Shopping and sunset

Slept in today…it is very loud in our room at night because we’re at ground level and have to keep the window open in lieu of having AC. As Kostas said, during the day the little kids play, then at night the big kids ride around on their motorbikes. Wah. Oh well, shouldn’t be a problem after tonight. Also we rewarded ourselves in the morning by going to get loukoumades and the cheese version of boughatsa, which I hadn’t yet tried. The loukoumades were pretty good, if a little cold, but I definitely prefer the cream boughatsa by a lot. Cheese was interesting but more like having some ricotta-derivative for breakfast. At least we tried it! We followed up by going back to the bakery for a few more things…I think by now we have tried most things in there. Yum.

Then we started our day of shopping! Having time to shop is pretty nice. We went up and down the market roads, into some supermarkets, checked out some clothes shops…ended up with a pretty good haul of gifts, clothes (for Peter..I’m still not having a ton of luck), and airplane-secure containers for the olive oil and raki that Kostas brought us. I now have three whole liters of olive oil so I guess I am cooking a lot! I also have 1.5 L of raki, unfortunately, but we’ll find some way to use it up I hope. At least when we’re done with both we will have nice mason jars for things.

For lunch we went to Ismir Kebap (kebap kebap!) and got souvlaki and lamb kebaps… deeeelicious. Peter and I lamented that we would like to continue eating Greek foods while being back at home. I’m just glad he likes the food (not that I really had doubts). Afterwards we went down to the Venetian fort on the harbor to check it out from the inside. I hadn’t realized it was open to the public last time! So we got to enter and it seemed a lot larger from the inside than I would have expected. There wasn’t really any information about the various rooms but it was still pretty cool, although windy enough that it was dangerous in a skirt. Ah well – a sight I haven’t seen, hooray!

I wanted to watch the sunset from the breakers but it was a bit early, so we walked down the ‘mall area’ on the coast. Didn’t find anything good to buy so we just got drinks and sat and watched the world go by, as the Greeks are so good at doing. Us fastpaced Americans only lasted 45 minutes but that was pretty good for just one drink (for us, anyway). Finally it was time for me to change into shorts so we could walk down the pier unflustered. I have to say the repeat experience of walking the whole pier was quite excellent, and although there weren’t any clouds to exaggerate the sunset it was still very nice. Lots of pictures taken also, of course. So relaxing! We then went to the restaurant by the pier that Ismat had taken us to the first night for dinner…ordered lots of things, including prawns and meatballs, and it was pretty good. They were a bit slow and missed bringing us one plate but we were full by that time anyway. A pretty good night in all!

Unfortunately the internet is out completely at the hotel – they’re having lots of issues with it – so we went to the big pedestrian street and used the municipality signal. It’s nice that Iraklion has so much free wifi signal! Having to surf in the presence of some creepy street performers was less than awesome but they went away fairly quickly. I didn’t have the posts ready in time so we just did mail and left it at that. Plus we were very sleepy!

First strike of the raki

We started the day off well – there’s a large bakery between the hotel and the supermarket that has all manner of tasty interesting things. We got some baklava, a chocolate-filled croissant, cheese danishes and a few other things for really cheap, and they were GREAT. It’s a chain, but it’s fresh stuff and still probably better than a lot of the bakeries we’ve been to thus far. Ah greek food. Peter observed that Greece had the most plump locals that we’ve seen in Europe and I would have to agree…it’s probably because of all the delicious food available!

After some walking we decided to do at least a little sightseeing, to the much-advertised CretAquarium that had just opened the last time I was here. That required taking a bus a half hour out of town but we managed it – the busses that run are actually coach busses, which is really nice. The exhibit was about the same, maybe a bit bigger, but it made up for not going to the zoo in Rome in terms of pacifying our inner little kid. The more interesting part, I thought, was the other part of the dual ticket – the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit. Why it’s in Crete, I have no idea, but I didn’t know much about the guy before we went so it was pretty informative. I didn’t know he was such an engineer, or that he dissected cadavers at night…guy was wicket smart but also a bit strange. But the museum did it well, and had some real models based on sketches he had made. Pretty ingenious stuff. We had to wait a while for a bus back into town but it was all right – cool exhibits accomplished.

In a very short time after we got back to the city we met Kostas to go to the beach. Since it was so windy he opted for a more protected place, which ended up being about a half hour “close” to the city by car. I think it was part of a resort, and it wasn’t actually a traditional beach – it was a concrete platform built over the sharp rock dropoff to make some oceanfront property. The water was really clear but really strong, especially when it starts out being about 10 ft deep. The swim was good and the view was great though! Definitely a novel kind of beach we wouldn’t have seen otherwise. In the ensuing time we talked a lot and sipped whatever we had ordered, as is customary. Very good!

Since he has to get up early to report to the army, Kostas opted out of dinner but we found a nice place anyway (after showering of course!). It was the Traditional Cretan Restaurant around the bend from the Irini and it ended up being a very funny night! The food was pretty good – best salad we’ve had in Europe possibly – but the desserts were also excellent. Got the sweet yoghurt with candied carrots again, which was just as delicious as I remember, plus some fruit. Yum! I really enjoy being in a place where a filling dinner is less than 30E and dessert comes with it. Greece is probably one of the cheaper places to eat I think. Also the owner recognized us, or at least the story I told him about being here, and gave us two little things of raki instead of one with the check. Oh dear. So I was pretty unprepared to write the post after I got back, oh well! Sitting with the only other customers plus the family just watching TV (Worms and then some nazi movie) and sipping wine or raki was very nice. In five years again, I told the waiter, maybe we’ll come back. It’s still strange to be back but it has been worth it for the food alone I think. Hooray!

Mainland to island

After a breakfast of a Subway sandwich and a coffee roll from a street vendor we tried to say goodbye to Athens, but it took us a little more effort than we thought. As we walked towards the bus stop we could hear megaphone shouting and there were police everywhere…I have no idea what was up, but the bus stop street was blocked off so we were informed that it wouldn’t be coming through this morning. Fantastic. So we got to experience the metro of yet another city in order to get to another bus stop. Protip: the Athens metro is really nice! And hopefully by the time we come back, if we come back, you’ll be able to ride it straight to the airport (under construction now). But for now we stopped a ways away and got on another sardine-can bus. Thankfully we got on early enough that we grabbed seats, what a luxury. After that, check-in and security went smoothly, although I realized I hadn’t written down the address of our Iraklion hotel. Ooops. I guess Peter isn’t the only one who does that. Fortunately the information desk when we landed in Iraklion was able to look up the address and give us a map – hooray!

After the bus ride into town we were at Eleytheria’s Square (freedom square), but it took a while for me to reorient myself. Therefore it took a while to figure out how to get to our hotel…we took a lot of back roads trying to go the shortest route that we later found out were unnecessary if you took a few easier main streets. Oh well! But our hotel is pretty … budget this time. It may be the least we’ve paid per night but it also feels that way. There’s no AC, just a fan, but we’re on the ground floor – almost eye level – so we can’t keep our window open overnight. Aaand it’s pretty hot in here. Foo. Also there isn’t a shower curtain or even any sort of door for the stall – the ‘shower’ is just a raised part of the bathroom, more of a suggestion of a place for your water to go than any real demarcation. Good thing I hadn’t yet booked our last night in Iraklion before the plane home…the next three nights will be interesting enough, I don’t think we will be back.

The decision was made to spend as little time as possible in the room, so we headed out so I could find some of my old stomping grounds. I found the old hotel and a few key restaurants pretty easily, eventually found the supermarket and laundromat, and most importantly, Four Lions Square. Peter was superhungry so we got some gyros – hooray! Then we crossed over to the boughatsa place and started with one serving, but Peter liked it so much that we got another. Greek food nomnomnom. A lot of the places we’ve crossed look about the same – lots of half-finished construction of course, just some in different places now – although the fountain is done and the square with awesome graffiti has been painted over. It’s nice to have a small sense of ‘returning’ or at least familiarity with where we are…plus it’s warmer now that it isn’t winter!

After some wandering we met up with Kostas in front of the old hotel Irini. A familiar face! He showed us where to get the bus out of town before stopping for a very Greek thing – coffee. We all got things to sip at a café and we talked our way through them for the next hour or two. He’s just as funny as ever and I’m glad this worked out, although I wish I had known he had a bit more free time from his army duty on the weekends so I could have planned the excursions better. Oh well! Maybe we just have to come back. =) I think we are going to the beach with him tomorrow afternoon which would be nice! My goal for the Greek leg of the trip is to just relax… I think we are pretty museum’ed out, and I know my feet hurt, so perhaps some chilling is in order.

Dinner involved a return to Veggera, the restaurant that served me baked feta last time. We ordered it again this time and it didn’t seem to be the same kind of cheese, but it was still good. On Kostas’ recommendation we also got eggplant/bacon/cheese rolls, which were baked and very good as well. And of course raki came with the check, welcome to Crete! Now it is time to sleep, although I am a bit worried about all the street noise here. Oh boy budget hotel. PS our advertised free internet is pretty crappy so we will see about the regularity of updates.

I feel like Homer. But which Homer?

THIS IS PETER'S POST AND IT IS GREAT! TAKE THAT BELINDA~!!!!

Today we woke up early (7:30AM) for our trip to Athens, quickly dressed, and were the first ones in the hotel down to breakfast. Because it was a traveling day, I decided to stock up on food and ate a big breakfast, which took a little longer than normal, but we still managed to get out by 8:15ish. Melissa opted for a normal sized breakfast, and returned to the room to pack her things.

