8 Days in Italy. Forever a memory.

I was running through the Barcelona airport holding my pants up with no belt on when I realized why I've been arriving to the airport 2-3 hours before a departure all my life and wondering why I hadn't done that this time.  Note to Ryanair users:  At some airports, Barcelona one of them, they validate your ticket and check your passport at a different window then where you check bags.  After waiting in line for thirty minutes we found out we should have been waiting in another line first.  It's all right though.  It was my first time with Ryanair and I didn't yet know I was running through the airport with my belt in my hand just so I could wait in another line.  At least I had time to put my belt back on.

I was taking my first plane ride with another person in almost three years.  I was due to make sure I could travel with someone else.  Cousin Doug is the first person to come visit me in Barcelona since I moved out here last August.  Doing the traveling I've been doing the last two years I can say the one true thing I miss are my friends and family.  To be able to combine travel with friends is as perfect as it gets and Doug and I were going to have that with our eight day tour through Rome, Florence, Verona, and Venice.  I had been to Italy once before.  Just Rome, but that was four years ago, on the very first trip abroad I had ever done (other than the two difficult to remember New Years in Montreal).  I sucked at traveling then.  I was pleased with my CouchSurfing reference left by Leo in Florence: "Matt, an expert traveler who organizes things well in advance, but able to find a solution to even last minute changes, on logistics, and in the kitchen."  Not sure about the "organizes well in advance" - or what the "in the kitchen" comment is referring to, but I'll take it.  This was the first trip I had taken though were nearly everything was basically planned out.  All hostels were booked and I had purchased a couple train tickets.  It is significantly cheaper, if you are going to train around Italy, to buy your tickets in advance.  The only annoying thing is they might not even bother to check you went through the trouble to even buy a ticket.  In two of our four train rides no one even came around to see if we were paying customers.  Spin the roulette wheel if you'd like and maybe you'd land on a free train ride.  I am brazen, but no matter how understaffed or uncaring Trenitalia is, I will not be attempting that gamble.  Better to sit in comfort knowing you paid for your seat.

Long Map Hallway.  Vatican Museum, Vatican City.

Standing on a corner block in a strange city with a fresh map in your hand straining your eyes and neck to read the street signs is my favorite thing about traveling.  Ironically, putting the map in your pocket and getting lost is my second favorite thing.  Some will wonder why I am hesitant to get a smart phone. That is the main reason.  My two favorite things about traveling would be lost.  Yes, of course I could leave the phone in my bag, blah, blah, but I know that convenience, that simplicity of having easy 'walk me to it' directions and maps in the palm of my hand that pinpoints my exact location would be to much to leave in a bag.  I don't know many travelers out there still going without a Smart Phone or IPad, but I aim to be one of the last.  People used to be just fine.  No where in my definition of the word 'convenient' is the word 'better'.

Rome is amazing.  The Vatican, Sistine Chapel, Colosseum, Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Capuchin Crypt, the Roman Forum, and who the hell else knows what is around you within walking distance to the fit and fearless.  Early April weather is the absolute best for walking in Italian cities.  So so so good.  Staring up at the Sistine Chapel was my highlight.  All I wanted to do was lay down on a silent magic carpet and float within a few feet of the frescos, slowly moving along to examine them all.  It is stunning.  The place was mobbed and I had to stare with my mouth slightly ajar with one hundred other people, shoulder to shoulder.  It didn't matter.  The whole Vatican Museum is amazing, just don't pay thirty extra euro for the tour that says it is going to skip the two hour line and then not.  If I could do it again and I really wanted to know the history behind what I was seeing I would have purchased a book ahead of time and read it as I walked though the museum at my own pace.  Instead we moved along at the whim of our guide and then I didn't even remember anything I was told throughout the four  hour tour.  Close behind the Sistine Chapel in terms of travel greatness was the first night we arrived in Rome.  We walked for five hours though the city until two in the morning drinking a cup of wine every time we arrived at a fountain.  Doug and I quickly made friends over the three euro plate of pasta and wine we got with Freedom Traveler, the hostel we stayed at in Rome a few blocks from Termini, the main train station.  A good option if your traveling Rome on a budget.  Another night the hostel provided free pizza.  Our pasta buddies were a couple of girls obsessed with the history of Rome and more than willing to share their knowledge.  I'll go on and say walking Rome with a couple of new friends and a couple bottles of wine late into the evening is the only way to see Rome.  Starring up at the columns of the Pantheon, carved and constructed over 2,000 years ago with nobody around except people I want to be around.  Life is good my friends.

Capuchin crypt was fascinating.  The bones of 4,000 people are stacked neatly in piles of femurs and skulls.  The vertebrae and hip bones were displayed on the walls in swirling designs.  Some were kept in full skeletons still with their robes on and some bits of dried, harden, stretched skin still visible on the face.  The last room had a plaque saying "What you are now, we used to be.  What we are now, you will be."  I guess there is nothing truer than that statement.

View of Florence where we listened to live guitar and enjoy beverages after a long day.

I tried to utilize CouchSurfing on this trip, but had a hard time finding hosts.  The only one I got was Leonardo for two nights in Florence (Firenze).  His shirt is half unbuttoned, and buttoned wrong at that. His hair is crazy and unkept.  He has a thick Italian accent and says "Why??" like Borat when you do something he doesn't agree with.  He asks questions like "What time will you get up in the morning?" and "What time will you be back in the evening?" and then answers with "Too late!" and "Too early!".  Doug and I were expected to cook dinner the second night and we nailed it with lentil wraps and a fresh salad with mozzarella.  All food costs were split and Leo picked us up at the train station, brought us into and town and back to the train station when we left.  A bit eccentric, but a good man.  I'm looking to get back into CouchSurfing.  It certainly will always make for an interesting experience!

