Sorry, there have been things going on here, just haven't felt like blogging them.
We went on a drive last week and ended up taking the scenic route, up long very windy roads into a mountain and back down, it took us a couple of hours and it had breathtaking views. We ended up coming down only around 40 miles fromwhere we started. I was SURE we were going to end up at the Adriatic sea or something. But noooo, we ended up back into...... Umbertide! This time we passed up the restaurant in the town square and found a restaurant in a hotel along the main road..
We understood absolutely nothing in the menu, except the word green and gnocchi. No handy English explanations under the Italian dishes so that we knew what we were ordering, so we ordered the gnocchi and the dish with the word green in it. The house red wine was one of the first wines I have really enjoyed here. I don't know if it is this area of Italy or what, I have expected so much more, but will try the wines north and south when we go in those directions to see if there is much of a difference.
The gnocchi was amazing, in sort of a butter sauce, and tasted like maybe it had scallops in it, but as we ate, we noticed these weird shaped things in it, sort of long red thing with a white round thing, sort of a head and......antenna????
Picking one out, I looked at it, and it was a cooked snail! I mean this perfect little round part where the shell should be, then the long redish thing that was the part of the body outside, with a head attached and little cooked antenna. I couldn't believe it. I was able to set one standing up on my plate and had it staring at Jessica the whole time we ate. I ended up putting one in my pocket wrapped in a napkin, took it home and took a picture of it. We haven't transferred the pictures yet to the web, hopefully I'll have it for you in the next day or two.
We really didn't do anything all weekend, a real shame, we've been so lazy, BUT we have a 4 day weekend this week, our reg Friday off and next Monday is a holiday here. We only have the car for one more weekend after that, so we are planning some trips IF people will make sure I wake up in time.
After writing in here, I am going to check out driving to Venice, then on to Zurich. Possibly as an overnight trip, then a day break and then I would like to go to southern Italy maybe.
Our classmate Ruth should be going with us, this way we can split the hotel costs 3 ways.
After school today we made a run to Deruta, only about 15 minutes away by car. I either missed the main part of town or there isn't much to it. We were hoping to be able to go into a factory setting and see how they make the ceramics.
School is going well, I am actually able to understand more on TV already. Amazing!
Lots of fun in class, the teacher is really fun, makes it so much easier to sit in class up to 6 hours a day.
We ate at the University cafeteria for the second time today. Food was NOT as impressive as last week, but for 1.80 euro, it was great.
Only choice of pear or peach, then depending on what they had out, either spaghetti noodles or shells with a white cheese sauce, or shells with a red sauce.
Today they actually had carrots!!! Carrots in a can are hard to find, at least they have been for me, and since cooking at home here will only consist of heating things up, no boiling fresh veggies for me, thank you. So I was happy to get the carrots for lunch. (hey, simple pleasures in a beautiful country)
Salad and only one choice of bread, so it was a plain meal, but was cheap, healthy and filled you up. Who could ask for more!
Before oging to Deruta, we finally stopped in at the local cemetary. I mean, this is not JUST a cemetary, this is an Italian cemetary, chock full of crypts and beautiful statues, underground crypts(maybe not crypt, but you are able to go down stairs and look down a long hallways with I am guessing bodies encrypted in the walls.)
EVERYWHERE are fresh flowers in set in urns attached to the walls. I have never seen so many graves decorated with fresh flowers. You know people visit because there are candles lit in many of the family crypts. The majority of the sites have photos of the deceased and many of the larger monuments that are built into a long building actually have carved likenesses of the deceased in stone or marble, as well as huge angels, Jesus, you name it. The place was truly amazing. Of course we had no camera with us. GRRRRRRR.. But we will be going back in the next couple of days to take some pictures. You could walk for hours there, and of course there was the beautiful view over the valley into the hills. I could die there, no problem. :-)
Other than that, I just keep getting up every morning, looking out the window and thanking GOD we are here in this beautiful country. Everything sacrificed has been well worth the trip.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Things are picking up....
Thanks to the car. Ok, we were lazy today and even drove it to school instead of walking, but it was raining, so I think that justifies it!
Yesterday we made a friend in class. Her name is Ruth and she's from Australia. She's only 18 but jess and I get along really well with her, nice to have a third party around.
We finally got to go to one of the main University's 2 cafeterias for lunch. If I am not mistaken, it is pretty much open to anyone. they never asked for student IDs and we saw older people, workmen etc.
For the amazing price of just under 2 euros. about $2.40 American you can have a very filling, really decent lunch. It consists of four what they call "courses" here.
You get bread, one fruit, which consisted of your choice of banana, plum, apple, peach or a big slice of watermelon.
Then a piece of pizza (more like 1/2 a pizza) and/or a bowl of a pasta or rice dish.
Then either a vegetable like zhucchini or mixed veg or a fresh salad.
Then and empty large plastic cup for either water or pop at a fountain.
WOW! when you are on a budget, this is a real find. We got in there about noon, and there was a small gatheirng of people. We saw food inside, but it didn't open when it said it would. After about 15 minutes, someone banged on the door and asked when they would open. They said in 45 minutes, but something was said, and they very quickly opened the doors. (threat of a riot from hungry students??)
We sat there the entire two hours, and when we came out, there was STILL a huge line. I think they feed the entire population of people under 25 in Perugia as well as some older.
After eating we headed back to class from 4 pm to 6, then walked back to the apt to pick up the car and headed off to Assissi.
Just a disclaimer, although i always try to be accurate, I make no guarentees that anything i say is true when it comes to any area of Italy we visit. I try my best, but that is all I can do.
When we entered the part of town that was not up on the mountain, we noticed a LOT of nuns and monks walking the street, and then on the right a duomo with a LOT of people singing. All excited, we parked and walked back, noticing a line of people slowly walking into the Basilica with a sring of people surrounding them. A lot of them had peace signs, or PACE signs. That was then I realized that wahat we were watching was the end of the Peace march that I think had been from Perugia to Assisi.
We watched for a bit and then decided to go in to see the inside. Normally they would not have let us in, I had shorts on, Jess a tank top, and Ruth a skirt that was not to her knees, but we lucked out, being that so many people who had done the walk was dressed similarly.
Now this was the first time I have even been inside something like this since coming to italy and I had no idea what to expect.
Let me tel you, i am certainly not much for organized religion, etc, but when I went inside that church, as corny as it may sound, I was honestly moved to tears.
I have never seen anything that even came close to this. It's almost impossible to describe and pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. The paintings, the arches, the..... heck, I don't even know what to call them. Angels heads out of stone, beautiful marble everywhere. Beautiful carved wooden confessionals. I mean, it was everything you think the inside of an Italian church would be, plus so much more. You can check Jess' blog for some pictures we took of the outisde as well as some pics of the inside that she got off the web. We didn't dare take pictures inside with all the people.
We stayed long enought to listen to the beginnning of mass in Latin before taking off for the part of Assissi up on the mountain.
Just a note, anytime we talk about me driving into a city that is up on a hill or moutain, just picture us in a tiny car, careening(sp) around the corners with Jess hanging on for dear life to the "oh shit" handle of the car, yelling "Slow down! MOOOOMMMMMM... SLOW DOWN!!!!!!"
I love driving the roads here, but it makes Jess absolutely nuts.
Anyway, up into the town, as far up as we thought we could drive, then parked the car in a space that was realy too smal for the car, but was the beggest spot I could find. It was outside a little bar/cafe, and we decided to see if we could walk to the top of the city, which had what looked like a fort or a castle. I am not into the history lesson tonight like I was about out trip to Rome, but we had guides then. Without them, I'm just making wild guesses about everything.
The first thing I noticed that was interesting is that all the building were made out of a different type and color stone them Perugia, and the apartment/houses we walked by seemed to have so many more plants and flowers outside, it was really lovely.
We found the road leading up to the highest part of town and started hiking up, t was pretty steep.
By my calculations, the amount of stairs and steep hills I have climbed X the amount of healthy food I have eaten since coming to Italy, I honestly think I should weigh something like 98 lbs by now. No such luck. I have lost about 12 pounds, but most of that was when I was sick. I still have hope though, we have only been here a month. (and don't you DARE say I am not losing weight because I am gaining muscle. Say that and I will clock you upside the head.)
The walk up there (as well as down), you had to stop about every 15 feet and make every come over and see. The scenery changed into something more magnificient every time we looked.
You could see down across the entire valley, and byt the time we got to the top, you couild see everything within almost 180 degrees. You had the valley infront and to the left, and the right. OH MAN! On the right was the first time we had been close to proper hills and valleys/mountain range valleys.. Unbelivable.
I was going to have so much to say to describe it, but nothing I could tell you would make you understand how amazing the view was.
I AM SO FREAKING GLAD I QUIT MY JOB, SOLD MY HOUSE AND CAME HERE. I don't care if I get sent back and have to live on the street. Everything here I am seeing and experiencing is so worth it.
And that's all I have to say on that subject... :-)
New subject.... The bathrooms at school. I found out yesterday that they are coed when i went in and there was a man standing at the sink washing his hands.... Oh! hmm.... I looked at the door and there was a stick figure in a dress, so I knew I was in the right place. Obviously he didn't knkow he was in the wrong place, and being that I really had to go to the bathroom, I decided to have pity on him and just go use a stall. thats when I saw something along the terms of the word MEN on one of the stall doors. Hmm... coed.... okee dokee then.
To be honest, they are more like enclosed little rooms, each with a window, at least the bathroom I use.
There is one stall there, that has the most beautiful view of the coutryside out it, it's like a picture postcard. Amazing. Everything here is amazing.
Well, almost everything. Today after school Jess and I decided to take a drive out of town, to one of the nearby towns to find a different place to have lunch. We ended up driving about 40 miles out of town, to a place called Umbertide.
It had been pouring all morning, rain is seriously needed here, even thought everything is still green, we hadn't had a good rain in several weeks.
Anyway, the rain had also cooled off the temperatures a lot, which was wonderful. As you drive down the hill to get out of town, you have this amazing view of the valley and the moutains to one side of you. Today along several of the ridges was a line of clouds that sort of hung onto the lines of the mountains. i have never seen anything like it, it was....... you guessed it.... amazing!!! LOL It was like someone had erased all the color of the background up one side and down another. As we were drving towards Umbertide, one moutain even had a little top of fog, looking like there was snow on it. there were also very low clouds, or fog in the valleys between the moutains... Dorothy, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.
We found a hotel restaurant in Umbertide that served full meals, not just panini or little sandwiches.
We went in, the waitress seated us, gave us menus and were deciding what to order, when the waitress seated a couple at the table next to us. Jess and I were discussing had just ordered when we noticed the couple had asked to be moved to another table, next to some other people.
What? Do I smell, I shower every day, etc..... I was truly offended. It wasn't like they wanted a table away from people, they still had a table next to others. I'm reasonably sure that neither Jess nor I were drooling, yelling or picking our noses. Maybe I was being too sensitive, but I honestly thought they asked to be moved because we were American. (filthy beasts that we are)
I felt a little better when I saw they were not Italian, but were German. I'm not sure why i felt better, but I did. i spent the rest of the time wishing I knew the owners of the restaurant so that I could make some sort of American spectacle of myself to justify the Germans' imagined or real opinions of us.
But of course, being freaking Minnesota nice (grr) I made sure jess and I were meticulous in our manners so that they could not go back to Germany supporting my imagined opinion of American's being pigs at the very least.
Ok, I seem to be rambling, so I'll just get on with it and tell you what we had for lunch.
Neither Jess and I could pass up the first of a pasta with a marinera type sauce with wild boar in it. This was the first time we had seen a dish offered that had wild boar in it. It's very common in i THINK quite a lot of parts of Italy, and the dish was reaaaaaaally tasty. Very good. We had also ordered a quarter liter of house red wine, which was just enough for both of us to have a glass (yes mom, I did not drive drunk) as well as a bottle of water.
Second, Jess had steamed green beans, and I had zhucchini which tasted like it had been grilled.Not bad.
Third, jess had pork chops, which were really more like riblets sort of, but longer. Again, cooked like they were grilled over an open fire, really great. I had what I though was just going to be chicken breast (which when i pronounced pollo the Spanish way when ordering - POY-OH instead of what I think was simply POLO, I made the waitress laugh. oh well)This too was smply grilled over what must have been a wood fire or something, honestly it was great.
Last we decided to order dessert because there were items we didn't recognize, so of course we needed to find out what they were.
I asked the waiter if he spoke English, he said he spoke a little and asked him to explain to us what they were and Jess and I both ended up ordering the same thing. We still weren't sure what it was, but somewhere along the way the waiter had said chocolate and cream, and that was good enough for us.
What we got was a plate with three round, puff pastries filled with a white cream. These had been dipped into a sort of chocolate mousse. Our experience with italy and sugar is they do NOT make things overly sweet, which really is a nice change. This dessert was the same, we could eat all three and not feel like the whole thing was just too rich. Oh man... all in all the meal was a real treat for us. Perugia seems to consist of mostly pizza places. UCK.
Anyway, back home we came, and now we've just finished laundry and jess is going with Ruth to the outdoor movie that we have right by our apartment.
You go down this back alley, and out a door in the wall surrounding the town, down past a little outdoor bar, and over to a screened off area. When you pay your 4.5 euro you go inside to small, ancient ampitheater(sp) built into the hill outisde the city. There are only about 10-15 rows built out of stone, but it's amazing to sit there under the stars watching a movie on a nice movie theater screen. (small theater screen)
we went this monday and watched "Finding neverland" It was the first time we had gone there, annd what a feeling to be out in the night air sitting in an ancient ampitheater under the stars in Italy. You could see the lights in the valley, and there were even lightening bugs in the bushes on the walk down. Truly wonderful.
Have i mentioned that I am happy we came here?? :-) :-) :-)
Well, I am off to the apartment to get some sleep. School at 8:30 am tomorrow.
buona notte.
OH wait! Jess posted pictures of Assissi on her blog, check there. I'm posting pictures of Gizzy on mine...
Gizzy from under the bed
Gizzy foot!
Gizzy nose.. Gizzy feet!
Footses
Yesterday we made a friend in class. Her name is Ruth and she's from Australia. She's only 18 but jess and I get along really well with her, nice to have a third party around.
We finally got to go to one of the main University's 2 cafeterias for lunch. If I am not mistaken, it is pretty much open to anyone. they never asked for student IDs and we saw older people, workmen etc.
For the amazing price of just under 2 euros. about $2.40 American you can have a very filling, really decent lunch. It consists of four what they call "courses" here.
You get bread, one fruit, which consisted of your choice of banana, plum, apple, peach or a big slice of watermelon.
Then a piece of pizza (more like 1/2 a pizza) and/or a bowl of a pasta or rice dish.
Then either a vegetable like zhucchini or mixed veg or a fresh salad.
Then and empty large plastic cup for either water or pop at a fountain.
WOW! when you are on a budget, this is a real find. We got in there about noon, and there was a small gatheirng of people. We saw food inside, but it didn't open when it said it would. After about 15 minutes, someone banged on the door and asked when they would open. They said in 45 minutes, but something was said, and they very quickly opened the doors. (threat of a riot from hungry students??)
