Italian Adventures
March 28
So we took a hopper flight over to Rome. Funny because with all the time in the airport the flight didn’t make travelling much faster, but we finally made it there and took a bus to our hostel. We were so wiped by then it was mid afternoon and we’d not slept much the night before so we just checking into our hostel and crashed for a bit.
Janell and I got up around 5 or 6 before the others so we went down and had our first real Italian Pizza at a restaurant on the corner. It was great – thin crispy crust, no tomato sauce (who knew…), magnificent cheese. Our waiter was very friendly and became our friend. He taught us some Italian phrases like hello, thank you, goodnight, and then threw in “I love you” for free. He was real cute. We’d always wave to him when going to our hostel.
After that we went and woke up the rest of our room. They came back to the restaurant and got some food for themselves and Janell and I found some cheaper stuff to fill our bellies with supplementing the pizza.
Then we headed out in search of the coliseum. It was a ways away but we found it eventually. It was way cool at night walking around the coliseum taking pictures, dancing around, eating gelato. Yes, my first Italian gelato. So delicious! Mmmm…
Then we walked around a little more and went back to the hostel and slept the night through.
March 29
This was the day of walking. We got up bright and early – well actually I did, at 8, the others almost missed breakfast… but I had a nice shower and checked my e-mail and leisurely breakfast with ridiculously strong Italian coffee. Seriously, I like chocked on it. The hostel we stayed in was nice except seemed to smell like pot sometimes and had lots of drunken American college kids staying at it. But it was fun, safe and easy systems… they gave us breakfast which is always a plus.
After waking and breakfasting we hopped the metro to the Spanish Steps – you know the ones Audrey Hepburn eats gelato on in Roman holiday . Here it is in this picture. We split from the boys there and had the whole afternoon to wander and shop and see sights. It was a very enjoyable day though my feet hurt pretty bad by the end. Let’s see if I can list all the stuff we saw (it’ll have to be in Italian because I’m working off an Italian map): Augusteo (big cool church just briefly saw it), Piazza Dell Popolo (sat in the sun at the fountain, LOVED it), Piazzale Flamino (right by the last thing), then walked back down the street and down and down till – Piazza Colonna (pillar thing with cool carvings and hieroglyphics on it) then the Pantheon (we all know about that eh?) down to Vittorial (the current parlement buildings, way cool), then we went back up and met the boys and went to Fontana Di Trevi As seen here in this picture.
We ate some pizza there and hung for a while. Then we headed up a ways to this freaking huge park. Totally Beautiful, the sun was setting and we could look out over the city. Here’s a picture of Courtney sitting and looking out over the city. Pretty huh?
Then we went back to our hostel where we found our friend Danny awaiting us. We ate a delicious grocery store meal of bread and cheese and Nutella. Good times. Oh, and to our right here is the amazing bridesmaid’s dress I bought for Julia’s wedding. So excited about that purchase. Couldn’t have been more perfect. This picture really doesn’t do it justice, it’s pure silk and like just so incredibly beautiful. Go God!
March 30
This was the Vatican day. We went to Vatican City and saw the museum with the Sistine Chapel and lots of art work and stuff and also went to St. Peter’s basilica. I really enjoyed this day, I kind of left my group for most of it and just wandered through places by myself. It was cool to have some time to just pray and think and reflect on how awesome God it. We attended the mass service at St. Peters. I really liked it. It was the first mass I’ve ever been to. Of course I couldn’t understand a word it was in either Latin or Italian, but I liked sitting and rising with and greeting other believers from a different culture. I thought about touching St. Peter’s foot but then thought better of it. The whole time in the basilica I was just praying that these people would get to know the real and living God and not just their religion. But there are also a lot of things they are doing right and I thanked him for that as well.
That evening we went back to the hostel and then Danny, Courtney, Janell, and I went to a cute little restaurant around the corner and had amazingly delicious pasta, they were like bowtie noodles in a crème spinach sauce. YUM. First time I think I was full all trip too… Then Janell and Courtney and I bought a whole tub of gelato and took it back to the main lounge in the hostel to eat it.
