Out of Africa and into the Frying Pan
These are the email journals I sent from the motherland...
Week 1: There's a Zulu on my Stoep!
I arrived in Johannesburg last Thursday night. A gloriously coolevening that also brought with it my 32nd birthday. Indira and I settled in and planned our next day which would include the Apartheid museum.When you enter the museum you are given a pass. The non-whites get a whites pass and the whites get a non-whites pass. Each enters throughthe specific gate marked on their pass card and you walk down a hallway past blown up versions of passport type ID cards. During Apartheid, each non-white person must have this card on them at al ltimes. If their passcards were not in order they were jailed. They were restricted from traveling. They were routinely made to pack all their belongings and "redistributed" to outer parts of the city into black only townships.For three hours we walked through the museum watching videos and reading histories. The most potent and shocking lesson for me were 3 large screens side by side depicting video footage of the early 90'swhen Apartheid was finally dissolving. The riots against Police...the chaos in the city. Constant mobs. Gunfire. Decades of anger boiling to the surface culminating in many many deaths. The white South Africans created their own militia and there was footage of older women and mothers in polos and khaki pants running line drills with handguns.
It's amazing to me that it happened only 10 years ago. But the cities and towns are still somewhat segregated. The white suburbs have beautiful houses with tall fences and barbed wire. They still live in fear of the constant crime. We are routinely told to avoid going out at night. I think they make it sound much worse than it is but we are cautious.
I know...heavy stuff. Go watch Cry freedom and learn for yourself.
Let's move on...you must hear about Safari!
On Saturday we left Johannesburg and booked a 4 day tour into Kruger National Park for
game spotting plus a morning and night bush walk. The best part? We stayed in treehouses! The treehouse was a bamboo and thatched roof hutabout 2 stories off the ground with a balcony. So cold at night!Indira and I don't necessarily like to 'camp" but I mean...come on..A treehouse?! It Had to be done. Plus! It was in the middle of a privategame reserve and we were cautioned to be aware of the roaming buffalo,rhino's and leopards!!??
Those are three of the Big Five!
Whats the Big Five, Lola?
The Big Five are the most dangerous of all the animals. They are the"trophy" animals that everyone wants to see. They are: Elephants, Lions, Rhinos, Buffalo and Leopards.
Can you say, "Sign here for Insurance waiver?"
So you can imagine our girlish screaming when using the outdoorbathroom in the middle of the night and hearing things go bump in thedark. Indira swears there was a Buffalo rubbing its head and bodyagainst our treehouse trunk/stilts one night. I was,thankfully,asleep.
Anyway...morning comes and we drive into the park in open air vehicles. Basically a Toyota pick up truck with a raised seating canopy on the flatbed. From our perch we drove all day through the park and saw...(at super close range)...( I'm talking a meter or two...)(And when I say meters... I mean meters- cause our Americaneducational system has failed us and we can no longer ignore the restof the world. We must herald the metric system!)
Anyway...we saw...Herds of Elephants, Zebras, Giraffes, Lions and cubs, Rhinos, Hippos,Buffalo, Cheetahs, Hyenas, Springboks, Impalas, Nyalas, Crocodiles,Ostriches...Eagles, Beautiful Birds, etc etc. OH! and a leopard!Walking right down the road alongside our vehicle for like 5 minutes!Incredible!Oh Wait till you see my pictures. I got all National Geographic!"
I mean..I've been through Six Flags Safari park...but this was crazy!Cause you're like...in Africa! The park is the size of Israel forgoodness sake. And then...just to make it more interesting...something about a ball bearing or brake pad.... and our tire flew offand we broke down in the middle of the park! Oh how we laughed!...Cause that's what you do when you're in the middle of extreme danger.
So two full days of driving and searching for animals and finding them and hoping they don't crush you or eat you. Exhilirating.At night we would come back to camp and settle in round the bonfire with tea or beer and shoot the shit. Then dinner outside. You've seen 'Out of Africa' or those old Tarzan movies where they have a spread laid out in the middle of the jungle, right? yea. Like that.
Oh my God and the soup. The soup is so friggin good. Split pea.Butternut Squash. Sweet Corn chowder. Delish! Then meats and mealiepap. Mealie pap is their staple. It's like polenta meets Grits but really smooth. Not gritty.After the Braai (BBQ), we would procure more drinks from the bar and return to our seats around the fire. Someone had an ipod with speakers and they entrusted the music selection to me -(seeing as I had thatever useful DJ'ing background.)
