Of Visits, Too Much Food, Trains, and Dreams

Hello internet! How are things with you? I am doing well, and currently coming at you live from an apartment in Madrid (the Spanish, apparently, are much better at putting internet access in their short-term rental apartments than the Italians – we had it in Barcelona, too). Today, I am going to talk about the last week or so of excitement in my life.

As I mentioned in my last post, Nami came to France to visit me over her reading week. Aside from some issues with her flight (her planes kept getting delayed and she ended up arriving at about 8:40 pm instead of 11:30 am like she was supposed to), the week was just as amazing as I expected. On top of seeing Nami for the first time in seven months, which was lovely and wonderful, it was also nice just to show someone around my city – guiding them through it and letting them see it through my eyes. And Toulouse truly is my city now – the same way Kingston is my town and Ottawa will be my city in the future. Granted, I may not know the streets as well as I know the streets in Kingston, but I know about everything I care about. And I love it so much.

By the time Nami got in on Saturday evening, it was already too late (and she was too tired and hungry) to do anything, so the adventure started the next day when we went out on a little tour of the downtown. I took her to the main points of interest, including the Pont Neuf (the “new” bridge, not the nine bridge), the Daurade (a sort of park/dock on a lower level than the street, on the Garonne), Place du Capitole in front of the city hall, two of the biggest and most famous churches (les Jacobins and St. Sernin), Place Wilson with the merry-go-round, St. Etienne (my favourite church) and les Augustins (the fine arts museum). I also showed her where some of the shops were that I liked, but it was Sunday and everything is closed on Sundays so we couldn’t go shopping. That night we also finalized our plans with my friend Rodrigue and his boyfriend, Stéphane, who was also coming to visit. More on that later.

Monday was shopping day, and it was a very exciting thing. Me being the sort of person who loves to spoil my girlfriend rotten, I had saved a fair bit of money for her visit (most of it for Christmas/birthday gifts, as I wanted to buy her clothes and she needed to try things on). We ran around to all my favourite shops (35eme Rue, Wap Doo Wap, Kara Kool, Kilostock, Groucho Vintage – unfortunately Intrepid was closed) and bought things for her (most of them flouncy and adorable) and ate crepes from the crepe stand and generally had a rather excellent day. Lots of walking, but you get used to that in Europe.

Tuesday was fairly quiet, at least for the morning. But in the late afternoon we got ourselves all fancied up and went out for dinner at a rather fancy restaurant called L’arsenal – they are wonderful, the food is wonderful, the place is wonderful, and if you’re ever in Toulouse with a bit of cash to burn I highly recommend it. Nami discovered tartiflette (potatoes, cheese, lardon), I ate delicious fish appetizers and duck, and we both went crazy over the potato medallions, which was one of my side dishes. And, of course, dinners in France being a long and late sort of affair, we got there around 8:00 and left at about 10:30. It was awesome.

On Wednesday, we went out to the market at Capitole just to wander around for a while, and then came back to the house for a bit to relax. That evening, we went out with Stéphane and Rodrigue – this was the double date we had organized. We ate at the Crêperie St. Georges, and none of us managed to finish our food except Stéphane (to be fair, the salad I ordered was on a plate about ten inches around, spilling to the edges, and piled several inches high, on top of being full of potato chunks and bits of lardon), but we did order two banana splits to share. It was a rather excellent moment, in fact, as Nami and I had been looking at it and debating on whether it was too much when Rodrigue and Stéphane slapped down their menu and declared that they were getting a banana split to share. Grins were exchanged, banana splits were consumed, the bill was paid, and we adventured off towards the Cinéma ABC – Stéphane dancing and mumbling his way through Singing in the Rain – to see Were the World Mine. It is a thoroughly excellent and slightly camp musical comedy, and if you are a fan of Shakespeare or gay films or both, see if you can get your hands on a copy and watch it, because it’s wonderful.

The main event on Thursday was actually not especially French in nature: Nami and I went out to Biotek, which is a piercing and tattoo parlour. She bought a new spiral ring for her upper ear and had her old ring replaced, and I took the jump and shelled out sixty euros for an industrial piercing – for those who are uncertain, this is two holes in the top part of the ear cartilage, with a bar going through both of them and capped on the outside with two balls. This, by the way, is a pretty good price, as the piercing place back home charges $120 – about eighty-five euros. And, if you’re curious, it’s in my left ear.

Friday! The main excitement of Friday was running around the city with Nami’s camera, taking pictures of everything. It was pretty great, and we were out for a couple of hours. Tristan also got a second piercing done (another one in his left lobe) while we were off running around. So now there are two of us with new holes poked in ourselves.

Nami’s last afternoon in Toulouse was spent with a decent-sized crowd at Jules et Julies, the local LGBT group I hang out with every second Saturday. They are pretty awesome and generally rather energetic, and food (mostly cookies, everyone was bringing cookies) and good times were had by all! We drew some of our characters on our fingertips for fun, and then drew another one on someone else when he asked, Nami sketched in my sketchbook, I ate a lot of cookies, and we tried very hard to keep up with all the French (sometimes succeeding). That evening, the whole family (plus Nami) went out to dinner at a little local restaurant called La Gouaille (for my Kingston readers, turn the Jungle into a restaurant and combine it with the Sleepless Goat and Tir Nan Og and you might have a decent idea of what La Gouaille is like). I ate way too much but it was so worth it and also blackberry flavoured Kir is amazing.

Sunday morning involved both Nami and I getting up far earlier than should be allowed in order to get her out to the airport. We rode the shuttle bus (this will become important later) and got her checked in using the automatic machines (after moving to a second one when the first one just sat there not reading her passport). I stuck with her through the start of the security line, then ducked out when I couldn’t go any farther. I don’t really want to talk about that part though because it made me sad. I got on the bus, came home, and holed up in my room for a while.

I hate having to say goodbye.

