Italy!!!!
So as a graduation present, I got to go to Italy for the month of September 2004, and had a freaking blast. I took about eight million pictures, so here's where you can take a look at the highlights and see what my trip was like.
I flew out on August 31, and arrived on Sept. 1, staying primarily in Florence, with my friend Serena, who I met in Japan in the summer of 2003 while I was studying abroad. She was nice enough to extend me an invite to come stay with her any time I wanted, so of course I took her up on it, post graduation being an excellent time to go do whatever I want. She worked Friday-Monday each week, so every weekend I went off on my own to different cities to see the rest of the country, while on her days off, we explored Florence and surrounding Tuscany. All in all it was an incredible experience, and I'm glad to say I'm finally comfortable striking it out on my own, even in a country where english isn't native. I met a lot of great people, saw a lot of amazing things, and I hope this page is in any way representative of the things I saw and did. My trip lasted 30 days, and I left on October 1st to return home to my native land. Once again, as was the case with Japan, adjusting to being back home is harder than adjusting to being away.
So here's how it works: For each little trip, or segment of my trip, there'll be a paragraph, and a photo. The paragraph describes what all went on, and my narrative about it, and then you can just click on the photo to take you to a page with the rest of the pics from that part, along with a mouseover comment about each photo. That way, this page won't be massive, and each individual page will have relavent content. Sound good? Let's give it a go.
September 1st-4th - Firenze
Florence, Firenze, is an amazing town. Let's see, what did I do there...hold on, I'm going to grab my journal. . . ok. So, I stayed in Firenze, with Serena and her father Antonio. I got picked up at the airport by Sere and her friend Valerio, and promptly slept. Then we rode, on a Vespa, to the downtown to check out the Duomo. The next day was a tour of the downtown, the palaces and plazas, and that night we went to Fiezole to the JJ Hill pub where I met a girl that was on my plane. We went with Guido (not a Guido kinda guy) a gal he was dating, Vanni and Raquella.
The next day Valerio, Sere and I went out, via motorcycle, to the countryside, where we ate lunch at a restaurant called I Ricchi, The Rich. I ate the best appetizers evar, and had rabbit for lunch, and brain. Yes, brain. I don't recall anyone paying for this lunch. That night we went to Dulce Vita, for Apperitivo and cocktails. It's located on "the other side of the river" as they call it, which used to be the poor sector. After that, we saw the third statue of David and went to Zoe, a bar where I met Francesco and Francesca, the most metro guy ever, and his g/f.
The next day, we climbed belltower of the Duomo and walked around town, and that night, we went to the Joshua Tree Pub to meet Claudio, now Sere's b/f. It was fine, nice pub, but got kinda awkward when after a few drinks I was kinda alone in the place in a sea of Italian only convos. Anyway, check out the pics.
Venezia - Venice Film Festival - Sept.5-6
So on Sunay we took off for Venice, aka Venezia. After three hours via train, we arrived to the city of canals and I promtply had a slushy. We took in the sights before calling the bed and breakfast at which we would stay, called Rooms For Friends, run by Pietro and Anna, an old Italian couple who has extra rooms in their place they rent out. We were absolutely certain they were going to kill us, or steal all we owned, cause they were just so nice. They gave us cookies and coffee and wine/limoncello and talked forever. Then they showed us the pics they took, of all the people that have stayed there with them. There were needless to say, tons. We were positive taking the picture was the last thing any of those people did. But somehow, we survived, and made it out to Lido to meet up with Valerio to go to the film festival. We went there to catch the premier of Howl's Moving Castle, the new Hayou Miyazaki film, but it was hard to get there, since the Regatta Storica was taking place that day too, one of many favorable coincidences of my being in Italy.
When we got in though, we got something even better - Miyazaki himself standing in the entryway, so Sere and I got our tickets signed by him, and when we went into the theatre we discovered we were seated directly in front of him too, so I could turn around at any point and see the director's reaction to the film. It was amazing. That's about it for Venice, the rest of the night and next day was sightseeing.
Pisa and the Boboli Gardens - Sept.7-9
Alright. So. After taking the day to rest on Tuesday to get a SIM card for my phone, I found myself sitting up in the hills at Guido's house that night, sipping Coronas and mulling on the excellent pizza I ate at the Vecchio Ranch restaurant.
Wednesday brought us to Pisa. And promtply back out, cause there's really nothing there but the tower. I bought some Italian Magic cards for Neil, looked at the tower, and said, ok, I'm ready to go. It's a gorgeous city, but I honestly think the most exciting thing that's happened there in a while was the guy who got sick and needed to be transported down via firetruck ladder.
Thursday we went to the Boboli Gardens. I saw lots of cats. There were pretty pathways and I felt like I was in a video game. I saw ducks. Go ducks. We took pictures of monoliths and fountains and it was sunny. Then we left, I bought piercings cause I left mine at home, and my rawkin white wristband. I also finished my medication that day, thank God.