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Move along to the links above! There's nothing to see here!

God (when i say God, i could very well be refering to Allah/Buddha/Beelzebub or whatever deity you feel free to worship) knows what the hell i'm likely to write in my blog...i've never had a blog before, never really felt the need to have a blog - come to think of it, it's only from shear boredom i'm even creating this monster!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Adam's Trip to Italy - Mission 2: Florence

Trying to make my way to Florence was an ordeal and a half.

1. Apparently when I say "Firenze" it doesn't sound the same as when Italiano's say "Firenze";
2. Apparently when I say "Florence" it doesn't sound the same as when the English or the Americans say "Florence" who had just been sold tickets in front of me;
3. Apparently when I spell "Firenze" my pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet is different to that of the Italiano's;
4. Apparently when I spell "Florence" my pronunciation of the letters of the alphabet is different to that of the English or Americans; and, last but not least,
5. Apparently when I write Firenze or Florence it doesn't exist on the train line.

I went to the ticket machine and purchased my ticket from there - problem solved.

[Adam's rule for traveling in Italy Number 3: don't think that because Italiano's speak and read perfect English that they won't pretend they cannot understand a damn thing you're saying just because they don't want to do their jobs]

Arriving in Florence after having stood up most of the way as there were no seated tickets left there was a downpour that seemed to last two days straight. During this time I had 15-20 people try to sell me umbrellas starting at $6 euro and after repeated: "No's" got down to 50 cents. Armed with my 50 cent umbrella I was on top of the world until the first gust of wind 100 m down the road blew it to pieces and nearly severed an artery in my neck....

Florence was great - it is a reasonable size without being too hectic and has the most beautiful scenery. Hills overlooking a valley with river meandering through it. Stately cathedrals speckle the towncentre with Piazzas throughout. The people are friendly. The food was great. The hotels were affordable. It is really well set up for walking throughout the town.

When in Florence - do as the Firenzian's do; so I celebrated Thanksgiving. Complete strangers took me in for a night of Thanksgiving dinner, wine, banter, and good times - it was completely unexpected - but fantastic none the less.

To my surprise there were more Americans' in Florence than anyone else - which, for the most part, made it perfect for an Australian tourist who has zero Italiano speaking ability (see above at my lack of even being able to communicate the names of a major city).

A picture of the Duomo and a picture looking from within the Duoma are shown below.





Posted by: Adam / 1:47 pm
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Soap shows are always crazy as this extract shows:

No time for acting their age - Ruth Ritchie, December 19, 2008

"Rick Forrester on The Bold And The Beautiful was born in 1990 and married in 1998 to his babysitter, Amber. His sister, Bridget, was born in 1992 and married in 2000. Now she's a doctor, has saved most of the cast and married two of her mother's husbands. Really not so extreme when we remember mum has married nine times - six or seven times to Forresters. Ridge and Taylor Forrester had twins in 1998. These girls have already had major recording and modelling careers, several lovers and some collagen lip work. My son, born the same year, is thoroughly enjoying carpentry, guitar and the rest of year four."
Posted by: Adam / 1:39 pm
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Sunday, December 14, 2008

Carrying 10 Litres of water to the street to fill up the windscreen wiper tank in the dark. Sitting in summer heat in the car pulling every lever on the drivers side to try and work out how to open up the bonnet. Realising that the lever for the bonet was shaped so it fits in smoothly with the dash (and yet for some reason all of the levers that didn't seem to do anything jut out) after 30 mins. Running out of water before the tank was filled. 

Today isn't my day. 
Posted by: Adam / 9:08 pm
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Finally a love song (of sorts) I can relate to (if you re-worded it from a male perspective)... 

I Will Never Love You More - Soko 

I will never love you more than the drummer of flaming lips
I will never love you more than Woody Allan movies
I will never love you more than the White album of the Beatles
I will never love you more than God only knows

I will never love you more than DVD's night with my girlfriend
And we talk about stupid things like feelings and men
I will never love you more than my boyfriend when I was 14
Even if he's now an asshole, I will never love you more

And you say, you love me more than everything
And compared to me everything is nothing...