After a few choice cuts from Marvin, Stevie and Chi-Lites, The African bartender, Ronald says to me..."Ahhh...so you are a black-white girl."A finer compliment I could not have hoped for in the Motherland.
Anyway- Our last night, Ronald was adamant about showing us a movie.We were content to sit around the fire and sleepily stare at the zillions of stars or bonfire but he was so gung-ho. So he brings out a TV and DVD player and a few hundred feet of extension cord and proceeds to set everything up on a bench by thefire as we shake our heads and try not to let him see us laughing."
Long story short it was a South African movie akin to the GeneWilder/Richard Pryor movies called "There's a Zulu on my Stoep!" Funny as it was, I was exhausted and begged off after 30 minutes of slapstick and headed to the treehouse. (Where my leopard print flannelPJ's fit in smashingly with the decor, mind you.)
Today I'm sitting in CapeTown with the immense Table Mountain looming over the city majestically. We are taking a day off from sightseeingand schedules. We flew in last night from Jo'burg and will spend three days here. Day trips to whale watch. Climb that Table Moutain. Hit the clubs and pubs. Then rent a car and drive the Southern African coast.
We've seen the somewhat intergrated cities, the Dutch/Boer/ whitecountry towns, the Safari and the Bush...but I think we're both hoping to see old school tribal villages as well.The White South Africans are kind of Like Brave New World. I've neverseen so many Blondes in my life...it's like that horror movie...Village of the damned. These perfect little blonde children and their (Editors Note:) jerk grandparents.
Apart from the Apartheid museum, We haven't seen or heard much about racism yet. We've been in the Park or traveling, but both us us are anxious to talk to some folks who can give us the low down. perhaps tonight. I hear the people here are very open with their views. Indira is African American and we heard about a restaurant inStellenbosch (wine country) that refused to serve blacks 2 weeks ago.So we're headed there this week. Oh were gunning for a fight!Anyway.This doesn't suck.More to come.
Whats the latest with Jude and Sienna??!
Love to all.
Miss Lola Belle world traveler
Week 2: ROAD TRIP!!
Still alive. No signs of malaria. Not even a bug bite.I write to you as I sip a delicious Cider beer from the Wild Coast. Indira and I had hung out in Cape town for 2 days and were prepared to climb Table Mountain when we heard that the cable car that brings youdown was broken. Climbing up is scary and exhausting enough... we're not so much hikers/climbers...so we figured we'd swing back through Capetown to tackle it when the cable car was fixed and after visiting the South African Coast. We rented a car and set off.
Ahhh the Garden Route. We planned on sandboarding or skydiving, kayaking, whale watching, etc. along the different coastal towns. Lovely scenic drive. Monkeys on the side ofthe road!(And Driving on the Left side of the road was very easy to pick up.)Anyway, We headed to Hermanus first -about 2 hours from Cape town.Nice enough. Whales off the coast. Wine tasting at at beautiful winery in the hills. Comfy backpackers with a jacuzzi under shooting star milky way skies.But we were getting restless after only half a day. It's super Anglo. Afrikaners everywhere. We wanted some....ummm color? A moreAFRICAN..errrr...NATIVE experience!So we consulted our Lonely Planet book and saw that the XHosa/Zulu tribes are a mere 10 hour drive North. We stared at each othermischievously over white wine and calamari....FUCK IT !ROAD TRIP!So we put the pedal to the medal.
Intially, We didn't think we would have enough time to head that far north when making our itinerary prior to arrival in Cape Town. But we decided to make time...cause when is the next time we'll be here?!Time is almost up!So we drive the 10 hours to Cintsa over a day and a half where a backpackers offers Tribal tours. We arrived yesterday and settled in. Took a walk on the beach then hung by the pool and watched the Londoners play Volleyball.
That night we could see (from our perch at the bar) the small fires burning in the hills around us. Apparantly, the Xhosa people believe that lighting a fire will make the Gods bring rain. Ummm...right..or burn down the county cause it's the dry season?A few of the guys that worked here ran for the hills and put the fire out by the time we went to bed.
(p.s. EVERYONE that we've met here has gotten mugged. ok well not EVERYONE. But like 7 out of 10).
(Whoops. Sorry Mom. Information you might have wanted AFTER I got home, huh?) Anyway. We're safe round these parts. Relatively. As long as they put the fires out.