After having a moderately confusing conversation about postcards and express trains with our Flemish desk clerk, we headed off to the Metro. One stop later (yes, we're lazy) we were at Termini and heading for the "Leonardo Express", which our desk clerk talked with us about at length. Unfortunately, somehow the only useful piece of information we gleaned from the entire conversation was that the express train definitely existed and it definitely went to the airport from Termini (both of which our map told us). So, we headed to the nearest train information booth to find out other nonessential things like: "How do we get tickets?", "How much are the tickets?", and "Where does the train leave from?" She answered the questions twice (once with the mic turned on, once without) and then we were off! She told us the train left from platforms 24, 25, or 26, and that tickets could be purchased nearby for 11 Euro each. With the tickets in hand, we headed to try and find platform 24, 25, and 26. A short way (maybe 20 meters or 61 feet for those of you still in "standard units" land) away from the ticket shop, we ran into a conundrum. It seemed Platform 25 and 26 were one way, and platform 24 was entirely another way. Fortunately there was a departure board nearby (with the 8:52 Leonardo Express listed and platformless), so we just sat and watched it to see what platform it would end up being. Well, actually my delightful travel companion watched it while I watched her unconsciously do the nervous dance. Shhhh... don't tell!! This paragraph now has to be long, because I know she secretly doesn't read middle sentences in long paragraphs. After a while, the platform showed up as 25 and we headed off down the correct corridor. It turned out that 24, 25, and 26 actually were next to each other, along with 1-23, but for some reason the signs sent you opposite directions only at the point we got stuck at. I had a lot of time to ponder this oddity of Italian public transport as I travelled down the incredibly long corridor to the train, which we were in plenty of time for. It left 5 minutes late, which puts us at 8:57 for those of you keeping track at home.

The train ride was generally uneventful and got us to the airport just after 9:30AM. Now, the one thing that I've thus far avoided mentioning is our scheduled departure time. It was 11AM for an Italy -> Greece international flight. This meant that the whole train ride Melissa was stressing out about how we weren't going to make it. Arriving at the check-in line with a bag 1.5 hours before the scheduled departure time had me a little worried as well, but I'd like to think I avoided stressing out as much!

Thus begins the nicest check-in/security experience in all my travels so far. As soon as we got off the train, we found our flight was going out of Terminal B, so we headed over and down the stairs. The general mood between us was "PANIC" at this point, so we were looking around frantically for Olympic Airlines at the check-in area. After a minute or two, we find their three checkin aisles and run up to them with our one bag and two giant backpacks, documents out and speaking rapid English to the Greek woman behind the counter, who seemed to understand our situation entirely better than we did. Three minutes later, we were on our way with our bag checked and boarding passes.

Security was basically a massive set of those line-forming fabric rope things set up like a snake that dumped you out by 8 X-ray machines with 4 metal detectors. No lines were more than 5 people long, and we were through with security in under 5 minutes. It really took us longer to go through their fabric rope gauntlet than it did to go through the rest of security. I guess if you can survive the gauntlet then you're safe to fly!

So here it was, 9:45 and we were at our gate. Not expecting to have free time and with the reality of our situation setting in, Melissa and I both slowly tried to find something to do to kill time for the next hour. I listened to a WNYC Radio Lab episode (thanks mom) and Melissa got a pretty good cured ham and cheese sandwich and sort of listened to radio lab with me.

One gate change and an hour later, we were standing in line with the mass of other people hoping to board the Athens flight. ...And there we stood... for about an hour. When we finally got on our jet and off the ground, we were a solid 50 minutes late, putting us in to Athens at about 3PM. (At least they fed us on the plane, although the fare was somewhat mysterious. -m)

Getting from the airport to the hotel was something of an Odyssey (yuk yuk yuk). They'd shut down part of the line we needed to go directly from the airport to the stop near our hotel, so we decided to take the bus to a nearby stop and just walk a little ways with our luggage. It seems a lot of other people had the same idea, because the bus was absolutely packed. I've now been closer to half a dozen Greek strangers than I've been to most of my friends. Not only was it an uncomfortable and bumpy ride, but it also lasted nearly an hour and >80% of the people got out at the very last stop with us.

Now, something as simple as "taking the bus to a nearby stop and walking to the next stop" sounds easy, but doesn't account for two things. First, neither Melissa nor I can really read the Greek alphabet. We also don't have a map of the city and only have secondhand access to an English map held by someone else on the bus. Obviously, this causes all kinds of navigational problems even when you're just three blocks away from where you want to be.

We must have looked desperate and helpless enough as we paced the square we were dropped off by the bus, because eventually an old man pointed us in the right direction. Ten minutes later (if even that) we were checking in at the front desk and heading up to our room at Hotel Attalos.

By 5:30 we were bouncing back out to the Acropolis (which closes at 7:30. Though the Parthenon itself was entirely covered in scaffolding, the view from the Acropolis was amazing. You can see all the way across Athens from up there, and there's a nice breeze. I can see why the ancient Greeks chose to build there even though they had to haul the materials up the hill and carve their foundations into the rock. After the Acropolis we went down and saw the Agora.

The Agora consisted of lots of big pillars and heaps of rocks that at one point were parts of buildings. From the Agora museum's explanation, it seems the people who raided Athens during the dark ages enjoyed leveling the Agora to the ground a little more than Rome's raiders enjoyed leveling the Forum. Either way, it was pretty cool to walk through ruins over 2000 years old. It honestly seemed a little small compared to the ancient forum, but more on that later.

By this point in our rapid tour of ancient Athens the sun was on its way down and our stomachs were talking, so we headed back in to town for some food. During Melissa's previous trip to Athens, she'd been to a lookout point from the Acropolis with a nice view at night (the Rock of Areopagos) so we decided to get food we could walk with and head up there. Walking through the shops at dinnertime, the restaurant greeters tried to lure us in as they always do and we stoically ignored them until I found a delightful Greek man with a respectable moustache and pretty good English. I asked him if we could possibly just get takeout (two gyros wrapped up). He agreed, and 5 minutes later we were on our way with two really delicious gyros that had only cost us 1.90 Euro each. (a guy in a tourist trap area didn't try to screw us!! -m)

Due to our stroke of good fortune, we decided to splurge on some drinks and grapes, bringing the total cost of dinner to somewhere south of 10 Euro. Best of all, it was delicious! Well, I should qualify that. Everything tasted delicious, and we both enjoyed our gyros and drinks thoroughly. Unfortunately, the US supermarkets have left us utterly unprepared to deal with foreign grapes. It's slightly embarrassing to admit, but we'd both forgotten grapes normally have seeds. They were delicious, but neither of us knew if we could eat the seeds or had to spit them out, so we were spitting out 1-5 seeds per grape. It was kind of fun, but turned into a hassle after a few dozen grapes.

After our ascent to the Rock of Areopagos (I just like saying that), we watched the sun set and all the lights slowly turn on. The view really was fantastic. A few more clouds during the sunset would have made it perfect, but it was pretty nice just the way it was. Shutterbugissa was clicking away, and I contented myself peoplewatching. One guy was squatting like a baseball catcher for almost half an hour talking at his beer can (into his cellphone). I was impressed both that he could hold that position for half an hour and that he could talk to someone for half an hour on a cellphone while nursing the same beer. But alas, eventually Melissa's picture frenzy petered out and we had to descend and return to our hotel.

It turns out our hotel has a nice rooftop bar with a pretty great view of the Acropolis, which we visited. Though Melissa won't know until she reads this, it was there that I decided to start measuring prices not in Euros or Dollars, but in delicious Gyros. 1.90 Euro or 2.66 Dollars per delicious Gyro. 3.42 delicious Gyros per mixed drink and glass of wine at the rooftop bar. We got tired of their musical selections, so tired and unwilling to sacrifice more delicious Gyros for alcohol we wouldn't need, we returned to our room.

Then I announced I was writing this post! She protested and will probably censor me tomorrow, but for now she's asleep.

Art Stuff:

Now that we have seen plenty of art in Europe and I've pretty much hit all the major art museums I know of, I can see how people can artistically credit the Greeks with so much and the Romans with so little. Just walking through the Borghese and Vatican Museums, it's pretty easy to see how advanced the Greek sculptors were compared to the Romans. Roman statues were generally marble copies of Greek ones with added supports (unnecessary tree stumps, clubs, capes, etc.) because the Greek originals were Bronze and the Marble isn't hollow so it balances differently. I'm not sure I saw a single worthwhile Roman statue that wasn't actually originally Greek. The famous Greek statue of Laocoon probably isn't artistically or technically rivaled until the Renaissance. Romans regularly assembled their statues from multiple pieces of Marble, while the Greeks carved from a single block. This technique, along with the depth of expression in the statue, would be lost until the Renaissance.

What I think we can credit the Romans with is making everything bigger than the Greeks. The Greeks made the Parthenon. Okay. I can think of easily a dozen Roman ruins much larger than the Parthenon. I doubt they were any more functional than the Greek architecture (in fact, I'm not sure the Romans had even mastered the split level house) but still, it was many times bigger. Also, the Pantheon is pretty impressive.

(Well I guess he did a pretty good job huh guys! The only thing I want to add is that it is definitely a bit strange to be back in Athens, and to have been able to do so much awesome sightseeing (some repeat, some not) in less than 24 hours. What a good intro to Greece for Peter and a really fun coming-back for me! Hopefully the rest of the trip goes this smoothly! -m)

Dial C for Classy

The goal for today was to hit the odds and ends that we hadn’t seen yet. After breakfast we walked over to the ancient part of the city (well, the major, excavated part) to check out the Capitol building and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The building is massive and impressive and there was a nice treat – the museum inside is free, and so is entrance to the church up there. The main exhibit was about Italy during the late 1800s up to WWI and the bringing back of the Unknown Soldier, so that somewhat rounded out our knowledge of Italy. Ancient ruins first, the 16th – 19th centuries mainly yesterday, and the 20th century and on today. Not that the instruction was super extensive since the exhibit was mostly in Italian, but still. There was also an exhibit in the midlevel of photos taken by different photographers of different Mediterranean countries, which was nice. My favorites were from a guy named Ivo. A few floors (and another small exhibit with a really old recording of an exuberant Italian song) later, we finally reached the exit and set off towards the Pantheon.

Happily, it was not closed today! Admission is actually free as well, which is awesome. The Rick Steves audioguide was cool to listen to again, so I’m glad we brought those. The building itself is pretty intense – the dome is as wide as it is tall, 20ft thick at the base and 5ft thick at the top, mathematically perfect before calculators and computers and formal engineers. Steves noted that this year is the 1400th birthday of the Pantheon being a church, I think – it’s about 2000 years old in all. Some of the decorations have changed, and it’s officially gone from a polytheistic to monotheistic crowd, but it is essentially the same as it was in Hadrian’s time. Pretty cool. And watching the sun stream through the hole in the dome is very picturesque! As a bonus, Rafael is buried there, and some kings. A pretty classy place.

