Day 103: Switzerland via Paris over night.
Kill us. A LONG day is an understatement. 8am on board the bus. 10:30pm arrival in Paris. Not much happened in between. A rainy start to the morning, then it got hot, then cold again. The weather could not make up its mind. We donated our copy of Grown Ups for the bus to enjoy – it killed a couple of hours.
Once we arrived in Paris we were grateful to get off the bus and stretch our legs, to shower, and to be able to lie in our dorm and enjoy the silence and the comfy bed. During the night it got a little chilly – so it was nice to curl up under the doona. This may seem like the normal thing to do, but it’s funny, because when we woke up in the morning, Totti informed me that she had been so cold that she took the pillowcase off her pillow and used that as a blanket. I found this extremely odd, and then I laughed. “You do realise the doona was folded under your pillow” The look on her face was priceless, she could have poked my eyes out, having discovered that she could have had a very warm and comfortable night’s sleep. I have done and said some pretty retarded things, it’s nice to know she’s human too :p
Day 104:
Another day on the bus...we were ready to throw punches at this stage. Two days of consecutive cramped travel is not fun. Conversations get about as interesting as informing each other of our various aches and pains, and the need to use the loo desperately. Basically its whinging, but it’s the general bus conversation, besides the occasional knowing look I get from Totti, followed by her scrunching up her nose to inform me that I need to pinch mine, as she has farted. Again. I can’t bring myself to stretch over the seat and punch her, so I satisfy myself with burying my face in my hoodie waiting for the smell to waft on. The bus rides do suck, but they are the most convenient and inexpensive way to get around.
We stopped briefly in Bern and admired the bear cubs strolling along the river before hopping back on the bus towards Lauterbrunnen, to camp JungFrau (A thankyou!). It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and we got to admire the snow on the alps and the forest surrounding our campsite on the drive in. It looks like something out of a fairytale – little gingerbread houses dotted the green hills, there were waterfalls, cliff faces and it was really green.
We got ourselves checked in and dumped our stuff in our room. We claimed the two top bunks – the bottom one had been occupied by someone already, but they weren’t there. By this time we were well hungry and keen to try some of the local food called Rosti – basically it’s just a potato bake, and they make it with all different stuff; we opted for the cheese and tomato one, and also ordered a Schnitty to share, YUMO!.
With full stomachs, we wondered back to our little cottage hostel and settled in for the night. A couple of good solid hours of sleep before our rowdy housemate enters the room drunk – now we’ve all been here. Drunk and disorderly, stinking of alcohol, babbling shit a bit louder than you really think – as it happens, Ela and I were awoken by our fellow hosteller, however, we were expecting only 1 voice. Enter male voice.....WTF....Ela and I sit quietly pretending to be asleep. WTF. Male and female enter bottom bunk bed and begin making out. WTF. Meanwhile, Ela and I stay completely still. WTF. Heavy breathing, some slurpy sounds (no longer just making out sounds), really heavy breathing. Skanky girl: “We probably shouldn’t be doing this....I don’t know these people”. Male and female: Laughter. Ela & Kate’s minds: NOT FUNNY. YOU SKANK, WE DON’T KNOW YOU EITHER! .........1hr later........some nasty comments were made by skanky girl (inappropriate for parental viewing). The end of the story is that the two drunk people were having an amazing time on the bottom bunk whilst Ela and I lay in shock. They finally leave the room to have a “shower” – also known as Round 2. Totti: “Ela....are you awake?” Ela: “YES. OMG. WTF dude.” We both laughed pretty hard before drifting off back into our sleep...hopefully without nightmares.
Day 105:
We couldn’t help but smirk at each other as we woke the next morning. We finally caught a glimpse of our pornstar roomie, sprawled on her bunk, naked underneath her blankets. How did we know she was naked? Her STI infested g-banger was draped nicely over Totti’s thongs. LOL! Her thongs probably had Chlamydia. Lucky she showered her thongs on.....now she just probably has Tinea (forgive the spelling).
We booked ourselves in to do a ropes course for the day, so we waited at the entrance of the campsite and watched the paragliders land on the hills while we waited for our bus to take us to Seilpark. We got harnessed up and were given a quick rundown of the do’s and don’ts and we were off. We decided to start with the medium level course to get ourselves accustomed to being active again. 4 months on inactivity does catch up on you, but we did surprisingly well for our first go and decided to try something a little harder. We zip lined and climbed and made Tarzan noises in the forest, yelled at inanimate obstacles for making us feel physically inferior. We then tried the black run, the hardest course to choose from. It literally took us about an hour to get through this one. It was killer. The fist obstacle was a single wire to walk across while holding onto a green barrel. FML. It was the most physically challenging thing we have both attempted in a very long time. The black course was held up in the trees 30 metres above the ground. There is no instructors with us – we were on our own, just us and our harnesses. The hardest obstacle on this course was a set of horse shoe rings tied to wire about 5 metres long that we had to get across. Pulled groins, cramping, blistered hands we finally made it across. The next obstacle (also one of the hardest ones) was a bunch of swinging logs which ascended into a stair case – this really hurt our upper body as we had to pull ourselves up the logs. It was a great achievement to finish this course – we were well pleased with ourselves and a lot of the other ropers were congratulating us.
We finished all 6 of the courses in 5 hours. Pretty impressive, however our bodies didn’t think so! We caught the train back to camp and cooked up a storm in the company of our fellow bus-about travellers and skanky girl....who turned out to be pretty nice, bless her!
We decided we really needed to do some washing so we gathered our clothes and headed to the laundry room. We stole some washing powder off someone who had left theirs lying around and we were just about to load our clothes in the washed when a polite Aussie man said “Oi, ya know you can do a cheaper load of washing around the corner for 3 swiss franks rather than 5 swiss franks here?” oooo we love cheaper stuff. So us being the tight arses that we are opted for the cheap wash. FAIL. The machines were seriously from the Roman times. We decided not to judge the well loved machines and give them a go. 45 minutes later....we went to check on our washing. Well....they were washed, but they were dripping wet. Stupid machine didn’t have a frickin spin cycle. FML. So we decided to just eff it and put them in the dryer and hope for the best. 45 minutes later....we went to check on our clothes but all the dryer had done was steam our clothes in a stinky wet clunk of clothes. BOOOO... Fuck our clothes...we took them out and dumped them on the floor and decided we’d deal with them in the morning.
Zzzzzzz.....
Day 106:
We woke to a rainy Swiss day and felt as if we had climbed Mt Everest yesterday. The need for two bacon and egg rolls was required, so we wobbled to the market and got some supplies. Mmmm delicious. We were now prepared to take on the rainy day. What to do...what to do? Well....we started with fixing our washing. We ditched the old machines and used the new ones....they came with a spin cycle! Yeyah! The rain didn’t stop us doing activities....we did a brief hike up to the main waterfall near the campsite – it was pretty. After our hike we wandered into town to take some photos...we stopped at a little cafe which also took bookings for activities – we love activities. The list read something like this: Skydive, Canyoning, Rafting, Bungee jump, Paragliding, HORSE TREKKING. We both turned to each other and said “HORSE TREKKING...YUP!” So within minutes we were booked in on a horse trek through the Swiss Alps so we dashed back to our campsite – dumped our clean and dry washing and ran to the train station.
We arrived at the horse stables keen to get riding. I’d never ridden a horse before, so I was lucky enough to ride along behind the instructor with a rope connecting my horse to hers. Totti trotted along like a pro next to me, exclaiming “Nice training wheels”. Nice. The turd. After a while I got to ride alone, woo. The scenery was amazing – we rode past open fields at the base of the alps, through forest, up mountains, past a huge golf course, through farm land and finally came to stop at the edge of a huge lake which reflected the mountains above. Spectacular. Instead of taking photos of this lovely view, Totti filmed her horse drinking....I suggested she might like to take some photos of the lake.......might be an idea....LOL! She was mighty proud of this little video, a cinematic masterpiece.
We trotted our way back to the stables just in time – the rain started falling thick and fast, we were grateful to be on the train, discussing our sore bums and the fact that we smelled of horse. Yummy! This added to our already stiff and bruised bodies and we were looking forward to having a hot shower before dinner. We were over tomatoes in general, so we decided to try and make our next plate of pasta a little more interesting. We bought a bag of frozen veggies and decided to fry them up with some garlic, chilli, olive oil and wine. In theory it tastes delicious – but apparently frozen veggies all taste the same; like NOTHING. So our dinner disappointed and we retired back to our rooms, packed our bags for another long bus ride in the morning, and relaxed while watching Shrek 4. Do the ROAR! Bless 5 euro pirated dvd’s :) We were zonked and didn’t even make it an hr into the movie. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Yodel a hi to your dad for us!
Love Kate & Ela xxxxxx
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Ole!
Day 94:
Well we ate our words. Apparently being in transit is very interesting indeed. It’s called missing your first Bus About out of Nice and having to book a train to Barcelona instead. It also means that your suitcase made it onto the bus without you (assuming we would have actually made it onto our bus, we saved ourselves the trouble of lugging our souvie bag with us to the hostel and left it on our bus), it also means that your train to Barcelona is delayed because there has been a train crash on your track. Wow. Can today get any worse? YUP. Before we were told that there was a delay, we had made ourselves quite comfy on THE WRONG TRAIN. Luckily Totti asked a kind old man if we were on the right train literally minutes before it departed. Who knows where we would have ended up! But by the way today is going, who knows if we will ever even make it to Barcelona.
While back on the platform we somehow managed to get stuck with a fellow who spoke English but was actually “Italian”, dressed like he belonged in a 50 cent video, yo. He would have been nice enough, had he understood the concept of personal hygiene – apparently he missed the memo on the introduction of the deodorant can into society. Pungent, stinging of the nostril area/region. Dry retching sensations. Cough. We could not get rid of our stinky little friend, he followed us onto the train and sat across from us. We’re pretty sure we gave ourselves away with the old “We’re going to get food excuse” – taking all our luggage may have given it away. We are still trying to figure that one out. However I feel Totti’s disguise is very stealthy – she is now wearing a banana peel for a hat. It’s amazing. You wouldn’t even be able to tell it was her. I just opted to sit in my seat and hope for the best. Original, I know. On the plus side I the air is much fresher down these parts. I wish we had a portable can of Glen 20. Or spray sanitiser – perhaps we are breaking into a new product to put on the market for travellers who get stuck in stinky situations. That, plus crap!
6 hours later.................annoyed. Arrived in some crap hole of a town called Monetpiller – soooooooooooooo, because our train was delayed (remember the crash....on a train track.....no oncoming traffic or sharp turns...how does your train possibly crash?), we lined up and hoped for the best. Yay tickets. Big shout out to the nice French man who loved Australia, he sold us our tickets to Barcelona.....................well not directly, we had to change trains at this place called “Port Bou” (imagine a perfect French pronunciation). Totti and I look up at the departures board – we do not see this Port Bou he speaks of. We both turn around to him and ask, with our finest, nasal Aussie accent - “Ohhhhh, ya mean Port Boo?” . He stared blankly back at us, and replied most unimpressed in his finest French – “Oui......Port Bou” (emphasis on Bou).
To Port Boo. The most shocking train ride ever with the most deranged assortment of human kind we have ever seen. We assumed the foetal position and hoped that we did not contract a random strand of herpes from sitting on the seats. Just a little side note here – Totti had been wanting to brush her teeth the entire time we had been on the train since Nice, and still had not got the chance. After three hours nature called, she couldn’t hold her pee any more, I wished her luck and told her not to sit on the seat, as she may become impregnated. She returned with a look of purest disgust on her face, she slumped down next to me. I asked her how it was.......she replied with exasperation “I want my mum”. She proceeded to empty the contents of her sanitiser and scrubbed every inch of bare skin she had. So no, she did not brush her teeth – she did not want to expose her toothbrush for fear of contracting Chlamydia of the mouth. She would also like everyone to know that she is not pregnant either. A thankyou.
We finally arrived in Port Bou – we were on the home stretch. 5 hrs to go. FML. Needless to say not much happened on this train ride. It was boring. We hated life, and wanted to die. There were tears off all descriptions, tears of anger, tears of joy, tears of tiredness. Just tears, ok! That is all. 12:30am – FINALLY, Barcelona! We caught the metro to our hostel, Barcelona Dream. We are grateful that we booked a private room – if we had a shared dorm it would have just topped off the last 14 miserable hours. So grateful for our own space, a shower, and a BED!!!!! We would also like to inform you that our suitcase arrived safe and sound, and we would be picking it up in the morning.
We shall now erase this day from our memories, and never speak of it again. EVER! Goodnight!
Day 95:
We took advantage of the fact that we didn’t have anywhere to be, and slept it until about 10:30 – well deserved we feel. We then took LONG showers and relished the fact that we were disease free! We decided to take it easy and caught the metro into the city centre, wondered up and down the main street and decided it was time to try some Tapas. Yumo! We went to pick up our suitcase and stopped by the supermarket to buy some hair dye – we were both starting to look too much like rangas; desperate times called for desperate measures!
We booked ourselves into a flamenco show for the evening, which would end in some tapas and a lot of Sangria. With our hairs newly died, we weren’t so ashamed of sticking our faces out in public, so we made our way to the meeting point and waited to be taken to the Flamenco dance studio for our first dose of tapas and homemade Sangria.
Smoked salmon and cream cheese, salami and cheese, olives tapas and sangria awaited us at the studio. We stood around chatting to our fellow Flamenco tour mates – we met a group of 5 Canberran’s and shared our travel stories. We then got taught the basic steps of a Flamenco dance – the clapping was a highlight!
Well tipsy, we made our way to the Flamenco show. TIP: If in Spain, definitely go to a Flamenco show. The dancing was spectacular as was the live band. Lots of clapping, booty shaking and stamping of the feet. We left the show inspired to become a Flamenco dancer – Totti practiced her moves all the way to the next pub.
At the next pub we enjoyed a mixture of traditional tapas and more sangria....and more sangria...and more sangria. As with most European countries we have visited, there are always Ethopian friends who approach us at the pubs and try and sell knick knacky crap really. There has been one particular item which always catches our eye – it’s just a piece of plastic with a rubber band which flashes in neon colours and they shoot up into the sky and catch it. It’s really shiny – we like shiny things. Anyways....Totti asked the man how much...he said $10 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $7 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $5 euro...Totti said $2 euro....he said $3 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $2 euro and the deal was done. Meanwhile, the whole table was enthralled by Totti’s bargaining skills and pissing themselves laughing. The other funny thing was that when Totti went into her wallet to get the $2 euro, she didn’t have any coins. So everyone pitched in and collectively bought the shiny helicopter toy. Soooooo..... it didn’t last long. First attempt at shooting the thing into the sky failed epically. Straight into the concrete. The helicopter was no more. That was even funnier!!!!
While trekking to the next pub, I think we created one of the most memorable quotes of the entire trip. Who knows how the subject came up, but it did. Totti innocently, yet excitedly turned to me, and exclaimed “Dude! You know those ladies...In Japan, The Quiches?!” All the while she was nodding her head enthusiastically while I just sort of stood there and let these words wash over me, before I actually registered what she meant... I was in the longest fit of laughter I literally struggled to get out my response. “DUDE!!!!! They’re called GEISHAS!!!” Oh my, we laughed all the way to the next pub. I often wonder what goes through that head of hers, and occasionally these little delightful, golden nuggets pop out. Priceless!
By this stage we had become fairly acquainted with our show buddies so we decided to hit the town of Barcelona and fuck shit up. There was imitation Flamenco, and some super awesome ghosting, mock break dancing and making shadow puppets on the dj’s projector screen. We got home at 5am...that is all.
Day 96:
It was a struggle to wake up this morning....... We almost threw in the towel and were tempted to forego the Barcelona bike tour for some more sleep, but, because we are awesome and can back up a big night with a four hour bike tour in the sweltering 35 degree heat, we opted to shower and made our way into town to the Fat Tyre Bike Tour meeting point.
Bike tours are an awesome way to see the main attractions in major cities like Barcelona. The tour guides are all really cool and make the historical element of the tour fun and interesting to listen to. Barcelona is a really beautiful city and has made it onto the favourites list for sure. We ended our tour by stopping at the Barcelona beach – where apparently you get the best Sangria you’ve ever tasted. We cringed at the thought of even coming near the stuff; we’d definitely had our fill the previous night. We opted for a coke and a smoothie!
That night we went back to the first pub from the night before and we got to see how they make traditional Paella and we also got to learn how to make Sangria. It was a good way to spend our last night in Barcelona and it was sad to have to say goodbye so soon. We went back to our hostel and packed our gear; we were determined NOT TO MISS OUR BUS the nest morning.
