5 Days in Italy with Only 5 Words in Italian... (Adventures with MooReece con't)

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!!!

Life is Beautiful! And so is Italia! (Adventures with MooReece - and Haley and Ladan... con't)

Leaving Antibes was hard. Sure I was still in denial about it until yesterday, but if anything is a good distraction, a trip to some of the most famous cities in Italy is sure to fill the prescription.

Two girls (Ladan and Haley) are also studying in Paris with me and seen as we had several days in between programs we decided (ok well they decided, I just invited myself along haha) to trip it to Verona where we would stay and venture out from there. We had the opportunity to make day trips and visits to Verona (obviously), Venizia and Milano (that's Venice and Milan for you non-italians). I'm sure most of you have heard me complain about it by now, but holy catfish it gets HOT in Italy!!! I mean REALLY REALLY HOT! And I'm climatized! I've been living in the French Riviera for over a month and Italy is too hot to handle. Whodatunkit? So I guess here's a quick snapshot of my mini vacation to Italia : (facebook is giving me grief...hopefully I will be able to upload pictures... if not, sorry it will have to wait until I get home)

Verona

Romeo, where for art thou Romeo? Right? The town made famous for it's connection to one of the most famous romances in history (albeit a fictional one...but then again aren't they all?) There is the massive "Arena" which we hoped to have caught an opera in (Madame Butterfly) but it ended the night we got there and so we missed our chance. Nevertheless there are quite a few things to see in this beautiful and quaint city. Casa di Guillietta is obviously one of the most famous landmarks in the entire area. And YES there is an archway plastered with notes to her. Everything from asking advice to pledging one's undying love. Before you ask, YES I jumped on the hopeless romantic's anonymous bandwagon and stuck a note on the wall myself. I'm never one to pass up good luck, especially in the HEART department (we all know I need LOTS of it!) That's also why I groped poor Guillietta's statue along with 5000 other people that day. So funny because the paint is wearing where people's hands have been. All in the name of LOVE! There are also a few cathedrals in the area worth exploring (or at least standing outside and taking pictures of them) and the shopping is really good here too. I won't lie, my card was bouncing out of my wallet the second we stepped onto the shopping strip! Hot day, but bearable.

Venezia

Up bright and early to catch the train to Venice. Everyone wants to go to Venice! It's one of those places famous for being famous in my opinion. I'm no different from anyone else, I WANTED to go see it for sure! TOURISTS TOURISTS and more TOURISTS! Not my cup of tea. Venice is different. It's interesting and cool to see but not beautiful or charming like Verona or many of the other places I've been to. It's VERY touristy - kind of like Mackinac Island only with thousands more people. NO SHADE! It was sooooo hot that day and no real relief from the heat except in San Marco the massive cathedral. It along with its museum were definitely the highlight of my trip to Venice, even if I had to wear a papertowel shawl to cover my shoulders - at least I didn't have to wear one to cover my legs too - my dress was long enough - SCORE! There were pigeons EVERYWHERE and souvenir carts as far as the eye could see. We did take the water bus and thanks to a nice american lady who gave us her left-over transit cards, we saved quite a bit of money by only having to buy 1 pass instead of 3. Venice is one of those places you want to see to say you've been there and seen what it has to offer, but I definitely didn't feel the romance that is often attached to it. I'm very glad I went and San Marco alone was worth the trip but lets just say I won't be planning my honeymoon there.

Milano

OH SHOPPING! Another day of bright and earliness to catch the longer train ride to Milan. Not much of a game plan this time but by now we can get around Italy fairly well on very little knowledge of Italian. The train/bus/metro station is ENORMOUS in Milan. It's a mini city! I had no idea Milan was that big - but then Ladan reminded me of the mula that circulates in one of the world's financial capitals. DUHHHH!!!! To say the least, if the metro station has us swooning, we were only a little excited to see what the rest of the city had to offer. We hopped on the metro and came out in the centre walking out on the largest Cathedral in all of Europe. We didn't even have time to GASP in AWE however as we were tackled by creepy men trying to turn Haley into a pigeon lady (think Home Alone 2) and take Ladan as a wife. Surreal, as if people actually force themselves at you like that. I was worried I might have to get violent with the man covering Haley with pigeons but luckily he didn't follow us when I grabbed her away. The guy after Ladan was selling (but it's FREE he says) string bracelets. You've GOT to be JOKING right? Good LORD! Speaking of which - time to go into the Cathedral. I bought a scarf this time to cover my shoulders - did I mention it's still TOO HOT for sleeves? It's too hot for clothes! It's just too hot!!! Anyways... Haley and I visit this masterpiece and as amazing as San Marco was, this one appealed to me more - probably because it was more traditional in style. The CEILINGS are phenomenal and trully a work of mastery. It's amazing and unbelievable when you learn how OLD these buildings are and you try and figure out HOW they built that - we couldn't do that now with all our modern technologies - how did they do it with NOTHING? This is why I love history! AND SHOPPING! Yep, of course, you can't go to Milan without taking a tour through the "shopping district" conveniently located next to the Cathedral. Happiness - and AIR CONDITION! We made it out of Milan fairly early, but not before catching what we thought might be a protest of sorts but it was a dressed down mixed choir singing in front of a marked off section on the road. No idea what it was all about but they were GOOD!

Obviously there is so much more to tell but it's getting late and my coherency factor is non-existant right now. Not to mention you are all probably yawning by now. I know I am. Next up - the trip Verona - Paris and then Paris days 1 and 2...DUN DUN DUN!!!!