Early mornings... are not pleasant. Especially when you have to get up to do dishes for the breakfast rush. Now I'm not complaining about the actual work. We get to eat before everyone else and it isn't so much cleaning dishes as it is taking them to the kitchen and scraping them clean before handing them over to a Contiki rep who does the actual cleaning. My issue is the early morning wake up. If you know anything about me, you know that sleep is basically a religious act for me.
But anyway, on to the cooler stuff. After the breakfast was handled we then headed off to the train station to begin making our way up the Jungfrau mountain to see the snow and some other cool stuff. Now, the train we were to be taking wasn't exactly a normal train. It was a cog rail. The train doesn't run just on tracks but has a cog system running down the center of it which actually moves the thing. Now I thought that this was pretty cool but not exactly necessary, I mean, why not use a normal train?
The mountain. That is why you don't us ea normal train. The angles that this thing climbed at was rather entertaining. What was more entertaining, however, was the spectacle of watching a severely hung over Chachi. He seemed to be chatting for a while but then gradually dropped off and that's when the fun and games began.
The entire contingent of people in the Contiki group that were in our carriage decided this would be an awesome time to get one over on Chachi. Various plans were discussed and plans formulated before we decided the old reliable, felt tip marker to the face. I forget exactly who it was that went forward to perform the deed, I think it was Em, we all waited with baited breath as she slowly crept up on him. At which point he demonstrated to all of us that he was not in fact asleep.
Now I have seen many people pull pranks and try to scare others before, but never have I seen anyone jump that much. Our pen holding accomplice almost jumped back the entire length of the carriage we were in while emitting one of the most piercing screams I have ever heard. Unfortunately the fun and games couldn't last as we pulled in to the station half way up the mountain. It was there that we had to wait for the next train to take us the rest of the way up the mountain. Once the second train arrived it was a relatively short and uneventful trip up to the top... except for.. well...
Other Guy had decided that it would be a good idea to get himself righteously slaughtered the night before and he was not looking exactly good. And by that I means he was so pale he was almost transparent. He could have acted in a Casper movie with no makeup on. Needless to say just before we reached the top he decided he was about to throw up and had us move off of our seats (we were sitting directly opposite him so you can imagine how eager we were to comply with his request) so that he could try and lie down.
Lie down isn't exactly the correct word tho, what he was look like he was on his knees praying with his head on the seat while throwing up into a packet. The smell was... delightful. Anyway we managed to make it up the rest of the way. without further incident and my god, was it cold up there. And damn, was there quite a lot to see. There were a few observation decks which we went to to take a gander at the scenery which was white almost completely white as far as the eye could see.
One of the really cool things they have is called the Ice Palace. What it is, is a section of the ice peak at the top that they have carved corridors into as well as various sculptures. It's rather impressive to be perfectly honest. Some of the sculptures were really awesome. But enough about the ice cold palace, next we moved forth to the snowy mountain top itself... wow did I have fun. And I say I and not we because I think I came off better than she did.
It seemed mildly amusing to throw a snowball at her, having never been in a proper snowball fight before. This of course progressed to her trying to pelt me with one... which failed. And so she progressed to trying to get snow down my top. Okay, maybe I did do it to her first but it was funny when I did it. If she did it as well it would have just been killing the joke... right? Anyway, an amusing snow fight later, and taking a look at the awesome husky dogs, we headed back in where I discovered a rather unfortunate problem with my glasses.
Now, my glasses have those chameleon like lenses where they go dark when in the sun light so that I don't have to have those stupid looking clip-ons or have to carry a separate pair of prescription sun glasses. Now I don't know if it was the cold, or the fact there was no pollution blocking the light from the sun, but my glasses didn't want to go back to clear glass when we headed back inside. The problem being that there was fairly low lighting inside, so with my glasses on I couldn't see much. This of course led me to grovelling so that she would lead me around because I was basically blind. Now I could also take off my glasses, which I did do, but for anyone that knows me you know that that wouldn't really help my situation.
Anyway, after some more photos and some looking around we decided to head back down the mountain and head back to the camp site for some relaxation and dinner before turning in. We weren't planning on getting hammered like some of our Contiki group as we seemed to understand a very important fact that most of them apparently still hadn't learned, being hungover on the bus is NOT cool.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Insert something funny here
Okay so I'm back, and these things are taking forever for me to get to so I'm going to try and get them finished as soon as possible because the details are starting to slip away from me... anyway.
We left Florence and Italy and started making our way across to Switzerland. Now for those of you who haven't been there... damn... the place looks amazing. It's just clean everywhere. Then you have these rolling green hills which are capped with snow. Actually now that I think about it it has kind of a stepford feel to it... moving along.
As we were heading in to the first town we would be stopping at our tour guide decided to give us some delightful information regarding the Swiss people. They are paranoid to hell and gone. They pretty much have their entire country rigged to be sealed in a matter of minutes if something should happen. Its crazy.
Mind you, I suppose that if I had a big Swiss bank account then I would want it to be protected like that but then again... if the country is sealed up then how the hell am I supposed to get in to the country to get my stuff? Well I suppose that's not what is supposed to be on your mind if war or something breaks out...
So we hit our first town, Lauterbrunnen or something like that, where we got to see this cool monument dedicated to some Swiss military guys who died years ago protecting one of the French kings (at least I think that's what we were told). The place was pretty cool and based on the story we were told it's clear to see why people let the Swiss get away with saying they have the best military in the world even if it's never been tested in a war.