Day 97:
When an alarm sounds at 5:30am, it’s going to be a long day no matter what. We were out the door and walking the empty streets by 6:30am and headed to Barcelona Sound – the pick up point for the Bus About. We made it there by 7am and ate cereal while watching cartoons and used their free wifi. Fairly happy with our efforts so far, we were confident that at least today, nothing would go wrong :p And just in case you were wondering, nothing did. We sat on our bums all the way to Valencia (one of the rest stops and next drop off point).
We had 45 minutes to stop, revive, survive. To us girls that just means: go and find food and be back before the bus leaves lol. We came across a small cafe and sat outside while waiting for our meals. Totti entertained me with a matinee performance, her rendition of Shakira’s “wakka wakka” world cup song. As usual I was in hysterics. We soon noticed she had an audience other than myself. These two seedy feral men were gawking at her from the table behind us. To our horror one of them approached our table and asked us in Spanish if he could join us. After sitting in an awkward silence for about 10 seconds, Totti came up with “No, you can’t sit with us! What the fuck are we going to talk about!”. I completely lost it - LOL. We feel he got the gist, as he returned to his seat and did not bother us again. We were soon back on the bus – destination: Madrid.
We arrived in Madrid in the early evening and checked into the Mad Hostel – it’s a cool little hostel with a big common room. We roomed with 2 German lads who were backpacking on their own. They were pretty nerdy so we befriended them – Totti was amused that one of them owned a Ernie towel and once they had left the room, she quickly checked to see if the other one had a Bert towel. Fail! Lol.
Feeding our faces full of carbs for the past 3 wks is starting to take its toll on our little bodies and we were in desperate need for some asian influenced deliciousness. Ah...the Bangkok restaurant – thai delights. We made our way back into town and located the thai restaurant – not disappointed at all. We both enjoyed a red curry with fried rice and spring rolls.
Day 98:
We had a good sleep in today – about 9:30ish and decided that we would go do a tour of the RealMadrid football stadium: Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. The stadium was amazing – it was enormous. We did a walk through the trophy cabinet, the history of Real Madrid Club, the playing pitch, the benches, the dressing rooms...you name it, we saw it. It was really a highlight of our Spain trip – so many legends have played on this pitch. Definitely worth the 16 euro to do the tour.
It was time for food...again. So we made our way to Fresco Co restaurant. Pretty much the Spanish version of Sizzler – all you can eat and drink for $8.95 euro. The food wasn’t spectacular but there was lots of it and it did the job! We filled in the rest of the day chatting to people at our hostel common room and catching up with technology.
In the evening we decided we wanted to try some more Paella – we had seen this little restaurant which had pictures of Paella out the front – yes, we like pictures! So off we trotted. Totti got the black rice seafood paella and I had the vegetarian regular paella. The black rice one was delicious. Mmm....we love rice.
On our travels to and from our hostel we had passed a theatre which was advertising a Flamenco Ballet show called Carmen. We decided to pop our heads in to check the prices....5 minutes later and we had booked in for the 9pm session. We dashed back to our hostel, showered and prepared ourselves for the theatre.
What an awesome show! OMG....these guys danced their butts off – it was a good story line too. The show went for 2hrs (no interval) and they danced the whole time, spectacular.
We made our way back to our hostel...again, inspired to become flamenco dancers and we practised our moves all the way home.
Zzz....
Day 99:
We had a very lazy day today and just decided to wonder around the streets and see what we could find. Madrid is well known for its art scene and it has a lot of museums....we didn’t feel much like doing that – yes, we are bad tourists, we know. We did however venture past the Palace of the current royal family. Wow. Both of our houses could have fitted into their front courtyard about 7 times each – the place was ENOURMOUS! We were at a loss for what else to see, we came across a mall and decided to have a gander. It occurred to us that we had not been mall rats since we were in the states, so we were long overdue to peruse some mass produced goods. We spent a while just doing what you do in malls. What to do next? We decided that we’d get back in touch with the world and go and watch a moooooooooooooovie. So we hunted down the closest movie complex and bought two tickets to the new Angelina Jolie flick, Salt. Good show indeed. She’s a kick ass spy!
We wondered on back to our hostel via the supermarket – we decided we’d cook ourselves dinner tonight. Penne and cherry tomato pasta, yumo. The kitchen was so dodgy though, there was only one hot plate and a three person line in front of us. It seemed like we were never going to eat. When we finally got our turn and put the pot on to boil, Totti literally stood in front of the pot and stared at it, trying to use Jedi powers to make it boil. She stood there for about 20 minutes. FINALLY, dinner!! Sorry to our parents, but our table manners were completely neglected on this occasion, we ate right out of the pasta pot. We promise we have adopted a sense of propriety on every other occasion, but tonight was a special case. After all, we are well seasoned back packers. You gotta do what you gotta do! We made friends with some fellow Aussie lads and discussed the finer points of approaching girls as a European boy, and as an Aussie boy. We proffer the latter. The guys were shocked at how confronting Europeans are in bars and clubs, our Aussie boys are by far more of a gentleman. We also gave them our left over pot of pasta – we managed to overcook and couldn’t finish it all. They were very grateful for the feed and offered to marry us. Bless their souls lol.
Tonight we stayed in and packed our gear to get ready for our next leg of the trip; travel to San Sebastian. We are looking forward to this – we get to go and see a bull fight! As gory and intense as this is going to be, they are starting to ban them in Spain, and might not be around for much longer, so we thought that we would get in on the tradition before it’s not longer around.
Day 100:
We can’t believe it’s already a hundred days since we left. We went back and read a little bit of the blog from America and it seems like such a long time ago. It’s starting to dawn on us how much we have actually done and how much we have seen. The next few weeks are as jam packed as anything, and we are sure that they will fly by; we will be resuming our “normal” lives again in no time. Parents, you can officially begin the countdown – we will be gracing your presence with our excellent company in 31 days exactly.
The majority of today was spent on the road; a brief stopover in Valencia, then on to San Sebastian. A small beachside town in the Basque Country region of Spain; they have their own dialect and they also speak French. We arrived late in the afternoon and were told that we had arrived on the last night of a week- long festival, complete with a fireworks display coordinated by the people who did the Sydney Olympics – wew! We were taken to our little apartment room and had the afternoon to just chill out. It was schmelting hot and it looked like it was going to be a great night to do our Pintox (San Sebastian version of Tapas) Tour & Pub Crawl.
We decided to go in search of a supermarket, typical. We soon hunted one down and stocked up on some pasta, tinned tomatoes and bacon. We also thought we’d find something to have some pre drinks with; because we are now seasoned wine connoisseurs, we found a 50c bottle of Rose. Really broke the bank on that one! We headed back to our apartment and cooked up some pasta as a pre-pintox entree (they are all mostly sea food), and then headed down to meet the rest of the Bus About gang to begin our domination of San Sebastian. The local drink here is a mix made with half red wine and half coca cola – not too bad at all! In most other regions in Spain the local drink is Sangria, but in San Sebastian it’s *insert name here*.
We had a good time sampling the pintox and drinking the wine and coke. After we’d finished in the first bar, we went outside to find a parade in the main square. They had these huge figurines which we thought would be fun to ghost, so we did. We were also very mature and lifted up their skirts, and tried to perve on their non- existent bums. The photos are pretty funny. We cracked open our very expensive bottle of rose and carried on to the next bar. We’d just like to add, as a side note, that we are in fact not trash bags – it is perfectly acceptable to drink in the streets in San Sebastian and many other places in Europe, so we weren’t the only ones! We have learned two variations of scissor, paper, rock on our travels. The first one we learned all the way back on our venetian trail was called Bear, Ninja, Cowboy. But tonight, I think we learned the best game ever: Crocodile, Stingray, Steve. Enough said. We both wet our pants laughing, and proceeded to play this game for about half an hour. Entertainment plus! Rules: Steve beats the crocodile, Crocodile beats stingray, and last but not least – the stingray beats steve. LOL!
The Pintox sampling was forgotten, sooner than anticipated, and our little night out just turned into a pub crawl. Outside this one bar, we met a Mel Ho look alike, also from Australia. However, we would like to inform the original Mel Ho that she is way cooler than her look alike, just in case she was wondering. Any way, so we made friends with Mel (who’s name is not actually Mel, but we can’t remember her real name. So, for all intensive purposes, she is now Mel), and then we started a game of street soccer and dominated the locals – yeah-yuh! After 3.5 months we still have a kick ass first touch, even when intoxicated. I think by this stage we had moved onto Rum and Coke – one thing we will miss about the drinks here is that they free pour everything, definitely bang for your buck!
The streets were packed with hundreds of people having a great night. We worked our way to the main bridge to watch the fireworks, still more people, and a small carnival on the water’s edge attracted all the small kids and their parents. Totti made friends with a local lady who in the end wanted to adopt her. Their conversation went a little like this: Totti “So, are you on holidays here in San Sebastian?” Lady “Oh no, we live here”..........................5minutes later, between doing some kangaroo hopping and playing with some small kids, Totti returns, full of renewed enthusiasm and asks innocently “So, how long are you in San Sebastian for?” The lady politely replied “Oh no no, we live here”...............5minutes later “So, how long is your holiday here?” FAIL!!!! This went on for about 15 more minutes. LOL. The lady was absolutely lovely however, and humoured us, and continued to answer the same questions very politely. Bless.
The fireworks display did indeed live up to the hype, and completely kicked the crap out of the below par performance in Nice on Bastille Day. Not exactly sky fire, but it was up there. After the fireworks, we said goodbye to our San Sebastian family (did they mention they live there?) and wondered towards the beach party. We didn’t make it very far; it was pretty much all 14 year olds off their chops.
We decided to call it a night and headed back to our hotel......this took rather longer than usual, but we eventually made it back safe and sound :) Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Day 101:
We had a bit of a sleep in and with 2 sore heads we headed to the Information Centre to get ourselves orientated. We have been looking forward to seeing a bull fight since we arrived in Spain – the only fight on Sundays and so we thought today would be perfect weather and good day for a bull fight. The lady at the information centre kindly informed us that yes, bullfighting had been on ALL week EVERY day and yesterday was the last day. FML. So, yet again, we arrived a day late and missed out on seeing a bull fight. Boooooooooooo.
So we decided to punish ourselves by going on a massive hike up to the top of the San Seb hill to check out the view. Dehydrated, tired, headache, hungry, sweat, stink – we finally made it to the top. It was an awesome view of San Seb. There was even a water tap so we drank some so we didn’t faint in the heat. We headed back down the mountain in search of some breakfast/brunch...actually it was kinda lunchtime.
The rain soon set in for the afternoon, and with full belly’s and the opportunity to just do nothing – we watched a movie and chilled out in our hostel. We had some more pintox for dinner – a lot of the Pintox is made with really fresh seafood. It’s pretty easy to pick the ones which have seafood, well unless you’re a re-tard like Ela. First pick: A ball of crumbed, fried fish – a bit like a fish cake. FAIL. Second pick: A fish infested omelette. FAIL. She forced herself to eat it on principal. I happily enjoyed my sundried tomato and cheese and sausage pintox. YUMMO!
Day 102:
What to do, what to do? We decided to go into the new town and do some shopping. We did the regular stops – H&M, Zara, Bershka, Mango. I came away with a singular pair of leggings, woot. Totti ended up buying a shirt, some leggings and a new jump suit. All shopped out, we were ready to go home – we decided that we were sick of eating stupid service stop food, so we were determined to cook up a storm tonight, so that we’d have awesome leftovers for our huge, endless bus ride to Paris the following day. We stopped at a food stall and stocked up on some fresh veggies: Fried Rice for dinner! We also picked up some fresh cherry tomatoes and some more spaghetti. Before going back to the hostel, we took a detour via the body piercing place – Totti watched and relished the fact that this old woman was about to jab a needle through my tragus. Luckily she doused it in this freezing spray before she skewered my ear, she wasn’t exactly gentle. Yes mummy, another hole in my face. Sorry. It could be worse.
Iron chef, look out. We got back to the hostel and dominated the kitchen – it smelled awesome and we were looking forward to the fact that we’d have some deliciousness to take with us on the bus tomorrow. We then ate.....and sat......ate some more.....We were feeling like we’d been rather lazy today, so we forced ourselves to leave the comfort of the big squishy couch and went to buy half a litre of ice cream.................it was the only way we could get a container big enough to store our lunch for the next day :p excuses, excuses – the ice cream was delicious. We walked down to the beach side as people food stalked our ginormous tub of strawberry and chocolate yuminess!
Once back on the couch we reflected on the fact that we had actually eaten our weight worth in food; the only salvaging thought was that we should enjoy it while we could. Once back home we are going on a healthy diet of oxygen and h20. We packed our bags, showered and prepared for our early morning departure to Paris. Ni night!!!!
Say Adios to your Papa for us,
Love Kate & Ela xxx
Well we ate our words. Apparently being in transit is very interesting indeed. It’s called missing your first Bus About out of Nice and having to book a train to Barcelona instead. It also means that your suitcase made it onto the bus without you (assuming we would have actually made it onto our bus, we saved ourselves the trouble of lugging our souvie bag with us to the hostel and left it on our bus), it also means that your train to Barcelona is delayed because there has been a train crash on your track. Wow. Can today get any worse? YUP. Before we were told that there was a delay, we had made ourselves quite comfy on THE WRONG TRAIN. Luckily Totti asked a kind old man if we were on the right train literally minutes before it departed. Who knows where we would have ended up! But by the way today is going, who knows if we will ever even make it to Barcelona.
While back on the platform we somehow managed to get stuck with a fellow who spoke English but was actually “Italian”, dressed like he belonged in a 50 cent video, yo. He would have been nice enough, had he understood the concept of personal hygiene – apparently he missed the memo on the introduction of the deodorant can into society. Pungent, stinging of the nostril area/region. Dry retching sensations. Cough. We could not get rid of our stinky little friend, he followed us onto the train and sat across from us. We’re pretty sure we gave ourselves away with the old “We’re going to get food excuse” – taking all our luggage may have given it away. We are still trying to figure that one out. However I feel Totti’s disguise is very stealthy – she is now wearing a banana peel for a hat. It’s amazing. You wouldn’t even be able to tell it was her. I just opted to sit in my seat and hope for the best. Original, I know. On the plus side I the air is much fresher down these parts. I wish we had a portable can of Glen 20. Or spray sanitiser – perhaps we are breaking into a new product to put on the market for travellers who get stuck in stinky situations. That, plus crap!
6 hours later.................annoyed. Arrived in some crap hole of a town called Monetpiller – soooooooooooooo, because our train was delayed (remember the crash....on a train track.....no oncoming traffic or sharp turns...how does your train possibly crash?), we lined up and hoped for the best. Yay tickets. Big shout out to the nice French man who loved Australia, he sold us our tickets to Barcelona.....................well not directly, we had to change trains at this place called “Port Bou” (imagine a perfect French pronunciation). Totti and I look up at the departures board – we do not see this Port Bou he speaks of. We both turn around to him and ask, with our finest, nasal Aussie accent - “Ohhhhh, ya mean Port Boo?” . He stared blankly back at us, and replied most unimpressed in his finest French – “Oui......Port Bou” (emphasis on Bou).
To Port Boo. The most shocking train ride ever with the most deranged assortment of human kind we have ever seen. We assumed the foetal position and hoped that we did not contract a random strand of herpes from sitting on the seats. Just a little side note here – Totti had been wanting to brush her teeth the entire time we had been on the train since Nice, and still had not got the chance. After three hours nature called, she couldn’t hold her pee any more, I wished her luck and told her not to sit on the seat, as she may become impregnated. She returned with a look of purest disgust on her face, she slumped down next to me. I asked her how it was.......she replied with exasperation “I want my mum”. She proceeded to empty the contents of her sanitiser and scrubbed every inch of bare skin she had. So no, she did not brush her teeth – she did not want to expose her toothbrush for fear of contracting Chlamydia of the mouth. She would also like everyone to know that she is not pregnant either. A thankyou.
We finally arrived in Port Bou – we were on the home stretch. 5 hrs to go. FML. Needless to say not much happened on this train ride. It was boring. We hated life, and wanted to die. There were tears off all descriptions, tears of anger, tears of joy, tears of tiredness. Just tears, ok! That is all. 12:30am – FINALLY, Barcelona! We caught the metro to our hostel, Barcelona Dream. We are grateful that we booked a private room – if we had a shared dorm it would have just topped off the last 14 miserable hours. So grateful for our own space, a shower, and a BED!!!!! We would also like to inform you that our suitcase arrived safe and sound, and we would be picking it up in the morning.