So! Up at 7am for our tour. 5 of us and our Xhosa guide headed to theTranskeii region in a Landover over some serious rocky and dusty roads. At one point we crossed the Great Kei River by driving thetruck on to a ferry.Out first stop was a typical Xhosa villages. Their brightly painted huts are round and made from twigs and mud. They are farmers and live off the land. Cattle and sheep and pigs and chickens run around their yards and along the dusty roads. We learned how to make the mealie papfrom the maize, drank some foamy stuff that a medicine woman made from herbs and roots, and danced around to some drums and singing.
The women often wear a white clay on their face to reflect the sun and to keep their skin smooth. They also wear very pretty beaded necklaces. The men get circumcised at 18. Most tribe members havethere left pinkie finger chopped off when young to stave off evil spirits. Their language includes a series of clicks and clucks that sound so cool and I've been practicing.
Our next stop was cliff jump into a river down the road. The young boys ran along with our truck and I tossed them apples from the window. They watched our truck in exchange for a bag of Doritos while we walked down a path to the lake/river. We rowed a boat through a beautiful rock ravine and climbed up past the waterfall to jump 30 feet into the (cold!) water.
Then on to lunch on the beach in front of a huge shipwreck. The best for last of course...drinks at the shebeen. A shebeen is a hut/house in a village that sells beers. It's often painted pink(!!!!!). They were illegal during apartheid because blacks couldn't own businesses or drink beer for that matter. So they were very popular. They still are. It's basically a room with two tables and a"bar" at the end. The bar is covered with chicken wire with a hole bigenough to exchange money for beer. We got a few ciders and noticed the local kids peeking in at us so Indira and I headed out to make some new friends which happened easily and quickly.
The music from the shebeen blared from inside and we learned some new dance moves and took lots of pictures. It is IMPERATIVE that you show them the picture you just took. They are so down with the new digital technology. 15-20 kids crowd around you and the small screen laughing at their caught expressions. One village girl even asked me if I came to Africa to "Chillax." The slang of American teens makes its way to Africa?!
It was sad to say goodbye...one young admirer of mine pushed something into my hand as I was leaving. Unwrapping the cloth as we were pulling away...I discovered a ....bottlecap.
I love thoughts that count.
We're back at the hostel now and it's our last night. We've got to head back to Cape Town. We'll drive as much as we can tommorow then drive the rest on Wednesday and get back into town around Noon to FINALLY climb Table mountain. Thursday we fly to Jo'burg and Friday I take the dreaded 18 hour flight back to NY...Should be back in Brooklyn around 9am on saturday morning.
Would have written more but I forget how keyboards work and being round computers just doesn't make sense in this environment. You got the cliff notes. Pictures at Kickball next sunday.
xoxoxoxoxMiss L. Belle
Monday, April 17, 2006
My trip to Italy Oct 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004
I went to Italy and you didn't.
Rome Italy. Day One.
Alive.Ok.Maybe even a little inebriated. or alot. 2:30am rome time.Pub crawl...courtesy of the hostel.Haven't slept yet. 24 hours. no sleep/ just can't sleep on planes. Four Tylenol PM couldn't put me to sleep sitting up.NOW that is a diva...Anyway... Got cell phone hooked up. Got pasta carbonara. Then pub crawl with fellow hostelers. Red Bull and Vodka helped.
So far..saw Trevi fountain and Spanish steps. and quite a few pubs and clubs.Also met and spent time with fellow hostel tour groups and kids. Fun bunch. I also met through the gringo tour guides- three boys from the Swiss Guard....for those who don't know...the Swiss Guard are considered the elitest army of any army in the world...they guard the friggin Pope.Tommorow they take me on secret special tour of Vatican.TOTAL HOOK UP. SPECIAL!!! YAH!Good so far. Thumbs up. In rome for 3 more days.Much what I expected.and more.Ciao!Lola Bella!
Buono sera.Rome Day 2.
Let me preface this by saying...you've seen one Crucifixion scene-you've seen them all.That being said...I walked into St. Peter's Basillica with a hearty HOLY SH*T. It's a granddaddy of a church. Da Pope certainly has a nice crib. Took a stairwell down to Saint Peter's Tomb. Also hit the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Although you walk through 20 maze-like hallways and rooms before you actually get to the Sistine Chapel and almost all of them have frescos on the ceiling...So I kept thinking THIS room has GOT to be it since each one seemed more ornate than the last. Finally ...We get to it. Breathtaking for sure. I stood directly below Michaelangelos portrait of God and Adam touching fingers, raised my arm, closed an eye and held my pinkie up between them. I felt like Della Reese in Touched by an Angel.
