The Hunger Blog

Dammit, I'm getting so bad at this whole regular thing. If travelling has even begun to teach me anything, it's that no matter how much I grow or learn, it seems my punctuality is forever doomed. Unless I'm starving and have dinner arrangements, in which case I'll probably be even less on time and end up arriving 30-40 minutes early. I'm actually incredibly hungry right now but am convinced I ate enough for dinner, so I've spent the last hour watching cooking videos on YouTube and listening to the wonderful symphony of grumblies performed by my hunger. Points to me though seeing as, like I had hoped, this post is indeed coming from London!

Far out as if I can be bothered remembering 8 days ago. This is hard work. I should be getting payed in chicken nuggets or something. (I've just about finished the blog now and thought it wise to scroll back up here and pop in a quick disclaimer- I was seriously so hungry writing this entire thing, so my writing may be a little erratic and somewhat lacking of whatever it usually consists of. I apologise if any of this is illegible, but I'm too hungry to think).

Top of the Duomo

So the 2 days I spent home in Milan following my (in a true stereotypical aussie convict/criminal sense) escape from the dreaded hostel back to the waking world, basically consisted of not a lot, aside from maybe Skyping someone, and walking the dog. I did however manage one grand venture out, to the opera. The day before I was leaving for London, I had been booked in to go down to the Teatro alla Scala (Scala Theatre), not far from the Duomo (which is where just about everything is in Milan). They had a rehearsal on, so it was relatively cheap entry and you were welcome to sit in on the practice and enjoy the opera. I'm not usually an opera fan but I decided I would be whilst in Italy, because why not? All was going well and I was less late than I usually would be, when I noticed a large crowd gathered outside the theater. There was some woman yelling in the middle, and as I glanced past her I noticed a friend of mine caught in her cross hairs, being yelled at by this crazy Italian! She (my friend) had her kids with her, so I promptly removed them and proceeded to entertain them whatever was at hand for as long as it would take for this random lady to calm down. About 40 minutes later she finally went on her way. 40 minutes.

40 MINUTES.

She must have been psychotic.

As the dust was settling I quickly made a move to proceed on towards the Scala Theater, only to realise it had since closed. Bummer. This turned out far better than I expected though, as I ended up getting to scale the Duomo with my friend and her family. Up up and up a long and dizzying spiral staircase to stand upon the roof and look out over half of Italy. You could see everything all the way up to the French alps, and the sunset actually consisted of some color for one of the first times in Milan! Later that evening I hitched a ride on some Vespas and went down to a local pub with Pietro and some mates to enjoy a cheap ass pizza and some beer. Good evening! We also discovered a local 'Fish and Chip' shop, which being an Australian in Italy, I was somewhat skeptical of. It turned out not to be half bad, but hey. As if anything can compete with Flakey Jakes. 

My London home! 

Onwards. The next day I left for London. Not much can be said for this day really. Wake up, pack bags, catch a bus, catch a plane, land. I was greeted at the terminal by some family we have in Britain, which was quite pleasant! They'd written up a sign for me and all. A quick drive home and I was promptly greeted by some poached eggs and tea, as prepared by another lady staying here with them. We spent some time talking about travels and so on before I popped off to bed to catch up on that hour I lost changing time zones. It's amazing how annoying losing an hour can be. The next day I spent with family, attending their church in the morning and joining them out for lunch. We had an elderly lady join us after lunch back at the house where we proceeded to play board games. I had a sherlock-ish moment here where after watching them, cross armed and silent, play this game for a couple of minutes, I had picked up the rules and opted to join in. Ended up winning. Like a boss. If anyone in Australia is up for a boardgame night when I get back, let me know. Would be keen to show this one off. It's quite fun. The following two days I spent getting to know the local area, taking a few rather lengthy walks (as seems to have become a habit of mine) down to Hampton Court Palace. You know. Just casually taking a stroll down to the local royal palace. I proceeded to again get lost multiple times on the way there. Somehow I'm actually beginning to enjoy getting lost though. Once you figure out where you are, you know the entire area so much better. The Palace was neat, and by neat I mean cool, not tidy. And by cool I mean awesome not cold. But it was also tidy. So it was neat in both senses of the word. Sorry. I'm seriously that hungry. I'm going to stop here and get something to munch on, lest my writing get any worse. I'm way too sidetracked by the flowers at the end of the room that I'm thinking might be edible with some balsamic vinegar.

