trip up to Milano to visit one of my hobie mates Lara Sicouri and her family home! It was a short visit of only one night (as Milano is so close 1.5hrs away) so I can do these short visits. It was really nice to be in Milano with a local and Lara and I went around the city together looking at the various sites including the Galleria, the Duomo, the beautiful park, and the Castle of Milano. I was also treated to a nice night out with her and her friends to Mexican (yes I love any food that gives me some variety from Italian)
and then out for a couple of drinks. I was very lucky as the Sunday I spent in Milan it was actually blue sky(this is very rare in Milano). Although it was ice cold it was so beautiful to just stroll through the park together, have some cafe, visit Decathlon(my new favourite shop for all of my kit for Costa Rica) and just generally go around.
I had a really nice time and also was lucky enough to catch up with Gabby(I introduced her in my previous blog) who is going to marry her swiss b.f and move back to Brazil, I knew she had some news but that was big news, so all very happy for her.
The following Wednesday I took my first Ryan air flight ever to London. These guys are smart they know how to make money. Making it from bums on seats well yes, but hey when you charge 8 euros per bag, and give everyone who buys a drink or a bite to eat (well two entries if you buy a red bull or a hot drink) the opportunity to win a free flight, one to win every flight - of course
you are going to shell out 3 pounds for your cup of tea. One great thing about Ryan Air, there is no fuss and everything happens on time so it was all good.
I arrived to London late on Wednesday afternoon with a bit of culture shock, I know it is weird to say but I have been out of an English speaking country for four months so it was a bit of a weird feeling being back in a place where I could understand everything - man are things easy when you can speak the language!!!
Anyways moving on my mission for Wednesday evening and Thursday was to shop around for my flight requirements (the things you miss when you are in a non English speaking country!). So I spent this time in front of Charlotte (who is now my best friend at STA Travel Victoria) working out my itinerary! Anyways a couple of days and a few(well maybe a bit more.... thousand later I am booked on a plane for Costa Rica via NYC, & LA(on a visiting run to mates in both cities) and also booked to go in Giro through South America! Yippee!
Needless to say as all of my time was spent in the travel agents so by day over these two days I did not do much sight seeing except for the amazingly under-whealming Westminster abbey (gosh I wont pay to enter a church it is against my religion!) and the Themes because I decided to walk two metro stops so I could get some air.
My home for my two days in London was with my mate Jorgan who I have not seen for about 5 years (well he reckons I saw him and Derwood in London 4 years ago but I dont remember at all!!) and his wife Courtney. They live in a lovely part of town and you betcha they had a nice spare room and warm bed for me. The first thing I did with them is go out to a typical english pub, drink a few ciders and have bangers and mash like all good tourists should in London.
The following night it was good to catch up around Bank with Johnny and have a great English Curry!
Anyways Friday morning it was up bright and early for the trek to Dulwich (yes
that is in the South of London) to start my three days of Raleigh International Expedition Training.
Some of the staff had arranged to meet at the station so we could head down from Victoria together but we got caught up chatting away and missed our train. We did receive a friendly text from one of the other staff members Sara to say the train had left the station. Lesson one, don’t get carried away and miss your train!
Well Andy, Alice and I did make it to Dulwich only ten minutes late walked for about ten minutes through some really pretty country side to get to the Dulwich Scout Hall our home for the next three days. When we arrived we spent a bit of time meeting and greeting about another 20 Raleigh Staff Volunteers who will be accompanying us to Costa Rica in January!
I have to say after three days of intensive leadership, communication skills, mentoring, and whatever other training you would usually get if you are in management at work(the company usually pays a lot for it!), with a whole bunch of country, kit and project briefings and of course laughs and fun
stuff thrown I am truly so excited about our Projects in Costa Rica.
I am now the Communications Manager and also will moonlight as a Project Manager, which will be really exciting. So basically my job is to be responsible for all communications whilst on the expedition, which should be absolutely awesome. It will allow me to spend time in almost all of the project sites with the young people and in the communities where we will do projects and also get to use my new web, design and photography skills to ensure all key expedition stake-holders are kept in the loop.