Then out of the blue Josh and Allison came back from a walk bringing with them Kaylie and Janice. It was way fun to see them and here about their travelling experiences. I went on a walk with Kaylie we were hit on by approximately 30 Italian men in the course of 1.5 minutes. A little scary, yes, but funny too.
We hung out some and then went to bed for the next day we were off to Naples.
March 31
Today we got up real early, 6AM, and took a train to Naples. There were slight complications with losing each other and stuff but eventually we all made it there. Naples sucks so we didn’t stick around just hopped a train to Pompeii. Pompeii was absolutely amazing. I loved it we walked all around and saw the castes of people where you really could see the expression on their faces. It was all so real, like a real city as it existed before Jesus. Amazing. It made history really real to see it all first hand. I could use a good feet washing like Jesus gave the disciples after walking around there in my Birks all day. This picture is the only one I got because my batteries died but hopefully I’ll copy some from the other later. That’s Mt. Vesuvius in the background there. Yes, I have no idea how that is spelled. I’m ignorant and stupid. I’m sorry.
Now I’m on a train headed to Florence. We should get there tonight. Too bad my seat is away from everyone else. I can’t write anymore cuz my batter is JUST about to die.
So we arrived in Florence that evening and it took a bit of a walk to find our hostel but we found it. We went out to a nearby restaurant with reasonable prices and had delicious pasta/pizza and then walked around a bit. The others stopped at the first gelato place they saw and only therefore got mediocre gelato (although mediocre gelato is still more amazing than just about any other food type I can think of) but Janell and I made them walk more until we found this AMAZING gelato shop. So so good, they actually had Oreo flavoured (oh I love Oreos, oh yes I do) and I had that and mint chocolate chip which was just so minty! Yum. We went back and us girls had a room to ourselves. The hostel was really small and very cute. It was fun to have some time just hanging out with the girls and not having to worry about any strange people walking into the room.
April 1
Florence in a day. (have you noticed how each day has a little title… yep didn’t do that on purpose, I suppose it just helps me gather my thoughts). There was a lot we could have seen and done in Florence (or Firenze if you’re Italian) but we were pretty tired from all our travelling about so we mostly just took it easy. There is this HUGE outdoor market where they sell just every thing and we wandered around there for most of the day. We all made several purchases, we all spent more money than we really should have, and we all loved it. Florence is absolutely beautiful. It’s not nearly so urban as Rome and definitely nothing like ugly Naples so we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly wandering around seeing pretty churches and statues and buying things. We also went in search of a gelato shop that Josh remembered from when he was in Florence a couple years ago. It took us a while to find us but the gelato was very delicious. They had lots of fun flavours to choose from (ah! I’m so British, did you see how I just spelled flavour, I can’t even remember how it should be spelled… flavor? Yes?).
Then the train travel from hell began. What we thought was going to be a simple hour and a half long journey to Cinque Terra ( pronounced Chinco tera) on one train turned out to be a 6 hour disaster on 5 trains. Mostly we just had to change trains a lot, and that’s always hard. And then once we got off a stop to late and had to go back one, and also we had to change and the time tables didn’t tell us what platform to be on so we couldn’t figure out where to be until we’d asked like 4 people. Frustration. But finally we made it. Tired and about ready to kill each other, we made it. We got to our hostel which we were afraid would be locked but wasn’t and went to bed and crashed with no plans of getting up early the next day.
April 2.
Oh Chinque Terra is so so so amazing. It’s absolutely beautiful. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to vacation. It’s where the Italians go to vacation. It’s these 5 small towns on the Mediterranean connected by hiking trails. It is very full of tourists, yes, but it’s so beautiful it wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t filled with tourists. And most of them are Italian not American which is generally better.
