A Tale of Two Cities

Published on Dec. 18, 2004 in Italy

 So once again we have internet again, and many, many stories to tell. We left Stockholm on good terms, feeling great about the people we met and the city in general. I stayed up the last night fairly late talking with Malin, a quite uplifting talk. Casey and I woke up, packed, and started our next journey. Made our way to the central station and then took the bus for an hour and a half to the airport. Got on the plane and went to Milan ... as you can imagine I slept the entire way, so it was quite a quick plane ride. We arrived in Milan and both agreed that, well, we wouldnt want to live there... We walked for about 30 minutes, both being stubborn, to find the hotel. Since it was late and we were both tired we just walked trying to find some wine yet at 2200 no stores were open. We met our third hotelmade, Herbert, or something like that. He is from Hong Kong but spoke decent English. Taught him how to play Rummy and plazed a quick game to 300. We all fell asleep and apparently Herbert snored all night ... Casey thought he lost his ear plugs so used little pieces of paper to try and muffle out the racket. We woke up at 800, showered, ate one of the best breakfasts ever ... this breakfast put Motel 8 continental breakfasts to shame. It was good. Walked to the train station, bought our ticket which was twice as expensive as we thought it was going to be, and boarded the train. Once again, I slept most of the way.

Beep Beep

Published on Dec. 18, 2004 in Italy

 So, same post, the computer started beeping and me and since it is in German I ha no clue what was being said. So we got on the train and I slept again ... Casey talked to a French guy, I think he was French. The last stop before the Swiss border was this tiny little town. The train stopped and we both saw people come onto the train with bags of food from some store. Since we love eating we got off the train, figuring another one would come sometime later in the afternoon. It was 1200, and the next one came at 1600. We wandered around the town for a while trying to find food, found a great grocery store, bought lots of food ... and a LOT of 1.35euro wine, and left. Found the only park in the city which was closed, but we snuck in. At food, walked back to the train station, and started drinking a bottle of wine. So, how do two people drink wine without a bottle opener(question mark) ... they push it in! Next to us sat a lady and Casey said, here is our mission, talk to her. We talked for a while and I found out quite a bit about her, including that she lives in Bern. Now the story gets interesting. So without further adeau, look over at Casey`s Dec 19 2004 post!

Old and New

Published on Aug. 25, 2003 in Italy

Oh, it has been quite an eventful couple of days, yes it has!!  While I type this, reflecting, sitting at the coliseum, people give me many interesting looks as I type on the keyboard.  But do I care right now, not at all!  Why?  Well, let me explain.

The story should start back a few days ago, with Kelvin hungry, lost, smelly, homeless on a train going somewhere he doesn't know.  I got off at Garrista, or something like that, but since it was pretty urban with no beach I decided to take another train to Citivecca, or something like that (I will look up the exact name at a later date).  Wow, many interesting looks.  I got off the train, realized where the beach was, and was immersed by locals!  rarely can I go anywhere now and not hear English, but for a 15 hour period or so I heard no English what-so-ever.   I got some food and sat at the "hip" part of the town, I think.  A beach front community that seems to  be somewhat based around industrial manufacturing.  I eventually made my way to the beach, curled up on a  bunch of rocks in my sleeping back, and fell asleep.  Worrying that somebody would try and stab me I didn't sleep very well, but alas...  I woke up, jumped on another train for Rome, and came over.  I got off the train and headed over to where the BeeHive was located, pretty near the train station.  But wait! It had moved!  I went to the new location, on the other side of the train station, but they were full.  I asked for another place, they gave me a few, and I stopped at one.  Free Internet, looking hopeful.  It as full.  Went to one more that seemed less likely to be a good place, but being not picky and having just slept on a beach allowed me to stay anywhere.  I stopped by and talked to some American guy who told me that hostel was full however another one they own was available.  I Went there, on the OTHER SIDE OF THE TRAIN STATION, and checked in.  I dropped my bag off and immediately head ed out to the Vatican.  The metro system was not nearly as nice as it was in Barcelona, but it got me there,.  I got a little bit of food, and toured some of the Cathedrals around the Vatican.  I didn't have any more at this point so couldn't go inside, but regardless still enjoyed m myself. Being young I walked through a large part of the town and went to the Pantheon, which was just amazing.  I met some girl from Malta, she was pretty cool.  We talked for a while, she spoke something in Maltese to me, it was fun.  We pulled out my map and she showed me where it was.  how many people have had Maltese spoken to them??!  Good times.  Now a tour group is around me, I think they are making fun of me.  That is alright, there are some very large people.  Enough of that!  After the pantheon I wandered home, quickly, and made it home right at 6:30 when they were breaking out some food.  Hmmmmm!  Pizza by everybody -- and there were a ton of freaking people there, a lot of attractive people as well.  Now, this is where I started making friends!  I met a few people in the room that I was staying, and actually, organized all of them but one to go out on a pub crawl.  I met two other English girls who also decided to come out with us.  Then two other English guys came.  I was the only American!!  We went out on the crawl, which included a tour, drank,stumbled home late at night.  George (a girl) and Louis were there, I snogged George (sounds funny!)  She is real cool though, so that is aight.    I woke up, ate breakfast, met two Mexican females, another Aussie, and went over to th Colloseum with Bj.  It is totally amazing here, but I'm only half way done seeing what is going on, so now I bid farewell, adios!

Goodbye #1

Published on Aug. 9, 2003 in Italy

I am alone again, on an ICE to Venice.

