Lou’s Blog

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  It’s Christmas morning and I’ve had my fill of bacon and eggs… and I’m thinking of all of you down there in the upside-down part of the world, celebrating in your Jandals And BBQs-kind-of-way.

We arrived into Granada yesturday afternoon, with a gorgeous scenic panoramic train ride through the snow-coated mountains that surround the region.

With the intention of going out for a nice Christmas Eve dinner, we hunted about the town, assisted by Sadja’s awesome Spanish, we were told time and again that everything will close at 8pm on Christmas Eve.  That’s how they do things here, in this traditional world of Europe…

No ‘nice’ Christmas Eve dinner for us.  Sam and I settled for the special dinner being offered from the hostel (Paella, Chorizo and CHampagne)… which turned out to be pretty fantastic …. and MIkey and Sadja made an omlette.. which was also pretty fantastic.

I made Egg Nog… my favourite Christmas treat… and the four of us got pretty blimin drunken amongst the festivities of crowds of total strangers from a million corners of the globe.

It’s really cool to be a part of not only the Spanish Christmas traditions, but those from so many other places as well.  We made sure we had booked a hostel with a kitchen so that we could cater for ourselves at CHristmas time - and it ends up that at any given time throughout the day various different types  of worldly Christmas feasts are being concocted up in that room.

It’s so much fun - a SWedish girl was making her traditional Christmas meatballs last night - and the Malaysian girl had some of her ‘usual’ sweet treats.

HAving got quite drunk on the christmas-plonk last night, we abandoned our original ideas of holding out on present-time until the Kiwi-usual Christmas morning - and went the EUropean way - distributing gifts-a-plenty late on the Eve Evening.

Haha.

WE had  lots of fun, and for a group of the sum total of 4 people, we all got relatiely spoilt - I got a beautiful ring from MIkey, a german beer and a Cologne, Germany glass from SAdja (her home town), some eyeshadow and a bracelet from SAmuel.  Totally awesome.

THen SAm and I went to a good Spanish Catholic Midnight Mass with a bunch of other people from the hostel. We couldnt understand anything that was going on of course - with the language barrier and all - and so we were even more in the dark that an outsider usually is at a Catholic service.  Stand at the right time, sit at the right time, say ‘and also with you’ in Spanish everytime the Priest with the funny hat says ‘peace be with you’ in Spanish….   hahaha…..    too hard at midnight after 3 gallons of Egg Nog.

WE left early to fall into a deep and wonderful slumber.

And now, from my Mum, we will feast on the fruits of our CHristmas Eve-Eve labour, a huge stockpile of cold meat cuts and fruit and chocolate and Rum and bread and cheese and olives and nuts….  it’s going to be a wonderful day.
To tell you the truth, although it’s a beautiful day and the sky is stunningly blue (not exactly what one would’ve expected for a NOrthern HEmisphere CHristmas), it really just feels like we’re playing a big CHristmas GAme, and not like the real thing.

The 4 of us are in a 6-bed-dorm, and I keep feeling like if it’s a real christmas then family and a BBQ are going to jump out from behind a corner at some stage…

I miss pohutukawas.

Anyway, I hope that your DAys and Festivities and drinks are doing the good-christmas-job, and that everyone got thoroughly spoilt from their special people.

Merry Christmas to all… Ho ho ho… Happy WEdding Time to the Hopes in the south at the moment.
All my love and drunken christmas cheer,
Lou

Well well!

Because I know you care, I’m going to brag for a bit about the recent additions to my 4 month-long trek through Europe’s Modern Art Museums.

When we had decided (Sam and I) that we’d be in Spain together over December for the last month of my travels I pretty much surrendered the whole of the planning side of this leg of the trip to him.

With the one exception of the Guggenheim in Bilbao. See: http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/ingles/edificio/el_edificio.htm for the context.