Dissembled park bench which became my bed. 

One of the gardens in the courtyards. 

And back. So the Palace was really neat. They have a 256 year old grapevine there that still bears fruit, which is incredible. All of the gates were gold plated and the gardens all trimmed and shaped. I managed to sneak in to a few little nooks and crannys where the guards weren't stationed, like a greenhouse and a garden nursery. Just across from the palace were some old hunting grounds full of deer. I was way overtired at this point and ended up falling asleep on some neatly stacked wooden planks under some random tree. I woke up to a bird crap narrowly missing my face and promptly decided there were probably better places in the world for me to be, you know, other than asleep on a dissembled park bench with some deer. So I went home. The following day I ventured in to London to discover part of the city. This was another one of those walking days. I spent around 12 hours straight on my feet, excluding the time spent eating lunch. I won't go in to lengthy detail about much of this seeing as there is a lot to list, but the day essentially consisted of The London Eye, Waterloo Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament Houses, Westminster Abbey, River Thames, St. Paul's Cathedral, Millenium Bridge, Shakespeare's Globe Theater, London Bridge and the Southbank Skatepark. The line for the eye was literally 2 hours long, so I opted to spend those 2 hours instead wandering through the city. The sheer number of quality street performers in London is incredible, so it was never bland or un-entertaining to simply walk through the streets. I stopped by The Black Friar for lunch, which is a well renowned pub in London. I spent a few hours in St. Paul's Cathedral and did the climb up to the Golden Gallery (situated right above the central dome), which is basically the thousand steps (for those who live in Melbourne), but almost straight vertical and winding through a tiny hall which you can't stand straight in. The view up the top was, however, well worth it. I really did spend quite some time wandering through London and saw quite a number of things which I have neglected to mention in this blog, so if you're interested do remember to ask me about it when I return to Australia. Returning home spelled yet another tale of me getting lost, as I realised all the maps I had were for central London, and hence did not cover the area I am living in. That, and my phone was dead. After another hour of wandering through side streets and weird little alleyways I eventually found my way home. Great success.

Big Ben with the eye in the foreground. 

My face when I realised the entry fee to the church was $40.

Things that will soon be added to this list include 221b Baker Street, The British National History Museum, Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, Oxford University and more, if I don't drown in tea beforehand! Not that there is anything wrong with drowning in tea. It's probably a relaxing kind of way to die. Or horrifically unmanly for one fine man I know. We'll just pray he never has to drown in tea. That's a morbid note to end on, but end I shall. I will endeavor to post another blog sooner than later so I'm able to go into a little more detail, as opposed to this more long winded, general kind of structure! 

What is this? A building for ants?

Sunset over the Thame.

I trust you are all enjoying your wonderful day. Who knows... it may well be the best day of your life so far...?

Ciao for now!

Doctor Denim.
A man I can only imagine is one of Britain's greatest superpowers. 

The toilet strikes back...

Back again. I had meant to update a few days back, but my dodgy, cheap ass hostel didn't have any internet connection, so I was left more or less stranded for a couple of days whilst I was in Assisi! Also by dodgy, cheap ass hostel, I don’t mean your hostel Adriana, in case you read this! It was the second hostel I stayed at in Assisi. Anywho. I'm back in Milan now, and have a few days between here and London, so I figured this would be a perfect time to update you all on my going-ons. Enjoy! 