After we went up to the top of the Eiffel tower we went back to the hostel, made some food, and then went to bed.  I fell asleep pretty early, however Ana stayed up for a while longer writing in her journal.  The next morning we did not really know what we were going to do, yet I needed to b in Venice sometime and she needed to go to Amsterdam and also to London.  When we did wake we wandered around the town for quite a while.  Got some food, got some film developed.  She called her parents a few times, we went to the train station and made some reservation (and the night before we visited the Moulan Rouge, by the way).  Eventually I wrote an email to my friend Christy that I would not be able to make it to Venice the next day, but would arrive the morning of the 10th.  So, Ana and I got our stuff and went to the train station at 11:00 at night.  the train left for Amsterdam and was an all night train.  The next morning rather early we arrived in Amsterdam and wandered around for a few hours.  We went to the Red Light district, again, and got some breakfast.  Then we wandered over to the Van Gogh museum and spent a few hours there (Ana LOVES van Gogh, so you can imagine how happy she was).  We went back to the train station because my train left at 3:00 and hers at 4:00.  I got on the train, we said our goodbyes, and left.  I will hopefully see her again in London, since our planes leave from the same area, but I don't know if I will or not.  I hope I do!!  My train went from Amsterdam C to Frankfurt, and now to Munich, and then an overnight train to Venice.  OH!!  AN interesting th thing did happen on the train ride down.  A bunch of Scotsmen hijacked the train, or at least certain cars of it (one of them was mine).  Trey were getting their pr--party started for a soccer match that they were all going to, and occasionally a bagpipe was heard on the trains intercom, and another time it came in and the entire train was singing some song from Scotland!!  It was a kinda funny experience,e although I was pretty tired and almost asleep from the night before, and having wandered around so much in Paris.  Each day in Paris we had to move rooms by 9:15 in the morning, since there was hardly any room in the hostel.  Oh well.  Now I am almost to Munich, and soon i will be home!!  Time to email Casey and make sure he can pick me up, he owes me at least that much!!  I need to find a beer mug for him...

AHH, an idea!

I Get Lost. And Found.

Published on July 23, 2003 in Italy

I have a couple of days to cover now, and it has been quite an adventuresome couple of days!  Starting back two days ago, I arrived in Montrusso eventually, after taking a few detours and losing my friends and so forth.  I arrived and the first thing on my list: get a freaking bite to eat.  Quite hungry.  After eating, and learning how to tell the waitress in Italian that she was cute, I headed down to see what the beach was like.  I ran into a few girls next to the beach and let them know what I was planning on doing, and they let me know that t a few American girls were going to amp on the beach as well.  Good luck!  I jumped onto the beach in great joy, and saw one of them sitting down in a chair, with the other three in the water.  I said: "are you the American girls that I heard were going to camp on the each" and she said "I don't know about either of those, who is asking" "oh wait, are you kelvin?"  I initially thought that Sibyl and Ash had found out these girls and that they knew me somehow.  But I realized that this was a girl named Laura, whom I met in Barcelona.  Some conversations later she offered me to sleep in the apartment these girls were renting.  Could I complain?  No.  I also met Michelle, also from the states, and to Canadian girls, Jolien and Jenn.  Both cute, both funny as heck.  We will get back to this.  We swam a little more and eventually went into the hotel and fell asleep.  After waking up in the morning we started to set out hiking the Cinco Terra, the five cities strewn across a section of Italy that everybody apparently loves.  We started at the first one, and eventually, losing the two other American girls, mad it back to the fifth in like 5 hours.   It must have been one of the best things I have ever since, since the scenery was so enlightening.  I have never really quite seen anything like it.  Of course, everybody was quit tired when we got back, but after a little discussion we got a bunch of wine (one bottle per person) and set of to get some food.  Oh, and somehow Sibyl and Ashley met me on the trial, we just kinda ran into each other.  All seven of us went to a pasta place and filled ourselves up, which was of course great.  After that we went to the beach, and Sibyl and Ashley tried to find these two Irish boys that they were going to invite over to their hotel.  After sitting on the beach for an hour or so with them not returning, we got impatient, four our own bottle opener, and released the corks!  Let me speculate on opening wine bottles:  I don't know if I have seen somebody do it before, or if it is just in the blood, but these two sweetish guys tried to open the bottle and totally stripped the cork.  It broke in half, and I had to help them out.  Not that I am complaining, just thought it was amazing.  From talking to random people throughout the day we invited several people down to the beach.  Jolina and I saw several people while getting more wine, and invited more an more people down. Overall, 20 people showed up at the beach, which is not bad (since I instigated 17 of these people to the beach) considering i only actually knew two of them a few weeks ago.  We drank our wine, played some games, jumped in the ocean, and went home.  I won't go into much detail, but I kissed Jenn that night -- although the tongue's weren't in perfect harmony there was just so much pleasure in the kiss I don't know how to measure it.  She has a tongue ring, and heck if I know what to do with it.  I hope I get to kiss her again though, that has been one of the highlights of my trip.

We fell asleep, and woke up at 7:30 or 8:00, since two of our people needed to catch an early train.

Everybody else left at about 10:00, whereas I went down to the beach and relaxed until 12:15 when i met Sibyl and Ashley again.  They jumped on a 1:15 train, and I planned on staying in the Cinco Terra for another night.  Unfortunately, although the city was immesily beautiful, I didn't really enjoy it as much as other people.  I enjoy talking (or trying to) with natives, and that didn't really...