The Italian sun is as bright as in M'sia, the only difference is that from 10am to 6pm the sun in Italy is exactly like the 12pm-to-2pm-sun in M'sia. I'm soooooooo tanned. Not joking, exactly like a Philipino. Arghhh... (u know how i hate it... :(
i'll tell the my travel story from the first day to the last in Italy. Too many things happen. Maybe i'll remember for life.
A backpacker's story
Day 1(24/8/2009)
Pisa
A Tiff!We saw the Leaning Tower. The excitement was rising, despite the bright sun shining everywhere, there was no shelter, no shade.. If u know me, i'm the type of person who couldn't stop taking pictures of sth i like dearly. The view was so nice, the leaning tower contrasts against the greenish grass. We stand on the grass to take pictures, many tourists were doin the same. There was a sign: keep off the grass. Who cares??? MAybe i had bad luck, or maybe the guards hated us, we were all being whistled and chased away from the grass. hello.. ..every ppl have pics with leaning tower on the grass, it was where the best view of the leaning tower was taken, all my friends, friends' friends had it, NOT FAIR!! Fine then, we went to somewhere else altho we were quite pissed. i continued taking pictures at another place, waiting under the sun for the best spot where some ppl were already there taking their own sweet time posing their best pose. okay finally my turn! i asked bobo to stand and pose sth like pushing or leaning on the leaning tower and he refused. he just took one picture and said impatiently thats enuf. i know it was HOT, i swallowed hard and asked again, the reply was even more impatient. Angry, i couldnt hide it anymore, i exploded on spot. Everybody saw, why shud i bother? i couldnt control myself, anger got the better of me. i walked away, leaving him behind carrying 2 bags (we went straight to Pisa before checked-in hotel in Florence). i forgot how long we separated in a sea of tourists, i took quite long time to chill down, i think i took about hundred pictures on just the Leaning Tower. haha. Or what u expect me to do?
Rational or not, reasonable or not, i wasn't going pisa to take just 1 picture and then goin home. However, we managed to find each other after about a good hour. We were fine then. hahahaha...
Day2(25/8/2009)
Florence
Dead, Almost!An accident almost took my dear life away. i was crossing a road after taking some pictures. i turned to the left, the car was like 50 meter away from me. i was thinking if i ran over the road i would be safe and i would be reaching the other side of the road before the car even reach me, it wasnt a highway anyway, just a small road with traffic on both directions. So i ran, and then i reached the middle of the road, still running, and before i can turn to the right to check the car coming from the other side, a deafening screeching sound that made me stopped and turned as part of the reflex action. i was shocked, and stunned! The car was braking hard and finally stopped just 2 inches before my knees. My legs refused to move, every muscles in my leg were locked. i was standing straight, looking at the car like a retarded person. And finally the screeching sound stopped, it took me few seconds to come to my senses. i forgot to check my right before i cross! i quickly moved to the other side, my legs feeling week. my heart couldn't stop beating faster. i had cold sweat.
i apologized to the driver, the driver was mumbling something in italian, i didnt bother to care, i felt sorry, the driver was shaking head and covering the forehead with one hand. Seconds later, he drove away.
i continued walking to the next attraction site -- Piazza Michelangelo. i wasnt myself, i wasnt feeling like talking so much, the accident kept flashed back at the back of my head. my heart still pumping at the speed higher than normal. Bobo was telling me jokes, trying to calm me down and i appreciated that.
i think i need to go back kindergarden to learn how to cross road. i think the incident left me a phobia. i'm quite scared whenener i cross a road. i nearly die in Italy. i nearly couldn't go back Malaysia to meet my parents and friends at all. i nearly lose everybody. i was ust crossing the line of life and death. i nearly ruin my future. Come to think of this: "live ur life like u're goin to die tmr". Everything is just so unexpected, we never know what is gonna happen to us next, how true it is...
Day3(26/8/2009)
Florence
The ice-creams looked irresistible in the hot italy weather. We had ice-creams at different shops, twice or thrice in a day! The most ridiculous/craziest one was 2 scoops for
8 euros! we felt cheated because the price wasnt showed... Flavours that we had tried were: melon, tiramisu, pistachio, chocolate chips, watermelon, banana and strawberry. Melon, watermelon and banana flavour were the best..
Pinochio, it is originated from florence.
Day 4 (27/8/2009)
An experience in trenitalia from florence to venice was BAD BAD BAD!! The lousiest train i've taken in my life! There was no air-conditional all along the journey. It was exactly the sauna experience for the 3 hours journey, it seemed forever... i couldnt sleep/sit/rest well in the train and i begged to reach the destination in the fastest time. It was like "when do i gonna reach??". The only ventilation was through the opened window but it didnt make any better as the air flowing in was as hot as the outside temperature of 32-34 degree celcius. i was sweating non stop.
