A Train Trip and Homework

We all ended up with gastro.  Just when my dad was getting better and able to get out of bed my mom was bed ridden. Then I got it the next day, mine was more like a nauseous hangover so I wasn’t as bad; but we did however lose a full week of our trip.

We had one we left together before my parents and I parted ways so this week has been super busy.

My dad booked train tickets and off we went on a six hour train ride to Milan.   We literally had 24 hours to enjoy Milan before we has to hope onto a train to our next destination. 

When we arrived in Milan I was not impressed. “Great,” I thought, “it’s just another city. It’s nothing spectacular.”  However we were there for my dad, he really wanted to go for the architecture so Milan was for him.  Boy, was I taken by surprise!!! 

Milan is incredible!!! The buildings themselves are a sight to see.  They are so ornate with big statues of muscled men that seem to be holding up the window ledges above them on their shoulders. There are big and small carvings over windows, doors and archways. All buildings (including apartment buildings) seemed to have an open gallery with a garden.  Everywhere we turned and looked there was something to see.

We went and saw the original painting of The Last Supper by Leonardo Da Vinci…pretty cool!  Then we walked in (what we think) was once the moat around Sforesco Castle.  I can’t give you much information here as the castle was closed so we didn’t get to tour it and get the history but I can tell you it is massive!!!

From there we kept walking and ended up in the shopping district!!! Wow!!! I am a budget girl but wow I wanted to spend money here, I didn’t care on what but I just wanted to spend it.  I almost walked away with brand new Cavalli sunnies that were on sale but I break my sunnies all the time and just couldn’t wrap my brain around spending the money on them, my dad even offered to buy them for me but I couldn’t.  My dad however had no problem welcoming his shopping bug with open arms and spending heaps of money on hats and scarves!!! Both my mom and I walked out with empty hands but not my dad oh no he was having a blast buying hats for every occasion!

Now I knew nothing about Milan before we went so what our saw next just made us speechless…all my dad could say was “FUCK”. The church, San Bernardino alle Ossa, is something words cannot describe.  Its huge, beautiful and like nothing else I have ever seen before.  It is made from marble with the ornateness that is Milan but 100 times more.  There are statues and sculptures on and in the walls, the roof looks like a white dripped sandcastle yet so delicate almost like a doily; and right at the top of each point is a statue of a pope or saint. Every single one being a different person…it took our breath away.   We went in, but it doesn’t compare to the outside.

Next we went to Il Duomo, the famous domed plaza which is incredible. Its covered yet outside, its got stores and cafes down each walkway.  Paintings underneath the domed ceiling along with huge sculptures on each corner of the buildings in the center and ornate designs running along the buildings.

We went to this awesome lounge bar on the second floor that had a patio overlooking the piazza and San Bernardino.  €33 for 3 drinks lol, but my dad didn’t seem to mind, he was buzzing with the ci e from the city. 

Milan has a vibe, it’s like it is just buzzing with excitement, even later on when it quits down it still has an excitement about it that seemed to be filling us with immense happiness.

By the time we got back to our hotel we had been trekking the city for 6 hours (by foot) and wanted to be up early enough to do the roof top walk at San Bernadino before catching the train the next morning.  The roof top walk was amazing. Just my dad and I went my mom was really tired.

It was supposed to open at 9am but Italian but Italian time works different than normal time so they were still setting up when we got there.  We paid more money so we could take the elevator up which was a good choice, there is no way my vertigo would’ve aloud me to make it all the way to the top as I felt the height as soon as we got off onto the roof, but my light headedness and stumbling feet were worth the view up there.

The ornateness of the church from up there was mind blowing.  There were sculptures around the towers and between those statues were statues inside openings.  Over every archway was a satue or carving but every single one was different.  I really don’t know how to explain it as I am horrible with descriptions…but wow…seriously…wow, wow, wow! We even went up to the very top which included me walking up a set of stairs and my vertigo wanting to come out even more and torture me…but like I said…so worth it.

We were lucky we made it to our train on time as the local trains and subways were on strike so there was heaps of traffic, and the next day the cabs were going on strike so luck was on our side.  The 3 our train ride seemed longer than our 6 our train ride to Milan but that’s because this train there was mo place to buy a snack and second class meant a stuffy cabin with six people.

Our next stop for 3 days was in a little fishing village on the west coast called Monterosso al Mare in Cinque Terre.  Cinque Terre are five fishing villages that can only be accessed by train or a walking trail.  The town seemed so quaint after being in ornate Milan but it was so pretty.  All the buildings are different colours and they line the little streets that have cafes,restaurants and shops.  Every little alley way leads to a hidden restaurant or shop. 

