Going to a country when you don't know the language is obviously guaranteed to cause you a little stress. I mean how do you find out where your hotel is? How do you find anything really? Sure coming to Europe for 2 months on my own took a little courage on my part (and a whole lot of RA-RA from my friends) but I didn't cross the ocean totally undefended - I chose France for a reason - I can UNDERSTAND the language, I can READ the language and for the most part I can SPEAK the language (at least à la Québecois - although my parisian is getting pretty good if I do say so myself). So coming here, although scary and stressful at first I had an advantage to all my counterparts as I am fluent and can easily communicate to get what I want. In Italy - not so much. Of course being 3 people and a stuffed cow makes travelling in a foreign language country much easier, it was definitely a learning experience.
I learned that if you at least try to get your point across in their language they will be much more willing to help you even if you only know the basic words. These are the 5 words that got me through my 5 days in Italy: Bonjourno!, Graci!, Prego!, Pizza, Ciao! Knowing only these 5 essential words allowed me to communicate with the Italian folk who then sympathized with the struggling tourist trying to make an effort to not look like such a tourist. AND (and I know you should never start a sentence with AND) by day 5 I was getting asked for directions - too bad I had NO IDEA what he was asking, I might have been able to help! HAHA.
Italy was a great and fun idea although we never anticipated having such difficulty getting a train to Paris from there. There is only a night train directly from Verona (at a small fortune of course). We decided to take the June 30th train and only arrive in Paris on the morning of the 1st meaning we got to spend an entire extra day in Verona. Not that we did much as it was the HOTTEST day I have EVER lived through. The Gattopardo Hotel people were nice enough to let us take refuge in their lounge all day so we could keep our luggage there and hide from the heat (although they didn't have AC down there and we still DIED!) I kept going out for walks - at least there is air outside and I got to explore the Dossobueno area. Of course I found a train station not 2 minutes from our Hotel (when we had been taking cabs and busses all week), I found a peach orchard (where I snuck in like a garden raider and stole one right off the tree :D), I found a huge sports complex, my future house and a grocery store. I enjoyed some of the best ice cream yet and relaxed on some benches to people watch. However the heat was definitely not helping my ever worstening head cold and I was slowly starting to feel the effects of minor hyperthermia so I spent the remainder of my time indoors. Italy is so very different from France, and the food is MUCH cheaper, although the variety isn't there. My biggest shock was that beer is MUCH MUCH cheaper in Italy than anywhere else AND MUCH MUCH cheaper than Wine. Wine is expensive in Italy (by comparison to France anyways...).
The midnight train from HELL! We reserved 3 beds and we should have reserved 6 just for our luggage. What a mess! We had no idea what to expect and were really hoping that we would have a cabin all to ourselves. NOPE! We board the train only to find 3 kids already in our cabin and very LITTLE room for our luggage. Did I mention my head was pounding and I was slightly nauseous? After about an hour of debating and moving stuff around we finally came up with something, not bearable but at least workable. Note to EVERYONE - if you are claustrophobic - DO NOT EVER take a night train! We managed to open up the beds but when all 6 are open, no one can sit meaning you are stuck in a coffin like position for 10+ hours with no where to go. No air circulation and you can't just open the windows or doors or move around because you have 5 other people in there with you and no room ANYWHERE because luggage is stacked in every inch of spare space. Needless to say not much sleep happened and I finally dragged myself out of the cabin around 630am and stayed out until we pulled in at around 10am. Never been so happy to get off any moving vehicly in my life! I was ready to kiss the ground - 11+ hours on a train is TOO FRIGGIN LONG!
Did I mention someone stole my money? Don't know how, don't know when... my purse never left my side and I still have my wallet (and my credit card THANK GOD!) But I took out 120Euro at the train station and when I got to my new apartment to pay the cab I had NOTHING left. Even my Canadian money was GONE! I had 10Euro, my receipts, some spare Franks from Switzerland and a bit of Euro change. I was losing it! How did that happen? Could be worst - but still a major piss off! Someone went into my wallet in 2 different places, took the money and put it back. WHAT THE???
Anyways... that's why I've flooded all your inboxes with my screaming and complaining and crying to come home! My toothache (if that's what it is is still around) but at least I'm rested and I did groceries and eating right again. Although I now have to go buy jeans because the zipper on my favourite (and ONLY) pair here is broken. FML! Going to see Les Misérables hopefully tonight if I can get tickets. It's raining so why not?
Hot compresses and talking to you all makes me feel much more normal so THANK YOU!
p.s. I really AM sorry for flooding all your inboxes with my unnecessarily long emails - but you all know me by now - and that's why you LOVE ME :) and *cough cough* MISS ME!!! Well at least I miss ALL of YOU!!!
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