We sat there the entire two hours, and when we came out, there was STILL a huge line. I think they feed the entire population of people under 25 in Perugia as well as some older.
After eating we headed back to class from 4 pm to 6, then walked back to the apt to pick up the car and headed off to Assissi.
Just a disclaimer, although i always try to be accurate, I make no guarentees that anything i say is true when it comes to any area of Italy we visit. I try my best, but that is all I can do.
When we entered the part of town that was not up on the mountain, we noticed a LOT of nuns and monks walking the street, and then on the right a duomo with a LOT of people singing. All excited, we parked and walked back, noticing a line of people slowly walking into the Basilica with a sring of people surrounding them. A lot of them had peace signs, or PACE signs. That was then I realized that wahat we were watching was the end of the Peace march that I think had been from Perugia to Assisi.
We watched for a bit and then decided to go in to see the inside. Normally they would not have let us in, I had shorts on, Jess a tank top, and Ruth a skirt that was not to her knees, but we lucked out, being that so many people who had done the walk was dressed similarly.
Now this was the first time I have even been inside something like this since coming to italy and I had no idea what to expect.
Let me tel you, i am certainly not much for organized religion, etc, but when I went inside that church, as corny as it may sound, I was honestly moved to tears.
I have never seen anything that even came close to this. It's almost impossible to describe and pictures don't even come close to doing it justice. The paintings, the arches, the..... heck, I don't even know what to call them. Angels heads out of stone, beautiful marble everywhere. Beautiful carved wooden confessionals. I mean, it was everything you think the inside of an Italian church would be, plus so much more. You can check Jess' blog for some pictures we took of the outisde as well as some pics of the inside that she got off the web. We didn't dare take pictures inside with all the people.
We stayed long enought to listen to the beginnning of mass in Latin before taking off for the part of Assissi up on the mountain.
Just a note, anytime we talk about me driving into a city that is up on a hill or moutain, just picture us in a tiny car, careening(sp) around the corners with Jess hanging on for dear life to the "oh shit" handle of the car, yelling "Slow down! MOOOOMMMMMM... SLOW DOWN!!!!!!"
I love driving the roads here, but it makes Jess absolutely nuts.
Anyway, up into the town, as far up as we thought we could drive, then parked the car in a space that was realy too smal for the car, but was the beggest spot I could find. It was outside a little bar/cafe, and we decided to see if we could walk to the top of the city, which had what looked like a fort or a castle. I am not into the history lesson tonight like I was about out trip to Rome, but we had guides then. Without them, I'm just making wild guesses about everything.
The first thing I noticed that was interesting is that all the building were made out of a different type and color stone them Perugia, and the apartment/houses we walked by seemed to have so many more plants and flowers outside, it was really lovely.
We found the road leading up to the highest part of town and started hiking up, t was pretty steep.
By my calculations, the amount of stairs and steep hills I have climbed X the amount of healthy food I have eaten since coming to Italy, I honestly think I should weigh something like 98 lbs by now. No such luck. I have lost about 12 pounds, but most of that was when I was sick. I still have hope though, we have only been here a month. (and don't you DARE say I am not losing weight because I am gaining muscle. Say that and I will clock you upside the head.)
The walk up there (as well as down), you had to stop about every 15 feet and make every come over and see. The scenery changed into something more magnificient every time we looked.
You could see down across the entire valley, and byt the time we got to the top, you couild see everything within almost 180 degrees. You had the valley infront and to the left, and the right. OH MAN! On the right was the first time we had been close to proper hills and valleys/mountain range valleys.. Unbelivable.
I was going to have so much to say to describe it, but nothing I could tell you would make you understand how amazing the view was.
I AM SO FREAKING GLAD I QUIT MY JOB, SOLD MY HOUSE AND CAME HERE. I don't care if I get sent back and have to live on the street. Everything here I am seeing and experiencing is so worth it.
And that's all I have to say on that subject... :-)
New subject.... The bathrooms at school. I found out yesterday that they are coed when i went in and there was a man standing at the sink washing his hands.... Oh! hmm.... I looked at the door and there was a stick figure in a dress, so I knew I was in the right place. Obviously he didn't knkow he was in the wrong place, and being that I really had to go to the bathroom, I decided to have pity on him and just go use a stall. thats when I saw something along the terms of the word MEN on one of the stall doors. Hmm... coed.... okee dokee then.
To be honest, they are more like enclosed little rooms, each with a window, at least the bathroom I use.
There is one stall there, that has the most beautiful view of the coutryside out it, it's like a picture postcard. Amazing. Everything here is amazing.
Well, almost everything. Today after school Jess and I decided to take a drive out of town, to one of the nearby towns to find a different place to have lunch. We ended up driving about 40 miles out of town, to a place called Umbertide.
It had been pouring all morning, rain is seriously needed here, even thought everything is still green, we hadn't had a good rain in several weeks.
Anyway, the rain had also cooled off the temperatures a lot, which was wonderful. As you drive down the hill to get out of town, you have this amazing view of the valley and the moutains to one side of you. Today along several of the ridges was a line of clouds that sort of hung onto the lines of the mountains. i have never seen anything like it, it was....... you guessed it.... amazing!!! LOL It was like someone had erased all the color of the background up one side and down another. As we were drving towards Umbertide, one moutain even had a little top of fog, looking like there was snow on it. there were also very low clouds, or fog in the valleys between the moutains... Dorothy, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore.
We found a hotel restaurant in Umbertide that served full meals, not just panini or little sandwiches.
We went in, the waitress seated us, gave us menus and were deciding what to order, when the waitress seated a couple at the table next to us. Jess and I were discussing had just ordered when we noticed the couple had asked to be moved to another table, next to some other people.
What? Do I smell, I shower every day, etc..... I was truly offended. It wasn't like they wanted a table away from people, they still had a table next to others. I'm reasonably sure that neither Jess nor I were drooling, yelling or picking our noses. Maybe I was being too sensitive, but I honestly thought they asked to be moved because we were American. (filthy beasts that we are)
I felt a little better when I saw they were not Italian, but were German. I'm not sure why i felt better, but I did. i spent the rest of the time wishing I knew the owners of the restaurant so that I could make some sort of American spectacle of myself to justify the Germans' imagined or real opinions of us.
But of course, being freaking Minnesota nice (grr) I made sure jess and I were meticulous in our manners so that they could not go back to Germany supporting my imagined opinion of American's being pigs at the very least.
Ok, I seem to be rambling, so I'll just get on with it and tell you what we had for lunch.
Neither Jess and I could pass up the first of a pasta with a marinera type sauce with wild boar in it. This was the first time we had seen a dish offered that had wild boar in it. It's very common in i THINK quite a lot of parts of Italy, and the dish was reaaaaaaally tasty. Very good. We had also ordered a quarter liter of house red wine, which was just enough for both of us to have a glass (yes mom, I did not drive drunk) as well as a bottle of water.
Second, Jess had steamed green beans, and I had zhucchini which tasted like it had been grilled.Not bad.
Third, jess had pork chops, which were really more like riblets sort of, but longer. Again, cooked like they were grilled over an open fire, really great. I had what I though was just going to be chicken breast (which when i pronounced pollo the Spanish way when ordering - POY-OH instead of what I think was simply POLO, I made the waitress laugh. oh well)This too was smply grilled over what must have been a wood fire or something, honestly it was great.
Last we decided to order dessert because there were items we didn't recognize, so of course we needed to find out what they were.
I asked the waiter if he spoke English, he said he spoke a little and asked him to explain to us what they were and Jess and I both ended up ordering the same thing. We still weren't sure what it was, but somewhere along the way the waiter had said chocolate and cream, and that was good enough for us.
What we got was a plate with three round, puff pastries filled with a white cream. These had been dipped into a sort of chocolate mousse. Our experience with italy and sugar is they do NOT make things overly sweet, which really is a nice change. This dessert was the same, we could eat all three and not feel like the whole thing was just too rich. Oh man... all in all the meal was a real treat for us. Perugia seems to consist of mostly pizza places. UCK.
Anyway, back home we came, and now we've just finished laundry and jess is going with Ruth to the outdoor movie that we have right by our apartment.
You go down this back alley, and out a door in the wall surrounding the town, down past a little outdoor bar, and over to a screened off area. When you pay your 4.5 euro you go inside to small, ancient ampitheater(sp) built into the hill outisde the city. There are only about 10-15 rows built out of stone, but it's amazing to sit there under the stars watching a movie on a nice movie theater screen. (small theater screen)
we went this monday and watched "Finding neverland" It was the first time we had gone there, annd what a feeling to be out in the night air sitting in an ancient ampitheater under the stars in Italy. You could see the lights in the valley, and there were even lightening bugs in the bushes on the walk down. Truly wonderful.
Have i mentioned that I am happy we came here?? :-) :-) :-)
Well, I am off to the apartment to get some sleep. School at 8:30 am tomorrow.
buona notte.
OH wait! Jess posted pictures of Assissi on her blog, check there. I'm posting pictures of Gizzy on mine...
Gizzy from under the bed
Gizzy foot!
Gizzy nose.. Gizzy feet!
Footses
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Busy, busy day!
BUT you will have to wait until tomorrow to hear about it, the computer place is only open a bit longer.
Preview: school, new friend, lunch, ASSISSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Duomo (church) VIEW!
Come back tomorrow! :-)
WE ARE IN ITALY!!!!!!!
Preview: school, new friend, lunch, ASSISSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Duomo (church) VIEW!
Come back tomorrow! :-)
WE ARE IN ITALY!!!!!!!
Monday, August 01, 2005
Some luxuries are nice!
Ok, first things. Wayne emailed me! :-) and Annn said she would call after we have been here a month (That is the 4th of August) Yeah!
Ok, I picked up the car today, and as much as I love the Italian way of trains and busses, which work for every day to work travel, and even going into places like Florence or Rome, I LIKE HAVING A CAR! (we put the air conditioning on full force for the first 1/2 hour, then had windows open afterwards.
I don't have to wait for busses, I can drive in the countryside all I want, I donàt have to be back in town by 9 pm in order to catch the last bus up to the apt. i like having a car!
I am scared I'll never get over it when I have to bring it back in three weeks. :-(
But for know we plan on going somewhere every day after school. We ha dour first day today. We love the teacher, and there were only three of us, because others were testing to see what class to take.
It is challenging because the teacher will not speak English, but lots of fun to get around the language to explain your question etc. We have class Monday thru Thursday and have 3 days off. (road trips!) Tues is the tough day, we start a little later, 10:00, but the go to 2, then have a 2 hours break, then back at 4 and on til 7 pm! Ick!
Every other day we go 8 - 1, that is more like it, though I hate having to get up at a certain time. Being unemployed has been NICE that way, sleep as late as you want......
Anyway, we finally started school, and we will be taking more trips, so things should pick up on the blog soon!
Oh, I was even able to navigate this car (we rented the smallest one they had) down our street that is blocked off, turn it around, and park it without hitting anything! I like what the rental guys says when he showed us the car. He goes "don't worry about those scratches on the front, you can even make more, no problem!" They have a special waver (CDW??) where basically you don't have to worry about scratches, NO one gets away scratch free inthis hill town. Yeah! ok, later. Ciao.
Ok, I picked up the car today, and as much as I love the Italian way of trains and busses, which work for every day to work travel, and even going into places like Florence or Rome, I LIKE HAVING A CAR! (we put the air conditioning on full force for the first 1/2 hour, then had windows open afterwards.
I don't have to wait for busses, I can drive in the countryside all I want, I donàt have to be back in town by 9 pm in order to catch the last bus up to the apt. i like having a car!
I am scared I'll never get over it when I have to bring it back in three weeks. :-(
But for know we plan on going somewhere every day after school. We ha dour first day today. We love the teacher, and there were only three of us, because others were testing to see what class to take.
It is challenging because the teacher will not speak English, but lots of fun to get around the language to explain your question etc. We have class Monday thru Thursday and have 3 days off. (road trips!) Tues is the tough day, we start a little later, 10:00, but the go to 2, then have a 2 hours break, then back at 4 and on til 7 pm! Ick!
Every other day we go 8 - 1, that is more like it, though I hate having to get up at a certain time. Being unemployed has been NICE that way, sleep as late as you want......
Anyway, we finally started school, and we will be taking more trips, so things should pick up on the blog soon!
Oh, I was even able to navigate this car (we rented the smallest one they had) down our street that is blocked off, turn it around, and park it without hitting anything! I like what the rental guys says when he showed us the car. He goes "don't worry about those scratches on the front, you can even make more, no problem!" They have a special waver (CDW??) where basically you don't have to worry about scratches, NO one gets away scratch free inthis hill town. Yeah! ok, later. Ciao.
Friday, July 29, 2005
We may even move about, tomorrow
Stayed inside today, in front of fans. Only moved this even when things had cooled down to 96.
There is an antiques market tomorrow as well as a market that we plan to go to EARLY in the morning, so should have something to write about tomorrow.
Ann, why haven't you called me with the phone card?
Wayne, how come you never email me??? what's up?
Bye
There is an antiques market tomorrow as well as a market that we plan to go to EARLY in the morning, so should have something to write about tomorrow.
Ann, why haven't you called me with the phone card?
Wayne, how come you never email me??? what's up?
Bye
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Hot time in Perugia
It got to over 100 here today, too hot to do anything. Even the coast is topping out in the high 90s. There is nowhere to hide. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Going back to sit in front of my fan now. ciao
:-)
:-)
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
When in Rome.......
Woohoo - finally got to see some of Rome. Didn't get to go in anywhere, except to see the resting site of the Pope! That was awesome, but at least we got to know where everything is, so it will make it easier when we go back.
I'm going to start with some stuff that I wrote down in the morning before we went, then will just start to ramble about the day.
Oh Wait! I think I am going to start a word of the week, at least for this week. It is allora. I think that is how you spell it. I am calling in anyone who lives in Italy to see if I am right when I say they use this word when we buy something and are done. I THINK they say a lot of times, "allora?" If this is the right word that I looked up, it meant, then or well then or even so.. I never know how to answer, when used in the context of like "is that everything? I think I just end up lamely saying "si." Is there a correct response for that?
Ok, enough rambling about allora.
Here is some stuff that I wrote down yesterday:
I know this will be hard to believe, but it is 6 am and not only am I awake, but am showered and dressed, and even waiting across town at the bus station.
Just what do you ask could make me get up this early? Money? A man? no, Roma! Today is our spoon-fed tour of Rome. We've been there several times and not once seen a monument, etc. I decided it was much safer to let someone else do the driving and show us around. I just want to sit in an airconditioned bus! Especially because it is supposed to be in the mid 90s today.
Waiting at the bus station, Jess and I had our first stand up at a coffe bar coffee today! Long overdue, but in a way it is sort of intimidating, all the men elbowed up against each other, and if we were going to make a stupid mistake, better to do it with less people around. Since it was so early, we decided to go for it. We belly up and Jess says "Due cafes" (doo-ay) and lo and behold, he gets us two espressos! They are simply called cafes here, I think if you want a cup of american coffe, you ask for american coffee, but I have been told they just water down the espresso for you and put it in a bigger cup. NEVER would I dare order, or want to order that here. Instead the cafe here is in tiny cups as you probably know, with a little spot of almost foam on the top. I have learned to put a lot of sugar in it, and Jess decided to ask for "latte" (milk) in hers after she tried it. Very strong stuff.
