Tuesday 26 June 2007

Everything's turning into a blur. I need to blog more often.

Woke up hurting a little but I think a morning in Europe when I'm not hurting a little is more notable. I met Martina and some of her friends in downtown and we caught the bus to the beach. Did all the standard beach stuff. Swim, tan, throw a ball around, play cards, get pizza, get ice cream, read, put on lotion.
I caught the bus back and met the gang in downtown.
Drank some coffee, went home to take care of home business, and went out to dinner. We had reservations so I was expecting a fancy place but instead it we went to a fish market with some tables and chairs set up.
Our host was a funny guy. When I asked where the bathroom was, he pointed me to the sea.
We didn't order and were served whatever happened to be done cooking at the moment. Look closely at my hands.
The host would walk out with plates of food and just serve whichever table was done with their last plate he served.
We ate a lot of seafood and drank some really great white wine. Anne suggested stopping by a coffee shop after dinner but it was actually an old communist bar.We were all already pretty tipsy but the evening was only starting.
We headed to La Zaretto (The Hospital) club and danced the night away.
My dad is a rockstar.
We were the life of the party. Everyone couldn't stop staring but we nobody dared compete with our moves. We owned the dance floor.

Sunday

Went to the beach again and on the way there discovered that the grass isn't always greener on the other side but it is greener on the hill over there.

I also discovered that they don't actually eat all these sunflowers. They're grown for their seed oil.

Stretched out at the beach comparatively early and we got burned.

Then we had fairly intense match of foosball. Actually, Mario and I didn't let them score once until we had 6 goals and they still had 0. I think we scored on ourselves out of pity.



I want Super Mario's magic. He turned tuna and pasta into a gourmet meal in minutes.

This is the Absinthe, also known as the Green Fairy.

It's supposed to have some poisonous chemical that makes you hallucinate but I had two and I felt okay. Well not that okay but better than most nights.

Monday 25 June 2007

Simple Saturday

I think we all felt a little hurt on Saturday morning from the excitement of the previous night.

We woke up a little late and were in no rush to go to the beach. I think we finally got to the beach a little before 3.

Anne and Mario taught me all sorts of Italian phrases at the beach to improve my game.

When we got home, Mario cooked us a feast and we ate, drank, talked, and were generally very merry.

Today was my ideal day. No worries, pure bliss.

Sunday 24 June 2007

First night at the beach

After dinner we went to an outdoor bar called La Zaretto. It's Italian for hospital and it used to be the place where sick sailors would be quarantined at the port until they got better or died.


I made friends with a few college kids studying in Ancona and Bologna and they took me to an outdoor dance club on the beach.


When we got there I asked the wrong random girl if she spoke English because she did and I wish she didn't. She turned out to be somehow connected with the people that brought me there but before I knew that I told one of them what I thought of her. Her boyfriend over heard and told her. She wouldn't leave me alone after that. I would leave a group and she would show up later to tell me how I was so wrong about her. I would leave the group again and it would happen again. I wandered further away and made friends with some kids sitting away from the music and closer to the ocean. Only one of them spoke English but I pretended I knew and understood Italian.


When I decided to go find the friends who brought me there, I couldn't do it but I did find out that I got pretty lucky with finding and English speakers at all. I must have asked like half the people there. When we left at 3am, the party was peaking and the beach looked as packed as a real night club. I wish we could have stayed longer but one guy drank too much and got sick. Lame. I tried asking for a bottle of water for my sick friend but the bartender tried taking advantage of my American status so I went found the friendlier bartender and he hooked it up for free. The friendlier one served me my one and only drink earlier that night of almost straight vodka. It was a great night and I learned a lot of Italian.

Greatest day of the year

It's the longest day of the year and my mom's birthday. We went to a pebble beach this time and played an Italian card game, Tre Sette.

Anne and I lost an important match and had to go buy beer and pizza but we got my parents back later and they had to buy as gelato.


After the beach we went to Mario's (Anne's boyfriend) parents house for dinner.


Anne and I played with our cameras most of the evening and they called us paparazzi.






Saturday 23 June 2007

The Caves

Thursday morning we went to a rock beach called the caves.




I met Anne's boyfriend's godfather's daughter, a nice girl, Martina. She spoke english well enough for us to chat until we had to go. Anne said she was a good girl which is supposed to be pretty rare. After the beach, Anne took me to the doctor because I didn't completely fight off my strep throat. He prescribed me some new antibiotoic and a spray that was supposed to help with the swelling and pain. My American doctor didn't prescribe anything to me for the pain which kinda irritates me because when I saw the doctor in America I was seriously in about 100 times worse condition. I consider myself lucky to catch the symptoms early enough to avoid the sleepless nights, difficulty breathing, and general pain. Afterwards we took a walk to the pizzeria. We ate our pizzas at home with some beer, a timeless combination. (Author's note: The whole your not supposed to mix antibiotics with alcohol thing is a myth. Don't believe me? Google it or ask your doctor. I asked a doctor in America and a doctor in Italy. Both said it doesn't make a difference. Italian doctor said the food I eat could be more of a problem then booze.) After dinner, I took a shower and called Martina and we met near her house for some gelato. I skated to get there and the looks I got from people who have never ever seen rollerblades were classic. We took a walk to piazza di papa (pope's plaza) and then we both went home because it was late.

Napoli to Ancona

Wednesday, we drove across Italy. West coast Napoli to East Coast Ancona. The drive through the countryside was beautiful. Here are some of the thing I managed to pull my camera out fast enough to capture.

Future first mortage.



Falling down the rabbit hole.






We stopped by a beach about 100 km before Ancona to catch some sun but I didn't take any pictures. When we got to Ancona we got off the wrong exit just for the fun of getting lost yet again and ended up on top of the hill overlooking the port.


We stayed at our friend Anne's apartment, which she shares with her boyfriend Mario but he was out on a business trip to Rome. There was also a scorpion near my bed that freaked me out a little because I've never seen a scorpion in real life and I'm also pretty scared of spiders but spiders are still scarier cause they move faster.


Her neighborhood was simply gorgeous. I loved the colors on the buildings and how the people started to come out at sunset and how the peak of activity was around 2 or 3am everywhere.


I took this picture from the roof of their apartment building.

We spent the rest of the evening drinking wine and talking about life, love, and universe.

Leo: love is oneness

Anne: you're so full of shit Leo