Just a quick note, I am renting from Milano because then I only have to fly from there back to Germany when I drop the car off. I can drop it right off at the airport Ryanair runs out of. There were no cheap fares from Pisa or Rome going out back to Germany on that day, but I got a €22 fare out of Milan.
It reall ends up the same mileage no matter where you start from, because you have to end up there also. It was the cost of getting back to Germany that made me rent it from Milan. The rental price was exactly the same no matter where I rented from. Trust me, I spent HOURS looking up the best way to go...
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Why renting car in Milano
Just a quick note, I am renting from Milano because then I only have to fly from there back to Germany when I drop the car off. I can drop it right off at the airport Ryanair runs out of. There were no cheap fares from Pisa or Rome going out back to Germany on that day, but I got a €22 fare out of Milan.
Monday, September 26, 2005
I feel like a yo-yo
Back and forth, back and forth.
Well, I couldn't wait any longer to make a decision, time and money are running out. I booked a little station wagon from Milan for three days.
I take the train up to Milan, drive back to Perugia, we load it up with assorted boxes, luggage and animals, and head up to Germany the next day.
Oct 1st I drive back down only to Milan, grab a Ryanair cheap flight to Hahn Frankfurt, and train/bus it back to Darmstadt.
We THINK we have a place to stay.
A 2 bedroom apartment, we can't afford the rent, but I just emailed him to ask it if was indeed 2 bedrooms, and that if he would let us pay one week's rent, we would look for a quiet female student who needs a place. The place is 80 sq meters, which is like double the size of our apt, with a small basement, etc. It is in a house.....
He sort of said yes to the cats, and it's right by the rail station, so that will be nice.
Soo..... cross your fingers again.
OH, the United Nations job in Vienna? I emailed the woman last week sometime to ask about it, said I had an interview in Germany, and needed to take the first job offered, but WANTED that job. She didn't even bother to email back t say he wasn't interested, etc... GRRR.. not very professional.
I have still been looking for UN jobs around Europe. Why not?
Soooo.. tomorrow we have to get on the stick, pack everything and CLEAN like crazy..... because we all know that while I am going up to Milan to get the car, and driving back, I would NOT be able to get Jess to clean.
Well, keeping this short, am hungry and cold.... will write more tomorrow.
Well, I couldn't wait any longer to make a decision, time and money are running out. I booked a little station wagon from Milan for three days.
I take the train up to Milan, drive back to Perugia, we load it up with assorted boxes, luggage and animals, and head up to Germany the next day.
Oct 1st I drive back down only to Milan, grab a Ryanair cheap flight to Hahn Frankfurt, and train/bus it back to Darmstadt.
We THINK we have a place to stay.
A 2 bedroom apartment, we can't afford the rent, but I just emailed him to ask it if was indeed 2 bedrooms, and that if he would let us pay one week's rent, we would look for a quiet female student who needs a place. The place is 80 sq meters, which is like double the size of our apt, with a small basement, etc. It is in a house.....
He sort of said yes to the cats, and it's right by the rail station, so that will be nice.
Soo..... cross your fingers again.
OH, the United Nations job in Vienna? I emailed the woman last week sometime to ask about it, said I had an interview in Germany, and needed to take the first job offered, but WANTED that job. She didn't even bother to email back t say he wasn't interested, etc... GRRR.. not very professional.
I have still been looking for UN jobs around Europe. Why not?
Soooo.. tomorrow we have to get on the stick, pack everything and CLEAN like crazy..... because we all know that while I am going up to Milan to get the car, and driving back, I would NOT be able to get Jess to clean.
Well, keeping this short, am hungry and cold.... will write more tomorrow.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
HMMMM........ WHERE are we giong?
Good question. Things seem to be changing minute by minute, amazing but true.
Yesterday, well actually even today we were planning to go to the UK, all Novell and GroupWise systems there, I can make good money..... But you need a visa.. I could apply for the Highly Skilled Migrant Program and probaly get the visa, but the fee is about $500, and that's about half of all of our money in the world.. Uh-oh. So now we are back going to Germany at least temporarily. Trying to get a handle on a place to stay, I mayhave one if I can convince him to drop the rent, the deposit and let us pay by the week. (Hey, I did that before, though I probably didn't write about it, maybe I did, the whole Darmstadt fiasco!!) and a cheap way to bring the cats up. Then we park outside an army base and beg for cashier jobs.
LOLOL Gawd.....
I will write more tomorrow, I do promise. I have about 10 minutes left here, then the place closes down.
Damn, I should have gone to Germany to apply for the job handing out badges I was supposed to go interview for last Thursday.. well, live and learn, maybe I will get a head cashier job, or a BK job! yeah!
Things have been pretty crazy the last couple of weeks, just trying to find a way to stay in Europe. Money is getting MIGHTY low, which of course is the main problem as usual. Anyway, i will write more tomorrow, nothing too interesting so you haven't been missing much!
Yesterday, well actually even today we were planning to go to the UK, all Novell and GroupWise systems there, I can make good money..... But you need a visa.. I could apply for the Highly Skilled Migrant Program and probaly get the visa, but the fee is about $500, and that's about half of all of our money in the world.. Uh-oh. So now we are back going to Germany at least temporarily. Trying to get a handle on a place to stay, I mayhave one if I can convince him to drop the rent, the deposit and let us pay by the week. (Hey, I did that before, though I probably didn't write about it, maybe I did, the whole Darmstadt fiasco!!) and a cheap way to bring the cats up. Then we park outside an army base and beg for cashier jobs.
LOLOL Gawd.....
I will write more tomorrow, I do promise. I have about 10 minutes left here, then the place closes down.
Damn, I should have gone to Germany to apply for the job handing out badges I was supposed to go interview for last Thursday.. well, live and learn, maybe I will get a head cashier job, or a BK job! yeah!
Things have been pretty crazy the last couple of weeks, just trying to find a way to stay in Europe. Money is getting MIGHTY low, which of course is the main problem as usual. Anyway, i will write more tomorrow, nothing too interesting so you haven't been missing much!
Friday, September 23, 2005
HA!
Fooled you!You thought I was going to write today. Nope, sorry. BUT I promise I will tomorrow. I have been sending in crazy amounts of job applications to everywhere in Europe, but I need to look for a place for us to live, so tomorrow should be less crazy and I promise I willwrite!
Monday, September 12, 2005
Freaking Blogger
I started typing today´s blog, only did about 10 minutes worth, but this was good stuff! I went to save it before i wrote more and the dang thing dissapeared on me. That´s it, I´m going back to the hostel. Will write tomorrow.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday
Believe it or not, I am actually BORED today. Which for me is a wonderful thing to be. I hopped the bus into Heidelberg and I am just going to surf all day.. I guess that means I have to update the blog. Sheesh, you guys are sooo demanding! :-)
Cell phone service when you are moving around Europe SUCKS!
I have wasted more freaking money farting around trying to be able to call Jess in Italy, and THINKING I had great minutes and calling mom. NOOO. So now my mom is going to buy a German or International calling card, hopefully from Sprint with the same 5 cents a minute deal as she has to Italy, then she can call me and I get free incoming, so that will save money.
Jess and I are still struggling to find a way to communicate without it costing a fortune. I am hoping I will have a land line soon and then it will be cheap for me to call her from that with a calling card.
Before I get to the next chapter of the adventure of on my first day in Germany. (MAN that day was long)I want to tell you about my latest roommates in the hostel.
Yesterday afternoon I came back from the city and there was someone sleeping in the top bunk in my room, so I put my stuff away and tiptoed out to watch TV in the TV room to let them rest. I had bought chicken tikki masala from a place in Heidelberg, OH YEAH, good stuff. Makes me drool to think of it, unfortunately everything is closed today. Anyway I sat and ate that, and watched "Double Jeopardy" in German, which worked fine because I practically know every word, so I knew what was going on.
The only thing that bugged me was that the person dubbing Tommy Lee Jones´ voice, his voice was too high and it was making me crazy for some odd reason. Most of the time they really get people who sound similar when they dub movies nowdays, and I have been realy impressed at how there is no longer the old stereotype of the lips not moving even close to what is being said (somehow that brought to mind some sort of Saturday night live skit where they were making fun of the old Japanese films dubbed so badly....). They do a GREAT job of starting at stopping at the same time. That´s got to be tricky, but it really helps watching a dubbed show, it isn´t so distracting.
I came back to my room later and there were two girls there. One from Berlin, who had just been visiting her parents in Singapore, and one from.... ITALY! We talk all the time of missing the cafe (espresso there)
Then as we were introducing ourselves 4th girl came in. German also.
Don´t ask me the names, I have a horrible memory.
But I was impressed at these girls. The last one to come in, when I spoke to her, is ging to Boston in a couple of months to finish her PHD in medicine. She is doing research on alzhiemers (i forgot how to spell it - yes that was a lame attempt at a joke).
When I asked her why Boston, she said they have different ways of doing their reseach and she was interested in watching and maybe learning them. VERY smart.
The girl from Italy is looking at coming to Germany to finish her Masters in Social something, I forgt. But again, very intelligent.
Makes me feel dumb with my two associates degrees. But the difference is that many countries in Europe offer college education for only the cost of books and living expenses. I mean, can we say SMART? Then you have educated people who are able to help the economy by being able to purchase more since they are not up to their necks in student loans..... Ahhhhh... a simple but effective idea. I think in America we are so caught up in the NO DO NOT RAISE OUR TAXES that we will never get the point of being able to do this. Oh well......
Anyway, the third girl, for some reason I cannot remember why she was at the hostel, but I´m sure that she was really intelligent too. LOL
OK, i need to look at my list of things I wanted to say...
Oh yes! There is a late night talk show host that tries to be Johnny Carson! It is the weirdest thing to watch and slightly agravating. It first I thought it was just a fluke, but he does ALL the mannerism. I wonder is anyone else realizes that´s what he is doing? He has probably been called "The Johnny Carson of German television" by the press a some point.. LOL
Ah, his name is Harald Schmidt. I tried to find pictures of both he and Johnny in the same sort of pose, but couldn´t.........
Okay, okay, I have put it off long enough. I´m taking a quick pogo break and I will start the next episode of my first day in Germany.....
OK, back...
OK, where were we, Iranian taxi driver... terrorists, apartments, driving on sidewalks....
So the landlady tracks me down and asks if I still want to see the apartment. I say sure,and go over with Madjedeh, (that is her name) and see the apartment. It is big, but nothing amazing, just like an apartment in the states, except that you turn the hot water on and off from under the sink and over the sink in the bathroom to save energy, and turn the water off completely when you leave the apart. It´s furnished, has a nice balcony where you can dry clothes, blah, blah...
We sit down and talk, and decide that yes, i´ll take the apt but not until tomorrow since I have already paid for the hotel and my luggage is back there. Plus she does not have the rental forms with her, she lives up in the city part of Frankfurt.
I can have it for the rest of the month, but Jess and the cats can´t come up, because there is carpet and they are trying to sell the apt, etc, etc... I am really dissapointed by this, but it´s only one month and will give me time to look for a job and apt.
Since I am going to meet her the next day by jumping a bus from the hotel, she suggests that when she brings me back to the hotel, I can give her one of my pieces of luggage, so I only have to drag one around. (Yeah, yeah, I know, being an American, this immediately rings warning bells in my head, but the thought of not having to drag the second danmn piece of luggage around me sounds too nice. Besides, she is very well dressed, her husband is a German scientist who had been at the university, but they just laid him off, and now he is in Africa looking for a job)LOLOLOL
We go back to the hotel and I get what I need out of my second piece of luggage. To be honest, I had packed the piece I took with me on the plane from Italy with everything important, papers, etc, and the second bag with clothes and odds and ends, knowing it would be checked baggage. This means I only had to take a couple of things out and there was nothing of importance. (see, I´m not THAT stupid, you have no confidence in me)
I brought it back out and gave it to here, we said goodbye and went our ways for the evening.
It was VERY hot that day in Darmstadt and as my room was sort of half underground, it was a bit cooler, but I couldn´t really open the windows all night.
I checked email and went to the in-house restaurant to get some food to go.
He said they would call my room in about 20 minutes and I could come pick it up as there was no room service.
That worked for me, so I checked mail again and went down the room to sit very quietly in one spot without moving so that I could sweat as little as possible.
After a bit there is a knock on the door, and there is one of the front desk men with my dinner on a tray! Very nice (but I wasn´t going to tip, sorry)
This was what my dinner consisted of, and this is why I am thankful I may not be living in Germany...
Main course was pork, i forgot the word for the way they were cut, but call them in the size and shape of chicken nuggets, though no breading. These were covered by an amazing dark brown gravy. On the side were fresh green beans. There was also a side salad and wonder of wonders..... potatoes sliced up into little round pieces, cooked with cabbage and butter.
AUUGGHHHH. I have been starving myself to lose almost 20 pounds in Italy, and I will now gain it all back in one evening. (you thought the food was going to be horrible, didn´t you?)
The food here is amazing. POTATOES!!! You don´t get potatoes in Italy, thank GOD.. Lots of pasta in Italy, but somehow pasta burns off way quicker than potatoes. Also in Italy, EVERYthing is cooked in olive oil, you will very seldom if ever get something with butter on it. I cooked zucchini once in olive oil and onions, garlic and honest to God, you would think it was cooked in butter!
I now regretting that I had ordered dessert, but it was fresh fruit was some whipped cream on top, so not too bad, but man, those potatoes and cabbage.. My stomach is growling just thinking baout it.
Anyway, I watch CNN in English and catch up on all the Katrina news, then go to bed in a sweltering hotel room.
Sometime during the night, the TV switches on by itself and wakes me up. There is a mesaging system in the hotel that goes through the TV instead of your phone. Very freaky and a little unsettling to be woken up in the middle of the night by the freaking TV turning on.
Anyway, it was a message from the landlady about the next morning. For the life of me I can´t remember what it said, but i think that it said that if I was going to be up early, to come to the apt by 9:30 before she went to work and I could get in then.
No WAY was I going to be up and about by 9:30, I was exhausted from the midnight flight the night before, all the trains, planes and automobiles from the day before.