We relied on Steves again for lunch, going to one of his recommended places (Miscellanea) because he suggested we would get fragolino if we set the book out on the table. I don’t think we would have stopped there without knowing that bit of info, because it was jam packed and the food didn’t look super awesome from the menu. But eventually our food came, it was massive and good, and sure enough, we got two little glasses of fragolino at the end. Hooray! It was lighter and fizzier than the one at the Osteria but it was refreshing and smelled pretty much the same. Not sure how they got around whatever laws surround it, but we picked up a bottle just in case we don’t have the opportunity again. Pretty exciting!

Killed some time shopping, waiting for the churches to open back up from their midday nap. Peter had wanted to go to the church of Saint Ignacio but wouldn’t tell me why, so finally we got in (no fee yay!) and I figured it out. As you walk in, the first fresco has a lot of perspective and adds the illusion of another floor up there, but it’s pretty obvious that the ceiling is only curved. There is one darker circle ahead, though, that is painted in such a way that you completely don’t notice that it doesn’t lead up into a domed ceiling until you’re right underneath it. Very clever! It looks like it really needs some cleaning but it tricked me even without it. Optical illusion church, very good. The rest of the place is none too shabby but I guess they wanted an extra something. By the entrance they also have wooden replicas of a lot of famous churches, which was cool.

The last stop in this area was San Crispino, a much-lauded gelateria near the Trevi fountain (which was near some unsuccessful attempted shopping we did). They are the ultimate in gelato purists, using no artificial ingredients and serving only in cups, as the cone might interfere with the flavor of the gelato. We tried honey, melon, raspberry, blackberry, chocolate and straticcella (that would be three cups…) and they were all very good. They succeeded in freezing honey, something that the grade-school me with an ice cube tray of cold but unfrozen honey appreciates. I have to admit it wasn’t as tasty as the blackberry or the chocolate, the two winners this time, but it was novel. Full, we headed to the subway and negotiated our first post-Roma pass entrance to get home. I’m pretty impressed that we did so well without the Roma pass today – I was worried we’d hit a bunch of things we’d have to pay for, but apparently not. Given, one of the museums takes Mondays off for some reason, but still, the lack of a metro pass was the bigger loss.

After a long nap and a good shower it was time to eat again, but after sweating all day in capris (so the churches wouldn’t get angry looking at my knees) and needing them for our travel day tomorrow it was decided to do another load of laundry. Very exciting I know! But it gave us an opportunity to go back to the big supermarket, where Peter decided we would eat dinner. We got some meat rolls from the ready-made section, some yogurts, and some prepackaged tiramisu. The meat we ate while walking back to the Laundromat – very romantic? – and the rest we ate on the steps outside, waiting for our clothes to dry. Our last night in Rome, watching the moon over the Italian streets and drinking yogurt like hobos without spoons (actual hobos are probably more prepared). We then took our laundry, went back to the room and used some cookies we had bought previously to spoon out the tiramisu. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know how many calories that was but it was pretty good at least. The whole dinner elevated us to a whole new level of classy traveling, but it was pretty entertaining. After that was some packing…I’m glad we took the suitcase now, as it’s full of fun stuff. We also finally booked the rest of the hotels for our trip – one entire expenditure finalized! I suppose we are drawing into a close, as we’ll reach our last country tomorrow. But we still have a week or so. Pretty exciting – but it’s superlate, so time to sleep!

Laundry and gardens and things

Laundry day once again! We probably couldn’t have gone very much longer without doing it this time. The Laundromat near us had a lot of washers and even some dryers so that was exciting. Our plan was to get it started and then get some money from an ATM, but we walked around for the washing cycle and couldn’t find a single machine (we tried four) that wasn’t exclusively dispensing 50E bills. It’s sort of inevitable that you get those when you withdraw so much money but it’s really annoying to break them, so we try to have at least a few twenties just in case we need something cheap and don’t want to steal all the store’s change. It’s ridiculous not to dispense anything lower…if you round up the exchange rate to the nearest bill it would be like ATMs in the US dispensing only $100 bills. Outrageous! But so it is. We chased down another recommendation in the drying cycle but couldn’t find it; instead, we found a huge supermarket not too far from our hotel. That was a good find – even the nuns were loading up their minivans out front. We will have to return when we have money.

With our laundry clean and ready (hurray!) we returned to the hotel to drop it off. The receptionist told us that there was an atm in the opposite direction that we had looked that would probably work, and it did. All that fuss, ah well. It was definitely more walking than we had anticipated for the morning but I guess it was just warming us up for the day to come. Our first stop was the Spanish Steps, where we watched some rose peddlers (pun not originally intended) run away from the cops, which was fun. Then we climbed them and wandered around the Borghese gardens, where there was great sights AND great shade. We tried to go see the biopark, but our Roma pass didn’t bring down the admission as low as we would have liked so no zoo for us! Just outside the complex, though, they did have lots of Frigo items and a little shop with excellent sandwiches for only 2.50E. That’s super cheap in these parts and it was totally unexpected, coming from a super touristy located joint. An appreciated surprise though!

From there it was time to hit the Borghese gallery. Originally the lines looked like we probably shouldn’t have prebooked because they were short, but the museum is weird in that it only lets in so many people per two hour limit. So the people standing in line in front of us probably weren’t getting tickets to get in immediately, and being able to go to the gardens only once (without leaving after purchase and coming back for valid wandering time) is pretty useful. This was one of the few sights that Peter hadn’t seen, apparently, with a lot of works he recognized from his Latin books and a lot of grand rooms. So we saw the Rape of Persephone and a lot of famous works. My favorite was Daphne and Apollo, showing the moment that she starts turning into a tree to avoid Apollo’s advances. The sculptor spent a lot of time making leaves, and they all connected very delicately and well (just like the rest of the statue). Very cool. My only issue with this museum is that everything looked a little too perfect – I mean, it was originally a museum, so naturally everything has been well preserved. But in Rome something that is only (only!) 200 years old is less noteworthy, especially if it looks like it was only made yesterday. Interesting!

We tried to get to the Pantheon afterwards but people were getting married in there (“oh yes, well we just got married in the PANTHEON!” …wtf.) so we raced around on the 3rd day of our Roma pass trying to find another place to get into so it pays itself off. We ended up finding the Museo di Roma, which was nice. Info, photos, clothes and furniture from Rome between the 18th – 20th centuries…just another museum with cool stuff as far as I’m concerned but Peter seemed to enjoy it. I liked our following trips through the Piazza Navona (tall buildings, large statues, big fountains, very impressive) and the Trevi fountain (huge carving, huge pipes, one bricked-in window at the top?) better though. Lots of tourists but it made sense since there was a lot to see around. Walk walk walk.

But tiiiired. We’ve decided that Rome has the most steps and hills of all the cities we’ve experienced and so it makes us more tired faster, and therefore grumpy. Grr grr. We went back to the hotel and showered but didn’t take naps this time, which might have been bad. But instead we went and got pizza because Peter was very insistent on it. We got the whole ‘pay by the gram’ (aka whatever you tell them / they decide to cut) experience and the food ended up pretty okay. Fortified, we used our Roma pass (on its last day of life, very sad) to get to the Colosseum again to see it at night. It was definitely a cool view and I finally remembered to bring my jobo tripod, which was definitely helpful. Looks very different at night, I’m glad we checked that off.

Got some gelato on the way back but that was a temporary perk - Peter’s faaast asleep by now and I keep falling asleep midsentence, woo hoo. So it is sleepytime. May tomorrow be full of less crankiness!

Ruins of an empire

Today was Ancient Rome day, and our first stop was the Colosseum. Unfortunately the line was horrendous but we got sucked into a tour group in order to avoid the hours of waiting. It was 10E/ea over the ticket price, which actually wasn’t that bad to save us so much time. The tour guide we could have taken or left, but he did seem to enjoy describing the various and sundry animals that would face off with hunters in the arena. And he had a few amusing quips so it turned out pretty well. We could have gone on to the other ruins with another guide (included in our ticket) but we weren’t quite done with the Colosseum yet. Good thing we went back in too, because there was a whole exhibit on the royal family that ordered the structure. That was cool. Also Peter got to look more extensively for the place where Bruce Lee fought Chuck Norris in Return of the Dragon. We thought it was on the second floor somewhere and after coming home and watching it on youtube I think we’re on the right track. Anyway it was pretty impressive even in its tumbled-down state, so I’m glad we got to get in.

Between the Colosseum and the Roman Forum we got hungry, but got tied up unfortunately in a supertourist trap. Even though it was recommended online it was not very good, and we got price gouged even after perusing the menu (damn bread and tip prices). Boo. At least there was a supermarket at the corner, and we went there for a box of Magnum bonbon equivalents (nomnom) for much less than they’d be anywhere else. Our new lunch rule is that if we see a supermarket we should stop if we want the cheapest lunch available. We are perhaps somewhat embittered but that’s all part of the experience!

With food in our tummies we headed to the Roman Forum, armed with our free audioguide from Rick Steves. Apparently they have changed the entrances to all these places to put in ticket offices (according to Peter) so it’s very different than how he (and Rick) expected us to get in. Eventually we made it though, and although it was terribly hot it was also very cool to be there. Not every day that you get to see Cesar’s tomb and other 2000 year old buildings. The Palentine Hill was also included so we headed up there to see a panoramic view of the Forums in addition to a few other cool things – the gardens, some cool ruins, a neat fountain room, all sorts of things. The sheer size of what the Romans did without any formal construction equipment other than slaves was quite impressive. Imagining what it would have looked like in its heyday was really something! Without the audioguide I’m sure it would have been a bit less exciting – it does look like piles of really old rubble, after all – but knowing the significance of said rubble was very interesting.

That was quite enough to cover for today, though, and the typical shower/nap kick occurred after we got our sweaty selves back to the hotel. Peter has a pretty fantastic v-neck tan due to the lack of serious sunscreen application but oh well, another souvenir. Dinner again was on our same street – boy are we getting lazy – and this time we went to Pugliamonti, which was actually very good. We finally tried (kind of by accident) the fried pumpkin flowers which have been recommended in more than a few guidebooks/maps, and they were surprisingly alright! Other things we ordered were also good, including the recommendations the waitress had and the dessert with little fried half moons of dough filled with strawberry preserves on top of a lot of chocolate sauce. Hooray tasty food, finally. Tonight’s waitress was great too, but she didn’t have the one-liner I forgot to include from last night’s waiter, which was “No bills, I have only Barack Obama” in response to us asking for the bill. Pretty cute.