We got up late… actually we were woken up by the hostel owner cuz we were supposed to have left the hostel by 10 and it was then 10:30… oops, that’s what you get for not reading through the stuff they tell you to read… and so we rushed through getting ready and left within 10 minutes. But it didn’t matter. We were blown away by the beauty once we stepped the door. We walked down and got real fruit smoothies. YUM, so much fruit in them… still they weren’t like smoothies back home but much closer than anything I’ve seen in Europe and no sugar added whatsoever, just fruit, yogurt, almond paste, and love. Then we got some pizza for way cheaper than can be found in the cities. And then we went and layed out on these huge slabs of granite which make a line going out into the ocean. It was way good to just unwinde. I also got to spend time in the word which is always hard to do when travelling and totally enjoyed that.
So we wandered and sat and ate when we felt like it because it didn’t cost thousands of dollors to do so. Around 3 I found Allison and we went for a walk and then went down by the water and sat out on rocks in the sun and talked for like 2 hours. It was very good talking and we were able to release all our built up stress from the difficult travelling we’d been doing for the last few days. God is good. I love Ally, she is my sister.
Tonight is Courtney’s birthday! She’s 21! So exciting! That’s why I’m using exclamation points after every sentence! So we are going out to a nice(er) meal and dressing up a little and stuff. I’m looking forward to that. Hopefully it will be lots and lots of fun. Happy Birthday Courtney, I love you!! (that was actually for Court cuz I sent this to her too… just in case anyone was confused by the outburst). It’s so cool to be travelling with two of my old roommates. I don’t have to get used to living with them because I already am. And Janell is like the most easy going person in the world… and yeah… Danny and Josh are just terrific young men.
Oh I am totally sunburned. My face is covered in freckles. I know I should be sad about the level of harm the sun is doing to my skin… but being that I haven’t seen any little bit of sun for the last 6 months I’d have to say a sunburn feels pretty dang good.
April 3
Today we spent most of the day in the great outdoors hiking. We met Mike and Lisa in the morning and headed off for our hiking. We walked to the next town which is not far at all then found the trail that took us to another town. This trail included 100’s (I kid you not) of steps carved out of the rock, precarious paths by cliffs, and some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever witnessed. I really enjoyed it (aside from almost dying for various reasons like danger and fatigue). I love hiking and it made me really excited for Austria. So yeah, did the hike and hung out in Vernnaza, the town it took us to, for a while reading and writing and whatnot, and then came back to Manarola where we are stayinig. Allison and I accompanied Mike and Lisa to their dinner and ate dessert with them.
All in all it was a good day but we were very tired and ready for bed by the end of it.
Allison and I sat on rocks and watched the sunset:
April 4.
The phrase, “Why you want to leave me!” from My Big Fat Greek Wedding comes to mind. Yes, they all left me. Of course… they had to since their going to Spain and I’m going to Germany, and I’m seeing all the girls again in a couple weeks in Austria, but it was sad none-the-less. We walked over to the next town in the morning and hung out there. Then we came back to Manarola to our favourite cheap pizza place here one last time for Janelle’s beloved Pesto Pizza. And then they left me. L
I’m all alone now. It’s kinda scary. I’m real bad in situations where I feel the need to converse with strangers, but I managed to stay pretty anti-social for the whole of the day so it’s ok. I went back to Vernazza by train because the gelato we had there yesterday was so amazing. So I ate gelato and hung out there and read and wrote some more. Reading and writing are such fun… I kind of feel sorry for ‘rithmatic… it’s the boring 3rd R. (See this is what happens when you leave me by myself for a day after I’ve been with people for 6 months straight… it’s not pretty).
I went to a nice dinner by myself. Well… I didn’t really mean to… I just didn’t feel like having pizza again, and the menu on this restaurant said the grilled fish was only 4 euro. What I, being stupid and young, didn’t realize was that that meant 4 euro per gram for a 4 gram fish. Dang it. I didn’t want to spend money tonight. That’s never fun, plus they threw in a 2 euro cover charge so what was meant to be a 4 euro meal turned out to be 18. Bleck, I hate money, it’s stressful. But good thing I have it or else I sure wouldn’t have been able to do all of these amazing things. (Thanks Daddy! I love you!). Tomorrow I leave Italy, perhaps forever, and head to Germany. The next phase of my trip begins.