We shall now erase this day from our memories, and never speak of it again. EVER! Goodnight!
Day 95:
We took advantage of the fact that we didn’t have anywhere to be, and slept it until about 10:30 – well deserved we feel. We then took LONG showers and relished the fact that we were disease free! We decided to take it easy and caught the metro into the city centre, wondered up and down the main street and decided it was time to try some Tapas. Yumo! We went to pick up our suitcase and stopped by the supermarket to buy some hair dye – we were both starting to look too much like rangas; desperate times called for desperate measures!
We booked ourselves into a flamenco show for the evening, which would end in some tapas and a lot of Sangria. With our hairs newly died, we weren’t so ashamed of sticking our faces out in public, so we made our way to the meeting point and waited to be taken to the Flamenco dance studio for our first dose of tapas and homemade Sangria.
Smoked salmon and cream cheese, salami and cheese, olives tapas and sangria awaited us at the studio. We stood around chatting to our fellow Flamenco tour mates – we met a group of 5 Canberran’s and shared our travel stories. We then got taught the basic steps of a Flamenco dance – the clapping was a highlight!
Well tipsy, we made our way to the Flamenco show. TIP: If in Spain, definitely go to a Flamenco show. The dancing was spectacular as was the live band. Lots of clapping, booty shaking and stamping of the feet. We left the show inspired to become a Flamenco dancer – Totti practiced her moves all the way to the next pub.
At the next pub we enjoyed a mixture of traditional tapas and more sangria....and more sangria...and more sangria. As with most European countries we have visited, there are always Ethopian friends who approach us at the pubs and try and sell knick knacky crap really. There has been one particular item which always catches our eye – it’s just a piece of plastic with a rubber band which flashes in neon colours and they shoot up into the sky and catch it. It’s really shiny – we like shiny things. Anyways....Totti asked the man how much...he said $10 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $7 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $5 euro...Totti said $2 euro....he said $3 euro...Totti said $2 euro...he said $2 euro and the deal was done. Meanwhile, the whole table was enthralled by Totti’s bargaining skills and pissing themselves laughing. The other funny thing was that when Totti went into her wallet to get the $2 euro, she didn’t have any coins. So everyone pitched in and collectively bought the shiny helicopter toy. Soooooo..... it didn’t last long. First attempt at shooting the thing into the sky failed epically. Straight into the concrete. The helicopter was no more. That was even funnier!!!!
While trekking to the next pub, I think we created one of the most memorable quotes of the entire trip. Who knows how the subject came up, but it did. Totti innocently, yet excitedly turned to me, and exclaimed “Dude! You know those ladies...In Japan, The Quiches?!” All the while she was nodding her head enthusiastically while I just sort of stood there and let these words wash over me, before I actually registered what she meant... I was in the longest fit of laughter I literally struggled to get out my response. “DUDE!!!!! They’re called GEISHAS!!!” Oh my, we laughed all the way to the next pub. I often wonder what goes through that head of hers, and occasionally these little delightful, golden nuggets pop out. Priceless!
By this stage we had become fairly acquainted with our show buddies so we decided to hit the town of Barcelona and fuck shit up. There was imitation Flamenco, and some super awesome ghosting, mock break dancing and making shadow puppets on the dj’s projector screen. We got home at 5am...that is all.
Day 96:
It was a struggle to wake up this morning....... We almost threw in the towel and were tempted to forego the Barcelona bike tour for some more sleep, but, because we are awesome and can back up a big night with a four hour bike tour in the sweltering 35 degree heat, we opted to shower and made our way into town to the Fat Tyre Bike Tour meeting point.
Bike tours are an awesome way to see the main attractions in major cities like Barcelona. The tour guides are all really cool and make the historical element of the tour fun and interesting to listen to. Barcelona is a really beautiful city and has made it onto the favourites list for sure. We ended our tour by stopping at the Barcelona beach – where apparently you get the best Sangria you’ve ever tasted. We cringed at the thought of even coming near the stuff; we’d definitely had our fill the previous night. We opted for a coke and a smoothie!
That night we went back to the first pub from the night before and we got to see how they make traditional Paella and we also got to learn how to make Sangria. It was a good way to spend our last night in Barcelona and it was sad to have to say goodbye so soon. We went back to our hostel and packed our gear; we were determined NOT TO MISS OUR BUS the nest morning.
Day 97:
When an alarm sounds at 5:30am, it’s going to be a long day no matter what. We were out the door and walking the empty streets by 6:30am and headed to Barcelona Sound – the pick up point for the Bus About. We made it there by 7am and ate cereal while watching cartoons and used their free wifi. Fairly happy with our efforts so far, we were confident that at least today, nothing would go wrong :p And just in case you were wondering, nothing did. We sat on our bums all the way to Valencia (one of the rest stops and next drop off point).
We had 45 minutes to stop, revive, survive. To us girls that just means: go and find food and be back before the bus leaves lol. We came across a small cafe and sat outside while waiting for our meals. Totti entertained me with a matinee performance, her rendition of Shakira’s “wakka wakka” world cup song. As usual I was in hysterics. We soon noticed she had an audience other than myself. These two seedy feral men were gawking at her from the table behind us. To our horror one of them approached our table and asked us in Spanish if he could join us. After sitting in an awkward silence for about 10 seconds, Totti came up with “No, you can’t sit with us! What the fuck are we going to talk about!”. I completely lost it - LOL. We feel he got the gist, as he returned to his seat and did not bother us again. We were soon back on the bus – destination: Madrid.
We arrived in Madrid in the early evening and checked into the Mad Hostel – it’s a cool little hostel with a big common room. We roomed with 2 German lads who were backpacking on their own. They were pretty nerdy so we befriended them – Totti was amused that one of them owned a Ernie towel and once they had left the room, she quickly checked to see if the other one had a Bert towel. Fail! Lol.
Feeding our faces full of carbs for the past 3 wks is starting to take its toll on our little bodies and we were in desperate need for some asian influenced deliciousness. Ah...the Bangkok restaurant – thai delights. We made our way back into town and located the thai restaurant – not disappointed at all. We both enjoyed a red curry with fried rice and spring rolls.
Day 98:
We had a good sleep in today – about 9:30ish and decided that we would go do a tour of the RealMadrid football stadium: Estadio Santiago Bernabeu. The stadium was amazing – it was enormous. We did a walk through the trophy cabinet, the history of Real Madrid Club, the playing pitch, the benches, the dressing rooms...you name it, we saw it. It was really a highlight of our Spain trip – so many legends have played on this pitch. Definitely worth the 16 euro to do the tour.
It was time for food...again. So we made our way to Fresco Co restaurant. Pretty much the Spanish version of Sizzler – all you can eat and drink for $8.95 euro. The food wasn’t spectacular but there was lots of it and it did the job! We filled in the rest of the day chatting to people at our hostel common room and catching up with technology.
In the evening we decided we wanted to try some more Paella – we had seen this little restaurant which had pictures of Paella out the front – yes, we like pictures! So off we trotted. Totti got the black rice seafood paella and I had the vegetarian regular paella. The black rice one was delicious. Mmm....we love rice.
On our travels to and from our hostel we had passed a theatre which was advertising a Flamenco Ballet show called Carmen. We decided to pop our heads in to check the prices....5 minutes later and we had booked in for the 9pm session. We dashed back to our hostel, showered and prepared ourselves for the theatre.
What an awesome show! OMG....these guys danced their butts off – it was a good story line too. The show went for 2hrs (no interval) and they danced the whole time, spectacular.
We made our way back to our hostel...again, inspired to become flamenco dancers and we practised our moves all the way home.
Zzz....
Day 99:
We had a very lazy day today and just decided to wonder around the streets and see what we could find. Madrid is well known for its art scene and it has a lot of museums....we didn’t feel much like doing that – yes, we are bad tourists, we know. We did however venture past the Palace of the current royal family. Wow. Both of our houses could have fitted into their front courtyard about 7 times each – the place was ENOURMOUS! We were at a loss for what else to see, we came across a mall and decided to have a gander. It occurred to us that we had not been mall rats since we were in the states, so we were long overdue to peruse some mass produced goods. We spent a while just doing what you do in malls. What to do next? We decided that we’d get back in touch with the world and go and watch a moooooooooooooovie. So we hunted down the closest movie complex and bought two tickets to the new Angelina Jolie flick, Salt. Good show indeed. She’s a kick ass spy!
We wondered on back to our hostel via the supermarket – we decided we’d cook ourselves dinner tonight. Penne and cherry tomato pasta, yumo. The kitchen was so dodgy though, there was only one hot plate and a three person line in front of us. It seemed like we were never going to eat. When we finally got our turn and put the pot on to boil, Totti literally stood in front of the pot and stared at it, trying to use Jedi powers to make it boil. She stood there for about 20 minutes. FINALLY, dinner!! Sorry to our parents, but our table manners were completely neglected on this occasion, we ate right out of the pasta pot. We promise we have adopted a sense of propriety on every other occasion, but tonight was a special case. After all, we are well seasoned back packers. You gotta do what you gotta do! We made friends with some fellow Aussie lads and discussed the finer points of approaching girls as a European boy, and as an Aussie boy. We proffer the latter. The guys were shocked at how confronting Europeans are in bars and clubs, our Aussie boys are by far more of a gentleman. We also gave them our left over pot of pasta – we managed to overcook and couldn’t finish it all. They were very grateful for the feed and offered to marry us. Bless their souls lol.
Tonight we stayed in and packed our gear to get ready for our next leg of the trip; travel to San Sebastian. We are looking forward to this – we get to go and see a bull fight! As gory and intense as this is going to be, they are starting to ban them in Spain, and might not be around for much longer, so we thought that we would get in on the tradition before it’s not longer around.
Day 100:
We can’t believe it’s already a hundred days since we left. We went back and read a little bit of the blog from America and it seems like such a long time ago. It’s starting to dawn on us how much we have actually done and how much we have seen. The next few weeks are as jam packed as anything, and we are sure that they will fly by; we will be resuming our “normal” lives again in no time. Parents, you can officially begin the countdown – we will be gracing your presence with our excellent company in 31 days exactly.
The majority of today was spent on the road; a brief stopover in Valencia, then on to San Sebastian. A small beachside town in the Basque Country region of Spain; they have their own dialect and they also speak French. We arrived late in the afternoon and were told that we had arrived on the last night of a week- long festival, complete with a fireworks display coordinated by the people who did the Sydney Olympics – wew! We were taken to our little apartment room and had the afternoon to just chill out. It was schmelting hot and it looked like it was going to be a great night to do our Pintox (San Sebastian version of Tapas) Tour & Pub Crawl.
We decided to go in search of a supermarket, typical. We soon hunted one down and stocked up on some pasta, tinned tomatoes and bacon. We also thought we’d find something to have some pre drinks with; because we are now seasoned wine connoisseurs, we found a 50c bottle of Rose. Really broke the bank on that one! We headed back to our apartment and cooked up some pasta as a pre-pintox entree (they are all mostly sea food), and then headed down to meet the rest of the Bus About gang to begin our domination of San Sebastian. The local drink here is a mix made with half red wine and half coca cola – not too bad at all! In most other regions in Spain the local drink is Sangria, but in San Sebastian it’s *insert name here*.
We had a good time sampling the pintox and drinking the wine and coke. After we’d finished in the first bar, we went outside to find a parade in the main square. They had these huge figurines which we thought would be fun to ghost, so we did. We were also very mature and lifted up their skirts, and tried to perve on their non- existent bums. The photos are pretty funny. We cracked open our very expensive bottle of rose and carried on to the next bar. We’d just like to add, as a side note, that we are in fact not trash bags – it is perfectly acceptable to drink in the streets in San Sebastian and many other places in Europe, so we weren’t the only ones! We have learned two variations of scissor, paper, rock on our travels. The first one we learned all the way back on our venetian trail was called Bear, Ninja, Cowboy. But tonight, I think we learned the best game ever: Crocodile, Stingray, Steve. Enough said. We both wet our pants laughing, and proceeded to play this game for about half an hour. Entertainment plus! Rules: Steve beats the crocodile, Crocodile beats stingray, and last but not least – the stingray beats steve. LOL!
The Pintox sampling was forgotten, sooner than anticipated, and our little night out just turned into a pub crawl. Outside this one bar, we met a Mel Ho look alike, also from Australia. However, we would like to inform the original Mel Ho that she is way cooler than her look alike, just in case she was wondering. Any way, so we made friends with Mel (who’s name is not actually Mel, but we can’t remember her real name. So, for all intensive purposes, she is now Mel), and then we started a game of street soccer and dominated the locals – yeah-yuh! After 3.5 months we still have a kick ass first touch, even when intoxicated. I think by this stage we had moved onto Rum and Coke – one thing we will miss about the drinks here is that they free pour everything, definitely bang for your buck!
The streets were packed with hundreds of people having a great night. We worked our way to the main bridge to watch the fireworks, still more people, and a small carnival on the water’s edge attracted all the small kids and their parents. Totti made friends with a local lady who in the end wanted to adopt her. Their conversation went a little like this: Totti “So, are you on holidays here in San Sebastian?” Lady “Oh no, we live here”..........................5minutes later, between doing some kangaroo hopping and playing with some small kids, Totti returns, full of renewed enthusiasm and asks innocently “So, how long are you in San Sebastian for?” The lady politely replied “Oh no no, we live here”...............5minutes later “So, how long is your holiday here?” FAIL!!!! This went on for about 15 more minutes. LOL. The lady was absolutely lovely however, and humoured us, and continued to answer the same questions very politely. Bless.
The fireworks display did indeed live up to the hype, and completely kicked the crap out of the below par performance in Nice on Bastille Day. Not exactly sky fire, but it was up there. After the fireworks, we said goodbye to our San Sebastian family (did they mention they live there?) and wondered towards the beach party. We didn’t make it very far; it was pretty much all 14 year olds off their chops.
We decided to call it a night and headed back to our hotel......this took rather longer than usual, but we eventually made it back safe and sound :) Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Day 101:
We had a bit of a sleep in and with 2 sore heads we headed to the Information Centre to get ourselves orientated. We have been looking forward to seeing a bull fight since we arrived in Spain – the only fight on Sundays and so we thought today would be perfect weather and good day for a bull fight. The lady at the information centre kindly informed us that yes, bullfighting had been on ALL week EVERY day and yesterday was the last day. FML. So, yet again, we arrived a day late and missed out on seeing a bull fight. Boooooooooooo.
So we decided to punish ourselves by going on a massive hike up to the top of the San Seb hill to check out the view. Dehydrated, tired, headache, hungry, sweat, stink – we finally made it to the top. It was an awesome view of San Seb. There was even a water tap so we drank some so we didn’t faint in the heat. We headed back down the mountain in search of some breakfast/brunch...actually it was kinda lunchtime.
The rain soon set in for the afternoon, and with full belly’s and the opportunity to just do nothing – we watched a movie and chilled out in our hostel. We had some more pintox for dinner – a lot of the Pintox is made with really fresh seafood. It’s pretty easy to pick the ones which have seafood, well unless you’re a re-tard like Ela. First pick: A ball of crumbed, fried fish – a bit like a fish cake. FAIL. Second pick: A fish infested omelette. FAIL. She forced herself to eat it on principal. I happily enjoyed my sundried tomato and cheese and sausage pintox. YUMMO!
Day 102:
What to do, what to do? We decided to go into the new town and do some shopping. We did the regular stops – H&M, Zara, Bershka, Mango. I came away with a singular pair of leggings, woot. Totti ended up buying a shirt, some leggings and a new jump suit. All shopped out, we were ready to go home – we decided that we were sick of eating stupid service stop food, so we were determined to cook up a storm tonight, so that we’d have awesome leftovers for our huge, endless bus ride to Paris the following day. We stopped at a food stall and stocked up on some fresh veggies: Fried Rice for dinner! We also picked up some fresh cherry tomatoes and some more spaghetti. Before going back to the hostel, we took a detour via the body piercing place – Totti watched and relished the fact that this old woman was about to jab a needle through my tragus. Luckily she doused it in this freezing spray before she skewered my ear, she wasn’t exactly gentle. Yes mummy, another hole in my face. Sorry. It could be worse.
Iron chef, look out. We got back to the hostel and dominated the kitchen – it smelled awesome and we were looking forward to the fact that we’d have some deliciousness to take with us on the bus tomorrow. We then ate.....and sat......ate some more.....We were feeling like we’d been rather lazy today, so we forced ourselves to leave the comfort of the big squishy couch and went to buy half a litre of ice cream.................it was the only way we could get a container big enough to store our lunch for the next day :p excuses, excuses – the ice cream was delicious. We walked down to the beach side as people food stalked our ginormous tub of strawberry and chocolate yuminess!