So now we are very proud, no longer cafe virgins. :-)
A few minutes later while we wait outside, a young, CUTE, blondish guy comes up and asks if we are here for the tour. We both say yes, thinking he is here for it also. Well, he is in a way, he is our tour guide. (God has smiled upon us)He was from Belgium and spoke French and English. His name was Antonio, but the tour guide place I had called had said his name was Antonino. When I mentioned it to him, he sort of scowled and say if we preferred. But we could tell it must be their pet name for him, (like little anthony) so we chose to call him Antonio.
We walked around the corner and there was our bus, sort of a short version of one of the huge tour buses. Yeah! Airconditioning. We sat it the front two seats and until I figured how to bring UP the armrest, every time we took a right turn I was trying to nonchalantly hang on to whatever part of the seat I could, to keep from falling off it and onto the floor. First I put the seatbelt on. I felt stupid, but hey... Then after we had picked up a few more of the people going I saw how someone brought up the armrest, and then all was good!
My memory may be a bit different from Jess' as far as the people we picked up and what countries they were from, but...
I knew the place I had called to reserve this trip has said they usually pick up people at Lake Trasimeno, but they would have the bus come to pick us up in town.
Now we went in that direction and stoppped three different places. The first in a tiny little town, we picked up a man and his wife who I think were German. Second stop A family that again I think was German. Somewhere in here was someone French because I remember Antonio taking that group aside to explain things in French. Anyway, the third group again was a family and I know the two girls were from Holland because we talked to them quite a bit on the trip, they knew English well.
After picking everyone up, we head to Rome, via Tuscany, which was fun. We saw LOTs of sunflower fields, which I never managed to get a decent picture of, sorry.
At about 9 am we stopped and everyone got something to eat and drink, went to the bathrooms etc, then on to the city.
Last time we went to Rome there was a bus strike, which is what caused all the problems on our Ikea trip. We should have just gone home when we knew that.
This time there was a train strike. Luckily we weren't using the train, but traffic was really bad, and we unded up getting there 1/2 hour late, which is when we found out this was a walking tour.
DAMN! There goes the air conditioning.
We met our other tour guide that would be staying with us for just the morning part of the tour. She had a closed up red umbrella that she would hold up in the air and we were to follow that. I felt like a first grader following Mary Poppins, and asked Jess where the rope was with the knots in it we were to hold onto. The umbrella turned out to be not such a bad idea. Not only because in huge crowds it became a very good way to find her, but also because it was the norm for a tour guide to have something to stick up above the crowd for the people to follow. We sow scarfs at the end of wire pointer sticks, sunflowers, just about everything you could imagine.
I still felt dumb following this lady inside the Termini station and down to the subway. We stopped there to go to the bathroom again, but out of two bathrooms, only one was working, and after the second person went in, the light about it started flashing and there was a loud beeping, it too was out of order.
It was another bathroom you had to pay 50 cents for, BUT it was a self cleaning one! After every person it would close, and the entire thing was sprayed down inside with water and cleaner, when it opened up the entire thing had been sprayed down, pretty nifty!
We found out we would be taking one of the two subway lines in the city over to the Colosseum. This (the subway)is where they told us to be wary of gypsy children, that you should hang onto your purse, etc not to get pickpocketed.
Of course me, who never wears a purse, had decided to carry my huge Indian purse so that I had everything I needed. Now I had to figure out a way to keep it safe from those dang gypsy kids that I could just picture would wrestle me to the ground, tearing it out of my arms while I screamed for help.
Anyway, Mary Poppins marched us onto the subway train with her red umbrella, and we are all clutching everything we brough to our breasts looking scared. All the regular people on the train were really trying not to laugh out loud at us, and I saw quite a few smiles when they looked at us.
Of course it turns out there was not one gyspy child or pickpocket on our train (Mary Poppins said it was proabably due to the bus strike, or they were all on vacation with the Italians) Either way I kept a veeerrrrry close eye on the old lady sitting down next to me (I was standing) and I was ready to smack the life out of her if she even tried to get her old bony fingers on my purse. (poor woman)
Finally off, safe and sound, went outside and right there was the Coloseum. WOW!
Mary Poppins walked us across the street and into the shade (which she said was free) and started to tell us about the history of the Colosseum.
Where we found out there was no mass slaying of Christians. Turns out that is not true, that Nero who supposedly did that, was dead by the time they had even started to build it.
More facts (hopefully I am giving you correct information!)
The Colosseum used to be covered in marble, but along the way one of the other civilizations was into recycling and stripped it of the marble as well as the steel pipes that held the marble on. What was left was pitted with holes where they had pulled out the pipe. We also did not get to go inside, which was a big dissapointment, but is ok, for 42 euros we got the whole path of where we needed to go to get to these sites, plus a HUGE amount of information.
Anyway, no massive killing of Christians, and everything stipped off the outside, which turned out to be true of a lot of the places we visited.
We also saw our first gypsy beggar woman. Just like you would think, hunched over and in rags. I wander if it hurts to hunch over like that all day long? Jess got a picture of her. Jess has uploaded all our pictures, to another site. I'll give you the link later. Also there were men dresses and Roman gladiators, and they invite you take take a picture of them, after which you'll need to pay them money. We were warned in advance not to do it unless we were willing to pay. Several people were taking their pictures while they weren't looking. I'm not sure if Jess got one or not.
We went on to the Roman Forum, which was in effect a small city, showing different aspects of Roman life. The path the Emperors went down during their victory parades when they had conqeured(sp) somewhere. An interesting thing our guide told us of was that during these victory parades, there was a young boy who rode with the Emperor and held a crown of flowers over his head and was to whisper to him things like "You are mortal, you are just a human, you too can be killed" Which I thought was cool, so that he didn't start to think he was so much better than anyone else.
Hrere again most or all of the marble stripped off, and what was even more interesting that a lot of it has been colored in its day!!!!!!!! I am going to have to look online now for artist's renditions of what they all loooked like intact. It must have been amazing.
It was getting pretty darn hot by now, and I was really longing for that bus, but....
She told us that of the many fountains, you could fill your water bottle with fresh spring water. We ended up doing that several times during the day.
Another piece of information I though really fascinating was the fact that all these different empires ended up builing on top of the empires' building. She said in many spots there were 8 or 9 layers deep of things that could be excavated, though most would not be. I could just pisture all the amazing things that we could possibly be standing on top of. Amazing! There was one spot where they were doing some excavation, but she said doing this was really expensive.
Next stop was the Capital building, which we told was actually one of the newer places. I guess the unknown soldier is buried there. Again, we did not go inside this trip.
Alao there was a fascinating tall column with pictures inscribed in circles around it fromtop to bottom. It was standing by itself. What the encriptions were, were telling the tale of going out and conquering a place, the story from beginning to end.
In the past there had been a building around it that had openings on each floor facing the column so that you could read it all by following the nuilding to the top. Again it had been colored before. It made me want to get out some watercolors and just wash over it so that you could see better.
Next we were walked through a bunch of streets to the Trevi fountain. Tons of people at the fountain, as well as street vendors, gypies and more Roman galdiators. Mary Poppins said to throw a coin in you had to do it over your right shoulder with your back to the fountain. Jess and I dissagree on whether or not you are supposed to look to see where it lands in the water. We both did the coin toss and got water from a fountain. In the pictures there is one of how big the crowd there is.
Next we walked thorugh a lot of back streets where a ton of little shops were as well as people selling outside. About every 5 feet was a place to get your name written in Chinese. We didn't get to stop to look, Mary Poppins was going at a pretty good clip during this part.
We came out at the Pantheon, which is a pretty amazing building, the top half is a perfect dome, that if you were to turn upside down would just touch the floor. The very top is open because of the way it was made, anything put there would collapse. At noon the sun shines right in, in a circle and of course when it rains, it comes in. They had built the building with little drainage holes in the floor.
There was some restoration going on, so we had to go back outside to talk, but there was some amazing frescoes, or maybe they were just pictures, inside.
By this time I was a little overloaded with information, but I remember that everything was spaced perfectly. The columns outside were probably 20 feet high and they were spaced the exact distance apart from each other. The were made out of single pieces of granites, some coming from one of the Italian island, weighing tons, ferried over and brought across land etc.
Also, the dome itself had squares inside squares. The most inside square had been colored blue to represent the sky, the others had been covered with bronze, which had been removed at some point and put onto the ceiling in one of the arches at the vatican buildings. St Peter's arch????
Anyway, by then we were just hot, hungy and tired. We broke for lunch. They gave us about an hour and 1/2 to eat and Rome around. Jess and I found a chinese restaraunt that said it was airconditioned, but airconditioning in Italy is just NOT the freezing cold it is in the states. In fact alot of times you go outside and outside feels cooler than it was inside. I keep hoping one day I will find a freezing cold restaurant.
Anyway, we found a chinese restaurant that offered the four course meal for 6.50 euros.
Jess had a chinese pizza for first. a ball of dough with I think mayo and broccoli inside? I had wontons for first. Second we both had Shanghai rice which was delicious, no soy sauce needed for pretty much anything we have ordered in Chinese restaurants here.
For third I had sweet and sour chicken. I THINK there were tiny bits of chicken in the dough someonwhere, but it tasted great. Jess had a chinese omlet? it was almost like a panakoken, but small, and I think had chicken mixed in. She'll have more details in her blog.
Fourth we both had fried fruit. bananas and pineapple deep fried in a dough.
It may sound like lot of food, but really, with the exception of the rice, the portions were perfect sized.
Water to drink and we were off again.
Next stop, the castle of St Angelo. Looks like a big Noah's arc to me, but was brilliantly beautiful to walk up to. You cross a bridge that has huage stone angels on both sides.
The story behind this was that I think an emperor built is as a mausoleum for his wife, and then future emperors etc started buying their own there.
At some point it was used as a fortress, and even one of the Pope's lived there, hiding all the richest of the Catholic church inside and even emprisoning poeple trying to bring down the church. There is also a tunnel that goes from there to under the Basilica!
Next stop, Vatican city! yes! That was awesome, to look up and see thewindows of the former Pope's apartment, to be able to go inside and see the cryptsof all the Pope's including Pope John Paul! Jess andI both loved this. You did have to go through metal detectors. And the place I really came to see, the Sistene Chapel, we didn't get to see. That's ok though, I want to spend a LOT of time there.
Anyway, that was the end of the tour, got back on the bus, and drove back, getting home about 9:30, when our bus didn't run any more. So we took a taxi and put up our aching feet and went to sleep! Day off today, Going to a local town, Assisi tomorrow, early in the mornign Ihope, temps up in the mid 90s again.
Here is the link to all the pictures. Enjoy!!!
http://journals.aol.com/itvixen/RomePictures/
I'm going to start with some stuff that I wrote down in the morning before we went, then will just start to ramble about the day.
Oh Wait! I think I am going to start a word of the week, at least for this week. It is allora. I think that is how you spell it. I am calling in anyone who lives in Italy to see if I am right when I say they use this word when we buy something and are done. I THINK they say a lot of times, "allora?" If this is the right word that I looked up, it meant, then or well then or even so.. I never know how to answer, when used in the context of like "is that everything? I think I just end up lamely saying "si." Is there a correct response for that?
Ok, enough rambling about allora.
Here is some stuff that I wrote down yesterday:
I know this will be hard to believe, but it is 6 am and not only am I awake, but am showered and dressed, and even waiting across town at the bus station.
Just what do you ask could make me get up this early? Money? A man? no, Roma! Today is our spoon-fed tour of Rome. We've been there several times and not once seen a monument, etc. I decided it was much safer to let someone else do the driving and show us around. I just want to sit in an airconditioned bus! Especially because it is supposed to be in the mid 90s today.
Waiting at the bus station, Jess and I had our first stand up at a coffe bar coffee today! Long overdue, but in a way it is sort of intimidating, all the men elbowed up against each other, and if we were going to make a stupid mistake, better to do it with less people around. Since it was so early, we decided to go for it. We belly up and Jess says "Due cafes" (doo-ay) and lo and behold, he gets us two espressos! They are simply called cafes here, I think if you want a cup of american coffe, you ask for american coffee, but I have been told they just water down the espresso for you and put it in a bigger cup. NEVER would I dare order, or want to order that here. Instead the cafe here is in tiny cups as you probably know, with a little spot of almost foam on the top. I have learned to put a lot of sugar in it, and Jess decided to ask for "latte" (milk) in hers after she tried it. Very strong stuff.
So now we are very proud, no longer cafe virgins. :-)
A few minutes later while we wait outside, a young, CUTE, blondish guy comes up and asks if we are here for the tour. We both say yes, thinking he is here for it also. Well, he is in a way, he is our tour guide. (God has smiled upon us)He was from Belgium and spoke French and English. His name was Antonio, but the tour guide place I had called had said his name was Antonino. When I mentioned it to him, he sort of scowled and say if we preferred. But we could tell it must be their pet name for him, (like little anthony) so we chose to call him Antonio.
We walked around the corner and there was our bus, sort of a short version of one of the huge tour buses. Yeah! Airconditioning. We sat it the front two seats and until I figured how to bring UP the armrest, every time we took a right turn I was trying to nonchalantly hang on to whatever part of the seat I could, to keep from falling off it and onto the floor. First I put the seatbelt on. I felt stupid, but hey... Then after we had picked up a few more of the people going I saw how someone brought up the armrest, and then all was good!
My memory may be a bit different from Jess' as far as the people we picked up and what countries they were from, but...
I knew the place I had called to reserve this trip has said they usually pick up people at Lake Trasimeno, but they would have the bus come to pick us up in town.
Now we went in that direction and stoppped three different places. The first in a tiny little town, we picked up a man and his wife who I think were German. Second stop A family that again I think was German. Somewhere in here was someone French because I remember Antonio taking that group aside to explain things in French. Anyway, the third group again was a family and I know the two girls were from Holland because we talked to them quite a bit on the trip, they knew English well.
After picking everyone up, we head to Rome, via Tuscany, which was fun. We saw LOTs of sunflower fields, which I never managed to get a decent picture of, sorry.
At about 9 am we stopped and everyone got something to eat and drink, went to the bathrooms etc, then on to the city.
Last time we went to Rome there was a bus strike, which is what caused all the problems on our Ikea trip. We should have just gone home when we knew that.
This time there was a train strike. Luckily we weren't using the train, but traffic was really bad, and we unded up getting there 1/2 hour late, which is when we found out this was a walking tour.
DAMN! There goes the air conditioning.
We met our other tour guide that would be staying with us for just the morning part of the tour. She had a closed up red umbrella that she would hold up in the air and we were to follow that. I felt like a first grader following Mary Poppins, and asked Jess where the rope was with the knots in it we were to hold onto. The umbrella turned out to be not such a bad idea. Not only because in huge crowds it became a very good way to find her, but also because it was the norm for a tour guide to have something to stick up above the crowd for the people to follow. We sow scarfs at the end of wire pointer sticks, sunflowers, just about everything you could imagine.
I still felt dumb following this lady inside the Termini station and down to the subway. We stopped there to go to the bathroom again, but out of two bathrooms, only one was working, and after the second person went in, the light about it started flashing and there was a loud beeping, it too was out of order.