It was a mission for us to get there.  When we got off the train we ended up pretty much right on the beach and an unpaved road…which mean…the tunnel to get to the part of town we needed to get to could on be accessed by foot and going up around and down.  I don’t think the wheels on my dad’s suitcase were too happy has he banged it around but they survived and so did we celebrating with a nice drink after we checked in.

Dinner was so yummy… I had pasta baked in a red wine sauce…yum yum.  I loved it so much I told the server (in my broken Italian) that I wanted the recipe.  Well…after we were done our delicious meals she came over and said the chef was ready for me in the kitchen!!! Can you believe that!  I was so not expecting that to happen.  I go onto the kitchen with a chef who doesn’t speak English and I had to get the recipe in Italian …what I didn’t understand I asked my dad but I understood most of it :). Then my mom and I went to the local bar where we met the owner and chatted with him all night.

The next day we planned to take the hiking trail over to Vernazza (the next town).  After almost an hour my mum said she couldn’t any further.  It was pretty intense…see it tricks you.  It starts with a nice path that goes around the rocks over the water – of course teasing my vertigo.  Then you get into the bills where you just climb up and up me getting slower and slower as my vertigo gets worse and worse and my mums arthritis killing her knees…plus it was a hot day.  The sun was shining and people were at the beach…it was a beautiful day.  We turned around and went back and then a couple hours later we took the train to the next town which only took 5 minutes…way easier.

Vernazza is smaller than Monterosso.  It has one main street that goes down to the water, though there is no beach.  It is not like Monterosso where every little street you turn down has a hidden treasure, in fact they were small and claustrophobic like and you didn’t even feel like you were outside and they were dark with the buildings rising 4-5 stories high…and the stairs…OMG…we had to climb so many. We walked all the way to the top where the castle is where we then climbed the tower steps and got a 360° view of the town.  I’m telling you, Italy likes to play with my vertigo, the climb up and down the tower was not fun; or jp and down the town steps…my poor head lol.

The next day was our last day.  We sat on the patio and had drinks and then went to CIAK and had the freshest tastiest mussels in the world…enjoying the sunshine and a few bottles of wine out in the courtyard where the restaurant’s patio is.  Had some more drinks and then went to the bar. Man, did I regret all those drinks the next day.

Our train ride was only 3 hours but it was an open ticket and basically a train people take to work so we weren’t overly comfortable and we had to transfer…and I had a horrible case of wine flu…ughh I felt horrible…damn wine lol.

Our last stop together was Florence.  We were pretty stoked as we had heard so many great things about it but it just doesn’t seem to have the same buzz as Milan.  However I was pretty stressed out as I am living here for the next month.

Remember the TEFL course I was supposed to take in Thailand in January that got cancelled and I had to stay in BC…well I am taking it in Florence (and yes this one is legitimate).  I had my first class today.  Honestly, it is going to be such an intense course and I got extremely overwhelmed on class today…so much so I got some anxiety.  My famous words came to my head “ what the fuck did I get myself into!”. But, this is something I have wanted to do for the past couple of years and I knew it was gonna be tough, I just hope I can do it.  Plus I am overwhelmed with being here on my own.  I mean, I know I have traveled the world on my own but think about it… in Cali I met Ryan, in Aus I met Dan and in BC I had Isam.  This is the first time in a long time I have been on my own…plus, my flat mate backed out so I have the place to myself.  “You are lucky to be on hour own.” My landlady said but to be honest I wanted to run into my mums arms and go home with her…I know, I know, I’m a huge suck.

So now here I am on my own little apartment typing away to you guys with Italian anime on tv…man do I miss English tv.  I must go though, I need to cook up some sustenance so I can study and do homework.

Oh great… HOMEWORK!

                                                                                      -My Beautiful Life -

 

 

 

 

Through the Ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum

I was only in transit for 24 hours to get to Italy, which is actually not that long – for me.   It was actually made easier as I flew from Kelowna to Pearson where I met my parents and then we had the same flight to Italy so layover time was spent drinking and catching up rather than just me doing nothing for 5 hours.

We landed in Rome and this time my parents had actually hired a car so we weren’t running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to figure out how we were gonna get to Termoli.  Things were running a lot smoother this time as my parents were a little more prepared.

  

We were all quite tired when we arrived in Termoli, almost too tired to be excited, but still happy nonetheless.

