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| Travelogue |
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| Location: | Florence, Italy | |||||||||
| [Local Time: 6.19pm]
Venice was really cool - we just got off the bus and wandered around all afternoon. We crossed the main river, walked in the craziest alleyways ever, and just generally got lost. Coincidence Incident: We had seen these shops all over that had plaster masks (the carnival is big there every year) and we just happened to pick one in particular; Jeremy and I were talking about how they looked like the ones from Eyes Wide Shut, and we asked them, and they said that the movie bought all the masks from that exact shop! The main one in the movie was right there behind us in the window! We had some coconut in the main shopping section, and just wandered around some more; we found blind alleys, alleys that just led to the water, the whole deal. It was so unique to be in a city with no streets for cars. We somehow magically found our way back to the busses and went back to the Fusina Campsite for some dinner at their restaurant, which by the way, was awesome. Then we hung out with Kay and Annabel, from Australia, and Jeremy and I had bottles of wine and played drinking games at the bar, and hung out in the room. Our room was the four of us, and people we met on the bus: Julie, Alex, Audrey, Evelyn. It was a really fun night, but we had to wake up early to catch the busabout to Florence. We got there around noon and just hung out talking to people on the porch of our little cabin and now we're in Florence to see what we'll see. I'll write more later and definitely have some pictures, but everyone else is waiting!  
 
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| Location: | Venice, Italy | |||||||||
| [Local Time: 10.43am]
Monaco was pretty cool, although we apparently took the wrong travel method to get there. Two people that we met on busabout, Julie and Alex, were going also, and they left an hour after us and took the bus while we took the train. When we got there, they came over and said they had been there for a half hour or something like that! So travel notwithstanding, it was pretty cool, we got into the casino no problem, and marvelled at how much things cost. We also watched roulette (European style) and Jeremy said that if we could guess the pattern better than half the time, he would put down money. We did, and guess what happened? We put our money on red 3 times, and it was black for 7 in a row! Andy put some money on the one after that and we got most of the money back, but then we went over to the blackjack tables and lost it anyway. Now we can say that we lost money at Monte Carlo. We ate at the place we went to the first night, and I got escargot, because it is, after all, France, and we all had pizza. We just hung out in our rooms and ourside the rest of the day, talking, etc. Julie and Alex and the rest of us went outside on the steps across the street because the bus driver was trying to sleep up for the next day and yelled at our loud talking and guitar playing. It was a pretty cool evening overall. Busabout again, was an ordeal. Jeremy had left his capo up in the room, so he ran up to get it, and the busabout "guide" was going to let the standby people on because she couldn't see him right then! Luckily, he ran down right then and we got on the bus and started our 10-hour ride. We had a little stop at a Perfumerie, and most of the people went on the tour, but Jeremy, Andy, and I took the "mountain trail" to the village. It turns out we should have just gone up the driveway of the place, but she said the steps in the back led up there. We did meet a woman who showed us how you could see Corsica across the water; we were pretty high up on a mountain and it looked really neat. We bought some bonbel cheese, croissants, and bottles of water :). The stop after that was a 'service stop' where there was a food court. I have to say, I really like Italian food courts. I had a huge salad and some bread, and it was such good food. The third stop was in Verona, the locale of the Romeo and Juliet story, and they have a statue of Guilliette, as they spell it, and you go up and grab her breast for good luck in love. There were lots of people there. Anyway, we wandered around the streets looking for an internet cafe, but we couldn't find a one, so we just went back and used the 1000 lira bathrooms and left. I do have some pictures, but this computer doesn't even have USB on it, so I can't get you any today. Finally, we made it here, but it's not really in Venice, it's a little campground that's on the mainland I assume, so we have to get a bus/train/ferry over there. Last night we went to the bar for happy hour, hung out on the beach, and in the room; just had a good night. Today we'll be going over to Venice, and leaving for Florence tomorrow, so I'll try and write again soon!   
 