So i figured i would just ignore it and meet her at 3pm as we had arranged.
I get up the next morning with just enough time to shower and check out by 11. Now I have several hours to kill.
OK, this part is boring even me. Here is the quick version. I check mail before going. There is an email from her saying she will pick me up at the hotel at 11 am.. i wait, and wait, and wait, finally another email, now it say she will be there at 1 pm. I wait and wait and wait. Finally at 4 pm, feeling VERY foolish, i book a cheaper hotel online and ask the desk clerk to call a cab for me, hoping to hell it isn´t the same man from the day before. SHIT!
Thank God it isn´t, and I go to the new hotel... SMACK in the middle of an incredible shopping area. CRAP!!! :-)
By now I am figuring my luggage is gone and good riddence to it, one less thing for me to drag around in the heat. I ask the desk clerk at the new hotel if they are allowed to give my name out if someone were to call there looking for me.
There is just a millisecond of fear in his face, so I assure him i am not running from the law or anything. this actually makes him look even more worried, and I noticed he puts me in the second part of the hotel, and there is no one else in any of the rooms. (expecting a shootout maybe??)
OH! One thing I may not have explained well enough is that half of the problems here are because I still have the Italian SIM card in my phone and no one seems to be able to contact anyone else by phone, and we both have limited internet availability. This is fixed later when I get a German SIM card, and then can no longer talk to my mom or Jess.
So I get settled in the room, go out and see what there is to eat. I can´t stand it, I NEED Burger King...There is actually a BK there. I go in, and being the good, healthy person I now am, only order a cheesburger, fries and medium coke. LOL
THE COKE HAS FREAKING ICE IN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, but there is no ice in the entire country of Italy, and I practically have dream of it at night, so this is just about better than sex for me. (sorry Jess)
When I´m done eating, I smoke a cigarrette (just joking) and go back to the internet (God, sorry this is dragging along and is not really funny) and there are several messages from the landlord askign why I didn´t make it to the apartment. She had waited there for 4 hours, then called the hotel and they said I had just left. Did I want my luggage? It was obvious that were not gonig to be able to communicate effectively to each other. (slight understatement)
At this point I was just plain TIRED of the contact the landlady game. I wrote her back and said she was supposed to pick me up at the hotel and never did and I waited 4 hours, etc....
Ok, that´s it, I am skipping the rest of the story and getting straight to the end..
Landlady goes out of town for weekend. I go to Heidelberg to stay in hostel. We email and she asks if I still want apt, and tells me she left luggage at hotel for me. i call hotel and they will hold luggage til Monday.
I tell landloard I want apartment but can´t afford to pay deposit because will need money to find other apt.
She says no problem, no deposit necessary, meet monday (tomorrow) at 1 and I can have apartment, she´s been in same situation. The end.
God, that was PAINFUL to write it was so long and boring.
SOO.. starting tomorrow I have an apartment for the rest of the month.
NEW turn of events. I wasn´t going to talk about it so that I didn´t jinx it, but daughter wrote about it on her blog already, so....
When I was online at one of the forums on living in Germany, an IT recruiter told someone else to email their resume to her.
Taking a chance, I sent her an email with mine, asking if she could help me.
Turns out she said she might have something for me, but to make my resume bigger. In Europe resumes are called CVs and can be quite a bit different. You don´t just put in what your job duties are, you talk up how good you were at them! I can do that, so I did. After a couple more contacts via email and one chat on the phone with her, I have a lead on an IT job at the United Nations in Vienna!
I do NOT want to jinx it, so I´m not giving any other details for now, but please, wish me luck, pray for me, whatever it is you do to help someone, I can really use it right now.!
Sooooo...... now we are up to date I think. Shew......... I´m worn out and I think my carpal tunnel is starting to come back in my right hand!
Ok then, i am going to hang out here and do some fun stuff on the PC, and will let you know if the landlady and I actually connect and if I get my apartment tomorrow..
I miss you all, take care!!!!
Cell phone service when you are moving around Europe SUCKS!
I have wasted more freaking money farting around trying to be able to call Jess in Italy, and THINKING I had great minutes and calling mom. NOOO. So now my mom is going to buy a German or International calling card, hopefully from Sprint with the same 5 cents a minute deal as she has to Italy, then she can call me and I get free incoming, so that will save money.
Jess and I are still struggling to find a way to communicate without it costing a fortune. I am hoping I will have a land line soon and then it will be cheap for me to call her from that with a calling card.
Before I get to the next chapter of the adventure of on my first day in Germany. (MAN that day was long)I want to tell you about my latest roommates in the hostel.
Yesterday afternoon I came back from the city and there was someone sleeping in the top bunk in my room, so I put my stuff away and tiptoed out to watch TV in the TV room to let them rest. I had bought chicken tikki masala from a place in Heidelberg, OH YEAH, good stuff. Makes me drool to think of it, unfortunately everything is closed today. Anyway I sat and ate that, and watched "Double Jeopardy" in German, which worked fine because I practically know every word, so I knew what was going on.
The only thing that bugged me was that the person dubbing Tommy Lee Jones´ voice, his voice was too high and it was making me crazy for some odd reason. Most of the time they really get people who sound similar when they dub movies nowdays, and I have been realy impressed at how there is no longer the old stereotype of the lips not moving even close to what is being said (somehow that brought to mind some sort of Saturday night live skit where they were making fun of the old Japanese films dubbed so badly....). They do a GREAT job of starting at stopping at the same time. That´s got to be tricky, but it really helps watching a dubbed show, it isn´t so distracting.
I came back to my room later and there were two girls there. One from Berlin, who had just been visiting her parents in Singapore, and one from.... ITALY! We talk all the time of missing the cafe (espresso there)
Then as we were introducing ourselves 4th girl came in. German also.
Don´t ask me the names, I have a horrible memory.
But I was impressed at these girls. The last one to come in, when I spoke to her, is ging to Boston in a couple of months to finish her PHD in medicine. She is doing research on alzhiemers (i forgot how to spell it - yes that was a lame attempt at a joke).
When I asked her why Boston, she said they have different ways of doing their reseach and she was interested in watching and maybe learning them. VERY smart.
The girl from Italy is looking at coming to Germany to finish her Masters in Social something, I forgt. But again, very intelligent.
Makes me feel dumb with my two associates degrees. But the difference is that many countries in Europe offer college education for only the cost of books and living expenses. I mean, can we say SMART? Then you have educated people who are able to help the economy by being able to purchase more since they are not up to their necks in student loans..... Ahhhhh... a simple but effective idea. I think in America we are so caught up in the NO DO NOT RAISE OUR TAXES that we will never get the point of being able to do this. Oh well......
Anyway, the third girl, for some reason I cannot remember why she was at the hostel, but I´m sure that she was really intelligent too. LOL
OK, i need to look at my list of things I wanted to say...
Oh yes! There is a late night talk show host that tries to be Johnny Carson! It is the weirdest thing to watch and slightly agravating. It first I thought it was just a fluke, but he does ALL the mannerism. I wonder is anyone else realizes that´s what he is doing? He has probably been called "The Johnny Carson of German television" by the press a some point.. LOL
Ah, his name is Harald Schmidt. I tried to find pictures of both he and Johnny in the same sort of pose, but couldn´t.........
Okay, okay, I have put it off long enough. I´m taking a quick pogo break and I will start the next episode of my first day in Germany.....
OK, back...
OK, where were we, Iranian taxi driver... terrorists, apartments, driving on sidewalks....
So the landlady tracks me down and asks if I still want to see the apartment. I say sure,and go over with Madjedeh, (that is her name) and see the apartment. It is big, but nothing amazing, just like an apartment in the states, except that you turn the hot water on and off from under the sink and over the sink in the bathroom to save energy, and turn the water off completely when you leave the apart. It´s furnished, has a nice balcony where you can dry clothes, blah, blah...
We sit down and talk, and decide that yes, i´ll take the apt but not until tomorrow since I have already paid for the hotel and my luggage is back there. Plus she does not have the rental forms with her, she lives up in the city part of Frankfurt.
I can have it for the rest of the month, but Jess and the cats can´t come up, because there is carpet and they are trying to sell the apt, etc, etc... I am really dissapointed by this, but it´s only one month and will give me time to look for a job and apt.
Since I am going to meet her the next day by jumping a bus from the hotel, she suggests that when she brings me back to the hotel, I can give her one of my pieces of luggage, so I only have to drag one around. (Yeah, yeah, I know, being an American, this immediately rings warning bells in my head, but the thought of not having to drag the second danmn piece of luggage around me sounds too nice. Besides, she is very well dressed, her husband is a German scientist who had been at the university, but they just laid him off, and now he is in Africa looking for a job)LOLOLOL
We go back to the hotel and I get what I need out of my second piece of luggage. To be honest, I had packed the piece I took with me on the plane from Italy with everything important, papers, etc, and the second bag with clothes and odds and ends, knowing it would be checked baggage. This means I only had to take a couple of things out and there was nothing of importance. (see, I´m not THAT stupid, you have no confidence in me)
I brought it back out and gave it to here, we said goodbye and went our ways for the evening.
It was VERY hot that day in Darmstadt and as my room was sort of half underground, it was a bit cooler, but I couldn´t really open the windows all night.
I checked email and went to the in-house restaurant to get some food to go.
He said they would call my room in about 20 minutes and I could come pick it up as there was no room service.
That worked for me, so I checked mail again and went down the room to sit very quietly in one spot without moving so that I could sweat as little as possible.
After a bit there is a knock on the door, and there is one of the front desk men with my dinner on a tray! Very nice (but I wasn´t going to tip, sorry)
This was what my dinner consisted of, and this is why I am thankful I may not be living in Germany...
Main course was pork, i forgot the word for the way they were cut, but call them in the size and shape of chicken nuggets, though no breading. These were covered by an amazing dark brown gravy. On the side were fresh green beans. There was also a side salad and wonder of wonders..... potatoes sliced up into little round pieces, cooked with cabbage and butter.
AUUGGHHHH. I have been starving myself to lose almost 20 pounds in Italy, and I will now gain it all back in one evening. (you thought the food was going to be horrible, didn´t you?)
The food here is amazing. POTATOES!!! You don´t get potatoes in Italy, thank GOD.. Lots of pasta in Italy, but somehow pasta burns off way quicker than potatoes. Also in Italy, EVERYthing is cooked in olive oil, you will very seldom if ever get something with butter on it. I cooked zucchini once in olive oil and onions, garlic and honest to God, you would think it was cooked in butter!
I now regretting that I had ordered dessert, but it was fresh fruit was some whipped cream on top, so not too bad, but man, those potatoes and cabbage.. My stomach is growling just thinking baout it.
Anyway, I watch CNN in English and catch up on all the Katrina news, then go to bed in a sweltering hotel room.
Sometime during the night, the TV switches on by itself and wakes me up. There is a mesaging system in the hotel that goes through the TV instead of your phone. Very freaky and a little unsettling to be woken up in the middle of the night by the freaking TV turning on.
Anyway, it was a message from the landlady about the next morning. For the life of me I can´t remember what it said, but i think that it said that if I was going to be up early, to come to the apt by 9:30 before she went to work and I could get in then.
No WAY was I going to be up and about by 9:30, I was exhausted from the midnight flight the night before, all the trains, planes and automobiles from the day before.
So i figured i would just ignore it and meet her at 3pm as we had arranged.
I get up the next morning with just enough time to shower and check out by 11. Now I have several hours to kill.
OK, this part is boring even me. Here is the quick version. I check mail before going. There is an email from her saying she will pick me up at the hotel at 11 am.. i wait, and wait, and wait, finally another email, now it say she will be there at 1 pm. I wait and wait and wait. Finally at 4 pm, feeling VERY foolish, i book a cheaper hotel online and ask the desk clerk to call a cab for me, hoping to hell it isn´t the same man from the day before. SHIT!
Thank God it isn´t, and I go to the new hotel... SMACK in the middle of an incredible shopping area. CRAP!!! :-)
By now I am figuring my luggage is gone and good riddence to it, one less thing for me to drag around in the heat. I ask the desk clerk at the new hotel if they are allowed to give my name out if someone were to call there looking for me.
There is just a millisecond of fear in his face, so I assure him i am not running from the law or anything. this actually makes him look even more worried, and I noticed he puts me in the second part of the hotel, and there is no one else in any of the rooms. (expecting a shootout maybe??)
OH! One thing I may not have explained well enough is that half of the problems here are because I still have the Italian SIM card in my phone and no one seems to be able to contact anyone else by phone, and we both have limited internet availability. This is fixed later when I get a German SIM card, and then can no longer talk to my mom or Jess.
So I get settled in the room, go out and see what there is to eat. I can´t stand it, I NEED Burger King...There is actually a BK there. I go in, and being the good, healthy person I now am, only order a cheesburger, fries and medium coke. LOL
THE COKE HAS FREAKING ICE IN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, but there is no ice in the entire country of Italy, and I practically have dream of it at night, so this is just about better than sex for me. (sorry Jess)
When I´m done eating, I smoke a cigarrette (just joking) and go back to the internet (God, sorry this is dragging along and is not really funny) and there are several messages from the landlord askign why I didn´t make it to the apartment. She had waited there for 4 hours, then called the hotel and they said I had just left. Did I want my luggage? It was obvious that were not gonig to be able to communicate effectively to each other. (slight understatement)
At this point I was just plain TIRED of the contact the landlady game. I wrote her back and said she was supposed to pick me up at the hotel and never did and I waited 4 hours, etc....
Ok, that´s it, I am skipping the rest of the story and getting straight to the end..
Landlady goes out of town for weekend. I go to Heidelberg to stay in hostel. We email and she asks if I still want apt, and tells me she left luggage at hotel for me. i call hotel and they will hold luggage til Monday.
I tell landloard I want apartment but can´t afford to pay deposit because will need money to find other apt.
She says no problem, no deposit necessary, meet monday (tomorrow) at 1 and I can have apartment, she´s been in same situation. The end.
God, that was PAINFUL to write it was so long and boring.
SOO.. starting tomorrow I have an apartment for the rest of the month.