We left Florence and Italy and started making our way across to Switzerland. Now for those of you who haven't been there... damn... the place looks amazing. It's just clean everywhere. Then you have these rolling green hills which are capped with snow. Actually now that I think about it it has kind of a stepford feel to it... moving along.
As we were heading in to the first town we would be stopping at our tour guide decided to give us some delightful information regarding the Swiss people. They are paranoid to hell and gone. They pretty much have their entire country rigged to be sealed in a matter of minutes if something should happen. Its crazy.
Mind you, I suppose that if I had a big Swiss bank account then I would want it to be protected like that but then again... if the country is sealed up then how the hell am I supposed to get in to the country to get my stuff? Well I suppose that's not what is supposed to be on your mind if war or something breaks out...
So we hit our first town, Lauterbrunnen or something like that, where we got to see this cool monument dedicated to some Swiss military guys who died years ago protecting one of the French kings (at least I think that's what we were told). The place was pretty cool and based on the story we were told it's clear to see why people let the Swiss get away with saying they have the best military in the world even if it's never been tested in a war.
Well we moved on from the monuments and got does to the real business of the Swiss people. Watches. We got taken to this awesome shop, Harry's Watch Emporium (I think thats's what it was called) which sold not only watches but Swiss Army knives as well. Needless to say, after much deliberation and deciding we left the shop much lighter in the wallets and sporting some rather nifty things if I do say so myself. Well, we left after some fun and games.
Lee-Anne and I apparently decided that we like the same knife at the shop so we each ordered one. Only for them to come back and tell us that they only had one in stock... Needless to say I decided to be a perfect gentleman and let Lee-Anne buy the one she wanted... with hardly any persuasion on her part... and I went for a slightly different one (And I still say I ended up with the better one, mwahahahaha). As for watches, I figured, I haven't had a watch since I was 10 and that was literally a Mickey Mouse watch. If I was going to start wearing a watch it was sure as hell going to be a propper Swiss made watch.
So as I said, we left with both of us lighter in the wallets, me a bit more so, and headed on to the place we would be staying for the next two days. It was a pretty decent place which supposedly had this awesome bar in it's bomb shelter. I say supposedly because wow, it was tiny. We headed there that evening as there was supposed to be some major big party happening in it, but I don't see how. The place could barely fit in the few people that had showed up while we were there. Anyway, we had a drink or two and then decided to turn in early for the night because Switzerland is where I was destined to fulfill my role on Contiki. I was to be a dishie. But more on that in the next post.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
I'll go to bed with you guys
Yes so this is slightly later that it should have been... bite me. It's my damn blog and I'll update it when I see fit so there.
Anyway so I do believe that I last left us off in the boiling city of Rome. I cannot even begin to explain to you how mice it was to finally get out of that oppressive heat and into the wonderfully air-conditioned bus again. Anyway we started out the morning heading for our next destination, Florence. Now I'll be honest, I didn't know much about Florence before coming on this trip. But as it turns out they are famous for their leather and gold. Awesome, both of which are completely out of my price range. Anyways, more on that later.
When we hit Florence our first stop was a leather shop (But they sold gold and silver as well so what the hell...). I will admit that it was rather interesting to see how they made these rather fancy leather boxes. They are made of nothing but leather, no wood, no metal hinge, nothing. They also take a while to make and so cost an arm and a leg. Actually to be more accurate they pretty much cost one entire side of your body.
Anyways, after examining everything in the shop we had like an hour of free time so we went to go check out this church/cathedral thing. I can't tell what the difference is between them except the size and that cathedrals tend to have more fancy stuff in them... Anyway, this one was unfortunately under a lot of restoration and so a large number of the tombs were not on display which is unfortaunate. I did manage to see the tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo (Kawabunga dude [If you don't get the reference then shame on you]).
After wandering around the cathedral for a while we took a brief look around the town (As I said we didn't have much free time) before we went to meet up with the group again for a guided tour of florence. Now the fun and games was going to begin, and by fun and games I mean the most boring guide on the trip. She started by explaining what some of the statues around florence were (There are a lot of them). About the only two I thought were cool was the replica of The David and this other weird one where the artist sculpted his face onto the back of the statues head... Other than that the tour suuuucked. She spoke in a fairly monotone voice, it felt like a lecture. This wasn't helped by the fact that she gave far more information on the history of various things than was necessary including the origin of some words... which she would inevitably spell for us... seriously?
Anyway, we drudged our way through the tour before we had some more free time which was pretty much just spent walking around looking at the various shops while I forced myself not to blow all my cash on a new leather wallet. The one other place we saw which I thought was pretty cool was this other cathedral thingy. The only reason I found it cool was the fact that I used to have a 3D puzzle of it. Bug thing with an orange roof... I thought it was cool so screw all of you chuckling to yourselves. After the short free time we met up with the group again and headed to the camp site where we got to chill for a bit before heading back to the city to get a group photo and grab dinner.
The photo was pretty cool, taken with a great view of Florence in the background, but that had nothing on the dinner we had. The dinner was just made of awesome. We split from the main group for dinner and it was worth it. The pasta I had that night was made of win. I think the pasta was called tagliarini or something like that. It was basically a very thin spaghetti which I had with a nice rich carbonara sauce. Damn was it good.