Years of highschool were spent in a class in the upstairs ‘Brick Building’ of New Plymouth Girls’ High School gazing at a picture of this building, without a doubt one of Europe’s Architectural highlights, and with a permanent collection that is among the best in the world.  I always knew I would get there, and it was ultimately one of the reasons for my venture into Spain at all.  Olé! 

So, it was decided fairly early on that this would be a stop off at some stage over these few weeks, and we ended up going as a day trip from San Sebastian.  By the time we arrived in Bilbao in the morning I was SO EXCITED I was almost wetting myself. 

The museum itself is visable from almost anywhere in the city, dominating the skyline and catching your eye at every angle.  It’s impossible not to look at, and when I saw it I believe I shrieked with glee.

Yes, glee.
‘Glee’ is hot again.
Very trendy.
Very Europe.

Anywho…
The interior continues along the same scheme of grandure and ‘nautical’, ‘fishlike’ wonderment… you really do have to listen to the audio-guides’ to truely appreciate the full-on self-absorbed wank-banter that goes with the construction and symbolism of this building.

Actually along with the construction and symbolism of most of the art.  It’s glorious and wonderful, inspiring and humbling, but so often I find myself frustrated at the things modern art claims to be in its narratives.

We spent about 6hrs wandering through the 20+ exhibition rooms and highly esteemed art of this century… but, of course, the permanent collection I’d been chasing-my-own-tial in exictement about, was in but slim pickings on the ground… and so, yet again - I was left a little… hmm….  ‘unsatisfied’.

Nevertheless, it was one killer day!  Leaving the museum, my eyes felt like they’d been worn through to the retina.  I commaed out on the bus ride home.

——————————-

The following day we woke up at the GHASTLY hour of 6am to ensure a seat on the train to Madrid at 8.30am.  Sam sorted the whole thing almost entirely in Spanish and I swooned, the way I do when he does that.

Sigh.

Madrid was everything you imagine it to be, in the grand identity that *is* Spain.  Sprawling, bustling, horn-honking metropolis.  Where the pavements are graced by nothing but truely stylish footwear…. and the pickpockets breathe down your neck, constantly.

The smog hangs thick, and the people talk loudly and the successful patrons of popular cafes and restaurants get there by knocking the others down in their haste.  We tried multiple times at two different stages to get a seat at a restaurant that came highly recommended…. with nothing less than more than an hour’s wait for a table.

Of course, following all expectations, Madird had enough Modern Art to choke multiple small children… and HOT DAMN it’s good stuff!

Thyssen-Bornemisza is an excellent art gallery (I could blab more, but if you really want details see Sam’s website - he’s stolen the light from my fire and beat me to a very informative post!)…  I saw my first Clifford Still ever.

Clifford Still is my long lost artist SoulMate who I had a ceremonial wedding with in highschool (which he has yet to be informed about).  I was about as excited as I could have possibly been, and Sam was very patient as I sat an talked in hamster-like gasps for a full 15minutes.

Thaaaaat’s right.

I’m totally running out of net time here, and I haven’t even MENTIONED Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ painting which had much the same effect.

You all care, I know it’s true.

We’re in Lisbon now…. that’s Portugal’s capital… at first glance it reminds me of some cities in Turkey, or Croatia.  And it’s about as filthy as Rome.

Beautiful and quaint as well, though….  
I’ll keep you posted.

xxLou

FYI

Now that I’m travelling with my exceedingly wonderful geek boyfriend, I thought I’d relay his blog address to you as well.

Just in case you’re bored as hell and missing me so much you want to read alternate sites about my travels by default? 

http://15seconds.blogspot.com

Awesome.  Go on!  Surprise me and check it!  Haha…

Esther, James…I know you will!    :-p

Alright.  I admit it! 
All emails on the subject have been taken seriously and I now formally apologise for the distinct lack of contact following my Sam’s exceedingly romantic arrival into my blissful European existance!  :-p

Actually, I’m not sorry at all… this last week and a half has been incredible.  Spain is the most perfect setting for both of us to hit things off again - food and alcohol and bars and art and clubs and sights and scenery all worthy of the big Write Home about.