NEW turn of events. I wasn´t going to talk about it so that I didn´t jinx it, but daughter wrote about it on her blog already, so....
When I was online at one of the forums on living in Germany, an IT recruiter told someone else to email their resume to her.
Taking a chance, I sent her an email with mine, asking if she could help me.
Turns out she said she might have something for me, but to make my resume bigger. In Europe resumes are called CVs and can be quite a bit different. You don´t just put in what your job duties are, you talk up how good you were at them! I can do that, so I did. After a couple more contacts via email and one chat on the phone with her, I have a lead on an IT job at the United Nations in Vienna!
I do NOT want to jinx it, so I´m not giving any other details for now, but please, wish me luck, pray for me, whatever it is you do to help someone, I can really use it right now.!
Sooooo...... now we are up to date I think. Shew......... I´m worn out and I think my carpal tunnel is starting to come back in my right hand!
Ok then, i am going to hang out here and do some fun stuff on the PC, and will let you know if the landlady and I actually connect and if I get my apartment tomorrow..
I miss you all, take care!!!!
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Part 2 of first day in Germany and other assorted ramblings
I think I am going to do the assorted ramblings because they are fresh in my mind.
Note: If you take a train in Germany, DO NOT go into the first car behind the engine unless you are a smoker. And also know that this car has VERY TINY windows and as soon as it takes off, everyone (including the 33 kids under 16 yrs old) lights up at once. *cough, cough*
Note: If you buy a "Go Bananas" calling card for 25€ in Germany, to take advantage of the 2 cents a minute calling to Italy and the 1 cent a minute calling to the US (I KID YOU NOT) be aware that you have to call from a land line. If you call from your cell, that 25€ gets used up in about 14 and 1/2 minutes. I learned this personally, yesterday.
Note, everything seems cheaper when you buy it in euros, until you get home and add it up, and then pass out on the floor when you realize just how much you spent in dollars.
Note: I have had more people do amazing things to help me in the 4 days that I have been here, then I had in 10 years of living in the USA. (sorry, but it is true)
Youth hostels in Germany.... I know, I even heard some of you groan out loud when I said youth hostels, (and that does include you, mom)
Youth hostels in Germany, well the majority of them are run by the government which, now that I think of it, explains WHY you have to pay for everything there.
Anyway, I am staying at one in Heidelberg since last night and until Monday morning, when I will have an apartment in Darmstadt for the rest of the month. (and that too is another story waiting to be told) The hostel is a pretty amazing place, but has its good and bad, that´s for sure.
The rooms are CLEAN, beds nice, food good, though I think I did a non-no by putting peanut sauce on my fish last night (it sounded good to me, but I think it was for something else by the way the serving girl looked at me ((those crazy fat Americans!!))).
The room I am staying in houses 4, there are two sets of bunkbeds, they look like they would come from IKEA, light wood, very plan, but nice.
There is a table with 4 chairs, a shower, sink, toilet room, and cabinets that lock for 1 € a time.
GERMAN WINDOWS ROCK! One more thing the US should really be picking up on. Ok, you have these huge windows, maye 4 feet high. When you turn the handle one way, it swings wide open, ( letting in the damn fly that kept landing on me all night last night) and when you close the window and turn the handle the other way, the window opens out FROM THE TOP about 8-10 inches. This way you get air coming in at night, but no one can break in. I am truly amazed at what a simple idea this is.
Anyway..... I checked in to the hostel yesterday afternoon, after catching a train from Darmstadt to Heidelberg. Staying there 3 nights cost me 81€, and would have cost me about 20€ less, but I had to buy a Hostel International card in order to be able to stay there.
Hostels in Germany, i mean there are businessmen staying there to save money! LOL
I saw several families (and heard there kids yelling and running up and down the halls) saw two or three of what looked like travelling youth sports teams, assorted bikers, kids with backbacks etc, and then there was me. I have to be honest, I pretty much look like I am homeless right now, which is kind of fun for me, playing the middle aged, homeless woman, when in fact it looks like I have a god shot at a nice job in Vienna, Austria. (YES)
I had no towels with me, 1€ each, my clothes REALLY needed washing (about 5€) I had no shampoo or soap, cause they are in my suitcase that is sitting at the last hotel I stayed in, in Darmstadt. (that too is another story) So I had to go buy that, cause they were out of soap to buy at the hostel. Sheets and breakfast IS however, included in your daily fee.
Let´s talk comforters and hotels in Germany and I am guessing the Netherlands. You know how the US always has those exposes on the news about what is on the comforters in hotels? Well, there is another great idea here. You have the comforter, you have a cover (duve??) they put the cover on the comforter, then when you leave, take off the cover, and put a clean one on for the next person. Shockingly simple, isn´t it???
Anyway, i had two roomates last night, but they both left this morning. One from Asia, the other from Germany, she looking for an apartment in Heidelberg because she is going to school here starting October. I love traveling alone, I think I said that before, but it is still true. I make myself sit down and talk to people, and you learn so much about the country you are in that way. Like The green bottle of water is fizzy, the pink bottle is sort of fizzy and the blue bottle is not fizzy. You don´t even have to know German to read the labels!
Last night the German girl and I sat in a side room watching TV and talking. German TV is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than Italian. There was a show on, the same stle as a couple of American one. The dufuss husband, the in Germany, was hysterical. A lot of the time I didn´t even know what was going on, but it didn´t matter, it was just fascinating watching the expressions on his face. i mean, this was a GOOD show, you could tell. Pretty cool.
The German girl and I got into sort of the standard conversation I seem to be having with people here. The differences between America and Germany, what a dumbutt Bush is, etc. Fast food and how Americans are all though of as fat, which I found interesting cause there are some WIDE people here, in fact I love the clothing depts, because regular sizes go up to a XXL, and THEN there is the fat section, which is called Grosse, which to me is hysterical.
Wireless internet, cost me FOUR € for an hour. Now that is just highway robbery. It´s like 2 € or $2.60 for every 15 minutes. AUGGGGHHHH. Times that by how many hours you there surf per day... YEAH, right... Internet cafes cost between 1-2 € an hour.
OK, enough of the hostel. It was nice, room was stuffy, fly bugged the shit out of me, I am going back tonight. :-)
OK; I am tired of typing, going to play pogo for a bit and then write more.
OK, I am back, I need to just push myself to get it done before I never do it.
Sooo.. let´s see, first day in German, I have managed to get myself onto a train, and the gentleman with a bike say he will help me at the next stop, he is going the same direction.(get your minds out of the gutter, this man is NICE)
Since he is staying in the bike section of the train,(YES!! so many people ride bikes, there are cars that have two levels, top has seats, bottom is open for the bike riders to store their bikes)and he wil meet me at the next stop and point me in the right direction of Darmstadt.
Well, he was such a huge help. showed me how to use the ticket thingy (ok, i admit i knew how to, but he was being so nice, i let him think i didn´t know how to get my ticket)
He got directions from the conductor on what stops to get on and off, what trains to catch, etc for each of the three or for connections I had to make. That made it so much easier on me, I wouldn´t be forced to make the dreaded "anyone here speak English?" shout again.... *grin*
While we waited at the station for the next train. (it left in like 7 minutes, and he sits down and starts to smoke a cigarrette. I guess the trains are pretty timely here, we got on with like 2 minutes left, and I was sweating bullets thinking we were going to miss it)
This man was the first person I had the America vs Germany talk with, so it was themost interesting. We talked about Prez George W, transportation systems, Europe´s vs.... well the US has none, so..
Gas prices, fitness, fast food, the whole nine yards. See, if I had written this the day after there would be more information, but now it´s sort of old for me.
Part of the train ride was along the Rhine river, and let me tell you, there must be a castle up on a hill ever 3 miles! pretty awesome, big old castles just sitting alone up on hills. pictures will follow if I ever see Jess again, she has the cable that we use to transfer from the camera to pc, to burn the CD...
Another thing that I have noticed every time I have taken a train, there are plots of land along the tracks. Long plots that are perpendicular(sp) to the tracks, that are gardens! No one living nearby, just all these amazing gardens, with little sheds and fences and one even had a table with the umbrella and chairs!
When I old my mom about it, she was suprised and said they used to call them "Victory Gardens" during the war. I had no idea that´s what a victory garden was, but what a smart way to use land by the railroad, where no one wants to live. I saw quite a few along the rivers´edge also.
Anway, it was fascinating to hear a European´s point of view on America. I have to tell you though, i think quite a lot of people think that America is this amazing place and would like to go...
Once my friend got off at his stop, I went the rest of the way into Franfurt and then down to darmstadt. OH! I don´t think I wrote about this yet, maybe I did,. but I am nt going back to check in the blog.
MAPS and Germany. HA! On the map I got offline, it showed the airport to the southeast of Frankfurt, and closer to Darmstadt than Franfurt. I guess Darmstadt is considered a suburb. Anyway, faced with the choice of a hotel close to the airport, or to the train station, I chose train station.
In turns out than in reality, the freaking airport is reall on the southWEST side of the city, WAAAAAY far away from darmstadt. It would have been smarter to take a train from the airport to Franfurt and spend the night. But then of course I would not have met the people I did, but damn it, it took me 4 hours of rain riding to get where I thought I would be able to go in about an hour.
WHICH brings me to the next part of the adventure. The reason I was going to darmstadt was to check out an apartment to rent. I put an add out on a student rental place and this person had responded about an apartment they had, it sounded perfect! I was supposed to meet them at 4 pm that day. Well, with all the train riding, I wasn´t able to get into Darmstadt until at least 4:30. AUGH. AND of course my cell phone with an Italian SIM card in it was not behaving, and I had no clue what numbers to dial from Germany, I mean phone numbers here are confusing to me. I am slowly getting the idea of what to put and when, but this person´s number was this:017627217288and then sometimes number have this extra number- 0176(0)27217288 and I have NO clue what THAT thing is for... GRRR..
i was calling back and forth with Jess and she was leaving messages, etc...a mess.
So I get into Darmstadt and grab a taxi to meet this person at the apt. This is when my second hero comes in. The cab driver was Iranian, and spoke German and 15 other middle eastern languages (honest, he told me) but was a bit behind in his English.
I hand him the address and he heads out, we start talking, most of which he understood, MOST being the key word, as I find out later.
He asks if I am a tourist, blah, blah, and we end up in rush hour traffic, so I am telling him how I am going to meet someone about an aprtment, etc... We get to where the place should be, but it is a block of all sorts of building, we see number 13, 11, 10, 15, no 12. At this point he decides to pullthe car up on the sidewalk and drive between the buildings. Oh yeah, and his favorite English word is shit. the German people treat him like shit, Taxi driving is a shit job, shit! when he almost hits a lady walking her bike across the street. (the only reason he didn´t is because I screamed AH!!!!)
Anyway, we can´t find the building and he tells me to stay in the cab, (which is parked illegally in the middle of a walkway between like 6 apartment building)and he gets out and looks around. AHA! he finds it, so we take off and go along a pathway that I don´t think was really big enough for a car to go through. He manages to get to a more open spot, and then to where you can leagally park a car, and we are there!
I tell him, "wow, you can REALLY drive a car" Thank you, he says.
We are at the building, but there is no one there we are about 45 minutes late, so.. I tell him I have no idea which apartment and the person who is going to rent to me does not live there. I show him the piece of paper with the person´s email address on it. We have no idea if it is female or male, but by the last name we have both deduced that the person is also Iranian.
He proceeds to go up and check all the names on the mailboxes. Nope, no person by that name. I have no idea what to do and I´ve decide the person left and I´ll need to email them, cause I can´t dial the damn number correctly on my Italian phone.
Now he is telling me that this could be a crazy man, just hwaiting to rape or kill me. OH GOD!!!!! By the time he was done, even I was worried.
I ask him to just take me to a decent, cheap hotel and I´ll deal with it later. I am tired, it is HOT, been travelling like5 hours and I just want a shower...
No, no, let me try to call. He calls the number using his taxi hone, and can´t get through.. PLEASE, i am saying, a hotel.... Finally he say the one right next door is good and how much do I want to pay? I say 70€???? not knowing what the hell that will get me in this town.. Ok, he decides we will go to the hotel next door and he will personally check to see what the prices are.
OH!!!!!!!!! also, and unheard of thing, every time we stop, he actually stops the meter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
S I wait while he goes in, meter stopped. He takes about 10 minutes, and he has me so worked up I am thinking, ok, what are they plotting in there for me??
When he comes back out, it turns out they didn´t have any available rooms and he made them call other hotels til they found one with a room that I could afford. Do you believe that?
So off we go to the other hotel, and he is still trying to call the rapist murderer. He finally gets through and a woman answers. He starts talking to her in whatever language, and doesn´t seem to get the right information from her, so finally hangs up. NOW he has decided that the evil rapist murderer lives with a woman and she has no clue what he has been doing on the side. (NOT making this up)
He takes me to the hotel, brings my bags in, and insists on talking to the people at the desk first to make sure they know just who I am.. LOLOLO
I thank him over and over, shake his hand, give him a big tip because of all the times he turned the meter off, and he leaves.
I get into my room, basement floor, cell not really working, hoter then hell, no air or fan or anything, and decide to go up to the lobby to the computer to check mail.
All this took about 45 minutes til I got to the computer, and after about 3 minutes a well dressed, Iranian woman comes around the corner and asks if I am Diana.
YES! I say, and this woman turns out to be the person who was going to show me the apt. For some odd reason she said she had been waiting in the underground parking for me. Here Englis is prety dang good, but this is just the first of MANY misunderstanding we have.
She tells me that the taxi driver had called her and told her to rent out the apartment to me, that I was a VERY nice woman and should have the apartment. Along the way he also told her I was scared of terrorists showing me the apartment, and that I was a man from Iran. LOLOLOLOLOL Ok then!
The woman wants to know if I want to go see the apt now. Again, I am amazed. I mean she sat there waiting for me for like an hour, and after a crzy Iranian taxi driver calls and chews her out for her behavior, she gets in the car and comes over to see if I still want to look at the apartment! Life is weird.
OK, getting tired of typing again, so I am going to stop for the day, and you will have to wait to hear MORE of the great, ongoing adventure. Trust me, I can pretty much going over the entire day, every minute somethign seemed to be going on!!!!