Anyway, after the food we went on a little bit of a walk about while we waited for the main body of the tour to finish their dinner and grabbed some gelati (ice-cream) which was pretty cool. The best though, was the size of the cone the one girl got. Damn,it looked like a baseball bat with ice-cream sticking out the top of it, was kind of rediculous. After we met up with the group we headed to a karaoke bar to see if we were going to stay or if we were going to head back to the camp site.
To say the club was overcrowded would have been an understatement. The entire place was packed like the front of the crowd at a Rolling Stones concert, slightly crazy. Anyway, we gapped it backto the camp site with a bunch of the other tour people who didn't feel like getting squished. And that was about it for Florence and for Italy.
Cioa...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
Anyway so I do believe that I last left us off in the boiling city of Rome. I cannot even begin to explain to you how mice it was to finally get out of that oppressive heat and into the wonderfully air-conditioned bus again. Anyway we started out the morning heading for our next destination, Florence. Now I'll be honest, I didn't know much about Florence before coming on this trip. But as it turns out they are famous for their leather and gold. Awesome, both of which are completely out of my price range. Anyways, more on that later.
When we hit Florence our first stop was a leather shop (But they sold gold and silver as well so what the hell...). I will admit that it was rather interesting to see how they made these rather fancy leather boxes. They are made of nothing but leather, no wood, no metal hinge, nothing. They also take a while to make and so cost an arm and a leg. Actually to be more accurate they pretty much cost one entire side of your body.
Anyways, after examining everything in the shop we had like an hour of free time so we went to go check out this church/cathedral thing. I can't tell what the difference is between them except the size and that cathedrals tend to have more fancy stuff in them... Anyway, this one was unfortunately under a lot of restoration and so a large number of the tombs were not on display which is unfortaunate. I did manage to see the tombs of Galileo and Michelangelo (Kawabunga dude [If you don't get the reference then shame on you]).
After wandering around the cathedral for a while we took a brief look around the town (As I said we didn't have much free time) before we went to meet up with the group again for a guided tour of florence. Now the fun and games was going to begin, and by fun and games I mean the most boring guide on the trip. She started by explaining what some of the statues around florence were (There are a lot of them). About the only two I thought were cool was the replica of The David and this other weird one where the artist sculpted his face onto the back of the statues head... Other than that the tour suuuucked. She spoke in a fairly monotone voice, it felt like a lecture. This wasn't helped by the fact that she gave far more information on the history of various things than was necessary including the origin of some words... which she would inevitably spell for us... seriously?
Anyway, we drudged our way through the tour before we had some more free time which was pretty much just spent walking around looking at the various shops while I forced myself not to blow all my cash on a new leather wallet. The one other place we saw which I thought was pretty cool was this other cathedral thingy. The only reason I found it cool was the fact that I used to have a 3D puzzle of it. Bug thing with an orange roof... I thought it was cool so screw all of you chuckling to yourselves. After the short free time we met up with the group again and headed to the camp site where we got to chill for a bit before heading back to the city to get a group photo and grab dinner.
The photo was pretty cool, taken with a great view of Florence in the background, but that had nothing on the dinner we had. The dinner was just made of awesome. We split from the main group for dinner and it was worth it. The pasta I had that night was made of win. I think the pasta was called tagliarini or something like that. It was basically a very thin spaghetti which I had with a nice rich carbonara sauce. Damn was it good.
Anyway, after the food we went on a little bit of a walk about while we waited for the main body of the tour to finish their dinner and grabbed some gelati (ice-cream) which was pretty cool. The best though, was the size of the cone the one girl got. Damn,it looked like a baseball bat with ice-cream sticking out the top of it, was kind of rediculous. After we met up with the group we headed to a karaoke bar to see if we were going to stay or if we were going to head back to the camp site.
To say the club was overcrowded would have been an understatement. The entire place was packed like the front of the crowd at a Rolling Stones concert, slightly crazy. Anyway, we gapped it backto the camp site with a bunch of the other tour people who didn't feel like getting squished. And that was about it for Florence and for Italy.
Cioa...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
Saturday, July 25, 2009
I am a zombie mummy vampire
People of Rome... invent outdoor airconditioning... please... Okay, so day 2 in Rome started out by being hotter than the previous day, awesome. We started off the day by catching busses and trains etc into the city itself where we then proceeded to head directly towards the Vatican, wanting to try avoid queues etc. Surpirisingly enough there was absolutely no queues when we got there. I was expecting tons of people lined up for blocks. Hey, all the better for us.
So we headed in and then proceeded to start looking around at all the statues and paintings etc. Holy cow, they have a lot of them. Seriously. Like every surface is covered with stuff. Well, one of the main things that we wanted to see there was the Sisteen (spelling?) chapel so we headed off to see that. Now, I'm not going to say that it wasn't impressive, because it was, but my expectations were a little different from what was actually there. Anyone that knows about it knows that there is that picture with the guy whose hand is reaching out towards god's hand... you know the one I'm talking about? Well I always imagined it was this massive image that covered the ceiling... It isn't.
That picture is just a small one on the ceiling, it is in fact one of many pictures that cover the ceiling of chapel. I always expected it to be this massive thing, not a tiny little one. Whenever you hear about it or see it on TV it is always made out to be awesome. I was slightly dissapointed with that, but then again, the chapel itself is damn amazing. It's crazy how much work went into it. Anyway we headed out of there to go and grab some food before we continued to explore the various parts of the Vatican.