It was another bathroom you had to pay 50 cents for, BUT it was a self cleaning one! After every person it would close, and the entire thing was sprayed down inside with water and cleaner, when it opened up the entire thing had been sprayed down, pretty nifty!
We found out we would be taking one of the two subway lines in the city over to the Colosseum. This (the subway)is where they told us to be wary of gypsy children, that you should hang onto your purse, etc not to get pickpocketed.
Of course me, who never wears a purse, had decided to carry my huge Indian purse so that I had everything I needed. Now I had to figure out a way to keep it safe from those dang gypsy kids that I could just picture would wrestle me to the ground, tearing it out of my arms while I screamed for help.
Anyway, Mary Poppins marched us onto the subway train with her red umbrella, and we are all clutching everything we brough to our breasts looking scared. All the regular people on the train were really trying not to laugh out loud at us, and I saw quite a few smiles when they looked at us.
Of course it turns out there was not one gyspy child or pickpocket on our train (Mary Poppins said it was proabably due to the bus strike, or they were all on vacation with the Italians) Either way I kept a veeerrrrry close eye on the old lady sitting down next to me (I was standing) and I was ready to smack the life out of her if she even tried to get her old bony fingers on my purse. (poor woman)
Finally off, safe and sound, went outside and right there was the Coloseum. WOW!
Mary Poppins walked us across the street and into the shade (which she said was free) and started to tell us about the history of the Colosseum.
Where we found out there was no mass slaying of Christians. Turns out that is not true, that Nero who supposedly did that, was dead by the time they had even started to build it.
More facts (hopefully I am giving you correct information!)
The Colosseum used to be covered in marble, but along the way one of the other civilizations was into recycling and stripped it of the marble as well as the steel pipes that held the marble on. What was left was pitted with holes where they had pulled out the pipe. We also did not get to go inside, which was a big dissapointment, but is ok, for 42 euros we got the whole path of where we needed to go to get to these sites, plus a HUGE amount of information.
Anyway, no massive killing of Christians, and everything stipped off the outside, which turned out to be true of a lot of the places we visited.
We also saw our first gypsy beggar woman. Just like you would think, hunched over and in rags. I wander if it hurts to hunch over like that all day long? Jess got a picture of her. Jess has uploaded all our pictures, to another site. I'll give you the link later. Also there were men dresses and Roman gladiators, and they invite you take take a picture of them, after which you'll need to pay them money. We were warned in advance not to do it unless we were willing to pay. Several people were taking their pictures while they weren't looking. I'm not sure if Jess got one or not.
We went on to the Roman Forum, which was in effect a small city, showing different aspects of Roman life. The path the Emperors went down during their victory parades when they had conqeured(sp) somewhere. An interesting thing our guide told us of was that during these victory parades, there was a young boy who rode with the Emperor and held a crown of flowers over his head and was to whisper to him things like "You are mortal, you are just a human, you too can be killed" Which I thought was cool, so that he didn't start to think he was so much better than anyone else.
Hrere again most or all of the marble stripped off, and what was even more interesting that a lot of it has been colored in its day!!!!!!!! I am going to have to look online now for artist's renditions of what they all loooked like intact. It must have been amazing.
It was getting pretty darn hot by now, and I was really longing for that bus, but....
She told us that of the many fountains, you could fill your water bottle with fresh spring water. We ended up doing that several times during the day.
Another piece of information I though really fascinating was the fact that all these different empires ended up builing on top of the empires' building. She said in many spots there were 8 or 9 layers deep of things that could be excavated, though most would not be. I could just pisture all the amazing things that we could possibly be standing on top of. Amazing! There was one spot where they were doing some excavation, but she said doing this was really expensive.
Next stop was the Capital building, which we told was actually one of the newer places. I guess the unknown soldier is buried there. Again, we did not go inside this trip.
Alao there was a fascinating tall column with pictures inscribed in circles around it fromtop to bottom. It was standing by itself. What the encriptions were, were telling the tale of going out and conquering a place, the story from beginning to end.
In the past there had been a building around it that had openings on each floor facing the column so that you could read it all by following the nuilding to the top. Again it had been colored before. It made me want to get out some watercolors and just wash over it so that you could see better.
Next we were walked through a bunch of streets to the Trevi fountain. Tons of people at the fountain, as well as street vendors, gypies and more Roman galdiators. Mary Poppins said to throw a coin in you had to do it over your right shoulder with your back to the fountain. Jess and I dissagree on whether or not you are supposed to look to see where it lands in the water. We both did the coin toss and got water from a fountain. In the pictures there is one of how big the crowd there is.
Next we walked thorugh a lot of back streets where a ton of little shops were as well as people selling outside. About every 5 feet was a place to get your name written in Chinese. We didn't get to stop to look, Mary Poppins was going at a pretty good clip during this part.
We came out at the Pantheon, which is a pretty amazing building, the top half is a perfect dome, that if you were to turn upside down would just touch the floor. The very top is open because of the way it was made, anything put there would collapse. At noon the sun shines right in, in a circle and of course when it rains, it comes in. They had built the building with little drainage holes in the floor.
There was some restoration going on, so we had to go back outside to talk, but there was some amazing frescoes, or maybe they were just pictures, inside.
By this time I was a little overloaded with information, but I remember that everything was spaced perfectly. The columns outside were probably 20 feet high and they were spaced the exact distance apart from each other. The were made out of single pieces of granites, some coming from one of the Italian island, weighing tons, ferried over and brought across land etc.
Also, the dome itself had squares inside squares. The most inside square had been colored blue to represent the sky, the others had been covered with bronze, which had been removed at some point and put onto the ceiling in one of the arches at the vatican buildings. St Peter's arch????
Anyway, by then we were just hot, hungy and tired. We broke for lunch. They gave us about an hour and 1/2 to eat and Rome around. Jess and I found a chinese restaraunt that said it was airconditioned, but airconditioning in Italy is just NOT the freezing cold it is in the states. In fact alot of times you go outside and outside feels cooler than it was inside. I keep hoping one day I will find a freezing cold restaurant.
Anyway, we found a chinese restaurant that offered the four course meal for 6.50 euros.
Jess had a chinese pizza for first. a ball of dough with I think mayo and broccoli inside? I had wontons for first. Second we both had Shanghai rice which was delicious, no soy sauce needed for pretty much anything we have ordered in Chinese restaurants here.
For third I had sweet and sour chicken. I THINK there were tiny bits of chicken in the dough someonwhere, but it tasted great. Jess had a chinese omlet? it was almost like a panakoken, but small, and I think had chicken mixed in. She'll have more details in her blog.
Fourth we both had fried fruit. bananas and pineapple deep fried in a dough.
It may sound like lot of food, but really, with the exception of the rice, the portions were perfect sized.
Water to drink and we were off again.
Next stop, the castle of St Angelo. Looks like a big Noah's arc to me, but was brilliantly beautiful to walk up to. You cross a bridge that has huage stone angels on both sides.
The story behind this was that I think an emperor built is as a mausoleum for his wife, and then future emperors etc started buying their own there.
At some point it was used as a fortress, and even one of the Pope's lived there, hiding all the richest of the Catholic church inside and even emprisoning poeple trying to bring down the church. There is also a tunnel that goes from there to under the Basilica!
Next stop, Vatican city! yes! That was awesome, to look up and see thewindows of the former Pope's apartment, to be able to go inside and see the cryptsof all the Pope's including Pope John Paul! Jess andI both loved this. You did have to go through metal detectors. And the place I really came to see, the Sistene Chapel, we didn't get to see. That's ok though, I want to spend a LOT of time there.
Anyway, that was the end of the tour, got back on the bus, and drove back, getting home about 9:30, when our bus didn't run any more. So we took a taxi and put up our aching feet and went to sleep! Day off today, Going to a local town, Assisi tomorrow, early in the mornign Ihope, temps up in the mid 90s again.
Here is the link to all the pictures. Enjoy!!!
http://journals.aol.com/itvixen/RomePictures/
Sunday, July 24, 2005
The lost blog entry!
I wrote this in a journal at 3 am when I was the sickest, I think it was arounf July 7th, about 3 days after we got here.. I kept meaning to put it in the blog. It may not be the most interesting, but it really should be in here. :-)
Three in the morning here, I really need to move my bed upstairs. These college kids never go to sleep. The lower level of our apartment is facing the alley and street. Upstairs we face the roof tops and valley. Much less noise.
About 3 am, the wind started blowing like crazy! Storm coming I think.With the screens in the windows you can hear the wind howl, and I swear the more I listen, I can hearmen singing either a soccer song or "Ric-oh-lo!". Maybe my fever is higher than I thought. For some unknown reason I decided to wrap a scarf around my neck and it's like 90 here. It just feels good for some reason. I wanted something to clear my nose up so that I didn't sleep with my mouth open. I think that is part of what is giving me such a bad sore throat. The only thing I could find for my nose was Icy Hot.
So it's 3 in the morning, the wind is howling and I am laying in bed with a scarf wrapped around my neck with icy hot under my nose listening to men sing Ric-oh-lo down the hill. hmmm...
Finally a few pepl make it up the hill towards our apartment. They are singing "canta, canta, canta" (sing, sing, sing) then Dove Maria in time to a drum they are banging on. I swear I am not making this up!
I think Italian men love to sing, it's so cute. Maybe it is something that they only do when they have been drinking (i have since learned that they seem to do it anytime, esp to the women they are with.)or maybe they are just happy. But I always hear them coming up the street singing little songs. They seem to have pretty good voices too.
Jess and I both have a crush on the pizza guy at the pizza place down the hill. He is one of the few people here who speaks to us in English. Last time we visited he made a point of doing some sort of rap dance while he was heating up our pizza. They use the big brick ovens at this place, and they use the paddle with the long stick to get things in and out of the oven. It was nice to have a guy paying attention to us, we were both laughing at how silly he was, but the girl who was working with him wasn't very amused. Oh well, what is life without a little flirting!
Anyway I need to get a couple of hours sleep before the church bells wake us up at 7:30 or so. We are still trying to figure out what all they ring for. Of course the time, but there are many other times they are ringing. I haven't been able to figure out why yet.
The medicine we got at the farmacia is just not working. I think I may have to go to the dr and get an antibiotic.
Anyway, when we went to the farmacia it was kind of cool. I had learned the words for sore throat. fa male golah, so they were able to give me some pain medication. I made sure there was no aspirin in it, because it had the Bayer sign on the box.
The layout there is cool, they have about six or seven very thin doors in the wall behind them that they pull out and have all the medicine there. They ring up your stuff and then srap it in one little piece of paper folded like a present. I was so proud I was like trying to show it off as we went home, as proof I could handle myself in a farmacia. LOL
Another thing I have noticed in a lot of the stores is they have a large ceramic plate that they put you items on as well as change you get back. Kind of cool.
Well that is is, going to bed now, hoping I feel better in the morning.
Three in the morning here, I really need to move my bed upstairs. These college kids never go to sleep. The lower level of our apartment is facing the alley and street. Upstairs we face the roof tops and valley. Much less noise.
About 3 am, the wind started blowing like crazy! Storm coming I think.With the screens in the windows you can hear the wind howl, and I swear the more I listen, I can hearmen singing either a soccer song or "Ric-oh-lo!". Maybe my fever is higher than I thought. For some unknown reason I decided to wrap a scarf around my neck and it's like 90 here. It just feels good for some reason. I wanted something to clear my nose up so that I didn't sleep with my mouth open. I think that is part of what is giving me such a bad sore throat. The only thing I could find for my nose was Icy Hot.
So it's 3 in the morning, the wind is howling and I am laying in bed with a scarf wrapped around my neck with icy hot under my nose listening to men sing Ric-oh-lo down the hill. hmmm...
Finally a few pepl make it up the hill towards our apartment. They are singing "canta, canta, canta" (sing, sing, sing) then Dove Maria in time to a drum they are banging on. I swear I am not making this up!
I think Italian men love to sing, it's so cute. Maybe it is something that they only do when they have been drinking (i have since learned that they seem to do it anytime, esp to the women they are with.)or maybe they are just happy. But I always hear them coming up the street singing little songs. They seem to have pretty good voices too.
Jess and I both have a crush on the pizza guy at the pizza place down the hill. He is one of the few people here who speaks to us in English. Last time we visited he made a point of doing some sort of rap dance while he was heating up our pizza. They use the big brick ovens at this place, and they use the paddle with the long stick to get things in and out of the oven. It was nice to have a guy paying attention to us, we were both laughing at how silly he was, but the girl who was working with him wasn't very amused. Oh well, what is life without a little flirting!
Anyway I need to get a couple of hours sleep before the church bells wake us up at 7:30 or so. We are still trying to figure out what all they ring for. Of course the time, but there are many other times they are ringing. I haven't been able to figure out why yet.
The medicine we got at the farmacia is just not working. I think I may have to go to the dr and get an antibiotic.
Anyway, when we went to the farmacia it was kind of cool. I had learned the words for sore throat. fa male golah, so they were able to give me some pain medication. I made sure there was no aspirin in it, because it had the Bayer sign on the box.
The layout there is cool, they have about six or seven very thin doors in the wall behind them that they pull out and have all the medicine there. They ring up your stuff and then srap it in one little piece of paper folded like a present. I was so proud I was like trying to show it off as we went home, as proof I could handle myself in a farmacia. LOL
Another thing I have noticed in a lot of the stores is they have a large ceramic plate that they put you items on as well as change you get back. Kind of cool.
Well that is is, going to bed now, hoping I feel better in the morning.
Italian TV
I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but never seem to think of it when I am at the computer. Since we have taken the day off from life and been sitting at PCs all day, I suddenly remembered it.
Besides the fact that it is all in Italian, with the exception of CNN at 3 am, there is not a whole lot to watch. We seem to watch MTV when we have it on, and have found that after a certain time of night about 5 stations show nothing but soft porn, well i think it is soft. There was one the other night when I switched stations that was like some old balck and white porno where the woman had HUGE underpants on, and the guy came over and gave her a spanking. (Oh yeah, very tittilating!) HA!
Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was the fact that we found the equivalent of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on tv the other night! Very interesting. The same music, format everything, except the name of the show was I Fantastico V, i think that was the name of it. We watched the whole thing, didn't agree with everything, including the fact the the guy being made over had to style his own beard into a goatee type of thing AND color it himself. i thought that was kind of funny. But they even had the same poses in the beginning, the guy with the hairdryer, one brandishing a cooking utensil, etc.
We were SO hoping that they would play the show "Blow Out" afterwards, we got hooked on that show right before we left the states.
Anyway, it's also fun to watch things like My Best friend's Wedding in Italian, because with movies like that (i have watched about 50 times) at least you have an idea what is going on.
To be honest, we watched more when we first got here. Now we have more of a tendency to hook up the portable dvd player we brought to the TV. It will only play in black and white, but hey, it's better than nothing. I anticipate that someday I will be able to turn on the Tv and actually understand what is being said on the truly horrible game shows, before I turn the channel. *g* ciao!