Spent the rest of the day walking and walking. Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Campo di Fiori. Then a Quick nap followed by hostel kitchen cooking and wine consumption with some other travelers. Taking it easy tonight. My gams are shredded. I'm ashamed to admit it but I'm surprised and curious at the lack of catcalls. From what everyone was saying I thought I'd have to wear a burka to keep the Italian men at bay. Apparantly a baseball cap and sweat is enough. Being a tomboy does have it's advantages, eh?
To be continued tommorow...
Buon giorno.Day Three. Rome.Up early. 9am.
Went for a solo excursion to the old school part of town-Hit the colosseum. (Paid for a tour. Learned stuff.) After that...cruised through Vittorale, Circo Massimo, Roman Forum. Weather has been beautiful. 70 degrees. Got the bus and metro system down. My Italian consists of Grazie. Ciao. Prego. and Quanto costa? (HOW MUCH?)
The latter I've learned to ask more often as I was grifted for 6 Euros for a friggin Gatorade outside of the Vatican.
(Note to self-don't buy ANYTHING within a two block radius of any tourist spot.)
Better learn more Italian before I get out of Roma. Gonna call an Italian friend of a friend tonight for dinner and drinks- then meet up with the hostel group for another pub crawl.Tomorrow I head for Naples. Looking forward to it cause it means I'm closer to the second leg of my jouney which includes Capri, Positano, the Amalfi Coast and beachtime. Museums, churches and ruins are interesting and all..but I gots to have some R&R. All this sightseeing is exhausting.Ciao!Lola Bella aka "Brooklyn" (The preferred method the other hostelers have taken in addressing me.)
Naples is Rome on crack. When mentioning I was going to Naples...most other travelers told me how seedy, loud and dirty it was.Ahhhhh...which means...I feel like I'm right at home.When I envisioned Italy...this is what I imagined.Small alleys and cobblestone streets. Laundry lines running 5 stories up. Piazzas full of people drinking and chillling. The dance with death everytime you cross the road trying to avoid cars and scooters. (Walk with confidence).
I love it.
Even though I almost got jacked by some 10 year olds....I was wandering happily lost yesterday through the intricate maze of streets in the Historic district when I came upon a piazza of kids playing soccor. I watched for awhile and considered the possibility of introducing them to kickball...when I thought better of it given my limited Italian vocabulary. I turned around and started heading away...when a few seconds later, I hear running behind me and then someone tries to leg sweep me. I don't even stumble and quickly look behind me fearing the worst. Well...I see two 10 year olds. I'm thinkin' they eyed my camera bag I was clutching tightly and figured I was an easy mark. Perhaps they were hoping I would fall and they could grab the goods. So I just started barking at them and they ran away. It's the not the lecherous men I fear..its the wild pack of kids that roam.
A little while later I saw a larger group of them carrying nun-chucks. hahaha. I smartly cossed the street away from them.The hostel I'm staying at is nice. Great group of people. Two women manage it. One from new Zealand and one from Arizona. We all went to a piazza last night that had two bars and outside tables and had some drinks watching the young Italians preen for each other from their perches on steps, fountains and scooters.
Today I went to the Archelogical museum housing sculptures, and artifacts from Pompeii and the surrounding cities. Then headed down to the seaport and castles for a better view of Mount Vesuvius. Had a lovely seafood linguine lunch by the water with other hostel kids.
So I've got Quanto costa thing down...but now I run into the problem of deciphering exactly how much the goods in question cost because I haven't mastered numbers. I have questions but no answers. Ain't that just life.
Tonight...I'm gonna take it easy cause I get up early tommorow to take a boat to the Island of Capri where I reckon I'll stay for a night or two. Swim...check out the blue grotto and relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.sooooooooo good.
arriverderci!lola bella
I'm on the island of Capri. Home of the caprese salad mind you. Little rainy this morning and I'm waiting for it to blow away so I can swim and go the blue grotto.This island is adorable...and Beautiful. I'm staying in Anacapri...which is on the other side of the island. Streets are rarely labeled, a web of intricate pathways that are about 6 feet wide. It's a mind f*ck trying to figure out how to get back and forth to the hostel but the Italians I've met here have been the nicest and most helpful. It's very touristy here during the day. A lot of senior citizen groups coming into buy Lemoncello. Yesterday I hiked the 1000 steps down past villa san michelle and on to the town of Capri and window shopped. Dolce and Gabbana. Fendi.
Last night...some kids and I went to a restaurant and had a few liters of wine. so cheap. sooo good.Looks like the clouds are parting. bout time. bacios.lola bellawhat day is it?who the fuck cares. I'm in Italy!!Saw the blue grotto today..then a boat ride to Sorrento. Then a bus ride to Positano.
