An Italian New Year

**Big long post that starts heavy on photos, and ends heavy on writing.**

December 31 – We all packed up and were on the bus bright and early. We drove to Pisa for lunch and had some free time to look around. I walked around by myself taking photos and looked inside the church. I didn’t go into the tower because I didn’t feel like spending the money.

Cathedral with the leaning tower in the background.

Inside the cathedral.

Nativity scene inside the cathedral. Featuring the leaning tower.

We got back on the bus and drove to La Spezia. Then we got off the bus and got on a train that was headed to Monterosso. The ride was absolutely beautiful, even though it was hard to see much. Every glimpse we managed to get was perfectly picturesque.

We got to Monterosso and had free time to look around. A couple guys decided to swim in the sea, but I just wandered around with some people. We found a little café and stopped to have a bite to eat. After eating, we just wandered around the town a little more before we had to go back to meet everyone and get on the train. When we got there, a bunch of guys had bought fire crackers to celebrate the New Year, and Angie’s boyfriend was helping set some of them off. She wasn’t too happy about it, but he didn’t stop until a police officer came by and asked him to.

View in Monterosso.

I think this is what you could consider "downtown" Monterosso.

We got on the train and headed to the next town. By the time we got there it was already dark out, so we couldn’t see much. It seemed like a really small place though, so I’m not sure how much there would have been to see anyway. After we were there for a while, we got back on the train to go to La Spezia for dinner.

The restaurant was incredibly small, and we were really packed into one room. My table was pretty cool though because we had 5 Canadians at it. Only 1 person at our table wasn’t Canadian, and there was only 1 other Canadian in the whole group that we were missing. The meal was decent, we had pasta and then chicken and chips (soon to become a theme), but kind of a weird dessert.

The town we visited after Monterosso (I don't remember its name).

We got set up in our hotel and had some free time before our Contiki party. I was tired so I decided to have a nap, and I barely woke up before we were all supposed to meet downstairs. We were in some sort of conference room and everyone had cracked out the massive amounts of alcohol that they had purchased earlier in the day to celebrate.

Then a bunch of the guys (and Angie’s boyfriend) started setting off the firecrackers on the balcony. Setting off firecrackers on New Year’s Eve is a big thing in Italy, so you could hear loads of other firecrackers being set off all around the town.

When it was getting a little closer to midnight, we set off to find a street party to celebrate the arrival of the new year. There were tons of little street parties all over town, so we found one that we liked well enough and stuck there until the countdown that wasn’t a countdown and everyone just started going around saying “Happy New Year!” Angie even gave each of us a sparkler so we could celebrate properly.

A bit past midnight, we started walking in search of another street party. There were tons of them, most with musicians playing up on a stage, and crowds of people celebrating and lighting firecrackers. The crowd following Angie thinned as people got lost along the way, but I wanted to go back to the hotel, so I just kept following her.

I went to bed pretty soon after I got back, but then I ended up having to get up to let my roommate in when she came back. Twice.

I woke myself up early the next morning so that I could count down to the same New Year celebration that my family was counting down to back at home. We got to sleep in, so I stayed in bed for a while before I finally went for some breakfast and packed up my stuff.

Effie decided that she needed to wear a special outfit for the first day of the year, so she wore her onesie. Some other things included. I suggested that she go for the 1 boot, 1 shoe look, so she did.

Effie's look for the day.

Leaving late seemed to mess everyone up. We almost left 2 guys behind when their alarms hadn’t gone off because of the new year, and one guy almost forgot his wallet. We got everything sorted out fairly quickly and then we were off. We needed something to do on the drive, so we started going through introductions where everyone had to go up to the mic and say their name, where they were from, agge, an embarrassing story, and the colour of their light (green – single, orange – it’s complicated, red – taken). We stopped for lunch at what was essentially a truck stop, and I had a big buffet meal, and since I had bought a Coke, they gave me a Coke glass with a Santa on it.

We got to Nice that afternoon and had free time until dinner. A whole bunch of people headed off to the Laundromat, so I went with them just in case they needed help translating things. It was an extremely confusing set-up for laundry (there was even some water-extractor step thing in between the washer and dryer), but we managed to figure it out with a combination of the terrible pocket translator Jag had brought (it didn’t seem to translate things very accurately), my knowledge of French, and the English-speaking owner who came through and helped us out. A man and his son came in and made the mistake of paying for their machine before they put the clothes in, so they lost their money when the washer locked up and starting washing its own empty self.

After the adventure with the laundry, we went back to the hotel to hang out for a bit before dinner. My roommate had gone on a jog and apparently ended up so far from the hotel that she was lost and had to taxi back.

That evening we decided to walk into town for our dinner. It was in the basement of a restaurant, and it was a decent meal. The food definitely seemed a lot richer and heavier than the food we had been eating in Italy.