I am so stoked to have met another 20 or so kindred spirits all of whom have been as brave as me to put their careers on hold and personally invest their time and money to give something back to our youth. I can not tell everyone how wonderful this experience is going to be for us all. So to all the other Raleigh staffers reading this I cant wait to see you in just under two months!! (remember we need a name for the mag!!).
Anyways back to Italy, again via Ryan Air -
Stanstead(the bloody fort knox when it comes to security) - Genova, with a great scenic view over Mont Blanc and Lac Geneva on the way (I thought of you Pauline).
I started back at school and things are progressing well with my Italian however I have one tip for anyone considering studying another language for a decent time period best don’t leave the country for a while. Every time I leave the country (which has been quite a lot) I have seen my italian go backwards, but anyways that is a choice I have made as want to spend as much time seeing as much as I possible and as many friends as possible in my short stay in Europe.
I do have another new classmate, her name is Jess, she is 18 and is from the Gold Coast, so it is cool we can speak “Australian” with each other.
Anyways this weekend I have had my first weekend in Genova in what seems like ages and I really really wish that more people could come and visit me in this great city. This weekend I have covered some serious ground in the city going to three
museums that house some of the most famous Flemish(does Jan Vilders ring a bell) and Genoese art all previously owned by the big four families in Genoese history housed in their extravagant palaces, now turned into museums.
I have to say I had an interesting visit to both of these palaces with my own private curator showing me around the museums(and of course the roof terrace, and would I like my own private viewing of the Monet’s!) both of them telling me about their lost loves and how they don’t like the italian women and why blah blah and that I seem like such a fun, normal non pretentious girl (and btw “vuole fa un cafe”, met with a polite no from me followed by a something of a similar response, mi dispiace Io sono non interessante Io ho a regazzo).... Funny now that I write this a visitor to my house now has just told me the same thing about the Italian guys. The guys want action the girls all want marriage and fast, makes for an interesting mix!!
In addition to those interesting experiences yesterday I went around the shops and just got so excited as
Christmas is coming so all of the streets are lit up, and people are shopping around for their natale trinkets e regali etc. I did make a couple of fabulous discoveries yesterday of the food variety and any future visitors I will be happy to share those with.
Today I did what all good tourists should do and I went to the cemetery Staglieno which is the most amazing cemetery I have ever seen, full of beautiful tombs, sculptures, forests, flowers etc. It was such a fabulous experience and I definitely was not short of inspiration for photography(see the pics on my latest page). I wandered around for what was about three hours looking at the different areas of the cemetery. I tell you what if you are in the funerals business in Italy there is big coin to be made as you should see some of the graves in this cemetery. Amongst the tombs in the hills there is something like about 10 mini churches (see pics) that are actually graves, absolutely out of this world. Just for information there is over 100,000 people buried there and many famous people, including Oscar Wilde’s wife, and some others I
can’t recall (but all poets, architects, famous politicians - Manzini ring a bell?).
After my time at Staglieno whilst I was in a touristic frame of mind I decided to go to to Righi which sits on the mountain up above Genova and have a walk around, this was really lovely. I did not make it all the way to the fort as I was walking alone through the forests and thought that probably was not a good idea to do, but for some reason the only way you can see the fort at the top is actually preorganise a tour. I’ll add that one to the list.....
No blog entry is complete without the weather....The weather is still really warm here and today I think it got close to 20 degrees.
Anyways that is about all for now, this probably will be my last update before Christmas, the next time I write hopefully will have some great stories to tell of Lisa (Andy’s sisters 18th) and lots of photos full of snow, as I am spending Christmas in northern Italy with my relatives and then afterwards meeting Andy etal to ski for a week over new
years in the Austrian alps!
All fun stuff.
Ciao a presto
Bella
Check out my website, updated with all of my latest pics etc http://web.mac.com/bellaissailing
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