Will stop back in tomorrow if this place is open. If not, then Monday. Guten tag
Note: If you take a train in Germany, DO NOT go into the first car behind the engine unless you are a smoker. And also know that this car has VERY TINY windows and as soon as it takes off, everyone (including the 33 kids under 16 yrs old) lights up at once. *cough, cough*
Note: If you buy a "Go Bananas" calling card for 25€ in Germany, to take advantage of the 2 cents a minute calling to Italy and the 1 cent a minute calling to the US (I KID YOU NOT) be aware that you have to call from a land line. If you call from your cell, that 25€ gets used up in about 14 and 1/2 minutes. I learned this personally, yesterday.
Note, everything seems cheaper when you buy it in euros, until you get home and add it up, and then pass out on the floor when you realize just how much you spent in dollars.
Note: I have had more people do amazing things to help me in the 4 days that I have been here, then I had in 10 years of living in the USA. (sorry, but it is true)
Youth hostels in Germany.... I know, I even heard some of you groan out loud when I said youth hostels, (and that does include you, mom)
Youth hostels in Germany, well the majority of them are run by the government which, now that I think of it, explains WHY you have to pay for everything there.
Anyway, I am staying at one in Heidelberg since last night and until Monday morning, when I will have an apartment in Darmstadt for the rest of the month. (and that too is another story waiting to be told) The hostel is a pretty amazing place, but has its good and bad, that´s for sure.
The rooms are CLEAN, beds nice, food good, though I think I did a non-no by putting peanut sauce on my fish last night (it sounded good to me, but I think it was for something else by the way the serving girl looked at me ((those crazy fat Americans!!))).
The room I am staying in houses 4, there are two sets of bunkbeds, they look like they would come from IKEA, light wood, very plan, but nice.
There is a table with 4 chairs, a shower, sink, toilet room, and cabinets that lock for 1 € a time.
GERMAN WINDOWS ROCK! One more thing the US should really be picking up on. Ok, you have these huge windows, maye 4 feet high. When you turn the handle one way, it swings wide open, ( letting in the damn fly that kept landing on me all night last night) and when you close the window and turn the handle the other way, the window opens out FROM THE TOP about 8-10 inches. This way you get air coming in at night, but no one can break in. I am truly amazed at what a simple idea this is.
Anyway..... I checked in to the hostel yesterday afternoon, after catching a train from Darmstadt to Heidelberg. Staying there 3 nights cost me 81€, and would have cost me about 20€ less, but I had to buy a Hostel International card in order to be able to stay there.
Hostels in Germany, i mean there are businessmen staying there to save money! LOL
I saw several families (and heard there kids yelling and running up and down the halls) saw two or three of what looked like travelling youth sports teams, assorted bikers, kids with backbacks etc, and then there was me. I have to be honest, I pretty much look like I am homeless right now, which is kind of fun for me, playing the middle aged, homeless woman, when in fact it looks like I have a god shot at a nice job in Vienna, Austria. (YES)
I had no towels with me, 1€ each, my clothes REALLY needed washing (about 5€) I had no shampoo or soap, cause they are in my suitcase that is sitting at the last hotel I stayed in, in Darmstadt. (that too is another story) So I had to go buy that, cause they were out of soap to buy at the hostel. Sheets and breakfast IS however, included in your daily fee.
Let´s talk comforters and hotels in Germany and I am guessing the Netherlands. You know how the US always has those exposes on the news about what is on the comforters in hotels? Well, there is another great idea here. You have the comforter, you have a cover (duve??) they put the cover on the comforter, then when you leave, take off the cover, and put a clean one on for the next person. Shockingly simple, isn´t it???
Anyway, i had two roomates last night, but they both left this morning. One from Asia, the other from Germany, she looking for an apartment in Heidelberg because she is going to school here starting October. I love traveling alone, I think I said that before, but it is still true. I make myself sit down and talk to people, and you learn so much about the country you are in that way. Like The green bottle of water is fizzy, the pink bottle is sort of fizzy and the blue bottle is not fizzy. You don´t even have to know German to read the labels!
Last night the German girl and I sat in a side room watching TV and talking. German TV is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than Italian. There was a show on, the same stle as a couple of American one. The dufuss husband, the in Germany, was hysterical. A lot of the time I didn´t even know what was going on, but it didn´t matter, it was just fascinating watching the expressions on his face. i mean, this was a GOOD show, you could tell. Pretty cool.
The German girl and I got into sort of the standard conversation I seem to be having with people here. The differences between America and Germany, what a dumbutt Bush is, etc. Fast food and how Americans are all though of as fat, which I found interesting cause there are some WIDE people here, in fact I love the clothing depts, because regular sizes go up to a XXL, and THEN there is the fat section, which is called Grosse, which to me is hysterical.
Wireless internet, cost me FOUR € for an hour. Now that is just highway robbery. It´s like 2 € or $2.60 for every 15 minutes. AUGGGGHHHH. Times that by how many hours you there surf per day... YEAH, right... Internet cafes cost between 1-2 € an hour.
OK, enough of the hostel. It was nice, room was stuffy, fly bugged the shit out of me, I am going back tonight. :-)
OK; I am tired of typing, going to play pogo for a bit and then write more.
OK, I am back, I need to just push myself to get it done before I never do it.
Sooo.. let´s see, first day in German, I have managed to get myself onto a train, and the gentleman with a bike say he will help me at the next stop, he is going the same direction.(get your minds out of the gutter, this man is NICE)
Since he is staying in the bike section of the train,(YES!! so many people ride bikes, there are cars that have two levels, top has seats, bottom is open for the bike riders to store their bikes)and he wil meet me at the next stop and point me in the right direction of Darmstadt.
Well, he was such a huge help. showed me how to use the ticket thingy (ok, i admit i knew how to, but he was being so nice, i let him think i didn´t know how to get my ticket)
He got directions from the conductor on what stops to get on and off, what trains to catch, etc for each of the three or for connections I had to make. That made it so much easier on me, I wouldn´t be forced to make the dreaded "anyone here speak English?" shout again.... *grin*
While we waited at the station for the next train. (it left in like 7 minutes, and he sits down and starts to smoke a cigarrette. I guess the trains are pretty timely here, we got on with like 2 minutes left, and I was sweating bullets thinking we were going to miss it)
This man was the first person I had the America vs Germany talk with, so it was themost interesting. We talked about Prez George W, transportation systems, Europe´s vs.... well the US has none, so..
Gas prices, fitness, fast food, the whole nine yards. See, if I had written this the day after there would be more information, but now it´s sort of old for me.
Part of the train ride was along the Rhine river, and let me tell you, there must be a castle up on a hill ever 3 miles! pretty awesome, big old castles just sitting alone up on hills. pictures will follow if I ever see Jess again, she has the cable that we use to transfer from the camera to pc, to burn the CD...
Another thing that I have noticed every time I have taken a train, there are plots of land along the tracks. Long plots that are perpendicular(sp) to the tracks, that are gardens! No one living nearby, just all these amazing gardens, with little sheds and fences and one even had a table with the umbrella and chairs!
When I old my mom about it, she was suprised and said they used to call them "Victory Gardens" during the war. I had no idea that´s what a victory garden was, but what a smart way to use land by the railroad, where no one wants to live. I saw quite a few along the rivers´edge also.
Anway, it was fascinating to hear a European´s point of view on America. I have to tell you though, i think quite a lot of people think that America is this amazing place and would like to go...
Once my friend got off at his stop, I went the rest of the way into Franfurt and then down to darmstadt. OH! I don´t think I wrote about this yet, maybe I did,. but I am nt going back to check in the blog.
MAPS and Germany. HA! On the map I got offline, it showed the airport to the southeast of Frankfurt, and closer to Darmstadt than Franfurt. I guess Darmstadt is considered a suburb. Anyway, faced with the choice of a hotel close to the airport, or to the train station, I chose train station.
In turns out than in reality, the freaking airport is reall on the southWEST side of the city, WAAAAAY far away from darmstadt. It would have been smarter to take a train from the airport to Franfurt and spend the night. But then of course I would not have met the people I did, but damn it, it took me 4 hours of rain riding to get where I thought I would be able to go in about an hour.
WHICH brings me to the next part of the adventure. The reason I was going to darmstadt was to check out an apartment to rent. I put an add out on a student rental place and this person had responded about an apartment they had, it sounded perfect! I was supposed to meet them at 4 pm that day. Well, with all the train riding, I wasn´t able to get into Darmstadt until at least 4:30. AUGH. AND of course my cell phone with an Italian SIM card in it was not behaving, and I had no clue what numbers to dial from Germany, I mean phone numbers here are confusing to me. I am slowly getting the idea of what to put and when, but this person´s number was this:017627217288and then sometimes number have this extra number- 0176(0)27217288 and I have NO clue what THAT thing is for... GRRR..
i was calling back and forth with Jess and she was leaving messages, etc...a mess.
So I get into Darmstadt and grab a taxi to meet this person at the apt. This is when my second hero comes in. The cab driver was Iranian, and spoke German and 15 other middle eastern languages (honest, he told me) but was a bit behind in his English.
I hand him the address and he heads out, we start talking, most of which he understood, MOST being the key word, as I find out later.
He asks if I am a tourist, blah, blah, and we end up in rush hour traffic, so I am telling him how I am going to meet someone about an aprtment, etc... We get to where the place should be, but it is a block of all sorts of building, we see number 13, 11, 10, 15, no 12. At this point he decides to pullthe car up on the sidewalk and drive between the buildings. Oh yeah, and his favorite English word is shit. the German people treat him like shit, Taxi driving is a shit job, shit! when he almost hits a lady walking her bike across the street. (the only reason he didn´t is because I screamed AH!!!!)
Anyway, we can´t find the building and he tells me to stay in the cab, (which is parked illegally in the middle of a walkway between like 6 apartment building)and he gets out and looks around. AHA! he finds it, so we take off and go along a pathway that I don´t think was really big enough for a car to go through. He manages to get to a more open spot, and then to where you can leagally park a car, and we are there!
I tell him, "wow, you can REALLY drive a car" Thank you, he says.
We are at the building, but there is no one there we are about 45 minutes late, so.. I tell him I have no idea which apartment and the person who is going to rent to me does not live there. I show him the piece of paper with the person´s email address on it. We have no idea if it is female or male, but by the last name we have both deduced that the person is also Iranian.
He proceeds to go up and check all the names on the mailboxes. Nope, no person by that name. I have no idea what to do and I´ve decide the person left and I´ll need to email them, cause I can´t dial the damn number correctly on my Italian phone.
Now he is telling me that this could be a crazy man, just hwaiting to rape or kill me. OH GOD!!!!! By the time he was done, even I was worried.
I ask him to just take me to a decent, cheap hotel and I´ll deal with it later. I am tired, it is HOT, been travelling like5 hours and I just want a shower...
No, no, let me try to call. He calls the number using his taxi hone, and can´t get through.. PLEASE, i am saying, a hotel.... Finally he say the one right next door is good and how much do I want to pay? I say 70€???? not knowing what the hell that will get me in this town.. Ok, he decides we will go to the hotel next door and he will personally check to see what the prices are.
OH!!!!!!!!! also, and unheard of thing, every time we stop, he actually stops the meter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
S I wait while he goes in, meter stopped. He takes about 10 minutes, and he has me so worked up I am thinking, ok, what are they plotting in there for me??
When he comes back out, it turns out they didn´t have any available rooms and he made them call other hotels til they found one with a room that I could afford. Do you believe that?
So off we go to the other hotel, and he is still trying to call the rapist murderer. He finally gets through and a woman answers. He starts talking to her in whatever language, and doesn´t seem to get the right information from her, so finally hangs up. NOW he has decided that the evil rapist murderer lives with a woman and she has no clue what he has been doing on the side. (NOT making this up)
He takes me to the hotel, brings my bags in, and insists on talking to the people at the desk first to make sure they know just who I am.. LOLOLO
I thank him over and over, shake his hand, give him a big tip because of all the times he turned the meter off, and he leaves.
I get into my room, basement floor, cell not really working, hoter then hell, no air or fan or anything, and decide to go up to the lobby to the computer to check mail.
All this took about 45 minutes til I got to the computer, and after about 3 minutes a well dressed, Iranian woman comes around the corner and asks if I am Diana.
YES! I say, and this woman turns out to be the person who was going to show me the apt. For some odd reason she said she had been waiting in the underground parking for me. Here Englis is prety dang good, but this is just the first of MANY misunderstanding we have.
She tells me that the taxi driver had called her and told her to rent out the apartment to me, that I was a VERY nice woman and should have the apartment. Along the way he also told her I was scared of terrorists showing me the apartment, and that I was a man from Iran. LOLOLOLOLOL Ok then!
The woman wants to know if I want to go see the apt now. Again, I am amazed. I mean she sat there waiting for me for like an hour, and after a crzy Iranian taxi driver calls and chews her out for her behavior, she gets in the car and comes over to see if I still want to look at the apartment! Life is weird.
OK, getting tired of typing again, so I am going to stop for the day, and you will have to wait to hear MORE of the great, ongoing adventure. Trust me, I can pretty much going over the entire day, every minute somethign seemed to be going on!!!!
Will stop back in tomorrow if this place is open. If not, then Monday. Guten tag
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
well this day has certainly been an adventure.
I am sitting in the lobby of a Darmstadt hotel this evening, exhausted.. homesick... not so much for the US, but jess in particular... she is still in Italy and probably will be until the end of the month.
I flew out of Pisa last night, into Frankfurt Hahn airport in Germany at about midnight. Paid a taxi too much money to bring me to a little hotel sort of near the airport. I picked it because it said it was near a rail station and it only cost 36 euro for the night.
I got there about 12:30, took the room key, washed some of the grime off me and fell into bed.