The Vatican clearly thinks it knows what people want to see. That is to say, they apparantly believe that EVERYONE wants to see the Sisteen chapel. Why? Because it seems that a large portion of the other exhibits that you can go see will lead you back to the entrance to the Sisteen chapel. Yes it is impressive... but a lot less so on your third trip around it. Oh well. After we had our fill of the different art pieces etc. in there we decided to head off to go explore the rest of Rome for a bit.
Oh, before we continue, I need to explain something. Lee-Anne hadn't brought any propper flip flops or anything like that for the trip, so she decided to get some the night before at the little market thingy at the camp site. This will be important, remember it.
After heading out the Vatican we headed around the corner (a really big corner) to go see St. Peter's Bascilica. Damn, that place is huge. I don't know how people managed to design places like that let alone build them. Or decorate them. The amount of gold in there is kind of crazy. Not to mention the paintings, murals, statues... you get the point right? The place was crazy awesome. I would have gone up the stairs to the top but then I wouldn't have had a chance to see anything else in Rome, I can't quite explain how long that queue was because I couldn't see the end of it. Oh well.
After we finished up there we decided to go look at the Circus Maximus. If you know about the place then you can see where this is going. Anyway, it was time for fun and games. Now, you remember those slops I mentioned earlier? Heres were the fun began. She got blisters on her feet, right where the top of the slops were. So she used micropore tape something or another to cover it. The slops kept eating it, oh well, reapply and continue. So we caught the metro to the Circus Maximus station, checked our maps and headed out to go see it. Well... we walked, and walked, and walked, and couldn't see it. You want to know why?
We couldn't see it because it 2006 the remains of it were torn down. Well now, damn wouldn't that have been useful information for our tour manager to have given us but noooooo, not even a mention. And the damn thing was still listed on the map that he gave us. That was a painful waste of time, mostly for me because I had to listen to her complaining about her feet the entire time. My poor ears, you cannot understand the pain... anyway.
After that failed walkabout we continued on to get some awesome pictures and views of the Roman forum. This was of course after we had paid rediculous prices for some drinks because it was so hot. The Forum was massive. A lot bigger than I had expected. We went from there and headed towards the colloseum when we had some real fun and games. We were just walking down the path as this guy with an umbrella is walking rather quickly towards us. Out of nowhere this HUGE guy slams his hand around the other guys throat and shoves him up against the fence. Now, we didn't want to make it look like we were paying attention to this so we just kept our same pace and continued walking in the same direction we had been going and definitely, nope nope definitely not, looking at what was going on. One problem, the big guy starts hauling the other guy the same direction we were going.
That was when we noticed it. Just up ahead there was an old Italian guy sitting on a ledge with some shopping bags, and this other darker skinned guy on his knees while another large italian guy is standing over him. The guy on his knees looks like he is begging and praying. Kind of creepy. Anyway, the guy moving in the same direction as us, brings umbrella guy to this scene, takes the umbrella and puts it into one of the packets that the old guy had. It's at this point that the guy who stole the umbrella (I'm assuming) starts beggging and praying as well. The old guy waves his hands and the big italian guys shove the two thieves (I'm assuming) away who then bolt.
It was kinda dodgey and creepy but you have to admire them. It was a damn effective way of getting back the stolen goods as well as scaring the bajeezus out of the thieves... and any tourists that happened to be near by. Well we vacated the area as fast as possible and headed off to our next stop. A little church in Rome where some Capputian (spelling?) monks had their crypts. Wow, I'd say they were wrong but as our tour manager keeps reminding us, it's just different. All of these crypts were decorated with bones. Human, animal, all just stuck in various patterns etc around the place. There were even some bodies that looked really well preserved that were just there in poses. The weird thing is that they were just out in the open air and it didn't seem like they were decaying all that much. It was kind of creepy.
After this, and much whining from miss silly slops, we decided to head back to the camp site where we had a "buffet" (it's not buffet if you can only go up to get food once damnit) dinner followed by more boiling as we tried to sleep amidst the horrendous amounts of noise that were coming from the bar. Oh well. Oh I should mention that she also went plummeting down the stairs at the train station on the way back and gave herself a rather nasty bruise. One again die to the slops. Lets just say that the slops did not meet a happy ending when we reached the camp site...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
So we headed in and then proceeded to start looking around at all the statues and paintings etc. Holy cow, they have a lot of them. Seriously. Like every surface is covered with stuff. Well, one of the main things that we wanted to see there was the Sisteen (spelling?) chapel so we headed off to see that. Now, I'm not going to say that it wasn't impressive, because it was, but my expectations were a little different from what was actually there. Anyone that knows about it knows that there is that picture with the guy whose hand is reaching out towards god's hand... you know the one I'm talking about? Well I always imagined it was this massive image that covered the ceiling... It isn't.
That picture is just a small one on the ceiling, it is in fact one of many pictures that cover the ceiling of chapel. I always expected it to be this massive thing, not a tiny little one. Whenever you hear about it or see it on TV it is always made out to be awesome. I was slightly dissapointed with that, but then again, the chapel itself is damn amazing. It's crazy how much work went into it. Anyway we headed out of there to go and grab some food before we continued to explore the various parts of the Vatican.
