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Love is in the chair?
Lover's lane, Cinque Terre(Alternate titles: Como-ver it, and
Our time went Shitaly).
Note: Any complaints about the infrequency of blog entries should be filed directly to the members of state representing the European Union and the affiliates of the European Economic Area. 10 euro an hour for internet is such an injustice that there exists no word to describe it, so i must make them up. Internet in Europe is absolutely blaspotent.
That said, keyboard al gratis has found its way under my fingers so the chronicle can continue. Last report had us bouncing through Europe with a variety of at home contacts to accompany us on our travels. After a week with the Childers clan and a few days in Paris with my sister, we settled into Barbarino for a couple of days of sitting on our respective toucusses (touci?) and enjoying all the relaxing spoils of small-town Tuscany. We ate mountains of pasta, drank wine and strolled the markets while I tried to recover from my epic solitary train excursion from Paris back to Florence. Shannon and Leo, our contacts in Barberino offered us hours of entertainment. The combination of her saucy California sarcasm and his adorable Italianism resulted in
volumes of hilarious banter. (e.g. Shannon is struggling to slice a baguette while preparing dinner. Leo advises "Shannon, you must not fight the bread, you must make love to the bread." Shannon retorts, "I'm not sure it's hard enough for that, may need a few more minutes in the oven.")
The trend of hometown flavor continued as we departed the simple elegance of Barberino and returned again to the chaos of Rome to meet up with fellow Bacara refugee Amber and her boyfriend Jesse. Now having already toured the Italian capital not 2 weeks earlier with the fam, Jenny and I took this as a chance to rest our weary bones. We spent our days showing off our knowledge of the city and bowing out of the occasional monumental redundancies. I've visited Trevi fountain so many times, I've started selling rubber bean bags that can be bent into smiley faces and penises (Peni?) just to make it worth my while. When Amber and Jesse were struggling through the crowds at the Vatican, Jenny and I went to Villa Borgeise, Rome's central park. Naps in the grass met leisurely hand held walks around goose filled ponds as every step killed
Colosium
We only went cuz it was Art week and everything was free a little bit more of my masculinty. Finally we were forced to retreat from Rome for the last time before I started listening to John Mayer and menstrating. The four of us hopped a quick train (6 hours is short for us) northward to Venice. Venice was everything you'd dream it to be. Stunning canals, labyrinthine alleyways and more history than Ross and Rachel. We trolled around the town from one tip of the island to the other visiting St. Mark's square, the canal of sighs and getting lost in the never ending spread of alleys. (Little known fact: Venice's city planning was done as a joint venture by Picasso, MC Escher and Ralph Wigum). We did so much walking actually that I disconbobulated a whatsit in my foot and spent a day holed up watching international CNN (Mugabe's got to be stopped). Sadly our time in Venice was brief and we had to say Ciao to Jesse and Amber as they returned to the grind of home and we ventured of to sample the further delights of a list of places we didn't really want to see and certainly could not afford.
Over the next two weeks we
Chilling out
In Villa Borgeise visited George Clooney's mountain getaway in Lake Como, wondered why they would hold the Olympics in a worthless city like Turin, Hiked through the gorgeous cliff-side towns and vertical vineyards in the Cinque Terre and also went to Genoa (I'd love to have an anecdote for Genoa, go there and you'll see why there's nothing to mention). Our last period of time in Italy was a real struggle, maybe the toughest time of our whole trip. We made the mistake of allotting ourselves too much time to travel around the boot and it began to wear on us for quite a few reasons. The first and most oppressive is the insane cost of it all. When you have to double you normal daily budget just to cover your bed to sleep in and food to live off, it doesn't exactly leave a lot of room for entertainment splurges. What's worse is that the whole society is built upon flaunting the very things you can't afford. All around you are chumpy rich tourists enjoying all the decedant fruits that these place have to offer while you're dancing on the corner for nickels. European tourism is like a sadistic older brother taunting
Sunset
From our hotel room in Venice you and holding your favorite GI Joe (O.K. Polly Pocket) over your head just outside your reach and waiting for you to jump so he can sweep your legs out from under you, causing you to smash your head against an end-table and suffer head trauma that leads to a life long inability to concentrate until you grow up a sad, fat, jobless UCSB film school dropout (only metaphor of course). I know I'm poor, the IRS tells me that, I don't need Europe to remind me. The second rubbish thing about backpacking through Italy is the hostels. First of all, the beds are laughably expensive. We could have stayed in a 4 star hotel in Argentina for what 2 dorm beds cost us. The staff is always a bunch of young kids who are consistently high, drunk or German (sometimes all three). They also have ridiculous rules. Curfews, separate sex dorms, infuriating facilities (showers with faucets that you had to press in every 3 seconds or the water shut off like those annoying sinks at the airport). A couple places even had mandatory lockout between 10 and 4, meaning that we were not allowed to enter the grounds or
St. Mark's square
Empty cuz Venetians go to bed at 8pm access our stuff for six hours in the heart of the day, even when it was raining. It was always raining. We didn't get a single day of consistent clear skys after we left Venice. We even got hailed on in Genoa. We spent 5 months in some of the hottest, most mercilessly punishing climates on the planet and came out completely unscathed. We developed Nubian skin like buffalo hide, ready for any and all punishment the mighty Egyptian sun god Rah could unleash. We were not however prepared for hail. Lightning i can handle, drought is fine, even locusts. But not fucking hail. Hail is snow's asshole brother who only show's up to weddings and reunions, gets drunk on Listerine, spoils the entire time with his extremely dated sexual humor and ends up passed out in the kiddie pool after drop-kicking Grandma's Sharpei off the jungle gym. This wasn't just any hail. This was an umbrella tearing, skin bruising barrage of rifle-powered flavorless skittles rocketing from upon high. It was like getting attacked by God's AK47 bb-gun and all I had to retaliate was snowballs made from my frozen tears. Needless to say, I don't like hail. The final
and most insufferable obstacle we faced was the food. "Wait," you say, "Isn't Italian food some of the best in the world." Indeed it is, but as a staple diet, it is extremely unhealthy. Italians make Atkins spin in his grave. A Croissant for breakfast, a prosciutto sandwich for lunch, and three courses of pasta for dinner. Carbs , carbs, carbs and more carbs. The human body wasn't not meant to live solely off of grains. After eating a baguette or slice of pizza for every meal for a month, my energy level had plummeted to an all-time low. I had the agility of a cactus and the get-up-and-go of a paperweight. A simple walk through town left me wheezing and sweating. Inclines became non-negotiable. Stairs, the Himalayas. I had become a fat man in a skinny man's body. Finally, one night we got fed up and spent our euros on an exorbitantly priced whole chicken for dinner. The resulting burst of protein in our otherwise deficient systems left us running around the hostile at 3am, wondering if the locals would be up for a rousing game of dodgeball in the piazza. We survived of course and left Italy with
50 cent Gondola Ride
Local knowledge is the best a lot of unforgettable memories and a lasting case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
P.S. A big thank you to everyone who helped us out over our time in Italy: Shannon and Leo for their hospitality, Amber and Jesse for their companionship, Ilan for his insiders knowledge and grotesque internet videos and finally (since i neglected to thank them in our last blog) Mr. Mullin, Mr. Piersma (not even close to spelled right) and of course all of the Childerses (Childri?)
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