Once back on the couch we reflected on the fact that we had actually eaten our weight worth in food; the only salvaging thought was that we should enjoy it while we could. Once back home we are going on a healthy diet of oxygen and h20. We packed our bags, showered and prepared for our early morning departure to Paris. Ni night!!!!
Say Adios to your Papa for us,
Love Kate & Ela xxx
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Mangiare e Beve come si deve, Italia Part II.
Day 86:
We arrived in Florence late last night – FML, Hotel Feretti, you have been good to us, but ffs, invest in an elevator. We dragged ourselves, our luggage and an extra suitcase up three flights of stairs – I feel we have earned every gelato and pizza we have consumed since then. Europe = elevator fail. We got to our room and literally passed right out.
Today we strolled around the city, walked along the river, across the Ponte Vecchio and through all the leather markets – so much cool stuff. Funny how I chose to buy two t-shirts with Fiat 500’s on them, typical. Bloody idiot. Totti how ever bought a nice new leather wallet equal to the value of my new t-shirts. Shopping fail Ela, shopping fail.
We had a really good day winding in and out of the narrow streets, taking photos and eating anything and everything – so much goodness, so little time!!!
We then came back to our hotel room and took advantage of the free wifi – getting reconnected with the world and all that. But we actually did something productive, we planned our next couple of days here, and got some blog writing done for you all to enjoy, aren’t we lovely, thinking of you all, while we are so far away!
We were interrupted by a loud and angry grumbling noise. No, not tottis bum *praises lord* - but our tummies. So it was time to head back out into reality and find some food. Soooo. We were a little early for dinner and had to wait in the piazza for the restaurant to start serving food, so we opted to listen to a busker and people watch which we waited for dinner. It wasn’t all bad – actually it was rather entertaining. Naturally there were pigeons everywhere and we contented ourselves with letting the little kids terrorise them all. Even funnier was when a little boy literally trampled a pigeon and a huge tuft of feathers exploded into the air. His face was HILARIOUS – we absolutely wet our pants laughing, Totti actually did the knee slap, I just rolled around on the ground. Little boy, 1 – Pigeon, 0. And then it just kept getting better – we have come across many interesting characters on our travels but we feel that this lady has been one of the most interesting. Clearly on crack (or some similar mind altering substance, or she was probably just crazy, anyway!) in drifts homeless/toothless/no underwear woman. She performed some interpretive dance, yelled at innocent bystanders and decided that rolling around on the grass so everyone could see up her dress would be a fabulous idea. Her bum was pointing in our direction. Enough said. We were discussing what we’d do if she came and sat next to us; Totti said she would piss bolt in the opposite direction...far.....FAR away! Entertaining. We felt we had overstayed our welcome (really we were just hungry) so we got up to leave. We had to walk past the homeless crack lady to get to our restaurant – we were hoping to escape without having to interact with her at all, but, because strange crap always happens to me, she turned around, adopted a porn star pose, pouted her lips at me and said with a wink and a kiss “Ciao Bella”. VOMIT. Totti lost her shit and thought it was the funniest thing she’s ever heard/seen. Me.....not so much. I felt dirty. I wanted to shower. Visions of toothless women with no undies invaded my dreams that night.
Day 87:
Because we are very productive individuals – our little internet session we mentioned yesterday was used to book a VESPA RIDE THROUGH TUSCANY. Yeah, you heard. So we were very excited at the prospect of hooning around the country side and seeing some cool stuff, and getting a three course meal cooked for us at the Corcini family winery .
At 9am we were taken to the scooter hire place and geared up for our little Tuscan adventure. We took in the rolling countryside and made frequent stops to take some cool photos. Our guide Andrea gave us a rundown of the Chianti region (famous wine comes from here, which we got to sample at the winery) we got to see Machiavelli’s house (for those of you who don’t know who he is, he is most famous for writing “The Prince”) and really just soaked in the atmosphere. If you ever come to Tuscany, do the vespa tour. It is an awesome day and you get to see so much. Next stop – we were taken to a local deli to try some schicciata (schiacciata just means squashed. It’s a type of flat bread) filled with creamy pecorino cheese. We also got to try some home made biscotti – so so delicious!! But of course that wasn’t enough – Totti was keen to try some of the local salami, so we politely asked our tour guide if he could order some for us. We got lucky – he came out with an entire plate full of salami deliciousness, free of charge. YEEE-YUUUHHH!!! From there we rode some more and stopped a couple of times to take some more photos, before coming to our next stop : the winery. It has a whole lot of awesome history and basically is worth a shit load of money, details, details – bring on the food and wine!!! We were given a guided tour of this stunning Tuscan Villa (just the grounds, not the actual house) – the grounds were spectacular, the property was massive. They produce wine and olive oil there. We were taken down into the cellars and shown how the wine is made and stored, as well as how they make the olive oil. Very impressive!
LUNCH TIME!!!!!! Entree: Bruschetta with some of the winery made olive oil, as well as some toasted bread with the chick pea and rosemary patte, and eggplant,Pecorino and garlic patte. YUMO!!!! And we got to sample two of the three wines produced at the winery. Lucky it’s so expensive or we really would become alcoholics!
Next on the menu – Pansanella: it’s a very rustic dish, cucumber, fresh tomatoes, onion and broken bits of Italian bread tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper. Deliciousness. Main course: Farfalline (butterfly pasta) in a simple basil and tomato sauce – ho muh gawwd. Drool. Best feed ever!
Sadly it was time to say goodbye to this amazing property and make our way through the back roads of Tuscany to our next destination. Gelateria. Yes, we ate a lot. It seems to be the thing to do here :p Needless to say it was a great finish to an awesome day. We rode back to the campsite feeling that it was all very well worth it.
We came back to the hotel and rested for a little bit. We aren’t even going to bother telling you what we did next, we’re sure you can guess. Suffice to say that we went to dinner. And more gelato. That is all.
Day 88:
We eased into the morning and did some housekeeping – this mostly included having lengthy showers and skyping our families. The plan today: Siena. We caught the train to the beautiful little city – didn’t make it very far, as usual, nature called and so we had to stop for some lunch before we dominated the town. We ended up in a very rustic and homey feeling restaurant and decided to try some of the local pasta with a classic sauce. I think it was one of the best plates of pasta we had in Italy. Respect. With a full tummy to keep us going, we made our way into the narrow streets and enjoyed strolling around. It was rather busy because the town was getting ready to host the annual Palio di Siena (the famous horse race that featured in the Bond film) – so there were colourful flags a plenty, they were getting the stands ready in the main piazza and setting up the horse track. It’s a shame we miss out on it – definitely a must see event on the to do list.
We liked looking into all the little shop windows – especially this one place where we just had to go inside. Did we mention that totti has fallen in love with Salami. We have eaten it almost every day; it is rather delicious after all. So yes, we HAD to go into this one place – there were salamis hanging from the roof, stacked in fridges, on the walls. It even said “strictly no photography” on a sign at the door, so naturally we had to go inside and sneak a photo. It was pretty impressive, literally Salami heaven! There isn’t much more to say except that Siena is such a beautiful city – one of our favourites, definitely.
Sadly we said goodbye and made our way back to Florence, where we began locking in the remaining month and a half of our travels. Soooooo, we are poor. Donations please. Feeling sorry for ourselves over the amount of money this was going to cost us, we decided that we’d try something new and book into a camp site for our next little adventure to the Cinque Terre. We have opted to use bus about to get us from country to country – definitely the most inexpensive way to travel, and we figured it would be a good chance to make some new friends too. So feeling a little more enthusiastic about the coming month and what was to come, we decided to make our way to dinner and enjoy one last night in Florence.
DAY 89:
It was once again time to pack all our gear and drag it down the four flights of steps in the direction of Santa Maria Novella train station. Our next destination awaited us – the very impressive Cinque Terre. We literally bulldozed our way through the droves of people and finally made it onto the train; at first we were stuck in the compartment between carriages, with all our luggage in a huge pile and only a dodgy pull out wall seat to perch on. It was friggan schmelting – apparently the OH&S people don’t think it’s worth installing air con in these parts of the train. So as soon as we got the chance, we just left our luggage in this little in-between compartment and sprinted to the first available seat. Ahhhhhh – air con!
As we got closer and closer into the Cinque Terre region, the views started to get more beautiful. We caught glimpses of the cliff top villages between the tunnels on the train and started to get excited about finally getting a chance to explore them all. We finally arrived at our little town: Devia Marina. It’s at the top of the region – a little out of the way, but it’s where our campsite was, so we trudged to the bus stop to catch the shuttle service to the camp site. As per usual there were a whole bunch of fellow Aussies coming to stay at the same place, it seemed we had once again made some new friends :) P.S they saved our luggage from spilling out onto the rail way because we were too busy worrying about getting good seats (typical), so we decided we’d better be nice :p
We arrived at our campsite, named La Sfinge. We quickly re named it “The Stinge”. Wow. Dingy. When we asked for our cabin key at reception, the lady looked at us with a blank look on her face and replied “You won’t need one”. Totti and I just looked at each other and cringed at the thought of what our sleeping quarters were going to look like. So we dragged our packs, and our extra heavy suit case full of souvies up the stairs.....up more stairs....through some bush.....along some gravel paths....and finally reached tent number 3. Two beds in an empty tent. That is all. We dumped our luggage and it took up all the little floor space there was. It smelt dank and dewy and there were ants all over the floor. Terrorists! So we promptly adopted the foetal position and seriously considered throwing ourselves off the next available cliff top. Lol.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the rest of The Stinge. We quickly located the market (salami, cheese and fruit – YUP!) and asked the reception the most vital of all questions “do you have wifi?” (sad, we know). They had earned back a little shred of our respect, clearly any place with a wifi service is a reputable institution. Except that the wifi didn’t reach the tents. FFS. So we gave up on that for the day and decided to trek to the next camp site (of course The Stinge did NOT have it’s own restaurant) so we decided to take ourselves, our new aussie friends and our severely empty tummies to the next camp site, which had better trees, a pool, and the restaurant. Crapped all over The stupid Stinge.
We opted for the cheapo 5euro bowl of pasta for dinner and retired to bed soon after – we had a big day ahead of us.
Lesson: If one wished to come to the Cinque Terre in peak season (July/August) seriously consider booking accommodation WELL in advance. The regions are so small that space is very limited and the prices sky rocket around this time. You do not want to end up at The Stinge. That is all.
DAY 90: vespa ride of cinqueterre. FML. Dinner.....then dinner again......
The Cinque Terre is 5 small towns on the cliffs edge – it’s famous for the Cinque Terre walk – a hike between the 5 towns which is about 30km....so....because we have developed a new level of laziness we decided that the walk seemed way too hard and that we should do it the Italian way and hire a vespa. We got up reasonably early and strolled down to pick up our little Italian stallion....soon to be renamed “Piece of shit scooter”. We were pretty excited about our days adventures...well we started excited!
First stop was a little town called Piazza...we kept driving....more driving....some more. OK seriously, where the fuck are the towns?! We came across Levanto – we had seen this one on our train ride yesterday. Our souls died a little when I looked at the map and told Ela “Ah, dude, this isn’t even one of the Cinque Terres”. FML. No better way to ease the pain than to eat, so we purchased some salami, bread, sundried tomatoes, cheese and oranges and headed to the beach for our breakfast/brunch/lunch snack! Yummo... It was a pretty town nevertheless – the church was striped like a zebra, there was also a cool castle. We took some photographic evidence.
So with our bums starting to regain feeling we decided to hop back on the shitty scooter and make our way to the Terra’s. Now, the scooter would have been fine had we been driving on normal straight Australian roads...oh hell no....we were trekking up and down mountains of simular style to the Clyde Mt – FFS. It was actually hell. Oncoming traffic, crazy motorcyclists, being overtaken....by cyclists, crying a little, falling off...tears...more tears! No but seriously, the hair pin turns that we encountered are probably banned back in Australia – this was extreme Vespering.
We finally made it to the first town – Monterosso. It was a cute little town with a beach. We contemplated going for a swim until we realised we didn’t have a towel, so we concluded that ice cream was a much safer option. We explored the streets and took some awesome photos before heading to the next town – Vernazza. Similar to Monterosso – this little town is surrounded by grapevines on cliffs with great views of the water. The towns are quite similar in terms of architecture – yellow, red and orange pastel apartments on cliffs, small streets, big hills... very pretty scenery.
We bypassed Corniglia – well we waved to it on our shitty scooter but decided if we had any chance on conquering these 5 terres, one had to miss out! On the way to Monorola – now known as Motorola we had to head up the hill from Vernazza. As we were approaching our 500th hair pin turn for the day, the scooter decided it was over being driven and toppled over – leaving us running and embarrassed on the road as other tourists drove past us and laughed. Hmm...so we continued. On the way down to Motorola, the shitty scooter decided that it didn’t want to brake anymore. The front brakes just stopped working so we went flying down the hill, brakeless, trying to manoeuvre around the corners...there were screams – don’t judge us, we were scared!
Last stop: Motorola. Yes, we know, we didn’t conquer all the terres, but it was getting late and we were hungry. Motorola was by far our favourite little terra. It had a lot more character, awesome little food shops with gelato, biscotti etc and there were cute little grandma and grandpa’s on almost every balcony watching the world go by. We demolished some vegetarian pasta and grilled calamari – belissimo! We treated ourselves to some gelato as we knew the ride home was going to be torture.
After what seemed like for ever, Ela had blistered hands from driving all day, coupled with frost bite and bugs hitting us at high speeds, we were more than elated when we saw the sign for the Stinge (2km to go!!!) one problem; on comes the fuel light. FFS nothing could go right that day. We did make it back to camp safe and sound, and we gave the scooter a swift kick in the wheels and bade it good night. With numb backsides, hungry bellies and cold noses, we trudged stiff backed to our tents and whinged about how cold, hungry and in pain we were. Wah. Sooky la la. Anyway – we got over it pretty quickly as we always do with the prospect of food on the horizon, so we made our way to dinner with the rest of the aussie crew.
DAY 91:
Today was just going to be one of those days. I left Totti to sleep in, as the Vespa had to be returned to the shop by 8.30am. With the hope in mind that I would be back at camp in no time, I made my way down to the parked scooter and hopped on.......splutter......cough.....wheeze. Maybe it’s just cold. Try again. Cough.....gutter....splutter....wheeze......Third time lucky? No joy. PUSHED STUPID VESPA ALL THE EFFING WAY TO THE SERVO, THEN BACK TO THE SHOP BECAUSE IT STILL WOULDNT START, EVEN ON A FULL TANK. So. Much. Hate. I was fuming at the thought of Totti snoring away, none the wiser to my little calamity. I made a point of walking very slowly and casually back to camp.
I’m glad Totti laughed when I broke the news of my little adventure. In hindsight, the thought of my trudging 4 k’s down the road pushing a motor vehicle while wearing a Vespa helmet is pretty funny. Sweating my face off looking like I would poke your eyes out if you so much as tried to speak to me because I was so pissed off at my current luck, or lack thereof.
I soon got over it and we got ready to catch the train to Portfino – a little town north of the La Spezia/Cinque Terre region. A quick train ride to Saint Margherita, we then jumped on a jam packed bus full of annoying Italians. FML. Sweaty, stinky, loud people = frustration. But we finally got to Portfino and were released from the bus. Portfino is a town which has a port (go figure!). It’s similar society status to Monaco in France – massive boats, expensive shops and rich people everywhere. We decided we needed to eat – so we got some bread, cheese and salami (4 euro for everything – I thank you!) and sat by the port and munged on our food. Even the rich people had food envy of us – we know where it’s at when it comes to food. We took some photos and strolled around the town before deciding it was time for some biscotti – yummo. We caught the bus, then the train back to The Stinge. A short lived adventure but at least we can say we went and saw it. Woo.
It seemed that while we were away, a mutant wasp had decided to take refuge in out tent. WHHYYYY-YUUUUHHHH!!! FML. Totti took off and waited about ten metres away from the tent while I hurled her thongs.....my thongs.....my converse.....her converse, at this fist size Godzilla wasp. After about 20 minutes of me dashing in and out of the tent retrieving all our shoes and trying again to hit the wasp, it FINALLY drifted out of our tent and out into the wilderness where it belonged. We joked that it was going to get it’s posse of killer was mates and return with a full squadron ready to sting our faces off.
It was now time to relax, do some washing and bum around. We went into town with the others and enjoyed another plate of deliciousness, followed by a gelato. Once back at camp we played a couple of rounds of cards before retiring to our tent for the night. It was cloudy and overcast, and looked like it might possibly rain.