The Vatican clearly thinks it knows what people want to see. That is to say, they apparantly believe that EVERYONE wants to see the Sisteen chapel. Why? Because it seems that a large portion of the other exhibits that you can go see will lead you back to the entrance to the Sisteen chapel. Yes it is impressive... but a lot less so on your third trip around it. Oh well. After we had our fill of the different art pieces etc. in there we decided to head off to go explore the rest of Rome for a bit.
Oh, before we continue, I need to explain something. Lee-Anne hadn't brought any propper flip flops or anything like that for the trip, so she decided to get some the night before at the little market thingy at the camp site. This will be important, remember it.
After heading out the Vatican we headed around the corner (a really big corner) to go see St. Peter's Bascilica. Damn, that place is huge. I don't know how people managed to design places like that let alone build them. Or decorate them. The amount of gold in there is kind of crazy. Not to mention the paintings, murals, statues... you get the point right? The place was crazy awesome. I would have gone up the stairs to the top but then I wouldn't have had a chance to see anything else in Rome, I can't quite explain how long that queue was because I couldn't see the end of it. Oh well.
After we finished up there we decided to go look at the Circus Maximus. If you know about the place then you can see where this is going. Anyway, it was time for fun and games. Now, you remember those slops I mentioned earlier? Heres were the fun began. She got blisters on her feet, right where the top of the slops were. So she used micropore tape something or another to cover it. The slops kept eating it, oh well, reapply and continue. So we caught the metro to the Circus Maximus station, checked our maps and headed out to go see it. Well... we walked, and walked, and walked, and couldn't see it. You want to know why?
We couldn't see it because it 2006 the remains of it were torn down. Well now, damn wouldn't that have been useful information for our tour manager to have given us but noooooo, not even a mention. And the damn thing was still listed on the map that he gave us. That was a painful waste of time, mostly for me because I had to listen to her complaining about her feet the entire time. My poor ears, you cannot understand the pain... anyway.
After that failed walkabout we continued on to get some awesome pictures and views of the Roman forum. This was of course after we had paid rediculous prices for some drinks because it was so hot. The Forum was massive. A lot bigger than I had expected. We went from there and headed towards the colloseum when we had some real fun and games. We were just walking down the path as this guy with an umbrella is walking rather quickly towards us. Out of nowhere this HUGE guy slams his hand around the other guys throat and shoves him up against the fence. Now, we didn't want to make it look like we were paying attention to this so we just kept our same pace and continued walking in the same direction we had been going and definitely, nope nope definitely not, looking at what was going on. One problem, the big guy starts hauling the other guy the same direction we were going.
That was when we noticed it. Just up ahead there was an old Italian guy sitting on a ledge with some shopping bags, and this other darker skinned guy on his knees while another large italian guy is standing over him. The guy on his knees looks like he is begging and praying. Kind of creepy. Anyway, the guy moving in the same direction as us, brings umbrella guy to this scene, takes the umbrella and puts it into one of the packets that the old guy had. It's at this point that the guy who stole the umbrella (I'm assuming) starts beggging and praying as well. The old guy waves his hands and the big italian guys shove the two thieves (I'm assuming) away who then bolt.
It was kinda dodgey and creepy but you have to admire them. It was a damn effective way of getting back the stolen goods as well as scaring the bajeezus out of the thieves... and any tourists that happened to be near by. Well we vacated the area as fast as possible and headed off to our next stop. A little church in Rome where some Capputian (spelling?) monks had their crypts. Wow, I'd say they were wrong but as our tour manager keeps reminding us, it's just different. All of these crypts were decorated with bones. Human, animal, all just stuck in various patterns etc around the place. There were even some bodies that looked really well preserved that were just there in poses. The weird thing is that they were just out in the open air and it didn't seem like they were decaying all that much. It was kind of creepy.
After this, and much whining from miss silly slops, we decided to head back to the camp site where we had a "buffet" (it's not buffet if you can only go up to get food once damnit) dinner followed by more boiling as we tried to sleep amidst the horrendous amounts of noise that were coming from the bar. Oh well. Oh I should mention that she also went plummeting down the stairs at the train station on the way back and gave herself a rather nasty bruise. One again die to the slops. Lets just say that the slops did not meet a happy ending when we reached the camp site...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
Chemical warfare of the peri-peri barbeque fart variety
Hello good morning and thankyou please, theres liable to be a blast of posts shortly as I actually have access to internet. Go me.
So when we, and by me I mean the royal we, had finished up in Venice and now it was time to get up nice and early and head off to Rome. Now I think I mentioned that Venice was hot. If I didn't then let me tell you now, Venice was hot. But Venice my friends, had nothing on Rome. Partially because we had awesome air conditioned cabins in Venice. Our accomodation in Rome was... less than awesome. But more on that later.
The first thing we did as we hit Rome was go on a mini walking tour. We got to see some cool stuff such as the Trevi fountain and spot the colloseum in the distance but more importantly we got to see the Pantheon. That building was cool. The size of it, for when it was built is pretty awesome, not mention that the only source of light in the place was a single hole in the roof which still managed to get the job done. After that it was time to go for a walk about and grab some dinner.
I must give this its own section so that I can describe to you something of great importance. You can get pizza anywhere in the world. Different places are better than others etc. etc. But there is still one universal truth. The Italians invented the pizza and by god can they make good ones. The pizza I had that night was by far the best pizza that I have ever had in my life. One moment it was on my plate and the next it was in my stomache with me wondering where it all went. If you ever want to have a propper pizza, go to Rome. Or at least to that little cafe/restaurant/thingy because damn was the food good. Anyway, moving on. After the meal we were all trundled back to the bus to go to our... accomodation...