And lucky me...It finally happened...
My first ride on the back of a vespa.
We (some english and australian girls I met at the hostel in Capri.) got into town a bout an hour ago, checked into our hostel overlooking the town and water (breath-taking), and I grabbed a bag of laundry and set off to find somewhere to get it washed. About a ten minute walk down the hill, I find the launderia. Mother, son and daughter comment on my gun tattoo on my hip and I end up showing the rest.
mama gives me the a.o.k and thumbs sign when she sees these and hears I'm from NY. I ask about an internet cafe to write to you fine people and the son, Dario, offers me a ride on his vespa. Hell yea, I say!.We decide to take the scenic route. A good 15 minute journey up and down and around the hair pin turns. He also tells me about a party tommorow night with sushi and cuban music. Sushi and cuban music in Italy? This has to be done. So we exchange numbers and tommorow my travel companions and I salsa and eat da raw pesce. Ciao!Lola Bella
Positano to Florence
Lemoncello is coursing through my veins.But I digress.Positano. Thursday. After the vespa ride with Dario, the launderers son, I went back to the hostel to freshen up. The girls and I headed to dinner at a trattoria on the street down from our hostel and dined on all things appropos. During the meal...I get a phone call from Dario. (Quick descriptive side note. Dario is 5' 3" and a ball of fire.) He and his friend Elio meet up with us and over the course of the next few hours our table for four had turned into a table of 10 as his friends walked by, stopped, listened and had to join the revelry. Two intial liters of vino turned into 8. Salute's and chin chins everytime someone dropped silverware. Which happened every few minutes. Rawkus. Fun. Food kept arriving. Everyone shared. Delightful.Fortunately, I met his friend Chiara. Half-Italian and half-British. Lovely, funny woman. Her Italian father and uncle married two British sisters. Her father is a fisherman in Positano. She invited me to stay with her so I ran up to grab my backpack. Stayed with her two nights. She lives in an apartment on the beach. We woke up the next day to rain so ....stuck inside...we watched Pink Floyd's Live in Pompeii and Eddie Izzard stand-up. Around 1pm...Dario and Francesco knock on the door with pasta, bread and wine. They start cooking lunch and Chiaras father brings down some freshly caught tuna he caught that morning. I made a minor cultural error taking a piece of tuna and adding it to my pasta bowl and Chiara gently informed me that Italians do "COURSES, DARLING". Right...This ain't a buffet, Lola.
The rain cleared up and we walked around Positano, then headed down to the small beach to kick around for awhile. Dinner that night was a pleasant repeat of the dinner we had the night before...only at a restaurant in Praino with live music and sushi. Although what they call sushi and what we know as sushi are two very different things. At the end of every meal...shots of lemoncello went around freely as lightening storms off the coast made a beautiful back drop to our cliffside dining.On Saturday morning I left Positano and had a full day of traveling. Bus to Sorrento. Train to Naples. Train to Rome. Train to Florence.Arrived last night and met some more women travelers on my hostel floor (all really sound women.) we went for some Food, then a wine bar. Then an Irish pub.Today. Walked to the Duomo and am now headed to the Uffizi Gallery.fo some mo CULTURAHHHHHHH.xoxoxoxoxo
Driving throuth Tuscany-Florence was (insert descriptive term here equivelent to beautiful).The first morning , my roomate Emily from Cleveland, and I rolled up to a small hill across the River Arno to the Piazza San Michaelangelo to get a proper view of the city before exploring its streets, museums and famous Duomo.Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to meander inside the Uffizi gallery as the line was 3 and half hours long and I didn't think to make a reservation a few days before. A few less Religious paintings I won't be able to mull but I think I got the gist so far.But we did hit one museum and I saw Michaelangelo's David. Quite a fella. Nice ass. But I wouldn't write home about his twig and berries...and so...moving on...The rest of the highlights mostly include the next days adventure.I rented a car early Monday morning with Emily and another woman, Marie from our hostel..(I'm reading the Da Vinci code right now and the fact that most of my travels find me in the company of women is very parallel to the novels theme of goddess and the sacred feminine. Da sistas are doing it fo themselves!!)
Anyway...yours truly navigated her way through Tuscany, Chianti, Sam Gimignano and Sienna and BACK to FLORENCE without a turnaround or hitch. Quite adept I am at Italian road signs, offensive and defensive driving (and womens intuition) it seems. We took a smaller road through Chianti and San Gimignano and saw some beautiful Tuscan countryside, stopping off here and there for the prerequisite photo op.San Gimignano is called the medieval Manhattan. 14 towers still dot the village. (They once numbered 72 but what with wars and weather erosion?).