Oh, and rain it did. Mother nature had a fit of rage that night. Bucket loads upon bucket loads of rain, definitely gave “raining cats and dogs” an entirely new meaning. Because our campsite was perched on top of a mountain we were privy to the cracks of thunder that literally vibrated our tent because they were so loud, and the lightning strikes came more and more frequently as the rain poured on and on into the early hours of the morning. I think this lasted for about 4 hrs in total, our tent was frequently illuminated by the lightning and the camp lights flickered on and off. Black out! The storm would have been ok, had I not needed to wee for the entire duration of it. There was no way I was going to step outside into that storm. Knowing my luck, and judging on the previous events of the day, probability that I would have stacked it in the mud, or gotten struck by lightning were fairly high. So I decided to hold.
At around 5am or so the storm was in full swing and very loud. Totti emerged from her pile of blankets, hair on end, reeled off a turbo charged exclamation of how very impressive this storm was. Did she mention how big it was?! And how loud...and did I see that lightning!! And OH MY GOD, its PISSING DOWN RAIN!!! I did not get a chance to get a word in before she ran out of words to describe the storm, and literally hit the pillow and was silent once more. I had a giggle and made a mental note to recount this little early morning conversation later on.
Day 92:
Today we decided we’d back track it a little and make our way down to Pisa as we didn’t get a chance to see the leaning tower while we were in Florence. You really only do go to Pisa to see the leaning tower – besides that, there really is nothing to see. We laughed at the countless people all standing in a row, taking the exact same photograph: lets put our hands out and try and make it look like we are stopping the town from falling over. Because we are really cool, we decided to photo bomb the shit out of people, and imitate them taking their masterpiece photos. We got a really good shot of Totti photobombing some Asians. It’s classic. We shall put this one up on photobucket, watch that space.
So yes, the tower does really lean. You can do Pisa is literally 20 minutes. We stopped in Riomaggiore and did the famous ‘Lover’s walk’ to Monorola – it’s a path built into the cliff, roughly an 800 metre stroll between the two towns. Wicked views and lots of “I love you” messages written along the walk. They have also hung locks along the fences and carved their names into cactuses. Very cute. Once in Monorola we enjoyed our very last Italian dinner – Totti had spaghetti with Muscles and I just had a plate of veggo spaghetti.
Once back at the Stinge we just lounged around and wrote some blog. Italy has been fun – we are actually excited to be eating something other than Pizza and Pasta for a change. As lovely and delicious as it has been, after three weeks of this, our stomachs are ready to dominate some other delicacies that Europe has to offer.
So we say Ciao Bella to the boot shaped land and prepare to take on Spain next – Ole!
Arrivederci and say hi to your dad for us.
Baci,
Kate & Ela xxx
We arrived in Florence late last night – FML, Hotel Feretti, you have been good to us, but ffs, invest in an elevator. We dragged ourselves, our luggage and an extra suitcase up three flights of stairs – I feel we have earned every gelato and pizza we have consumed since then. Europe = elevator fail. We got to our room and literally passed right out.
Today we strolled around the city, walked along the river, across the Ponte Vecchio and through all the leather markets – so much cool stuff. Funny how I chose to buy two t-shirts with Fiat 500’s on them, typical. Bloody idiot. Totti how ever bought a nice new leather wallet equal to the value of my new t-shirts. Shopping fail Ela, shopping fail.
We had a really good day winding in and out of the narrow streets, taking photos and eating anything and everything – so much goodness, so little time!!!
We then came back to our hotel room and took advantage of the free wifi – getting reconnected with the world and all that. But we actually did something productive, we planned our next couple of days here, and got some blog writing done for you all to enjoy, aren’t we lovely, thinking of you all, while we are so far away!
We were interrupted by a loud and angry grumbling noise. No, not tottis bum *praises lord* - but our tummies. So it was time to head back out into reality and find some food. Soooo. We were a little early for dinner and had to wait in the piazza for the restaurant to start serving food, so we opted to listen to a busker and people watch which we waited for dinner. It wasn’t all bad – actually it was rather entertaining. Naturally there were pigeons everywhere and we contented ourselves with letting the little kids terrorise them all. Even funnier was when a little boy literally trampled a pigeon and a huge tuft of feathers exploded into the air. His face was HILARIOUS – we absolutely wet our pants laughing, Totti actually did the knee slap, I just rolled around on the ground. Little boy, 1 – Pigeon, 0. And then it just kept getting better – we have come across many interesting characters on our travels but we feel that this lady has been one of the most interesting. Clearly on crack (or some similar mind altering substance, or she was probably just crazy, anyway!) in drifts homeless/toothless/no underwear woman. She performed some interpretive dance, yelled at innocent bystanders and decided that rolling around on the grass so everyone could see up her dress would be a fabulous idea. Her bum was pointing in our direction. Enough said. We were discussing what we’d do if she came and sat next to us; Totti said she would piss bolt in the opposite direction...far.....FAR away! Entertaining. We felt we had overstayed our welcome (really we were just hungry) so we got up to leave. We had to walk past the homeless crack lady to get to our restaurant – we were hoping to escape without having to interact with her at all, but, because strange crap always happens to me, she turned around, adopted a porn star pose, pouted her lips at me and said with a wink and a kiss “Ciao Bella”. VOMIT. Totti lost her shit and thought it was the funniest thing she’s ever heard/seen. Me.....not so much. I felt dirty. I wanted to shower. Visions of toothless women with no undies invaded my dreams that night.
Day 87:
Because we are very productive individuals – our little internet session we mentioned yesterday was used to book a VESPA RIDE THROUGH TUSCANY. Yeah, you heard. So we were very excited at the prospect of hooning around the country side and seeing some cool stuff, and getting a three course meal cooked for us at the Corcini family winery .
At 9am we were taken to the scooter hire place and geared up for our little Tuscan adventure. We took in the rolling countryside and made frequent stops to take some cool photos. Our guide Andrea gave us a rundown of the Chianti region (famous wine comes from here, which we got to sample at the winery) we got to see Machiavelli’s house (for those of you who don’t know who he is, he is most famous for writing “The Prince”) and really just soaked in the atmosphere. If you ever come to Tuscany, do the vespa tour. It is an awesome day and you get to see so much. Next stop – we were taken to a local deli to try some schicciata (schiacciata just means squashed. It’s a type of flat bread) filled with creamy pecorino cheese. We also got to try some home made biscotti – so so delicious!! But of course that wasn’t enough – Totti was keen to try some of the local salami, so we politely asked our tour guide if he could order some for us. We got lucky – he came out with an entire plate full of salami deliciousness, free of charge. YEEE-YUUUHHH!!! From there we rode some more and stopped a couple of times to take some more photos, before coming to our next stop : the winery. It has a whole lot of awesome history and basically is worth a shit load of money, details, details – bring on the food and wine!!! We were given a guided tour of this stunning Tuscan Villa (just the grounds, not the actual house) – the grounds were spectacular, the property was massive. They produce wine and olive oil there. We were taken down into the cellars and shown how the wine is made and stored, as well as how they make the olive oil. Very impressive!
LUNCH TIME!!!!!! Entree: Bruschetta with some of the winery made olive oil, as well as some toasted bread with the chick pea and rosemary patte, and eggplant,Pecorino and garlic patte. YUMO!!!! And we got to sample two of the three wines produced at the winery. Lucky it’s so expensive or we really would become alcoholics!
Next on the menu – Pansanella: it’s a very rustic dish, cucumber, fresh tomatoes, onion and broken bits of Italian bread tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper. Deliciousness. Main course: Farfalline (butterfly pasta) in a simple basil and tomato sauce – ho muh gawwd. Drool. Best feed ever!
Sadly it was time to say goodbye to this amazing property and make our way through the back roads of Tuscany to our next destination. Gelateria. Yes, we ate a lot. It seems to be the thing to do here :p Needless to say it was a great finish to an awesome day. We rode back to the campsite feeling that it was all very well worth it.
We came back to the hotel and rested for a little bit. We aren’t even going to bother telling you what we did next, we’re sure you can guess. Suffice to say that we went to dinner. And more gelato. That is all.
Day 88:
We eased into the morning and did some housekeeping – this mostly included having lengthy showers and skyping our families. The plan today: Siena. We caught the train to the beautiful little city – didn’t make it very far, as usual, nature called and so we had to stop for some lunch before we dominated the town. We ended up in a very rustic and homey feeling restaurant and decided to try some of the local pasta with a classic sauce. I think it was one of the best plates of pasta we had in Italy. Respect. With a full tummy to keep us going, we made our way into the narrow streets and enjoyed strolling around. It was rather busy because the town was getting ready to host the annual Palio di Siena (the famous horse race that featured in the Bond film) – so there were colourful flags a plenty, they were getting the stands ready in the main piazza and setting up the horse track. It’s a shame we miss out on it – definitely a must see event on the to do list.
We liked looking into all the little shop windows – especially this one place where we just had to go inside. Did we mention that totti has fallen in love with Salami. We have eaten it almost every day; it is rather delicious after all. So yes, we HAD to go into this one place – there were salamis hanging from the roof, stacked in fridges, on the walls. It even said “strictly no photography” on a sign at the door, so naturally we had to go inside and sneak a photo. It was pretty impressive, literally Salami heaven! There isn’t much more to say except that Siena is such a beautiful city – one of our favourites, definitely.
Sadly we said goodbye and made our way back to Florence, where we began locking in the remaining month and a half of our travels. Soooooo, we are poor. Donations please. Feeling sorry for ourselves over the amount of money this was going to cost us, we decided that we’d try something new and book into a camp site for our next little adventure to the Cinque Terre. We have opted to use bus about to get us from country to country – definitely the most inexpensive way to travel, and we figured it would be a good chance to make some new friends too. So feeling a little more enthusiastic about the coming month and what was to come, we decided to make our way to dinner and enjoy one last night in Florence.
DAY 89:
It was once again time to pack all our gear and drag it down the four flights of steps in the direction of Santa Maria Novella train station. Our next destination awaited us – the very impressive Cinque Terre. We literally bulldozed our way through the droves of people and finally made it onto the train; at first we were stuck in the compartment between carriages, with all our luggage in a huge pile and only a dodgy pull out wall seat to perch on. It was friggan schmelting – apparently the OH&S people don’t think it’s worth installing air con in these parts of the train. So as soon as we got the chance, we just left our luggage in this little in-between compartment and sprinted to the first available seat. Ahhhhhh – air con!
As we got closer and closer into the Cinque Terre region, the views started to get more beautiful. We caught glimpses of the cliff top villages between the tunnels on the train and started to get excited about finally getting a chance to explore them all. We finally arrived at our little town: Devia Marina. It’s at the top of the region – a little out of the way, but it’s where our campsite was, so we trudged to the bus stop to catch the shuttle service to the camp site. As per usual there were a whole bunch of fellow Aussies coming to stay at the same place, it seemed we had once again made some new friends :) P.S they saved our luggage from spilling out onto the rail way because we were too busy worrying about getting good seats (typical), so we decided we’d better be nice :p
We arrived at our campsite, named La Sfinge. We quickly re named it “The Stinge”. Wow. Dingy. When we asked for our cabin key at reception, the lady looked at us with a blank look on her face and replied “You won’t need one”. Totti and I just looked at each other and cringed at the thought of what our sleeping quarters were going to look like. So we dragged our packs, and our extra heavy suit case full of souvies up the stairs.....up more stairs....through some bush.....along some gravel paths....and finally reached tent number 3. Two beds in an empty tent. That is all. We dumped our luggage and it took up all the little floor space there was. It smelt dank and dewy and there were ants all over the floor. Terrorists! So we promptly adopted the foetal position and seriously considered throwing ourselves off the next available cliff top. Lol.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the rest of The Stinge. We quickly located the market (salami, cheese and fruit – YUP!) and asked the reception the most vital of all questions “do you have wifi?” (sad, we know). They had earned back a little shred of our respect, clearly any place with a wifi service is a reputable institution. Except that the wifi didn’t reach the tents. FFS. So we gave up on that for the day and decided to trek to the next camp site (of course The Stinge did NOT have it’s own restaurant) so we decided to take ourselves, our new aussie friends and our severely empty tummies to the next camp site, which had better trees, a pool, and the restaurant. Crapped all over The stupid Stinge.
We opted for the cheapo 5euro bowl of pasta for dinner and retired to bed soon after – we had a big day ahead of us.
Lesson: If one wished to come to the Cinque Terre in peak season (July/August) seriously consider booking accommodation WELL in advance. The regions are so small that space is very limited and the prices sky rocket around this time. You do not want to end up at The Stinge. That is all.
DAY 90: vespa ride of cinqueterre. FML. Dinner.....then dinner again......
The Cinque Terre is 5 small towns on the cliffs edge – it’s famous for the Cinque Terre walk – a hike between the 5 towns which is about 30km....so....because we have developed a new level of laziness we decided that the walk seemed way too hard and that we should do it the Italian way and hire a vespa. We got up reasonably early and strolled down to pick up our little Italian stallion....soon to be renamed “Piece of shit scooter”. We were pretty excited about our days adventures...well we started excited!
First stop was a little town called Piazza...we kept driving....more driving....some more. OK seriously, where the fuck are the towns?! We came across Levanto – we had seen this one on our train ride yesterday. Our souls died a little when I looked at the map and told Ela “Ah, dude, this isn’t even one of the Cinque Terres”. FML. No better way to ease the pain than to eat, so we purchased some salami, bread, sundried tomatoes, cheese and oranges and headed to the beach for our breakfast/brunch/lunch snack! Yummo... It was a pretty town nevertheless – the church was striped like a zebra, there was also a cool castle. We took some photographic evidence.
So with our bums starting to regain feeling we decided to hop back on the shitty scooter and make our way to the Terra’s. Now, the scooter would have been fine had we been driving on normal straight Australian roads...oh hell no....we were trekking up and down mountains of simular style to the Clyde Mt – FFS. It was actually hell. Oncoming traffic, crazy motorcyclists, being overtaken....by cyclists, crying a little, falling off...tears...more tears! No but seriously, the hair pin turns that we encountered are probably banned back in Australia – this was extreme Vespering.
We finally made it to the first town – Monterosso. It was a cute little town with a beach. We contemplated going for a swim until we realised we didn’t have a towel, so we concluded that ice cream was a much safer option. We explored the streets and took some awesome photos before heading to the next town – Vernazza. Similar to Monterosso – this little town is surrounded by grapevines on cliffs with great views of the water. The towns are quite similar in terms of architecture – yellow, red and orange pastel apartments on cliffs, small streets, big hills... very pretty scenery.
We bypassed Corniglia – well we waved to it on our shitty scooter but decided if we had any chance on conquering these 5 terres, one had to miss out! On the way to Monorola – now known as Motorola we had to head up the hill from Vernazza. As we were approaching our 500th hair pin turn for the day, the scooter decided it was over being driven and toppled over – leaving us running and embarrassed on the road as other tourists drove past us and laughed. Hmm...so we continued. On the way down to Motorola, the shitty scooter decided that it didn’t want to brake anymore. The front brakes just stopped working so we went flying down the hill, brakeless, trying to manoeuvre around the corners...there were screams – don’t judge us, we were scared!
Last stop: Motorola. Yes, we know, we didn’t conquer all the terres, but it was getting late and we were hungry. Motorola was by far our favourite little terra. It had a lot more character, awesome little food shops with gelato, biscotti etc and there were cute little grandma and grandpa’s on almost every balcony watching the world go by. We demolished some vegetarian pasta and grilled calamari – belissimo! We treated ourselves to some gelato as we knew the ride home was going to be torture.
After what seemed like for ever, Ela had blistered hands from driving all day, coupled with frost bite and bugs hitting us at high speeds, we were more than elated when we saw the sign for the Stinge (2km to go!!!) one problem; on comes the fuel light. FFS nothing could go right that day. We did make it back to camp safe and sound, and we gave the scooter a swift kick in the wheels and bade it good night. With numb backsides, hungry bellies and cold noses, we trudged stiff backed to our tents and whinged about how cold, hungry and in pain we were. Wah. Sooky la la. Anyway – we got over it pretty quickly as we always do with the prospect of food on the horizon, so we made our way to dinner with the rest of the aussie crew.