To say we were dissapointed with the accomodation in Rome would be an understatement. It was definitely the worst we had had. The real kicker? Our tour manager, who had been warning us about how we had to lower our expectations of all the previous accomodations, kept raving about this one. He was going on and on about the facilities and about how this was a serious upgrade over the normal place. My question, how damn bad was the normal accomdation.
The rooms were like saunas. There is no other way to describe it. It was boiling hot and the room seemed to just pull whatever heat it could find into it. Then the other fun part about the rooms. Our cabin was basically a room in a 3 room cabin unit thing, and if anyone moved in any part of the unit the entire thing shook. Well that was fun... or not... At least there was a pool... which was closed by the time we got to the camp site. Okay so there was free internet... with huge queues and you could only use it for half an hour. Fail.
Needless to say it didn't look like Rome was going to be pleasant. Weather wise anyway. I was, however, planning to enjoy the day of sightseeing we had planned for the next day...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
So when we, and by me I mean the royal we, had finished up in Venice and now it was time to get up nice and early and head off to Rome. Now I think I mentioned that Venice was hot. If I didn't then let me tell you now, Venice was hot. But Venice my friends, had nothing on Rome. Partially because we had awesome air conditioned cabins in Venice. Our accomodation in Rome was... less than awesome. But more on that later.
The first thing we did as we hit Rome was go on a mini walking tour. We got to see some cool stuff such as the Trevi fountain and spot the colloseum in the distance but more importantly we got to see the Pantheon. That building was cool. The size of it, for when it was built is pretty awesome, not mention that the only source of light in the place was a single hole in the roof which still managed to get the job done. After that it was time to go for a walk about and grab some dinner.
I must give this its own section so that I can describe to you something of great importance. You can get pizza anywhere in the world. Different places are better than others etc. etc. But there is still one universal truth. The Italians invented the pizza and by god can they make good ones. The pizza I had that night was by far the best pizza that I have ever had in my life. One moment it was on my plate and the next it was in my stomache with me wondering where it all went. If you ever want to have a propper pizza, go to Rome. Or at least to that little cafe/restaurant/thingy because damn was the food good. Anyway, moving on. After the meal we were all trundled back to the bus to go to our... accomodation...
To say we were dissapointed with the accomodation in Rome would be an understatement. It was definitely the worst we had had. The real kicker? Our tour manager, who had been warning us about how we had to lower our expectations of all the previous accomodations, kept raving about this one. He was going on and on about the facilities and about how this was a serious upgrade over the normal place. My question, how damn bad was the normal accomdation.
The rooms were like saunas. There is no other way to describe it. It was boiling hot and the room seemed to just pull whatever heat it could find into it. Then the other fun part about the rooms. Our cabin was basically a room in a 3 room cabin unit thing, and if anyone moved in any part of the unit the entire thing shook. Well that was fun... or not... At least there was a pool... which was closed by the time we got to the camp site. Okay so there was free internet... with huge queues and you could only use it for half an hour. Fail.
Needless to say it didn't look like Rome was going to be pleasant. Weather wise anyway. I was, however, planning to enjoy the day of sightseeing we had planned for the next day...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Friday, July 17, 2009
The only free seats you'll find
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Venice. Well the ladies and the gentlemen are, so I don't know why I'm mentioning them here. None of them read this anyway, just the stalkers that I seem to have accumulated. In the famous words of our tour manager, "Oh well".
Okay, so bright and early we woke up and went for breakfast before heading out to the ferry to take us to Venice itself. But first a word on the breakfast. Those of you who don't know, Venice is in Italy. By default, this means that in summer it is bloody hot. Being right next to a large body of water, it means that it is very humid. Humid and bloody hot makes for awful muggy weather. While it was fine in the rooms as they had air conditioning, it does mean that everywhere else kind of sucks. Taking this into consideration, it has come to my attention that eating cocoa pops with milk that has been steadily getting warmer is not a good idea.
Other than that mishap with breakfast, however, it was a fairly simple matter of walking the short distance to the ferry and heading into Venice itself. To say that Venice was geared for tourists would be like saying that snow is cold. It's a bit of an understatement. I am firmly convinced that there is no other business in Venice other than stuff for tourists. Everywhere you looked you found shops selling souvenirs. Sometimes you didn't even have to look as they had mobile shops and would come up to you. But more on shopping later. First, we had some demonstrations.
Our first stop after a mini tour by Chachi we were taken to a glass blowing demonstration. For anyone that seen glass blowing before you know that it is pretty cool. What we saw here was beyond awesome. Taking a small piece of molten glass the guy was able to mold it into the shape of the Ferrari rearing horse in less than 5 minutes. Needless to say I now have one of those sculptures taking up some space in my bag (hope it doesn't break in transit). After that it was time to go see another demonstration that wasn't exactly to my taste. A lace demonstration...
Now this was something different, and not in a good way. Our tour manager had continualy gone on about how all the guys in his previous tours had said that this was the best thing that they had seen on tour so even a few of the guys were excited about this (maybe they thought there would be lacy underwear being displayed or something, I dunno). The problems with the demonstration were twofold: firstly it was a lace demonstration, secondly our tour manager had been lying through his teeth. The demonstration was the biggest waste of time of my life. This includes the numerous times I have heardthe Superboy punched reality rant. It was that bad.