Its adorable. Quaint. I can't imagine the throngs that invade this tiny village in the summer. I'm fortunate to have seen it in October.Sienna was akin to San Gimignano but bigger. Great palazzo in the center and one of the prettier churches I've seen ...(and I've seen a plenty!). Last night we had a quiet dinner with delicious wine (Marie works for a winery in New Zealand and knows her stuff)and I partook in some famous Florentine steak and was asleep by 11! The jet lag is gonna KILL me when I get back?! Today I travelled back down to Rome via the train and am settled into the same hostel I stayed at when I first arrived. Tonight is my last big Italian meal and I mean to go for the brass ring. Multiple courses. Proper wine. (Not just the house brand in the litre jug.)And then up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to catch my flight back to NY.Arriving at 2:30pm.I should be home by 4 depending on my route home.
So....Thanks for your shout-outs and interest during my much needed vacation.It went swimmingly.I am eager to sleep in my own bed and eat fried chicken and imbibe vast quantities of Vtiamin water. Maybe all at the same time.
The Prodigal Brooklyn daughter returns.
I went to Italy and you didn't.
Rome Italy. Day One.
Alive.Ok.Maybe even a little inebriated. or alot. 2:30am rome time.Pub crawl...courtesy of the hostel.Haven't slept yet. 24 hours. no sleep/ just can't sleep on planes. Four Tylenol PM couldn't put me to sleep sitting up.NOW that is a diva...Anyway... Got cell phone hooked up. Got pasta carbonara. Then pub crawl with fellow hostelers. Red Bull and Vodka helped.
So far..saw Trevi fountain and Spanish steps. and quite a few pubs and clubs.Also met and spent time with fellow hostel tour groups and kids. Fun bunch. I also met through the gringo tour guides- three boys from the Swiss Guard....for those who don't know...the Swiss Guard are considered the elitest army of any army in the world...they guard the friggin Pope.Tommorow they take me on secret special tour of Vatican.TOTAL HOOK UP. SPECIAL!!! YAH!Good so far. Thumbs up. In rome for 3 more days.Much what I expected.and more.Ciao!Lola Bella!
Buono sera.Rome Day 2.
Let me preface this by saying...you've seen one Crucifixion scene-you've seen them all.That being said...I walked into St. Peter's Basillica with a hearty HOLY SH*T. It's a granddaddy of a church. Da Pope certainly has a nice crib. Took a stairwell down to Saint Peter's Tomb. Also hit the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Although you walk through 20 maze-like hallways and rooms before you actually get to the Sistine Chapel and almost all of them have frescos on the ceiling...So I kept thinking THIS room has GOT to be it since each one seemed more ornate than the last. Finally ...We get to it. Breathtaking for sure. I stood directly below Michaelangelos portrait of God and Adam touching fingers, raised my arm, closed an eye and held my pinkie up between them. I felt like Della Reese in Touched by an Angel.
Spent the rest of the day walking and walking. Piazza Navona, Pantheon, Campo di Fiori. Then a Quick nap followed by hostel kitchen cooking and wine consumption with some other travelers. Taking it easy tonight. My gams are shredded. I'm ashamed to admit it but I'm surprised and curious at the lack of catcalls. From what everyone was saying I thought I'd have to wear a burka to keep the Italian men at bay. Apparantly a baseball cap and sweat is enough. Being a tomboy does have it's advantages, eh?
To be continued tommorow...
Buon giorno.Day Three. Rome.Up early. 9am.
Went for a solo excursion to the old school part of town-Hit the colosseum. (Paid for a tour. Learned stuff.) After that...cruised through Vittorale, Circo Massimo, Roman Forum. Weather has been beautiful. 70 degrees. Got the bus and metro system down. My Italian consists of Grazie. Ciao. Prego. and Quanto costa? (HOW MUCH?)
The latter I've learned to ask more often as I was grifted for 6 Euros for a friggin Gatorade outside of the Vatican.
(Note to self-don't buy ANYTHING within a two block radius of any tourist spot.)
Better learn more Italian before I get out of Roma. Gonna call an Italian friend of a friend tonight for dinner and drinks- then meet up with the hostel group for another pub crawl.Tomorrow I head for Naples. Looking forward to it cause it means I'm closer to the second leg of my jouney which includes Capri, Positano, the Amalfi Coast and beachtime. Museums, churches and ruins are interesting and all..but I gots to have some R&R. All this sightseeing is exhausting.Ciao!Lola Bella aka "Brooklyn" (The preferred method the other hostelers have taken in addressing me.)