That afternoon, we were catching a flight from Toulouse to Madrid, so by that afternoon we’d got all packed up and got on the bus again, and headed out to the airport. At this point I was starting to get a little annoyed with the shuttle, but we got off it and all was well – until we walked up to the check-in counter and were informed that our flight was cancelled.

Yep. Just gone. Something to do with crucial crew members being ill and not being able to find replacements. And they had no replacement for us until Wednesday. Brilliant, EasyJet. Seeing as we were supposed to be flying from Madrid to Lisbon on Thursday, this seemed like a particularly stupid idea.

Back on the bus we went. For the fourth time that day.

Our plans derailed somewhat, we scrambled a bit to find a solution. Air Iberia could fly us – at a ridiculously inflated price. Planes were out. At this point we started looking at trains. We couldn’t get an affordable one for an overnight, unfortunately, but we could travel the next day – so, this morning, we got up at 6:00 am, took the metro out to the train station, and got on a train from Toulouse to Narbonne, where we would transfer to a train to Barcelona, and then finally go from there to Madrid. It was time consuming, but oddly relaxing – I am swiftly discovering a pronounced fondness for travelling by train.

So now I am sitting in our rented apartment in Madrid, on the twin bed in the open balcony “room” that looks over the main kitchen and living room, hiding out behind the privacy screens and listening to my parents cook. It’s nice after such a hectic day, and good to smooth away the strain of yesterday. I’m looking forward to exploring the city tomorrow. Spain is gorgeous and exciting.

I had a moment of perfect peace on the train this morning. Thanks to my first trip on a train, where I got to watch the must spectacular sunrise of my life come up over the French countryside, I have already linked trains with a dreamlike surreality and spirituality, but after this trip the two will forever be tangled in my mind.

On the train from Narbonne to Barcelona, I fell asleep for a little while, and dreamed that I was on my next train – from Barcelona to Madrid. I was sitting in a window seat on the left side of the car, looking out over a terrain of flat fields with scrub bushes and grapevines, with reddish-yellow dirt like you see in the Spanish countryside. Nami was sitting in my lap, and it was like we weren’t really there, or no one else could see us. We were in our own little world.

“Hey,” she said, snuggling into me and leaning back. I smiled.

“How are you doing, baby?” I asked, kissing her shoulder.

“Pretty great dream,” she replied.

“Yeah,” I said. And we sat there in silence, watching the Spanish sun spill golden yellow over the landscape as I enjoyed the most physically real dream I’ve ever experienced in my life.

I love trains.

Daily Life in Franceland

I know. I am terrible at updating this blog regularly. I know. I know. But to be honest there hasn’t been much of excitement happening around here since we got back from our Christmas vacation. Here is a brief overview.

Little of interest happened for most of early January. There were a few inches of snow over one weekend, and the city basically shut down; after a day or two, it melted away, and since then we’ve been hovering around a steady seven degrees or so, with a bit of occasional rain. I’ve been out a few times to my clubs and social events, including a wonderful party for the Epiphany, featuring games, quizzes, condoms as prizes, general silliness, and me sitting under the table calling out names of who gets the next piece of cake (apparently a tradition for the youngest person at the party to do); aside from that, I have mostly been hanging around the house, writing, drawing, and occasionally helping out. Sometimes I go out for walks, but overall it is not really all that pleasant for walking about.

In the last week of January, mom and dad took off for a week in Marrakech, Morocco, for an early anniversary/private getaway vacation. I was left in charge of the household, and was therefore responsible for grocery shopping, laundry, and making sure there was food on the table. I discovered for certain what I already suspected – I am ready and capable of moving out on my own, but I really don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s (in this case, my mom and dad’s) household, and I especially do not want to be responsible for someone else’s children (especially someone else’s teenagers). They have now returned, which was wonderful for me, even though dad almost immediately turned around and left for a work-related trip to Georgia (the state, not the country).

There have been two things lately happening in my personal life. The first has been my ongoing attempt to start adapting my wardrobe to my real preferences, which has resulted in me picking up a couple new pairs of pants, a pair of leggings, and new earrings; upon my return home, I am going to go through my clothes, and a lot of them will be going in a giveaway bag. Up next on my list of purchases: a lipstick in a neutral shade, to help tone down the ridiculous natural redness of my lips (likely to be bought for cheap at the market on Wednesday), and a chest binder, which I will be ordering online.

Both of these things, and to a lesser extent the other items of clothing I have bought lately, are related to the second thing that’s been going on: my recent struggles with trying to work out just what my gender identity is, and how I want to express it and have other people treat it. I was having a lot of trouble for a while, but I think I might be moving onto the right path, and things are looking up, even if they’re not perfect yet. (And, in case you’re wondering, no, you don’t have to change the pronouns used to refer to me, but it would be nice if you could tone down references to me as a girl.)

Anyway. It’s been complicated, it’s still complicated, and it’s an ongoing process. If anyone has questions, you guys know how to reach me. Don’t worry – I’m not going to clam up at any mention of the subject. You can ask.

Other than that, not much worth mentioning has been happening. Next week, however, will be a different story entirely: Nami is arriving for a visit in less than five days. On Saturday morning, I will be getting up at an actually reasonable hour and catching the airport shuttle out to pick her up from her flight. She’s getting in at 11:30. Right now I kind of just want to go to sleep and wake up on Saturday morning. I’m sick of waiting.

Overall, I guess, the message is, life is good, if complicated and occasionally speckled with irritation, impatience, and moments of self-doubt. But somehow, I feel like in a week, everything will be okay.

Peace. <3

The Whirlwind Tour

What would a cruise be without the shore excursions? There were a lot of them. I’m going to try to go through them all as best I can, in point form, because it more or less all sticks in my mind as bullet points. You’ll probably see why by the time I’m through with it.

Any day I don’t make mention of was a sea day, and therefore we were on the boat. (It’s worth mentioning that we spent all of Christmas at sea, and on Christmas morning we convened in mom and dad’s room to open presents under the vaguely-tree-shaped-green-Christmas-shirt.)