Anyway, I managed to duck out of there as fast as I could and we went a browsing. Letsjust say that not much actual purchasing was done, why? As I stated earlier, Venice is pretty much just there for tourists. Due to this fact, everything there is horribly expensive. Veniceis known for two main things, it's Venetian masks and Murano glass. Both of these things can be found in various locations all around the city which one would assume would help lower the price with such an abbundance of goods. The sad truth is that the prices seemed to be uniformly increased everywhere we went.
The other issue I have is with the Murano glass itslef. Sure, its got specific tints of colour to it but then answer me this, why were there different colours of Murano glassavailable? I've seen glass factories in various places all making different coloured glass items. So if the glass here was special because of itscolour why is it still so expensive? With the numer of places around the world that can make different coloured glass items why do the Venetians get to charge so much? I suppose it's because people are williung to pay the prices they set, I am proofof that.
Well not exactly the price they set I suppose. It was entertaining to discover just how much they seem to enjoy haggling overthe price of the items. When a shop assistant comes up to you and goes, "You like this? We can work out special price for you." Mostplaces I have been to they try and sell it to you for the listed price and only start haggling if you initiate it. I'm not sure if the Venetians were actually trying to make a profit on the itemsor if they just set prices so that they can haggle with people. They reallyseemed to enjoy it. Oh well, to each their own. It's not wrong, it'sjust different.
After copious amounts of browsing overpriced shops we managed to grab some lunch... for an hour and a half... the restaurant was cooler than the streets of Venice. The muggy heat seriously becomes oppresive after a while. I don't know how people manage to live in it. It's unbearable asfar asI'm concerned. Well after a long lunch and then finally reforming our tour group we all went off for gondola rides. It was pretty cool I suppose, it's definitelya different way to travel aroundacity and is pretty relaxing. Unfortunatelyour gondolier (is that the right word?) didn't seem to be one of the singing variety (one of the groups on a gondola apparently got shouted at for asking their gondolier to sing). Once we were done in Venice it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland and head back to the camp site. And thatwas pretty much it for Venice... you can go now... seriosuly leave, you're creeping me out...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Okay, so bright and early we woke up and went for breakfast before heading out to the ferry to take us to Venice itself. But first a word on the breakfast. Those of you who don't know, Venice is in Italy. By default, this means that in summer it is bloody hot. Being right next to a large body of water, it means that it is very humid. Humid and bloody hot makes for awful muggy weather. While it was fine in the rooms as they had air conditioning, it does mean that everywhere else kind of sucks. Taking this into consideration, it has come to my attention that eating cocoa pops with milk that has been steadily getting warmer is not a good idea.
Other than that mishap with breakfast, however, it was a fairly simple matter of walking the short distance to the ferry and heading into Venice itself. To say that Venice was geared for tourists would be like saying that snow is cold. It's a bit of an understatement. I am firmly convinced that there is no other business in Venice other than stuff for tourists. Everywhere you looked you found shops selling souvenirs. Sometimes you didn't even have to look as they had mobile shops and would come up to you. But more on shopping later. First, we had some demonstrations.
Our first stop after a mini tour by Chachi we were taken to a glass blowing demonstration. For anyone that seen glass blowing before you know that it is pretty cool. What we saw here was beyond awesome. Taking a small piece of molten glass the guy was able to mold it into the shape of the Ferrari rearing horse in less than 5 minutes. Needless to say I now have one of those sculptures taking up some space in my bag (hope it doesn't break in transit). After that it was time to go see another demonstration that wasn't exactly to my taste. A lace demonstration...
Now this was something different, and not in a good way. Our tour manager had continualy gone on about how all the guys in his previous tours had said that this was the best thing that they had seen on tour so even a few of the guys were excited about this (maybe they thought there would be lacy underwear being displayed or something, I dunno). The problems with the demonstration were twofold: firstly it was a lace demonstration, secondly our tour manager had been lying through his teeth. The demonstration was the biggest waste of time of my life. This includes the numerous times I have heardthe Superboy punched reality rant. It was that bad.
Anyway, I managed to duck out of there as fast as I could and we went a browsing. Letsjust say that not much actual purchasing was done, why? As I stated earlier, Venice is pretty much just there for tourists. Due to this fact, everything there is horribly expensive. Veniceis known for two main things, it's Venetian masks and Murano glass. Both of these things can be found in various locations all around the city which one would assume would help lower the price with such an abbundance of goods. The sad truth is that the prices seemed to be uniformly increased everywhere we went.
The other issue I have is with the Murano glass itslef. Sure, its got specific tints of colour to it but then answer me this, why were there different colours of Murano glassavailable? I've seen glass factories in various places all making different coloured glass items. So if the glass here was special because of itscolour why is it still so expensive? With the numer of places around the world that can make different coloured glass items why do the Venetians get to charge so much? I suppose it's because people are williung to pay the prices they set, I am proofof that.
Well not exactly the price they set I suppose. It was entertaining to discover just how much they seem to enjoy haggling overthe price of the items. When a shop assistant comes up to you and goes, "You like this? We can work out special price for you." Mostplaces I have been to they try and sell it to you for the listed price and only start haggling if you initiate it. I'm not sure if the Venetians were actually trying to make a profit on the itemsor if they just set prices so that they can haggle with people. They reallyseemed to enjoy it. Oh well, to each their own. It's not wrong, it'sjust different.