About7 am I wake up and start worrying because the clock radio they had said it was an hour later than my time. I call the front desk, wake up someone only to find that my time is correct. I wanted to sleep as long as I could before I had to wake up... Sometime later the maid knocks one time on the door, then opens it! I heard her say something in German and back out the door. I didn´t even move my head out from under the covers, I was too tired to worry about it. At 9:45, I get a call from the owner of the hotel asking if I wanted breakfast because they stop serving in 15 minutes. UGH! yes, I say, thanks, not intending to make it down. But guilt gets the best of me, and I don´t even brush my hair, I just stagger down, grab some museli and some bread and ask for coffe. 15 minutes later I am back in my room showering, then checking out by 11.
I ask how to get to the rail station. The owner´s wife, who looks just like a German family hotel owner would look like, gets a quizzical look on her face. OH NO... I think..
AH! you´ll have to take the ferry across the river. She calls to make sure it´s running today!!! AAAAHHHHHH
She says that it´s about 3\4 mile away down the road. Just go to the river and wave him down and he´ll come get you. I ask if it´s a big or small boat. She laughs.. Oh no, no... It only holds about 4 people. I now have this vision of me hanging on to the side of some little dingy, big waves rolling by, and the guy stopping in the middle of the river and demanding all my money. (shades of Brad Johnston)
I head out down the road, and this is a BEAUTIFUL German town. It´s in the wine section of the country, gravevines everywhere! Bavarian style houses, the whole thing.. I will post pictures later.
Cool, I´m thinking, I can do this....
I end up getting lost, going into a local food store and saying loudly. DOES ANYONE SPEAK ENGLISH? (I kid you not. I know this is why jess hates me)
They point me in the right direction and I cross a big lot full of campers. I later can tell, when taking the train, the Germans LOVE to camp on the river.
Anyway, the ferry turns out to be a decent sized flat type of barge looking thingy. I wave him down and he comes over, talking to me in German... I try saying something like no sprekken deutsch, but he has no clue. Finally I point to him, to the shore, to me, to the shore, to my suitcases and back to him a couple more times and he gets it. ( I mean, THIS is what the guy does, do we have to have conversation too???)
We head across, it´s a pretty small river, which I later find out is the Mosel(sp)
and sure enough there is a train tracks on the other side. We get to the other side, I pay him 1 euro, and lug my two HEAVY suitcases up about 400 stairs... 2 suitcases, THE dumbest thing I have done since sticking my tongue to the frozen pole in winter when I was little.. (Okay, maybe I have done dumber things since, but we aren´t talking about those today, so just pay attention to the story, will you?)
I get to the top, and there are.... tracks..... no station, nothing. There are houses, businesses, but all closd, not a soul in side.
what the hell do i do?? i sit.... the tracks are rusty and i think, what if this train comes like once a day, and it was at 8 this morning? i mean, if i have to cross a river on a ferry, this is one SMALL town......
So i sit, and i sit.... and suddenly there is a train coming at me!!! I wave and wave, and it passes me by..
OK... now i know I must be doing something wrong here.....
I see a woman coming out of a shop to put out her sign.. i go over... I know NO, NEIN German, and I am saying, excuse me, excuse, me.. Finally I say it loud enough and she spots me... All i can do is show her the map of the Germain rail system i printed out. (SMARTEST thing I have done in years, it saved my butt today more than once today.)
Anyway, i wanted to know which direction to take the train so once again, there was much pointing and german and english spoken that no one understood. Finally she pointed which way to go, then amazingly somehow she communicated something like, hey dummy, the train doesn´t stop here, go down the road some more. WOW!!!
Off i go, dragging the luggage, and sure enough a train station... well, it´s like a plastic bus stop building bu that works for me. Even better is near to it, is one of those fountains like they have all over italy where you can fill up your water bottle with cold water.. there were some german words on the front, i figured it to say something like... drinking water.. I pour out my half bottle of warm water and start filling. an old man appears out of no where! No one else for miles and suddenly he is there yelling something in German.... I heard NEIN, so i figure that he is trying to tell me not to drink the water. oh CRAP.. so that´s what the sign said. and now i´ve dumped my bottle of water out, and no water.
I thank him and go over to the train stop. A schedule!!! I see my town on the list, 15 minutes. YES! I start thinking, should i be buying a ticket somewhere?
Across the tracks I hear rustling and see a woman watering plants. EXCUSE ME! Where do I buy a ticket for the train? I ask, waving a 10 euro note around and pointing at the tracks..
I just want you all to know, I am not even embellishing this a LITTLE, it really happened like this.
She says something in German about floof. OK, no clue... she might have even said buy ticket on floof, i am not sure.. i mean in english... FLOOF? I ask.
FLOOF, she say, then makes the sound of a train, laughing.
AHHH,. Floof means train, though I know it is not spelled that way. Now i know to buy the ticket on the train.. i thank her and sit back t wait for the train, right on time it comes.. YEAH, it even says the next town on the front.. cool. i get on, it is like a the size of a regular train engine with seats... places for bikes in the middle.. oh yes, EVERYONE bikes, there are millions of miles of bike trails along the rivers, and the train accomadates them.
Anyway, I needed to go to a town further than what the train said, so again, more flailing of arms to find out no, it stops at this first town only, i´ll have to change trains..
Next stop, a few bikes get on.. by this time i am wondering about how i buy a ticket..... I see a machine... ok, BUT something about the message worries me. one line message, about 10 buttons on each side.... I take a chance, wave at the ticket machine and ask one of the men who just came on.. ticket???
ENGLISH! THe older man speaks english. I almost fall on my knees to thank god.. (ok, for those of you who wonder why i came so unprepared, YOU try buying a German to English dictionary in Italy. They don´t exist.. only italian to german... and for those of you who have heard my Italian. HA!)
He says the ticket machine is broken.. i ask how we buy tickets? He says, you don´t! Works for me.
THIS gentleman became my first savior of the day...
AND i am going to bed, so you´ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear more... :-p
I flew out of Pisa last night, into Frankfurt Hahn airport in Germany at about midnight. Paid a taxi too much money to bring me to a little hotel sort of near the airport. I picked it because it said it was near a rail station and it only cost 36 euro for the night.
I got there about 12:30, took the room key, washed some of the grime off me and fell into bed.
About7 am I wake up and start worrying because the clock radio they had said it was an hour later than my time. I call the front desk, wake up someone only to find that my time is correct. I wanted to sleep as long as I could before I had to wake up... Sometime later the maid knocks one time on the door, then opens it! I heard her say something in German and back out the door. I didn´t even move my head out from under the covers, I was too tired to worry about it. At 9:45, I get a call from the owner of the hotel asking if I wanted breakfast because they stop serving in 15 minutes. UGH! yes, I say, thanks, not intending to make it down. But guilt gets the best of me, and I don´t even brush my hair, I just stagger down, grab some museli and some bread and ask for coffe. 15 minutes later I am back in my room showering, then checking out by 11.
I ask how to get to the rail station. The owner´s wife, who looks just like a German family hotel owner would look like, gets a quizzical look on her face. OH NO... I think..
AH! you´ll have to take the ferry across the river. She calls to make sure it´s running today!!! AAAAHHHHHH
She says that it´s about 3\4 mile away down the road. Just go to the river and wave him down and he´ll come get you. I ask if it´s a big or small boat. She laughs.. Oh no, no... It only holds about 4 people. I now have this vision of me hanging on to the side of some little dingy, big waves rolling by, and the guy stopping in the middle of the river and demanding all my money. (shades of Brad Johnston)
I head out down the road, and this is a BEAUTIFUL German town. It´s in the wine section of the country, gravevines everywhere! Bavarian style houses, the whole thing.. I will post pictures later.
Cool, I´m thinking, I can do this....
I end up getting lost, going into a local food store and saying loudly. DOES ANYONE SPEAK ENGLISH? (I kid you not. I know this is why jess hates me)
They point me in the right direction and I cross a big lot full of campers. I later can tell, when taking the train, the Germans LOVE to camp on the river.
Anyway, the ferry turns out to be a decent sized flat type of barge looking thingy. I wave him down and he comes over, talking to me in German... I try saying something like no sprekken deutsch, but he has no clue. Finally I point to him, to the shore, to me, to the shore, to my suitcases and back to him a couple more times and he gets it. ( I mean, THIS is what the guy does, do we have to have conversation too???)
We head across, it´s a pretty small river, which I later find out is the Mosel(sp)
and sure enough there is a train tracks on the other side. We get to the other side, I pay him 1 euro, and lug my two HEAVY suitcases up about 400 stairs... 2 suitcases, THE dumbest thing I have done since sticking my tongue to the frozen pole in winter when I was little.. (Okay, maybe I have done dumber things since, but we aren´t talking about those today, so just pay attention to the story, will you?)
I get to the top, and there are.... tracks..... no station, nothing. There are houses, businesses, but all closd, not a soul in side.
what the hell do i do?? i sit.... the tracks are rusty and i think, what if this train comes like once a day, and it was at 8 this morning? i mean, if i have to cross a river on a ferry, this is one SMALL town......
So i sit, and i sit.... and suddenly there is a train coming at me!!! I wave and wave, and it passes me by..
OK... now i know I must be doing something wrong here.....
I see a woman coming out of a shop to put out her sign.. i go over... I know NO, NEIN German, and I am saying, excuse me, excuse, me.. Finally I say it loud enough and she spots me... All i can do is show her the map of the Germain rail system i printed out. (SMARTEST thing I have done in years, it saved my butt today more than once today.)
Anyway, i wanted to know which direction to take the train so once again, there was much pointing and german and english spoken that no one understood. Finally she pointed which way to go, then amazingly somehow she communicated something like, hey dummy, the train doesn´t stop here, go down the road some more. WOW!!!
Off i go, dragging the luggage, and sure enough a train station... well, it´s like a plastic bus stop building bu that works for me. Even better is near to it, is one of those fountains like they have all over italy where you can fill up your water bottle with cold water.. there were some german words on the front, i figured it to say something like... drinking water.. I pour out my half bottle of warm water and start filling. an old man appears out of no where! No one else for miles and suddenly he is there yelling something in German.... I heard NEIN, so i figure that he is trying to tell me not to drink the water. oh CRAP.. so that´s what the sign said. and now i´ve dumped my bottle of water out, and no water.
I thank him and go over to the train stop. A schedule!!! I see my town on the list, 15 minutes. YES! I start thinking, should i be buying a ticket somewhere?
Across the tracks I hear rustling and see a woman watering plants. EXCUSE ME! Where do I buy a ticket for the train? I ask, waving a 10 euro note around and pointing at the tracks..
I just want you all to know, I am not even embellishing this a LITTLE, it really happened like this.
She says something in German about floof. OK, no clue... she might have even said buy ticket on floof, i am not sure.. i mean in english... FLOOF? I ask.
FLOOF, she say, then makes the sound of a train, laughing.
AHHH,. Floof means train, though I know it is not spelled that way. Now i know to buy the ticket on the train.. i thank her and sit back t wait for the train, right on time it comes.. YEAH, it even says the next town on the front.. cool. i get on, it is like a the size of a regular train engine with seats... places for bikes in the middle.. oh yes, EVERYONE bikes, there are millions of miles of bike trails along the rivers, and the train accomadates them.
Anyway, I needed to go to a town further than what the train said, so again, more flailing of arms to find out no, it stops at this first town only, i´ll have to change trains..
Next stop, a few bikes get on.. by this time i am wondering about how i buy a ticket..... I see a machine... ok, BUT something about the message worries me. one line message, about 10 buttons on each side.... I take a chance, wave at the ticket machine and ask one of the men who just came on.. ticket???
ENGLISH! THe older man speaks english. I almost fall on my knees to thank god.. (ok, for those of you who wonder why i came so unprepared, YOU try buying a German to English dictionary in Italy. They don´t exist.. only italian to german... and for those of you who have heard my Italian. HA!)
He says the ticket machine is broken.. i ask how we buy tickets? He says, you don´t! Works for me.
THIS gentleman became my first savior of the day...
AND i am going to bed, so you´ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear more... :-p
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Countdown to Germany
Well, only a couple of days until I leave for Germany. I looked at the Trenitalia site for strike info on the day I leave and first it said strike, then it said trains run regularly, then something about only certain trains running. Typical Italian.
I decided I'd better get on the ball and go to the train station tomorrow and get some information.
Jess still hasn't gotten ner Mbag with books from the states. She is staying behind until ashe does, or until the first of Oct, or until she gets tired of waiting. Either way I'll be on my own in Germany. A little disconcerning, but I will be fine. I'm just so used to being joined at the hip to her. I might just find I like traveling alone. GULP
Tonight we are going to eat at the 4 course restaurant again.We were going to tomorrow night, but it is filled. No bookings. This is a nice little restaurant.
Tomorrow we do laudry like crazy. All the sheets, blankets, the rest of my clothing. The I will need to start packing. Or maybe I'll just do it Tuesday. We are still wondering about whether or not I should take Jess' laptop with me. Mine seems to have dies. I can' format it. I can fdisk, but that is it.
It was such a nice little computer. Oh well..... sigh.
Short post tonight, as we have to head down to the restaurant.
I decided I'd better get on the ball and go to the train station tomorrow and get some information.
Jess still hasn't gotten ner Mbag with books from the states. She is staying behind until ashe does, or until the first of Oct, or until she gets tired of waiting. Either way I'll be on my own in Germany. A little disconcerning, but I will be fine. I'm just so used to being joined at the hip to her. I might just find I like traveling alone. GULP
Tonight we are going to eat at the 4 course restaurant again.We were going to tomorrow night, but it is filled. No bookings. This is a nice little restaurant.
Tomorrow we do laudry like crazy. All the sheets, blankets, the rest of my clothing. The I will need to start packing. Or maybe I'll just do it Tuesday. We are still wondering about whether or not I should take Jess' laptop with me. Mine seems to have dies. I can' format it. I can fdisk, but that is it.
It was such a nice little computer. Oh well..... sigh.
Short post tonight, as we have to head down to the restaurant.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
My Family Tree
OK, as I said yesterday, forget the web page, I am now making my family tree.
I always knew my great grandfather came from Ireland, but couldn't get any info from my dad, and my grandfather is gone.
Anyway,w as doing searches, and through the death record online that I can buy, I found my grandfather's mother's maiden name, which open up a whole bunch of new information. I got the passenger list when she came across.