Also, because we are cheap-asses, we didn’t buy shore excursions anywhere except Egypt (where it’s more or less a necessity) and even when we did, we didn’t get the super expensive packages from the cruise. So most shore days we spent doing our own thing, wherever we ended up.

Shona and Tristan in front of a church in Civitavecchia.

December 22nd: Civitavecchia, Italy

Civitavecchia, aside from being incredibly annoying to spell right, is the port city at the mouth of the Tiber River, and is therefore the gateway to Rome. It was about an hour drive into Rome, so we elected to wander the city we hadn’t been to yet.

It was rainy. That kind of put a damper on things.

Shona seems to be very good at talking Tristan into giving her a piggyback. Occasionally this combines with the rain in undesirable ways (i.e.: he slips on a metal grate and crashes down to one knee, leaving an impressive bruise).

My family really likes markets. “Wandering around in a market for an hour or two” quickly seems to be becoming a theme.

Also, Italians really like their churches.

“Church of the Japanese Martyrs” is perhaps the best name for anything ever. Even if the church itself is just a regular church with some Japanese-style paintings of religious figures.

We didn’t really spend too much time in Civitavecchia. It wasn’t really a great day, and there wasn’t too much we wanted to see (or much to see, to be honest). We wandered around and looked at stuff for a couple hours, then wandered back to the boat.

December 23rd: Naples, Italy

We’ve been here already! It’s almost like coming home. It was even comparable weather to when we were there back in October. Sunny, beautiful, and in the mid teens.

Italians apparently aren’t used to these temperatures, because they keep asking me if I’m cold while I wander around in my sleeveless shirt.

I have discovered the eleventh commandment: “And the LORD said, in Naples, to ensure thy survival, thou shalt form a pack of pedestrians, for together, thou art mighty, and the tide of cars shall part before thee.” We have got this pedestrian-in-Naples business down.

Those guys with the knockoff bags are still everywhere. They’re still ridiculously flirtatious, too. Even with my hair buzzed to an inch long. “Ciao, bella!” starts to lose its impact after the fifth time.

We wandered up through some of the shopping areas to get to this street where they sell nativity scenes and the supplies to make them. These are seriously detailed things, too. Like dollhouse miniatures. They make whole scenes for it.

We visited the castle, too, the one we hadn’t got to last time we were in Naples. Chapel, statues, stateroom, art museum upstairs, fairly standard – except for the Roman crypts that were discovered underneath the castle. Seriously cool stuff. They had glass floors installed and you could look down to see the bones underneath you.

Paintings of pretty girls are made infinitely more awesome when the top layer of paint has peeled off and they seem to have a smooth layer of skin where one of their eyes used to be.

Mom and dad wandered through a bit more of the art museum than I did. I went back to the boat to watch Up. Because Up is awesome.

December 26th and 27th: At port in Alexandria, Egypt. Visiting Cairo.

Egypt is probably the dirtiest, noisiest, smelliest, and most exciting place I’ve ever been to. Also, the most dangerous. Because of Egypt’s history of political terrorism, some of which has been directed against tourists, all tour groups are required by law to have an armed guard with them. Dad said ours had a fully automatic gun. I didn’t see, and wouldn’t have been able to identify it anyway.

So there was us, a couple, and another family with two younger girls, our tour leader, a guide, avery stoic armed guard, and a driver who didn’t speak English, all hangin’ out in this little van-bus for a couple of days. It was hella fun.

Tour got off to a slow start because it was insanely foggy that morning – too dangerous to drive. We were supposed to leave at 8:30, ended up on the road by 11:30. But hey, at least I was awake by then.

There do not seem to be many traffic laws in Egypt. See: family in the flatbed of a pickup on the highway; three men on one motorcycle; camels apparently count as vehicles and can walk around on the roads; ditto for donkeys loaded down with clover; ditto also for horse or donkey pulled buggies. Also, there are guys biking around delivering giant platters of bread, which they get from place to place by tying them to their heads and balancing them there.

Egypt was the first country I’ve ever been to where the majority of women had their hair, and often their whole bodies, covered in the Muslim style. Different, but interesting.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu, as seen from the base.

Most of Cairo has this odd look, like it’s starting to crumble before they’ve even finished the buildings. We discovered that this is because, if a house remains “under construction,” you don’t have to pay tax on it – so Egyptians never seem to both putting roofs on their houses.

If the apocalypse hit now and everything was destroyed, Cairo would be the city and culture that would spring up from the ruins. Amazing, and very lovely, in its own way.

The pyramids are huge. End of discussion. They don’t look that big in photos, and when you compare them to all the taller buildings we’ve made now, they don’t seem so impressive – then you get out of the bus and go stand beside them. Those blocks of stone that look like bricks in the picture? Yeah, they’re the size of a car. These things are massive, solid, enormous piles of stone.

The Sphinx, too, is massive and impressive. There’s a lot of romanticism and mystique attached to it. All those hokey ideas don’t really do it justice. People always try to paint it as the almighty guardian, most trusted of the Pharaohs, the watcher who will remain long after civilization has crumbled – and I guess it is, or was, at least, at one point, but the Pharaohs are gone, there’s nothing left for it to guard anymore, and its civilization has already fallen. It looks more lonely to me.

Camels are ridiculous. Also, I no more trust them than I trust llamas. They’re great to take photos of, though. As long as you avoid stepping in the camel dung.

Guided tours are more or less giant tourist traps, but there isn’t much of another way to get around Egypt (see: laws regarding tourists and armed guards). I did buy a couple of things, but not nearly as much as they tried to foist off on me. And what I did get was entirely worth the money I spent.

This is why I just want to take pictures of camels forever.

The Sound and Light show is not nearly as impressive as it’s billed as. I also didn’t get much out of it, since I pretty much knew every bit of historical and mythological information they supplied. Ditto for what the guide said – but she was more interesting than the show. Her name was Rehab (REH-hab), and she was an absolute sweetheart.