April 5
I got up checked out of the hostel and hopped a train to Pisa. I had an extra 3 hours before I could check in so I left my luggage at the train station and walked out to see the tower. Unfortunately I left my camera in my luggage so I have no customary picture of me pushing the tower over or holding it up to insert here. The tower is smaller than you’d think but still cool to see. It was a fabulously gorgeous day – I laid out on the grass in front of the leaning tower and some other very-cool-looking-white-intricately-carved buildings and listened to music.
I then took a bus to the airport where I checked in and soon boarded my plane. The plane ride was uneventful and I was feeling good that all the most difficult part of my travelling was over – as I had been kinda nervous about this part of the trip previously. The plain landed in Hamburg (or so I though, dum dum dum) and I got my luggage and headed out to where Bianca should be waiting for me. But no Bianca. On top of that this airport was so stinking small there was only one conveyor belt for luggage and the tiniest little arrivals gate ever. Outside the airport was only a parking lot no city. So to make a long story short (an we all know I could make it awfully long if I wanted to) there are two airports: Hamburg Lubeck – actually 70 km outside of Hamburg and very very small so that no one hardly even knows it exists, and Hamburg international – the big normal airport. Ryanair wanting you to think you’re flying into Hamburg and not 70 km outside of it never mentions this so if you’re not a Hamburger (haha a hamburger, that’s what their really called…) you don’t know anything about this. So of course Bianca was waiting for me at the other one. It was a little sticky for a bit there, really wasn’t sure what to do not having any more info to reach Bianca than a phone number which wasn’t working… but she called the info desk and Lubeck and as all the busses had left already for the night she had to come all the way out (like an hour out of the city) to pick me up. But eventually she did come and I did get picked up and everything was ok. Just a little adventure… builds character.
So we went back to her parent’s flat which is above a bakery and went to bed.
So we took a hopper flight over to Rome. Funny because with all the time in the airport the flight didn’t make travelling much faster, but we finally made it there and took a bus to our hostel. We were so wiped by then it was mid afternoon and we’d not slept much the night before so we just checking into our hostel and crashed for a bit.
Janell and I got up around 5 or 6 before the others so we went down and had our first real Italian Pizza at a restaurant on the corner. It was great – thin crispy crust, no tomato sauce (who knew…), magnificent cheese. Our waiter was very friendly and became our friend. He taught us some Italian phrases like hello, thank you, goodnight, and then threw in “I love you” for free. He was real cute. We’d always wave to him when going to our hostel.
After that we went and woke up the rest of our room. They came back to the restaurant and got some food for themselves and Janell and I found some cheaper stuff to fill our bellies with supplementing the pizza.
Then we headed out in search of the coliseum. It was a ways away but we found it eventually. It was way cool at night walking around the coliseum taking pictures, dancing around, eating gelato. Yes, my first Italian gelato. So delicious! Mmmm…
Then we walked around a little more and went back to the hostel and slept the night through.
March 29
This was the day of walking. We got up bright and early – well actually I did, at 8, the others almost missed breakfast… but I had a nice shower and checked my e-mail and leisurely breakfast with ridiculously strong Italian coffee. Seriously, I like chocked on it. The hostel we stayed in was nice except seemed to smell like pot sometimes and had lots of drunken American college kids staying at it. But it was fun, safe and easy systems… they gave us breakfast which is always a plus.
After waking and breakfasting we hopped the metro to the Spanish Steps – you know the ones Audrey Hepburn eats gelato on in Roman holiday . Here it is in this picture. We split from the boys there and had the whole afternoon to wander and shop and see sights. It was a very enjoyable day though my feet hurt pretty bad by the end. Let’s see if I can list all the stuff we saw (it’ll have to be in Italian because I’m working off an Italian map): Augusteo (big cool church just briefly saw it), Piazza Dell Popolo (sat in the sun at the fountain, LOVED it), Piazzale Flamino (right by the last thing), then walked back down the street and down and down till – Piazza Colonna (pillar thing with cool carvings and hieroglyphics on it) then the Pantheon (we all know about that eh?) down to Vittorial (the current parlement buildings, way cool), then we went back up and met the boys and went to Fontana Di Trevi As seen here in this picture.
