Archive for 2007
Wednesday
08:02
Catching up
yes, i’m back. and now on my own computer.
the flight home wasn’t bad, just long. i read Is Belief in God Good, Bad, or Irrelevent?, by Preston Jones and Greg Graffin. it’s a colletion of discissions between two educated men – one a professor at a christian university, the other the frontman for punk band bad religion – on science, religion, naturalism, and christianity. good book.
i could have definitely stayed in europe longer. i wouldn’t say i got home sick, but of course i did miss friends and family. but since i had to come home, i’m glad the journey is over.
i’ll write some quick thoughts about the trip…
overall, it was great. i’m so glad i went and that it finally happened. i know it was a short trip, but it’s a start and i look forward to all the future ones.
london – i enjoyed this city, but the expensiveness sort of put a damper on it. seeing a price, and knowing it cost double in dollars isn’t very fun. but it’s a nice city and it’s interesting to see how they do things….the english spin on, well, english, and so many other things in common with america. the people were nice. the food….not bad.
amsterdam – in a way, it is the party city people expect….but that’s mostly downtown. people smoke all over, can walk down the street with beer in hand, and yeah there’s that red light district. but uptown is different – it’s mellower, and filled with museums. there’s really a lot more culturally than i expected to amsterdam. bikes rule in this town, and with it being so small and bike-friendly, it’s easy to see why. just about everyone speaks english, and amsterdam knows how to do breakfast and dessert.
paris – my favorite city of the trip. the french aren’t as bad as some made them out to be. most speak english, and once you attempt some french, they’ll open up with the english. like anthony said…for a business, it’s cute at first to try to attempt to speak french, but they want to get you in and out, so they’ll go straight to english and that helps move things along quickly. there’s so much to see and do there, and the metro is quite efficient and effective. the pastries were great here, and the food overall was good too.
cinque terre – i’m definitely coming back here. this was my favorite area of the trip, but for different reasons than paris. it’s so laid back there, and friendly. the scenery is amazing, it’s really something to see in person. each of the the five towns has its charms, but monterosso remains my favorite for now. the people were super friendly, and most spoke english. the food here was the best…so fresh. from walking the trails, to enjoying the beaches, to cliff diving, to simply relaxing with a gelato, there’s a lot to do for the outdoors person here. the weather was perfect during my stay – never too cold for a tshirt, but not miserably hot either.
rome – well there sure is a lot to see here. unfortunately, i wasn’t as impressed as i’d hoped i’d be with rome. the city sure seems dirty, and well the people can be rude – certainly different than my northern italy experience. the metro is a mess, and there’s graffiti everywhere. the food….eh, nothing better than i’ve had in the states. i think part of that problem was that i just didn’t know the right places to go. the ruins were the highlight here. the tour i took really made the visit much more rewarding, with so much learned while i was walking the vatican, and from the colosseum to the pantheon.
i realize what i had was only a brief introduction to those cities and that there’s so much more to all of them and europe as a whole, but i’m grateful for the start and i’m now much more prepared for another europe visit, or any internatational getaway really.
there’s a lot more to the trip than the quick paragraphs above, so if you’d like to know more, just ask.
i’m working on the pictures now and will have those ready for travelmates soon, and i’ll try to have an online gallery up in a few days. i’ll update this post with a link to that once it’s ready.
Tuesday
08:18
I’m baaaaaack
at lax, waiting to be picked up.
and the same supermullet I saw at heathrow followd us home. that guy is business in front and a party of epic proportions in the back.
more once I get home.
Tuesday
06:55
Time to cross the pond
yep, security measures sure are tougher flying into the united states. I’m at the gate now, we board in a few minutes for the 10.5 hour flight home.
sheraton skyline hotel: good location for air travel, bad location for anything else. nice pool and superfantastic beds.
its 14:50 here but already I’m thinking in LA time so the adjustment is easier.
I like bbc news.
it’s been fun, europe.
back home soon.