I will never love you more than meeting Paul McCartney
And we asked him to play a song on my Ukulele
I will never love you more than Scandinavian Tour
Which was more than paradise, I wish you remember it too

I will never love you more than dancing to Phil Spektor
I will never love you more than my Casiotone keyboard.
I will never love you more than Daniel Johnston himself
For me he's more than God, I will never love you more

And you say, you love me more than everything
And compared to me everything is nothing

Ohh this is sweet, I just wonder what it means

You say you love me more, than all the girls you have had before
Even more than music, even more than yourself
Even more than everything, but it's just a lie
So I will never love you more, than anything

I will never love you more than singing in the shower
I will never love you more than my Mac computer
I will never love you more than having a daughter
I will never love you more than peanut butter

I will never love you more than kisses all day
I will never love you more than cuddles all night
I will never love you more than kissing girls lips when they're really pretty 

I will never love you more
I will never love you more
Posted by: Adam / 5:17 pm
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Adam's Trip to Italy - Mission 1: Venice 

My recent spur-of-the-moment-Italian adventure was fantastic. 

It all began with a smooth start getting lost at Changi Airport, well getting lost wasn't technically what happened; the airport staff directed me to the wrong terminal where I had to wait in line for 45 mins for a security check to be told I had to catch two trains to back to the first terminal I was in to wait for another security check.  

My other destinations went perfectly according to plan...except for being yelled at by a German for standing "on the yellow line" not "behind the yellow line" as the warning had suggested. 

My trip started off in Venice when I asked for a taxi to my hotel which ended with me paying $95 euro. I had to haggle with the driver to stop his meter at that price because apparently it costs him $5 euro for every piece of luggage I have. [Adam's rule for traveling in Italy Number 1: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD never use a taxi - ever]. 

Venice reminded me of a cross between an Australian slum (full of in-land flooding stormwater channels and foul stenches) and an upmarket Australian canal estate (full of artifial coastal channels and foul stenches). There were your expensive designer clothes stores in amongst what was little more than storm water come sewerage type channels which wreaked at the best of times and flooded at the worst. 

It was not really the romantic place shown on the post cards but was more like a trash-and-treasure fair where every corner you turned around you'd find something totally new and exiting. I would just go out and about every night getting completely lost exploring the streets. 

It was flooding twice a day and they tried to tell me it was normal: "it's tidal - happens twice a day!" but for some reason as soon as I left it made international headlines that it was "flooding" [Adam's rule for travelling in Italy Number 2: Never believe an Italian]. 

Due to it being off-peak tourist season most of the people in Venice seemed to be locals and were not very forthcoming with help for tourists. I can understand this somewhat; half of the year your town is inundated with tourists asking the same stupid questions of you - sooner or later you'd tire of answering them - even if it is these stupid tourists who create the job you have that lets you put food on the table. 

They were very proud of their "ingenious" ploy to build Venice offshore to beat the "hoards of savages from up north". The Venetians had boats and the "savages" only had horses so couldn't cross the water. An Aside: The rest of Italy took the easier route and just built a damn town wall. 

I look at it in an entirely different light: the "savages" clearly won the battle. They managed to take control of the mainland, loot, pillage, plunder and successfully banished the Venetians from land. 

Looking through the artefact's from the past Venetian wars it was starting how small and inept their weaponry was: a fight between a bunch of ten year olds with blunt swords [Venetians] and what seemed like normal sized adult men with mighty sharp swords [Savages from the North]. To be honest, based on the disparity in the weapon class and size of the people - I have no idea how Venice wasn't completely wiped off the map. 

I didn't manage to get a decent photo from Venice due to the constant rain, lack of sun, and humidity. All of my photos seem to have this eerie speckled look from the rain making them look more like drawings than actual photos. The photo shown was the street of my hotel. 


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Posted by: Adam / 4:24 pm
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