This time my parents decided to rent an apartment as we are here for a month and wanted a home base.  We

have the ground floor with a big patio that looks right on to the beach where we sit out and have red wine with breakfast which consists of bread, roasted peppers, fresh cut meat and parmasen and lemon cake. Yum yum.

The apartment itself is quaint but rustic or maybe I should say rusty as many things are falling apart.  Door handles fall off,  hot showers last 8 minutes and then the water is freezing, the handle is falling off the frying pan, there are no garbage baskets or a basket for the laundry, the plaster is falling off the walls in the bathroom and it flies everywhere when blow drying our hair.   Other than that though I love the place, we have a lot of windows so the morning sun shines in and when we open all the windows there is the constant soothing sound of the waves from the Adriatic.

We are quite familiar with Termoli as we were here last time so wandering around town to shop and eat is easy.   We have our favourite restaurant which we eat at almost every night/day.  The owner and the server even remembered us from last time.  Our first night the owner baked our pizza into the shape of a heart!  Yum yum.  They make the best pizza in the world there.  It literally melts in your mouth.

Our first couple of days were spent relaxing and visiting my dad’s town.   The first day we went though it was raining and windy and the restaurant/bar was closed so we decided to leave it till the next day.  On our way back however we decided to visit one of the other towns; Larino.   We were so hungry so we decided to stop at a little place on the side of the road.  It ended up being a coffee bar and not really much else but the owner told my dad to follow him and he would take us to a nice restaurant.   Nice restaurant indeed!   They were so nice and wouldn’t even let us order off the menu.  They wanted us to have their homemade pasta and sauce along with their homemade wine.  Honestly, my tastebuds and stomach have been in heaven since we got to Italy.   I’m always hungry,  well actually, not always hungry but if food is infront of me I can’t be rude so I just eat all the time; and there is always food!!!   When we go out and order a glass of wine or mixed drink they bring, chips, mini sandwiches and cakes and with coffee’s you get cookies.   Mmmm coffee.   Now those of you who know me know that I don’t drink coffee,  that I am a huge tea buff; I have tea for everything.  Sleepy tea, green tea, black teas for the morning, ginger tea to settle my stomach, roibos tea to relax, basically one for every occasion. However I have been drinking coffee here….I love it!  I had my first espresso last week and thought “ya, I could drink this every day,” which  I have been pretty much everyday since then.  It is so good here and the perfect size and no jitters from it at all.  In fact, I just finished a cappuccino.   Hey, if I’m eating Italian I might as well drink what they drink!

The next day we went back to my dad’s town where we enjoyed the homemade wine,  a fantastic lunch and a visit with our cousin (a few times removed) Maria.  She popped her head out the door, looked at my dad and said “Nicola!”  My dad gets a glow when he is with people from his home town it lifts up my heart to watch him and listen to him speak his dialect.  

Maria brought us in and gave us cookie’s and espresso (my first one) and made a phone call to another cousin (Maria) who we had never met.   It can be difficult as they don’t speak any English at all.  They will look me in the eyes and talk and all I can do is smile, then I have to look at my dad for translation.   I do understand a bit of Italian and I can speak very broken Italian as I have been studying the language for about a year now (since our last time out here), but they speak the town’s dialect so I do not understand much when they are speaking.    

                                                            Me with Maria and Maria

After a nice visit with Maria (and Maria) we went for lunch and a walk through the town.  We went to my dad’s old house again.  I of course let myself in to the abandoned house only to be surprised by a makeshift closet and jeans hanging in it.   Someone is living there (or squatting).   “How dare they!” I said.  “They can’t just move into our house daddy!”   “Technically it is not ours anymore honey.  It hasn’t been for a long time.”  “I know, but still.”   

It was really different this year going back home (as I call going back to my dad’s town).   It wasn’t emotional  at all.   My dad said he felt more like a tourist, that he enjoyed himself more as he was more relaxed and not overrun with emotion.   We wandered the streets taking pictures and looking in windows of abandoned buildings.   My dad began talking to an old(er) woman sitting outside the small church only to find out that she was another cousin!!!  Crazy!   Well it is a small town and some people have never left so meeting relatives is pretty much a given.