Assisi

So I went on back down to the leather market the morning following our karaoke shenanigans, and discovered I have a gift for haggling. I purchased gifts for most of my family at fairly discounted prices. My favourite catch was a leather jacket for me, down to 85 euro from 529. To be fair, there's no way they were ever going to seriously sell it for 529, and even his opening 'discount' price was closer to 200 euro, but hey. I'm not at all complaining about the final price of 85! We (and by we I mean myself and 2 other Australians I met in the hostel) spent the rest of the day seeing a few other parts of Florence, checking out some cool stores and enjoying the sunshine with some freaking good gelato. After a good 5 or so hours of wandering, and having spent a good hour failing at finding the Piazzale Michelangelo, the two others headed home. I spent another hour and a half both locating and then proceeding to climb the stairs up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which resulted in getting an awesome view of Florence. I'm seriously disappointed that my phone had gone flat at this point, which not only made getting home difficult, but it also made it impossible to get any cool snaps from up there. The view was incredible though. I headed home that night, got some sleep and spent the next morning (early rise) checking out the Uffizzi Gallery before making my way to the train. The Uffizzi gallery is one of the largest museums in Europe, and one of the oldest in the world. Fair to say, it was home to some spectacular art pieces such as the ever so famous ‘Birth of Venus’. 

Exploring Florence with these guys...
Dat face though.

One train ride and a few hours later, you would have found me in Assisi. I cleverly decided upon arrival that I couldn't be bothered taking a taxi and was happy enough to spend what I thought would be the next 45 minutes or so walking to the hostel. I was so, so wrong. What my phone guaranteed would be no longer than an hour or so, ended up being somewhat closer to 3 and a half hours walking down quite a few long, footpath-less streets with my luggage, backpack, and what was literally a fistful of bags containing my spoils from the afore mentioned leather market. I have never so delicately balanced bag after bag over my shoulders as I walked what was close to 4 hours through the rain towards my oh so desirable hostel. Insert sarcasm face here. Welcome to backpacking I guess? A short check in followed by a ceremonial dumping of bags and movie viewing was followed by a wonderful sleep. The first time I'd slept alone in a room for over a month!

Sunrise in Assisi

The next day I was picked up late morning by a friend I have down in Assisi. I was treated to lunch by her family (so good, like mana from heaven minus having to wander a desert) and was then toured around the city by her wonderful family! We visited the Eremo of San Francesco, Roca Maggiore (a large castle standing above Assisi), and a few more churches around Assisi, as well as a museum run by her mother. All in all quite a nice day! I would love to go in to more detail about Assisi, but there is that much to tell that I’m going to skim over it in the blog. Please email me or ask me about it when I return- seriously spectacular place and I would love to talk about it with whoever is interested! Onwards- I especially enjoyed seeing the Eremo, a small retreat in the mountain where Saint Francis spent the bulk of his time. The best little spots in the Eremo were all blocked off, such as his favourite spot to pray or sit, so… as you could imagine… I did end up climbing over/under/around a few little gates and barriers to check some stuff out. Not that I'd totally consent to this- it's probably not a good idea, but being one of the places I was more excited to see in Italy I figured that it might be somewhat justifiable! That night we went out with some of her friends, checked out a local church and then went on to a pizza restaurant/80s themed party. Rockin out to Johnny B. Goode. Ohh yeah.

View from the Eremo

Again the next day was a similar routine, with a few new churches (Assisi is literally buzzing with churches being the birth place of 3 different saints). The Church of San Damiano was quite nice, as well as Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli. Santa Maria degli Angeli is a church with a church insideit. Churcheption. We then proceeded with a nice stroll through Assisi and a visit to the Basilica di SanFrancesco d’Assisi, where Saint Francis is buried. This whole basilica was just incredible- art covered ceilings and chapels lining the aisles. Gorgeous. As the sun began to set we promptly made our way to a small restaurant just across from the basilica. I discovered this restaurant looking around Assisi via Google Maps like 6-7 months ago, and instantly decided ‘in 6 months time when I’m in Italy, I’m going to go there’, which I did. Fantastic view of the sunset over the mountains as we sipped on a fantastic coffee and pulled apart a lemon-cream filled croissant. Sooo good. That evening we popped down to another restaurant for a slow paced dinner and spent some time talking (completely in Italian- apparently I’m improving) and enjoying an awesome hot chocolate. I concede that the following recount of my restaurant experience will be the only toilet humor in this blog. No pun intended. This restaurant, instead of using toilet paper, used some messed up high pressure hose which you’re basically supposed to spray your ass with and leave. Of course I had no idea, so I’m looking at this hose imaging it must be some kind of talcum powder/soap dispenser or something. Facing the nozzle down I gently squeezed the trigger and just like that, this atrocious metal nozzle spewed forth a jet of water with the force of a thousand suns. Walls, ceiling, floor and pants- totally soaked. With a face of absolute horror I quickly pants-up’d and made a dash for the paper towel, which had conveniently run out. USING THE DIRTY HAND WASH PAPER TOWELS I proceeded to mop up as much of the floor as I could before wrapping my face in a scarf (in order to remain anonymous) and exited the toilet with the kind of poker face that would put Lady Gaga to shame. I feel so sorry for the lady who entered straight after me. I kept the scarf around my face for most of the rest of the night, being as our table was located right at the toilet door, and avidly spent the remainder of the evening avoiding eye contact with other toilet goers. Not awesome. Fast forward to being driven back to the hostel.

