Venice 28-6-2013

Yesterday we woke up in our room in Milan and saw that there was a random guy there… (he was our roommate, he was supposed to be there.  Not a stalker.)  Then we left really early, like organised people, and had breakfast in the station at Milan.

We had croissants and… Krappuccinos.  It was pretty good, despite what the name says :P

Then we got on the train thinking it was the right one, but then found that we didn’t have seats.  Apparently the travel agent booked the ticket on the wrong day.

So we travelled in front of the men’s toilet for a while until the ticket checker guy found us and told us to get off at the next stop, so we wouldn’t get a fine for being there illegally, despite having a ticket… a useless ticket.  Good thing he kind of spoke English.

So we landed in a place called Brescia and stayed in the café for a few hours.  We were so bored that we tried to remember all the Japanese prefectures.

1st attempt (with random Australia).
Japan was too small  for everything to fit in

2nd attempt.  Japan was too big for the paper this time.
Forgot Ibaraki...

Then we boarded the right train and finally went to Venice.  First we went to our accommodation to drop off our stuff, but we missed the bus stop, because there are no names and ended up walking by the side of the road on the non-existent sidewalk until we made it to the camping place.  (We couldn’t afford to actually live in Venice.)

Although, it nice because it had lots of light, the camping toilets and showers had lockable doors, hot water and for once a camping place wasn’t really dirty and creepy. Nice!

Then we took the bus back to Venice (island) and touristed (is this is a word?  It is now.)  First we took the… sea bus? (ferry) over to St Marco and walked around a bit.  Then did the first touristy thing, eat real Italian food in actually Venice, Italy.

Us on the boat

St Marco

Spaghetti was awesome

Then we walked around the little streets, over little bridges and canals and found the actual St Marco and a church that was having Mass.

There were also lots of awesome carnival shops, which sold masks.

As well as other awesome stuff, which only fuelled our Harry Potter obsession.

Then we fulfilled one of my life long dreams and item off my bucket list, which was to ride on a Gondola in Venice (before it sinks, which might be in a few 100 years, but who cares.)  It was pretty expensive (100 Euros together for the basic package), but fun.

line of gondolas 

In between a court house and a jail

Gondola guy in the background

Evidence, evidence!!!!!

Apparently some of these buildings were made in the late 13C…
which is older than my country.

Sunset… what time was that?  9pm?

Yeah, close enough

Then we went back to our awesome camping cabin.  We payed for Wi-Fi, but it never worked, so we got bored and wrote letters to our beloved Pot-Kun 

And played French music, so we couldn’t hear the creepy neighbours next door. 

P.S this is another situation where I have videos, but due to the fact that I’m writing this blog in McDonalds I doubt I’ll be uploading it anytime soon.  Think of them as surprises, or OMAKE if they ever get uploaded.

OMAKE:

What the travel book said to do	What we did
Don’t visit Venice in one day	Visited Venice in 1 day
Don’t visit Venice in Summer	Visited Venice in Summer
Go in March or October for carnival	Didn’t do that either…
Tatiana’s grandmother said: The Gondolas are rip-offs	Went on the expensive Gondola
Visit the museums	Didn’t go inside a single building
Visit the Biennale	Vaguely saw it from the ferry

Milan

The station

So after about 9 hours we arrived in Milan at 5:30am.  I actually didn't mind the night train, but then again I just fell asleep for the whole time so I didn't have to suffer much (except for a few pictures that were taken when my guard was down...)

For some reason all the French I'd forgotten was starting to return and whenever I needed to use Italian, French or Japanese came up as the default.  It must have been when we crossed the border.  Some how this keeps on happening; forgets Japanese in Japan, but uses it in France, forgets French but remembers it in Italy... Yeah, too much culture shock. I think traveling between 4 countries within 1 week is starting to make me crazy.

Anyway after waiting for the metro to open, we went and dropped our things off at our inn and went into the city to do tourist stuff.