Nile dinner cruise would be more impressive if we could have seen anything outside the windows. The shows were pretty cool, though, even if the bellydancer did have some weird non-authentic moves (according to my mother) and wore a bra top that made her chest look freakishly large. The whirling dervish dancer was amazing, though.

Mom and dad told us it was probably a bad idea to eat anything uncooked while in Egypt, due to the risk of contamination and the fact that the germs there are different. This made buffets difficult. I wanted salad and fruit, but had to content myself with potatoes and cooked carrots.

No pork anything at any of the buffets. Most noticeable at breakfast. Tristan missed the bacon. I, however, was pleased enough with the hibiscus juice that the loss didn’t bother me.

Our hotel was super ritzy, what the heck. Unfortunately we were too tired and out of there too fast to really enjoy it. It was seriously nice, though. Beautiful construction, and a gorgeous courtyard. Also, I think the floors were marble.

A lantern at our fancy hotel in the misty morning.

Morning arrives! It is extremely misty, for the second day in a row. Rehab apologized – she said it was really abnormal weather for Egypt, and she was sorry we had to come on bad days.

By the time we got to the Citadel of Saladin, it was mostly burned off, though. We went inside the Citadel to visit the Alabaster Mosque, which is very pretty – a lot more decorated than is typical for mosques. We took our shoes off. This is the rule in mosques.

There were guys standing outside selling these little plastic bags people could put over their shoes if they didn’t want to take them off. They also had these big draping robes for people (mostly women) not covered up well enough. I saw a woman in high heels, with the shoe-bags on, putting one of the robes over her short, sleeveless sundress. I wanted to laugh at her. Give it up, lady. Stop trying to look glamorous while you’re a tourist, in a Muslim country, no less.

After this we went to the Egyptian Archeological Museum. I wasn’t allowed to bring my camera in, but we ran around looking at things. We saw the mask of King Tutankhamon, and most of the other things that were found in his tomb – beautiful stuff. The room with the mask and the other important artifacts was so crowded. We literally spent five minutes jammed shoulder to shoulder with people trying to inch our way out of the room. Shona didn’t come in, because she was sick. She spent the museum time sleeping on the bus. In the Tutankhamon room, I was grateful. She would have been miserable.

The most amazing moment in the museum, for me, was when I spotted a statue of three gods – Horus, a Pharaoh being crowned, and Set. Set. He’s my favourite of the Egyptian gods, as well as being my star sign and associated god in Egyptian astrology. Because he was painted as the aggressor and the villain in some of the most well-known Egyptian myths, there isn’t much art of him around. But I saw a statue of him. I stood right in front of it. I think this is a moment I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life.

A woman making flatbread. Delicious, delicious flatbread.

After the museum, we went out to Memphis. We saw the giant statue of King Ramses II, the famous one, and we saw the Step Pyramid, which I’ve always loved – more so even than the Great Pyramid and the associated pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure. Picked up a package of postcards, too – I’ll probably save a few to give to people.

I really, really like Egyptian flatbread. It is delicious. We had a bunch of it with our lunch, which we picked up at a restaurant and ate in the bus on the way back to Alexandria. There were musicians playing outside, and mom danced with them for a bit. Also, women at these big stone and clay ovens, cooking the bread for the restaurant. I took a few pictures.

All in all, Egypt was amazing and exciting, and I would love to go back to visit again – but I very much doubt I would ever want to live there.

December 28th: Rhodes, Greece

We were supposed to stop in Rhodes, but it was too windy and the port was closed. We were at sea instead, heading to Izmir. Shona was sick; I don’t remember what I did specifically.

December 29th: Izmir, Turkey

Where do I even start? Izmir is beautiful. Especially after the dirty brokenness of Cairo. The streets are clean, the buildings and architecture are amazing, the port is beautiful, and there’s lots and lots of green. The weather was amazing, too. Not a cloud in the sky.

Remember what I said about markets? Yeah, pretty much the whole time in Izmir was spent in a market. In our defence, the market is enormous and historic. Also, full of shiny things.

We got lost for a while. It was actually ridiculously entertaining. We ended up getting led to the caravanserai, the oldest part of the bazaar, and showed into a shop, which we left almost immediately. We found our own way back to the bit of the market we were interested in.

The Turks (and the Greeks, as well, but especially the Turks), sell all kinds of things with the symbol of the evil eye on it – it’s supposed to protect you from malicious things. It’s normally a round thing, often done in glass. The main body of it is dark blue, with a ring of white, then a smaller ring of light blue, and a dot of black at the centre. Sometimes it has yellow in it, too. They also sell it in loads of other colours, but blue is the most traditional.

I was going crazy for a pomegranate all day. We got one just before getting a taxi back to the port (taxi, in Turkish, is apparently spelled “taksi,” by the way). I ate the whole thing. My hands and my face were absolutely covered in juice. GLORIOUS.

The Turks are apparently very big on rings. Shiny, shiny rings. There were a lot of shiny things there. Pretty much anything you could imagine in a bazaar was there, and many things you couldn’t. I would love to go back to visit again – five hours is not enough.

Pillars on the Acropolis.

December 30th: Athens, Greece

Athens is not as pretty as Izmir, but it is quite nice, and is much cleaner than Cairo. Not to mention safer. So, bonus all around. Even though apparently the taxi drivers are brats. We tried to get a taxi from the port to the train station (five minute drive, half-hour walk), and the taxi driver decided he’d rather keep his place at the port and get a bigger fare – so he told us it was only ten minutes away. We believed him, until we’d been walking twenty minutes and weren’t there yet.

Metro in Athens is crowded! Dad got pickpocketed – bye bye iTouch. Luckily he had his data backed up, along with several spares. Still, not a cool way to start the day. At least it wasn’t his wallet.

We got off downtown and went wandering up towards the Acropolis. It was not very well signed, but we figured it out eventually. They gave us this big long string of tickets to get into a bunch of different things. Ultimately I think we only used two or three.