Alright very sleepy! Tomorrow we absolutely must do laundry…exciting I know. Probably there will be a bit more to it than just that. See you then.

A visit to Popeland

We got up really early to make it to the Vatican tour appointment, probably one of the earliest days we’ve had. Nevertheless, it was already mobbed when we got there, so we were very happy that we had booked a tour. Our tour guide Janette, an art history major from FL who now studies in Rome, told us that there were nine miles of stuff to see in the Musei Vaticani and if you looked at every piece of art for 60 seconds you’d be there for 12 years. So a lotta stuff, a lotta people (bottlenecked in some places), and too much information – perfect situation to have a tour. Probably the best opportunity for one thus far. And she was an excellent guide, really spirited even though she does two of these three-hour things a day. We got a very informed welcome to Popeland, complete with pope treasure, a story about a pope punch (how the pope convinced Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, even though he was a sculptor), lots of pope bling (huuuge diamonds on some chalices), etc. Eventually we made it through the museum, the Rafael rooms, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s basilica, and the papal crypt. Whuf! The Chapel was cool, even cooler with some story behind the way it was painted. One of my favorites was when a cardinal opposed the painting of the Last Judgment, and ended up getting his likeness painted in the corner with donkey ears and a snake running around him. Michelangelo seems like a pretty depressed weird dude, but he did good work! The basilica was simply stunning, gigantic and impossibly decorated (7-foot tall letters in gold? No problem!). That whole section of Rome (technically its own country) was really just larger than life. Crazy popes.

In the end the only thing we didn’t get to was the climb up to the cupola, because we didn’t have enough change and they didn’t take credit cards. I probably wouldn’t have made it anyway, as my legs were already whining about having done Vatican City in sandals. But we did see the Castel Sant’Angelo / Hadrian’s Tomb next, and saw Rome’s skyline anyway, which is not actually as exciting as I would have thought. But it was even free because of our Roma pass – we’re half paid off already, woo hoo. Walking around the fortress was pretty cool too, although by then it was pretty darn hot and it was even more exhausting. I really need to find another pair of capris…wearing a skirt to cover my knees for churches necessitates sandals but that makes walking harder. Oy. On the plus side, I assume I must be getting more into shape. I felt like I petered out really early at 5pm today but then I realized we’d been walking since 8:30am, so it wasn’t so bad.

Going back for a shower, even in our tinier-than-life stalls, was perhaps just as great as sightseeing at that point. Sweaty tourists. We took a nap but it was already time to get dinner so it wasn’t that long. We didn’t feel like walking very far afterwards, but there seem to be plenty of ok restaurants on our street so we picked one at random and got some unimpressive but very edible things. I suppose this is a short update for the amount of stuff we saw today, but I am pretty much on sightseeing overload and I assume that I will fall over as soon as I finish this. Zzzz.

Stops and starts

Well Siena was definitely our laziest stay yet. I think it was because it was so hot, and the house was so nice, that we didn’t feel bad not doing much. Also our new neighbors yesterday included a young violinist and his mom, and the guy has been practicing classical music – and well! – in the afternoons so we feel classy doing nothing. It didn’t help that neither one of us was feeling particularly awesome stomach-wise – might have been the water we had at a fountain, or too much heavy food. So lots of reading and such. We thought the trains to Rome ran every hour or so, so we weren’t really in a hurry, but it turns out we had forgotten that we had to switch trains – there’s nothing direct from Siena. So we got a local train to Florence again, which was tiny outside but nice inside at least. Then we had some waiting time in the train station, or thought we did until we noticed that reservations were compulsory on all trains to Rome. We got through the line with our ticket with 4 minutes to spare and jumped on the train. Whew! The consequence of all that was a lot of sweatiness for the next two hours on the train, sadly, but at least we made it to Rome (a few hours later than we expected).

Finding our hotel involved a similar level of adventure. Peter hadn’t written anything out, so we got on the right street only to reach a dead end. We turned around and must have looked really confused, because some guy carrying two beer bottles asked if we were looking for Hostel Ivanhoe. We thought we had booked a hotel, but the Ivanhoe part was right, so we followed him into a building and up to a floor with low weird lighting and pumping music from the reception desk. The guy there had to turn it down three times before he could hear us, and then told us that we had made a mistake – there *was* a Hotel Ivanhoe, and it was right across the street. Ooops. Well at least it made us glad we weren’t staying at the hostel. Turns out we had missed the hotel because it was buried under some scaffolding, although the front desk assures us that the construction is over. We will probably not get any natural lighting in the room, though, because of it…so I guess we are doing a lot of sightseeing to avoid feeling depressed by dark fluorescent lights. I think it seems shady but Peter assures me that everything in Rome is kind of this way. Good to know?

The room itself is ok, I guess. They did the push-together-two-twins trick again (we’ve seen that before) to make a double, and the shower stall is small enough to be a veritable challenge, but it’s supposedly very conveniently located. We tried to go and see the Coliseum at night because it was close, but we got lost and just ended up looping back and stopping at a restaurant to eat. Nothing special, just some pasta dishes, but enough. It did remind us that European bacon is sadness – the idea of crunchy has sadly not come over the ocean yet. Ah well. Tomorrow we have the Vatican tour so it should be a pretty serious day! We’ll see how the internet updating works as there is only signal in the lobby, which is four flights down…but now at least you know we made it.

Laaazy day...

Laazy day! Had breakfast and kind of lounged about until we got hungry enough to look for lunch. We’d noted a cool looking pizza place yesterday and returned to get one slice with hot dogs and one with iberico ham (or some derivative) plus a sandwich. Nom! This was actually thick pizza crust too, much more than we’ve seen thus far. So a good experience! On the way back we went into a wine store looking to get some Fragolino, but the owner – who seemed very legit – told us that it was actually illegal to sell Fragolino but was ok to produce or give it away. The reason for this had something to do with an inability to determine the amount of methanol in each batch, which can lead to blindness or even death. So unless I run into someone who wants to gift me a bottle (or if I go to a restaurant that goes against the rules again) I pretty much can’t buy any. Interesting! Which means that our favorite osteria was really going the extra mile, or something? Or maybe I misheard? Kind of confusing but I guess it adds to the trip!

That done, we stopped by a pharmacy to get a refill on Advil…yup, it’s chores day. Unfortunately they don’t sell the name brand here, or even bottles – I got a 24 pack of individually separated ibuprofen tablets for 8.23E. Bah! Next time I travel to Europe I’ll know to bring a huge amount of Advil. Similarly, Peter was looking for paperbacks to read and they all cost between 10-20E – insane! Imagine paying 11E to read “T is for Treason.” It’s that bad. We walked away pretty defeated but what can you do. Fortunately we were by the cool candle place from yesterday, and this time they were making one of the really complicated candles – peeling and styling and all. Very fortuitous! So we stayed and watched for a while and it was quite cool to see the tools they use and hear about the process. They heat up the dip-dyed block and then have about 15 minutes to slice and style (for the big ones – less for smaller candles) before it hardens too much again. Hooray for neat demonstrations.

A bit further down we saw an bunch of escalators with no clear signage as to where they were going. This being our lazy day, we figured we would take the ride…at least four sets of escalators later, we were at the park by the Fontebranda! Kind of random, kind of magical…definitely strange to find an escalator in the middle of a medieval city such as Siena, but I guess someone thought it was a good idea. We got to spy on the weird fish again so it worked out ok! After a while we headed back up, got some more things for breakfast tomorrow, and headed back to do some more laundry and nap. We might have done some cool things but it was still primarily a lazy day!

After a long while it was time to go out and eat again. We (well, mostly I) thought it would be fun to be gourmands for a night and go to this really fancy, “best meal of my life” rated place (by food mag editors no less!) in Siena. We passed a full band playing in Il Campo, which was cute, and then entered a very nice but homey feeling restaurant called Cane e Gatto on one of the older streets of Siena. After some dried fruits and house prosecco, which was probably the best we’ve had thus far, we got an appetizer plate of all sorts of regional specialties – chicken liver, cheese in honey, melon and prosciutto, some kind of quiche, and bruschetta. All of them were great, and I never would have thought to pair honey and cheese so that was cool. Next was a mushroom cream soup, which tasted ok to me so I assume it was excellent for those who like mushrooms. Then they brought out some handmade gnocchi, which were melt-in-your-mouth excellent with a fantastic pesto-tomato sauce. Probably the best gnocchi we’ve had! Then came the meat course, with beef and truffles on one half and chicken in a very flavorful sauce on the other. Both were very, very good – definitely a highlight of the meal. Then it was dessert time, and after they poured a fruity white dessert wine they brought out a plate with tiramisu, strawberry shortcake (ish) and the kicker – mint mousse. Thus far I had been trying to just enjoy it without comparing to Osteria Bea Vita but this made it a direct comparison…and (shh, don’t tell) the Osteria’s was better. So yeah, we left positive reviews in their guestbook because they brought it over for us to sign, but the end verdict was that it wasn’t three times as good (maybe even not AS good, for some things…although on par for other things) as the Osteria. It was a lot of tasty food, great service (all the ladies got orchids!), and tasty wine pairings though. In the end we decided that we were kind of done with the fancy expensive gourmet experience, but now we know what it’s like and it’s not like it was a waste of a meal – it was great, just not as good of a value as Bea Vita. Oh well, now we know! And as Peter says, we can eat pizza for the rest of the trip. Maybe not, I think, but it seems like laying off impulsive things might be a great idea for now. I’m appropriately sleepy though so that’s enough for tonight!

Super tourists!

Woo hoo breakfast with a view! Not nearly as good as in France but it is pretty darn good for Italy. Unfortunately the milk carton I bought (from a nonrefrigerated aisle, for it is superpasturized as the Europeans and Mexicans are wont to do) contains stuff that doesn’t taste like it does at home. This happens every time I travel…I have to give up milk unless it’s with something like cereal because it tastes too weird plain. Blast. Oh well, I tried, and it wasn’t expensive.