Monday
09:28
Ciao, Roma
homeward bound, the incredible journey.
rome repubblica metro station (above) -> ciampino airport -> london gatwick -> sheraton hotel near london heathrow.
just finished up the day roaming in rome. went to the ara pacis…it was closed grrr. wish the guidebook has said that. then took the metro for the first time here in rome to the circo massimo. walked around there, through the forum area again and to the colosseum. took the metro back to pick up our bags at th hotel and now we’re off to london.
the rome metro is dirty. at least line b sure is.
Sunday
16:25
Gypsy away!
I’m watching 24. kinda funny with the italian dubbing. but now that’s off, its 130 am, so I’m just winding down with some minus the bear on the ipod and this. I thought about going down to the coloseum area for some night shots, and I’d like to do that, but am just too beat.
I didn’t even do a whole lot today. slept in a bit, then had breakfast here at the hotel with everyone. I wanted to check out nearby tivoli for hadrian’s villa…but staying in town won over that half-day trip. we walked to a rick steves recommended restaurant near the pantheon and it was pretty good. then back to giolitti’s for more gelato.
diana and I angered a pizza-pushing gypsy today. after, we thought of all the ways she may seek to exact revenge for our not falling for the let’s-advertise-this-deal-in-the-window-but-then-try-to-force-the-more-expensive-option scheme.
we’re all poor. everyone has less than 10 euro to last the next couple days. we went to the market for dinner tonight….mcdonalds last night. bad, I know. but brigitte, i’m happy to report your generous donation did indeed help for finer dining on the trip, and lunch today.
i’m ready to be home now. not because I’m sick of europe/this trip – if I could stay longer I would. but because the next two days are just gonna be a long process just to get home. we fly to london tomorrow night, then to la the following afternoon, it’d just be nice to fast forward through all that.. we don’t have much time in london, but that’s just as well cause everything is $$ there.
tomorrow during the day will be a nice chance to get in some final roman exploration for this trip. I’m dumb for not noticing the national museum is closed on monday…..I wanted to see that. but ill try to check out the ara pacis at least, i’d like to see that.
time for sleep.
Saturday
09:05
Russel Crowe walked here
yep, we’re sightseeing. we signed up for an all day walking tour of rome and the vatican, and it was great. our tour guide was awesome, she really knows her stuff and made the experience much more rewarding than it’d have been without the guidance. we started at the vatican with the museum, then st peter’s, then moved over to the colosseum, through the forum and up to the pantheon.
we’re walking back to the hotel now. I probably shouldn’t be blogging and walking.
It’s been pretty cool to see all this stuff today. I filled up my second 2gb card a little while ago. good thing I have a 1gb spare card left.
Friday
22:36
When in Rome…it’s hot in the summer
I just remembered I missed the best ska show ever a couple nights ago in hollywood. I’m still kinda bummed about that, but aye…if I’m gonna miss it at least its for something good like touring rome.
and that’s a picture from my first monumental stop here. a whole lotta people selling crap there I tell ya. so if you can get past that and all he tourists, its a nice sight to see.
I got to rome on aug 2 and here it is the morning of the 4 i’m writing this. had another bit of a hostel problem. we arrived to gulliver’s hostel (again, it looked nice and was well ratedv on hostelworld.com) and the first thing I noticed that I didn’t like was that we don’t get out own bathrooms in the room. maybe I had been spoiled by our past hostels because they had that, even if the rooms sleep 6-9 people. so whatever. next issue was ”quiet time after 11pm”. hmmmm, oooookay, again something new but fine. tho that wasn’t mentioned online. so after being kicked out the common room shortly after 11 I had to tiptoe past the sleeping roommates to get to sleep. sorry teeth, you don’t get brushed cause I’m too nice than to make all that racket and wake people up by digging through my stuff to find a toothbrush. sleep the night, wake up sweaty. yeah, not the ideal sleeping conditions in there, a wee bit warm. oh yeah, no power outlets in the room either. if you want to charge stuff, it goes out in the common areas. 12-4pm? can’t be there, lock out period. soo all those things plus some other minor issues make me want to leave. kelvin was willing to stay, but I was adament about it. so we moved to the hotel where anthony was staying. unfortunately it’s costing us a little more of our rapidly depleting money, bit it’s worth it. maybe I’m spoiled, but I couldn’t stand that place and I wasn’t about to let it bring down my trip. if it had been like the previous hostels i’d have have been fine. anyway…
so yesterday was kind of a slow day spend resolving the accomodations issue, resting, then some sightseeing at night, and meeting with anthony’s group for dinner. today is gonna involve a walking tour seeing a lot of sights over the course of 7 hours. and its gonna be a billion degrees and humid, oh joy. but i’ll say hi to the pope for ya at the vatican.