We ate some pizza there and hung for a while. Then we headed up a ways to this freaking huge park. Totally Beautiful, the sun was setting and we could look out over the city. Here’s a picture of Courtney sitting and looking out over the city. Pretty huh?
Then we went back to our hostel where we found our friend Danny awaiting us. We ate a delicious grocery store meal of bread and cheese and Nutella. Good times. Oh, and to our right here is the amazing bridesmaid’s dress I bought for Julia’s wedding. So excited about that purchase. Couldn’t have been more perfect. This picture really doesn’t do it justice, it’s pure silk and like just so incredibly beautiful. Go God!
March 30
This was the Vatican day. We went to Vatican City and saw the museum with the Sistine Chapel and lots of art work and stuff and also went to St. Peter’s basilica. I really enjoyed this day, I kind of left my group for most of it and just wandered through places by myself. It was cool to have some time to just pray and think and reflect on how awesome God it. We attended the mass service at St. Peters. I really liked it. It was the first mass I’ve ever been to. Of course I couldn’t understand a word it was in either Latin or Italian, but I liked sitting and rising with and greeting other believers from a different culture. I thought about touching St. Peter’s foot but then thought better of it. The whole time in the basilica I was just praying that these people would get to know the real and living God and not just their religion. But there are also a lot of things they are doing right and I thanked him for that as well.
That evening we went back to the hostel and then Danny, Courtney, Janell, and I went to a cute little restaurant around the corner and had amazingly delicious pasta, they were like bowtie noodles in a crème spinach sauce. YUM. First time I think I was full all trip too… Then Janell and Courtney and I bought a whole tub of gelato and took it back to the main lounge in the hostel to eat it.
Then out of the blue Josh and Allison came back from a walk bringing with them Kaylie and Janice. It was way fun to see them and here about their travelling experiences. I went on a walk with Kaylie we were hit on by approximately 30 Italian men in the course of 1.5 minutes. A little scary, yes, but funny too.
We hung out some and then went to bed for the next day we were off to Naples.
March 31
Today we got up real early, 6AM, and took a train to Naples. There were slight complications with losing each other and stuff but eventually we all made it there. Naples sucks so we didn’t stick around just hopped a train to Pompeii. Pompeii was absolutely amazing. I loved it we walked all around and saw the castes of people where you really could see the expression on their faces. It was all so real, like a real city as it existed before Jesus. Amazing. It made history really real to see it all first hand. I could use a good feet washing like Jesus gave the disciples after walking around there in my Birks all day. This picture is the only one I got because my batteries died but hopefully I’ll copy some from the other later. That’s Mt. Vesuvius in the background there. Yes, I have no idea how that is spelled. I’m ignorant and stupid. I’m sorry.
Now I’m on a train headed to Florence. We should get there tonight. Too bad my seat is away from everyone else. I can’t write anymore cuz my batter is JUST about to die.
So we arrived in Florence that evening and it took a bit of a walk to find our hostel but we found it. We went out to a nearby restaurant with reasonable prices and had delicious pasta/pizza and then walked around a bit. The others stopped at the first gelato place they saw and only therefore got mediocre gelato (although mediocre gelato is still more amazing than just about any other food type I can think of) but Janell and I made them walk more until we found this AMAZING gelato shop. So so good, they actually had Oreo flavoured (oh I love Oreos, oh yes I do) and I had that and mint chocolate chip which was just so minty! Yum. We went back and us girls had a room to ourselves. The hostel was really small and very cute. It was fun to have some time just hanging out with the girls and not having to worry about any strange people walking into the room.