After dinner, Angie took everyone who wanted to go out to a bar where you could dance on the tables. I was tired, so I headed back to the hotel with a large group of other people who didn’t feel like going out either, and went to bed.

Next - More of France!

Onto Florence and the Italian Countryside

**EDIT. Thanks to Anonymous for naming all the landmarks that I never bothered to learn the names of. I have now added the names to this post.**

December 29 – We got all our bags packed up and got on the bus to go to Florence. So many people were hung over from the open bar. I think a few were even still drunk. When Angie went around handing out barf bags, tons of people took one. I was sure someone would spew and set off a chain reaction.

We got to San Gimignano without any troubles or spewing to stop for lunch. It was incredibly beautiful. I ended up wandering off on my own to take in the view, and walked along the edge of the city. By the time I got to the end of the trail, I had found some people, so I decided to just stick with them. I had some pizza for lunch, and we looked around and shopped a bit, and I made sure to get some gelato before we got back on the bus.

Looking through the old city towards the view.

The view!

Walking around the outside of the town.

Walking through town.

We got our rooms for Florence assigned while we were on the bus, and I found out that my roommate got switched from Bianca to a girl that had just arrived late the night before. We got to Florence and had some free time before our included dinner, so I had a nap.

The dinner was at a weird restaurant with bizarre murals on the walls. Everything was very gaudily coloured and over-the-top. The dinner wasn’t very good either. We had mediocre garlic bread, boring spaghetti with tiny chunks of meat and watery sauce, salad that was essentially pure lettuce, and not a good dessert.

After the dinner we went to a bar for karaoke. It was pretty fun. People were ordering huge towers of booze with firecrackers on top, so that was pretty neat to see. Unfortunately, some of the songs didn’t have lyrics, so that made things a little hard. We did convince Angie to get up and sing though. As per usual, there was only one legitimately good singer the whole time I was there, and she wasn’t from our group. I left early because I wanted to be able to get on our bus for free, and I was pretty tired anyway.

The next day we had an early wake-up. I got up, had breakfast and got ready to go, and then we headed up the hill to get a good view of Florence and take a group photo. That was where we saw the first replica of David.

View of Florence from up on the hill (it wasn't the nicest day).

Then we went to a leather factory downtown so we could learn how they make Florence leather boxes (for jewelry or other things) with layers and layers of leather. They also told us how to spot fake leather, and then we got free time to look around their shop. They had tons of beautiful things, including Florence puzzle rings, but even with the Contiki discount they were offering us, I couldn’t find anything I liked at a price I was willing to pay.

Santa Croce on our way to the leather factory. Even though there's a Star of David, this is a church, not a synagogue.

After going through the shop, there was still a little time before we had to meet our local guide for our walking tour, so Bianca and I decided to go into the Chanel store to stay warm and dry off a bit from the rain. There were tons of sales clerks in there (even one to open the door), and we did feel a little like we were being jerks just for wasting their time, so we didn’t stay long.

Once our tour guide got to the meeting spot, he walked us around for a while. He wasn’t quite as good as our first local guide, and sometimes he was a bit hard to hear, but he was pretty good, and he did point out that the David’s hands are too big for his body, which I hadn’t noticed before (2nd David replica of the day).

This replica is much better than the one up on the hill.

There were some chains where people had attached all kinds of locks.

Ponte Vecchio - cool bridge.

We ended the tour at a big, fancy church (the Duomo), so I looked around that a bit because we had some free time. Then I decided to go find some food with a couple other people. We found a tiny little Mom & Pop café near the church run by an older couple who hardly spoke any English. They were adorable and kept us well fed, giving up some free bread and little meat/cheese (/I’m not exactly sure) filled pastries as appetizers. We had a delicious little lunch (I had gnocchi), and the prices were good too.

Duomo - church.

Inside of the church. Surprisingly simple in comparison to the outside, no?

After lunch, we headed towards the Accademia to meet Angie and get our tickets. The museum itself was a bit of a let down. It was cool to see David, but there wasn’t much else there, and the stuff that was there was not stuff I found particularly interesting. They had a section about musical instruments (which was not nearly as good as the Sibelius museum), some old artwork, and a room full of statues (which wasn’t explained very well). Since I had already seen 2 replicas of David that day, it wasn’t even all that exciting to see him, but it was neat to get the full effect of him being displayed in such a grand room.

I really blitzed through L’Accademia, so I ended up leaving with a different group of people than I came with. We wandered for a bit before we decided to go find some gelato (supposedly “the best in Florence”). We found it (with some help from Angie after we ran into her), and although it was really good, the serving was entirely too small for my tastes!

After we met up with the rest of the group, we got on the bus and went back to the hotel. We had a bit of free time to get ready for dinner, and then we were off into the Tuscan countryside for our fancy Florence dinner.