Naples is Rome on crack. When mentioning I was going to Naples...most other travelers told me how seedy, loud and dirty it was.Ahhhhh...which means...I feel like I'm right at home.When I envisioned Italy...this is what I imagined.Small alleys and cobblestone streets. Laundry lines running 5 stories up. Piazzas full of people drinking and chillling. The dance with death everytime you cross the road trying to avoid cars and scooters. (Walk with confidence).
I love it.
Even though I almost got jacked by some 10 year olds....I was wandering happily lost yesterday through the intricate maze of streets in the Historic district when I came upon a piazza of kids playing soccor. I watched for awhile and considered the possibility of introducing them to kickball...when I thought better of it given my limited Italian vocabulary. I turned around and started heading away...when a few seconds later, I hear running behind me and then someone tries to leg sweep me. I don't even stumble and quickly look behind me fearing the worst. Well...I see two 10 year olds. I'm thinkin' they eyed my camera bag I was clutching tightly and figured I was an easy mark. Perhaps they were hoping I would fall and they could grab the goods. So I just started barking at them and they ran away. It's the not the lecherous men I fear..its the wild pack of kids that roam.
A little while later I saw a larger group of them carrying nun-chucks. hahaha. I smartly cossed the street away from them.The hostel I'm staying at is nice. Great group of people. Two women manage it. One from new Zealand and one from Arizona. We all went to a piazza last night that had two bars and outside tables and had some drinks watching the young Italians preen for each other from their perches on steps, fountains and scooters.
Today I went to the Archelogical museum housing sculptures, and artifacts from Pompeii and the surrounding cities. Then headed down to the seaport and castles for a better view of Mount Vesuvius. Had a lovely seafood linguine lunch by the water with other hostel kids.
So I've got Quanto costa thing down...but now I run into the problem of deciphering exactly how much the goods in question cost because I haven't mastered numbers. I have questions but no answers. Ain't that just life.
Tonight...I'm gonna take it easy cause I get up early tommorow to take a boat to the Island of Capri where I reckon I'll stay for a night or two. Swim...check out the blue grotto and relaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.sooooooooo good.
arriverderci!lola bella
I'm on the island of Capri. Home of the caprese salad mind you. Little rainy this morning and I'm waiting for it to blow away so I can swim and go the blue grotto.This island is adorable...and Beautiful. I'm staying in Anacapri...which is on the other side of the island. Streets are rarely labeled, a web of intricate pathways that are about 6 feet wide. It's a mind f*ck trying to figure out how to get back and forth to the hostel but the Italians I've met here have been the nicest and most helpful. It's very touristy here during the day. A lot of senior citizen groups coming into buy Lemoncello. Yesterday I hiked the 1000 steps down past villa san michelle and on to the town of Capri and window shopped. Dolce and Gabbana. Fendi.
Last night...some kids and I went to a restaurant and had a few liters of wine. so cheap. sooo good.Looks like the clouds are parting. bout time. bacios.lola bellawhat day is it?who the fuck cares. I'm in Italy!!Saw the blue grotto today..then a boat ride to Sorrento. Then a bus ride to Positano.
And lucky me...It finally happened...
My first ride on the back of a vespa.
We (some english and australian girls I met at the hostel in Capri.) got into town a bout an hour ago, checked into our hostel overlooking the town and water (breath-taking), and I grabbed a bag of laundry and set off to find somewhere to get it washed. About a ten minute walk down the hill, I find the launderia. Mother, son and daughter comment on my gun tattoo on my hip and I end up showing the rest.