The view from this awesome little restaurant!

Unfortunately, I had not yet payed for the hostel, and the manager was neither awake when I arrived back that evening nor was he awake the next morning as I left (around 5:30am for a 6am train)... so as you can imagine I had a very disgruntled call from the owner the next day as I sat happily on my train, about how I’m a disgraceful person for leaving without having paid. I had searched for him in the morning but had no idea where he slept, so I snuck out the front door leaving a note which basically read ‘Sorry I haven’t payed, I’ll sort it out on the train’… unfortunately my note didn’t really smooth things over on the anger side of things. I am very fortunate however to have had this sorted out by my friends back in Assisi. Do note it is quite out of character for me to leave a hostel without paying. I’m not normally a criminal! I got home that day, had some lunch and spent most of the day resting and going on to organise my rapidly approaching trip to London (which may now have evolved to include some of Portugal!). Exciting stuff! Yesterday I continued planning and booking, and also had the opportunity to check out Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper”, which was quite spectacular, and also somewhat larger than I had expected, as has been the case with a lot of things in Italy.

My post toilet destruction disguise. I must never be found.
This shame dies with me.

I look forward to my next update, which fortune permitting, will be coming from London! Ciao for now! 

And may the odds be ever in your favor...

L'ostello di Karaoke!

Hey! I write this from a hostel in Florence, where myself and two other Aussies have hijacked the front desk and are now admitting all the new travelers and showing them to their rooms in place of the girl who actually runs the place. Can't say the other guests are overly happy with our loud music, thumpy dancing and raucous laughter as they try and sleep, but hey... Too bad, because we run this place now! 

Roof of the Florentine Duomo

     I would have left off right before leaving for Florence, if memory serves. So catching the train down here was intense. Early wake up, got to the station, all good. I got directed to my train bay and patiently waited half an hour for it. The train arrived three minutes after it was meant to, and only then did I realise I had been misdirected. I was standing at the wrong station. The reason I mention that it was running 3 minutes late is because these trains are very prompt, and will usually leave 2-3 minutes after arriving. So, as you can imagine, this train arriving three minutes after my real train was meant to was a big issue, because my train had likely left! I strolled on across to the correct bay and super lucky for me, the train had run 10 minutes late. I literally pulled my bag on to the train as the doors closed behind me. Intense stuff. Got to Florence and it was 3 hours before I could check in to the hostel I had booked whilst on the train (I know right, my organisation is incredible). So I sat in a maccas for 3 hours watching movies on my laptop as I waited for the hostel to open. Dropped my bags off and spent most of the rest of the day touring around a few places in Florence that had been recommended to me. One guy nearly Hakunnah Matata'd me here too, but I had learnt better. I checked out a few open air museums, saw the sun (finally), and spent some time checking out some of the more expensive shops in the world. Anyone keen to spend $14,000 on a watch? Anyone? Not so much? I can't imagine why not. That night I went out to a restaurant (situated right out the front of the Florentine Duomo) with some spanish guys and a mexican girl who were also staying in the hostel. Such an awesome night. These guys were like, crazy spanish. I literally have 101 stories to tell about these guys, they packed that much in to one night, so if you're interested do write this down and ask me about it when I get back. I'm not going to type it all in here because it will take far too long. Long story short though, they knew the owners of the restaurant, so a few snacks and the wine was pretty much free. Winning. Late night with them as we stayed up sharing stories in the attic of the hostel. Very fun. 