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| Location: | Nice, France | |||||||||
| [Local Time: 12.54am]
Here's what went down yesterday -- it was pretty cool, we just hung out on the stone beach till 7 or so, went to the grocery store and got pasta and chicken for dinner, cooked up a storm, and had ourselves a good meal. Moher got really burned, and Thome didn't get too burned, but in the pictures it looks like it (I have some from last night, they'll probably be up in a couple days) and Jeremy and I just got more color. The beaches were all rocks, so it was different, but it wasn't all that uncomfortable -- the water was so much bluer here than in Barcelona, and the ground just dropped off really quickly; we were just off the shore and we could barely touch the bottom, even swimming down a ways. After eating and cleaning up we went down to the Papparazzi bar again, and had the "formidible" size drinks. They were probably around a liter! Then some of the other busabout people were going to go to other bars, but there really weren't any around, so we ended up just hanging out till we were tired. Today we got up and had some sandwiches from our grocery store leftovers, and we're going over to Monaco today to see if we can get into the casino for a bit; Andy wants to win it big. Other than that, there's not much to do there, we've heard, so maybe we'll have a nice dinner. Tomorrow we leave for Venice, and I can't wait -- I think we're all kind of dissapointed with our French experiences so far, although Andy has been glad that he can speak to and understand people.  
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| Location: | Nice, France | |||||||||
| [Local Time: 1.06pm]
Thursday night we ended up staying out late because when I was at the Internet Cafe, Jer, Andy, and Jim were out on Las Rambles playing guitar, and some guy named Mick just came up to them and started talking to them. Apparently he was from Scotland and had just been fired, so they went and drank with them. They got pretty drunk and were out on the street just playing songs when I found them -- He kept saying "Thanks for being you, and thanks for being here." He just wanted someone to get drunk with I guess. So we somehow woke up yesterday, because my alarm isn't very loud since I'm using the Visor's default dinky alarm now, and my watch doesn't wake me up, but we made it to the busabout pickup area and there were a surprising number of people. I think both of the busses they had actually filled up most of the way. We met lots of cool people, but the guide talked way to much -- she even actually shushed us -- and we made too many stops, and not at the places they said we were supposed to; something was up with those two! We did stop at the Salvatore Dali museum, even though the line was too long for us to go in, I got some neat pictures that I put below. Anyway, the seats were really cramped and none of the ATMs along the way worked, so when we got to the hostel, we thought that we needed to have money to checkin (which we didn't, of course) and we ended up being last and Andy and I were in the "dungeon," a big room downstairs with 16 or 20 beds. We met a Dutch girl named Claudia, and got some dinner and talked to her -- there is way too much dog poop just sitting on the roads of Nice. I almost stepped in it 3 different times! And people weren't very nice, either - Andy did speak French to them, and it seems to help a bit. Anyay, after dinner we just hung out in Jeremy's room drinking some wine and playing guitar and collected alot of people from the music. Eventually we decided to go down to the "club" that busabout recommended, but there was almost noone there but our group the whole night. The consequence of being in the "commmon room" was that people came and went at all hours and I kept getting woken up. Luckily we switched to upstairs today, so the next two nights here should be better. We're about to go to the beach, so I'll try and get these pictures and get outta here.   | ||||||||||
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| Location: | Barcelona, Spain | |||||||||
| [Local Time: 12.15am]
Well, after we hung out at the beach on Tuesday, we went back and cleaned up, etc., got some dinner, and went to hang out on the beach at night. It was really cool at night, but none of the pictures I took looked good. After the beach, we went to the "Gran Casino" for a couple hours, and I lost my 6000 pts, which is about $30, so I was happy that I got to play for an hour or so on that. Andy lost about $120, but he won more than 2 grand in America before we came, which mostly funded this trip for him, so he didn´t mind too much. After the casino, we decided to check out the "clubs" along the beach, and we went into this one called Crazy Pianos. It was really awesome -- all the waiters and waitresses knew the words to the songs, and they'd just get up and start singing or do a dance; they had 4 guys that were all awesome, as they switched between being pianists and drummists, and rocked at both, and they'd just cover songs that patrons requested on the little napkin-forms. We stayed there until 3am, and it was just really cool. Aurora was supposed to leave yesterday at around 8 I guess, but we were out so late last night that she didn´t wake up until around 9 or 10, and just decided to hang out with us on the beach for a little bit and then catch a cab to a flight she got straight to London to meet her brother and friends. We definately wanted paella for dinner last night, so we went hunting for it around 9. Unfortunately, we went to a side-street off La Ramblas, as we thought we'd economize, and we got worse paella than we had the first night. It wasn't horrible, just small and not much extra stuff besides the rice. Anyway, Las Rambles is the coolest street; there's always people performing. There are people that spray paint themselves and ask for money in exchange for photographing them (some are more deserving of change than others) and musicians, most of which are pretty good, but some aren´t much more than people asking for money, like this woman yesterday that was just playing a little recorder and holding a BK cup. Also, last night when we were going to the real clubs that were closer than the beach, we say the _coolest_ artists. They were doing portraits, and they were just all so amazingly talented. Also, there was a guy doing the same type of spray-painting pictures that they do alot in Cancun. So anyway, we went to the clubs last night and just had fun going around, as there wasn´t any cover, and dancing. The only problem was that there was a 2:1 guy-girl ratio, so it wasn't as fun as you'd think. That, and Jeremy was developing a complex from being shot down so many times. Today we ended up waking up after 1, because we were out till around 5 last night, and we went grocery shopping to economize some more; eating lunch and dinner out everyday is pretty expensive. We had our PBJ sandwiches and went down to the beach yet again, and Andy and I went into the casino. He was up lots, and I was down another 6000, so I took out 10000 ($50) and won back not only that money, but the money from the day before. So I broke even in all the gambling, and I walked away happy. Then we just hung out at the beach, Andy eventually came back on $60 up, so down $60 overall, and we had some dinner at the Baja Beach Club again and came back to get all set for leaving early tomorrow. I finally came down to write this, and tomorrow we're leaving on the infamous (in that we know almost nothing about it) Bus-About at 8:30 or so, and we have a 10 hour bus trip to Nice, France. Also, we enjoy talking about how much the STA Travel Agent (Ingrid) that Jeremy went to sucks, as she tricked us into buying some travel insurance that only happens to kick in after your regular insurance, which makes no sense, and that the bus-about only goes certain directions around all the areas we want to go. If she had just suggested that we start in Amsterdam and end in Barcelona, we´d have no problems, but our plans right now just take us the longest routes possible that they travel. So we'll find out if it is a good or bad thing that we're doing it... You'll just have to wait to find out! And also for pictures for this post, as this "easyEverything" internet place doesn't let me do anything with the computers. See everyone in France and then Italy!  
 
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