Fresh-squeezed orange juice is amazing. There is absolutely no contest about this. I don’t much like the stuff from concentrate (i.e.: anything you can buy in a store) but give it to me fresh and I just can’t get enough of it. My. God.

There seems to be a trend of us visiting monuments while things are being restored. The Parthenon is much less impressive when half of it is covered in scaffolding. That’s okay though! It was still really cool. And the view from the Acropolis is astounding.

At the foot of the Acropolis, looking up.

They say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is… is still the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on Youtube.

After we wandered around a bunch of ruins and saw lots of ancient Greek buildings, we headed up into downtown to do some shopping. Lots of tacky tourist shops but lots of cool things, too. Also, a shirt that says “Oedipus: the ORIGINAL motherfucker.” No way you can lose with this.

Encountered a street vendor selling chocolate and vanilla coconut sticks, coconut juice, and fresh coconut. Fresh coconut is yummy. Om nom nom nom.

Biggest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen: in the square in front of one of the metro stations in Athens, Greece. Who’d have guessed?

Metro still crowded on the way back. Most taxi drivers still jerks. One of them heard where we wanted to go and just drove off with no explanation. We managed to flag down another one and it turned out he was fluent in English – lived in North America for a while. Made it back to the port safely – even though dad decided he was going to walk, while the rest of us drove. Silly man.

The view off the back of the Palace of Knossos.

December 31st: Iraklion, Crete, Greece

It just figures that New Year’s Eve would be the sunniest and most beautiful day on the whole trip. Visiting Iraklion was absolutely lovely that day.

Cheap bus tickets out to historical sites are a win. We went to visit the Palace of Knossos, the ancient palace of Crete, where the legend of the Minotaur supposedly took place. We didn’t get to go into the labyrinth, though. There’s still some debate over whether it even actually exists. Palace was pretty cool, though. A lot of it was reconstructed – apparently the archeologist who worked on it was big on that.

Nice little cafe outside the palace. Delicious baklava and fresh orange juice is a brilliant lunch. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.

Saw a cat just wandering around the grounds. There pretty much always seem to be strays at every major historical site we’ve been to. I can’t remember one where I didn’t see at least a stray dog.

Went back into the city via the same bus, but got off before the port to go wandering around downtown and – you guessed it – into a market area. I bought an excellent new messenger bag to replace my somewhat too large one that’s kind of dying anyway. The woman who sold it to me was very careful to stress that it was “original, made in Greece, no imitation.” I guess they have a problem with a lot of people doing knockoffs of big brands.

A reconstructed part of the palace.

Our map was written with Anglicized Greek names on it. The street signs are all in Greek letters. Lucky for us, dad spent some time in Greece before I was born, and knows how to read most Greek letters. Otherwise we would have been hopelessly lost.

The city is nice. Similar atmosphere to Athens, but a bit calmer, less touristy, and smaller. Also, less likely to pick your pockets. It was almost depressing to leave. Our last shore excursion of an amazing trip. Still if things had to end, it was a good way to end them.

On Photo Galleries

Okay, so, you guys may or may not have realized that one of the things I’ve been trying to do with this blog is keep a photo gallery of the highlights. What I’d like to know is, does anyone actually look at the galleries on the blog, or do you all just look at the pictures on Facebook?

If you do look at the site galleries, leave me a comment saying so. Otherwise, feel free to ignore this post. If I don’t get much of a response I’m probably going to stop adding them because they’re a pain to put up.

Post regarding the cruise excursions should be up later today. Thank you, carry on.

The Alternate Reality of Cruise Ships

Here I go, finally updating you all on my winter break – now that I’m well-rested, relaxed, not sick and (the greatest factor in my delay) not distracted. I’m horrible at regular updates, I know. I’m sorry? In any case, here we go!

We got up at a ridiculously unreasonable hour on the morning of Sunday the 20th of December to go to the train station. The metro workers were on strike (of course – this is France, someone is always on strike), so we had to walk, very briskly, dragging heavy suitcases, to the train station – not all that awesome on an empty stomach. There were some other people wandering the streets of Toulouse. All of them were saying “good evening.” Clearly, they had not gone to bed yet. I would rather have been one of them than have to drag my ass out of bed in the morning.

The train ride itself was pretty uneventful. We changed trains in Narbonne, and our connection was delayed, but we had hot chocolate and coffee and all was well. I stared out the window a lot, thought about early morning trains and dreams, napped, and listened to Coldplay. It was very relaxing, while it lasted.

We arrived in Barcelona by early afternoon, got a taxi, made it to the port, and wound our way through the lineup to get onto the boat. I spotted a guy who looked about my age with an amazing hand-painted Cheshire Cat backpack. I was impressed, and told him so. Then there was a bit of hullabaloo at the check-in desk, due to us wanting to pay for both of our rooms on my dad’s credit card, even though one of them was registered under my mom’s name – but we got that cleared up, and got our room key cards, which also double as ID. By the time we finally got checked in, it was well past three in the afternoon, and we were starving, so we went down to the buffet (the Garden Cafe) to eat.

At this point I should probably explain how the food thing works onboard the boat. Our cruise ship, the Norwegian Jade, had about ten or eleven restaurants, some of which were pre-paid and included in the cost of the rooms, the others of which charged cover. We, being cheap, only ate at the pre-paid restaurants, which included the buffet (the Garden Cafe), the two dining rooms (Alizar, the casual one, and the Grand Pacific, the fancy formal one), and the 24-hour cafe (the Blue Lagoon). The Blue Lagoon, in particular, will become significant later.

So, after our meal, we went exploring. Shona and Tristan went off to check out the teen club, and mom and dad and I wandered around looking at things. Then I went back to my room for a while and did a bit of writing. We met up later that evening for dinner, and were then released to do our own thing as the boat left the harbour. Shona and Tristan disappeared to the teen club again, and I ended up wandering up to the Spinnaker Lounge and bar to see if there was any interesting dance music playing and whether or not the 20s and 30s mixer would get me anywhere or if I would have to resign myself to not knowing anyone on this boat. Needless to say, that did not happen.