After we were fortified we walked over to the Jewish quarter…since I found it I figured we had to visit. It also coincides with some of the oldest roads in Siena, and they were appropriately cool looking. We followed one to the Duomo here, which may have been smaller than the one in Florence but it was way more interesting inside. There were marble frescoes on the floors that depicted scenes from the bible, some very complicated, and the pillars were green and white striped marble which was neat. Since we got the “My name is Duccio” pass (apparently famous artist that did lots of work around here) we got admission to several things in the area at once, which paid itself off very quickly. The nearby crypt was cool – they filled it in originally to help support the weight of the new Duomo, and the paintings sat for several centuries until they were unearthed again. The colors are still vivid and what they could get to was in pretty good condition. They also excavated the former church connected to the crypt, and had places where you could look through the floor and see that there was a whole extra level downstairs. The brickwork on some of the old entrances also held up very well…we got the impression that if the Duomo and the crypt were to be abandoned, while most modern buildings would perish these old ones would stand forever. Very cool. Also visited another baptistery with works by Donatello and a pretty cool floor inlay – this one had skulls! A good morning all in all!

After all that we got pretty hungry again so we wandered around looking for cheap sandwiches. On the way we found an awesome candle place where each is made by hand, and some are layer dipped and peeled back for a cool effect. So we did a little shopping before ultimately finding a nice place with good sandwiches. Stomach savior! Then we were ready to finish off our Duccio pass, which involved going to the medieval Museo dell’opera (the treasures and bishop hats were cool, everything else was kind of just ok) and climbing the very narrow stairs to a panoramic overlook of Siena. That part, called the Facciatone, indeed had a great view but the people flow was pretty badly planned. Some people would selfishly try to go against the flow of traffic even though the stairwells were pretty much one lane only. Ah well, tourist trap traps stupid tourists, kind of silly. Once we finally got down we headed back to do our laundry so we could hang it out in the heat of the day. The washer was unfortunately really slow so it took us a bit longer … but that just gave us time for naps.

When we were finally ready we set out on a path recommended by one of the walking tour pamphlets that the apartment owners had left for us. It tours the Camollia section and we first went to the Santuario di Santa Caterina (St. Catherine of Siena), which was free to the public but unfortunately all in Italian. She is one of the Patron Saints of Italy apparently, a kind of local figure who died pretty young of a stroke (says wikipedia). The place was very pretty, all done up in frescoes of her life, although we didn’t really understand what was happening. We did see the stone pillow she traditionally slept on, which was strange. After that we walked to the Fontebranda, which is a big fountain dating back to the 1300s that, while heavily used, was suspected to cause traits of insanity for a while. The water isn’t potable now but it does house a large variety of strange looking fish – huge blue ones, one crazy yellow one, a few abandoned goldfish, etc. It was pretty cool!

Next was a climb up to the basilica di San Domenico, which is the primary scenery object outside our window so we figured we should pay it a visit. We hit it at the right time, when these awesome fat rays of afternoon sun were streaming through the windows and hitting all the dust in the air. Although it had some wood and wasn’t all marble it was just as impressive, and looked like it was actually used quite frequently. It did have the relic of St. Catherine’s head, though, which was partly mummified and wrapped with a nun’s habit. That was really spooky, and people were praying to it – a severed head (her body is somewhere else >.>)! The whole sainthood thing is pretty strange.

Anyway, the Fortezza Medicea was our next stop, and we walked all around it to check it out. It had cool corners that were kind of spat out by lion heads…pictures to come later. Eventually we figured out how to get up top, although the Enoteca Italiana, which houses 1600 kinds of Italian wine to test and buy, had been rented out for the night. So wine tasting was out, but we walked around the top anyway and the sights were pretty good.

Then it was almost time for dinner! We headed back to collect our clothes off the line (maybe we’re getting better at hanging them, maybe not) and change. Tonight we ended up at Osteria Le Logge, which was another internet recommendation, and we were pretty happy with the choice finally! They served spaghetti with bacon and onions in a great sauce. I would have been happy with just more of that, but we also ordered the bistecca alla fiorentina, which is “the most famous steak in Tuscany from the meat of the white Chiania cattle” according to the Florence map we had. We figured we had to try it, as huge and expensive as it is, and it was definitely delicious. Perhaps even too much meat, although Peter (who heartily enjoyed the meal) might disagree with me. I had developed a pretty bad headache over the course of dinner actually, so I probably enjoyed it a bit less, but it was still interesting.

After our day of power-tourism, tomorrow will be a day of relaxing, I think! We have hit most of what we wanted to see so perhaps we will just lounge about or go looking for that delicious dessert wine from Bea Vita. The waitress told me it was Fragolino but when I looked it up i learned that the real kind isn’t readily available. Foo! So I will look…although if I don’t find it that will just contribute to the memory of Venice. Ah well!

(headache is better this morning but still not gone. Booo. Hopefully we will either relax enough or do enough things to distract it.)

A view in Siena

This morning turned out pretty much how we had figured. After getting some more sandwiches we wandered over towards Grom again (through some not-so-nice smelling streets…maybe Monday is pee in an alley day). Peter got a peach, apricot, and raspberry cone and I got the dark chocolate again with mint and the “crema di grom” which had biscotti and chocolate pieces. All the flavors were most excellent! So now we have tried 10 of the 24 flavors offered…not bad! We checked out the website last night and found out that there is a branch in NY…perhaps we will have to stop by someday.

In the hour we had left in Florence we checked out some bookstores (where English texts were VERY expensive, but there was a kid’s book about Dante somehow) and the big indoor market. That was pretty cool – they had a huge variety of pastas, some of them multicolored or strange shapes. I wish we could bring some back but I’m certain that they would be crushed to bits. Maybe we’ll see a more travel-ready package somewhere else.

Speaking of which, the train ride to Siena (which normally costs 12E, free for us, very local train) was uneventful. Finding out how to get the bus to the city center took us a while but with a little help we figured it out. Also whipped out a ghettomap (on the computer) to figure out where our lodgings were, since we were not pre-equipped with a map for Siena. It was definitely worth it though…our booking with Siena B&B Hospitality, which shuffles you to sort of apartmentlike rooms, came through and we have a GREAT room that connects to a huge common kitchen with a balcony overlooking the Basilica di Santo Dominico (very picturesque) and a lot of nice landscape. The owners didn’t speak a lot of English but everything went fine and we are very impressed. A good surprise! A good fridge meant that we could go get some nice breakfast things like milk and OJ and yogurt…hooray!

After making a quick supermarket trip, we walked around for the afternoon, hitting Il Campo (a large square) and seeing the outside of a few cool churches. Everything is much more medieval-looking here, and quieter (thank god!) than Florence which was a tourist bonanza. I think we will get to like it! Unfortunately our dinner was again only okay, although it was in a palace built in the 1200s so that’s worth something. Tourist restaurant check! Man Bea Vita spoiled us. Haha. Oh well! Went and got some more gelato for dessert and it was quite good – Peter got limoncello and “ace” flavors (I got more chocolate variations…nom) and it was entertaining. We ran up with them to our balcony to watch the sun set over the western part of the city…very nice! The nighttime view is also great, and I suspect that we’re high enough up that the mosquitoes may not chase us. At least that’s what I tell myself when we go up the five or so flights of stairs.

We were given a lot of maps and suggestions so I’m now sifting through and seeing what we might want to hit tomorrow. I’m also stockpiling restaurant recommendations from The Internet, although that hasn’t worked spectacularly thus far. Maybe next time! Should be a good next couple days.

PS our internet is finally good so I am going to post some pictures until I get tired. =)
PPS - all caught up!

Hiking in Florence

Our first and only full day in Florence! After some sandwiches for breakfast we set off to sightsee/kill time until our ticket date at the Accademia gallery. We wandered in and out of a few nice plazas on the way to the Bargello, an old prison and police headquarters. We intended to check it out but their armory was closed AND they wanted to charge a lot. Since we have been spending kind of a bit lately we decided to tone it down today…too bad, museums! Italy is horrendous for student discounts in that there are few to none available, and they always want to charge way more than any other country has for their exhibits, even the small ones. Pah we said! So we set off towards the gardens and Forte al Belvedere across the bridge, because our map says it’s a nice place to see the city. It was definitely a steep climb to get up there, but the streets were very pretty. The area leading into the gardens, however…well, the first thing we saw was the fortress entrance not only closed but taped up. Oh joy. Also a lot of the grass was dead and there was a lot of construction going on (well, set up to go on – hey it’s a Sunday, no one does anything). The kicker was that they wanted 10E each for garden admission…and we had 19.85 collectively. Ooops, forgot to hit the ATM, and the ticketman was kind of a jerk about it. Since we had seen so many gardens in Spain we decided to forget about it, and see if we could get to another high point that the guy from the hotel recommended.

After wandering around a bit – educational, as we were in the super-rich-Florence-resident area with tall gates and mansions – we found a street the map said would lead us to the other spot. Little did we know that the street we took would go almost all the way back down, with the pedestrian path often being no more than a non-pavement area near the fortress that little spindly trees took over. But it was scenic and interesting! Then all we had to do was go back up again, but at least there were stairs this time. And then we were suddenly on a large overlook on Monte Alle Croci, with vendors and restaurants and a bronze recast of the David. Quite a difference from the remote-on-purpose hills that we had just left! And the view was great and FREE! The ice cream prices weren’t half bad either so we got a lemon Frigo product (actually Algida here, and Miko in France, but still the same great stuff) and enjoyed seeing the whole of the city after hiking around some backroads in Florence. As an added bonus, there was a big church (San Miniato al Monte) and a huge cemetery at the top as well, which is apparently where the author of Pinocchio is buried. We didn’t see (or at least recognize) his grave but there were tons there, each of them pretty interesting, ranging from relatively small ones to huge family mausoleums that were practically mini-cathedrals (some even styled like the Duomo!). A very impressive find overall, and no admission except for the 60 cents I had to pay to use the bathrooms (boooo…but at least they were clean unlike some of the smelly ones we passed). Woohoo!