DAY 91:
Today was just going to be one of those days. I left Totti to sleep in, as the Vespa had to be returned to the shop by 8.30am. With the hope in mind that I would be back at camp in no time, I made my way down to the parked scooter and hopped on.......splutter......cough.....wheeze. Maybe it’s just cold. Try again. Cough.....gutter....splutter....wheeze......Third time lucky? No joy. PUSHED STUPID VESPA ALL THE EFFING WAY TO THE SERVO, THEN BACK TO THE SHOP BECAUSE IT STILL WOULDNT START, EVEN ON A FULL TANK. So. Much. Hate. I was fuming at the thought of Totti snoring away, none the wiser to my little calamity. I made a point of walking very slowly and casually back to camp.
I’m glad Totti laughed when I broke the news of my little adventure. In hindsight, the thought of my trudging 4 k’s down the road pushing a motor vehicle while wearing a Vespa helmet is pretty funny. Sweating my face off looking like I would poke your eyes out if you so much as tried to speak to me because I was so pissed off at my current luck, or lack thereof.
I soon got over it and we got ready to catch the train to Portfino – a little town north of the La Spezia/Cinque Terre region. A quick train ride to Saint Margherita, we then jumped on a jam packed bus full of annoying Italians. FML. Sweaty, stinky, loud people = frustration. But we finally got to Portfino and were released from the bus. Portfino is a town which has a port (go figure!). It’s similar society status to Monaco in France – massive boats, expensive shops and rich people everywhere. We decided we needed to eat – so we got some bread, cheese and salami (4 euro for everything – I thank you!) and sat by the port and munged on our food. Even the rich people had food envy of us – we know where it’s at when it comes to food. We took some photos and strolled around the town before deciding it was time for some biscotti – yummo. We caught the bus, then the train back to The Stinge. A short lived adventure but at least we can say we went and saw it. Woo.
It seemed that while we were away, a mutant wasp had decided to take refuge in out tent. WHHYYYY-YUUUUHHHH!!! FML. Totti took off and waited about ten metres away from the tent while I hurled her thongs.....my thongs.....my converse.....her converse, at this fist size Godzilla wasp. After about 20 minutes of me dashing in and out of the tent retrieving all our shoes and trying again to hit the wasp, it FINALLY drifted out of our tent and out into the wilderness where it belonged. We joked that it was going to get it’s posse of killer was mates and return with a full squadron ready to sting our faces off.
It was now time to relax, do some washing and bum around. We went into town with the others and enjoyed another plate of deliciousness, followed by a gelato. Once back at camp we played a couple of rounds of cards before retiring to our tent for the night. It was cloudy and overcast, and looked like it might possibly rain.
Oh, and rain it did. Mother nature had a fit of rage that night. Bucket loads upon bucket loads of rain, definitely gave “raining cats and dogs” an entirely new meaning. Because our campsite was perched on top of a mountain we were privy to the cracks of thunder that literally vibrated our tent because they were so loud, and the lightning strikes came more and more frequently as the rain poured on and on into the early hours of the morning. I think this lasted for about 4 hrs in total, our tent was frequently illuminated by the lightning and the camp lights flickered on and off. Black out! The storm would have been ok, had I not needed to wee for the entire duration of it. There was no way I was going to step outside into that storm. Knowing my luck, and judging on the previous events of the day, probability that I would have stacked it in the mud, or gotten struck by lightning were fairly high. So I decided to hold.
At around 5am or so the storm was in full swing and very loud. Totti emerged from her pile of blankets, hair on end, reeled off a turbo charged exclamation of how very impressive this storm was. Did she mention how big it was?! And how loud...and did I see that lightning!! And OH MY GOD, its PISSING DOWN RAIN!!! I did not get a chance to get a word in before she ran out of words to describe the storm, and literally hit the pillow and was silent once more. I had a giggle and made a mental note to recount this little early morning conversation later on.
Day 92:
Today we decided we’d back track it a little and make our way down to Pisa as we didn’t get a chance to see the leaning tower while we were in Florence. You really only do go to Pisa to see the leaning tower – besides that, there really is nothing to see. We laughed at the countless people all standing in a row, taking the exact same photograph: lets put our hands out and try and make it look like we are stopping the town from falling over. Because we are really cool, we decided to photo bomb the shit out of people, and imitate them taking their masterpiece photos. We got a really good shot of Totti photobombing some Asians. It’s classic. We shall put this one up on photobucket, watch that space.
So yes, the tower does really lean. You can do Pisa is literally 20 minutes. We stopped in Riomaggiore and did the famous ‘Lover’s walk’ to Monorola – it’s a path built into the cliff, roughly an 800 metre stroll between the two towns. Wicked views and lots of “I love you” messages written along the walk. They have also hung locks along the fences and carved their names into cactuses. Very cute. Once in Monorola we enjoyed our very last Italian dinner – Totti had spaghetti with Muscles and I just had a plate of veggo spaghetti.
Once back at the Stinge we just lounged around and wrote some blog. Italy has been fun – we are actually excited to be eating something other than Pizza and Pasta for a change. As lovely and delicious as it has been, after three weeks of this, our stomachs are ready to dominate some other delicacies that Europe has to offer.
So we say Ciao Bella to the boot shaped land and prepare to take on Spain next – Ole!
Arrivederci and say hi to your dad for us.
Baci,
Kate & Ela xxx
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
That’s Amore – Italia Part I.
Day 74:
Dearest Boggers and Floggers,
We have been thinking lately that our blog has lost some of its initial pizzazz....not as much siss boom bah as it once had. So we endeavour to rekindle some of that spark as we venture forth into the land of food and many things of the oldish kind. We hope that from now on our entries will have as much character as the boot shaped land. We will bring back the biff.
But before we do....we must tie up our little Greek odyssey.
TWO THINGS:
1: Totti has taken to air swinging in the direction of pigeons, just because she hates them. We can’t actually pin point where this hatred came from. We feel she could be suppressing a horrific childhood memory which entails her being mauled by pigeons at some point. Madray and Padray Totti – care to enlighten? So anyway, the air swinging - generally it’s enough to shoo them away. We joked about the day that she would finally connect with a pigeon, and the feeling of pure elation at FINALLY getting her revenge for all the times she has been publicly victimised by them. Wah. Feel sorry for her. It just so happened that this glorious day came upon us, casually strolling back to our hotel on our last day in Athens. Complaining about something as usual, Totti aimed a lazy kick in the direction of a terrorist.....But this time hit the jackpot. Her face was torn between feeling back, and shock – it was quite possibly almost two months worth of pent up frustration released in this one special moment, and I quote: “I felt bad....but then I was like, actually. Fuck you! Pay back’s a bitch”
2: We are now fugitives of Greece. Stupid metro and their non gates and no ticket booths! So there’s a bit story. We had discussed wether or not it was worth getting a taxi, as it would rape our wallets of 50 euro – we have taken to becoming tight arses, so we decided that the 1 euro metro option would be better, even if it did take longer, and meant dragging out luggage through the streets and sweating our faces off.
So we finally made it to the station with only a few minutes to spare and headed straight down for the train. We assumed that you could buy tickets down there, so we just strolled on through......no ticket booth......”let’s just hop on and hope for the best”.......make it through the train ride un-scathed.....spot some train police.....we try to look innocent and casual......fail. The first people they came to when the train stopped was us. FFS! We tried to pull the whole “we validated our ticket and threw it out” card. Not so much.
In the end they slapped us with a 60 euro fine EACH. The moral of the story – pay 50 euro for a taxi and don’t be such a tight arse! Needless to say, we are totally bad ass, fleeing the country without any intention what so ever of repaying this fine. We feel we spent our money’s worth on Gyros and drinks. Eff you, Greece!
And so we waved goodbye to Greece and had a little giggle as we flew towards our next point of domination – Italia. Touch down in Fiumicino was a welcome relief – once again we got stuck with a child who was in desperate need of an exorcism, we’d both developed twitches because the brat screamed for the entire duration of the flight. FML. Our freaking ears!
By this time we were well over eating Gyros (Sorry Matty, I know it’s sacrilege for you to read this but we needed some real mangiare! Lol), Totti had been craving Penne, which she so delicately pronounces “Pennay” in her most beautiful mock Italian accent. So I texted the order through to my aunt Nadia. When we arrived to the apartment she promptly dominated the kitchen and started cooking up a storm. Totti was practically salivating at the dinner table with knife and fork at the ready – the plate wasn’t full for long.
Well tired we were grateful at the prospect of having a real sleep in – with air con.....which turned our room into the north pole and by 3am we both located our hoodies because we were so cold...why not turn it off, we hear you ask? Well we couldn’t find the remote, and honestly, at 3am, CBF!
Day 75:
With a sleep in under our belts we rose to the warm Roma air and begun our domination – today’s stop, the Via Del Corso, for some retail therapy.
1hour....
2hour...
3hours...still nothing purchased. So, naturally we decided it was time for some pasta and headed to a local restaurant and proceeded to fill our faces with the goodness. We walked back to the metro station and caught the train back to Ela’s aunties.
That night we again fed our faces with delicious pasta and fried chicken breast. We literally ate ourselves into a food coma and passed out – little did Totti know that this was only the beginning of our food coma episode! Lol.
Day 76:
Another sleep in – we are getting good at these! We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of jam on toast together with some awesome pastries which Ela’s aunty purchased for us fresh every morning – thanks Nadia!
Today’s domination...St Peter’s square, the Vatican. We dressed ourselves in appropriate attire and made our way to the metro and headed for the Vatican.
Several photos later we were inside St Peter’s cathedral and Totti landed her eyes on the holy water – dear god, help us! She crossed herself with the sacred h20 and prayed for relief from bird attacks. Now we will see if there is a real god!
We spent a good while in the church – there is so much to see. We decided it would be interesting to go into the basement and see to catacombs. We were surprised to see the number of mourner’s still saying their prayers outside Pope John Paul’s tomb. A few crying old Italian ladies. Wah for them.
Next stop, the Sistine Chapel....pfffttt, eff that. Turns out Rome thinks it’s cool to charge people to enter a church, well we showed them. We turned away in disgust at the thought of paying to look at a church and decided our money was much better spent on some delicious Gelato and an Italia jersey. Eat that Sistine.
On the way back to St Peter’s, we were casually walking, every now and then throwing in a skip or two (for those of you who think we are strange, well we have developed a nice repertoire of walking styles for everyone’s viewing pleasure. We sing too) minding our own business when all of a sudden, BAM. I kid you not, a pigeon lands on Totti’s frickin head and spooks the shit out of us both. There were feathers everywhere, kicking, screaming. Totti makes a bolt for her life. WTF. “It must have been the holy water”, she says, with a fist shake thrown in for good measure. LOL. “Eff you pigeons, I will get my revenge!”
We decided that would complete our day being tourists in Rome and headed back to Ela’s aunties for another massive meal. Oh my. Eating our way to domination and rolling our way back down under. Totti says it’s like Christmas Day, EVERY day.
Day77:
No sleep in today – our alarms were set for 5am because we had to be on the first metro at 5:40am – destination: Camping Roma to meet our Bus-About group. FML.
We were happy to see that everyone else had mass amounts of luggage...not us. Uh-Uh! We set ourselves the challenge of packing only ONE overnight bag between the two of us. Eat shit, back pack, we hate you. We comfortably put all of our clothes into one tote bag for the next 3 days. We even only had 1 toiletry bag – it really was the bomb diggity! Lol.
We were on the bus by 8am and begun our trip down to Pompeii. It was actually the hottest day in history today (worse than our Berlin weather) so we sweated our faces off as we were guided around the Pompeii site. It was a really interesting tour complete with awesome action shots – we totally fucked shit up in Pompeii.
I just need to interrupt here for a second. Now, we all know that Italian’s are very open about the human form, in fact they often like to encourage freedom of phallic expression: Enter Winged Wangs. I don’t think I have seen such a look of awe and delight on Totti’s face since she kicked that Pigeon. With winged Penis’s a plenty for sale – yes she bought one. For shame. Actually it was pretty friggan funny. Apparently it’s a symbol of fertility. Sure sure, i reckon it’s just an excuse to rock out with your wang out. A thankyou! lol
After our 2hr tour we took refuge in the Pizzeria where we enjoyed a delicious traditional Pizza Napoletana and downed a nice cold Coke. Mmm....life is good!
We continued our journey to Sorrento where we were camping for the next two nights. We were feeling the heat by this stage so we retired to our little tent for a well earned siesta.
Well rested, we ventured into town and made a visit to the “Lemonchello” (Limonciello) factory. Ah so many flavours...we HAD to try them all. FML. I had to drag Ela kicking and screaming away from the factory – she was in wog-kid heaven. The Lemonchello killed any taste buds I ever had – feel the burn. We met up with the rest of our tour group and enjoyed a 4 course Italian feast. Belissimo.
Our tour guide took us to a cocktail bar where Mario and Luigi poured the cocktails long into the night – standard measures of alcohol do not exist in Europe, the term ‘free pour’ is the most delicate way to describe their methods, so they were rather potent concoctions and did not take long to sink in. We have a running joke now “Would you like some coke with your rum?”. We left Mario & Luigi in the wee hours and were walking to another club when Totti stole a soccer ball from some street kids. She bolted a few metres with it before guilt got the better of her and she decided to return it. Somehow simply HANDING the ball back totally escaped her thoughts, so she decided to BOOT the bloody thing back over the over our tour group to the kids, buuuuuut she missed kicked it and smacked our tour guide square in the face. EVERYONE lost their shit, literally tears of laugher as the whole street was bent double, clutching their stomachs. Totti’s face was priceless. Our tour guide, Ben, was a bit of a princess (if you get my drift)...he even has a Katy Perry dance. LOL. His words when he got hit “OMG. OMG. I’m going to have a black eye!”. LOL. So funny. We laughed all the way to the next club – while Ben cried! LOL.
We soon decided to part with the Sorrento nightlife and bus it back to our campsite – lucky we did too, within 5 minutes of us tucking ourselves in, it bucketed with rain. It was quite amusing hearing the footsteps of our fellow tour peeps rock into the campsite during the downpour. We giggled!
Zzzz....
Day 78:
Today we were off to explore the Isle of Capri – known for its lavish views, expensive shopping and gorgeous swimming lagoons...oh and the blue and green grottos!
We met with the rest of our tour group at the camp reception...then it rained. Not just a sprinkle, it pissed down. Boo. Well everyone apparently had spoken to God the night before and were warned about this downpour, we missed the memo. And..lucky for us the little homeless man in San Francisco stole our pretty pink umbrella so we were left to our own devices to seek shelter from the rain. Ela followed her intuition and decided the best shelter would come from a brochure of Sorrento which she stole from the reception counter – she had just washed her hair, literally 20minutes before the rain (she said it was a good hair day too!). Unfortunately the brochure soon disintegrated and she became a drowned rat with shit hair!
We finally made it to the water’s edge where we got picked up by a boat. Hangover + waves as big as Mt. Everest = VOMIT.
As we finally rocked our way into Capri (so much relief), we decided that Sofia Loren was a villa whore with too much money. That is all.
We caught the bus from Port Piccola up to Capri and strolled around looking at all the richies and the spectacular views. This place was way out of our league so we caught another bus along the “OH MY GOD” road to Ana Capri – literally a road built into the cliffs edge, no more than 1.5 metres wide. It was a very hair raising ride when bus met bus on the edge of the cliff. Eeekkkk! We could put a finger out the window and be in the bus next to us.
Once we got there we located this giant chairlift that went to the very top of Capri and decided it was time for an adventure. The chairlift was AMAZING – 360 degree view of Capri and surrounding islands, single chair, peace and quiet. We spent a good hour at the summit taking photos and admiring the views. We are developing quite a collection of spectacular action shots – look out Filia and Steph, we see you! Then after another peaceful ride back down the mountain, our stomachs decided it was time to have some lunch, naturally we selected to eat some “pennay” at a restaurant overlooking the beach, and enjoyed the serenity.
Well fed and falling into a serious case of 3:30-itis, we found a rock on the beach and basked in the sun while we waited for our boat to pick us up and take us back to camp. Too lazy to actually swim ourselves, we contented ourselves with living vicariously through the hundreds of enthusiastic bathers already enjoying the water. Yes, we have taken laziness to a new low.
On the way back to camp we took a detour around some more of the island and we came across a massive yacht named “Magic” – yes, Magic Johnson was hanging out on his MASSIVE yacht in Capri, claim to fame bitches. We also saw the houses that belong to Georgio Armani, Michael Douglas, The Chianti Wine owner and the Fiat owner. These guys seriously have money to burn. There were also numerous other villas that belonged to people with too much mula, but we tuned out, information overload. We also passed through the lover’s arch – it is part of these three huge cone shaped rocks the stick out of the sea, and the one in the middle has a natural arch in the bottom of it, supposedly if you kiss your lover at the moment you pass under the arch, you live happily ever after. How sweet. (Vom).
