Family Travel

12th July, 2009, AEST 4:03pm

This makes me really sad, today marks the end of our adventure, and the mark of returning home to everyday life. I have been, and I’m sure my family would say the same, been in a fantasy world of fun and adventure, stress and responsibility free. I’ve had the most amazing time here; it’s been surreal just walking through the streets in another country (or time). But like all good things, it must end. And sadly, it ends now. In two hours we will journey to the airport, in four hours we’ll be boarding our plane, and in twenty and a half hours, we’ll be back in Brisbane, ready to get back to the usual routine of school and, well, life. The last two weeks have to me just become this massive blurry blob smushed into one hell of a day (my Big Day Out as Dad calls it). As much as I’m going to miss all of this, I miss my friends more. From talks I’ve had with friends it was limited or non existent, and to be able to converse/see them again will just make my day. Which must sound weird coming from me, I mean, I’m apparently the anti-social being who dwells in the premises of her room, only venturing out for nourishment. But I’m only human, so I’m sure between brooding and eating my brain decided that I should need a social life.
So what am I doing currently on my last day here? Well, writing this entry and watching Postman Pat in Italian. Mil turned it on and Ains insisted that we continue to view. From what I can interpret, this episode is about a genderly confused bull that wrecks havoc on the small town in which Pat lives, so it’s Postman Pat to the rescue!
So this is it, we’ll be off to have breakfast in ten minutes so I have to part with the laptop (shock horror). Seriously, what did you expect? I’m always going to go with food over technology, it’s how I’m programmed. Well, good bye for perhaps the last time in this blog site.

12th July, 2009, AEST 8:23am

We have travelled in my opinion to many places in the last two weeks, from London, to Paris, to Milano, to Venezia, to Firenze, to Roma, to Napoli, and now finally back to Roma. Here marks the end of our fantastic voyage. We returned to Roma earlier today at around 4:30pm local time, stopped off at the hotel and it was off to the Pantheon we went! My sisters once again did not appreciate the significant of the structure. The fact that it was still standing after two thousand years, the Christians didn’t destroy/leave it to the elements (because they inhabited it), and of course, the shear magnificent of the architecture. I looked, very hard to see where the blocks were put in the dome sector of the roof but to no avail, they were just too good. After some reminiscing over our final gelati we returned to the hotel and an hour later it was off to dinner. Dad had planned for us to have a really nice dinner on our final night, and it was. Although, I nearly fell asleep at the table (exhausted much?).

11th July, 2009, AEST 11:54pm

Here I am, sitting in my hotel room in Vico Equense watching across the waves tumble onto the rocky shores of the private beach the hotel owns towards Mount Vesuvius. I’m so grateful towards mu dad for the accommodation. It’s just perfect. When we arrived yesterday we went straight to the beach. It was actually really weird because back home in Australia, our beaches consist of white fine sands where as here, the beaches are consistant of rocks which at largest are the size of a fist, and at smallest the size of a pinky fingernail.
Today we took a trip to Pompeii. That’s Ancient Pompeii. It was just surreal to walk through the city. The highlight of our walk through Pompeii was visiting the amphitheatre. I had always wanted to visit the amphitheatre of Pompeii, but my want for doing so was intensified by our inability to go into the Coliseum in Roma. The only thing in which I was disappointed that we didn’t see in Pompeii was the Villa of Mysteries (but that’s because we were all dehydrated and not sure if it was open to the public).
One thing I have noticed though about this place is that the people here are really friendly. I think that’s what for me makes a place – how you are treated. It doesn’t matter what the accomedation is like, it doesn’t matter the distance you have to travel to go places, what matters is that you are treated nicely. Yu treat someone the way you want to be treated. I think because we weren’t treated nicely at all in Paris that is part of the reason why we disliked it. Where as here, apart from it being just perfect in appearance and service, the people don’t turn their noses up at you, they are just generally nice people.
Any who, so the count is in reverse now. Instead of counting how many days we’ve been away, it’s become how long till we leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back to responsibility, I just want to stay in this ‘fantasy’ world where we do nothing but enjoy time. Although I’m feeling a homesick all the same. I miss being able to talk to my friends the most though, I seem to always miss them in chat because of the time difference.