April 1
Florence in a day. (have you noticed how each day has a little title… yep didn’t do that on purpose, I suppose it just helps me gather my thoughts). There was a lot we could have seen and done in Florence (or Firenze if you’re Italian) but we were pretty tired from all our travelling about so we mostly just took it easy. There is this HUGE outdoor market where they sell just every thing and we wandered around there for most of the day. We all made several purchases, we all spent more money than we really should have, and we all loved it. Florence is absolutely beautiful. It’s not nearly so urban as Rome and definitely nothing like ugly Naples so we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly wandering around seeing pretty churches and statues and buying things. We also went in search of a gelato shop that Josh remembered from when he was in Florence a couple years ago. It took us a while to find us but the gelato was very delicious. They had lots of fun flavours to choose from (ah! I’m so British, did you see how I just spelled flavour, I can’t even remember how it should be spelled… flavor? Yes?).
Then the train travel from hell began. What we thought was going to be a simple hour and a half long journey to Cinque Terra ( pronounced Chinco tera) on one train turned out to be a 6 hour disaster on 5 trains. Mostly we just had to change trains a lot, and that’s always hard. And then once we got off a stop to late and had to go back one, and also we had to change and the time tables didn’t tell us what platform to be on so we couldn’t figure out where to be until we’d asked like 4 people. Frustration. But finally we made it. Tired and about ready to kill each other, we made it. We got to our hostel which we were afraid would be locked but wasn’t and went to bed and crashed with no plans of getting up early the next day.
April 2.
Oh Chinque Terra is so so so amazing. It’s absolutely beautiful. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to vacation. It’s where the Italians go to vacation. It’s these 5 small towns on the Mediterranean connected by hiking trails. It is very full of tourists, yes, but it’s so beautiful it wouldn’t make sense if it wasn’t filled with tourists. And most of them are Italian not American which is generally better.
We got up late… actually we were woken up by the hostel owner cuz we were supposed to have left the hostel by 10 and it was then 10:30… oops, that’s what you get for not reading through the stuff they tell you to read… and so we rushed through getting ready and left within 10 minutes. But it didn’t matter. We were blown away by the beauty once we stepped the door. We walked down and got real fruit smoothies. YUM, so much fruit in them… still they weren’t like smoothies back home but much closer than anything I’ve seen in Europe and no sugar added whatsoever, just fruit, yogurt, almond paste, and love. Then we got some pizza for way cheaper than can be found in the cities. And then we went and layed out on these huge slabs of granite which make a line going out into the ocean. It was way good to just unwinde. I also got to spend time in the word which is always hard to do when travelling and totally enjoyed that.
So we wandered and sat and ate when we felt like it because it didn’t cost thousands of dollors to do so. Around 3 I found Allison and we went for a walk and then went down by the water and sat out on rocks in the sun and talked for like 2 hours. It was very good talking and we were able to release all our built up stress from the difficult travelling we’d been doing for the last few days. God is good. I love Ally, she is my sister.
Tonight is Courtney’s birthday! She’s 21! So exciting! That’s why I’m using exclamation points after every sentence! So we are going out to a nice(er) meal and dressing up a little and stuff. I’m looking forward to that. Hopefully it will be lots and lots of fun. Happy Birthday Courtney, I love you!! (that was actually for Court cuz I sent this to her too… just in case anyone was confused by the outburst). It’s so cool to be travelling with two of my old roommates. I don’t have to get used to living with them because I already am. And Janell is like the most easy going person in the world… and yeah… Danny and Josh are just terrific young men.
Oh I am totally sunburned. My face is covered in freckles. I know I should be sad about the level of harm the sun is doing to my skin… but being that I haven’t seen any little bit of sun for the last 6 months I’d have to say a sunburn feels pretty dang good.