Day 5 (28/7/2009)
Venice
i like Venice the most among all the places i've been in Italy. Why? because it is a beautiful small city. The main transportation is by boat. All everyday-kind of activities were carried out on the small little boat. However, the UV was extra strong. i remembered i didnt stay under the sun much because most places were shaded but i became double tanner than the last 3 days..
Who's hotter?
This is a-must-try in venice! An authentic venician pasta--
Pasta in squid ink sauce/ Pasta al nero di seppia. Not really a good recommendation but it worth a try. The pasta and squid were covered in absolute black color, not very tempting at first look. It had a very strong squid smell/taste, if u didnt like it u might think it stunk. :P
Day 6(29/8/2009)
RomeThanks to catherine, i booked 1 day earlier to Rome because she changed her mind last minute. We had a HARD time finding our hotel, it was at a very 'ulu' (isolated) place. We walked almost 1.9km UP THE HILL plus asking around the locals before we could reach our hotel. We hardly see any "human" on the way up. When we finally met an old lady strolling along the street with her doggie, we were in another problem communicating with her. she couldn't speak English and we couldn't understand Italian. All we did was kept saying "si, si, si" and follow the direction where her finger pointing to. hahaha..
Okay, this is Mc Donald. It looked rather like a palace, with statue, flowers and paintings hanging all around the wall...
Day 7(30/8/2009)
RomeFinally we met up with catherine and Xinme. we were supposed to meet earlier at the train station (Termini) but they missed the train..*too bad*. Me and bobo were waiting at the train station even before they boarded the train from florence. While waiting we did some 'exploration' in some parts of Rome.
Fontana di Trevi
Night view of The Colosseum
Piazza Venezia--the place we would stopped by everyday, morning and night...i see no reason why we loved this so much...hahaha
Mc Donald a.k.a. Mac Dong Dong seemed like a MUST-EAT everyday, thanks to xinme for loving Mc Dong Dong so much. Xinme and me had Crispy Mcbacon meal all the time while catherine and bobo had CBO (chicken, bacon and onions) meal at all times. Both tasted not bad, better than any other choices as only few choices(less than 6) were available in the McD outlet in Italy.
Catherine couldn't sleep at night. She was tossing and waking xinme up, complaining that she couldnt sleep. hahaha.. i was sharing bed with her and i pulled all the blanket to myself. Poor catherine.. no wonder she couldnt sleep..hahaha..
i was so evil!"P
Day 8(31/82009)
Rome
The Vatican City
This was the place where we spent most of our time hanging around, looking at "Mr Bean" 's painting, eyeing for lovebirds, playing around, resting..... hehe
Day 8(31/82009)
Rome
The Spanish Steps
Day10(1/9/2009)
RomeWe were chilling in the hotel. The hot air outside made us all felt like staying in the air-conditioned hotel room, camwhoring behing Xinme while she was writing postcard.
We
LOVE Rome!--Vatican City
We
LOVE ROMA!--Vatican City
Day 11 (3/9/2009)
RomeCatherine and Xinme left in the early mornign for Berlin. Bobo and me moved to another hotel. Altho the hotel was 4 star, it was far from city. In fact, it was quite 'ulu'.
Why always me? why the hotels i booked always wrong location? i've no idea.. haha. It took us half a day to find the hotel.
So left the 2 of us. Kinda miss the company of Cath and Xinme-the funny pair.
A wedding ceremony was taking place in Basilica Santa Maria Degli Angeli dei Martini
All in all, i think we had drank the amount of coke of our life in Italy, about 2 bottles of coke a day. The weather was crazy hot and the coke was the best remedy. This bottle of coke was quite unusual. The bottle was made of glass and not plastic. Xinme was planning to bring the glass bottle back but at the end she changed her mind, the bottle was quite weighty!
Stadio Olympico
Day 12 (4/9/2009)
Edinburgh
Adios Italy. Feeling sad, we were leaving Italy...
So contrast to the weather in Italy, edinburgh was so windy and cooling. i'm so in love with UK's weather.
We took the train back to Sunderland around 6pm. We slept all along the journey in train. i guess we were tired. Bobo even snored!
Ooopss! hahha..
It was so cold at night in Sunderland. i started shivering once i stepped out from the metro. The rain just stopped and it was windy and freezing. i only had a thin sweater with me while bobo only had a thin t-shirt. hahaha.. The coldness reminded me of walking on the street in aberdeen during last winter .....
.....The end of backpacker's story....
