From Sara With Love

Jack swears this song has been haunting him throughout Europe.
And it has.
Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7RKM32CvIc

Napoli, oh me, oh my.

Napoli has come and gone, and while we were not blown away with the city itself -unless of course you count the literal trash-filled wind storms- it has been a lot of fun and we've met some interesting people, mostly Australian.

I'll start with the city. It feels like a hybrid of NY and Madrid, although we've been told Mumbai and Madrid is probably more accurate. It is busy, densely populated, moped crazed and pretty dirty. I am not exagerrating when I say the drivers are absolutely terrifying and every walk feels like being on a date with danger. We're told there is a very corrupt side to Napoli, but we have found the people to be very nice and besides, we have focused most of our energy on pizza. Although I've been warned countless times that Italian men will try and grab my bum, it has yet to happen, and while I'm not exactly complaining, I am starting to feel a little left out.

Our hostel is great! It's run by an Australian woman who has a live-in cat, Simon, and two dogs. It took a while for Simon to warm to me but today he sought refuge from the vacuum cleaner and sat on my bed for 10 minutes. Sorry to brag, but I'm feeling pretty special. All of the other guests are Australian or French and we had one fun night out with the Australians who took us to a bar that doubles as a book store during the day. No one drinks IN the bars here, they just take their drinks into the alley, talk and dodge cars. Very fun.

We went to the Archeological Museum on Saturday, and while the building itself is in pretty terrible condition, the Pompeian artifacts are amazing and we had a great time. Since admission was free, we splurged and got an entertaining albeit inaccurate audioguide. I think we both appreciated the relaxed approach to the museum, which went well with the humorous, somewhat raunchy roman art and sculpture. I won't elaborate too much, but we were not aware of the "Secret Room" in the museum that consists of artwork taken from Pompeian brothels, and were happy to discover it on the way out as it made for a humorous exit.

We took a bus up to Mt. Vesuvius on Sunday and then did the short hike around the crater. It was harder than we thought it would be but worth it. The view of the city below was quite nice, despite the clouds and a bit of rain. Our bus driver was late to pick us up (and also illegaly smoked in the bus, yuck) so we were not able to explore the Pompeian ruins on the way back.

We went back today and had the best time, despite horrible weather and a curse that left me partially eyelashless. It was extremely hot yesterday and seemed like it would be today, so we took all of our laundry to be washed, including our jackets. We had mild weather for most of the day, except the wind which caused multiple flashings on my part and ash to fly into our eyes. I'm pretty sure I picked up an ancient Roman curse because after we left the Temple of Apollo, a huge chunk of ash managed to get through my glasses and inside my eyelid. I washed my eye out with water only to discover I had rubbed off half of the eyelashes on my left eye. Spooky and uncomfortable- I swear I now feel an occasional draught blow through the empty spaces.

We realized the audio guide was complete crap soon after we started walking through the city and were lucky enough to meet up with a wild dog who would not leave our sides and ended up leading us to some interesting sites. We named her Regina Latrat and she followed us the entire time, even after it started pouring rain and we got lost in the vineyards. I was sad to leave her behind at the end of the day. We saw another wild dog on the way out and I was strangely pleased to realize that not only do wild dogs inhabit this amazing archeological site, but also take advantage of Roman engineering as our guide dog regularly stopped at the fountains were Pompeians would have gathered water as well. We had to race to the exit in order to turn in our audioguides by 7pm, but that doesn't mean there wasn't time to stop and help a docent practice English questions such as "Is she your girlfriend?" and "Are we alone?"

The rain got progressively worse on the walk from the train station to our hostel, and the cheap umbrella I bought in Barcelona basically folded in on itself. I can only imagine how we looked, a hooded Jack taking super long strides to avoid the puddles while I practically did a crab shuffle to keep up, using one hand to hold down the excess fabric of my dress and the other to battle with the world's worst umbrella. We grabbed a pizza each, made it back to the hostel, drank homemade wine one of the French tourists brought, and well, here I am. I'm going to trap Simon in our room and call it a night. Our next stop is Rome, so we'll update then.

Love,
Cyn

Venice

We only spent a day in Venice, so this will be a short post.
We stayed at a hotel just outside of Venice called Villa Dori, which was cheaper than some of the hostels we've stayed in so far. The young man who checked us in was a HUGE help and pretty much customized a map for us pointing out his favorite and cheapest places, including a sandwich shop that sold basic meat sandwiches for .80 euros each (I did not have one) and an excellent chocolate store that had treats such as balsamic vinegar-flavored dark chocolate. For the record, that particular flavor was very good, probably one of the best pieces of chocolate I've ever had.