Surprisingly, we still had some time left, so we grabbed a pizza for lunch (medium with a small coke for 6E, pretty good deal to feed both of us…yay nontourist sections) and walked back towards the Duomo. One of the girls that had gone to Greece with me had recommended a gelato place there via facebook, so we figured we’d check it out. I am SO happy I remembered to update my facebook status this time because it was GREAT! Most of their ingredients are relatively organic or free-trade, the prices aren’t horrible, they weren’t artificially colored like a lot we’ve seen, and the flavors were delicious. At first we just got one cone with bacio, dark chocolate and nougat flavors – the dark chocolate was by far the best, although the others were delicious as well. Peter decided he needed more (we were both fighting over it haha) and went back to get a vanilla, lemon, and peach one. Again everything was fantastic and the peach tasted especially great on a hot day. Probably the best food in Florence yet!

After that we finally were on schedule to see the Accademia, and pretty disappointed to see that the line was actually not horrendously long. We were kind of hoping it would be bad so we would feel better about prebooking but oh well. I think the descriptions of the paintings in the Accademia were the most informative of the many museums we’ve gone to, sometimes even with details about the restoration of the painting – what had been painted over or changed, things like that. We were there for a special addition of Robert Mappelthorpe’s photography as well for some reason, and that was pretty cool. Of course the most popular exhibit was the David – not the plaster or bronze but the finished marble one. I thought his hands were huge, but otherwise it’s a nice thing to have I guess. Maybe I will read up more about it but knowing that it was a symbol of bravery and intelligence for the city was nice enough for now. …yep, still not really art people. But we try.

Headed back to see what room we’d be in after that. We got switched over to the place we thought we would stay at, which was ok – again, our room has been upgraded to ensuite and there is a lot of extra space (even an extra bed, which is kinda odd). Not really sure what went on with our reservation but I suppose it turned out alright! Sadly, the internet is much slower here than at the other hotel, but we are surviving.

After a bit of a break, dinner was next! I had a series of recommendations from The Internet to help us in our search of good food, and the second one was actually open and looked good. Called Il Santo Bevitore, it was a pretty nice place with English-speaking waiters and a willingness to seat us in a presreserved table as long as we were out by a certain time. Our table was amusingly in a wind tunnel, so our unprotected candle sputtered down very quickly and we had fun trying to help it last a bit longer. The food itself was merely ok…the tomato soup was excellent but the ensuing entrees were less exciting. The desserts – dark chocolate soufflé and a white chocolate “dome” – were also great. So not bad, but not necessarily as good as it had been made out to be. Ah well, at least it wasn’t terrible! I’m just hoping Siena is less touristy and therefore cheaper…this eating well thing is hard on the wallet.

Tomorrow we will take a train to Siena around 1pm…we’ve hit all the major sites in Florence at this point, really, so we’re thinking we might just shop around and, most importantly, go back to Grom. Nom! =D For now, it’s another relatively early night, but my legs are tiiired from all the walking so it is about time. Hopefully all the bug bites on my feet from wearing flipflops in Venice (Bea Vita was on the water…but so worth it!) will fade soon. Otherwise, Peter says “grom grom grom, nom nom nom” and goodnight! I will try and post some pictures (I realize I’m pretty behind) but the connection is so bad here I doubt it will work. Maybe tomorrow!

Firenze / Florence travel

Well we will miss the fireworks in Venice on their festival day, but I suppose you can’t hit everything with perfect timing. Speaking of which, I keep rereading the blog posts the morning after and finding lots of silly phrases and an abundance of exclamation marks – sorry guys, not very streamlined! I guess it’s the product of falling asleep several times during writing, so I forget what I’ve already been excited about. I’d say I’d try to be more awake when I write them up but I can’t promise that at all haha. Oh well!

Anyway, Florence today – another eurail day down! The train ride was uneventful and we got into town around 1pm. A guy was waiting for us in front of where we thought we were staying to tell us that our reservation had been changed and we had been upgraded to an ensuite room (as opposed to shared bathroom) in one of their sister hotels down the street. Then he said that we would be in a different room for our second night. Pretty sketchy sounding but he seemed pretty legit, walked us up and explained everything, and the room is very nice and has free internet so we think it should be okay. In a few of the reviews for hostels and hotels in Italy we saw that this was a possibility anyway. I guess it’s just part of the experience!

We had a quick turnaround and set out for a bit of wandering. We were able to see a lot of main drags, get through the terribly touristy market without buying much (I got a replacement for my green scarf, really cheap), AND hit the Duomo, the baptistery, and the belltower (all 414 steps up!) before our date with the Uffizi pre-booked ticket time. The Duomo church itself is huge on the outside, with green and white marble all over, but on the inside it isn’t very complicated. Sure, it’s huge, and it has cool geometric shapes in marble on the floor, but it’s very empty in the middle. That part was free though! So we didn’t feel so bad paying for the baptistery, which was pretty interesting with gold ceilings and a somewhat awkward rendition of Jesus and Hell. The belltower was a pretty good haul up but the view was great, so it was definitely worth it. Lots of red tiled roofs! It did mean that I was really tired for the Uffizi though, but it seemed like a lot of the museum was under construction or renovation so it seemed like it was tired too. We saw the Birth of Venus and Primavera, both super famous, amongst other Italian works of art. We’re still not really art people but we plan to hit the museums anyway just to say we did. The old art is interesting from a daily life kind of perspective (fashion, food, etc) anyway. We might have got more out of it if we had consulted our audioguide a bit more, but ultimately it was not that useful. We have eyes, we can use them!

Dinner was next, and we wandered around for some time, stopping in and out of places (sometimes getting a croissant or something) kind of aimlessly. The Osteria Bea Vita in Venice really spoiled us. I think we ended up stopping at a reasonable place tonight though (the Antico Ristoro di Cambi) if compared to Spain at least. The table bread was pretty terrible but we asked the waitress for recommendations and she nicely steered us away from the stomach and brains (!!) and towards more traditionally delicious things. We got a meat plate (reminiscent of Spain), lasagna (we hadn’t had any in Italy yet!), some traditionally prepared kind of beef, a lemony drink and a chocolate-drenched ice cream for dessert. It was all pretty good, so the bread ended up not being such a severe warning. Hoorah!

We got back to the hotel pretty early but we had a pretty huge day of touristing – even on a travel day! – so it’s justified. My first impression of Florence is way more touristy than Venice, if that’s even possible. I guess it’s just that finding the nontouristy parts of Venice were easier since you had less area to search, or something. Or maybe it was just one of those cities, like Sevilla, that will be destined to stand out. Ahh well. Now to just finish up a few things and crash!

Improbability day!

Laundry day oh boy! This ended up being the most confusing of our laundry expeditions yet, because although it was a proper laundromat the bill acceptor was broken, so we had to go buy some pastries to get small change. Also the soap dispenser wasn’t working (yay for our Tide shipment from home!), there was an uneven number of washers and dryers, the dryers actually didn’t do their job very well, and the pay menu was confusing. Pah. At least we were able to walk around the immediate area while stuff was running, and that way we found a whole Mephisto store (ah fancy shoes), a very cute part of town around a park, and a modern art exhibit in an old palace. Good stuff!

We came back to the room to cool off and drop of the laundry, but ended up staying for much longer, as sleepy as we were. We also managed to book a hotel in Rome finally, so that’s at least something. The lack of productivity felt super lazy to me, but rest is important. After a few hours we felt ready for street battle again, and set out towards our favorite part of the Jewish quarter. We walked through a square that usually was pretty quiet but tonight was bustling with Jews, one (very orthodox looking) of which came up to us and asks “Are you Jewish? What are you doing later?” It was initially really suspicious so I just replied that I’d be with Peter. Then the guy clarified and said that there were Shabbat services in the piazza and then there would be free food later. Ah Jews! Luring people in with the promise of free food – that’s the way to do it. We said we’d think about it since it was so surprising and because we had a different menu in mind, although it seemed like it would end up being pretty entertaining.

More meandering took place as we watched crazy looking clouds form. When you first land in Venice you can’t imagine why anyone would try and live there amongst the glut of tourists. But in the back streets you get a better sense of how local life really is, and how beautiful and alternately run-down (like a boarded-up church) the sections rarely seen by tourists are. The lack of cars is pretty bizarre too, although I suppose if you lived here you’d just get a boat and be done with it. Even after some exploring none of the other kitchens were open yet, so we stopped in the Dodo Café for a ham&cheese toasted sandwich. It originally looked like nothing special but as we waited, we checked out all the photography he had hanging in the place, which was cool, and then noticed that they have a dedicated sandwich toasting machine that cooks it perfectly. So something fairly basic turned out surprisingly well!

For the real dinner, however, we ultimately decided to go BACK to Osteria Bea Vita again…we figured we knew it was good and authentic, and they always had seating (and people made reservations for tables!) unlike some other places we saw. Peter got beef steaks with red wine sauce and fresh (really fresh) berries, I got a monkfish in prosecco white wine sauce with artichokes, and we split more of the lovely dessert wine and an aubergine semifreddo (kind of like ice cream with strawberries and delicious). The food was definitely worth going back but what made dinner all the more improbable (moreso than hitting the same restaurant three times in three days) was the weather that resulted from the crazy clouds of earlier. For a while it looked fine and then it just began to really pour, so much so that we took our wine and dashed into the restaurant from our soaking wet umbrella outside. This was excellently timed because shortly thereafter it started to hail! In July, in Venice! Pretty incredible.

The improbable doesn’t end at dinner, though. We passed through the Jewish piazza again and talked about how I wasn’t exactly knowledgeable enough to attend the big dinner thing, but one of the very orthodox looking guys overheard us and told us that we were invited again, and led us to the table. At that point it was a bit too late to escape so we figured we’d just go with it. There was some sing-chanting and the challah and the washing of hands; in the first five minutes it felt more strictly traditional than what we do on Passover. Some of the other travelers at the table were conversing in Hebrew as well! When we got up to wash our hands I actually recognized a face in the crowd though! Brian, a cheme major the same year as me, and his friend were walking towards us – insane that they’re also taking a Europe trip and we happened to bump into each other! That made our second dinner much easier, as I could just talk to people I knew and they would tell me if I was doing anything wrong. The food wasn’t superb but it was free; I took very little because I was full but it was a nice thing for the restaurant to do. They didn’t even ask us for donations or anything, so it was purely on good faith that they were just serving fellow Jews that were walking by. Definitely interesting and hilarious, given that I’d written off recognizing another face after waving goodbye to Sue. So we ate, shared travel stories (and afterbite – yikes are the mosquitoes vicious sometimes!) and then walked around with the guys afterwards for a while just chatting. Such a great time!