mama gives me the a.o.k and thumbs sign when she sees these and hears I'm from NY. I ask about an internet cafe to write to you fine people and the son, Dario, offers me a ride on his vespa. Hell yea, I say!.We decide to take the scenic route. A good 15 minute journey up and down and around the hair pin turns. He also tells me about a party tommorow night with sushi and cuban music. Sushi and cuban music in Italy? This has to be done. So we exchange numbers and tommorow my travel companions and I salsa and eat da raw pesce. Ciao!Lola Bella
Positano to Florence
Lemoncello is coursing through my veins.But I digress.Positano. Thursday. After the vespa ride with Dario, the launderers son, I went back to the hostel to freshen up. The girls and I headed to dinner at a trattoria on the street down from our hostel and dined on all things appropos. During the meal...I get a phone call from Dario. (Quick descriptive side note. Dario is 5' 3" and a ball of fire.) He and his friend Elio meet up with us and over the course of the next few hours our table for four had turned into a table of 10 as his friends walked by, stopped, listened and had to join the revelry. Two intial liters of vino turned into 8. Salute's and chin chins everytime someone dropped silverware. Which happened every few minutes. Rawkus. Fun. Food kept arriving. Everyone shared. Delightful.Fortunately, I met his friend Chiara. Half-Italian and half-British. Lovely, funny woman. Her Italian father and uncle married two British sisters. Her father is a fisherman in Positano. She invited me to stay with her so I ran up to grab my backpack. Stayed with her two nights. She lives in an apartment on the beach. We woke up the next day to rain so ....stuck inside...we watched Pink Floyd's Live in Pompeii and Eddie Izzard stand-up. Around 1pm...Dario and Francesco knock on the door with pasta, bread and wine. They start cooking lunch and Chiaras father brings down some freshly caught tuna he caught that morning. I made a minor cultural error taking a piece of tuna and adding it to my pasta bowl and Chiara gently informed me that Italians do "COURSES, DARLING". Right...This ain't a buffet, Lola.
The rain cleared up and we walked around Positano, then headed down to the small beach to kick around for awhile. Dinner that night was a pleasant repeat of the dinner we had the night before...only at a restaurant in Praino with live music and sushi. Although what they call sushi and what we know as sushi are two very different things. At the end of every meal...shots of lemoncello went around freely as lightening storms off the coast made a beautiful back drop to our cliffside dining.On Saturday morning I left Positano and had a full day of traveling. Bus to Sorrento. Train to Naples. Train to Rome. Train to Florence.Arrived last night and met some more women travelers on my hostel floor (all really sound women.) we went for some Food, then a wine bar. Then an Irish pub.Today. Walked to the Duomo and am now headed to the Uffizi Gallery.fo some mo CULTURAHHHHHHH.xoxoxoxoxo
Driving throuth Tuscany-Florence was (insert descriptive term here equivelent to beautiful).The first morning , my roomate Emily from Cleveland, and I rolled up to a small hill across the River Arno to the Piazza San Michaelangelo to get a proper view of the city before exploring its streets, museums and famous Duomo.Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to meander inside the Uffizi gallery as the line was 3 and half hours long and I didn't think to make a reservation a few days before. A few less Religious paintings I won't be able to mull but I think I got the gist so far.But we did hit one museum and I saw Michaelangelo's David. Quite a fella. Nice ass. But I wouldn't write home about his twig and berries...and so...moving on...The rest of the highlights mostly include the next days adventure.I rented a car early Monday morning with Emily and another woman, Marie from our hostel..(I'm reading the Da Vinci code right now and the fact that most of my travels find me in the company of women is very parallel to the novels theme of goddess and the sacred feminine. Da sistas are doing it fo themselves!!)
Anyway...yours truly navigated her way through Tuscany, Chianti, Sam Gimignano and Sienna and BACK to FLORENCE without a turnaround or hitch. Quite adept I am at Italian road signs, offensive and defensive driving (and womens intuition) it seems. We took a smaller road through Chianti and San Gimignano and saw some beautiful Tuscan countryside, stopping off here and there for the prerequisite photo op.San Gimignano is called the medieval Manhattan. 14 towers still dot the village. (They once numbered 72 but what with wars and weather erosion?).
Its adorable. Quaint. I can't imagine the throngs that invade this tiny village in the summer. I'm fortunate to have seen it in October.Sienna was akin to San Gimignano but bigger. Great palazzo in the center and one of the prettier churches I've seen ...(and I've seen a plenty!). Last night we had a quiet dinner with delicious wine (Marie works for a winery in New Zealand and knows her stuff)and I partook in some famous Florentine steak and was asleep by 11! The jet lag is gonna KILL me when I get back?! Today I travelled back down to Rome via the train and am settled into the same hostel I stayed at when I first arrived. Tonight is my last big Italian meal and I mean to go for the brass ring. Multiple courses. Proper wine. (Not just the house brand in the litre jug.)And then up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to catch my flight back to NY.Arriving at 2:30pm.I should be home by 4 depending on my route home.
So....Thanks for your shout-outs and interest during my much needed vacation.It went swimmingly.I am eager to sleep in my own bed and eat fried chicken and imbibe vast quantities of Vtiamin water. Maybe all at the same time.
The Prodigal Brooklyn daughter returns.
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