Besides the fact that it is all in Italian, with the exception of CNN at 3 am, there is not a whole lot to watch. We seem to watch MTV when we have it on, and have found that after a certain time of night about 5 stations show nothing but soft porn, well i think it is soft. There was one the other night when I switched stations that was like some old balck and white porno where the woman had HUGE underpants on, and the guy came over and gave her a spanking. (Oh yeah, very tittilating!) HA!
Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was the fact that we found the equivalent of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on tv the other night! Very interesting. The same music, format everything, except the name of the show was I Fantastico V, i think that was the name of it. We watched the whole thing, didn't agree with everything, including the fact the the guy being made over had to style his own beard into a goatee type of thing AND color it himself. i thought that was kind of funny. But they even had the same poses in the beginning, the guy with the hairdryer, one brandishing a cooking utensil, etc.
We were SO hoping that they would play the show "Blow Out" afterwards, we got hooked on that show right before we left the states.
Anyway, it's also fun to watch things like My Best friend's Wedding in Italian, because with movies like that (i have watched about 50 times) at least you have an idea what is going on.
To be honest, we watched more when we first got here. Now we have more of a tendency to hook up the portable dvd player we brought to the TV. It will only play in black and white, but hey, it's better than nothing. I anticipate that someday I will be able to turn on the Tv and actually understand what is being said on the truly horrible game shows, before I turn the channel. *g* ciao!
Saturday, July 23, 2005
The dog days of summer
It is sort of like that here for some reason. Not a lot going on. There is a bus strike today, so we are doing laundry and hanging out on the internet. Are still planning to take the tour to Rome on Tues, but am not sure about when we can do Switzerland. Most evenings are booked, but I somehow only has to pay 18 dollars for car insurance this month, so i may well just pay full fare to get out of town and have some fun.
Yesterday we went to Lake Trasimeno via train. 2.10 euros each way, not bad. I will post some pictures in a bit. Jess posted them on her blog too.
I thought it would be really crowded but the place was dead. We took a boat out to Magiorre (sp) but it was one of the last boats, so we did not really get to walk around much. Saw a couple of stray cats. I know, I know, just too much excitement. We are just taking it easy for now. It was nice. I hate to say how nice it is to sleep late and wander. We have to watch it, we will get too complacent and end up seeing nothing of this beautiful country!
I also bought a present for my mom at one of the stores, but left it on the train. Sheesh. We called the train station in town and they said it would be at the lost and found at city hall, god only knows where that is, but maybe someone found it and was nice enough to bring it in.
Here are some pictures
The city of Passignano from the boat. (just a note for Wayne, the nitpicker. After these were taken I had Jess change the date on the camera so it is now correct. sheesh.)
We went in a smaller boat out to the island, but came back on a bigger boat. This is a bit of the seats on the second level where we sat.
A little restaurant on the island of Magiorre.
Coming up from the boat, little souvenier(sp) shops. Of course we went over with no money, or I could have gotten a cool bright blue dolphin or something similarly touristy!!
The shoreline
A picture of kitty. I know, she was not with us on the boat, but Nick will like this.
Silver on the windowsill at the apartment.
Just a note for those of you who have to wash your clothes at a laundramat(sp) prices here are crazy. 3 euros a laod, which runs about 3.6o in dollars. 5.50 to dry a large load for 21 minutes, towels do not even get close to dry. so about 6.40 to dry one load. Ouch!
Yesterday we went to Lake Trasimeno via train. 2.10 euros each way, not bad. I will post some pictures in a bit. Jess posted them on her blog too.
I thought it would be really crowded but the place was dead. We took a boat out to Magiorre (sp) but it was one of the last boats, so we did not really get to walk around much. Saw a couple of stray cats. I know, I know, just too much excitement. We are just taking it easy for now. It was nice. I hate to say how nice it is to sleep late and wander. We have to watch it, we will get too complacent and end up seeing nothing of this beautiful country!
I also bought a present for my mom at one of the stores, but left it on the train. Sheesh. We called the train station in town and they said it would be at the lost and found at city hall, god only knows where that is, but maybe someone found it and was nice enough to bring it in.
Here are some pictures
The city of Passignano from the boat. (just a note for Wayne, the nitpicker. After these were taken I had Jess change the date on the camera so it is now correct. sheesh.)
We went in a smaller boat out to the island, but came back on a bigger boat. This is a bit of the seats on the second level where we sat.
A little restaurant on the island of Magiorre.
Coming up from the boat, little souvenier(sp) shops. Of course we went over with no money, or I could have gotten a cool bright blue dolphin or something similarly touristy!! 
The shoreline
A picture of kitty. I know, she was not with us on the boat, but Nick will like this.
Silver on the windowsill at the apartment.Just a note for those of you who have to wash your clothes at a laundramat(sp) prices here are crazy. 3 euros a laod, which runs about 3.6o in dollars. 5.50 to dry a large load for 21 minutes, towels do not even get close to dry. so about 6.40 to dry one load. Ouch!
Friday, July 22, 2005
Yeah, trips to Switzerland and Rome next week
We've been laying pretty low the last few days, but I just realized that school starts in another week or so, so we need to get off our butts and make a couple trips.
Tomorrow we are taking the train to Lake Trasimeno, about a 25 minute ride away. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so we'll have to see. But for 2.10 euros one way, we should be going out to the lake more often, especially with this heat.
I was going to rent a car and take off driving, but everything in town is rented out, I'm guessing for peoples' August vacations. So that is down the drain for now. Jessica heaved a sigh of relief, she HATES my driving here.
Next to one of the two bus stations in town is a little tourist information place we stopped into today. They do bus trips all over, Florence, Pisa etc, but not until September. We are looking forward to that, they go all over, art trips, cuisine trip etc.... looks awesome!! The only trip they have this time of the years is a weekly trip on Tuesdays to Rome. 42 euros, includes the bus, tour guides, etc. A really good deal, we can take our cameras, relax and play tourist and let someone else do the driving!
Then when I was at the Trenitalia site looking for places to go, since car rental is out of the question, they showed a special to Zurich! Yes! You can leave Florence at 11 pm, get a 2 sleeper compartment, sleep all night, get to Zurich around 7 am. Then you have all day to wander around Zurich, get back to the train by about 8 or 10 pm, then sleep all night and get into Florence about 8 am, then take the train back down to Perugia! That will be our big outing before school starts. We will have to leave the cats alone a day and 1/2, but they should be fine for that amount of time.
I'm pretty excited to go see the Alps, the weather is only in the lower 70s now, which will be wonderful! We can go, have breakfast, yodel a bit, see the Alps, sing a song from the Sound of Music, buy some Swiss chocolate, maybe a watch or two, dinner, then head back home. Yes! It will be nice to get out of town, I have to admit.
Well we are running late tonight, mom just called and I had to tell her to call back in 45 minutes. Going to end this here. Ciao!
Tomorrow we are taking the train to Lake Trasimeno, about a 25 minute ride away. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so we'll have to see. But for 2.10 euros one way, we should be going out to the lake more often, especially with this heat.
I was going to rent a car and take off driving, but everything in town is rented out, I'm guessing for peoples' August vacations. So that is down the drain for now. Jessica heaved a sigh of relief, she HATES my driving here.
Next to one of the two bus stations in town is a little tourist information place we stopped into today. They do bus trips all over, Florence, Pisa etc, but not until September. We are looking forward to that, they go all over, art trips, cuisine trip etc.... looks awesome!! The only trip they have this time of the years is a weekly trip on Tuesdays to Rome. 42 euros, includes the bus, tour guides, etc. A really good deal, we can take our cameras, relax and play tourist and let someone else do the driving!
Then when I was at the Trenitalia site looking for places to go, since car rental is out of the question, they showed a special to Zurich! Yes! You can leave Florence at 11 pm, get a 2 sleeper compartment, sleep all night, get to Zurich around 7 am. Then you have all day to wander around Zurich, get back to the train by about 8 or 10 pm, then sleep all night and get into Florence about 8 am, then take the train back down to Perugia! That will be our big outing before school starts. We will have to leave the cats alone a day and 1/2, but they should be fine for that amount of time.
I'm pretty excited to go see the Alps, the weather is only in the lower 70s now, which will be wonderful! We can go, have breakfast, yodel a bit, see the Alps, sing a song from the Sound of Music, buy some Swiss chocolate, maybe a watch or two, dinner, then head back home. Yes! It will be nice to get out of town, I have to admit.
Well we are running late tonight, mom just called and I had to tell her to call back in 45 minutes. Going to end this here. Ciao!
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Taking a breather
Not much going on today, slept late, went to the post office to pay our insurance, by then the questura was closed so we couldn't finish registering. We decided to try to get out to the mall outside of town, but started so late, ened up riding busses back home. Planning a trip in the next couple of days, not sure where yet, maybe Sorrento, but not sure how busy those places will be. we need to get out of Perugia for the day, I'm starting to go crazy here!
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
*singing* You aaaaaare the wind beneath my winnngssss.
Sorry, I hate that song, but we have fans!!!!!!
Art of Barb and Art called today and read me the riot act, (nicely) saying we should be asking for help. He is right... He had me call Bob and Rosemary, telling me there were fans at the SELF store near us and they would know how to get to the SELF store.
I called and spoke with both and Bob told me to get to his friend Francesco at Casina Della Rose. We hopped the bus and spoke to Francesco who was wonderful! he had to go to SELF also, to get one of his daughter's drawings framed, and gave us a ride to SELF, pointed us in the direction of fans (which were on sale!) and even gave a ride back to our apartment. A wonderful man! It turns out he and his wife and daughter live right up our street. Talk about a small world.
The SELF store was wonderful. I would have liked to look around longer, but didn't want to take up Francesco's time. We even found some different cat food that even Kittie loves. :-)
So now we have fans! We splurged and put both on this afternoon. Also a test to see if we blew any fuses. We both just sat with goofy looks on our faces.
Now that I've finished my antibiotics, tastes are starting to return to normal. Everything doesn't taste like some strange mineral anymore.
Ate at a chines place tonight, very cheap, though next time we will know that you have to order rice, it does not come with the food.
Short blog tonight, I need to see if we can do a day trip to Pompeii inthe next couple of days. A lot of the shops are closing down until the end of the month, so it is a good time to go on some trips. Ciao!
Art of Barb and Art called today and read me the riot act, (nicely) saying we should be asking for help. He is right... He had me call Bob and Rosemary, telling me there were fans at the SELF store near us and they would know how to get to the SELF store.
I called and spoke with both and Bob told me to get to his friend Francesco at Casina Della Rose. We hopped the bus and spoke to Francesco who was wonderful! he had to go to SELF also, to get one of his daughter's drawings framed, and gave us a ride to SELF, pointed us in the direction of fans (which were on sale!) and even gave a ride back to our apartment. A wonderful man! It turns out he and his wife and daughter live right up our street. Talk about a small world.
The SELF store was wonderful. I would have liked to look around longer, but didn't want to take up Francesco's time. We even found some different cat food that even Kittie loves. :-)
So now we have fans! We splurged and put both on this afternoon. Also a test to see if we blew any fuses. We both just sat with goofy looks on our faces.
Now that I've finished my antibiotics, tastes are starting to return to normal. Everything doesn't taste like some strange mineral anymore.
Ate at a chines place tonight, very cheap, though next time we will know that you have to order rice, it does not come with the food.
Short blog tonight, I need to see if we can do a day trip to Pompeii inthe next couple of days. A lot of the shops are closing down until the end of the month, so it is a good time to go on some trips. Ciao!
Monday, July 18, 2005
Sunday, the day of rest. (sort of)
Wayne, where are you????
Well, no crazy adventures today. Just trying to stay cool. We cleaned up the apt, mopped the floors and are now doing laundry while we surf. I made some scrambled eggs this afternoon. I think we really need to get some iced tea\koolaid types of drinks. the water just doesn't do it, and i am not that big of a pop drinker.
I just received an email from a friend who went down to Venezuala for school this summer. After reading his email I feel better about us. I think the highlight of his trip so far has been catching a ride in a pig truck when their car broke down and being taken out to sea with some other people then told to turn over all their money or the person would not take them where they needed to go. Glad to know we are not the only people who's trip has not been picture perfect.
Speaking of pictures I have some. I think the same ones are on my daughter's blog, but will post a few in case you don't get to hers. Double click on the picture if you want to see a large version of it,and more details.
Bammy in a bag (on th way to Italy)
Rome
Coming up the stairs to the second floor of our apartment in Perugia
The amazing view from our bedroom window.
Another view from the window
sitting on our balcony
One more of the view. Spectacular!
Bammy LOVING the heat
The ones taken today of the apt turned out blurry. Jess posted them in her blog, so if you are interested you can look for the link to hers on the right. I'm going to wait until we get better pictures. Well, am off to look for regular tourist tours in Florence. I'm adventured out for the next week or so. ;-)
Well, no crazy adventures today. Just trying to stay cool. We cleaned up the apt, mopped the floors and are now doing laundry while we surf. I made some scrambled eggs this afternoon. I think we really need to get some iced tea\koolaid types of drinks. the water just doesn't do it, and i am not that big of a pop drinker.
I just received an email from a friend who went down to Venezuala for school this summer. After reading his email I feel better about us. I think the highlight of his trip so far has been catching a ride in a pig truck when their car broke down and being taken out to sea with some other people then told to turn over all their money or the person would not take them where they needed to go. Glad to know we are not the only people who's trip has not been picture perfect.
Speaking of pictures I have some. I think the same ones are on my daughter's blog, but will post a few in case you don't get to hers. Double click on the picture if you want to see a large version of it,and more details.
Bammy in a bag (on th way to Italy)
Rome
Coming up the stairs to the second floor of our apartment in Perugia
The amazing view from our bedroom window.
Another view from the window
sitting on our balcony
One more of the view. Spectacular!
Bammy LOVING the heatThe ones taken today of the apt turned out blurry. Jess posted them in her blog, so if you are interested you can look for the link to hers on the right. I'm going to wait until we get better pictures. Well, am off to look for regular tourist tours in Florence. I'm adventured out for the next week or so. ;-)
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Trains, strikes and other adventures.
Its 3 am in Italy and Jessica and I are in the back of a van flying down the autostrand with two strangers in the front seat. I look out the window and see the big dipper, but we are not talking about some weak version, this is huge, hanging in the air near the horizon, unbelievably grand.
I can tell that our driver is trying to keep us safe because he is driving down the exact middle of two lanes, the white line running under the center of the van.
Everyone is silent while the radio is softly playing what sounds like an Italian Paul Anka. When that song ends I hear Phil Collins singing "Another Day in Paradise" I kid you not.
I just laugh to myself and look back out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the bid dipper again.
Have we been abducted? Are we being smuggled to or from some foreign country? Ok, it's been a LONG day and it's way more fun to play a game like this than admit we are simply taking a taxi from Terontola to Perugia after missing the last bus from Rome. HA! I havenàt had this much fun in a long time. On the other hand, I'm thinking I'll seem some grey hair on Jessica in the morning.
The morning seems so long ago. Our intention was to go find one of the Ikeas in Rome and buy ourselves some things we needed as well as a fan. It was either get up at 5 something to make the 6 am train in to Rome, or sleep a little later and take the 11:15 in. We decided on the one at 11 and of course running late, there was a line, and we barely made the train. I though second class was really nice, two big seats on both sides, the airconditioning was working, we got seats next to one of the best looking guys in Italy, longer curly hair, young, cute..... Ahh.. Italy.
