The Merchants of Venice, and other tales....


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Europe » Italy » Veneto » Venice
July 29th 2004
Published: July 29th 2004
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The Vatican, Umbrella feuds, Trains, crazy drivers, dug up cities, more trains, cabins, drunken girls and sleepless nights... that basically summs up the past few days.... They have certainly been interesting...
So, last we left off was in Rome, ah beautiful Roma. The day following the tour of the Ancient City started off with a trip to the Vatican. We got there quite early in the hopes of avoiding a crowd... well, were we ever off... we hadnt realised that it was the last sunday of the month, and on the last sunday of the month the Vatican museum is free... so, towering in front of uss was the longest line up in my career of standing in lines.... we decided that we would ignore the line for the present time, and instead explore the beauty of St Peter's Cathedral.... its really big.... i mean really really big... it was soo pretty though, i mean there were scupltures all over the place, and there was actually a service going on while we were in there so we got the hear the choir as we were touring. It was funny because they had a dress code for teh cathedral... girls with tank tops and short skirts or shorts (above the knee) and guys with shorts were not allowed in.... there were a whole bunch of people making a fuss outside the church, because they haddressed wrong... it was good.... Jackie and i  however had been informed of this rule in our trusty guidebook and had therefore brought along some t shirts, which were acceptable to the dress code.... haha... poor suckers....
After we were done at the church, we went outside only to discover that it had begun to rain.... we figured that it couldnt last for very long as it was rome, and rome is normally really hot.... then it started to rain more.... and more... and more... so be went and bartered for an umbrella.... the vendors are everywhere... and we got one for cheap.... we should have rethought it though, for looking back... one umbrella between the two of us was cause for contreversy and continuus fights for power ("the umbrella should be straight in the middle, let me hold it" "never! you are doing it wrong, you have to find its center, let me do it.")  this over and over again, only varied slighltly followed by us "accidently" hitting each other in the head with the end of the umbrella... that will learn us i suppose...... anyway, we wanted to go and try our luck at the museum, because that is where the sistine chapel is, and we were not missing that.... so we turned the corner to where the line used to be, but it was gone.... we kept walking and actually got into the museum, right away, without any line and all for free... it was soo cool.... i guess the rain was not that bad after all.... so after a long trip through the rest of the musuem, we came into the sistine chapel. I have hever seen more amazing art in my life.... it felt like the entire cieling was goinr to come alive. The whole thing would have been even better if it wasnt for the massive amount of people in there as well as the security guards who treated us like children. herding us around the room and clapping in our faces if we were to noisy.....it was odd....
We left there and decided that we wanted to do some shopping around Rome.... however, the rain had still not let up so, for fear of eventually killing each otehr over control of the umbrella, we gave up and went back to our campsite..... we stayed there all night and had a wonderful sleep... ready for Naples in the morning.
We took an afternoon train to Naples and got there around two. After setting up in our hostel, we wandered the streets of Naples. Wow... was it ever intense. The drivers are crazy and have no mercy and the people are no different. It was insane... so after nearly getting run over like 90 times, we went back to our hostel and had showers before going out for supper and getting hit on.... again.... sigh.... it okay... these guys were acually nice and not crude about it....we went back to our hostel and had a nice chat with an australian lady who was staying there. She was a bit quirky, and lots of fun to talk to.
The next day we went to pompei. This was absouluty astounding. It was so much bigger than I had anticipated. The magnitude of what they had uncovered and all of the information that came from it was unbelievable. We got these neat audioguides which explained the whole thing in more detail, and stopped us from wandering around in a blank daze as we normally do in such situations where we dont understand anything. We spent like 5 or 6 hours there. by the end my feet were ready to disown me. i didnt blame them. we wnet back to our hostel and went for supper. We tried swordfish, which was actually very very good (a recommendation of the lady staying with us) and then we went back and went to sleep. We were anticipating the morning when we would have to get up super early and catch the 8 hour train to Venice.
We woke up at 7 in the morning (yeesh) and got to the metro station at 7 30... we had to wait like a half hour for our train....this is time that i could have been using to sleep, when it finally came (stupid public trainsportation) we had to rush on and off anf like run to our train with only one pasrty each for breakfast.... (me sooo hungy...) we made our train though and then sat through the longest ride ever.
It was funny because we didnt want to share our compartment with anyone... we are a bit antisocial that way, so we drew the curtains in such a way that it took like 20 minutes to get into our compartment.. we had a few peopel try, but they all gave up afet like one minute... absolutley hilarous. Unfortunetly, a sock salesman got in and after trying to sell us socks and get us into bed with him, we insisted we already had socks and husbands so he left....
We got into venice at about 5 and we starving to death... we needed to catch our bus to the campsite, but we couldnt find it and we didnt get there till later.... we did finally get supper though... tortellini... mmmmm..... and we wnet back to our room... It is a really nice little cabin thing.. it seperates ito two rooms, one for Jackie and I, and the other for another two people. We put our stuff away and we decided to go and listen to the kareokee that they had at the bar in the campground. We sat in a corner with a canadian married couple and had some drinks while listening to the campers make total arses of themself. There was actually one girl who was so drunk she kept going up on stage, she wasnt singing at all, and she would dance with the singers and try to dance and hug the host.... he kept running away screaming "stop... no seriously... oh god..... NOOOOO" it was funny....... my god... seriously the entirety of it was a complete gong show filled with bad singing and people making horrid specticles of themselves... it sort of reminded me of my play..... ( hehehe sorry guys)
After it was over we went back to our room, exhausted and ready for sleep. Then, at like 1 30 in the morning, we were both woken up by this massive shaking of the cabin... seriously, my bed was rocking back and forth over and over.... i though "earthquake?" boy was i wrong.... the couple next to us, who had just met that evening were the cause of the rocking.... they continued to ummmm.... well......"rock" all night long and not only that, but we had sound effects too.... it made me wish that it was an earthquake..... sigh.... anyway.....hopefully the guy will pick up someone quiter or with her own room tonight.... or i may be forced to hit them with a blunt object....
Today, after a sleepless night of X rated camping, we went to Venice. It it ever beautiful here. there are little shops everywhere. they do glass blowin here and the effects are just amazing.... we strolled around for the majority of the afternoon perusing the shops. It is so neat,with the water everywhere and the boats in garages and such.... definitly an experiance... so, hopefully we will get a decent sleep tonight so we can take in some attractions tomorrow.... we shall see....
This is Sarah, signing off in a sleepy daze from beautiful Venice....

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10th August 2004

ouch, burn
REMINDS U OF YOUR PLAY?!?!?!?!?? holy, ouch, burn...lol no im glad u had fun sara... wish ide a been there it sounds so fun... i might go there now!!! well not now, but u know what i mean... i plan on reading more about your travels/adventures/whatever lol... just next time leave the cast out of it;) lol jks much love! britt

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