We LOVED Barcelona… a hugely nocturnal city, littered with world class sculpture and architecture in bright, discordant colours (reminiscent of Dutch design - but with a whole different flavour), in retrospect I think we honestly spent most of our time eating and drinking - we found the stylish, flashy restaurants, and the quirky-pokey-little-local haunts (which we actually preferred) where smoke hangs thick like fog in the air and old men sit in the corner engaged in intense games of dominos… the food is ridiculously cheap, with strong simple flavours and generous servings accompanying sangria or cerveca (beer) served in bulbous, spunky glasses.

Having spent most of the last 10days eating our way through the country we’ve noticed a few notable differences in serving styles and ordering proceedures, guarenteed to confuse the hell out of even the most attentive tourists.

In Barcelona any place you walk into you just sit down at.  You dont wait to be seated, and, even if there’s counter food, you dont order at the counter.  It sends the waiters into a right royal TISS if you do either of these things.  They come over and take your order from you (which, when you’re Spanishly-challenged is a mission without the props of counter food spread out in front of you to poke at), and when it’s time to pay Sam hollars out his well practiced ‘La Quenta, Por Favour’ (’The bill please’) and you pay at the table.

Also in Barcelona ‘Self Service’ - which you almost never see - doesn’t mean what it means in New Zealand (in that you go up with your plate and serve yourself), Oh no!  It means you order at the counter.  The first few times we were dumb founded.  But we had it sorted until…

We arrived in San Sebastian.  A gorgeous little old town on the northern coast of Spain, sharing ocean water with that of the English channel (kinda), and a cuisine almost defined by specialty ham and pinxos (said ‘pin-chos’, it’s Basque).  Pinxos are like Tapas but the whole practice of them is different,.. instead of being a menu item they’re lined up delicately and beautifully along the bar.  Tiny little nibbly bits with octopus (which is surprisingly delicious!), squid ink, prawns, mussels, olives, egg and salad, an absolute work of culnary architectural art. And CHEAP.

BUT, if, in San Sebastian you walk in and sit yourselves - like we’d proudly mastered in Barcelona - you get completely ignored and the odd glare from the waiting staff.  Oh No!  You must ORDER AT THE BAR, and have them select your table!

These things aren’t spelt out in guidebooks, and its quite hard to work out what the f**k you’ve done wrong through a language barrier.  But the FOOD!  The seafood and flavours are worth every glare and moment of embarrassment!  I can assure you.

But MADRID!  Well that’s a mish-mash of the above procedures with us being moved from certain tables to other tables for no apparent reason to boot.  Who knows!

The good news is, that Sam of mine seems to be masterfully getting a grasp on the Spanish language, through iPod tutorials, phrasebooks and watching all the Spanish movies on the trains… he’s awesome, and seems to be able to do more things in what, from the outside, seems like seamless Spanish each day.

(According to him though he just stabs in the dark a lot of the time and has the grammatical comprehension of a 3 year old…    could’ve fooled me!)

Right, in keeping with my specific instructions about blog post length early on in my travels, this post will end here.  Lucky you.

Hi all!!

I’m here and happenin’!….   Where do I begin?

Sam arrived on Monday afternoon and I was there to meet him at the airport, arriving at 1.35pm. The airpoirt was a 90min bus ride away, and for no apparent reason I’d set my alarm for 7.15am.  So I was up, showered, beautified and fed by about 9am.  Haha, and then I had no idea what to do with myself.

Seeing him poke his head around some security glass in the distance was exactly the surreal moment that I’d imagined and in his haste to get through the official-business to me on the otherside… he walked through the security gate, leaving his luggage on the other side!

I have that effect on people

So we had to fluff around at the airport, bouncing between the Ryan Air desk, the information desk, the security guard and the cafeteria (Sam had been on a budget-no-food-flight, and not eaten all day)…  It was funny and meant that our first few hours together were spent goggling at each other in a airport terminal.