The sun makes her first, and hopefully not her last, visit! 

     Today was a bit more touristy on my part. After realising that all I had eaten yesterday was literally only the snacks at the restaurant, I pretty much hightailed it for breakfast. I went for a massive walk through the city in and out of every nook and cranny. I checked out the leather market, which is all up about a kilometre of road spread out between all these side streets totally dedicated to selling leather. Bags, belts, everything, and you can haggle like crazy. 120 pounds down to 50... winning. I continued on to the Accademia Gallery, which is home to a pile of fantastic old paintings, as well as the Statue of David. Crazy how much taller the statue was than what I thought. In my mind he was like 6ft or so... and in reality he was closer to 6. I spent a few hours looking through the gallery before moving on down to Ponte Vecchio, an old bridge spanning the canals in Florence. This was the place with the aforementioned 'more expensive shops in the world'. I picked up a few bits and pieces for the family and spent some time walking up and down along the river, taking in the sights. The river is normally a green/grey this time of year, but this evening it was reflecting the color of the sky and ended up looking a very deep blue/grey. So cool. I wish photos could do it justice! I got a little lost making my way back to the hostel and ended up finding a hidden treasure of a pizza restaurant. More of a bakery I suppose, but it was just over 1 euro for the best pizza I've ever eaten. Problem is I now can't figure out where it is, because I found it whilst I was lost and I forgot to check out the name! Rookie error as. Met another Aussie at the hostel and we went out to get dinner together at some sweet as kebab/chips/drink for 5 euro spot. Winner. That's the most of it for the last 2 days. We are now still owning the check in desk whilst the girl who runs the hostel is off for a well earned sleep. The entrance to the hostel has now become a karaoke bar as we have been rejoined by the two spanish guys from yesterday! I hope to stick a video below. Not sure the other hostel members are able to sleep with all this noise, but then again, I'm not sure they're totally fussed with all this Italian/Spanish/English karaoke loving. Love seeing the faces of the confused guests as they walk through the door expecting a quiet greeting, and are instead greeted by 5 random spanish/italian/australian guys singing karaoke and pretending they know how to work the check in system. Fair to say, this hostel is awesome. Tomorrow I will continue to haggle for leather jackets, check out some of the outlying mountains, and the next day I will be making my way down to Assisi. Shame to say farewell in the next few days to these guys! 

Some of the hyper expensive shops lined along Ponte Vecchio! 

No luck with the videos, my apologies! They will be up on Facebook though! 

Ciao for now! 

Ponte Vecchio just this evening!

Fish and Focaccia

And welcome back. Apologies about the increasing amount of time between posts. I will endeavor to post somewhat more regularly over the next few weeks! I am also going to have a shot at a new template for these blogs from now on. I'm not totally loving sticking a whole pile of photos down the bottom, so I'll be uploading less photos to the blogs and placing more in some albums on Facebook, which I will endeavor to make links to as often as necessary. If you're not Facebook friends with me and want access to the photos, shoot me a message/friend request and let me know! 