9th July, 2009, AEST 7:06pm

You know, all I wanted to do in Italy was go to the coliseum. All my Dad has wanted to do was take us to the Coliseum since we were children, and the one chance we had to go we couldn’t because the G8 leaders spouses were taking tour. I’m really disappointed. Oh well. I do plan to return here after Year Twelve for a trip, so I shall venture there then. I just feel really bad for Dad though. I inherited my History fetish from him, but he’s about a million times more into the Roman Empire/Roman history than I am. Mum said he was so excited about taking us to the Coliseum that he paid for the most expensive tour of the place. So as the title suggests,
I found the whole situation slightly amusing and as you are aware by now, my sense of humour is very cynical. When something like this happens, I look for the irony behind it, and this one just jumped out at me. One of the issues that the G8 (well, G7) leaders were meeting to discus was about the global economic crisis, and it was just ironic that like say Australia were we rely on tourism to feed our economy, Italy does to. They closed two major tourist attractions in Italy (the Forum directly opposite the Coliseum), so that a few people could tour it. This has resulted in everyone for that day having to be refunded. If you have been to any of these sites before, you’ll know that it’s incredibly expensive, and that an incredible amount of people make the pilgrimage there.
But the day was not entirely filled then with my cynicism and disappointment, we took a tour around Roma to all the old ruins located around the city. And we did go to the Pope’s Crib early in the day. Speaking of which, it kicks 50 Cents ass when it comes to what this bitch has up in his crib. Regardless of whether you went for the religious aspect, the architect value, or even for the art, it’s just a fantastic place to visit. I was absolutely blown away by the Sistine Chapel though. Just the shear size of the paintings all though the hall, it’s just amazing. Sculptural wise, the Pieta was fantastic. Just the amount of detail that went into the body of Jesus, you can even see where his skin distorts where Mary’s hand holds him. Anyway, enough for now. Toodles.

7th July, 2009, AEST 7:06pm

So I’m on the train currently, in pursuit of the city of Roma. But, I thought before I get there, I might just sum up the last few days properly as my last entry didn’t do justice to my thoughts. Not necessarily about the iconic tourist places we went to, but more the place in which we stayed. We actually didn’t stay in Firenze, but it’s easier to say that when you’re hurried to write an entry. We stayed in an area on the outskirts of Firenze, about an hour or so drive out of the city to the mountainous village of Vernio. We stayed up in the mountains there in a farm house-esque place which dates back to the fifteenth century (though refurbished in the last hundred years). In a strange way, it reminded me of home which is something I find really odd. Where I live in Australia it’s mountainous, and we are backed up against a bush though since we moved in the area has started to be built up more, you know, acreage type blocks. Where as where we stayed it was surprisingly not very built up and unlike home, we actually stayed on a mountain. Well, the main difference was the trees. That’s something that I’ve noticed since we’ve been away. Actually, that was the first thing I noticed in Singapore. In Australia, the plants are a paler shade of green and are small leafed to deal with the environment (lots of sun, lack of water, lack of nitrogen in the soil, ect) which causes plants like Eucalyptus to thrive in our country, where as overseas the trees are darker shades of green and have larger leaves and in general are more luscious looking. Ok, I’ll stop my overly simplified observation. But they are different. Very different.
Ainslie just read what I wrote and thinks I’m retarded for writing so much about leaves. Oh fail on my part. Anyway, so to stop my rambling; in Vernio we were backed up against a forest of such different trees compared to my home in Brisbane which is backed up against a bush.
Let’s try for a subject opposite to trees shall we? How about cars. Oh god, cars. One thing to note for anyone thinking of going to Europe, beware of the road. When we got to London, I was amazed at how dangerously they drove and how dangerous it was to be a pedestrian. When I got to Paris, I decided London roads weren’t that bad but still feared for my life when I crossed the street. However, when I first stepped foot onto a street in Milano, well, that I thought would be the end of me. For the first time we were actually at the wheel of a car this time in Firenze, and you know what, I’ve decided that although Australian laws are extremely anal, especially when it comes to driving, well, I’ve decided from this experience that they are there for a reason. Dad drove. It’s been four years since Dad drove a manual. So that helped. But it was worse because Dad had never driven left hand drive before, and he certainly didn’t know the way around the city, and he certainly was not fussed on driving in the traffic of Firenze. In a rent car. Well, I’m alive, so that’s a good thing. But a handy tip, if you aren’t a competent driver or don’t have good reflexes, take the bus. It was still fun though in a strange way. I almost wanted to be driving and not a passenger. Anyway, I know I rant and rave, so I shall depart now from this entry, and away I go to play solitaire.