Since then we’ve wandered blissfully around Gaudi’s architecture, have drunk a metric sh*tload of Sangria (a beautiful cold red wine thats spiced and fruited), eaten glorious tapas and paella (I havent submerged myself in such incredible cuisine since Turkey… there’s so much seafood and everything is so simplistic and tasty), walked the entire length of spain down little alleyways and through markets of jewellery, chocolates, cheap funky clothing, cured animals hanging from ceilings, smelly cheeses and more olives than you could throw at yo mamma.

It’s awesome.

I’m rapidly running out of time on this internet, we’re off to climb a hill today, for awesome views of the city and some killer ruins.  As you do.

I think we’re going to head across to San Sebastian tomorrow… it’s a small town on the northern coast.  Apparently the seafood and the surfing are awesome.  3 guesses as to which of *those* I’ll be sampling!

I’ll write again soon.
Love love love, Lou.

Aaaaah Roma!

The glamour, the history, the cobblestones and pizza…. the streets lined with dozens of ritzy scooters, middle aged men with gorgeous pointy-toed tan-coloured leather shoes and suit jackets who jet past on them - or the couples, each as stunning as the other - with her long, perfectly maintained hair flowing in the breeze behind her.

It’s ridiculous.  Really.

I have been trying to think of a way to word this post in ways that could convey the impact of what I’ve seen since I’ve been here - anybody who’s been to Rome knows the overwhelming way that Rome must suck everybody in and spit them out - a whirlwind of ancient structures like the Colessium, the Pantheon and the Roman Forum… the grandure of the Vatican City and in it, St Peter’s Bascilica - the only buiding that has truely BLOWN. ME. AWAY. since Istanbul’s Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia.  The sheer SCALE of these strucutres, having been such a huge part of the establishment of Western Civilisation as we know it…

And then there was the Sistine Chapel….   *sigh*
An ornate and eye-feastingly delicious building of some of the most beautiful, and overwhelming ceiling paintings, room after room of amazing hand-painted walls and frescos and carvings and statues and marble tables and bronze models and biblical story after story depicted over and over again. 

Of course seeing Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is one of those things that you do and you feel like you are checking off something major and wonderful from your great, phantom Life’s To Do List in the sky.  You’re not allowed to talk, or take photos or sit down or lean on anything or having any fun while you’re in the room in there… and the lighting is dim and unobtrusive.  I stared at this work I’d studied so much in Art History for absolutely ages…  but wasnt as overwhelmed as I would’ve been if I hadnt had to walk through eleventy-million rooms of a very similar standard to get there.  The whole place is totally amazing, ..

.. even if the density of gift shops and official souvenirs and religious parafenalia available to buy around every corner is so high it’s comical - it was awesome.

And if I hadnt been up until 4.30am this morning on a BRUTAL pub crawl with George and Pav and a bunch of the kids from the hostel.. resulting in a very messy few incidents and subsequently a very messy morning - well!  I might not have spent the whole time feeling nauseatingly claustrophobic, constantly in need of fresh air and not entirely in control of preventing any further ‘messy incidents’.

Ahem.

Yes, well… things have certainly been interesting here…

We’ve been constantly entertained by the illegal street vendors and the cat-and-mouse game that seems to go on constantly - seeing the dodgy eyes flashing around the touristy areas, and the lookout system that they have in place…. all of the goods (usually ‘genuine Dolce and Gabanna’ sunglasses, handbags, etc… and crafts among other things) are laid out on a sheet so that, in a split second it can all be bundled up and run off with should police or security decide to do a scout round.

We saw this happen A NUMBER of times in various places and the boys virtually lost the plot in hysterics every time.  Yesturday evening we managed to get a video of it all happening, perfectly choreographed by George, we watched in in our intoxicated states last night and were still thoroughly entertained.