Anyway, am getting info on my dads side in, then my moms side (sorry mom, all the dad's side is on slips of paper , need to get them down first, here's the site.
family tree
I always knew my great grandfather came from Ireland, but couldn't get any info from my dad, and my grandfather is gone.
Anyway,w as doing searches, and through the death record online that I can buy, I found my grandfather's mother's maiden name, which open up a whole bunch of new information. I got the passenger list when she came across.
Anyway, am getting info on my dads side in, then my moms side (sorry mom, all the dad's side is on slips of paper , need to get them down first, here's the site.
family tree
Monday, August 29, 2005
Random thoughts
Even though I love Italy, I really don't mind leaving to go to Germany.
Chinese food tastes good in any country.
It's easy to get Jess mad, just flick toothpicks at her when out to dinner.
I'm really not much of a wine drinker.
My son Nick, with his first piercing. He just got it..... GRRRRRR
I miss wireless internet, or any kind of internet at home.
I've just discovered that I am lazy and I DON'T WANNA GO BACK TO WORK!!!!
I'm worried I will stop losing weight when I get to Germany.
I have applied to about 30 jobs in Germany.
This whole writing in blogs thing kind of comes and goes. It's fun to do when I have done touristy things, otherwise it's not so fun.
Oh yeah, forget my new web page, I am already bored with it.
I like to sleep until noon.
I'm bored. A whole week til I leave for Germany.
Night.... :-p
Chinese food tastes good in any country.
It's easy to get Jess mad, just flick toothpicks at her when out to dinner.
I'm really not much of a wine drinker.
My son Nick, with his first piercing. He just got it..... GRRRRRRI miss wireless internet, or any kind of internet at home.
I've just discovered that I am lazy and I DON'T WANNA GO BACK TO WORK!!!!
I'm worried I will stop losing weight when I get to Germany.
I have applied to about 30 jobs in Germany.
This whole writing in blogs thing kind of comes and goes. It's fun to do when I have done touristy things, otherwise it's not so fun.
Oh yeah, forget my new web page, I am already bored with it.
I like to sleep until noon.
I'm bored. A whole week til I leave for Germany.
Night.... :-p
Sunday, August 28, 2005
web page
ok, I have been farting around for the last few hours while downloading Linux for my computer, it's hosed..
So I decided to create a webpage. Hey mom! (or anyone else for that matter), click on the link below to go to my webpage, then click on Live chat. If I am online, we can talk!! And if we get Jess on too, all htree of us can talk to each other.
http://www.dianaleavesamerica.bravehost.com/
Keep an eye on it, great things will be coming.. I will have chat on it, so maybe I can even talk live to someone!
Weekly poll, etc. Should be fun, or it will die a sad death if I never have a chance to work on it... YOU decide..
So I decided to create a webpage. Hey mom! (or anyone else for that matter), click on the link below to go to my webpage, then click on Live chat. If I am online, we can talk!! And if we get Jess on too, all htree of us can talk to each other.
http://www.dianaleavesamerica.bravehost.com/
Keep an eye on it, great things will be coming.. I will have chat on it, so maybe I can even talk live to someone!
Weekly poll, etc. Should be fun, or it will die a sad death if I never have a chance to work on it... YOU decide..
Saturday, August 27, 2005
tomorrow
Getting late today, but just wanted to post. I've been online trying to come up with a way to fix my pc that doesn't want to boot.
I've been spending HOURS finding the cheapest way to get to Germany.
I also deceided to go to Tues Sept 6th (6th??) because Ryanair had airfare to Frankfurt for 4.99 euro. Can't beat that with a stick. Ends up with taxes being 25 euro. I'll need to take a train to the Pisa/Florence airport for about 10 euro and from Franfurt to Heidelberg for about 13 euro. So for 50 euro or about 65 US dollars I can get from Italy up to Germany. Not bad. Train fare WITH a special through Munich was going to run 144.00 euro.
Anyway, a week later than I wanted to, but that's ok.
Will make a HUGE effort to remember to write a decent blog here tomorrow. - di
I've been spending HOURS finding the cheapest way to get to Germany.
I also deceided to go to Tues Sept 6th (6th??) because Ryanair had airfare to Frankfurt for 4.99 euro. Can't beat that with a stick. Ends up with taxes being 25 euro. I'll need to take a train to the Pisa/Florence airport for about 10 euro and from Franfurt to Heidelberg for about 13 euro. So for 50 euro or about 65 US dollars I can get from Italy up to Germany. Not bad. Train fare WITH a special through Munich was going to run 144.00 euro.
Anyway, a week later than I wanted to, but that's ok.
Will make a HUGE effort to remember to write a decent blog here tomorrow. - di
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Phase Three
Ok, no question mark on this keyboard, well at least I can not get to it.
I kind of ended in the middle of the Germany trip, last time I blogged.
Basically we headed back through Austria this time to avoid the traffic. No such luck, then it rained so hard, it flooded Germany, Switzerland AND Austria.. I didnt do it!! *short version*
Today was the last full day we had the rental car, so we went back down to Naples to see Pompeii.. We actually got in this time!
The joke of the day for me was.. Hey Jess, look over there... MORE RUINS!!! She was pretty mad after the first 30 times I said it to her..
Trust me, once you see the people they dug up, it-s no fun anymore, at least to me. But Jess loved it, it is HUGE, the people in front of us were Americans, saying they had an hour and a half to do it... Fools.. We were there like 3 hours, it was too hot, no water anywhere to be found, etc, so we left. But you could spend way more time there....
Of course Mt Vesuvius was sunny, but we had taken too long at Pompeii, so no looking into the volcano.
Pictures will be online tomorrow.
Right now we are in a mini crisis. Funds getting low.
Jess is waiting in Italy until her books that she shipped from the US come, that could be another week or two. We have the apt until Oct 1st, and can legally be in Italy until the 3rd of Oct, but I need to start making money.
The plan is for me to fly up to Germany this Sunday night. You can fly Ryanair for 40 euros, takes two hours. Then I can stay in a hostel and look for work and a place to live.
Ryanair is one of my friend Eric-s airlines.... YEAH!
Hopefully getting that will coincide with her, then I will rent a van, drive it down to Italy, pick up the gang, and drive back up to Germany.
Boy, it is getting interesting now!
I have applied to a ton of civilian jobs at the military bases in Germany, and about 6 private companies.
OK Wayne, before you say anything about how come I would work for the US if I want out of the country, hey. We get paid dollars and spend them in Germany...... Plus we are not in the US......
Though I would much rather have a German job that gets paid in euros, I will take what I can get right now!
Ok, going to do some job searching, will post photos of Pompeii tomorrow.
BYE!
I kind of ended in the middle of the Germany trip, last time I blogged.
Basically we headed back through Austria this time to avoid the traffic. No such luck, then it rained so hard, it flooded Germany, Switzerland AND Austria.. I didnt do it!! *short version*
Today was the last full day we had the rental car, so we went back down to Naples to see Pompeii.. We actually got in this time!
The joke of the day for me was.. Hey Jess, look over there... MORE RUINS!!! She was pretty mad after the first 30 times I said it to her..
Trust me, once you see the people they dug up, it-s no fun anymore, at least to me. But Jess loved it, it is HUGE, the people in front of us were Americans, saying they had an hour and a half to do it... Fools.. We were there like 3 hours, it was too hot, no water anywhere to be found, etc, so we left. But you could spend way more time there....
Of course Mt Vesuvius was sunny, but we had taken too long at Pompeii, so no looking into the volcano.
Pictures will be online tomorrow.
Right now we are in a mini crisis. Funds getting low.
Jess is waiting in Italy until her books that she shipped from the US come, that could be another week or two. We have the apt until Oct 1st, and can legally be in Italy until the 3rd of Oct, but I need to start making money.
The plan is for me to fly up to Germany this Sunday night. You can fly Ryanair for 40 euros, takes two hours. Then I can stay in a hostel and look for work and a place to live.
Ryanair is one of my friend Eric-s airlines.... YEAH!
Hopefully getting that will coincide with her, then I will rent a van, drive it down to Italy, pick up the gang, and drive back up to Germany.
Boy, it is getting interesting now!
I have applied to a ton of civilian jobs at the military bases in Germany, and about 6 private companies.
OK Wayne, before you say anything about how come I would work for the US if I want out of the country, hey. We get paid dollars and spend them in Germany...... Plus we are not in the US......
Though I would much rather have a German job that gets paid in euros, I will take what I can get right now!
Ok, going to do some job searching, will post photos of Pompeii tomorrow.
BYE!
Monday, August 22, 2005
On to Germany
A couple of shots of when we took off to Siena last week for the Palio (horse race) We never stayed for the race, the crowds were too intense.
What I am assuming was a glacial lake along the way. Unfortunately with the long drive we really didn't get a chance to stop and find out about any of these places. Next time!!
Any kind of open area was beatiful and green. This was the same in Germany. The color doesn't even begin to show how bright and green it really was.
I know this is blurry, but each one of the rectangular shapes was actually a window box shaped planter actually embedded in the side of the highway with plants or flowers growing it it. This was in Germany.
A sign in Germany.
Jess caught an amazing German sunset on film!
The view from the window of our hotel in Heidelberg, Germany. This was on the Neckar river.
Again, the view from our hotel window.
Amazing view!
A shot of our hotel room (for mom to see)
We saw several groups of people rowing against the current on the Neckar river.
A view of the front of our hotel. Our room was a floor highter, which was made up of soffets (sp?)
The view to one side of our hotel .Beautiful! Cobblestone streets everywhere in the town.
The street on the right side of our hotel
We were laughing when setting this picture up. You have the beautiful architecture and then this "Sex Shop" sign!
A beautiful hotel.
I took this picture to also show the flowers the run along the mid section of this. They don't show up here, but were bright red and looked wonderful!
Looking down the main street. If you like to shop, this place is for you. It is FULL of great shops.
This building had a lot more gold on the upper part, but I was shooting into light and if I tried to get more of it, the picture would black out.
From a Christmas store. Mom, maybe you know of this person? There were so MANY beautiful things, but these were all I could afford, they cost .75 euros each!
A picture across the square from where we sat and ate lunch.
A slightly different view. Mom, they all ride bikes here, you'd love it!
The castle up on the hill. We didn't have time to visit it. Next time.
Jess loved that the radio stations in Switzerland would show the name of the song and the artist. Pretty slick!
Siena
Siena
SienaOn Satuday morning I even managed to get up at 4:00 am to start off for Germany! We left about 5:40 am and didn't get to Heidelberg until about 10:30 that evening. the drive should have taken 10 hours, I added on another 2 for us stopping, but it took about 15 to get there because of a traffic jam in Switzerland. Everyone was coming home from their vacations. There is a loooooong tunnel in Switzerland when the road goes form 2 lanes into 1. That was what hung us up for two hours.
I really hated that tunnel because it pretty much cuts right through the Alps, so we missed seeing so much, though I am sure I would love it if I had to travel through Switzerland in the middle of winter when it was snowing like crazy.
Below is a picture of the border of Italy and Switzerland. They pretty much waved everything through. Of course when it came to our turn they waved us off to the side.. I swear, if there is any kind of security check, they see me and grin.
Luckily it wasn't a security check (though I had nothing to hide). Unluckily we had to buy a 30 euro sticker to to put on the windshield to allow to drive through Switzerland.
We were also mad because not ONE border stamped our passports. We were going to ask them to do that on the way home, but neither the German or Austrian border even had people there. Grrrr.
The border between Italy and Switzerland.
I could barely stand it once we got into Switzerland. I had been dying to see the Alps since I first started planning the trip to Italy. I was even considering flying into Zurich so that we could drive or take the train down into Italy when we first arrived in Europe. No wishy washy hills for me, I wanted to see MOUNTAINS!
One of our first glimpses of the Alps
A peek at some of the higher mountains in the distance
I love how the clouds hang
You would be driving and suddenly there would be littles waterfalls coming down the sides of the mountains!
As luck would have it, all of the peaks were covered by clouds that day, no sun or anything.. I missed the ALPS!! *LOL* I never used to feel like an unlucky person, but I have to tell you, I am starting to wonder if I left my luck in the US.
Unfortunately the day we went (and came back) All the peaks were covered in clouds. I was so mad!
A little village at the bottom of one of the mountains
We passed by an amazing lake, the water was green like you would see in the Caribbean. I would love to see it when it was sunny out.
It is starting to get late tonight, so I am going to just leave you with some pictures for now. I will get more into the adventure tomorrow. Enjoy!
What I am assuming was a glacial lake along the way. Unfortunately with the long drive we really didn't get a chance to stop and find out about any of these places. Next time!!
Any kind of open area was beatiful and green. This was the same in Germany. The color doesn't even begin to show how bright and green it really was.
I know this is blurry, but each one of the rectangular shapes was actually a window box shaped planter actually embedded in the side of the highway with plants or flowers growing it it. This was in Germany.
A sign in Germany.
Jess caught an amazing German sunset on film!
The view from the window of our hotel in Heidelberg, Germany. This was on the Neckar river.
Again, the view from our hotel window.
Amazing view!
A shot of our hotel room (for mom to see)
We saw several groups of people rowing against the current on the Neckar river.
A view of the front of our hotel. Our room was a floor highter, which was made up of soffets (sp?)
The view to one side of our hotel .Beautiful! Cobblestone streets everywhere in the town.
The street on the right side of our hotel
We were laughing when setting this picture up. You have the beautiful architecture and then this "Sex Shop" sign!
A beautiful hotel.
I took this picture to also show the flowers the run along the mid section of this. They don't show up here, but were bright red and looked wonderful!
Looking down the main street. If you like to shop, this place is for you. It is FULL of great shops.
This building had a lot more gold on the upper part, but I was shooting into light and if I tried to get more of it, the picture would black out.
From a Christmas store. Mom, maybe you know of this person? There were so MANY beautiful things, but these were all I could afford, they cost .75 euros each!
A picture across the square from where we sat and ate lunch.
A slightly different view. Mom, they all ride bikes here, you'd love it!
The castle up on the hill. We didn't have time to visit it. Next time.
Jess loved that the radio stations in Switzerland would show the name of the song and the artist. Pretty slick!
