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Our Fantabulous Trip Around the Globe
Benvenuti/Wilkommen from Europa!We´ve been here for over a week and already we´ve been running around a whole lot. But first, we left Cape Town bright an early although I didn´t quite make it on the plane because I forgot my Leatherman in my carryone. Fortunately I was able to check it with my bag. Our flight was pleasant and uneventful; in fact, it was even enjoyable although I got a reputation for being a big eater as I always asked for seconds. The flight attendants got a chuckle out of me.We arrived in Frankfurt only to lose eachother in the airport for over an hour. I even had Michaela paged but she didn´t hear because they did the announcement in German. Smart. We landed in Milan later in the evening and were bumped from the 1-star we booked and moved to another called the Hotel Diablo! Classy place! In fact, we were quite certain that the staff thought I had rented Michaela´s services for the night. Milan wasn´t too interesting. It was Michaela´s first good taste of Europe so old buildings, snooty people and nothing open on Sundays. Of course it was quite beautiful. Stylish people everywhere, riding Vespas and smoking! Classic Europe. We didn´t see much of Milan except we did walk around a lot. We visited the fashion district along via Spiga and Montenapoleone. All the big fashion designers were there. It was absolutely disgusting the prices for some of the things there (1000$ for a purse, come on!) and most of it quite ugly. I´ve never understood "high fashion". That´s my only judgement for the day. The highlight of Milan was meeting Jason & Anne-Marie, a Canadian/Swedish couple, who convinced us to go to Torino.We had been wavering about going to Torino as we figured that we would be going there 7 months too late. In fact, it was a wonderful place to go. But the main reason we decided to go was for the Pearl Jam concert in the Olympic hockey arena. We bought our tickets from a scalper (at less than face value, nice) and snuck our way about 30m from the stage just to the right of the band. They were incredible! They owned the crowd right from the beginning although they did play quite a weird set playing practically an entire album in the middle of the show. After 2 1/2 hours, they closed with a cover from the Who?. Awesome!Our next day, we bought what is called a Choco-Pass. Apparently, Torino is known for its chocolate and several of the chocolate shops created a choco-tour where you get to sample their wares. Sooooo goood! In fact, we are still eating chocolate 6 days later. The first shops we felt like we were trick or treating because we would show up, they would fill up a little baggy for us and then we would move on to the next spot. Some places gave us cake but my favorite was definitely the hot chocolate. First they mixed up a a chocolate paste, then pour a shot of espresso over it, covered it with whipped cream and hazelnuts. (Wiping drool from key board now). We weren´t fortunate enough (sarcasm) to stay in the hostel in Torino so we had to settle for another 1-Star hotel which was surprisingly ok. The illegal brazilian worker they had was very nice to us. Our conversations were very interesting because we didn´t have a common language between us even though there we could speak 5 different ones. Although we did with our little spanish and his portugese and italian.Our diet is definitely suffering from being in Europe. Some of you were concerned if we would eat enough in Africa, well rather you should worry about it in Europe. Food is extremely expensive, basically everything is 1 1/2 times more expensive so we have been subsiding mostly on bread and cheese. Don´t get me wrong, they are delicious and nutricious but unfortunately it gets boring when its basicallz 2 out of 3 meals. My other meal is usually pizza. Bachelor diet for me I guess. We´ve also been getting a daily dose of the most amazing gelatto! It is incredibly delicious. So many great flavours. We´ve had cherry, strawberry, coconut, coffee, pistacio, chocolate-hazelnut, peach, green apple and lemon. Lemon being the best. I average almost a cone a day. Actually, I only eat it to keep my weight up. Honestlz.Our last days in Torino was spent actually site seeing. We went to the top of the Mole Antonelli, the famous tower which was shown often in city shots during the olympics. In fact, it was the tallest man-made structure in the world at one point. We had some amazing vistas of the city, but unfortunately, not of the alps due to haze. Then we went on a tour of the Olympic facilities. We say the palavela where they held the figure skating and short track. Also, we went to the athlete´s village, the hockey arena (again for us), the Olympic stadium (built by Mussolini, home to Juventus) and on top of the Lingotto, the former home to Fiat´s assembly line. We were even able to go to the top of the Lingotto to see the roof top test track for their cars and we could see the big red Olympic bridge. It was a great way to see the city and relive the Olympics.