Speaking of intoxicated states - as I was drunkenly charging ahead to get home from said brutal pub crawl last night, I was walking down the side of the Colessium, arm and arm with 2 American girls when we heard some manner of hissed whisper coming out of the bushes.

We all looked, instinctively..

And there was a very large hairy man standing in the shadows pants around his ankles and coat open - just as you would expect, having a good old masturbate all over himself.

At first I kind of laughed, and then I was made quite anxious by it.  The girls and I sped up ahead and crossed the road - to a cobbled area right by the Colessium where the rest of the group - namely the boys - had stopped to take drunken night time photos and basically not move towards home fast enough….  On my way to issue some drunken commands for them to follow in my wake a police car pulled over. 

My heart sank, I thought they were questioning me for being so clearly publically intoxicated when they asked what my name was and where I was from.  The other two girls were standing in the background - THEN they proceeded to ask me where I’d been that night, and whether I liked Italian men.

Hahahahaha….   4am on a Monday morning after boozing in Rome on a Sunday night within about 5 mins of each other I get flashed by a fat guy and then asked if I like Italian men by 2 20-something police officers.

QUITE strange.

Anyway, I proceeded to tell them (I might have been drunk, but Im not stupid) that I’m not particularly fond of Italian men… after which I had two very defensive 20-something Italian police officers on my hands.

They gave up on me and started with the other 2 girls, and when that didnt work I ordered the whole troop to move quickly in the direction of home.

I hate that whole being-really-drunk and cold thing when you’ve got freakin miles to walk and you dont know where you are, and you’re with almost a dozen other people who all are just as incapacitated as you are.  A time when organisation and cooperation aren’t exactly at their best.

Gah.

We made it though… and I didn’t have to see another penis… and I went to bed to be totally punished this morning.  I’m never drinking again, by the way.

I said goodbye to the boys tonight, unfortunately our ways have finally parted… they’re off to Napoli (Naples) in the south of Italy, and then moving their way back up the country via Milan and Florence.  I’m training to Nice, France tomorrow for a few days, then onto Marseilles THEN it will be Monday.

Monday the 4th of December.

When Sam flies into Girona airport - about 1 hour north of Barcelona and I meet him, and it’s all in slow motion and very romantic and there’s some nauseatingly romantic pop song playing in the background….

Oh yes there is!

I’m so excited.

I will be seeing Michael again in Spain around the 16th or 17th of December with Sadja… and might cross paths with George and Pav again in a week or so….

But as far as these things go - I now have a week to myself again, before I begin my grand, 4.5 week Spanish finale to my OE with Sam and Spain.

That’s all for now - I definately havent written enough about Rome, but Ive probably written enough for the attention spans out there.

Veni, vidi, vici!

Or, as last night’s pub crawl t-shirt says ‘I came, I saw, I crawled’!
Haha, it might be a little bit more appropriate.

Lots of Love,
LOU xxxxx

Well well!  On Wednesday and Thursday I spent 2 days in Zurich, Switzerland’s capital city, framed by alps, a picturesque lake and the cliche-Swiss-steeples scattered throughout the townscape.

I went a day earlier than the boys, and had a great time wondering around the city, and a not-so-great-time coming down with a cold. 

Philipp, a Zurichian-friend I made and travelled for a few days with from Berlin through Dresden with, met me for a drink the first night and mapped out a good plan of what to spend my time in the city doing.

It was really neat to catch up with him again, and he was really generous with advice, etc… so the next day when I felt like REAL-cold-crap, in the kind of state that if I were at HOME I would’ve called in sick to work and lay, sleeping on the couch all day, surrounded by tissues and eucalyptus, in a blanket feeling sorry for myself.

All of my good intentions to get *out* and visit Zurich’s renowned Kunst Muzeum Moderne (museum of modern art - of course) and reputedly the ‘best zoo in Europe’ for that day were scratched.

We walked around and I sustained myself on menthol throat lozenges, and we (now with the boys again - after their brutal night drinking in Salzburg) spent the whole day not going into places and not buying things because we’re all on a budget and it’s so FREAKIN expensive. 