Sunday, August 21, 2005
WOW
That´s all I have to say about the ALPS, and we didn´t even get to see the good ones. 2 hour delay on the road, we thought there was some huge accident ahead, turns out to be everyone driving home from vacation and going from two lanes into one to get into this tunnel the was like 15 miles long. You bypass all the good stuff.
Anyway, the 10 hour trip we thought would take 12 for us turned into something like 15 hours! we got in at 10:30 pm. Luckily, since I didn´t have to secure with a credit card, I had written to let the hotel we would be in by late afternoon, but that we would be there.
Anyway, we xhanged the route and are coming back through Austria. Dang it, I plan to hit as many countries as I can.
Anyway, I am sitting at an internet cafe in Heidelberg, WE WANT TO LIVE HERE.
Man, stores like crazy here, siyes we can wear, even a couple of Subways!
Mom, you will go nuts with the Christmas stores. It will give you TONS of ideas of things to make. Will keep tou busy for years!
Anyway, it´s already almost 1 pm here, so I will be driving til like midnight. I am going to stop here and will write tomorrow sometime and have pictures of the trip too.
Bye!! Love Diana
Anyway, the 10 hour trip we thought would take 12 for us turned into something like 15 hours! we got in at 10:30 pm. Luckily, since I didn´t have to secure with a credit card, I had written to let the hotel we would be in by late afternoon, but that we would be there.
Anyway, we xhanged the route and are coming back through Austria. Dang it, I plan to hit as many countries as I can.
Anyway, I am sitting at an internet cafe in Heidelberg, WE WANT TO LIVE HERE.
Man, stores like crazy here, siyes we can wear, even a couple of Subways!
Mom, you will go nuts with the Christmas stores. It will give you TONS of ideas of things to make. Will keep tou busy for years!
Anyway, it´s already almost 1 pm here, so I will be driving til like midnight. I am going to stop here and will write tomorrow sometime and have pictures of the trip too.
Bye!! Love Diana
Friday, August 19, 2005
Just a bit sidetracked
I received a nice comment about people rooting for me back there, and not to give up the dream of living in Italy.
I just wanted to let you know that in no way I am giving it up. If I was, I would be heading back to the US.
Unfortunately the dream hasn't quite gone as I had planned. Money, as usual has gone much faster than I thought it would. I had also planned on getting a year student visa, which would allow me to work PT to supplement my money.
Well, the reality is, no student visa, which means that for now, we have to leave Italy by the 3rd of October. Also, since no student visa to work PT, no extra money. Going to Germany is only a temporary situation, to recharge the bank account etc. We were lucky enough to find a country where we could apply for a visa without going back to the US.
So don't worry, the dream is not even close to dead, it's just including some travel time to Germany!!!
Speaking of which, tomorrow morning, early, we are heading out to drive to Heidelberg, we'll be staying overnight in Germany, and driving back to Italy some time late Sunday. The hotel we are staying at has a wireless LAN, so hopefully we can get some pictures online of the trip.
Anyone that knows someone in Germany that can rent us a place to stay temporarily, speak up! I just spoke with a temporary housing agent from Heidelberg, no rentals for us unless I have a job and no places for cats. (Good grief, must EVERYTHING be so hard??) *LOL*
Here is a picture of Heidelberg in the fall (from an online site) :
Heidelberg - amazing!
I just wanted to let you know that in no way I am giving it up. If I was, I would be heading back to the US.
Unfortunately the dream hasn't quite gone as I had planned. Money, as usual has gone much faster than I thought it would. I had also planned on getting a year student visa, which would allow me to work PT to supplement my money.
Well, the reality is, no student visa, which means that for now, we have to leave Italy by the 3rd of October. Also, since no student visa to work PT, no extra money. Going to Germany is only a temporary situation, to recharge the bank account etc. We were lucky enough to find a country where we could apply for a visa without going back to the US.
So don't worry, the dream is not even close to dead, it's just including some travel time to Germany!!!
Speaking of which, tomorrow morning, early, we are heading out to drive to Heidelberg, we'll be staying overnight in Germany, and driving back to Italy some time late Sunday. The hotel we are staying at has a wireless LAN, so hopefully we can get some pictures online of the trip.
Anyone that knows someone in Germany that can rent us a place to stay temporarily, speak up! I just spoke with a temporary housing agent from Heidelberg, no rentals for us unless I have a job and no places for cats. (Good grief, must EVERYTHING be so hard??) *LOL*
Here is a picture of Heidelberg in the fall (from an online site) :
Heidelberg - amazing!
Sunday, August 14, 2005
Blockbuster Italian style!
Yeah!we went to Blockbuster today!
Before I write any more,make sure to read the entry under this one, it has pictures from the cemetary, etc.
Anyway,Blockbuster!!!We have movies. Ok, they are olderfor the US but I don't care,they are movies.... We rented Hostage, Hide and Seek and Alien Vs Predator.
Even though I knew my card number, it didn't work, as I figured. I had to start a new account which was just your name and address, and my drivers license showing I am who I am. Forget needing a major cedit card, she didn't even want proof of my address here.
They keep all movies behind the counter, all boxes on the wall are empty. We spoke with the girl behind the counter, she knew some English. She said they have the same problem with theft so they don't even use the locks, they just keep all DVDs in the drawers.
We bought taco chips, salsa and guacamole! (in a jar) who cares, it was great!
They have the same junk food by the counters, etc. The movies we got all said they had some sort of english version, hoping it is the audio and notjust subtitles. We will only be able to watch them on Jess' computer because they are region 2, so our DVD player will not be able to play it.
Jess is so happy she is even talking of coming home early and not partying all night, so she can watch movies... (sheesh!!)
EVERYTHING is closed in this town, with the exception of this internet cafe. Even the gas stations, you can get self serve, but the inside is not open. Tomorrow is a huge holiday, Ferragosto.
When we got gas, I used the wrong credit card and overdrew the US bank account. AAUUGHHH: There goes $30-$40 down the tubes.
Cats will also be eating spaghetti or something, we only have one can of food left for them, but a couple of cans of tuna. Poor things..
Ok, just rambling now, am going.
Yes! Just made a hotel reservation in Heidelberg for next Sat night. Here is a link to the hotel:
hotel in Germany
Before I write any more,make sure to read the entry under this one, it has pictures from the cemetary, etc.
Anyway,Blockbuster!!!We have movies. Ok, they are olderfor the US but I don't care,they are movies.... We rented Hostage, Hide and Seek and Alien Vs Predator.
Even though I knew my card number, it didn't work, as I figured. I had to start a new account which was just your name and address, and my drivers license showing I am who I am. Forget needing a major cedit card, she didn't even want proof of my address here.
They keep all movies behind the counter, all boxes on the wall are empty. We spoke with the girl behind the counter, she knew some English. She said they have the same problem with theft so they don't even use the locks, they just keep all DVDs in the drawers.
We bought taco chips, salsa and guacamole! (in a jar) who cares, it was great!
They have the same junk food by the counters, etc. The movies we got all said they had some sort of english version, hoping it is the audio and notjust subtitles. We will only be able to watch them on Jess' computer because they are region 2, so our DVD player will not be able to play it.
Jess is so happy she is even talking of coming home early and not partying all night, so she can watch movies... (sheesh!!)
EVERYTHING is closed in this town, with the exception of this internet cafe. Even the gas stations, you can get self serve, but the inside is not open. Tomorrow is a huge holiday, Ferragosto.
When we got gas, I used the wrong credit card and overdrew the US bank account. AAUUGHHH: There goes $30-$40 down the tubes.
Cats will also be eating spaghetti or something, we only have one can of food left for them, but a couple of cans of tuna. Poor things..
Ok, just rambling now, am going.
Yes! Just made a hotel reservation in Heidelberg for next Sat night. Here is a link to the hotel:
hotel in Germany
Saturday, August 13, 2005
15 minutes late to the end of the world
That's what we will be, when it happens.
Yesterday was our trip down past Naples, to the coast. I wanted to drive to Salerno, then bus toRavello, see the town, the Mediterranean(sp) and have a nice day. *LOL* Didn't I say that after the fiascos in Rome that I would only take tours of places, not try to do it on our own?? Yes, yes, you can call me all those names you are thinking of.
We were supposed to leave at 6 am, but there was no way I could crawl out of bed that early, so we ended up leaving about 9. It is about a 5 hour drive to where we were going, but I figured with the way speeds are on the autostrade, we could make good time.
Those of you who know Jess and I well are probably laughing. Driving anywhere always takes at least a couple hours longer than it should for us, we like to stop to see things, etc.
First stop, gas for the car. I was on half empty, and diesel cost me about 33 euros for that half tank, about $41 US dollars for 1/2 tank on the tiniest car known to man! (be glad you are only paying $2.40 a gallon, it costs at least $4.8 for diesel here, though the cars go WAAAY farther than American cars go on a tank of gas.) I grabbed a cafe (espresso) also, and water.
As we were passing Naples, I said to Jess, "wow, look at that mountain, that looks like a volcano!" "No, no, no, that's not a volcano." she says.
"YES! I remember reading that Naples lies in the shadow of MT Vesuvius(sp)".
After almost passing it, she agreed that maybe it looked like a volcano.
We managed to get lost getting to Salerno, and by then were bickering. We ended up taking a windy road down into some town, and parking on a hill and walking to the beach below.
It wasn't sunny, and you couldn' see too far out, and being grumpy, we weren't too impressed, which is bad, because I usually love everything about Italy. Either way, we went in and did some splashing in the water. We didn't have suits, but got our feet wet. Still, at this point we were pretty grumpy.
We started driving in the direction of Salerno, hoping to come across a sign to Ravello, but nothing. My first complaint about Italy, it can be so hard to find places. Even tourist spots, there is like one tiny sign on some side street, and that's it. Minimal advertising of some of the wonders of the world. *G*
We ended up giving up, and finally found our way back onto the autostrade, and back towards Naples. It was only about 4 pm, so I stopped to take a look at the map we had. I thought we could go to Pompeii, we should still have enough time.
I found the general direction to go, and off we went. The way we went ended up going north and the west around what we now knew was Mt Vesuvius.
Trying to find Pompeii, I noticed a sign pointing to the volcano. No way that I was going to pass up driving up a volcano! Of we went, with Jess mentioning that she really didn't like volcanoes too much, and when we started up the side of it, along twisty turny roads, she was NOT thrilled.
Before we had started up, we had noticed that there was a pretty big cloud (or fog) starting to cover the top of it, but figured that as long as we were there we'd keep going.
After probably 15-20 minutes of driving in second gear most of the time, and first around the corners, we got as far up as the road would allow us. This was like a major tourist trap area, figures of tiny volcanoes made out of what looked like lava and spray painted luminous colors of green, orange, red. Books, calendars, you name it. Preeeetttty tacky.
Even an ashtray made out of what looked like volcanic ash or rock, with a marijuana leave painted on it he inside in glow in the dark green paint. (Sorry Nick, I was going to get it for you, but I was pretty sure that you had outgrown that phase.) :-)
After parking, we could see that there was a path leading up to what we figured was the mouth of the volcano. You couldn't really see anything unless you went up there, so we went to buy tickets.
"Sorry, the man at the gate says.. We're closed."
"What time is it?" I ask him.
"6:15." he says.
"What time do you close?" I ask?
"6:00" he answers.
Groaning, we head back to the car, by way of a gift shop where Jess buys a book about Pompeii that has clear sheets that go over pictures of the now ruins, that would show what Pompeii looked like before it was covered with volcanic ash.
Did I mention that we paid 2.5 euros to park? UGH!
Anyway, driving back down the road there were a couple of spots where you could pull off the road and see where the volcanic ash/mud/ whatever you called it was, which was pretty cool as the clouds/fog was moving down into the valley. Also driving down you could catch glimpses of the lava fields, but I was really dissapointed that I didn't get to go up to the mouth of the volcano and look in.
Anyway, again, I should know by now to book tours to these types of things.
After stopping along the road, we noticed a tour bus coming down that said Pompeii on it.
"Follow that bus!" said Jess..... and we did.
It ended up stopping in the middle of some suburban street where we almost hit the back end of it, and were forced to pull back, and keep going down the street. We finally gave up trying to find Pompeii... no signs anywhere, and went to get back on the autostrade. While paying our 15th 1.40 euro toll of the day, we asked the man at the booth where Pompeii was. He said to head back towards Salerno... UGH....
So back again we went, and low and behold, a SIGN that said here was the exit to Pompeii. YES!
I had heard somewhere that it was open until 1/2 hour after dusk, so I knew we had time.
We actually found Pompeii! We parked along another really touristy road of souveniers(sp) and walked up to the entrance. They had audio tours you could rent, and I figured that would be the way to go. We went up and I asked the man in the booth how much for the audio tour, and he said 6.50 euro, 10 for the both of us. Great! I asked Jess if she wanted one too, because at first she said she didn't want one, and she said "sure, why not."
"We'll take two!" I told the man.
At which point he says. "Oh, but the site is closed for the evening."
"Excuse me?" i said.
"Yes, can't you see the ticket office is closed?"
I said. "Ok, but I know for a fact that you are open until 1/2 hour after dusk."
"Sure," he said but the entrance is closed at 6 pm and everyone has to be out of the site by 7:30.
With a sigh I ask: "What time is it now?"
"6:15" he says.
I figured it would be.
Off we went, to drive the 5 hours back to Perugia.
Did I mention that we would only go places with a tour guide from now on?
Did I also mention that we are driving 6 hours up to the border of Italy and France tomorrow to ride up on a cable car thingy to the top of Mont Blanc which is on the border, and you can see the Alps from there?
Wish us luck...............
One thing that happened in Perugia while we were gone. I guess about 6 police came into the internet place we used, were checking what was on the computers, asking people for papers etc. I would have been pretty scared if I had been there. They had their big uzi(sp) type guns out and everything. They want the owner to copy down the name and address of everyone who used a computer, but I don't know if he will be doing that. Can you imagine what a headache that would be and how it could drive business away. But then again, the police have a very legitimate reason for doing this. My guess is that many internet places have been where people involved in terrorism have gone. It would make sense.