We went to Naples for a few days.  The drive there was an adventure.   We have a GPS so it has been a saviour for us but it doesn’t make the driving here easier.   Naples is on the other side of the country so it is about a 3.5 hour drive and mostly highway driving.  I don’t know if you have ever been to Italy and if you have if you have ever had the pleasure of driving around because it is intense.   The speed limit signs are very few and don’t really inform you about the decrease or increase in speed ahead.  It goes from 50 km/h to 80km/h and then all of a sudden you are in a part that is 130 km/h!!!  The only reason we knew the change in speed is because hour GPS (who we have named Dickie – after Charles Dickens due to his old English accent)  has the speed limit posted on the screen. People were zipping by like it was nothing.  Even when it was 80 they were doing way over the speed.  The Autostrada is really windy  going through the mountains and on top of the craziness and intensity of the driving my vertigo was going crazy!!!  I thought it was the crazy driving but I was calm when we were in the flat area, once we were going up and down and winding around my vertigo was not happy.   I think I stopped breathing for most of the way and I was sitting on the edge of my seat inhaling on my electronic cigarette like it was going out of style.  I was afraid if I averted my eyes for a second that we would fly of the road even though my dad was driving.  I felt that even though he was the one driving my eyes concentrating on the road helped us stay on the road.  Lol I know right!

We did see some interesting things a long the way, mountains, towns built on mountains, prostitutes.   You know how on an on/off ramp on the highway there is an island at the top so the people getting on/off don’t happen to go in the wrong lane, well, we drove by one of those and there was this girl in a black leather jacket,  black heels and a pair of booty short underwear.  “Wow!  I wonder who she is waiting for?” I said “It is a bit of an odd place to stand.”   Then we had to turn off up a head and do a loop through a really dingy and dirty area where I saw another girl wearing the same thing on the side of the road except this one had a plastic patio chair – I guess she could rest if she got tired.   Definitely not something we were expecting to see.

As we got closer to the city of Naples the big towering peak of Mt. Vesuvius came up on our left.   I was expecting to see smoke coming out of the top.  I was amazed at the sight of it, it was beautiful and ominous at the same time.   There were even houses built up on it.   No matter where we were in town we could always see it, like you are always in it’s shadow, like it is always watching.

I don’t know what I was expecting Naples to look like, I guess I expect all of Italy to be beautiful and breathtaking but it was ugly.   There is heaps of garbage on the side of the highway, all the buildings look old and tired and literally everything is covered in graffiti and I mean everything,  I was surprised the stray dogs there hadn’t been graffitied.   It  definitely isn’t a place I would go back to but we actually weren’t there to see Naples or the city; we were there to see the ruins of Pompeii.

When I was a little girl I remember this book my mum had.   It was a huge hardcover picture book – probably from National Geographic or something – on Pompeii.   She would tell me about the town that got covered by a volcano and how people were digging it up and discovered houses and artifacts.   I remember the pictures of the (plaster) bodies in the positions they died in.  My mum had told me one day she would love to go there and see it.   Before we came to Italy I made sure that we were able to make it one of the places to visit as I wanted my mum to finally see it.

Just like Naples, I really didn’t know what to expect with Pompeii.  I knew it would be ruins of houses, artifacts and the plaster bodies.  I thought that we would get to see everything from a distance within an hour and be off.   That was not the case.   You actually get to walk through the towns streets, markets and some of the buildings.   You could touch the walls, walk along the streets where they walked it was really awesome and fucking massive!!!   The town is huge.   We were there 3 hours and still hadn’t seen everything!  To see it all you would have to give 2 or 3 days!  Like I said, I didn’t know what to expect but it definitely wasn’t this.   

It was a little confusing – very easy to get turned around – as the signs really didn’t give much info.  We did have one of those hand held audio tour thingys which was good for information of buildings but there was no information posted of areas.   Like one area we walked through was pubs and shops but there was nothing to posted in the area to say that, even following the exit arrow’s was confusing.

We walked and walked along the massive stone streets, looking into the buildings, peeking through windows, touching the walls admiring some of the frescos and carvings that were still on the walls.  I even ran out of room on my SD card – thank goodness at the end.   Their houses were massive and so ornate, built with brick and stone which they then covered with a plaster and painted on it.  There isn’t really much of the colourful plaster on the outside now so all you see are stone/brick houses.  It was really exciting going inside some of the places that had some of the colourful fresco painted plaster on the wall that gave you a bit more of an idea of what it once looked like. 

 

We walked through the big market with the municipal buildings where we had lunch – they have built a cafeteria, saw the Temple of Isis which had quite a bit of cult activity surrounding it, gardens, homes, men's bath houses, shops, theatre and amphitheatre.  We saw original artifacts such as pots, statues and the (plaster) bodies including the one of the dog.  It was very strange to see them as they are in the positions they died in.  One was sitting with his knees up to his chest with his hands almost in a prayer like position.  It just made it that much more real.   