You have to see David by Michelangelo in person.  The veins, the ribs, everything so perfectly sculpted and the thing standing in front of you over fourteen feet high.  Please go to Florence in your life.  We visited the high dome of Duomo, this massive church in the city center of Florence.  Massive means massive.  It's massive.  In the afternoon we visited a garden in the south end of town across the river.  I heard some music around the corner and instinctively gravitated toward it.  Two guys, live music, two coronas and lemon, high view over looking Florence, Italy, sitting on stone steps.  Highlight of the trip - right there.

Thata Boy - Juliet Statue - Verona, Italy

Next stop: Verona.  I didn't know much about this place, but it has a huge amphitheater in the city center where every summer they still have operas and plays.  My list of things to see with a significant lady friend gets longer.  To see a live performance in an outdoor stone theater 2,000 years old in Verona, Italy will get done in my life.  Verona is also the home of Romeo and Juliet.  The people have honored her by sticking gum every where along the entrance arch to her courtyard and balcony and also by smiling and grabbing the bronze boob of her statue.  Poor Juliet.  I even saw a school student stick his tongue out and lick the shiny polished boob.   Very original Johnny.  Some ass posed for a picture touching her boob and now we have a tradition.  The same guy probably stuck the first piece of gum to the wall too. The gate with a thousand locks was probably started by him as well!  Why do we always follow idiots?

Last stop Venice!  It was when I went to take my first picture of Venice that I realized my camera was gone.  Doug quickly told me to run back to the train and I left him with my bag thrown open and my stuff all over the steps of the train station.  I ran on a train.  Wrong train!  Which one was it!?  I run on another that looks right and looked helplessly around where I sat.  Defeated.  Then, the train starts to move.  I run to the door and press the button to open it.  Nothing.  I press again and again and again and we keep rolling, gaining momentum, heading away from Venice and Doug waiting by all my stuff outside the station.  I pull the emergency switch to stop the train.  Nobody even bothers to see why an alarm is going off.  We keep rolling.  I have 15 euro in my pocket, no cards, phone, or passport.  Hopefully this is not a direct to Rome, I thought.  Fortunately it wasn't.  The next stop was ten minutes down the way and I made it back to Doug 40 minutes after I had run after the train.  No camera.  It wasn't in the lost and found and it wasn't in my last hostel in Verona.  Let it go, let it go, let it go.  My bag was opened when I pulled it down from the shelf.  I didn't think much of it, but was confused why it was open and only put two and two together when I realized the camera was missing.  Lock your bag.  I had the lock sitting on the zipper, but just got comfortable and lazy.  Just lock your bag and you'll be fine.  I learned the mantra "Let it go, let it go, let it go" from Papa Aka who I picked up hitchhiking in Oregon.  I said it a few times and Let it Go.  The camera was gone.  But it is just a camera.  I am fine, my memories are fine, this experience is mine.   Nobody can steal that shit.

Richard Gere in American Gigolo.  AKA - Me with hair.

The fourth stop on our trip did not disappoint.  Far from it.  Instead of waking up early we stayed up late.  Friday night we had two Polish twins in our room.  Ex-national basketball players who also star in Polish commercials.  They laughed at things Doug said like it was the funniest thing they ever heard.  They thought I looked like Richard Gere in American Gigalo.  "I am no gay, but you a handsome man."  Then he would die laughing, his brother would follow.  The American girl, Lauren, we became friendly with, had to strongly disagree and likened me more to Lex Luther.  Thanks Lauren.  Similar to the Italian trains the water buses offered to get around Venice don't ever bother to check if you paid.  This time we took advantage.  Fuck it.  I'm an honest man, but if you are going to charge 6.50 euro for a ride then not ever check I'm going to just keep using the same ticket.  Our second night the hostel had a sign saying there was going to be an epic night of Beer Pong, Flip Cup, and Mister Shooter (whatever the heck that is) and music by DJ Hawk.  It started with a bunch of milk drinking losers, but by the end of the night Doug and I, on opposite teams, had a beer pong game going on with our table surrounded with "oooooohhhhs" and "aweees" and cheers for misses and makes.  It was hilarious.  That night I also visited San Marco Square in the dead of the night.  In a steady rain as the square flooded in a full moon high tide.  During the day people flow through the skinny streets of Venice like rushing water through the cracks of a walkway, but at night it is completely different.  I was a rain drop amongst the rain.  My last night in Venice and last night of this amazing trip was one to remember.

This eight day trip is one of the best I've been on.  Every city we visited had something unique and amazing to offer.  They were all incredible.  I made some mistakes, but we learned.  We're better now and I'm more experienced with every trip.  I see the benefits of planning a trip in advance and will probably continue to mix that in with unplanned ones because there is that nice thrill of going to a place and not knowing at all what the road will bring.  The Sistine Chapel, David, Venice - these are things I knew and had mental pictures of, but can now officially know the picture.  What it feels like to stand in front and around history like that.  It is a magical feeling.  Doug was a great traveling companion.  He taught me about the wine and kept us moving to make sure we made the most of our time.  Also he made me know that it is OK to go into stores and look around and maybe even buy something for yourself!  It is nice to share an experience with somebody.  Glad we made this happen Doug.  Lifetime memory.

Paris in two weekends.  See you all then!