After copious amounts of browsing overpriced shops we managed to grab some lunch... for an hour and a half... the restaurant was cooler than the streets of Venice. The muggy heat seriously becomes oppresive after a while. I don't know how people manage to live in it. It's unbearable asfar asI'm concerned. Well after a long lunch and then finally reforming our tour group we all went off for gondola rides. It was pretty cool I suppose, it's definitelya different way to travel aroundacity and is pretty relaxing. Unfortunatelyour gondolier (is that the right word?) didn't seem to be one of the singing variety (one of the groups on a gondola apparently got shouted at for asking their gondolier to sing). Once we were done in Venice it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland and head back to the camp site. And thatwas pretty much it for Venice... you can go now... seriosuly leave, you're creeping me out...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Because you're the expert on butterfly sex
Good morning stalkers. Time again for me to try and catch up with all of my posts, I'll get it done one of these days. I blame it primarily on the bad spots for getting internet... mostly... anyway, on with the show.
We left Austria early that morning to head off to white water rafting... with basically no rapids. This was pretty much why I wasn't doing it. If its going to be proper rafting, I want the aim to be to go down the river over rapids etc. and not to be about throwing each other out the raft and tipping it over. Sod that. Anyway, we dropped off the rafters and headed on down to the finish to wait for them. We didn't exactly have to wait for very long, the bus trip down to the finish was a bit windy and no where near as direct as the river route. After this it was back into the bus to head for Venice.
Now here's the kicker. Our tour manager was carefully explaining that we really needed to lower our expectations for the accommodation we were going to get because this was to be our first camp site. After the "awesome" hostel we had in Prague this had me a little worried, although, in the back part of my mind I was sort of going, "but it's always been relatively fine so far...", and then we hit the camp site.
Wow, was he wrong. Twinshare cabins. Bathroom with shower and toilet en-suite and here's the best of all, airconditioning. I honestly don't know how he expected us to think that this was shit acommodation. As far as I'm concerned it was the best we had had so far. Better even than the "hotel" in Amsterdam (that being mostly because it was twinshare instead of quadshare). We did't actually go into Venice itself as that requires a ferry ride (for those of you that don't know Venice is made up of a lot of island type things...). Anyway, we were all set to have a nice relaxing day, make that evening, at our camp site in Venice. That night we were once again presented with a barbecue (which was awesome).
From there on the night was relatively calm except for one major hiccup. I tried ordering a drink. Not to say that I had problems ordering the drink, that's fairly standard regardless of where you are in the world. The problem came in when I tasted my drink. You see, I had ordered a fairly simple vodka and lemonade. Not exactly a complicated drink. So I had my first sip and it all seemed fine, until the aftertaste hit me... I can quite honestly say that this is the worst vodka that I have ever had the displeasure of drinking. I would gladly take russian bear and quite probably black horse before I would willingly drink a glass of that stuff they said was vodka.
And so it was that I poured away a good chuck of money (for those of you not in the know, when converting South African rands to Euros we get screwed big time) as I had declared the drink undrinkable and, as everyone knows, this is my tv show so my word is law. Errr... yea that was it for day one in Venice. Good evening and good night...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
We left Austria early that morning to head off to white water rafting... with basically no rapids. This was pretty much why I wasn't doing it. If its going to be proper rafting, I want the aim to be to go down the river over rapids etc. and not to be about throwing each other out the raft and tipping it over. Sod that. Anyway, we dropped off the rafters and headed on down to the finish to wait for them. We didn't exactly have to wait for very long, the bus trip down to the finish was a bit windy and no where near as direct as the river route. After this it was back into the bus to head for Venice.
Now here's the kicker. Our tour manager was carefully explaining that we really needed to lower our expectations for the accommodation we were going to get because this was to be our first camp site. After the "awesome" hostel we had in Prague this had me a little worried, although, in the back part of my mind I was sort of going, "but it's always been relatively fine so far...", and then we hit the camp site.
Wow, was he wrong. Twinshare cabins. Bathroom with shower and toilet en-suite and here's the best of all, airconditioning. I honestly don't know how he expected us to think that this was shit acommodation. As far as I'm concerned it was the best we had had so far. Better even than the "hotel" in Amsterdam (that being mostly because it was twinshare instead of quadshare). We did't actually go into Venice itself as that requires a ferry ride (for those of you that don't know Venice is made up of a lot of island type things...). Anyway, we were all set to have a nice relaxing day, make that evening, at our camp site in Venice. That night we were once again presented with a barbecue (which was awesome).
From there on the night was relatively calm except for one major hiccup. I tried ordering a drink. Not to say that I had problems ordering the drink, that's fairly standard regardless of where you are in the world. The problem came in when I tasted my drink. You see, I had ordered a fairly simple vodka and lemonade. Not exactly a complicated drink. So I had my first sip and it all seemed fine, until the aftertaste hit me... I can quite honestly say that this is the worst vodka that I have ever had the displeasure of drinking. I would gladly take russian bear and quite probably black horse before I would willingly drink a glass of that stuff they said was vodka.
And so it was that I poured away a good chuck of money (for those of you not in the know, when converting South African rands to Euros we get screwed big time) as I had declared the drink undrinkable and, as everyone knows, this is my tv show so my word is law. Errr... yea that was it for day one in Venice. Good evening and good night...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
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