oh, and vince…yep, i’m sure savoring the gelato while I’m here. i’m pretty much going at two or three a day since I’ve entered italy. if its possible to get sick from too much gelato, i’ll find out. favorite flavors so far: strawberry, pistatio, and tiramisu.
Thursday
08:18
In transit
I’m on a train. does that mean I’m training?
good ol tiger army providing the tunes right now.
left monterosso at around 1230 after a relaxing morning. tansferred at la spezia and again at pisa. itd have been neat to stop to see the tower there, but that’ll have to wait for another time.
prices in ct were pretty good I must say. two gusti (scoops) of gelato in a cone was only 1.50 euro…seems fair. err…1,50 euro. at the bazaar there was a punk rock belt going for 8 euro, so about 12 dollars. no way you’d see that for less than 20 dollars in the states.
ct is one of those i’ll-definitely-come-back-here places, along with the paris. the other cities were great, but ct and paris have made that mark on me most of all. i’m sure others could tell me how much more ”authentic” ct was in years past with less tourists (its still not that bad really), blah blah, but I really liked the place and that’s what counts.
I’ve heard mixed things on rome, but am looking forward to it. as nerdy as it sounds, I can’t wait to see in person so many (more) things that interest me that i’ve only seen in textbooks/tv.
I think I’ve got a hour or so left on here, should be in rome around 6pm. today needs to be another laundry day.
Thursday
01:43
Blogging on the beach
its a little after 8am here. I got up early to take a last dip in the ligure sea before leaving ct. on the five minute walk from door to sand i picked up a brioche for a snack. ill swim out to those rocks. brought the goggles this time, lots of little fish and things to see down there. the water is prety clear, and not even cold. it’s brighter than it looks in the picture, but still the sun hasn’t quite hit this part of the beach yet. in a few hous this beach willl be packed.
yesterday did the hike from vernazza to corniglia. its rated to take 1.5 hours. well I had us a take a detour about 2/3 of the way into it for a sota secret beach maked by an obscure trail and small sign. its was a 20 minute hike down a steep hill through through this brush and low clearances to it….kinda tough but adventerous at the same time. well….it turned out to be a naturalist beach. yeah, a nude beach. and that means mostly old men. so we started to go back up the crazy hill back to the main trail when we ran into a friendly aussie who pointed us to a nearby tunnel that would take us to corniglia. well it sure did just that, but in a long, dark, scary tunnel that we had to pay 5 euro to cross. it looked like a good setting for a horror movie. but it saved some serious effort and time.
we made our way to manarola and that place was fun. i’ll tell you why…cliff diving. yep, did a bit of that. ~35 feet doesn’t seem all that intimidating when you’re on the ground, but from the top of it looking down and about to jump, it’s effing freaky, esp for my first time doing such things. and of course my response after was ”that wasn’t so bad”. got it on video, maybe it’ll make youtube.
so I’ve seen all five towns of cinque terre. I like monterosso best for sure, followed by manarola and riomaggio. all are nice one way or another really.
we check out of here soon, then its time to rome it up.
but first, time for a swim.