The dinner was pretty good. We got to eat a big ol’ roast pig. They even put a sparkler on it as they brought it out. The best part of the meal was the table I was at though. Everyone was having a great time. We were the only table that danced to the YMCA, and we danced to a bunch of other songs too. We were sitting right next to the old man that was DJing, and he had a great time finding things like The Macarena for us to dance to. We even did the electric slide when the South Africans at my table were trying to teach it to us.

Straight from dinner we headed off to the disco. We all had cards for 1 free drink (I gave mine away). Everyone had a great time dancing everywhere (stages included). I caught a cab home when a bunch of other people decided they were ready to go, and I spontaneously got a nosebleed when we got back to the hotel, so I just waited outside for it to stop (and my roommate to come home with the key).

Contiiiiiiki, follow the right guide!

Dec 27 – I got up and finished my packing gradually. When I checked to see the status of my flight, it said it was delayed one hour. I got a ride to the tube station from my hosts as they were on their way to another meal with friends, and we had to stop for them to do a little last minute shopping along the way.

I said my good-byes at the tube station and got on the train. I got to the correct terminal without any problems and checked my bags, went through security and headed to my gate. I had been rushing a little bit because the board didn’t say that my flight was delayed, but since I got through security nice and quickly, I still would have made it on time.

I got to the gate and started writing in my journal to pass the time and that was when I realized I had lost the panda button from my bag.

When we finally started boarding, we were behind. Then it took forever because everyone kept having to be assigned different seats because we had gotten put on a different plane. Then we had to take a bus to the plane.

We sat on the tarmac for a long time before we finally took off. I had heard that Made in Dagenham was a good movie, so I tried watching it, but I only made it partway through before falling asleep. Luckily for me (since I was hungry), they gave us a meal of a tuna sandwich (and I like tuna).

We landed in Rome and I had no problems getting through customs (it seems like England is a lost harder to get into than most of these other countries). The guy who stamped my passport didn’t even look at it. I bought myself some Euros and then I got a ticket to the central train station. When I got there, I looked around in a grocery store a bit and then got myself an overpriced taxi to the hotel.

Flight to Rome.

Waiting for the train to take me into town.

When I checked in I found out that the whole tour group was out doing a night time walking tour of London, and since my roommate had the key to our room, the concierge had to let me in. I also found out that I had missed the introduction meeting. I sat in the incredibly hot hotel room and waited to meet my roomie. I was really tired, but I stuck it out by writing in my journal as I waited.

I heard people starting to come back and shortly after that I met Bianca from Australia. I wasn’t surprised that she was Australian since I had heard that there were always a lot of Australians on these tours.

The next morning (December 28), we got our early wake-up call and headed to breakfast. I met someone from Toronto, and a few other people. Then we all got on the bus and left for the Colosseum. Our local guide for the walking our was fantastic. He was 74 (or so our main tour guide told us), and he not only seemed to know a little bit about everything, but he really trucked through town. He also took us through the Roman Forum before we had a break for lunch.

Arriving at the Colosseum.

Our tour guide.

Inside the Colosseum.

View from the Colosseum.

Outside the Colosseum.

At the Roman Forum.

I went to lunch with a fairly big group of people to a little restaurant where we all ate the pasta special. It was pretty good. After that, we got back on the bus to go to the Vatican.

On our drive to the Vatican.

Our local guide continued to lead us through the Vatican as we looked through some of the museums, the Sistine Chapel and the basilica. It was all incredibly beautiful, but the Sistine Chapel felt a bit anti-climactic for me. It wasn’t as amazing as I was hoping it would be.

Outside the Vatican.

Our tour guide told us to take a photo of this to pretend we took a photo of the Sistine Chapel (because you can't take photos inside it).

Inside one of the museums.

In one hall, the ceilings were covered with trompe l'oeil (illusion, "trick the eye") paintings like this, made to look like carvings.

Inside the basilica. Each one of those letters is approximately 5 feet tall.

Outside the basilica.

After we finished going through the Vatican, we had to wait for the bus for a while. Once we got back to the hotel, we had a bit of free time before the optional dinner. Our tour guide Angie decided that the place we were originally scheduled to go to wouldn’t be as good as it normally was (they weren’t going to do the show that was originally supposed to be part of the dinner or something), so she decided to take us to a different restaurant.

We headed downtown on a bus and got to the restaurant. The dinner was pretty good since we could order whatever we wanted, and I had fun at my table. We learned some Aussie slang, and had a good time. The only strange part was how staggered the meals were. I had my food way before anyone else, and then they pretty much forgot one girl’s food.

After the dinner, we went to a club that was owned by the same guy who owned the restaurant. I didn’t want to pay the entrance fee of €20 since it was for the open bar and I wasn’t going to be drinking anything. There was a little confusion, but it all got sorted out, and I got in for free.