We also have some pretty big news about us. It looks like we will be heading to Germany to live next. I don't see anyway of staying here after our 90 days are up on Oct 3rd. The questura (police) says no to extending our tourist visas, plus I see no job in sight and our money is starting to run out fast.
Our sources tell us Germany is a good place to be able to stay, looks like we can get a one year visa. Also, both Germany and Austria allow you into the country first, and then you can apply for a visa, so we won't have to go back to the US like we would if we wanted to stay in Italy. There is some sort of agreement that we can do it from within the country, so that rocks.
I really wanted to go to Austria, but I kept reading about the muggings in Vienna, and the crime etc, it made me nervous. We have gotten REALLY used to being able to pretty much walk around Perugia any time day or night and feel pretty safe.
I don't think Salzburg will be a big enough place for me to be able to get a job in IT. So Germany it is, at least as of today! :-)
Heidelberg Germany has two huge companies that hire IT people, I THINK at least one of them American, one a huge software company.. I put in my resume there yesterday. I just started reseachign the whole Heidelburg thing a day ago, so things could change, but as of now, that is where we are planning to go.
I know Heidelberg has a big US military presence there, which does not thrill me in the least, but I really need somewhere we can settle for a bit and replenish our funds. Plus the rent here Perugia is killing me, about $750 US a month, I know we can get places for much less.
Anyway......
Here is the picture of my snail from dinner a few nights ago:
Now this is a slow trav meal
Some other odds and ends of pictures we've taken:
Kitty - AKA "Devil Cat" (note mom, she is in the fountain that is up in our bedroom of the apt.)
A now demure, unpossessed(sp) Kitty in the fountain.
Gizzy, only half possessed in the fountain.
We finally got back to the cemetary with cameras this time. Jess took some in black and white that need to be developed, these are some I took with the digital. Have I ever said how much I love that little camera? It takes great pictures.
Please make sure you double click on these pictures to see larger views, they are beautiful.
One of the walls of tombs. Notice all the flowers, both fresh and silk. People come every week and replace flowers, clean graves etc... Pretty amazing.
A row of above ground tombs. Again, notice all the flowers!
An example of the statues all over the cemetery.
An example of one of the family crypts or mausoleums(sp)Many have figures carved into it or statues outside, in the middle is the gated door into it. There is usually an alter for candles, pictures of the deceased, flowers etc. I have seen praying benches inside also.
the inside of the previous picture
One of the beautiful carvings.
A closer loook.
The view along one of the walkways.
Inside another, to show that many of the tombs have pictures of the deceased, obviously before they died.
Some of the plainer graves that are in the center of the cemetery. In the background you see part of one of the long covered walkways that have some of the ornate tombs.
Some of the carvings, though beautiful, also have a haunting, even scary feel to them, like this one.
A view down the walkway, there is one on each side of the smaller graves in the center of the cemetery, to the right in this picture is where each family has their vault and carvings, etc.
The ceilings along these walkways are painted blue, with gold stars.
One of my favorites. It looks like part of her gown had been painted at one time.
A different view of her.
Although still amazing to look at, the carvings of the people themselves who had died are sometimes a little uncomfortable to look at, not sure why, but they are.
You can see how ornate the whole area can be.
A closer view of the last picture, notice how the angel is repeated and fades out along the marble next to it.. Amazing....
These stairs lead down to an underground room the length of the walkway, with tombs in the wall on both sides, nothing ornate, but like the ones outside (the first picture I showed)that just have urns for flowers on them. It was too late in the day for the pictures I took underground to show.
A closeup of another of the beautiful statues
Another view down one of the side paths.
Amazing tiles on one of the outside mausoleums.
Some of the "less ornate" graves. Jess said they belonged to miltary, but I am not sure where the information came from....
No words could do this justice.
The whole view of the previous statue
Again, beautiful in an unnerving way.
Any of the pictures not shown here are on Jess' photo album. Here's the link:
http://journals.aol.com/itvixen/RomePictures/
Make sure to click on guest if you want to see larger images of her photos.
Yesterday was our trip down past Naples, to the coast. I wanted to drive to Salerno, then bus toRavello, see the town, the Mediterranean(sp) and have a nice day. *LOL* Didn't I say that after the fiascos in Rome that I would only take tours of places, not try to do it on our own?? Yes, yes, you can call me all those names you are thinking of.
We were supposed to leave at 6 am, but there was no way I could crawl out of bed that early, so we ended up leaving about 9. It is about a 5 hour drive to where we were going, but I figured with the way speeds are on the autostrade, we could make good time.
Those of you who know Jess and I well are probably laughing. Driving anywhere always takes at least a couple hours longer than it should for us, we like to stop to see things, etc.
First stop, gas for the car. I was on half empty, and diesel cost me about 33 euros for that half tank, about $41 US dollars for 1/2 tank on the tiniest car known to man! (be glad you are only paying $2.40 a gallon, it costs at least $4.8 for diesel here, though the cars go WAAAY farther than American cars go on a tank of gas.) I grabbed a cafe (espresso) also, and water.
As we were passing Naples, I said to Jess, "wow, look at that mountain, that looks like a volcano!" "No, no, no, that's not a volcano." she says.
"YES! I remember reading that Naples lies in the shadow of MT Vesuvius(sp)".
After almost passing it, she agreed that maybe it looked like a volcano.
We managed to get lost getting to Salerno, and by then were bickering. We ended up taking a windy road down into some town, and parking on a hill and walking to the beach below.
It wasn't sunny, and you couldn' see too far out, and being grumpy, we weren't too impressed, which is bad, because I usually love everything about Italy. Either way, we went in and did some splashing in the water. We didn't have suits, but got our feet wet. Still, at this point we were pretty grumpy.
We started driving in the direction of Salerno, hoping to come across a sign to Ravello, but nothing. My first complaint about Italy, it can be so hard to find places. Even tourist spots, there is like one tiny sign on some side street, and that's it. Minimal advertising of some of the wonders of the world. *G*
We ended up giving up, and finally found our way back onto the autostrade, and back towards Naples. It was only about 4 pm, so I stopped to take a look at the map we had. I thought we could go to Pompeii, we should still have enough time.
I found the general direction to go, and off we went. The way we went ended up going north and the west around what we now knew was Mt Vesuvius.
Trying to find Pompeii, I noticed a sign pointing to the volcano. No way that I was going to pass up driving up a volcano! Of we went, with Jess mentioning that she really didn't like volcanoes too much, and when we started up the side of it, along twisty turny roads, she was NOT thrilled.
Before we had started up, we had noticed that there was a pretty big cloud (or fog) starting to cover the top of it, but figured that as long as we were there we'd keep going.
After probably 15-20 minutes of driving in second gear most of the time, and first around the corners, we got as far up as the road would allow us. This was like a major tourist trap area, figures of tiny volcanoes made out of what looked like lava and spray painted luminous colors of green, orange, red. Books, calendars, you name it. Preeeetttty tacky.
Even an ashtray made out of what looked like volcanic ash or rock, with a marijuana leave painted on it he inside in glow in the dark green paint. (Sorry Nick, I was going to get it for you, but I was pretty sure that you had outgrown that phase.) :-)
After parking, we could see that there was a path leading up to what we figured was the mouth of the volcano. You couldn't really see anything unless you went up there, so we went to buy tickets.
"Sorry, the man at the gate says.. We're closed."
"What time is it?" I ask him.
"6:15." he says.
"What time do you close?" I ask?
"6:00" he answers.
Groaning, we head back to the car, by way of a gift shop where Jess buys a book about Pompeii that has clear sheets that go over pictures of the now ruins, that would show what Pompeii looked like before it was covered with volcanic ash.
Did I mention that we paid 2.5 euros to park? UGH!
Anyway, driving back down the road there were a couple of spots where you could pull off the road and see where the volcanic ash/mud/ whatever you called it was, which was pretty cool as the clouds/fog was moving down into the valley. Also driving down you could catch glimpses of the lava fields, but I was really dissapointed that I didn't get to go up to the mouth of the volcano and look in.
Anyway, again, I should know by now to book tours to these types of things.
After stopping along the road, we noticed a tour bus coming down that said Pompeii on it.
"Follow that bus!" said Jess..... and we did.
It ended up stopping in the middle of some suburban street where we almost hit the back end of it, and were forced to pull back, and keep going down the street. We finally gave up trying to find Pompeii... no signs anywhere, and went to get back on the autostrade. While paying our 15th 1.40 euro toll of the day, we asked the man at the booth where Pompeii was. He said to head back towards Salerno... UGH....
So back again we went, and low and behold, a SIGN that said here was the exit to Pompeii. YES!
I had heard somewhere that it was open until 1/2 hour after dusk, so I knew we had time.
We actually found Pompeii! We parked along another really touristy road of souveniers(sp) and walked up to the entrance. They had audio tours you could rent, and I figured that would be the way to go. We went up and I asked the man in the booth how much for the audio tour, and he said 6.50 euro, 10 for the both of us. Great! I asked Jess if she wanted one too, because at first she said she didn't want one, and she said "sure, why not."
"We'll take two!" I told the man.
At which point he says. "Oh, but the site is closed for the evening."
"Excuse me?" i said.
"Yes, can't you see the ticket office is closed?"
I said. "Ok, but I know for a fact that you are open until 1/2 hour after dusk."
"Sure," he said but the entrance is closed at 6 pm and everyone has to be out of the site by 7:30.
With a sigh I ask: "What time is it now?"
"6:15" he says.
I figured it would be.
Off we went, to drive the 5 hours back to Perugia.
Did I mention that we would only go places with a tour guide from now on?
Did I also mention that we are driving 6 hours up to the border of Italy and France tomorrow to ride up on a cable car thingy to the top of Mont Blanc which is on the border, and you can see the Alps from there?
Wish us luck...............
One thing that happened in Perugia while we were gone. I guess about 6 police came into the internet place we used, were checking what was on the computers, asking people for papers etc. I would have been pretty scared if I had been there. They had their big uzi(sp) type guns out and everything. They want the owner to copy down the name and address of everyone who used a computer, but I don't know if he will be doing that. Can you imagine what a headache that would be and how it could drive business away. But then again, the police have a very legitimate reason for doing this. My guess is that many internet places have been where people involved in terrorism have gone. It would make sense.
We also have some pretty big news about us. It looks like we will be heading to Germany to live next. I don't see anyway of staying here after our 90 days are up on Oct 3rd. The questura (police) says no to extending our tourist visas, plus I see no job in sight and our money is starting to run out fast.
Our sources tell us Germany is a good place to be able to stay, looks like we can get a one year visa. Also, both Germany and Austria allow you into the country first, and then you can apply for a visa, so we won't have to go back to the US like we would if we wanted to stay in Italy. There is some sort of agreement that we can do it from within the country, so that rocks.
I really wanted to go to Austria, but I kept reading about the muggings in Vienna, and the crime etc, it made me nervous. We have gotten REALLY used to being able to pretty much walk around Perugia any time day or night and feel pretty safe.
I don't think Salzburg will be a big enough place for me to be able to get a job in IT. So Germany it is, at least as of today! :-)
Heidelberg Germany has two huge companies that hire IT people, I THINK at least one of them American, one a huge software company.. I put in my resume there yesterday. I just started reseachign the whole Heidelburg thing a day ago, so things could change, but as of now, that is where we are planning to go.
I know Heidelberg has a big US military presence there, which does not thrill me in the least, but I really need somewhere we can settle for a bit and replenish our funds. Plus the rent here Perugia is killing me, about $750 US a month, I know we can get places for much less.
Anyway......
Here is the picture of my snail from dinner a few nights ago:
Now this is a slow trav mealSome other odds and ends of pictures we've taken:
Kitty - AKA "Devil Cat" (note mom, she is in the fountain that is up in our bedroom of the apt.)
A now demure, unpossessed(sp) Kitty in the fountain.
Gizzy, only half possessed in the fountain.We finally got back to the cemetary with cameras this time. Jess took some in black and white that need to be developed, these are some I took with the digital. Have I ever said how much I love that little camera? It takes great pictures.
Please make sure you double click on these pictures to see larger views, they are beautiful.
One of the walls of tombs. Notice all the flowers, both fresh and silk. People come every week and replace flowers, clean graves etc... Pretty amazing.
A row of above ground tombs. Again, notice all the flowers!
An example of the statues all over the cemetery.
An example of one of the family crypts or mausoleums(sp)Many have figures carved into it or statues outside, in the middle is the gated door into it. There is usually an alter for candles, pictures of the deceased, flowers etc. I have seen praying benches inside also.
the inside of the previous picture
One of the beautiful carvings.
A closer loook.
The view along one of the walkways.
Inside another, to show that many of the tombs have pictures of the deceased, obviously before they died.
Some of the plainer graves that are in the center of the cemetery. In the background you see part of one of the long covered walkways that have some of the ornate tombs.
Some of the carvings, though beautiful, also have a haunting, even scary feel to them, like this one.
A view down the walkway, there is one on each side of the smaller graves in the center of the cemetery, to the right in this picture is where each family has their vault and carvings, etc.
The ceilings along these walkways are painted blue, with gold stars.
One of my favorites. It looks like part of her gown had been painted at one time.
A different view of her.
Although still amazing to look at, the carvings of the people themselves who had died are sometimes a little uncomfortable to look at, not sure why, but they are.
You can see how ornate the whole area can be.
A closer view of the last picture, notice how the angel is repeated and fades out along the marble next to it.. Amazing....
These stairs lead down to an underground room the length of the walkway, with tombs in the wall on both sides, nothing ornate, but like the ones outside (the first picture I showed)that just have urns for flowers on them. It was too late in the day for the pictures I took underground to show. 
A closeup of another of the beautiful statues
Another view down one of the side paths.
Amazing tiles on one of the outside mausoleums.
Some of the "less ornate" graves. Jess said they belonged to miltary, but I am not sure where the information came from....
No words could do this justice.
The whole view of the previous statue
Again, beautiful in an unnerving way.Any of the pictures not shown here are on Jess' photo album. Here's the link:
http://journals.aol.com/itvixen/RomePictures/
Make sure to click on guest if you want to see larger images of her photos.
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