(And now for Michaela´s part)We haven't been the most organized people on the planet since we arrived in Europe. (I can hear those of you who know us well gasping in amazement. Not.) That meant of course that we didn't manage to book anything in our price range for Venice. So, we ended up staying about a 40-minute train ride outside of Venice, which isn't bad. We were in a cute little town called Padova, a worthy stop on its own, I believe. Joel may or may not agree :) So, we arrived in Padova on the train fromTorino. It was mid-afternoon, blistering hot and we were trying to find our cranky way to the hostel. No information people at the train station, so I hike to the bus station. The only information guy there could only tell me about buses to other cities. Not entirely useful. We decide to try our luck and ask a driver. Very few people in Italy speak English. Those who do speak a bit are too embarassed to use it. Great. So we ask the driver and he tells us that we're on the right route. Hooray! Joel assumes that since we ask him if he knows where the hostel is, that he'll know that we need him to signal to us where to get off. That was assuming too much. After a few minutes, we decide to ask again. He gives me a disgusted look and says that it was at least three stops back. At least, that's what I understood (in my non-existant Italian!). So we get off, try to find a bus going in the other direction. 45 minutes later one shows up and someone who speaks English (gasp!) showed us where to get off. Finally we found the hostel. None of the hostels here are like South Africa. They suck here. Surprised? So were we. None of them have kitchens, few of them have decent common areas, and they're all MUCH more expensive. We've been eating a lot of bread and cheese! And those of you who were worried about our diet in Africa should be more worried about us in Europe! It's so expensive here and is hard to justify $7 CDN on an individual-size pizza. Anyhow, I'm sure we'll make it through alive. We only really had half a day in Padova and that consisted of walking around and eating gelato. Really, that's pretty much all we did in Italy. It was all we could afford :) But it was great. Padova has a wonderful market and we just gawked at people and made fun of the chicks in cowboy boots and men in pink sweaters and tight pants. Welcome to Europe! The next day (Sunday), we headed to Venice. Oh. My. Goodness. It was AMAZING. Beautiful, scenic, magical, and everything you could ever imagine it to be. I was like a kid in a candy store--I didn't know where to look! From the moment we stepped off the train (and pracitcally into a canal), I was in heaven. Tons of tourists, to be sure (I don't think there's such thing as "locals" in Venice), but it was a wonderful day. We only did 12 hours there, but we'll definitely go back. There are tons of back alleys hidden everywhere, may of them leading to canals. There are people selling fresh coconut and Venetian glass. Gondolas pop into sight every few minutes and the whole place feels like a carnival. You feel like anything could happen.There are so many colours and smells--it's almost overwhelming. You can't even begin to soak every single bit of it in--there's too much!Unfortunately, it's also very expensive. The gondola rides cost €80 (about $120 CDN) for 40 minutes. Meals are expensive and drinks even more so. We couldn't get money out of the bank (stupid bank cards) so we didn't have to have the quandry about the gondola ride. We had all of €10 cash to our name for the day. It meant a lot of walking, which was fine. We took the poor man's gondola ride, which was a 30-second gondola ferry across the Grande Canale. It was AWESOME and only cost €0.50. We were so happy for those 30 seconds; even though it wasn't much, it was still the best we could do at that point. We enjoed every second of it as a result. Thank goodness for credit cards--it meant we could get some supper at a little pub. True to form, wine was cheaper than any other drink on the menu. The Italians know what they're doing! We each got pizza and shared some bruschetta (who knew there were so many kinds to choose from?!). We shared a bit of wine and had a nice -enough meal close to the water. Next time we'll plan it right and stay in Venice. It has definitely become one of, if not my most, favourite cities. Now here we are in Salzburg, spending a few days with Mozart at his birthplace and trying to learn some German. Romance languages are easier for me, but luckily Joel grew up with a German-born stepdad so he can figure some things out quite quickly. Only a few days here and then it's off to Munich for Oktoberfest with Janine and Jason (the Moogs). We're über excited to meet up with them--it'll be great to see people from "home". So cool to use the ü, hee hee. Hopefully we'll get some more photos up before we head into Russia on October 14th!:) M
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