At the bar, I ran into the guy I’d seen earlier with the Cheshire Cat backpack. I informed him of my plight and begged him to save me from boredom, and he performed quite admirably. He dragged me over to his little circle, and they introduced themselves: Jason, with the backpack, who I had initially thought was only a couple of years older than me, was in fact 26; his roommate, who he had come on vacation with, Louie, had just turned 21 that day and was celebrating by getting drunk; Tara, who had the room directly above theirs, was 22; and her younger brother John, sharing with her, was 16, but easily tall enough to be mistaken for my age or older. We ended up standing around talking for more than an hour, dancing until a ridiculous hour of the morning, and then wound up at the Blue Lagoon at 2:30 (minus John, who had left). We stayed there for the next hour. It was while there that I discovered Jason more or less makes friends with every person he talks to, since everyone we met that night became a regular face in our little group. By the time everyone else had drifted off, we had all talked ourselves into going back to Jason and Louie’s room to watch Inglourious Basterds, which we did. Tara went back to bed halfway through, but I stuck it out until the end. I ended up in bed around six am.

It’s after that point that the days start to blur together. I spent a lot of time in Jason and Louie’s room, which was dubbed both “Jason’s Cave,” reflecting the number of afternoons he spent holed up in there sleeping, and “Party Central,” since it became the meeting and gathering point from that day on. Shona decided the teen club was lame after the first night, and ended up hanging out with us instead. In addition to me, her, Jason, Louie, Tara, and John, we also added a second Jon, a girl named Alessandra, her brother Allan, and a guy named Daniel to our semi-regular collection; then there were loads more people who we would meet almost nightly in Spinnaker’s.

Some nights we’d go to dinner on our own, or with our friends; others, especially special occasions, we’d go to Alizar’s with the family, or get dressed up and go to the Grand Pacific. There were nights both late (five am) and “early” (generally around midnight), days spent in the pool and hot tub and days when I tucked myself away in the book room to write or play games; evenings spent talking or evenings spent dancing. Several movies were watched, many drinks were consumed (most of them not by me), Jason and I tried to salsa (we did get progressively better after the first night, which included me tripping over my own feet and falling on my ass), everyone bought souvenirs, Jason, Louie and Tara smuggled bottles of alcohol onto the ship (they didn’t want us bringing in other alcohol because then they couldn’t sell us their overpriced drinks), Daniel and I spent a couple of hours talking about ancient history and mythology, five different people spilled drinks on me on New Year’s, Jason lost $100 playing craps in the casino, I ran out of shirts and washed them in the bathroom sink, everyone ate far too much spinach and artichoke dip at the Blue Lagoon, nobody got enough sleep, several people hooked up, I gave two brief lessons on Canadian politics, there was a ship-wide Jason hunt when he disappeared one morning (he turned up later after having taken a nap in one of the private rooms off one of the dance clubs) and everyone wrote their contact information on my hands in sharpie on the last night of the cruise. It was mind-blowing.

Being on a cruise ship is kind of like living in an enclosed hotel compound – a hotel that includes two pools, four jacuzzis, a spa, eleven restaurants, a small gym, a casino, a full-sized theatre, two dance clubs, seven bars, free room service, and a 24-hour cafe. It feels like it goes on forever, and yet it feels like it passes in no time at all. Everyone is so cut off from the outside world – internet exists, but it’s ungodly expensive, and most people just don’t even bother. We barely even had any news. There was probably a news channel on the TVs, but hell if I ever paid any attention. You’re travelling with no sense of movement; you’ll wake up in a port one day, spend a few hours exploring, and then come back, and it’s like you just magically appear somewhere else. Shona and I took to calling our normal lives “real life” and the boat “fake life” – because that’s honestly what it feels like. It’s very surreal.

The psychedelic decorations probably didn’t help, either.

There will be more to follow about our shore excursions – I still need to go through all my photos and get everything sorted in my mind. Life on the ship itself was almost more important, in a way. That place was home for two weeks – a two weeks that lasted eternity.

Christmas in Toulouse

December in Toulouse has been an interesting experience. I thought that I would love to live through a warmer winter than I’m used to, but when it arrived, I found I just missed the snow. We’ve had a little bit of snowfall, but it’s never stayed on the ground for more than a day; every now and then it gets cold enough that something freezes and they shut off the fountains, but that won’t stay long either. It barely seems like December, let alone six days till Christmas, despite the lights they’ve strung up all over downtown and the Christmas market that’s been in Place du Capitole for the last three weeks.

I got most of my Christmas and birthday shopping done pretty early; now all my gifts are wrapped, and up until a few hours ago when I moved them to my suitcase, they were sitting under the palm tree in our living room that I declared to be “the Christmas tree” (despite lack of decoration or anything remotely resembling coniferous needles). Tomorrow morning at 6:20, we’ll be packing out of here, en route to the train station to catch a train to Barcelona at 6:55. We’ll arrive just after noon to board our boat. Christmas and New Year’s will be spent on board a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s different, but interesting. Exciting.

There are a lot of exotic stops planned for this trip. First we dock outside of Rome, then Naples, both places we’ve visited before. After that is Alexandria, where we’re going on a tour into Cairo, and into the desert to see the pyramids. Then we’ll be stopping at Rhodes, Ephesus in Turkey, Athens, and finally Heraklion, on the island of Crete. It’s all a little overwhelming, but I can’t wait.

On top of the places we’re visiting, we’ve also got our own Christmas to celebrate; the supremely clever organizers of the cruise have us at sea on the solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, the evening of New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. There will, I’m sure, be parties and events on most, if not all, of those days; I have a couple of nice dresses and another fancy outfit packed. Very glamorous, of course.

In case you can’t tell, I’m still having a bit of trouble believing I’m going on a cruise. It seems far too ritzy a vacation for my family, and to be honest it’s a little hard to take seriously. Guaranteed, I’m going to end up singing I’m On A Boat several times.