Seeing as it had been a jam packed day, we hiked it all the way back up the cliff side and passed out in our cabins............3 Hrs later.....missed dinner........it’s dark.....it’s cold.......we’re hungry......what time is it??? 9pm. Siesta fail. We trudged up to the camping ground restaurant looking like zombies. Hair was all tangled, eyes bloodshot and popping out of our heads, dazed looks on faces and minor drooling down the side of the face. Yes. It’s true.
So we were seated and a young, relatively attractive waiter came to take our order. So it began. “Oh, you have beautiful eyes” I just sat there and rolled my eyes, having heard this phrase about a million times. Totti just sits there and bats her eyelashes, relishing the compliment. “My name........is Francesco, what is your name?” “Kate”. Oh god, please kill me now. Did he mention that he was an engineer? “So. Kate – we go soma where a and drink a something?” (P.S everyone, he still had not acknowledged that I was even alive, or the fact that I may actually want my dinner some time soon). He then indicated me with a jab of his thumb over his shoulder and exclaimed “or you hava too-a staya with her-a all nighta?” My face was blank, I had no words. He finally left, our meal came, and we ate. Totti wanted a take away and asked me if I thought they would let us take our left over pizza away. I replied and told her that the waiter would probably give her what ever she liked. Sure enough, it went like this: “Can we please have this to take away?” “Ah....Kate... You—ah cana hava.....what ever you lika!” *insert sex eyes*. LOL. FML.
We paid a bill and headed back to our tent...Totti left Francesco with a “maybe” that she’ll come back and have a drink with him. We both passed out from an intense food coma...how unfortunate, poor Francesco!
Day 79:
We said goodbye to our luxurious twin share tarp tent with one door and one window and boarded the bus for the much anticipated Amalfi coast drive. The beginning of the drive was spectacular – words really can’t describe what this place looks like, you have to see it for yourself (or...look at our awesome photos when we get back!). They say that going to heaven would be just like another day in Amalfi – so effing true. We stopped at Positano for a stock up of fresh fruit..mmm...peaches! We took some photos and enjoyed the view. Interesting note: Along the coastline, residents with even number plates can only drive on every other day – like water restrictions back home. Also, buses are only allowed to drive south – one way.
We stopped in Amalfi for a good 3 hrs where we boarded a boat. The best way to see and capture Amalfi is definitely by sea and we got some great pictures. We saw some watch towers that were built a long time ago – they were old! Back on land, tummy again made a ruling that we must find Arancini – OMG. Totti had died and gone to heaven. Rice balls made in pasta sauce and fried in bread crumbs – seriously Italy...you are killing my 6-pack!
After our delicious feed, we wandered around the streets with one of our busabout buddies, Kristy. She had taken a liking to us on the first night at dinner, when totti amused her with her boganesque Ee-taliano. Oh. My. God. Apparently in Italy, there are such things as “Vine-Oh”, “Pennaayy” , “Fet-oo-chin-ay”, “Party Pasta (the pasta that they make out of three colours” “Leeemon-Chello” “Graz-ee”. I don’ think I have ever cringed to much in my whole entire life. Hilarious.
So anyway, Totti, Kristy and I wondered into a pasta shop and it began, ripping out all of the buzz words from dinner, the shop keeper was looking at us with pure horror on her face – seriously entertaining!
It was time to head back to the bus and make our way to our final destination – Ravello. We had been looking forward to going up there (yes, because we haven’t already eaten enough) because apparently there was meant to be this place that made the BEST sandwiches EVER. So after all the hype, we just had to see what all the fuss was about. Taking one for the team, again.
Oh. My. Lord. The sandwich was literally as big as our face. We have photographic evidence. It was AMAZING. Salami.....Provolone.....Prosciutto......More cheese.......More salami.....Sundried tomatoes......Eggplant...... Totti got dominated by her sandwich, and because I am a good little wog child, I kept eating, even though I was full to bursting. There was no way I was going to let the stray cats eyeing off my sandwich get anywhere near it. I’d rather pass out from eating too much. So it did live up to expectations, but we were so full we dragged ourselves back to the bus and sat in silence for the remainder of the trip back to Rome. Literally a food coma! Totti would like to point out “Notice how we don’t write anything about what Ravioli looks like?” WTF, she means Ravello. LOL.
We FINALLY made it back to my aunties house, grateful for a normal shower, a normal bed that wasn’t in a tent smelling of plastic. Now.....how can we possibly be hungry after everything we had eaten that day.....We’re full, seriously, we can just have a light dinner.....do you girls want pizza? Ok. Wow, really had to twist our arm on that one. My god. We actually suck!
We called it a night and decided to start packing for our trip to Sardegna the next morning.......well Totti packed, I had massive CBF and felt I had all my gear in order, so we turned in for the night, looking forward to the next four days, which would be spent on the beach, then feeding our faces off at my aunties beach house.
Day 80:
Well what can I say, it pays to be organised sometimes (thanks Dad for that gene). I had packed the night before – knowing quite well that we had ALOT of souvenirs that we had to be reunited with and somehow fit back into our luggage. Ela actually sucks. When we left Aus, Ela had her rack sack, her laptop bag and a hand bag....Ela now has – her rack sack, a tote bag, her laptop bag AND a hand bag. WTF. So we decided we should both get rid of our tote bags and buy one suitcase to fit all our souvys in...except coz Ela sucks only she managed to put all of her CRAP (souvys plus crap) into the suitcase. So...Ela carried, her rack sack, her suitcase, her laptop bag, her tote bag and her hand bag...while I laughed...hyseterically...there were tears. She was angry – I laughed some more. Crazy bag lady, I reckon she has some crazy cats in her bags too. Boo.
We packed up the car and bid farewell to Ostia and headed to the port. Some Pringles and h20 to ease the pain we boarded our ferry to Sardegna. 6hrs later...annoying Grandma speaking Italian....annoying kids pulling hair....annoying...annoying...we arrived. Lucky for us we parked the car first in line so we were the first to get off the boat – yippee! Sardegna is island famous for its beautiful beaches and chilled our atmosphere. Heaps of famous people choose Sardegna as a holiday destination as do majority of the Italian population!
We arrived at our beach house and Maurizio got straight on the job and fired up the BBQ. Ah...food...food...more food. We started with salami...then had some lamb....some more lamb...some salad...some vino...more lamb...starting to baa now....more lamb....Su Katie bevi, bevi, bevi!! Again, Italy had put us deep into a food coma. Zzzzzz....
Day 81:
We awakened to a plate of fresh pastries and fruit – we were very spoilt. After breaky, Maurizio picked us up and dropped us at the beach. The beach was filled with hundred of Italians getting their tans on – white sand and clear waters. Nadia (Ela’s aunty) couldn’t handle the sand for very long so she ditched and left us to even out our tans. 6hrs later and a very crispy bum we moseyed back to the house where we were fed until our belly buttons turned into outies. Tuna pasta with spicy tomato sauce...entree. Pork chops and salad for main course. I’m smelting in deliciousness!
There is always room for gelato, right? Yes. So we walked into the Piazza – through the night markets and swarms of people...to the gelato store, and beyond. Delicious. We people watched from a park bench for a little while and then headed back to get ready for our evening at the club.
A quiet night at a beachside bar where Ela’s cousin works. He kept the free drinks pouring as I attempted to sing along with the Italian singer. Fail. Ela ghosted some old couple doing the salsa with her Beyonce moves...Nadia got jiggy with it on the dance floor. I did the twist...for old times sake. Fun.
Zzz...
Day 82:
A bit of washing, a movie, more food, daytime siestas and more food. It was really nice and relaxing. We then went to the wholesale (bulk grocer) to help Maurizio and Nadia stock up on food for dinner. Meanwhile...while they did adult stuff, we explored the wholesaler and found a giant Nutella jar, giant Cheese slabs, body moisturizer with cheeky titles and tested many deodorants. Mature...we even got to drive the trolley!
So clearly an hour or two had passed and no food had been consumed, so we made our way back for dinner. Massive fresh fish over baked to pure deliciousness accompanied with roasted potatoes and salad. Oh dear lord...help me now! It was soooooooooo tasty. If only I could bring you all back a little nibble...sorry!
So relaxed and content, we finished with a exotic fruit which I can only describe as Marmalade fruit. It was the strangest thing – had bits of orange, lemon and grapefruit. Delicious....especially with chocolate!
Day 83:
We headed to a different beach today – soaked up some more sunshine, munched on some more fresh fruit. Ela had an interesting encounter with a saggy boob. She was casually wading in the water, admiring her surrounds whilst waving her arms from side to side when a old lady walked a little too close to her – Ela copped a hand full of sag. She ran screaming out of the water, much to my entertainment! Ha.
Now I know you’ve probably heard this before, but can you guess what we did next? Yes, we ate. Lol. Pasta cocktail – penne, bowties and spirals...pasta heaven! Usually we wouldn’t complain about eating a massive mountain of pasta, however we realised that 3hrs later we had to back up and do it again at dinner.
We enjoyed a nice family meal - the menu went something like this:
Appetizer: Salami, Sardegna bread, Olives, Cheese, Tuna peppers
Entree: Massive bowl of penne pomodoro and basilico
Main: Pitzaiola – veal soaked in tomato sauce and potatoes on the side
Dessert: Assortment of delicious Sardinian biscuits – from amaretti to meringues followed by more Vino, Limoncello and Rum & Coke.
Day 84:
Today Nadia took us to a little beach hideaway, she explained to us that this was the spot where Princess Dianna was the day before she died. It’s got very little actual beach, but is famous for this massive rock where people climb up and sunbake. We decided to bomb the crap out of it instead. We had a lot of fun climbing and exploring all the rock formations and trying to achieve the biggest splash with our dives.
We feel that the highlight of the day (besides the amazing view and crystal clear water) was when Maurizio arrived with a portable refrigerator full of lunch type goodness. So we spent the rest of the afternoon feeding our faces on prosciutto, bread and rockmelon. Needless to say that we couldn’t really swim afterwards, we just sunk. So we waded in the shallows and skimmed rocks for a while. Good times.
By the time 4pm rolled around we had to say goodbye to our little lagoon and make our way back to the house – we had a plane to catch :( On our way home we stopped to say goodbye to Valerio and Zio Elio, sad to have to leave them so soon.
It was then time for one last giant feed – another delicious BBQ followed by some gelato. We enjoyed our last meal with Maurizio and Nadia; a big shout out and a huge thank you for everything they did for us. We said goodbye to our basement home and loaded up the car with all our gear, and headed toward Olbia airport: Destination, Florence.
So far Italy has been good to us, and our stomachs, we look forward to more eating and more eating.....and more eating...... keep an eye out for Part 2 of domination Italy.
But it’s ciao for now as we make our way to Florence, Pisa, Siena and the Cinqueterre.
Say buongiorno to your Padre for us,
Kate & Ela
Xxx
Dearest Boggers and Floggers,
We have been thinking lately that our blog has lost some of its initial pizzazz....not as much siss boom bah as it once had. So we endeavour to rekindle some of that spark as we venture forth into the land of food and many things of the oldish kind. We hope that from now on our entries will have as much character as the boot shaped land. We will bring back the biff.
But before we do....we must tie up our little Greek odyssey.
TWO THINGS:
1: Totti has taken to air swinging in the direction of pigeons, just because she hates them. We can’t actually pin point where this hatred came from. We feel she could be suppressing a horrific childhood memory which entails her being mauled by pigeons at some point. Madray and Padray Totti – care to enlighten? So anyway, the air swinging - generally it’s enough to shoo them away. We joked about the day that she would finally connect with a pigeon, and the feeling of pure elation at FINALLY getting her revenge for all the times she has been publicly victimised by them. Wah. Feel sorry for her. It just so happened that this glorious day came upon us, casually strolling back to our hotel on our last day in Athens. Complaining about something as usual, Totti aimed a lazy kick in the direction of a terrorist.....But this time hit the jackpot. Her face was torn between feeling back, and shock – it was quite possibly almost two months worth of pent up frustration released in this one special moment, and I quote: “I felt bad....but then I was like, actually. Fuck you! Pay back’s a bitch”
2: We are now fugitives of Greece. Stupid metro and their non gates and no ticket booths! So there’s a bit story. We had discussed wether or not it was worth getting a taxi, as it would rape our wallets of 50 euro – we have taken to becoming tight arses, so we decided that the 1 euro metro option would be better, even if it did take longer, and meant dragging out luggage through the streets and sweating our faces off.
So we finally made it to the station with only a few minutes to spare and headed straight down for the train. We assumed that you could buy tickets down there, so we just strolled on through......no ticket booth......”let’s just hop on and hope for the best”.......make it through the train ride un-scathed.....spot some train police.....we try to look innocent and casual......fail. The first people they came to when the train stopped was us. FFS! We tried to pull the whole “we validated our ticket and threw it out” card. Not so much.
In the end they slapped us with a 60 euro fine EACH. The moral of the story – pay 50 euro for a taxi and don’t be such a tight arse! Needless to say, we are totally bad ass, fleeing the country without any intention what so ever of repaying this fine. We feel we spent our money’s worth on Gyros and drinks. Eff you, Greece!
And so we waved goodbye to Greece and had a little giggle as we flew towards our next point of domination – Italia. Touch down in Fiumicino was a welcome relief – once again we got stuck with a child who was in desperate need of an exorcism, we’d both developed twitches because the brat screamed for the entire duration of the flight. FML. Our freaking ears!
By this time we were well over eating Gyros (Sorry Matty, I know it’s sacrilege for you to read this but we needed some real mangiare! Lol), Totti had been craving Penne, which she so delicately pronounces “Pennay” in her most beautiful mock Italian accent. So I texted the order through to my aunt Nadia. When we arrived to the apartment she promptly dominated the kitchen and started cooking up a storm. Totti was practically salivating at the dinner table with knife and fork at the ready – the plate wasn’t full for long.
Well tired we were grateful at the prospect of having a real sleep in – with air con.....which turned our room into the north pole and by 3am we both located our hoodies because we were so cold...why not turn it off, we hear you ask? Well we couldn’t find the remote, and honestly, at 3am, CBF!
Day 75:
With a sleep in under our belts we rose to the warm Roma air and begun our domination – today’s stop, the Via Del Corso, for some retail therapy.
1hour....
2hour...
3hours...still nothing purchased. So, naturally we decided it was time for some pasta and headed to a local restaurant and proceeded to fill our faces with the goodness. We walked back to the metro station and caught the train back to Ela’s aunties.
That night we again fed our faces with delicious pasta and fried chicken breast. We literally ate ourselves into a food coma and passed out – little did Totti know that this was only the beginning of our food coma episode! Lol.
Day 76:
Another sleep in – we are getting good at these! We enjoyed a delicious breakfast of jam on toast together with some awesome pastries which Ela’s aunty purchased for us fresh every morning – thanks Nadia!
Today’s domination...St Peter’s square, the Vatican. We dressed ourselves in appropriate attire and made our way to the metro and headed for the Vatican.
Several photos later we were inside St Peter’s cathedral and Totti landed her eyes on the holy water – dear god, help us! She crossed herself with the sacred h20 and prayed for relief from bird attacks. Now we will see if there is a real god!
We spent a good while in the church – there is so much to see. We decided it would be interesting to go into the basement and see to catacombs. We were surprised to see the number of mourner’s still saying their prayers outside Pope John Paul’s tomb. A few crying old Italian ladies. Wah for them.
Next stop, the Sistine Chapel....pfffttt, eff that. Turns out Rome thinks it’s cool to charge people to enter a church, well we showed them. We turned away in disgust at the thought of paying to look at a church and decided our money was much better spent on some delicious Gelato and an Italia jersey. Eat that Sistine.
On the way back to St Peter’s, we were casually walking, every now and then throwing in a skip or two (for those of you who think we are strange, well we have developed a nice repertoire of walking styles for everyone’s viewing pleasure. We sing too) minding our own business when all of a sudden, BAM. I kid you not, a pigeon lands on Totti’s frickin head and spooks the shit out of us both. There were feathers everywhere, kicking, screaming. Totti makes a bolt for her life. WTF. “It must have been the holy water”, she says, with a fist shake thrown in for good measure. LOL. “Eff you pigeons, I will get my revenge!”
We decided that would complete our day being tourists in Rome and headed back to Ela’s aunties for another massive meal. Oh my. Eating our way to domination and rolling our way back down under. Totti says it’s like Christmas Day, EVERY day.
Day77:
No sleep in today – our alarms were set for 5am because we had to be on the first metro at 5:40am – destination: Camping Roma to meet our Bus-About group. FML.