So despite our initial impressions of Venice, there were definitely less touristy and more fortuitous things to be seen. I’m exhausted now but figured I had to write up all the crazy things we did before it escaped my brain. If I think of more, that’s what the rest of the blog is for! Alright, a train to Florence tomorrow and we’ll again be someplace new! I hope we are able to find the same caliber of cute streets and delicious food there too!

Food and sightseeing

All right Venice! We hit out a pretty early start and got some of the mozzarella-and-meat sandwiches that proliferate the tourist areas for breakfast (in addition to a few small things from a bakery) which were pretty good. We munched on them as we walked to San Marco square, which was like Plaza Mayor but grander. The line for the basilica was horrendous and it was very hot, though, so we wandered into the nearby museum instead, knowing there would be AC. It ended up being a series of connected museums that was pretty cool but exhaustive.

By the time we finished, the church line was much shorter, so we did that. This is another time the small tshirt in my purse has paid itself off – not because it was cold but because they charged you for little shoulder-blankets if your shoulders weren’t covered. One charge evaded! We did pay to see the treasury and the ‘golden screen’ though (no admission fee, just pay for the sections you feel like seeing) and that was pretty worth it. The church itself is pretty impressive, with lots of gold ceiling tiles and authentically old looking marblework on the floor, but the areas you pay to see are even more luxurious. Both the treasury and the ‘screen’ housed more intricate works of precious metal than we’ve seen in a while on this trip, which is saying something seeing as we’ve been touristing it up. There are some 180 churches in Venice (more than one per every river-surrounded island part, I think) but this one was definitely king.

We then took the waterferry to Murano to check out the island so known for its glassblowing. Since it was so so hot we were told that some of the glassblowing demonstrations would be closed in respect for the workers’ health, but once we learned to tag along with a sufficiently large group of tourists we were still able to see two shows. Vases and horses were popular things to make, which was neat even if it was still hotter in the furnace room. Going out into the AC’d showroom was always a blessed feeling. I think the Corning shows are still better but these were pretty fun. The showrooms were incredible and, in most cases, super expensive, but if you walked farther from a ferry dump-off point you could get better prices. We got a few gifts and some glass hedgehogs because they were so cute. Stumbling upon a very pretty residential square and finding the potable water fountains (Italians giving something away for free!) were also highlights. But damn is it hot here with such humidity…after a ferry back and buying some fruit for tomorrow’s breakfast, we revisited the AC in our hotel room and it is amazing. Good booking choice for sure.

After that it was time for dinner! On a whim we asked the reception for restaurant recommendations, and he directed us to the same area we were in last night. Go us! So we just returned and picked one right next to the one we’d already experienced. The shrimp plate and the pesto pasta bowls were fantastic, and we had a choice between fizzy and flat house white wine – flat yay! And it was pretty good. We tried their chocolate mousse but it was more like really creamy chocolate jello, so we hopped next door again for their mint mousse and tiramisu again. This time with dessert wine, which was a joy to smell even without drinking. Everything was delicious again! A bit splurgy (and a bit mosquito-y) but worth it. I think we’ll come back to this street again tomorrow night…the Jewish quarter knows how to serve food!

Onwards to Venice!

And we’re off! After a breakfast of delicious homemade jams and we headed to the train. We got to Chambery with no problem, and then switched to the train to Milan. I’m a bit peeved that they didn’t check our boarding passes for that train until we actually hit Italy because it was the leg we paid full (well, student) fare for. They should check it a lot to make it worth it! Haha. Also the train is perhaps the least desirable of all those we’ve ridden thus far – kinda smelly, kinda dirty. But still beats the R2, according to Peter, and the view was spectacular for the parts we weren’t underground for. Lots of mountains, although there is a distinct difference from mountains purely as landscape and mountains that are recognizable (such as the Laforet’s). But as they passed we played some epic rounds of Crazy Eights and finished off our packed lunch of bread, hard boiled eggs (fresh - only a day old!), and the leftover pear chocolate. Our train change in Milan was a bit less relaxed as the train was ten minutes late, which cut into our 15 minutes we had to change trains. Yikes! But we found it in time and it was a much nicer train, although it too left a bit delayed with some interesting noises. Eh, Italian trains!

In not too long we were finally in Venice, or Venezia as the Italians say. We stood in line a bit to reserve the rest of our Italian trains ( two of them don’t need it, very interesting!) but unfortunately found out that Peter hadn’t written down exactly where the new hotel would be, since he placed the reservation while we were traveling and assumed we’d have net access in Grenoble. Oops. Doubly unfortunately, Italy seems to have a new law against “terrorism and pedophilia” which makes internet access to foreigners expensive (and ID must be collected and scanned before you can log on…hmm). Very strange. But in the end we found the place and the room is very nice, although it couldn’t be much smaller without infringing on the space necessary for a double bed. No matter, it has AC and it’s clean!

The most important part was dinner, though. We went out as the sun was setting and had taken menus from a small place a bit outside Tourist Town when a middle-aged lady waves from a corner and makes faces to make sure we know we shouldn’t eat there. It was kind of touristy and Asian-run (some racial animosity??) so we were confused and a little worried about our impending meal. She had a dog, so we figured she must be a local and thus valid, so we kept walking, telling the restaurant that we were going to catch the sunset over the water first before eating. And then we found another side street to disappear behind. We stumbled upon an actual residential area that was quite pretty, and later we happened upon the lady and an additional friend again. They only spoke Italian, but we got that the food at the other place would be like dog food (which the friend was carrying) and that there were better places up ahead. Thank goodness she stopped us because we chose Osteria Bea Vita, one of the restaurants on the street she recommended, and it was So Good! Peter got the prix fixe, which they told us was mostly fish. They didn’t warn us that the hors d’vours would come with whole, small octopi! That was a great food moment – both of us looking and going “ACK! We don’t know how to eat this!” Fortunately the waitress was very nice when we asked what parts we could eat, and it was certainly tasty (albeit a bit disconcerting, chomping on suckers and the bulbous heads). They were so small that it begs the question – were they the veal of the octopi world, and if so, are there octopi farms? What a setting that would be! The rest of the meal was much less confusing, although my ‘spiny lobster and pasta’ came with all the shells on, so I had to personally peel the spiny things, which was silly. Delicious though! And for dessert I ordered tiramisu, which was great, and Peter got a mint mousse with chocolate, which I thought was amazing. The mousse tasted like it had just been picked off a mint bush. Nomnomnom. A bit pricy but definitely successful meal! (except for the bug bites I got on my face…Peter’s stubble protected him and he posited that wise men grow beards for the same reason. Ah, a mix of prosecco and wine…)

We’ve been looking at the map and there is a lot to do here so I should stop typing. Peter is mumbling ‘weh’ in his sleep (French for yeah more than yes) haha. More tomorrow!

France part three and Bastille Day!

Ahh, another movie scene breakfast outside! They had fancy yoghurts that come in their own adorable little ceramic pots, and man were they delicious. I guess I fawned over them noticeably enough because they told me to finish eating them so they could be washed for me to take. Yay! We had an opportunity to throw a few clothes in the wash as well – especially the clothes from yesterday’s hike, when stinky hot became more than just a phrase – so that was very good as well. Once that was done we set the clothes out in view of the mountains to dry…even our laundry was scenic! It is so relaxing here that Peter actually went back to sleep after breakfast (“good food, good view, good weather…want to take naps”).

The ladies of the house – Sue, myself, Sophie and Isabelle – all went to the supermarket to get last-minute things for the Bastille day celebration for lunch later. That was a pretty cool experience – they have a whole long bar for cheeses and an entire aisle for yoghurts and crème pots! Incredible! I wish we had either of those things in the US…I have grown to appreciate cheese a lot more now that I’ve been here.

Then it was time for cooking and Bastille Day celebratory eating! We had melon and prosciutto, little sushi-looking cheeses that Sue bought from the store because they looked too cute (also because of the joke she made that baled hay looks like large sushi for animals, which the family thought was great), ratatouille that took a day to make, different kinds of sausage, pasta salad that was legitimately tasty and simple, ice cream cake, a chocolate-pear bar, more chocolate, coffee…oof, delicious and the type of meal that just keeps going. Plus one of Sophie’s daughters had a 17-month-old girl that was adorable. Her husband is Mexican so he speaks to Amalia in Spanish and the wife speaks to the kid in French. English is also sometimes spoken because the daughter is a language teacher. Incredible multilingualist in the making…very cool.

After everyone had left it was actually time again to eat! We packed up all our stuff and drove down to the apartment to drop it off, though, so we could leave for the train station (really close to the apartment) early in the morning tomorrow. Lots of flights of stairs! But it was no match for the incredible terrain between us and the mountaintop restaurant we were going to…Isabelle’s transmission was clearly not designed with French mountain scaling in mind, and although there were a few insane bikers I doubt the road is really fit for foot travel either, being so steep and narrow and windy. Another harrowing experience, wahoo! Once we got up to the restaurant, though, the view was just spectacular – the entire town! According to the family, the dinner wasn’t that great, but we thought it was delicious. Any food not from Spain tastes better, I guess. Then we checked out the view at the end and saw fireworks in the city from many many kilometers up. I’ve never seen fireworks from above so that was really cool – they look like short little weeds shooting up from the city. But it was good to celebrate the 4th of July – ten days late, and colder since it was so high up, but such is life in the French mountains!

We are very sad to leave Grenoble but we have to keep going! Not only has this been the first and most likely last day we haven’t spent anything, I think we have felt like much more than tourists here, seeing a lot of things normal people – even relatively dedicated travelers – would never see even on their own. Plus the food is great and so is the whole family. They all have great senses of humor and it was awesome to have met them! We hope the rest of the trip is this good…we’ll see!