Happy holidays!

Kakis and the Collection Thereof

Today, I decided, was a day ripe for early afternoon adventures. It was mostly sunny, and pleasantly cool, with a decided scent of fall in the air, and I hadn’t gone on an extended wandering for quite a while. And so, armed with a light sweater, my camera, and a bit of change in my pocket, I headed out to explore.

My first look at the kaki tree.

On the way, I bought one of my favourite chocolates at the chocolatier’s near my house (I’ll be making a post about them sometime soon), and so, happily nibbling, I made my way down towards St. Etienne, my favourite church (another future post). After wandering through the courtyard, I decided I was going to head down to the Grand Rond and the Jardin des Plantes, two large public parks just south of where I live. All was uneventful, save for the occasional photo opportunity, until I arrived in the Jardin des Plantes and was brought up short by the presence of a strange fruit-bearing tree.

These fruits, I thought at first, were peaches, but the longer I stared at them the more convinced I became that this was not quite right. There didn’t seem to be any on the ground, however, and the lowest branch was too high to hoist myself up onto, so at first I thought my curiosity would go unsatisfied. But while I contemplated the tree in perplexed confusion, a little old man, barely five feet tall, arrived with a rather dauntingly long stick, which he immediately began using to attempt to knock these fruits out of the tree. However, his stick was too crooked and too heavy, and he soon gave up, breaking it to pieces and throwing it in the bushes.

After a brief conversation with him, and a woman passing by, I learned that these fruits are called kakis in both French and Italian, but this led me no closer to discovering what they were in English. Determined to get one down, I set off around the park in the direction of what they said was another kaki tree in hopes that I would be able to climb this one and get one of the mysterious fruits down. In his, however, I was unsuccessful – this tree, like the other, had no branches low enough to climb onto. I spent a while balanced on the back of a park bench, shaking one of the lower branches in hopes of freeing one of the kakis, but to no avail. Still not willing to give up, I headed back to the first tree, where I discovered both the woman and the little old man had disappeared.

The construction of the kaki collecting stick.

Undaunted, I went looking in the bushes to find the pieces of the stick the old man had dropped there. I broke them into shorter pieces and amused myself lobbing them at the tree in hopes of knocking down a fruit or two to take home, but in this pursuit I was once again, quite literally, fruitless. However, amidst the amused passers-by, there was a ray of hope. The little old man had returned, this time carrying two shorter, lighter, and mostly straight sticks, which he then proceeded to bind together with three lengths of twine he apparently just happened to have in his pocket. Then, with what can only be described as the ease of long practice, he immediately set to work, using the little fork on the end of the stick to twist several kakis off the stem and down to the ground. I was awarded with two of them.

The kaki collecting stick in action.

I was told not to worry about the bruising on them, and to take them home and put them in my kitchen, sitting them on their stems, where I was to check on them every day. When they were soft, he said, they would be ready to be eaten, and they were not eaten in stews or as a cooked vegetable as I initially guessed – their texture is something like peppers, and the interiors of the few broken pieces I managed to find seemed somewhat pepper-like to me as well. No, I was told, they are fruits, which one eats raw, but only once they become soft, as before then they are not desirable. And so, now armed with two kakis and this newfound knowledge as well as everything else, I thanked him and went on my way, returning home in short order, where I washed the kakis, related the entire story to my mother, and put them on the counter, stems down, as I had been told.

One of the newly harvested kakis.

So did I ever discover what kakis actually are? Yes, in fact. While I finished washing them off, mom went to check the computer, whereupon we discovered that the kaki is a Japanese fruit that has spread across Europe and Asia, related to a fruit that grows right at home, in the northern United States.

What is it?

A persimmon.

When In Rome

Hello again my loves! I am a forgetful, spastic person and once again I forgot to update the blog. I don’t even have Spore as an excuse this time. I just forgot. But it’s all okay because here I am again! On with the show.

We left off in the train station after arriving in Rome. There, we collected our baggage from the baggage compartments and headed out into the city. After a rather amusing incident where we took the wrong road and ended up going in the opposite direction from our apartment, we found the place we were going to and dragged our luggage up five flights of stairs to collapse on the very squishy and comfortable couches.

After resting for a bit, we headed out to see the Colosseum, since it was nearby and we had no other pressing concerns at the time. We wandered down in that direction, observing the differences between Rome and Naples – Rome is very clean, and the streets are overall quite wide and straight. And the drivers are positive saints compared to the Neapolitan drivers. We came up the street to get our first view of the Colosseum – and was it ever magnificent. Seriously, that thing is huge, even with more than half of the outer wall knocked down. We headed down the stairs to ground level, passing numerous cheap tourist junk stands and a group of incredibly talented dancers performing on the street to do a circuit of the Colosseum and check out the Arch of Constantine. Upon finishing our circuit, we went to buy some groceries (pasta again) and returned to the apartment for dinner.

Here, I will pause for a moment to talk about our physical state at the time. After over a week of steady travelling and spending most of our days on our feet, we were quite tired already by this point. On top of that, mom was already somewhat ill, and I seemed to be picking up the edges of her sickness. Adding fuel to the fire, the beds in our Roman apartment, or at least the one I was sleeping on, were quite uncomfortable. It was also at this point that I really started missing Nami and various other people I’m in regular contact with. Altogether, it made for a rather exhausting few days, and for this reason, our adventures in Rome were not quite as energetic as they had been in Naples and Venice.