It’s a good city to walk in though, and beautifully picturesque.

One thing I noticed about Switzerland is that people immediately stop for you when you approach a pedestrian crossing..  it RULES!  And there are no hagglers on the street - I only saw one beggar.  My trusty Lonely Planet says that Switzerland has the highest standards of living overall in the world.  Which isn’t hard to see.

The cars and the style, the shops and the architecture…. I walked along a street called Haupbanstrasse (I think), underneath which all of the Swiss banks store vaults and vaults and vaults of gold and silver… kajillions of high-standard-of-living dollars and safety deposit boxes.

It was pretty phenominal… and the stores that line the wide road and tramway are quite indicative of that very wealth.  Made for some fascinating window shopping - though I have to say I enjoy Italian shop windows more!…  The funky Christmas lights are up along the street as well.  Perhaps Zurich’s equivalent of the Champs Elysee in Paris?

We had intended to stay an extra night in Zurich, but high expense means high anxiety when you’re on a budget, and when Mikey feels like he’s spending too much, he gets cranky…  plus we had an frustratingly, LONG STORY incident with our hostel there … we decided to leave that even on a night train to Rome.  Even Italy is cheap compared to Switzerland.

We collected our bags at about 4pm from the hostel - as it was starting to get dark and cold and none of us had any money left - and went and sat at the Haupbanhof (= ‘main train station’ in Germany, Austria, Switzerland), reading, playing charades, driving each other mental…. the usual.

Philipp came back and took me for a drink at one of the (surprisingly nice) bars at the Haupbanhof and then bought me Swiss chocolate - because, I now know, it is a sin to not eat Swiss chocolate.  It’s quite incredible…

Then our night train to Rome.  Another long time with lots of people in a small place with nothing to do and no where to move.  It wasnt as painful as I’d expected, as we’d had to purchase couchettes (extra skinny beds, where you cant sit up because they’re packed so tightly together. You actually cant do anything except lie down) - certainly an improvement on the whole sleeping-piled-on-top-of-each-other in a cabin with only seats that have curves and wood and broken springs and arm rests that wont fold up, in all the wrong places.

Hahah…    so!  Yes!  Onto Rome then??

Hi again,

Thought I’d touch base and let you know Im departing the wonderful Venice in a few hours on a train to Zurich, in Switzerland.

The tide has started to come in here, and many of the streets are flooded… it’s a beautiful novelty for us wide-eyed tourists… they’ve constructed elevated platforms as makeshift footpaths… in an efficient it-aint-no-thing way that suggests its like second nature.

Anyway… the boys are heading up to Salzburg, Austria for a night, then meeting me in Zurich the following day.  I’ve already been to Salzburg so thought I’d go to Zurich and maybe catch up with a Swiss guy I travelled with for a bit a few weeks ago - from Berlin to Dresden.

He’s cool, and he’s a local… which is always UBER cool.ù

Anyway… thats all for now..

Love, Lou

Hi all,

You’ll be pleased to know that tonight I SLEEP IN A BED.  Actually, I don’t know if you’re as pleased as I am about it… but GOD DAMN the last few nights have NOT been pretty.

We left Dubrovnik on Sunday, hiring a car (!! - George has an international drivers license… but you have to be 21 to lease a car in Croatia, so I “was the driver” but all that means is I drove it out of the parking lot enough for George and I to swap seats) and driving back up to Split.

I can’t rave enough about Croatia, and driving, being able to stop and have a look at things along the way and to move at our own pace meant we were able to see a lot more of the landscape than we otherwise might’ve.

As we had paid for the car, and had it overnight, we figured we may as well sleep in it, to save on a night’ve accomodation and make the most of where our money is going. However 4 people in a car, 3 of them being boys over 6ft tall, wasn’t pretty… and I was virtually gassed to death by their stench by morning time.  Rancid, I tell you…. RANCID.