I left off after returning from Prali. The next three days were pretty much bucketing down with rain, so I didn't get up to all that much aside from walking the dog and making one or two trips down to the shops/swimming pools. I did however manage one 3 hour long walk from the Duomo back home, after getting lost in a few side streets. This did give me a cool opportunity to check out L'arco della Pace, one of the attractions in Milan that I was yet to see. Most of my activities really kicked off later in the week- Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday I went on a big tour of some of the outer parts of Milan and it's many churches. I went with one of Pietro's grandmas, who was really excited to show me around! We visited 3 churches, all of which were incredible. One was a small catholic church connected to a university. The other two, however, were spectacular. The Basilisca di Sant'Ambrogio, and La Chiesa di San Vittore al Corpo. San Vittore was awesome- massive high roofs covered with century old paintings of saints and cherubim. There are an assortment of chapels off either side of the aisles, consisting of things like baptism chambers for babies and crypts for some old saints who were buried there. There was a massive dome in the middle of the church opening up to the sky, which lit up in a myriad of colors every time the sun peeked through the clouds. Incredible church. Not like anything I could have ever dreamed of back home. The second, somewhat larger church was Sant'Ambrogio. It had suffered heavy damage over the course of WW2 and has since been restored. We were greeted by the chiming of the bell tower and an almost empty courtyard. We weren't aware that the church had actually been set up for a wedding, which was set to take place within the hour. We were still allowed to enter the main church and look through though, which was awesome- especially seeing as it had been all decorated for the wedding! Similar chapels and crypts were lain off either side of the aisle, with a small museum open off to the side. Much to my good fortune we were allowed up on to the altar- this isn't usually allowed at all, but the lady I was with knew the Father (Priest) who was overseeing the procession, and convinced him to allow me to go up and take a look! The main altar was solid gold, covered with a thick sheet of glass to prevent any wandering hands. Just underneath the altar lay the crypt of Sant'Amrogio himself, who died 397 AD. His body had been placed in a glass crypt, so you could literally still see the skeletal remains of the saint adorned in all his relics. Crazy to imagine how long that body has been sitting there. Following the trip to both of these churches, we checked out a museum just before it closed up for the day, which was full of old Roman relics, as well as a sarcophagus of a long deceased Templar. I don't have many photos of either church- partly because I was enjoying being there so much that I couldn't be bothered thinking about my camera, and partly because I'm still learning how to make it stop with the 'click' noise after every photo. Seriously not awesome in the middle of quiet wedding preparations! Down the street were a few stores, one of which worth mentioning as it featured THE SCARIEST MANNEQUINS I HAVE EVER SEEN. 

A painting in one of the churches. Noah's ark now featuring
UNICORNS. 

This will haunt my dreams. 

The next day we made our way up to Genova, an old fishing town off the western coast. We spent most of our day going through L'aquario di Genova (The Aquarium of Genova), the largest aquarium in Europe. They had a pile of messed up fish, like on that shoots flashing lights out of it's anus when it feels threatened, and a pile of those long, serpenty, messed up fish things that appear in a pile of bad joke memes. Pretty sure it was like a Moray Eel or something close. The Aquarium was actually quite nice. Towards the exit were a pile of open water tanks which you could dip your hands in to and attempt to 'pet' the fish. There were literally no safety regulations. I couldn't help but wonder how many kids have lent to far over and fallen in, or the amount of phones that must get fished out of their daily. 

- Oh yeah. A fishy pun. Enjoy it. -

One of the penguins pretending to be Jesus.
Jesus penguin died for our sins. 

After the Aquarium we spent some time touring Genova. The streets there are tiny- you could barely fit two people shoulder to shoulder. Small streets and anus fish aside though, these guys had awesome Focaccias. Some cheese, some onion, some plane and salted. Seriously good Focaccias. 10/10 would eat again. Saturday night I went with Pietro to one of his friend's eighteenths. I don't know if you recall from my second blog entrance how I was massively disappointed that a free style Italian rap battle didn't break out at the school I visited? Well, it totally happened at this party. Video to come. 

Genova. I wish the sun was out for this.

Sunday morning was mostly a sleeping fest. We went to another art show around midday, which was also quite cool. This was an older one full of Renaissance-era paintings. Some of the paintings were easily 2 x 5 meters, covering entire walls. One of my favorite ones I spent a good half an hour just sitting in front of. Cristina, the mother of the family I am staying with, bought me a book at the entrance that has information on every wing and painting in this gallery. We didn't end up making it through the entire gallery- having spent 3 hours wandering through we still hadn't seen everything but were quickly running out of time! Again, not too many photos of this, seeing as cameras weren't allowed in the gallery. We stopped by a few stores on the way back, and I totally bought pizza from a guy in a fez. Plans for the rest of the week are to catch a train down to Florence, spend a few days backpacking through there, then on to Pisa, and then Assisi. Looking forward to seeing what backpacking is really like! 

My newly claimed boat, docked in Genova.
♫ Yarr harr, sing it with me, being a pirate is alright with me!
Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free... ♫
♫ YOU ARE A PIRATE! 

Ciao for now!