So off we got no Rome, checking out the countryside, all the hilltowns going by, on some of the hills\mountains you could even see the end of the tree line, where nothing grows above. Really nice, everything isbrown though, being mid -July, but still beautiful.
I start getting sleepy and before I know it, the conductor\ticket collecter stops by. Now the fun begins.
HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I READ ON SLOWTRAV THAT YOU HAVE TO PUNCH YOUR TICKETS BEFORE GETTING ON THE TRAIN? I have read this at least 40, 50 times. Guess what I forgot to do? Punch our tickets. So now everyone around us is looking at me as the consuctor is going on in Italian about this, and I'm half asleep so coming up with "I don't speak Italian" is not an option, unless of course you want Spanish mixed in with it. (I have to tell you, this Spanish thing is becoming a real problem for me now)
Finally he just says "Non Italiano?" and I just sheepishly grin and hit my hand to my forehead like how could I have forgotten, and mumble some Spanish. He writes something on each of our tickets and hands them back,and I slink down into my chair.
Note: Don't worry about all the beautiful places in Italy, get to Italian classes.
The rest of the ride is pretty uneventful, other than I get to exchange smiles with the cute Italian guy across from me when we go through some killer tunnels and everyone's ears are popping.
We get into Rome Termini train station and go to find the bus. All we really have as far as directions are the bus numbers that say will go to the store. What do they say about a wing and a prayer? I think all we really had was the prayer, because we go outside and find out there is a bus strike that day.
Note: Check for bus strikes when going to another city.
IF we had been smart we would have turned around and gotten bcak on the next train to Perugia, but no, come on... We are here, we can jus catch a cab.
This was the weirdest cab catching experience I have ever had, you couldn't just hail one, I think it was because everyone was calling the radio cabs, so they had to go to the person that called him. Well finally we got one to drive us to Ikea. At first he didn't want to, I told him we knew it would be around 40 euros, but after the experience I think he would have made a lot more money with quick trips downtown.
It took us forever, so much traffic, and yes about 40 euros, but finally we see the Ikea sign. It was sort of sad, it felt like being home again. Here was one spot in Italy we were familiar with. I was hoping they might even have ice cubes!
The first thing we did (after kissing the floor) was go up and get some Swedish meatballs. We needed some little taste of home. Ohhhhhhh man, good stuff. No ice though.
Note: Never go to a country again that does not have ice cubes.
I'm telling you, it's becoming an obsession with me, truly horrible, like being a drug addict or something.
We took our time in Ikea, airconditioned but still not as cold as I was hoping for. Bought trash baskets and toothbrush holders and rugs and tea kettles and all sorts of stuff. We start getting towards the end and I'm asking Jess where the fans are?? Guess what? No fans. I think they are just trying to wear me down and make me cry uncle.
Trying not to go into the corner and curl up in a fetal position I try to smile and say it's ok, but it really isn't. I just want ice cubes and a fan. I can bypass the airconditioning, I just want air movement and something frozen to crunch on. For some reason this would make everything in the world right. No more war, hate killing if everyone just had a fan and a supply of ice cubes. OK, maybe a Sierra Mist too.
Anyway, we get our stuff bagged up and go to the cash machine to pull out some euros, and go stand outside to see if maybe there is a taxi out there.
Nope, no taxi, so we hang out a few, it's hot but windy so it doesn't feel too bad outside. We hang out a while and see a taxi go by down a side road, and try to flag it down. No luck, he had someone with him, so maybe he'll come back.
After probably 20 minutes or so we decide to stop the cart boy and see if he know where we can get the number of a cab company. He explains to us in faultering English that the numbers are up by the pay phones. We are willing to try out Italian with him, buthe really wants to be able to speak to us in English. The first person to be honest, that has tried to hard to communicate with us in English. I think he even said at the end "sorry about my bad english." We sais he did great, and go to find the taxi numbers.
This part may vary a bit from Jessica's story because the taxis were called so omany times in the next couple of hours. If I remember correctly the first time we called they said fine, and we went down to wait.
Rather than gothrough every time we caleld, let's just say that in the next couple of hours we called taxis so many times it was unbelievable. Twice we even went into Ikea and had customer servcie call for us. In fact the second time Jess had like three or 4 people all on phones calling. No one wanted to send a taxi out this far, they were making a killing in Rome I'me sure.
Finally Jess told me that the Ikea people said I should call the yellow pages on my phone to get the number of a private driver, but to wait a few because they might have someone that would come pick us up.
The private driver thing may soudn weird, but itàs what we had pick us up from the airport and drive us into Rome, it only cost 40 euros and we weren't that far from the airport.
So in Italy, and I think this is for all of Europe, you call a yellow pages number, talk to a person, tell them what you are looking for, they hang up, go into the yellow pages and start text messaging you all the different people available, to your phone. Ok, this is probably the coolest thing I have heard of, my god what a good idea. The only problem with my yellow pages guy is he wouldn't give melistingd for personal drivers. I begged him, nope, he was bound a determined we would be able to find a taxi through the listing he would send to me.
I must be a real wuss in my old age because I agreed, which didn't matter because they got us a cab a few minutes later. Either way I have about 10 text messages with numbers of taxis in Rome, so if anyone needs one...... :-)
By now it's something like 8 in the evening and we know we've missed the last train to Perugia that we knew of, but I'd rather stay all night in the train station than outside Ikea.
After about 10 mille grazies to the cab driver we set out,and boy, this guy knows his way around, about 30 minutes later and only 18 euros on the meter, we are at Termini station. Unbelievable. So telling him he is perfect and many more mille grazies and a HUGE tip for being the only taxi in town to pick us up,we're back at the train station.
Note: Not one tourist site has been seen on this trip.
At the train station again we run to a self serv machine to see if we can get a train back to perugia tonight.
Note: these machines lie, they have the option to have us read in English, but they lie, the most important stuff is still in Italian. No Perugia that we see, so we choose other and type in Perugia. Bingo! There is a train to Perugia at 23:40 that will get us there by 1:40 am.
Ok, that didn't sound right but who are we to doubt Trenitalia! We purchase the tickets and even feel so good about getting to go home we upgrade to first class. Yeah! Only 4 hours to wait!
We wonder over to a restaurant. i donàt think we had even eten that day. Oh wait, at 2 we shared a sandwich when we got into the train station. (Have I mentioned that I have lost about 12 pounds since being here?)
We are carryoing these three huge blue plastic Ikea bags that we bought, so Jess goes first to get something to eat and come back with gelato. That just isnàt goig to do it for me, I see real food and go to get a plate of spaghetti wiht fresh tomoatoes. YUM. No problems that it is one of the two last servings of the evening and some of the noodles are dried up, this is awesome food. I also see something frozen and slushy. whenever i see this i must buy it, it's the closest to ice i get, so i buy two waters and one of these orange slushies. PARADISE!
I go sit down and let Jess try the spaghetti, which makes her go by the last service. This is heaven.
After eating and resting we decide to go explore the train station. I have not seen one gypsy throw a baby at someone to pickpocket them, nor have I seen any ragged gypsy kids singing songs while they pickpocketted you. I'm sort of dissapointed, I was promised a big adventure in this train station, dang it!
No gypsies, just lots of tired travelers from all over the world. Very interesting, but not the most exciting. So we sit to wait, and wait, and wait. My mom calls and I assure her that we are safe and fine and that I am having a blast. 10 at night in Rome at Termini station, milling around with hundreds of other travelers. I'm sorry, but this is living to me.
We keep waiting to see Perugia listed with a track number, but nothing is coming up on the the departure board. We start getting worried and go the information center, where they tell us no, there are no more trains to Perugia this evening, what we have booked in our ignorance is a train going towards Milan. We stop at a place called Terontola and fromthere we have 10 minutes to catch a bus that will drive the opposite direction for another hour to bring us back to Perugia.
Oh.
OK then,well at least we know why we haven't seen Perugia listed. So we start looking for the Milan train bin.
Finally our train bin number got posted. Jess has the word listed as binore, I can't find a translation for it. It's like the track number you go to.
So we go to it, making sure to punch our tickets this time to validate them..
It seems like everyone is taking this train to Milan this evening.
The train that comes in is filled with sleeper compartments! Not sure where first class is, we ask a gentleman who tells us the other end of the train. (of course)
Walking all the way to the first cpmartment of the train we see the types of compartments you see in a british train. You have an aisle along one side and about 7 or 8 compartments that each seat 6. We nab one and drop down into the seats. THIS is cool. Like the Orient Express or something, very nify.
About 1.2 hour after we should have left, start wondering why we aren't going yet.
People are hanging out the window, so I go out and ask if there is a porblem. Oh no, no problem. They are changing engines. Oh, ok, no porblem... LOLOLOL
Wondering how we are going to make our bus when we are just about an hour late, we finally get going. YEAH!
It slowly moves out, and the first half hours it does nothing but go at a decent clip, then slow down. We finally decided that even if this is an express, they must have to slow down when they are near towns close to Rome. (we prefer that to the possibility of the engine having trouble)
Finally we get going, we know that our stop is about two hurs downt he road, but we still don't know what we are going to do once we get there, if we are an hour late for the bus.
When the conductor comes by we ask, and he starts explaining something abour retardo. OK, now I allow my son to call me a retard, but this guy really has some nerve! After a minute we realize that he is saying the train is oging to be an hour late. Gee, thanks, but what about the bus? After about 5 minutes of retardo, we just shake our heads and say ok, no problem.
We settle in to enjoy the ride. Jess is trying to sleep, but the adrenalin is going crazy in me, I am loving this. Riding in the middle of the night on a train in the middle of Tuscany, not knowing what is going to happen but just accepting that everything will be fine.
Finally the stop before ours the conductor comes back in and tell us something about chef and taxi. Sounds good to me, I donàt care who pays, just get us home.
He walks us personally out of the train and to the care of the station master in Terontola. There is one other gentelman waiting for a taxi too, so between all of us we realize that trenitalia is picking up the tab for the taxi. Yeah!
We wait and wait, a guy from England is there, trying to get elsewhere but he doesn't have our luck of getting the one taxi in town. He doesn't quite get that it doesn't matter if he is willing to pay, he is going to have to hnang out until 4 am when another train will get him to his destination.
Finally we are waved to a waiting van\taxi to be wisked off into the Tuscan night, like people being smuggled somewhere under dead of night.
Hail Italy. I do love it here. If I could just get a fan and some ice. :-)
Note: Italy is so much easier when you know the language.
I can tell that our driver is trying to keep us safe because he is driving down the exact middle of two lanes, the white line running under the center of the van.
Everyone is silent while the radio is softly playing what sounds like an Italian Paul Anka. When that song ends I hear Phil Collins singing "Another Day in Paradise" I kid you not.
I just laugh to myself and look back out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of the bid dipper again.
Have we been abducted? Are we being smuggled to or from some foreign country? Ok, it's been a LONG day and it's way more fun to play a game like this than admit we are simply taking a taxi from Terontola to Perugia after missing the last bus from Rome. HA! I havenàt had this much fun in a long time. On the other hand, I'm thinking I'll seem some grey hair on Jessica in the morning.
The morning seems so long ago. Our intention was to go find one of the Ikeas in Rome and buy ourselves some things we needed as well as a fan. It was either get up at 5 something to make the 6 am train in to Rome, or sleep a little later and take the 11:15 in. We decided on the one at 11 and of course running late, there was a line, and we barely made the train. I though second class was really nice, two big seats on both sides, the airconditioning was working, we got seats next to one of the best looking guys in Italy, longer curly hair, young, cute..... Ahh.. Italy.
So off we got no Rome, checking out the countryside, all the hilltowns going by, on some of the hills\mountains you could even see the end of the tree line, where nothing grows above. Really nice, everything isbrown though, being mid -July, but still beautiful.
I start getting sleepy and before I know it, the conductor\ticket collecter stops by. Now the fun begins.
HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I READ ON SLOWTRAV THAT YOU HAVE TO PUNCH YOUR TICKETS BEFORE GETTING ON THE TRAIN? I have read this at least 40, 50 times. Guess what I forgot to do? Punch our tickets. So now everyone around us is looking at me as the consuctor is going on in Italian about this, and I'm half asleep so coming up with "I don't speak Italian" is not an option, unless of course you want Spanish mixed in with it. (I have to tell you, this Spanish thing is becoming a real problem for me now)
Finally he just says "Non Italiano?" and I just sheepishly grin and hit my hand to my forehead like how could I have forgotten, and mumble some Spanish. He writes something on each of our tickets and hands them back,and I slink down into my chair.
Note: Don't worry about all the beautiful places in Italy, get to Italian classes.
The rest of the ride is pretty uneventful, other than I get to exchange smiles with the cute Italian guy across from me when we go through some killer tunnels and everyone's ears are popping.
We get into Rome Termini train station and go to find the bus. All we really have as far as directions are the bus numbers that say will go to the store. What do they say about a wing and a prayer? I think all we really had was the prayer, because we go outside and find out there is a bus strike that day.
Note: Check for bus strikes when going to another city.
IF we had been smart we would have turned around and gotten bcak on the next train to Perugia, but no, come on... We are here, we can jus catch a cab.
This was the weirdest cab catching experience I have ever had, you couldn't just hail one, I think it was because everyone was calling the radio cabs, so they had to go to the person that called him. Well finally we got one to drive us to Ikea. At first he didn't want to, I told him we knew it would be around 40 euros, but after the experience I think he would have made a lot more money with quick trips downtown.
It took us forever, so much traffic, and yes about 40 euros, but finally we see the Ikea sign. It was sort of sad, it felt like being home again. Here was one spot in Italy we were familiar with. I was hoping they might even have ice cubes!
The first thing we did (after kissing the floor) was go up and get some Swedish meatballs. We needed some little taste of home. Ohhhhhhh man, good stuff. No ice though.
Note: Never go to a country again that does not have ice cubes.
I'm telling you, it's becoming an obsession with me, truly horrible, like being a drug addict or something.
We took our time in Ikea, airconditioned but still not as cold as I was hoping for. Bought trash baskets and toothbrush holders and rugs and tea kettles and all sorts of stuff. We start getting towards the end and I'm asking Jess where the fans are?? Guess what? No fans. I think they are just trying to wear me down and make me cry uncle.
Trying not to go into the corner and curl up in a fetal position I try to smile and say it's ok, but it really isn't. I just want ice cubes and a fan. I can bypass the airconditioning, I just want air movement and something frozen to crunch on. For some reason this would make everything in the world right. No more war, hate killing if everyone just had a fan and a supply of ice cubes. OK, maybe a Sierra Mist too.
Anyway, we get our stuff bagged up and go to the cash machine to pull out some euros, and go stand outside to see if maybe there is a taxi out there.
Nope, no taxi, so we hang out a few, it's hot but windy so it doesn't feel too bad outside. We hang out a while and see a taxi go by down a side road, and try to flag it down. No luck, he had someone with him, so maybe he'll come back.
After probably 20 minutes or so we decide to stop the cart boy and see if he know where we can get the number of a cab company. He explains to us in faultering English that the numbers are up by the pay phones. We are willing to try out Italian with him, buthe really wants to be able to speak to us in English. The first person to be honest, that has tried to hard to communicate with us in English. I think he even said at the end "sorry about my bad english." We sais he did great, and go to find the taxi numbers.