Haha… it’s all in the name of travel though, so without a shower or a proper toilet stop, we dropped the car off in the morning and ditched our packs in a super-sized locker at the train station for the last few hours so we could find books for our journey and get things sorted before our 20hr stint on the train.

OK, so it wasn’t 20hrs, but with no recent shower, and none in sight, it may as well have been.

At 3pm yesturday we left Split on a bus, transferring to a train in some random place called Perkovic, making our way back to Zagreb in just under 6hrs.

The overnight train from Zagreb to Venice was torturous.  When we found ourselves a cabin the discomfort of the last overnight train from Munich to Budapest was out the window - this archaic, crusty train took discomfort to a whole nother level.  The springs in the seats were poking out, and the base of the seats were sunked down to the wooden structure itself…  As far as space goes though, the 4 of us seem to have the utilisation down pat, - and it was certainly an improvement on the car in that respect.

AND THEN!  ….Usually on night trains, you’re woken up, maybe 3 or 4 times for passport and ticket checks at various intervals.

Last night we must’ve been woken up AT LEAST a dozen times…. passport checks, customs, tickets, passports, customs, tickets….   the wardens barge into your cabin, flick all the lights on, shout orders at you in a number of languages as you struggle to open your eyes, figure out that you’re not in the midst of an armed robbery and all they want is to tell you that you should’ve bought a reservation as well as a ticket supplement and you need to cough up XEuroes…

It’s nasty…   I think the excessive ticket/passport checking is because we crossed through Slovenia as well as into Italy… but it’s not fair.  I was in a totally 100% foul mood when the train came to an abrupt halt just after 7am this morning.  I’d had two nights of not-quite-sleep and now we had to manouvre our way around a whole new public transport system…  I was irrationally paranoid about my luggage and pickpocketing - because Italy is notorious for that kind of crime…

But to cut a long story short, the directions we’d been given from the website to our Hotel were pretty much the POLAR OPPOSITE of what we should be doing.  After almost 90mins of almost 6 buses and changing directions and asking for directions and stopping and staring aimlessly at signs in yet another, all new language…..   we arrived at the SUPPOSED place we were supposed to be.

To be told that we were going to a different hotel owned by the same people…. ok.

Then a guy came in a little shuttle bus and took us and all of our gear on a little tiki tour through the dense morning fog down back streets and side streets while the boys were trying to work out how to remember to get back again.

He pulled up outside…   get this….   the BUS STATION THAT WE’D STARTED FROM… and directed us through two wrought iron gates.  I’m pretty sure I was administering a fairly formidable I’M-GOING-TO-KICK-YOU-IN-THE-HEAD-LOOK when I asked whether this was a sick joke.  He laughed… no joke.  I didn’t care… I was making a b-line for the bed.

The boys set their stuff down and went for a walk to a market… I was beyond marketing - which is a whole nother level of fatigue for me - it’s not often that I turn down the opportunity to hunt of a bargin and fiddle with cheap, interesting trinkets.

I had a shower… the first in more than 48hrs, shaved my legs, used A CUBIC SH/TLOAD OF SOAP, washed my hair, scrubbed my face…. let the hot water sink into my aching, cramped up shoulders and retreated into bed.  For a blissful hours sleep before the boys were back and ready for action.

We got back into a water taxi, and this time I was able to enjoy it, … we’ve been wandering around narrow alleyways, palaces, pigeon-squares and stunningly gorgeous fashion…  This place is so beautiful.. the idea that you have of venice is true… it’s all true… gondolas, pizza, beautiful boots and fashion and jewellery….

The highlight so far has been, in and amongst the stunning Italian women with their impecable taste and gorgeously pieced together outfits, a woman approached me and asked for directions in italian.  I apologised in my shoddy-Italian… and then buzzed out for a good 15mins on the fact that I had been mistaken for ONE OF THEM.  Gasp.  Hehe…

I must be doing something right!

GTG, 1min left.  Love you lots…

xxxLOU