We were happy to see that everyone else had mass amounts of luggage...not us. Uh-Uh! We set ourselves the challenge of packing only ONE overnight bag between the two of us. Eat shit, back pack, we hate you. We comfortably put all of our clothes into one tote bag for the next 3 days. We even only had 1 toiletry bag – it really was the bomb diggity! Lol.
We were on the bus by 8am and begun our trip down to Pompeii. It was actually the hottest day in history today (worse than our Berlin weather) so we sweated our faces off as we were guided around the Pompeii site. It was a really interesting tour complete with awesome action shots – we totally fucked shit up in Pompeii.
I just need to interrupt here for a second. Now, we all know that Italian’s are very open about the human form, in fact they often like to encourage freedom of phallic expression: Enter Winged Wangs. I don’t think I have seen such a look of awe and delight on Totti’s face since she kicked that Pigeon. With winged Penis’s a plenty for sale – yes she bought one. For shame. Actually it was pretty friggan funny. Apparently it’s a symbol of fertility. Sure sure, i reckon it’s just an excuse to rock out with your wang out. A thankyou! lol
After our 2hr tour we took refuge in the Pizzeria where we enjoyed a delicious traditional Pizza Napoletana and downed a nice cold Coke. Mmm....life is good!
We continued our journey to Sorrento where we were camping for the next two nights. We were feeling the heat by this stage so we retired to our little tent for a well earned siesta.
Well rested, we ventured into town and made a visit to the “Lemonchello” (Limonciello) factory. Ah so many flavours...we HAD to try them all. FML. I had to drag Ela kicking and screaming away from the factory – she was in wog-kid heaven. The Lemonchello killed any taste buds I ever had – feel the burn. We met up with the rest of our tour group and enjoyed a 4 course Italian feast. Belissimo.
Our tour guide took us to a cocktail bar where Mario and Luigi poured the cocktails long into the night – standard measures of alcohol do not exist in Europe, the term ‘free pour’ is the most delicate way to describe their methods, so they were rather potent concoctions and did not take long to sink in. We have a running joke now “Would you like some coke with your rum?”. We left Mario & Luigi in the wee hours and were walking to another club when Totti stole a soccer ball from some street kids. She bolted a few metres with it before guilt got the better of her and she decided to return it. Somehow simply HANDING the ball back totally escaped her thoughts, so she decided to BOOT the bloody thing back over the over our tour group to the kids, buuuuuut she missed kicked it and smacked our tour guide square in the face. EVERYONE lost their shit, literally tears of laugher as the whole street was bent double, clutching their stomachs. Totti’s face was priceless. Our tour guide, Ben, was a bit of a princess (if you get my drift)...he even has a Katy Perry dance. LOL. His words when he got hit “OMG. OMG. I’m going to have a black eye!”. LOL. So funny. We laughed all the way to the next club – while Ben cried! LOL.
We soon decided to part with the Sorrento nightlife and bus it back to our campsite – lucky we did too, within 5 minutes of us tucking ourselves in, it bucketed with rain. It was quite amusing hearing the footsteps of our fellow tour peeps rock into the campsite during the downpour. We giggled!
Zzzz....
Day 78:
Today we were off to explore the Isle of Capri – known for its lavish views, expensive shopping and gorgeous swimming lagoons...oh and the blue and green grottos!
We met with the rest of our tour group at the camp reception...then it rained. Not just a sprinkle, it pissed down. Boo. Well everyone apparently had spoken to God the night before and were warned about this downpour, we missed the memo. And..lucky for us the little homeless man in San Francisco stole our pretty pink umbrella so we were left to our own devices to seek shelter from the rain. Ela followed her intuition and decided the best shelter would come from a brochure of Sorrento which she stole from the reception counter – she had just washed her hair, literally 20minutes before the rain (she said it was a good hair day too!). Unfortunately the brochure soon disintegrated and she became a drowned rat with shit hair!
We finally made it to the water’s edge where we got picked up by a boat. Hangover + waves as big as Mt. Everest = VOMIT.
As we finally rocked our way into Capri (so much relief), we decided that Sofia Loren was a villa whore with too much money. That is all.
We caught the bus from Port Piccola up to Capri and strolled around looking at all the richies and the spectacular views. This place was way out of our league so we caught another bus along the “OH MY GOD” road to Ana Capri – literally a road built into the cliffs edge, no more than 1.5 metres wide. It was a very hair raising ride when bus met bus on the edge of the cliff. Eeekkkk! We could put a finger out the window and be in the bus next to us.
Once we got there we located this giant chairlift that went to the very top of Capri and decided it was time for an adventure. The chairlift was AMAZING – 360 degree view of Capri and surrounding islands, single chair, peace and quiet. We spent a good hour at the summit taking photos and admiring the views. We are developing quite a collection of spectacular action shots – look out Filia and Steph, we see you! Then after another peaceful ride back down the mountain, our stomachs decided it was time to have some lunch, naturally we selected to eat some “pennay” at a restaurant overlooking the beach, and enjoyed the serenity.
Well fed and falling into a serious case of 3:30-itis, we found a rock on the beach and basked in the sun while we waited for our boat to pick us up and take us back to camp. Too lazy to actually swim ourselves, we contented ourselves with living vicariously through the hundreds of enthusiastic bathers already enjoying the water. Yes, we have taken laziness to a new low.
On the way back to camp we took a detour around some more of the island and we came across a massive yacht named “Magic” – yes, Magic Johnson was hanging out on his MASSIVE yacht in Capri, claim to fame bitches. We also saw the houses that belong to Georgio Armani, Michael Douglas, The Chianti Wine owner and the Fiat owner. These guys seriously have money to burn. There were also numerous other villas that belonged to people with too much mula, but we tuned out, information overload. We also passed through the lover’s arch – it is part of these three huge cone shaped rocks the stick out of the sea, and the one in the middle has a natural arch in the bottom of it, supposedly if you kiss your lover at the moment you pass under the arch, you live happily ever after. How sweet. (Vom).
Seeing as it had been a jam packed day, we hiked it all the way back up the cliff side and passed out in our cabins............3 Hrs later.....missed dinner........it’s dark.....it’s cold.......we’re hungry......what time is it??? 9pm. Siesta fail. We trudged up to the camping ground restaurant looking like zombies. Hair was all tangled, eyes bloodshot and popping out of our heads, dazed looks on faces and minor drooling down the side of the face. Yes. It’s true.
So we were seated and a young, relatively attractive waiter came to take our order. So it began. “Oh, you have beautiful eyes” I just sat there and rolled my eyes, having heard this phrase about a million times. Totti just sits there and bats her eyelashes, relishing the compliment. “My name........is Francesco, what is your name?” “Kate”. Oh god, please kill me now. Did he mention that he was an engineer? “So. Kate – we go soma where a and drink a something?” (P.S everyone, he still had not acknowledged that I was even alive, or the fact that I may actually want my dinner some time soon). He then indicated me with a jab of his thumb over his shoulder and exclaimed “or you hava too-a staya with her-a all nighta?” My face was blank, I had no words. He finally left, our meal came, and we ate. Totti wanted a take away and asked me if I thought they would let us take our left over pizza away. I replied and told her that the waiter would probably give her what ever she liked. Sure enough, it went like this: “Can we please have this to take away?” “Ah....Kate... You—ah cana hava.....what ever you lika!” *insert sex eyes*. LOL. FML.
We paid a bill and headed back to our tent...Totti left Francesco with a “maybe” that she’ll come back and have a drink with him. We both passed out from an intense food coma...how unfortunate, poor Francesco!
Day 79:
We said goodbye to our luxurious twin share tarp tent with one door and one window and boarded the bus for the much anticipated Amalfi coast drive. The beginning of the drive was spectacular – words really can’t describe what this place looks like, you have to see it for yourself (or...look at our awesome photos when we get back!). They say that going to heaven would be just like another day in Amalfi – so effing true. We stopped at Positano for a stock up of fresh fruit..mmm...peaches! We took some photos and enjoyed the view. Interesting note: Along the coastline, residents with even number plates can only drive on every other day – like water restrictions back home. Also, buses are only allowed to drive south – one way.
We stopped in Amalfi for a good 3 hrs where we boarded a boat. The best way to see and capture Amalfi is definitely by sea and we got some great pictures. We saw some watch towers that were built a long time ago – they were old! Back on land, tummy again made a ruling that we must find Arancini – OMG. Totti had died and gone to heaven. Rice balls made in pasta sauce and fried in bread crumbs – seriously Italy...you are killing my 6-pack!
After our delicious feed, we wandered around the streets with one of our busabout buddies, Kristy. She had taken a liking to us on the first night at dinner, when totti amused her with her boganesque Ee-taliano. Oh. My. God. Apparently in Italy, there are such things as “Vine-Oh”, “Pennaayy” , “Fet-oo-chin-ay”, “Party Pasta (the pasta that they make out of three colours” “Leeemon-Chello” “Graz-ee”. I don’ think I have ever cringed to much in my whole entire life. Hilarious.
So anyway, Totti, Kristy and I wondered into a pasta shop and it began, ripping out all of the buzz words from dinner, the shop keeper was looking at us with pure horror on her face – seriously entertaining!
It was time to head back to the bus and make our way to our final destination – Ravello. We had been looking forward to going up there (yes, because we haven’t already eaten enough) because apparently there was meant to be this place that made the BEST sandwiches EVER. So after all the hype, we just had to see what all the fuss was about. Taking one for the team, again.
Oh. My. Lord. The sandwich was literally as big as our face. We have photographic evidence. It was AMAZING. Salami.....Provolone.....Prosciutto......More cheese.......More salami.....Sundried tomatoes......Eggplant...... Totti got dominated by her sandwich, and because I am a good little wog child, I kept eating, even though I was full to bursting. There was no way I was going to let the stray cats eyeing off my sandwich get anywhere near it. I’d rather pass out from eating too much. So it did live up to expectations, but we were so full we dragged ourselves back to the bus and sat in silence for the remainder of the trip back to Rome. Literally a food coma! Totti would like to point out “Notice how we don’t write anything about what Ravioli looks like?” WTF, she means Ravello. LOL.
We FINALLY made it back to my aunties house, grateful for a normal shower, a normal bed that wasn’t in a tent smelling of plastic. Now.....how can we possibly be hungry after everything we had eaten that day.....We’re full, seriously, we can just have a light dinner.....do you girls want pizza? Ok. Wow, really had to twist our arm on that one. My god. We actually suck!
We called it a night and decided to start packing for our trip to Sardegna the next morning.......well Totti packed, I had massive CBF and felt I had all my gear in order, so we turned in for the night, looking forward to the next four days, which would be spent on the beach, then feeding our faces off at my aunties beach house.
Day 80:
Well what can I say, it pays to be organised sometimes (thanks Dad for that gene). I had packed the night before – knowing quite well that we had ALOT of souvenirs that we had to be reunited with and somehow fit back into our luggage. Ela actually sucks. When we left Aus, Ela had her rack sack, her laptop bag and a hand bag....Ela now has – her rack sack, a tote bag, her laptop bag AND a hand bag. WTF. So we decided we should both get rid of our tote bags and buy one suitcase to fit all our souvys in...except coz Ela sucks only she managed to put all of her CRAP (souvys plus crap) into the suitcase. So...Ela carried, her rack sack, her suitcase, her laptop bag, her tote bag and her hand bag...while I laughed...hyseterically...there were tears. She was angry – I laughed some more. Crazy bag lady, I reckon she has some crazy cats in her bags too. Boo.
We packed up the car and bid farewell to Ostia and headed to the port. Some Pringles and h20 to ease the pain we boarded our ferry to Sardegna. 6hrs later...annoying Grandma speaking Italian....annoying kids pulling hair....annoying...annoying...we arrived. Lucky for us we parked the car first in line so we were the first to get off the boat – yippee! Sardegna is island famous for its beautiful beaches and chilled our atmosphere. Heaps of famous people choose Sardegna as a holiday destination as do majority of the Italian population!
We arrived at our beach house and Maurizio got straight on the job and fired up the BBQ. Ah...food...food...more food. We started with salami...then had some lamb....some more lamb...some salad...some vino...more lamb...starting to baa now....more lamb....Su Katie bevi, bevi, bevi!! Again, Italy had put us deep into a food coma. Zzzzzz....
Day 81:
We awakened to a plate of fresh pastries and fruit – we were very spoilt. After breaky, Maurizio picked us up and dropped us at the beach. The beach was filled with hundred of Italians getting their tans on – white sand and clear waters. Nadia (Ela’s aunty) couldn’t handle the sand for very long so she ditched and left us to even out our tans. 6hrs later and a very crispy bum we moseyed back to the house where we were fed until our belly buttons turned into outies. Tuna pasta with spicy tomato sauce...entree. Pork chops and salad for main course. I’m smelting in deliciousness!
There is always room for gelato, right? Yes. So we walked into the Piazza – through the night markets and swarms of people...to the gelato store, and beyond. Delicious. We people watched from a park bench for a little while and then headed back to get ready for our evening at the club.
A quiet night at a beachside bar where Ela’s cousin works. He kept the free drinks pouring as I attempted to sing along with the Italian singer. Fail. Ela ghosted some old couple doing the salsa with her Beyonce moves...Nadia got jiggy with it on the dance floor. I did the twist...for old times sake. Fun.
Zzz...
Day 82:
A bit of washing, a movie, more food, daytime siestas and more food. It was really nice and relaxing. We then went to the wholesale (bulk grocer) to help Maurizio and Nadia stock up on food for dinner. Meanwhile...while they did adult stuff, we explored the wholesaler and found a giant Nutella jar, giant Cheese slabs, body moisturizer with cheeky titles and tested many deodorants. Mature...we even got to drive the trolley!
So clearly an hour or two had passed and no food had been consumed, so we made our way back for dinner. Massive fresh fish over baked to pure deliciousness accompanied with roasted potatoes and salad. Oh dear lord...help me now! It was soooooooooo tasty. If only I could bring you all back a little nibble...sorry!
So relaxed and content, we finished with a exotic fruit which I can only describe as Marmalade fruit. It was the strangest thing – had bits of orange, lemon and grapefruit. Delicious....especially with chocolate!
Day 83:
We headed to a different beach today – soaked up some more sunshine, munched on some more fresh fruit. Ela had an interesting encounter with a saggy boob. She was casually wading in the water, admiring her surrounds whilst waving her arms from side to side when a old lady walked a little too close to her – Ela copped a hand full of sag. She ran screaming out of the water, much to my entertainment! Ha.
Now I know you’ve probably heard this before, but can you guess what we did next? Yes, we ate. Lol. Pasta cocktail – penne, bowties and spirals...pasta heaven! Usually we wouldn’t complain about eating a massive mountain of pasta, however we realised that 3hrs later we had to back up and do it again at dinner.
We enjoyed a nice family meal - the menu went something like this:
Appetizer: Salami, Sardegna bread, Olives, Cheese, Tuna peppers
Entree: Massive bowl of penne pomodoro and basilico
Main: Pitzaiola – veal soaked in tomato sauce and potatoes on the side
Dessert: Assortment of delicious Sardinian biscuits – from amaretti to meringues followed by more Vino, Limoncello and Rum & Coke.
Day 84:
Today Nadia took us to a little beach hideaway, she explained to us that this was the spot where Princess Dianna was the day before she died. It’s got very little actual beach, but is famous for this massive rock where people climb up and sunbake. We decided to bomb the crap out of it instead. We had a lot of fun climbing and exploring all the rock formations and trying to achieve the biggest splash with our dives.
We feel that the highlight of the day (besides the amazing view and crystal clear water) was when Maurizio arrived with a portable refrigerator full of lunch type goodness. So we spent the rest of the afternoon feeding our faces on prosciutto, bread and rockmelon. Needless to say that we couldn’t really swim afterwards, we just sunk. So we waded in the shallows and skimmed rocks for a while. Good times.
By the time 4pm rolled around we had to say goodbye to our little lagoon and make our way back to the house – we had a plane to catch :( On our way home we stopped to say goodbye to Valerio and Zio Elio, sad to have to leave them so soon.
It was then time for one last giant feed – another delicious BBQ followed by some gelato. We enjoyed our last meal with Maurizio and Nadia; a big shout out and a huge thank you for everything they did for us. We said goodbye to our basement home and loaded up the car with all our gear, and headed toward Olbia airport: Destination, Florence.
So far Italy has been good to us, and our stomachs, we look forward to more eating and more eating.....and more eating...... keep an eye out for Part 2 of domination Italy.
But it’s ciao for now as we make our way to Florence, Pisa, Siena and the Cinqueterre.
Say buongiorno to your Padre for us,
Kate & Ela
Xxx
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