This part may vary a bit from Jessica's story because the taxis were called so omany times in the next couple of hours. If I remember correctly the first time we called they said fine, and we went down to wait.
Rather than gothrough every time we caleld, let's just say that in the next couple of hours we called taxis so many times it was unbelievable. Twice we even went into Ikea and had customer servcie call for us. In fact the second time Jess had like three or 4 people all on phones calling. No one wanted to send a taxi out this far, they were making a killing in Rome I'me sure.
Finally Jess told me that the Ikea people said I should call the yellow pages on my phone to get the number of a private driver, but to wait a few because they might have someone that would come pick us up.
The private driver thing may soudn weird, but itàs what we had pick us up from the airport and drive us into Rome, it only cost 40 euros and we weren't that far from the airport.
So in Italy, and I think this is for all of Europe, you call a yellow pages number, talk to a person, tell them what you are looking for, they hang up, go into the yellow pages and start text messaging you all the different people available, to your phone. Ok, this is probably the coolest thing I have heard of, my god what a good idea. The only problem with my yellow pages guy is he wouldn't give melistingd for personal drivers. I begged him, nope, he was bound a determined we would be able to find a taxi through the listing he would send to me.
I must be a real wuss in my old age because I agreed, which didn't matter because they got us a cab a few minutes later. Either way I have about 10 text messages with numbers of taxis in Rome, so if anyone needs one...... :-)
By now it's something like 8 in the evening and we know we've missed the last train to Perugia that we knew of, but I'd rather stay all night in the train station than outside Ikea.
After about 10 mille grazies to the cab driver we set out,and boy, this guy knows his way around, about 30 minutes later and only 18 euros on the meter, we are at Termini station. Unbelievable. So telling him he is perfect and many more mille grazies and a HUGE tip for being the only taxi in town to pick us up,we're back at the train station.
Note: Not one tourist site has been seen on this trip.
At the train station again we run to a self serv machine to see if we can get a train back to perugia tonight.
Note: these machines lie, they have the option to have us read in English, but they lie, the most important stuff is still in Italian. No Perugia that we see, so we choose other and type in Perugia. Bingo! There is a train to Perugia at 23:40 that will get us there by 1:40 am.
Ok, that didn't sound right but who are we to doubt Trenitalia! We purchase the tickets and even feel so good about getting to go home we upgrade to first class. Yeah! Only 4 hours to wait!
We wonder over to a restaurant. i donàt think we had even eten that day. Oh wait, at 2 we shared a sandwich when we got into the train station. (Have I mentioned that I have lost about 12 pounds since being here?)
We are carryoing these three huge blue plastic Ikea bags that we bought, so Jess goes first to get something to eat and come back with gelato. That just isnàt goig to do it for me, I see real food and go to get a plate of spaghetti wiht fresh tomoatoes. YUM. No problems that it is one of the two last servings of the evening and some of the noodles are dried up, this is awesome food. I also see something frozen and slushy. whenever i see this i must buy it, it's the closest to ice i get, so i buy two waters and one of these orange slushies. PARADISE!
I go sit down and let Jess try the spaghetti, which makes her go by the last service. This is heaven.
After eating and resting we decide to go explore the train station. I have not seen one gypsy throw a baby at someone to pickpocket them, nor have I seen any ragged gypsy kids singing songs while they pickpocketted you. I'm sort of dissapointed, I was promised a big adventure in this train station, dang it!
No gypsies, just lots of tired travelers from all over the world. Very interesting, but not the most exciting. So we sit to wait, and wait, and wait. My mom calls and I assure her that we are safe and fine and that I am having a blast. 10 at night in Rome at Termini station, milling around with hundreds of other travelers. I'm sorry, but this is living to me.
We keep waiting to see Perugia listed with a track number, but nothing is coming up on the the departure board. We start getting worried and go the information center, where they tell us no, there are no more trains to Perugia this evening, what we have booked in our ignorance is a train going towards Milan. We stop at a place called Terontola and fromthere we have 10 minutes to catch a bus that will drive the opposite direction for another hour to bring us back to Perugia.
Oh.
OK then,well at least we know why we haven't seen Perugia listed. So we start looking for the Milan train bin.
Finally our train bin number got posted. Jess has the word listed as binore, I can't find a translation for it. It's like the track number you go to.
So we go to it, making sure to punch our tickets this time to validate them..
It seems like everyone is taking this train to Milan this evening.
The train that comes in is filled with sleeper compartments! Not sure where first class is, we ask a gentleman who tells us the other end of the train. (of course)
Walking all the way to the first cpmartment of the train we see the types of compartments you see in a british train. You have an aisle along one side and about 7 or 8 compartments that each seat 6. We nab one and drop down into the seats. THIS is cool. Like the Orient Express or something, very nify.
About 1.2 hour after we should have left, start wondering why we aren't going yet.
People are hanging out the window, so I go out and ask if there is a porblem. Oh no, no problem. They are changing engines. Oh, ok, no porblem... LOLOLOL
Wondering how we are going to make our bus when we are just about an hour late, we finally get going. YEAH!
It slowly moves out, and the first half hours it does nothing but go at a decent clip, then slow down. We finally decided that even if this is an express, they must have to slow down when they are near towns close to Rome. (we prefer that to the possibility of the engine having trouble)
Finally we get going, we know that our stop is about two hurs downt he road, but we still don't know what we are going to do once we get there, if we are an hour late for the bus.
When the conductor comes by we ask, and he starts explaining something abour retardo. OK, now I allow my son to call me a retard, but this guy really has some nerve! After a minute we realize that he is saying the train is oging to be an hour late. Gee, thanks, but what about the bus? After about 5 minutes of retardo, we just shake our heads and say ok, no problem.
We settle in to enjoy the ride. Jess is trying to sleep, but the adrenalin is going crazy in me, I am loving this. Riding in the middle of the night on a train in the middle of Tuscany, not knowing what is going to happen but just accepting that everything will be fine.
Finally the stop before ours the conductor comes back in and tell us something about chef and taxi. Sounds good to me, I donàt care who pays, just get us home.
He walks us personally out of the train and to the care of the station master in Terontola. There is one other gentelman waiting for a taxi too, so between all of us we realize that trenitalia is picking up the tab for the taxi. Yeah!
We wait and wait, a guy from England is there, trying to get elsewhere but he doesn't have our luck of getting the one taxi in town. He doesn't quite get that it doesn't matter if he is willing to pay, he is going to have to hnang out until 4 am when another train will get him to his destination.
Finally we are waved to a waiting van\taxi to be wisked off into the Tuscan night, like people being smuggled somewhere under dead of night.
Hail Italy. I do love it here. If I could just get a fan and some ice. :-)
Note: Italy is so much easier when you know the language.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Whaaaa?????
I don't know, that's how I feel today. We really should know more Italian, after all it's been what, 9 days now? Every time we go in a shop and start with our pigeon Italian, I feel like the people are looking at me saying "Oh come one Diana, It's been what, 9 days now and you are still doing the non parlo italiano bit with us? Get off the stick and learn some Italian."
Maybe I'm hoping like Bart Simpson in the episode where he gets kidnapped or something and is like a slave in France. One day he just wakes up and speaks fluent French. HA! That would be nice. But for some reason I feel like a slacker for not knowing more. Well, the being sick part didn't help, but I am going to sign us up for some individual lessons until we can start class August first.
We walked all the the area where the Umbrian Jazz fest has one of the stages placed. Lots of people, lots of police, even saw some taking someone away. I have a feeling they are doing a huge sweep as far as anyone even remotely or possibly connected to a terrorist organization. I think that is how it should be. Get them before they get you. It seems like a big problem in America is they think, Oh my, we'll be taking people's freedom away if we just start arresting people. Well, tell that to all the victims of 911 and their families. Crack down and do something BEFORE it gets you.
Oh yeah, you tell them Diana. Sorry. Just rambling.
This will be short, am already falling asleeep at the keyboard sitting here. Will ramble more tomorrow. ciao
Maybe I'm hoping like Bart Simpson in the episode where he gets kidnapped or something and is like a slave in France. One day he just wakes up and speaks fluent French. HA! That would be nice. But for some reason I feel like a slacker for not knowing more. Well, the being sick part didn't help, but I am going to sign us up for some individual lessons until we can start class August first.
We walked all the the area where the Umbrian Jazz fest has one of the stages placed. Lots of people, lots of police, even saw some taking someone away. I have a feeling they are doing a huge sweep as far as anyone even remotely or possibly connected to a terrorist organization. I think that is how it should be. Get them before they get you. It seems like a big problem in America is they think, Oh my, we'll be taking people's freedom away if we just start arresting people. Well, tell that to all the victims of 911 and their families. Crack down and do something BEFORE it gets you.
Oh yeah, you tell them Diana. Sorry. Just rambling.
This will be short, am already falling asleeep at the keyboard sitting here. Will ramble more tomorrow. ciao
Monday, July 11, 2005
Back with the living
(Sorry, my writing seems off today)
Good lord, it's so hard to believe that we have only been here a week, being sick has really dragged time along.
Yesterday ended with a trip to the hospital for antibiotics so I am starting to feel a bit better today.
Maybe I should have named this "Diana's Wild ride to the hospital!"
Yesterday morning I was so sick that I knew I had better get into a dr, so we went down tothe school and asked where we could go. Turns out the school has a clinic you can go to. The woman whips out thenow very well know photocopied map of Perugia and points to a spot that to me looks far away, especially when I have a raging fever. I ask her if there is a bus that goes there. "Oh no, no, maybe a 5 minute walk."
Looking back on it now, I'm wondering if she does this sort of thing for kicks! (j\k)
So we start up the hill and walk... and walk... and walk... about 15 minutes after, we get to a spot that we can place on the map. Ok, 1/3 there. Augh. So we keep walking and keep walking, finally we get to the spot where we have to differenciate between 4 different buildings as point of reference. All on a hill. We went up, we went down, we went from building to building and found every other one but the one we were looking for. Even the people who worked in these buildings has no clue.
By this time my fever has gone wild and I am just disgustingly "glowing" (so I not put people off too much)
Jess says "Come'on, let's just go down one level more" She's starting to walk down another set of steps. That's it, I'm now kid and she's mom. "No way! I'm not moving from this spot until I know where we are going!"
Then a man comes up the steps asking if he can help. IN ENGLISH! We tell him what's going on and he says to wait, he will get his driver to come take me to the hospital. Yeah!
The lovely man was our godsend, he worked at a large art museam on the east coast and was there lecturing. The whole time he's telling us this, i'm in sort of a fog by then, so all i seem to focus on is "HEY, I want a driver!"
So he gets his driver to come down, we all pile in the car, i even get the front seat and off we go.Giovonni was the driver, a very kind man, and a TRUE Italian driver.
Ok, busses and taxis go around turns like crazy in this town, but Giovonni was a man with a mission, get this woman to the hospital quickly!
I kid you not, I am not faint of heart, but there were at least two times where I had to close my eyes. One of the times was when he was blindly going around a corner and there was another car coming, and I know for a FACT there was not enough room to get by. I can still picture the color and the corner of the brick as it as flew right against my face outside the window. I expected to become a mangled statistic. But no, he made it without even touching the brakes! Bravissimo! (hope I spelled that right)
Anywayt, it turns out the hospital we were going to only accepted certain illnesses, so we had to go to one across town, and there was very bad traffic egoing there, so Giovonni I THINK actually took us through another town to get us there faster.
ok sorry, I am dragging this out too long i think.
We get to the hospital with our "ontourage" sp?? of 5 people spilling out of this tiny car, and they all drag me in talking loudly. Everyone int he waiting room was looking at us, and if you know me at ALL, this is my worst nightmare. Luckily I was so out of it I didnt really care. Well all that yelling and waving and saying i was really ill didn't get my anywhere, because we ended up waiting over 2 hours to be seen. with cases they though more important, like psained ankles, went before us.
FINALLY after Jess goes up several times and reads them the riot act and everyone stares at us again. (I am proud of jess for doing that though) we get seen.
Just a note here that very few people that we have met in Perugia have little more that a spattering of English.
They sent us with the only nurse who spoke a little English, and told Jessica it was patient only. well, one of us must have looked panicked because the nurse said something to the other people and then said she could some in.
The examinations room was a different experience thatàs for sure. There was a man behind a desk putting things into the computer, the nurse, the dr, at some point someone who I though was a paramedic ?????? and maybe even one other person.
The dr must have thought I was an idiot. (No remarks Nick) because he addresses everything to my daughter, which I though was hilarious. It could also have been the fact that every time he asked me a question, I was answering in Spanish! At that point I was so sick, I lost the Italian part of my brain.
After checking things out, he wrote prescriptions for amoxicillon (which I hope works on the bugs over here), and a pain killer.
Ok, I have to stop right now, jess is getting antsy. anyway, I am starting to feel better, we are going to start taking some day trips by the end of the week.
BYE!! I love you all!
Good lord, it's so hard to believe that we have only been here a week, being sick has really dragged time along.
Yesterday ended with a trip to the hospital for antibiotics so I am starting to feel a bit better today.
Maybe I should have named this "Diana's Wild ride to the hospital!"
Yesterday morning I was so sick that I knew I had better get into a dr, so we went down tothe school and asked where we could go. Turns out the school has a clinic you can go to. The woman whips out thenow very well know photocopied map of Perugia and points to a spot that to me looks far away, especially when I have a raging fever. I ask her if there is a bus that goes there. "Oh no, no, maybe a 5 minute walk."
Looking back on it now, I'm wondering if she does this sort of thing for kicks! (j\k)
So we start up the hill and walk... and walk... and walk... about 15 minutes after, we get to a spot that we can place on the map. Ok, 1/3 there. Augh. So we keep walking and keep walking, finally we get to the spot where we have to differenciate between 4 different buildings as point of reference. All on a hill. We went up, we went down, we went from building to building and found every other one but the one we were looking for. Even the people who worked in these buildings has no clue.
By this time my fever has gone wild and I am just disgustingly "glowing" (so I not put people off too much)
Jess says "Come'on, let's just go down one level more" She's starting to walk down another set of steps. That's it, I'm now kid and she's mom. "No way! I'm not moving from this spot until I know where we are going!"
Then a man comes up the steps asking if he can help. IN ENGLISH! We tell him what's going on and he says to wait, he will get his driver to come take me to the hospital. Yeah!
The lovely man was our godsend, he worked at a large art museam on the east coast and was there lecturing. The whole time he's telling us this, i'm in sort of a fog by then, so all i seem to focus on is "HEY, I want a driver!"
So he gets his driver to come down, we all pile in the car, i even get the front seat and off we go.Giovonni was the driver, a very kind man, and a TRUE Italian driver.
Ok, busses and taxis go around turns like crazy in this town, but Giovonni was a man with a mission, get this woman to the hospital quickly!