The night was pretty fun. I met quite a few people, and even had a couple decent conversations even though it was hard to hear. Unfortunately my roomie ended up getting pretty sick, so she had to go home. I went home shortly after in a cab with two guys from Vancouver and one Australian. We ended up paying way too much for our cab (due to a little confusion and the cabbie not having change), but we got back to the hotel without any problems, so oh well. I tried to make sure Bianca was okay, and I went to bed once she was asleep.

Next - Florence!

*The title of this post comes from something our local guide said throughout the whole day.

My first Merry Christmas outside of Canada!

**Photo heavy! And the photos should be a little better quality from now on because I've been forced to link them from Flickr, and it's finally working for me!**


The next day (December 24), I decided to go visit St Paul’s Cathedral since I knew it was one of the few things that would be open. I peeked in and decided that it was too expensive to go in, so I just walked across the street to a little burger shop for lunch.

My first glimpse of the cathedral.

Next I decided to check out Covent Garden. The area around the market was really neat. There were lots of street performers, neat stalls and interesting shops. I bought some Christmas gifts for my hosts there, including a CD of chamber music from a group that was wandering around there performing. I also bought myself a Christmas present of some adorable gorilla earrings and a panda necklace from one of the stalls.

They would get up close and personal any time someone was coming to give them money.

Covent Garden Market.

After that I just kept walking and walking. I saw Trafalgar Square, and Drury Lane, and managed to make my way all the way back to the British Museum. When I couldn’t find anything open to look in, I just decided to go home. I stopped at the pound shop and Primark on my walk home from the tube station, and bought myself a couple things including a red sweater to wear for Christmas.

Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar square.

I had gotten home fairly early because I thought we were supposed to be going somewhere for carolling, but we ended up just spending our time getting everything ready for dinner. I helped by folding the napkins specially.

D’s friends showed up and after we visited with them for a bit, we all headed off down the street to the church for Midnight Mass. It was a really neat little church that had vicars listed from the 1300’s. The mass was pretty good, but the little boys who were performing the music were a little bit off. They put in a great effort though.

Outside the church.

Inside the church.

We came home and had tortière (meat pie) for our reveillons (French Canadian tradition of eating Christmas dinner after midnight mass), and then opened a couple gifts. I got a journal and a Paddington bear print of him in Paddington station. I thought it quite fitting after the time I had spent there.

D’s friends left and then everyone went to bed. Some stockings were filled, and I wrapped up the gifts I had bought and put them under the tree. By that time it was really late.

On Christmas morning, we all woke up a bit late and had just enough time to open our stockings before we left. I got a lovely stocking filled with a lot of British themed things (lots of Union Jacks). We all piled into the car and drove out into the countryside to visit some friends and have another Christmas meal with them.

Me with my stocking.

We had our big meal at lunch time, and it was absolutely delicious. It was pretty fun because the dad of the family and his parents were all Canadian, so I got to spend my Christmas with a bunch of Canadians! The two little girls were lots of fun but they were sick so they were coughing everywhere. I even got some nail polish as a gift from them.

We're ready to eat!

Our turkey! Yum!

Our Christmas lunch was so massive that it took ages to get through. There was just plate after plate of yummy food, so once we were finished we just relaxed for the rest of the day. We watched some movies like The Polar Express, and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I played with the girls and we had some fun with air hockey, pillow fights and Uno. After the girls went to bed, the adults played Trivial Pursuit, but it was a rather unorthodox game after they decided that the questions were too hard, so they just kept giving each other clues to the answers.

I had gone to bed relatively early and had heard that the girls likes to wake up guests pretty early, so I wasn't surprised when one of them showed up in my room the next morning (December 26). I got up and had some breakfast and then got my things ready to go.

Another family came to visit with their kids, so I hung out with the 4 little ones watching TV. Just before we left, we took some group photos of the family, and then we got into our car that was decorated like a reindeer (we all had reindeer antlers as well).

We decided to stop at a neat old pub for our lunch. I had pheasant pudding, hot chocolate and sticky toffee pudding and it was all delicious. I slept for a good part of the ride home, and then we just relaxed for a while, watching The Child and the Fox. It was a really good movie, made by the same people as March of the Penguins. After that, we finally opened our Christmas presents.

The Christmas tree with our Christmas haul.

I got a surprising number of gifts! My hosts were exceptionally generous, so I had a fantastic haul of Christmas presents. We all had to take turns opening our gifts and after that we just had a simple dinner. I stayed up late to pack my things and do my laundry, and I made sure to check in for my flight to Rome. I also got a bit snap happy with Gigi because she came to sit on my bed.

Gigi!

LOL. The bright flash is no fun!

Next - leaving London to go on a Contiki tour!