France part two

Today we woke up to breakfast that was almost straight out of a French movie. Not that the food in itself was super spectacular but we ate outside and the mountain view was awesome. Even the toaster had its own extension cord to come outside. A very nice way to start the day! We then headed down the mountain to experience the Grenoble downtown, although on the way a bee flew into the car (windows are always open here, they don’t use AC) and down my shirt, which was a bit closer to nature than I had intended. Ah well, it was very exciting, moreso than our first stop, which was the train station to reserve our tickets into Venice. Unfortunately all the Eurail seats for one of the legs were sold out, so we had to get a full ticket, but she gave us student discounts and it wasn’t too horrible. Also one of the legs (there are three) is free with our pass – no reservation fee! Pretty cool. Felt very good to have that done.

Then we went back for a bit of time in the Laforet apartment, which is awesome and decked out better than an Ikea catalogue. Sophie makes so many things – bread, jam, you name it – so that was cool as well. They had some things to do, though, so for lunch we walked a few blocks to a nice restaurant they like. Unfortunately, their kitchen closed at 2pm, and we got there a half hour late. Incredible after being in Spain, where lunch might just get started at 2pm! People pointed us to the more touristy section where some restaurants were still open (although for a price, ah well). It was nice to have a salad that was actually green for a change.

The next stop was the telepherique, which looks like a line of little bubbles heading up into the mountains. You pay and, without much warning, hop in to it straightaway. And then bake, because they aren’t ventilated at all…but the view was great! They deposit you right on top of the Bastille, an old defense fortress, and so we looked around and then decided to start down because it was pretty hot (although not before trying some new Frigo products!). The hike ended up being a bit more strenuous than we thought, but it was very scenic. We stopped at a restaurant more than halfway down called Le Chalet to get some drinks, and I tried the ‘eau d’menthe’ or water with mint syrup. I’ve never had a syrup drink but it was pretty refreshing! With the remaining time before dinner we went back into town to Lafayette, which is like the French Macy’s. Peter had been feeling out of place with his too-american tshirts so we went shopping! He ended up with three very nice shirts (one of which is longsleeved and will be traveling home before us) and two silly striped shirts. Very French, those last ones. Ah well, they were all on sale!

Then it was time for dinner, which was to be back in the mountain house. Since there were too many of us for the car, someone had to ride with Dan on the back of his Vespa. Even though I had the beginnings of a bad headache I opted in – if nothing else it would be a distraction from my head! Past the initial feeling of needing to be strapped in more than I was, it was not that bad at all. My first motorbike-type ride, success! And of course dinner was great and filling. Hooray! It seems like we are doing less here, but perhaps we are enjoying it just as much, if not more! The scenery and the food...it is a great combination.

Grenoble thoughts!

Hi folks, sorry for the lack of internet, it was being really strange and in Italy there are strict (and expensive!) laws about access.


Woo hoo!
Today we slept well and even got up in time for breakfast! Not that the included brekky of toast and cereal was anything to rave about but at least it was free. Also finished packing a bottle of Rioja and a bottle of Cava to give to the Laforets in France. It seemed like the least we could do since Grenoble is a good break for our wallet. Then we took a mix of metro and trains (rather easily!) to the airport, which was in a very sketchy industrial area. The airport itself is grand, though, and our gate even had a chocolate store that had some delicious free samples! NOM!

A short while (and a nap) later we arrived in Lyon, and Sue was right there waiting! It was incredibly unreal to see a face we recognized, and also to be in the backseat of a Ford Escort that Sophie’s sister Isabelle owns. She very nicely drove us via the scenic route to the house they are renting in the mountains, which was not any small feat as the roads are steep enough that I started questioning whether the transmission would die on us. The location is absolutely incredible though – beautiful view of the mountains from their BACKYARD, with cows and chickens and all sorts of things roaming about. People in America are all fussed about organic food – this is the real free-range deal!

And MAN! We took a walk around during sunset and it was so different than any of the cities we’ve been in. It’s very much like the French Catskills, if I had to compare it to anything. The house thankfully has electricity but no phone signal or internet. It is so gorgeous though, and the family cooked us an incredible meal for dinner. We had guacamole, baked chicken, potatoes au gratin (a dish that originated in Grenoble!), a wide array of cheese, and handmade chocolates and yoghurt for dessert! I think I can safely say that it is the best food we’ve had in Europe thus far. I mean, Spain does Rioja and ham very well, but we were largely underwhelmed in general. This was true comfort food when we definitely needed it. Plus the beds are comfy and our room isn’t filled with strangers. So we went from a typical hostel experience (albeit pretty positive) in a big city to a family house in a place no train can access. A pretty fantastic trade I think! I’m excited about tomorrow and my stomach is hugely pleased so it is a great success. Time to sleep!

Last day in Spain!

Sleeepy day! Got up and walked over to the gondola that goes over the harbor to the beach and got there right on time. The ride was as wild as the Sagrada Familia because we were so high up with absolutely nothing between the bottom of the vehicle and either sharp buildings or oil-slick ridden water. Mmm, delicious, exactly what I wanted to see before I went to the beach. We had heard from someone at the hostel that Barcelona dumps its sewage into the ocean so we were already leaning towards not going in, though. Also it wasn’t a fantastic day; overcast like the rest of our time here. So we wandered around and looked at the groups of old guys letting it hang out as they drank beer at noon, played dominoes, or played volleyball. I guess they just didn’t care, and that was kind of amusing. The beaches were really nothing special either. I imagine there are some car-accessible-only beaches that would be nice, but I thought the ones closest to the city were just kind of like Rehoboth, but with Europeans. At least we saw them!

From there we walked up to the Ciutadella park to see the Castell dels Tres Dragones (Castle of the Three Dragons) because it sounded badass and we saw http://www.flickr.com/photos/32744903@N00/3694356321 beforehand on random. In the reality of an overcast day and a single exposure it wasn’t nearly as cool, but it did put us near the Museum of Chocolate again, so we had more hot chocolate with lunch. =) They actually forgot to charge us for one of the cups, which was great as it made up being ripped off for a thing of OJ earlier in the morning. Hoorah. We meandered across the old section for a bit longer before returning to switch rooms (downgrade from 10 to 6 people oh boy!) and stick in some laundry (virtually all of our clothes at this point). And nap, of course.

After the clothes were done (in the dryer even! Woo!) it was dinnertime, and we set out armed with some recommendations from The Internet. Got sidetracked at a bakery and got a huge, delicious, fluffy meringue for cheap. Yay! Gave us energy to walk around, and after a good while we settled on a place that looked like it had a good amount of seniority while still being in a nice location, and had our last Spanish meal – potatoes bravas (French fries with aioli sauce basically), lomo (more ham), artichokes (trying to get some veggies in), croquetas (best we’ve had here), and cava. Very pleasant! We later found out that we had been right around the corner from our original recommendation…oops. But it was really damn busy in there so we didn’t feel too bad. Took pictures with the restaurant The Glop on the way back because we could, and it was hilarious. Our noses also directed us into a Japanese tapas place … we expected heavy use of ham, maybe even in sushi, but alas this was nowhere to be found. Instead we got some udon and chilled for a while. A successful night of food, all in all!

Now we are spending our last night in Spain booking hostels in Italy. Rome is proving much more difficult than the other cities…ah well we will figure it out in time. Tomorrow we will see Sue, and France! Whee!

More Barcelona sights

Better sleep last night because we got the AC to work, hooray! Missed the provided breakfast though, but it wasn’t too much of a loss as it’s just toast and cocoa puffs. We stopped by the grocery and got some snacks and sandwiches, which ended up being another food mistake because they use superwhite bread and mayo – two things I haven’t had on sandwiches in a long time. Oops. I was a bit depressed again about my inability to wait until good food presents itself when Peter saw another bakery and demanded we go in. He ordered a cream-filled chocolate roll and a chocolate croissant, and they were both delicious, so our morning was saved!

We did a quick route around a few landmarks from Carmen Laforet’s book Nada, which we had read in Spanish class. It takes place in the old part of Barcelona so of course I had to hit the University and Calle Aribau, both important places in the life of the main character. Actually not that exciting but it was neat to just be there. Then we headed over to Casa Batllo, a house designed and decorated by Gaudi to look vaguely sea- and animal-like, with a lot of undulating walls and interestingly placed dead space. There were a few cool innovations, such as the color gradient in the skylight (darker tiles at top, lighter ones at the bottom, so that the light spread more evenly) and the vents in every door, but it was not really worth the admission price of 13.50 each. Crap, I mean we got into the Real Alcazar for 7.50 each, and it was way bigger and cooler. Ah well, we can say we did it. We passed by another Gaudi design (La Pedrera) but decided against getting ripped off again.

Of course, we ended up by La Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi work, and paid admission to see a church that’s been under construction for 130+ years, so the Tourist Moneygrabber Gods got us good today. The church is insane and looks like it will barely if ever make its 2030 completion forecast. It is also probably the last supergrand church under construction, we figured, and by the time it’s done no one will probably care about going to such a ridiculous looking place with religious intent. Oh well! Peter’s feet hurt but I also took the elevator up to see the top of one of the spires. That was crazy, especially walking down in narrow passageways with full view of exactly how many rounds you had left to make. Eerie and more than a bit scary, but it was better than watching the inside under construction. It did cost more (in time in line as well as money – I felt like I was in some twisted Disneyland) but I got the “full experience” I suppose.

After a bit of wandering we took the metro back home to rest a bit. Later we decided to check out the sky gondola that they do over the harbor, and we took what we thought was the best route up the hill. Unfortunately it was also really sketchy and we ran up as fast as we could in flip flops. The gondola had been closed for a half hour, even, but it was time for a sunset and it was thankfully worth it. Much better than yesterday’s was with all those clouds (woo 2 hrs of sun today!). I did get my first few bug bites up there though, so we went back to the hostel because it was on the way to “dinner” as far as we had determined (which was mostly just a direction more than information). Thankfully we met up with a few hostel compatriots and we all went out in search of a nice little place. I think we found one – good food, reasonable prices – but the waiter was incredibly jaded so it was interesting. I like meeting new people here, they all seem very nice! We were invited to go out to the bars with them but Peter’s feet still hurt so we stayed behind. Just as well as I am pretty beat. Tomorrow should be a day of beach if the weather goes according to plan. Otherwise we will probably just take a chill day. Yay!

(Sorry if the last bit doesn’t make entire sense, I’m falling asleep here haha)