I kid you not, I am not faint of heart, but there were at least two times where I had to close my eyes. One of the times was when he was blindly going around a corner and there was another car coming, and I know for a FACT there was not enough room to get by. I can still picture the color and the corner of the brick as it as flew right against my face outside the window. I expected to become a mangled statistic. But no, he made it without even touching the brakes! Bravissimo! (hope I spelled that right)
Anywayt, it turns out the hospital we were going to only accepted certain illnesses, so we had to go to one across town, and there was very bad traffic egoing there, so Giovonni I THINK actually took us through another town to get us there faster.
ok sorry, I am dragging this out too long i think.
We get to the hospital with our "ontourage" sp?? of 5 people spilling out of this tiny car, and they all drag me in talking loudly. Everyone int he waiting room was looking at us, and if you know me at ALL, this is my worst nightmare. Luckily I was so out of it I didnt really care. Well all that yelling and waving and saying i was really ill didn't get my anywhere, because we ended up waiting over 2 hours to be seen. with cases they though more important, like psained ankles, went before us.
FINALLY after Jess goes up several times and reads them the riot act and everyone stares at us again. (I am proud of jess for doing that though) we get seen.
Just a note here that very few people that we have met in Perugia have little more that a spattering of English.
They sent us with the only nurse who spoke a little English, and told Jessica it was patient only. well, one of us must have looked panicked because the nurse said something to the other people and then said she could some in.
The examinations room was a different experience thatàs for sure. There was a man behind a desk putting things into the computer, the nurse, the dr, at some point someone who I though was a paramedic ?????? and maybe even one other person.
The dr must have thought I was an idiot. (No remarks Nick) because he addresses everything to my daughter, which I though was hilarious. It could also have been the fact that every time he asked me a question, I was answering in Spanish! At that point I was so sick, I lost the Italian part of my brain.
After checking things out, he wrote prescriptions for amoxicillon (which I hope works on the bugs over here), and a pain killer.
Ok, I have to stop right now, jess is getting antsy. anyway, I am starting to feel better, we are going to start taking some day trips by the end of the week.
BYE!! I love you all!
Sunday, July 10, 2005
If you are going to be deathly ill, be deathly ill in Italy!
UGh, I have been so sick, I dont even remember the last couple of days. The sore throat and fever has been the worst, I think the back of my throat is in shreds. I seem to have broken the fever last night, but now my ears are killing me too. Looks like getting sick on a weekend when no one is open is a universal thing. No fair! I got out just long enough to check email etc, but I think I am heading back home to crawl into bed again. Eric, sorry I havent emailed you, I will asap.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Traveling with Cats and bombings in London
I have about a half hour before our laundry is done, so I want to put in a post about the cats.
But also something about the bombings in London today. We didn't find out about them until we were eating dinner. The whole thing is horrendous and we are obviously more interested since it hits closer to home. Also the threats on Italy. We planned to take the train to Rome this weekend, but decided to put it off a bit, thinking that Rome would certainly be the place a bombing could happen. In the meantime I am waiting for a hysterical call from my mother at 10 pm, in about a half hour. Hopefully she won't be, but I don't know, I think I would be worried if it were my child and grandchild here, even though we really don't feel much of a threat other than the rail system.
Anyway, on a happier subject, I have to let everyone know that travelling with the cats was ceratinly stressful, but they have been fantastic and certainly none the worse.
I think a lot of it was because we were moving around a lot the month before we left, so they were used to the kennels. I have no idea what was going on down in cargo as we flew. I know they had to go to the bathroom in their kennels, and they did not smell all that great, but I think they know that they will be fine as long as they are with us, and as long as they are all together.
Bammy was the only one who flew in the passenger section with us. Well, with us for about 2 minutes until the guy in the seat said
Cats ..... no cats I am deathly allergic.
This is my luck, right. so Bammy had to spend the entire time under the last seat in first class. I really need to send a note to NW to let them know how wonderful the stewardess was. She took great care of her, looked out for him, came back and let us know how she was doing. A really wonderful person. They also said we could move to the other side of the plane, into the extra stewardess seats for landing, so that Bammy could be near us. We had said we were worried about the loud whining of the engine, brakes etc. Bam has a tendency to yowl when we even yell across the hosue to each other. Anyway, after getting off the plane we lost the other three cats for a while, and about 45 minutes later found them by the regular baggage carousel, with guys and kids all checking them out and talking to them!
No worries, they are not International travelling cats!
One more thing... I read so much about not wearing tennis in Italy, not because we will be tagged for tourists, which I am sure we already are, but because they would not be good for walking on cobblestones etc. I have to tell you, I am sooooo happy I wore mine. we have a three block hike uphill everytime we go back to our apartment. Perugia is nothing but hills, and my feet or legs have not bothered me once!
Alana, I am sure this is from you and I walking the stairs at work, thank you for coming to get me twice a day every day!!!
Well, have to go, will write more tomorrow. Ciao.
But also something about the bombings in London today. We didn't find out about them until we were eating dinner. The whole thing is horrendous and we are obviously more interested since it hits closer to home. Also the threats on Italy. We planned to take the train to Rome this weekend, but decided to put it off a bit, thinking that Rome would certainly be the place a bombing could happen. In the meantime I am waiting for a hysterical call from my mother at 10 pm, in about a half hour. Hopefully she won't be, but I don't know, I think I would be worried if it were my child and grandchild here, even though we really don't feel much of a threat other than the rail system.
Anyway, on a happier subject, I have to let everyone know that travelling with the cats was ceratinly stressful, but they have been fantastic and certainly none the worse.
I think a lot of it was because we were moving around a lot the month before we left, so they were used to the kennels. I have no idea what was going on down in cargo as we flew. I know they had to go to the bathroom in their kennels, and they did not smell all that great, but I think they know that they will be fine as long as they are with us, and as long as they are all together.
Bammy was the only one who flew in the passenger section with us. Well, with us for about 2 minutes until the guy in the seat said
Cats ..... no cats I am deathly allergic.
This is my luck, right. so Bammy had to spend the entire time under the last seat in first class. I really need to send a note to NW to let them know how wonderful the stewardess was. She took great care of her, looked out for him, came back and let us know how she was doing. A really wonderful person. They also said we could move to the other side of the plane, into the extra stewardess seats for landing, so that Bammy could be near us. We had said we were worried about the loud whining of the engine, brakes etc. Bam has a tendency to yowl when we even yell across the hosue to each other. Anyway, after getting off the plane we lost the other three cats for a while, and about 45 minutes later found them by the regular baggage carousel, with guys and kids all checking them out and talking to them!
No worries, they are not International travelling cats!
One more thing... I read so much about not wearing tennis in Italy, not because we will be tagged for tourists, which I am sure we already are, but because they would not be good for walking on cobblestones etc. I have to tell you, I am sooooo happy I wore mine. we have a three block hike uphill everytime we go back to our apartment. Perugia is nothing but hills, and my feet or legs have not bothered me once!
Alana, I am sure this is from you and I walking the stairs at work, thank you for coming to get me twice a day every day!!!
Well, have to go, will write more tomorrow. Ciao.
Like a dream
Ok, that could be because I have a whopper of a sore throat and a fever, but who knows. I went to the farmacia spelling may not be correct, i seem to be having problems with the keyboard again, probably the only frustrating thing here in italy is they difference of the keyboards, makes me crazy!
they gave me something called Sanipirina, it had the bayer sign on it, so i had to make sure there was no aspirin it it, this was all done with a lot of pointing and head shaking. yes i know we have to get to school. monday i promise! i did look up male golah. bad throat. Anyway.
Today we were looking at the map that the school gave us, and finally located the big piazza where the webcam is located. Piazza Novembre. duh, it was right next to the university building, through this huge arch, duh again, the Etruscean arch. ok, all I can say is that I was checking out other things when I planned this trip, not the tourist atractions in town.
we walked up through a sort of arched cave thingy that had shops and restaurants on both sides, and finally saw the piazza. they were setting up for the Umbria Jazz festival, and it was also full of tourists. The festival starts tomorrow so we will be steering clear of it unless we want to hear music, but i am hoping we can hear it from the University side. Walking back down home we were laughing about how we were coming back to the real world, the university side.
We also did the one thing I said I had to do here, and sat out at the tables at the piazza, had our first espresso and people watched. yeah! pretty good!
Then we went walking around all the shops around the Piazza, and there are a lot! I am leary of most, it being a tourist area, but we did find a little place that sold fabric and household items where we were able to buy some bowls for ourselves and also to put cat food in for the kitties. As far as clothing, there is no way we can fit into any of it, talk about feeling like fat Americans, which I know we are, it is so depressing. We have hope though, you would not believe the hills we walk every day, just to get back and forth from our apartment.
OK,I just realized that I missed a whole day of information here that I thought I had posted. I didn't blog yesterday, so we are going back on day, sorry.
Yesterday we went on our trek for screens for the windows of the apartment. The only reason we need them is because of our cats. We had been keeping the shutters closed because of the cats, and opnly opening them when they were in a cage. WHAT a pain. We couldn't find a place that sold screen. We are up on like the 3rd and 4th floors, but the one time I told Jess to open up the shutter and just see what kitty did, the dang cat tried to jump. sheesh.
So we had seen what looked like a fabric store on the way down to get groceries and decided to stop there, but it was more of an upholstery shop, so we decided to walk down a bit farther to the gelato place *place a amiley face here, the dang keyboard is making me crazy. and found a tiny mom and pop hardware type store. Now we haven't been bringing our dictionary with us, so i had to figure out a way to tell them what we wanted. it was pretty hysterical, but by the end of the transaction both sides were look ing pretty proud that we had figured each other out. Have I mentioned just how much I love it here.
Iknow my son will be rolling his eyes reading this, but hey, we did it. i made a big square with my hands and tried to show something covering the square, then of corse my frigging spanish gets in the way and i say ventana, hoping like crazy it means window in italian too. nope, BUT I see a thing with a bug on it, and point to that. AAAHHH! Mosquito! zanzara is the word, everyone has huge smiles on their faces and the gentleman goes in back and comes back with a roll of green screen. si, si! Grazie!!! we are waving our hands in the air and making complete fools of ourselves, but they don't seem to care. so now they wany to know how much. oh yeah, like i can say that, so i notice the length of the counter and point form one end to the other, and the woman says to the man what she thinks that length will be. yes!!!
suddenly the man says bianco. ok, I admit i should have know thatone, it means white, but we have no idea what he means, so he goes in back and bring out white screen. another round of si, si, grazie happens and then he starts measuring.
In the meantime I know we need tape because we don't want to harm walls, but I don't see any rolls of tape around. Finally peeking arounf the side of the register I see a roll they use, and point at it for the woman. si, si she says, and I'm sure says the word for tape, but i couldn't remember it if my life depended on it. Have I mentioned we need to get our butts to school.
Then she says bianco! yes, yes I think, the screen is white, thank you. She goes to the side of the shop and returns with a proud grin on her face and a roll of white tape! Hey! We are coordinated now.At least the tape want show so much because the walls are white.
Again a a round of applause and many grazie and mille grazies happen.
On the expats site that I link to here, someone gave me the names of a couple of places that are like home depot, so I am looking forward to finding them and seeing if we can get screens for our windows that have frames.
Well, daughter is going crazy waiting for me, so I need to cut this short.
One last thing, my daughter has a blog also, so I am putting a link on my site to her blog. Please take a look at it.
they gave me something called Sanipirina, it had the bayer sign on it, so i had to make sure there was no aspirin it it, this was all done with a lot of pointing and head shaking. yes i know we have to get to school. monday i promise! i did look up male golah. bad throat. Anyway.
Today we were looking at the map that the school gave us, and finally located the big piazza where the webcam is located. Piazza Novembre. duh, it was right next to the university building, through this huge arch, duh again, the Etruscean arch. ok, all I can say is that I was checking out other things when I planned this trip, not the tourist atractions in town.
we walked up through a sort of arched cave thingy that had shops and restaurants on both sides, and finally saw the piazza. they were setting up for the Umbria Jazz festival, and it was also full of tourists. The festival starts tomorrow so we will be steering clear of it unless we want to hear music, but i am hoping we can hear it from the University side. Walking back down home we were laughing about how we were coming back to the real world, the university side.
We also did the one thing I said I had to do here, and sat out at the tables at the piazza, had our first espresso and people watched. yeah! pretty good!
Then we went walking around all the shops around the Piazza, and there are a lot! I am leary of most, it being a tourist area, but we did find a little place that sold fabric and household items where we were able to buy some bowls for ourselves and also to put cat food in for the kitties. As far as clothing, there is no way we can fit into any of it, talk about feeling like fat Americans, which I know we are, it is so depressing. We have hope though, you would not believe the hills we walk every day, just to get back and forth from our apartment.
OK,I just realized that I missed a whole day of information here that I thought I had posted. I didn't blog yesterday, so we are going back on day, sorry.
Yesterday we went on our trek for screens for the windows of the apartment. The only reason we need them is because of our cats. We had been keeping the shutters closed because of the cats, and opnly opening them when they were in a cage. WHAT a pain. We couldn't find a place that sold screen. We are up on like the 3rd and 4th floors, but the one time I told Jess to open up the shutter and just see what kitty did, the dang cat tried to jump. sheesh.
So we had seen what looked like a fabric store on the way down to get groceries and decided to stop there, but it was more of an upholstery shop, so we decided to walk down a bit farther to the gelato place *place a amiley face here, the dang keyboard is making me crazy. and found a tiny mom and pop hardware type store. Now we haven't been bringing our dictionary with us, so i had to figure out a way to tell them what we wanted. it was pretty hysterical, but by the end of the transaction both sides were look ing pretty proud that we had figured each other out. Have I mentioned just how much I love it here.
Iknow my son will be rolling his eyes reading this, but hey, we did it. i made a big square with my hands and tried to show something covering the square, then of corse my frigging spanish gets in the way and i say ventana, hoping like crazy it means window in italian too. nope, BUT I see a thing with a bug on it, and point to that. AAAHHH! Mosquito! zanzara is the word, everyone has huge smiles on their faces and the gentleman goes in back and comes back with a roll of green screen. si, si! Grazie!!! we are waving our hands in the air and making complete fools of ourselves, but they don't seem to care. so now they wany to know how much. oh yeah, like i can say that, so i notice the length of the counter and point form one end to the other, and the woman says to the man what she thinks that length will be. yes!!!
suddenly the man says bianco. ok, I admit i should have know thatone, it means white, but we have no idea what he means, so he goes in back and bring out white screen. another round of si, si, grazie happens and then he starts measuring.
In the meantime I know we need tape because we don't want to harm walls, but I don't see any rolls of tape around. Finally peeking arounf the side of the register I see a roll they use, and point at it for the woman. si, si she says, and I'm sure says the word for tape, but i couldn't remember it if my life depended on it. Have I mentioned we need to get our butts to school.
Then she says bianco! yes, yes I think, the screen is white, thank you. She goes to the side of the shop and returns with a proud grin on her face and a roll of white tape! Hey! We are coordinated now.At least the tape want show so much because the walls are white.
Again a a round of applause and many grazie and mille grazies happen.
On the expats site that I link to here, someone gave me the names of a couple of places that are like home depot, so I am looking forward to finding them and seeing if we can get screens for our windows that have frames.
Well, daughter is going crazy waiting for me, so I need to cut this short.
One last thing, my daughter has a blog also, so I am putting a link on my site to her blog. Please take a look at it.
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