April 3
Today we spent most of the day in the great outdoors hiking. We met Mike and Lisa in the morning and headed off for our hiking. We walked to the next town which is not far at all then found the trail that took us to another town. This trail included 100’s (I kid you not) of steps carved out of the rock, precarious paths by cliffs, and some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever witnessed. I really enjoyed it (aside from almost dying for various reasons like danger and fatigue). I love hiking and it made me really excited for Austria. So yeah, did the hike and hung out in Vernnaza, the town it took us to, for a while reading and writing and whatnot, and then came back to Manarola where we are stayinig. Allison and I accompanied Mike and Lisa to their dinner and ate dessert with them.
All in all it was a good day but we were very tired and ready for bed by the end of it.
Allison and I sat on rocks and watched the sunset:
April 4.
The phrase, “Why you want to leave me!” from My Big Fat Greek Wedding comes to mind. Yes, they all left me. Of course… they had to since their going to Spain and I’m going to Germany, and I’m seeing all the girls again in a couple weeks in Austria, but it was sad none-the-less. We walked over to the next town in the morning and hung out there. Then we came back to Manarola to our favourite cheap pizza place here one last time for Janelle’s beloved Pesto Pizza. And then they left me. L
I’m all alone now. It’s kinda scary. I’m real bad in situations where I feel the need to converse with strangers, but I managed to stay pretty anti-social for the whole of the day so it’s ok. I went back to Vernazza by train because the gelato we had there yesterday was so amazing. So I ate gelato and hung out there and read and wrote some more. Reading and writing are such fun… I kind of feel sorry for ‘rithmatic… it’s the boring 3rd R. (See this is what happens when you leave me by myself for a day after I’ve been with people for 6 months straight… it’s not pretty).
I went to a nice dinner by myself. Well… I didn’t really mean to… I just didn’t feel like having pizza again, and the menu on this restaurant said the grilled fish was only 4 euro. What I, being stupid and young, didn’t realize was that that meant 4 euro per gram for a 4 gram fish. Dang it. I didn’t want to spend money tonight. That’s never fun, plus they threw in a 2 euro cover charge so what was meant to be a 4 euro meal turned out to be 18. Bleck, I hate money, it’s stressful. But good thing I have it or else I sure wouldn’t have been able to do all of these amazing things. (Thanks Daddy! I love you!). Tomorrow I leave Italy, perhaps forever, and head to Germany. The next phase of my trip begins.
April 5
I got up checked out of the hostel and hopped a train to Pisa. I had an extra 3 hours before I could check in so I left my luggage at the train station and walked out to see the tower. Unfortunately I left my camera in my luggage so I have no customary picture of me pushing the tower over or holding it up to insert here. The tower is smaller than you’d think but still cool to see. It was a fabulously gorgeous day – I laid out on the grass in front of the leaning tower and some other very-cool-looking-white-intricately-carved buildings and listened to music.
I then took a bus to the airport where I checked in and soon boarded my plane. The plane ride was uneventful and I was feeling good that all the most difficult part of my travelling was over – as I had been kinda nervous about this part of the trip previously. The plain landed in Hamburg (or so I though, dum dum dum) and I got my luggage and headed out to where Bianca should be waiting for me. But no Bianca. On top of that this airport was so stinking small there was only one conveyor belt for luggage and the tiniest little arrivals gate ever. Outside the airport was only a parking lot no city. So to make a long story short (an we all know I could make it awfully long if I wanted to) there are two airports: Hamburg Lubeck – actually 70 km outside of Hamburg and very very small so that no one hardly even knows it exists, and Hamburg international – the big normal airport. Ryanair wanting you to think you’re flying into Hamburg and not 70 km outside of it never mentions this so if you’re not a Hamburger (haha a hamburger, that’s what their really called…) you don’t know anything about this. So of course Bianca was waiting for me at the other one. It was a little sticky for a bit there, really wasn’t sure what to do not having any more info to reach Bianca than a phone number which wasn’t working… but she called the info desk and Lubeck and as all the busses had left already for the night she had to come all the way out (like an hour out of the city) to pick me up. But eventually she did come and I did get picked up and everything was ok. Just a little adventure… builds character.
So we went back to her parent’s flat which is above a bakery and went to bed.
posted by Pamela Joy at 6:40 AM
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