First we went to the Duomo cathedral, which was in the city center.  For once it was awesome waking up early, because we made it before rush hour and was able to take photos without there being a crowd.

In front of Duomo

Inside Duomo

After that we went looking for breakfast, but for some reason noting was open... Nothing at all (except for the church).  Eventually after walking around and wasting time we decided to go to McDonald's since we were pretty desperate.

That McDonald's was the poshest McDonald's that I've ever seen in my life.  The normal restaurant part was closed and everyone ordered from the McCafe section.  I got a strawberry frape and jam filled croissant.  Lucky Italian uses the same characters as French or English, other wise we would have really been screwed.  Either way, I'm going to be spending a lot of my free time learning Italian.  I swear I haven't felt this dumb since I first went to Japan... actually dumber.  It's weird that I only know how to say "My name is..." in Italian, considering that I did 3 years of Italian in primary school, but then again I think out teacher gave up on us.

Anyway, after that we just walked around the whole day, especially since we had to wait until midday to check into our hotel, the only problem is that everything was closed until about 10am at least.  Apparently things open and close late in Italy, but I'm not exactly sure how the system works here, at least not yet.

Also, it's true.  So many people ride vespas here.  Lots of people in suits were zooming around on them like gangs of businessmen.

Wasn't fast enough to take a picture of the moving ones
but you get the idea

Then we got fed up of feeling like zombies and got some gelato (making the most of the Italian experience) before heading back to the hotel to sleep.

 

suffering from train- jet lag

Finally we ended the day by waking up at around 10pm feeling incredibly hungry, so we went to the store next door and get a Kebab Pizza.  I have no regrets.

Catacombs

Hey, didn't get a chance to update yesterday's adventures because we took the night train from Paris to Milan, so here it is.

First of all we went to Denfert-Rochereau to visit the catacombs (we knew where it was because we went there last time and found out it was closed), however every other tourist in the city though of the same thing meaning that we had to wait in line for over 2 hours until we got in, which sucked because it was super sunny.

 Denfert-Rochereau

See that yellow thing in the sky?
Yep, France actually has the sun for once.

We waited for so long that I had time to draw us waiting

Then we went inside the catacombs and explored the creepy tunnels.  I tried taking a video, but my video camera doesn't capture light as well as a normal camera, so everything looked black, but I did managed to take normal photos.

Lots of bones...

...Lots and lots of bones

This is the most she's smiled this whole trip

now that you think about it, most people would
probably be scared by this kind of situation.

Then I practiced my French/ Latin by trying to read and translate some of the texts.

there's even a spell check on the stone inscription.

So after that we were really hungry and went to a French restaurant, however I was so hungry that I ordered something without actually knowing what it was...

...raw meat

I did try it, but it was kind of weird, like spaghetti meat before you cook it.  Asides from that, the food was pretty good, except the servings were huge.  I wonder who actually eats that much food.

Salad

Crème brûlée

Then we figured that we still had some time before we had to take the train, so we walked to Trocadéro and took some photos with the Eiffel Tower.  

Then we took a photo with the Arc de Triomphe and walked down Champs Elysées.  Basically putting a few more stamps on the tourist bingo card.  We didn't really stop in Champs Elysées, because it's practically the most expensive part of Paris.  Even the train station was posh with touch screen maps.

After that we went back to Tatiana's friend's place, said goodbye and left for the Gare de Lyon station and took the night train to Milan.

The cabin was set up with 6 seats, which transformed into bunk beds.  I fell asleep straight away, probably because I had to drag my heavy suitcase across Paris with a broken handle, but Tatiana was wide awake because we crossed the Swiss border meaning that her Wi-Fi came back for that time.  Then we arrived in Milan at 5:30am.

OMAKE: Some random Australian themed restaurant

Versailles

Today Tatiana and I went to Versailles castle, also known as the French Hogwarts.

At first we left really early to get in, but all the other tourists had the same idea, so we figured it would be better to get lunch first.  Then we went off to some random French restaurant and had crepes.