We are finding that some things are consistent throughout Italy, such as passionate graffiti and dressing in all purple. Jack's sense of direction kicked in unexpectedly while in Venice, which was nice as I was at a loss reading the map. We experienced high pressure sales tactics when we left San Marcos and went to Murano, which is really just a bunch of houses and glass shops. Most of the glass items were gaudy but the smaller pieces were interesting, such as the model of a full symphony orchestra featured in a display window (picture included). We saw the typical Venetian scenes and I was particularly impressed with the gondoliers who were able to multitask and chat on their cellphones while working. We skipped the basilica and opted for a few smaller exhibits such as The Inventions of Da Vinci and the Vivaldi Violins, which is exactly what it sounds like: a small museum of violins, violin cousins and a continuous Vivaldi soundtrack.

The one mistake we made in Venice was buying the all day bus/ferry pass, which everyone recommended. There is no system of checking tickets and it was a complete waste of 32 euros. Overall, we both really enjoyed the city and for the most part, were able to avoid the more costly side of visiting such an expensive city.

Italy Day 5 or 6... it's hard to keep track.

Things started off with a bang when we arrived in Torino, Italy a few nights ago. Sacha got the email detailing our train arrival time about 2 days after we settled in with her (and Galo), so needless to say, there was some confusion when our cab dropped us off at their apartment. It was raining pretty hard that evening and we were unsure if the buzzer worked or if anyone was home, so Jack decided to walk around the neighborhood to see if there was a dry place to wait. I stayed behind with the bags and was invited inside their neighbor's apartment by a real Italian hunk, an offer I declined by the way. When Jack returned, he informed me the only place still open was a bar called "The Texas Ranger"... so we kept ringing the buzzer. Long story short, Sacha woke up and answered the door, we settled in, and nothing of note happened until 2 days later when we experienced our first bit of of anti-American sentiment in a bar called "Cafe des Artes." It was so scary! However mean the woman who expressed this was, I have no regrets as I got to pet her four month old Border Collie puppies while she affected an English accent and yelled at me about Bush for a few minutes.

I was surprised to see dogs in a bar, but even more surprised to see a dog in a nightclub later that evening. It doesn't seem like this is exclusive to Tornio either, which makes me very happy and may turn me into a lush, you never know. Our days with Sacha and Galo were spent eating, eating, eating and wine tasting. Oh, and to bring things full circle, the Barilla pasta theme song has been stuck in my head since day 2 of Italy because it turns out the hunky neighbor spends the afternoons singing old Italian songs to the plants on his balcony. Galo seemed really annoyed by this guy, but in the neighbor's defense, he had the most amazing garden in their neighborhood.

Monoprix

We found the french equivalent of Longs, it's called Monoprix. It's huge and smells slightly fishy and would bring Blair to tears with its random, enormous, bizarre selection of items. I tried to take a picture but the security guard yelled at me. Sorry.

Nice Day 2

Well, we're back to our old ways. We took a nap yesterday after the Chagall museum (wonderful cat experience included!) and woke up for dinner right before midnight. Lucky for us, there is an inexpensive Italian restaurant across the street from our hotel that is open late, so we were able to order a pizza and a cheese plate for Jack. They had a large t.v. in the restaurant and we watched the French version of "Cheaters" for a while, but that ended once the older staff came out of the back and saw what the young staff was up to. They switched the t.v. off and put on a mixed cd of artists such as Boys II Men which was entertaining, Celine Dion which was funny, and Dr. Dre which just made me homesick.

It was overcast today so when we woke up at noon we packed some lunch, went to the beach and played with rocks. The beach was filled with teenagers making out and old men sun bathing- needless to say, the people watching was pretty good. The best was probably watching a girl try to maneuver through the rocks in heels, which was only funny until I realized she did this better than I was able to in flat boots. I tested the water- it was cold- with what was surprisingly NOT the palest foot on the beach and we walked along the rocks for as long as we could. The beach is coated in a fine white dust so by the end of the walk my boots looked like relics from an old western movie, and I must say, I am happy with the results.

We saw some weird street performers on our walk home through Old Town Nice: two Native American musical trios competing for viewers on opposite corners of the street, an "acrobat" who looked JUST like a Finnish Brad Pitt and of course, more crazy street dancers. Our favorite dancer was a guy who was more than likely very stoned, dancing to music I would describe as "spaceship-acid-trance." [Video included in this blog] He was really getting into his moves on a bench where five or six kids were having a conversation and it should be noted that not once did they stop their conversation to acknowledge his presence. That may have been more impressive than the dancing. It seems random, public dancing and an open love of Orangina is equally strong in Nice as it is in Paris.

We're checking out tomorrow, taking a train to Monaco to go to the Jacques-Cousteau aquarium and to visit the site of Grace Kelly's death, and then hopping on a night train to Torino, Italy where we'll be staying with Sacha and Galo for about a week. Here's hoping we will actually make our connecting train this time and will not have to repeat our experience of sleeping in the Marseille train "station" (it consisted of a roof and two walls- technically outdoors in my book) amongst gypsies and a homeless or two.

A quick thought regarding mannequins.

While in Spain mannequins were often no where to be found (their bodies/heads replaced by magazine cut-outs stuffed into outfits), in France they lack heads but have decorative nipples.