                                                    Plaster moulding of the praying man

                                                    Plaster moulding of the dog

                                                    Walking the streets of Pompeii

It was a long day and we were all pretty tired when we got back to the hotel I ended up falling asleep at 7 that night lol.   

The hotel we stayed at was awesome.  Very hostelish with the way the rooms were painted and layed out.   The bathroom was my favourite part.  White, pink and lime green tiled walls,  with a sink big enough to bathe in and a shower stall that played music and had disco lights that changed colour.  I was in heaven.  It was the best way to start off my day.   Plus the shower came fully equipped with freebees, razor, sewing kit, travel toothbrush and toothpaste.  I made my parents take everything so I could stock up haha.   We were supposed to leave the next day but decided we were gonna do an extra day and go to the ruins of Herculanium.   We had to switch rooms which was  more money and the bathrooms were a downgrade.   The toilets had no seat so we had to squat (which we are getting very used to here) and the shower wasn’t even a stall it was in the centre of the bathroom;  basically just a square area on the floor with a flip down seat and a handheld shower head, no radio or disco lights, it was a sad sad morning for me.

I know most people know of Pompeii but I am not sure how many know of Herculanium.  Herculanium is a town that also got wiped out by Mt. Vesuvius the same day as Pompeii, however it was hit first.   While Pompeii has been in the process of uncovering for a few hundred years, Herculaniums dig has just started in this century so it is still pretty new to us.  While Pompeii is more well known Herculaneum really has the beauty.  

The preservation of Herculaneum is amazing!  It is better preserved than Pompeii; this is because when the volcano hit water hit as well forming mud that ran its way through the streets and buildings which kept the preservation of the buildings, fresco’s,  and marble floors, some of them almost looking brand new.  

Herculaneum  is heaps smaller than Pompeii making it an easier tour - 70% of the town is still buried and will never be excavated as the new Ercoleno (Herculaneum) has been built on top – and it is way more colourful due to the preservation of the artwork and marble.   Some of the marble floor are pretty much in prestine  condition, almost like they were never buried.   There are more plaster walls with fresco’s on them so it was easier to get a sense of what some of the houses looked like way back then.   The colourful wall pictures made of marble were breathtaking I could’ve stared at them forever.  I was trying to imagine the artist who made it and the people who’s garden it was that the picture was in.  Everything was so elaborate back then, the frescos on the wall, the marble floors the gardens in their houses, the cornices on the walls, the painted ceilings and marble baths in the men’s baths, marble benches…I could go on.  Honestly if I was a super hero, my super power would be to time travel so  could go back in time and really see it when it was hustling and bustling with it’s residences…maybe I can build a phone booth like Bill and Ted and collect people from the past lol, how cool would that be.  But no, seriously, sometimes I really do wish I could go back in time to experience certain times in history.

                                                    Floor in the men's baths

                                          Beautiful tile picture still in tact

                                          Cornice mouldings

I ended up getting us lost on the way back to our hotel.   We had to take a train.  The train their wasn’t the greatest and definitely not something I would want to ride on by myself.  It’s something out of the 70’s old, tired and covered in graffiti like the rest of Naples; but WOW does it go fast!!!  The one on the way back was newer and cleaner but still just as fast.   I looked at the stop we had to get off at and counted the number of stops.   As soon as we got off the train we knew that we were not where we were supposed to be.  We were at another end of town, dirty, run down and empty streets with no idea which direction we were pointing or what direction our hotel was.    We went into a café and they said we were about an 8km walk from our hotel and that there were no taxis around.  Great! Now what? There is no way we are walking!  Before we had time to think about what we were going to do the nice people at the café called a taxi for us who drove us the 8km back to where we needed to go.

We were happy to get back to Termoli, back to our rusty apartment where we could curl up with a tea and watch a movie.   We haven’t really done much the past few days as my poor dad has gastro L and has pretty much been bed ridden.  The weather hasn’t been great so a couple days of catching up on laundry and just relaxing and looking after my dad hasn’t been a bad thing, I really just want him to get better.

Well, it is a beautiful morning.  The sun is shining and the birds are chirping,  and it’s a balmy 17 degrees here (just thought I would let all you in Canada know how warm it is) so I am gonna sign off for  now.  

Talk soon. 

Stay warm Canada

Ciao

                                                                                        - My Beautiful Life -