Main: tomato, eggs and ham crepe	Desert: strawberry crepe

So after we were fed we went back to the palace and waited in line for 2 hours (not including the waiting we did in the ticket line) and finally made it through the gates.

The Rococo period had a lot of gold... everywhere!

King Louis riding Gabu-chama a unicorn

Magic hallway.  The statues move at night when no one is watching

The only good jump shot

Le Chateau~

Le Jardin~

Poseidon's pond where the sea monsters live

A cool shot of the giants of Versailles

Strawberry milkshake and cheese cake <3

After about 12 hours of being out, Tatiana said that it looked like I'd lost the will to live

Yes, Europe is very deceiving.  This shot was taken at about 9 o'clock... PM

Made it home at before sun down... which was about 10pm

While we in the Versailles garden we saw an awesome shop, which must have been the Diagon Alley of France.  I swear it was, they even had books called (in french):  Science and Magic, Love and... something dirty, Good manners,Good words and killer phrases, Devils and Vampires and a bunch of other weird stuff including Marie Antoinette's herbology stuff.  See, pretty magical right?  Tatiana even bought her own quill and parchment  

writing a very important letter... to Pop

I also have a whole bunch of videos, but i'm too tired to edit them now.  I'll try to do it on the train tomorrow if we have a power source/ internet.  à biento!

OMAKE: The court of Versailles

Japan ==> France

Short update today, because i'm super tired

So yesterday I spent the night at my home stay family's place before going to the airport again where I meet Yoshi who was awesome enough to come and see me off.

After about 11 hours I finally arrived in France where I meet Tatiana.  For the next 2 days we're staying at her friend's house and then we're going to Italy.

I'm not sure if it's the jet lag, but i'm suffering from some crazy ass culture/ language shock!  I think using English, Japanese and now French in the last few days has caused my brain to die.  Hopefully I'll remember my French tomorrow...

Stupid sun! Why are you out at 9pm?!

A day in Tokyo

Train ticket

Getting off the train (JR Express from Narita) at Ikebukuro, made me fell like I'd just woken up from a dream.  Did I fall asleep on the way back from school?  Was I actually a 2nd year at university or was I still at high school student at Seiritsu?  In fact, was I dreaming then at that moment?

I touched the metal handle of one of the plastic benches down in the Fukutoshin-sen subway.  It felt real, but I  still wasn't convinced.

The Fukutoshin-sen is always empty

Yet somehow time must have changed.  I was taller, more confident and the world seemed much clearer than before.  This must be one of those crazy experiences where you realize that you've actually made your dream come true.

I really love this place.

---

Guess who?

So wait?  How does this relate to Rome (looks up at blog header)?  Did I finally run away from home to live in Japan?
Ok, so here's the deal.  Fist of all my travel agent knows how much I love Japan and it was cheaper to get a get a stop off on my way to Europe.  So we decided to combine the both, simple right?

So I'll start the day off with a piece of Fine Art, which has since become a tradition; drawing myself on the day of my flight.  I must be getting better at this, because this is the first time I managed to go through Sydney customs with no trouble, I mean look I'm still wearing my shoes! :O

Then I got on the plane, slept, watched TV, ate airplane food and arrived in Tokyo 9 hours later to be greeted by the hot, humid weather.  Then I took the train to see my homestay family and had dinner with them.  I would have liked to see some of my other Japanese friends, but I figured that there wasn't enough time.  Don't worry i'll come back one day and we'll be able to meet again =)

Also it was weird using Japanese again after so long, because half the time I kept translating things in either English or French, which is pretty useless for this particular situation, but I got the hang of it eventually.

Then after that I took a short walk through Ikebukuro, which is the city where I lived.  It was really amazing being there again, and while it was short I'm really grateful that I was able to visit it again one more time.

P.S I might take a while for me to post again depending on my Wi-Fi situation, but until then here is a video that I made.

OMAKE: The real Beatles, Jan 2012