Once mom and dad had picked up our museum and transport passes, we spent most of the first full day in Rome simply exploring the city. We visited the Spanish Steps, climbing up all of what we think we remember as 176 steps to the church at the top of it. We wandered down to look at various historical buildings, then made our way slowly back towards the Pantheon, which we investigated with great enthusiasm. There, we found Jason, a very enthusiastic tour guide from Louisiana who has been living in Italy for the past nine years, giving tours. He was doing a free tour of the Pantheon, and took us around, explaining the significance of the cross-capped Egyptian obelisk out front (Christ’s triumph over “pagan influence”) and detailing some of the history of the structure. It was from him that we learned that Michelangelo had been so impressed with the Pantheon that, when he designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, he deliberately made it half  a metre shorter than the dome of the Pantheon, in honour of the “perfection” of the ancient structure – a building so stable that the earthquakes that knocked down the outside walls of the Colosseum had no discernible effect on it. Finished with the tour, we wandered back towards home, checking out the Trevi Fountain along the way, then buying groceries (more pasta) and turning in early in preparation for our visit to the Vatican the next day.

The next morning, we were out early (for us) around eleven to visit the Colosseum in the morning. Thanks to our pre-purchased museum cards, we got to skip the lines and go straight in, whereupon we climbed very steep stairs to check out the artifacts they had found (mostly sculptures, bones, and gambling paraphernalia), then went around the inside walls to get a good look at the arena floor, which had been destroyed and showed the underground rooms and corridors where they had kept the slaves and allowed entrance to the warriors and animals who rose up from the floor in the games. Then we caught the metro across the river, arriving promptly in St. Peter’s Square for our 1:30 tour of the Vatican with Jason.

And I must say, he’s both hilarious and a great tour guide. He told us about the history of the building, as well as the belief that St. Peter himself is buried under the basilica – a belief that may have been confirmed by some excavations in the last few decades, when a team discovered what they think are the bones of Peter. We headed around the outside of the square, checking out the wall that saved the Pope’s life when the Protestants sacked the city in the 1500s, as well as the area of housing that had set up to be a safe place for the pilgrims who came to visit the Vatican. Along the way to the museum, Jason told us about Michelangelo’s belief that sculpture was a superior art form to painting, and the sculpture project he was hired for that never got completed, because the architect of the Basilica talked the Pope into employing Michelangelo in the painting of the Sistine Chapel in order to keep “his” Basilica from being dominated by Michelangelo’s sculptures. However, his plan may have backfired, since Michelangelo’s paintings became some of the most famous works of the Renaissance, and his sculpture, Pieta, is still on display in the Basilica.

We headed through the museum relatively quickly, checking out various Renaissance-era and ancient sculptures of Greek Gods and Goddesses, including the rather famous sculpture of Laocoon and His Sons, beset by snakes when he tried to strike the Trojan Horse in suspicion. We also saw various ancient mosaics, a statue of the Artemis of Ephesus, tapestries, paintings, and an entire room of paintings by Raphael, including his famous School of Athens – absolutely incredible, and one of my favourite Renaissance paintings. Its colour is beautiful, the perspective is incredible, and the thing is huge – an entire wall of fresco. From there, we proceeded to the Sistine Chapel itself, where we witnessed the Last Judgement, the Creation of Adam, and all the other paintings on the ceiling and those on the walls.

No visit to the Vatican, however, would be complete without taking a look at St. Peter’s Basilica, so, after the tour finished, we headed inside to see the most magnificent, opulent church in the world. And it truly is incredible – even the “unimportant” sculptures and works of art tucked into corners and around pillars are amazing. And then, off to the side, we saw the Pieta. It was so incredible that I cried.

After that, it turns into a bit of a blur. Small moments stand out – hearing the choir sing as the evening mass started; the sculpture of St. Peter with the foot worn smooth from millions of worshippers over the course of history rubbing or kissing it for luck; the young woman who came in for the mass who crossed herself with tears of joy in her eyes. By the time we left, I had cried myself out. My last memory of the Vatican is looking up at the building where the Pope lives as we left and seeing that two of his lights were on.

The next day was much more relaxed. We wandered around more of the city, checking out a tiny museum of decorative art, a (somewhat out of place) stone pyramid, a monument to the victims of Italy’s fascist regime, and the old bathhouses, which we unfortunately arrived too late at to enter. Then we headed back to the apartment for dinner (pasta!) and one more night. The next day, we packed up for the last time and headed off to the train station, catching our train to the airport and getting on a plane back to Toulouse. We arrived home in the afternoon rain and collapsed in welcome rest, our holiday finally over.

Neapolitan Adventures

Oh hello again internet! I forgot about the promised blog posts because I am a spaz with a short attention span who plays too much Spore. But that is okay and I am back now. So here we go, onto the next leg of the Italian adventure: Naples and Pompeii!

We arrived in Naples late in the evening after leaving for Venice, where we caught a taxi from the airport into town. This was my first introduction to the knowledge that Italian Drivers Are Crazy and Naples Drivers Actually Drive With Their Horns, Not Their Wheels. Everyone beeps their horn constantly – but it’s not because they’re angry (even though, with the way everyone drives, crossing lanes and cutting you off all over the place, they have plenty of reason to be). No, it is in fact because they just want to let know know something – sometimes simply that they are there and you should take that into account, and sometimes that you are a bastard motherfucker with the driving skills of a pig. It’s occasionally hard to tell.

Anyway, after a somewhat terrifying drive through the city, we arrived safely in our apartment, where are very short, adorable landlady who didn’t speak any English tried to explain to us how the appliances worked and get us settled in. Then we headed out to hunt down a restaurant, as it was rather late by this point, and by sheer luck stumbled onto a rather nice place that made wonderful pizza and even better salad. Despite a mixup where dad’s calzone didn’t arrive until substantially after the rest of the food, it was rather enjoyable. My favourite part was probably the wandering guitar-playing musician who sang to us for a while.

That’s another interesting thing about Italy – people sing everywhere. They’re not shy about it at all. You can walk into a grocery store and half the time one of the employees will be singing while putting out the stock. It’s actually rather awesome.

Anyway, the next morning, we got up and headed out to explore the city, investigating a palace and an old church while mom and dad got some tourist information. Then we ran around a bit looking for places to buy our city passes and transport cards. Upon our success, we headed into the historical heart of the city, where we didn’t see much of significance except for the oldest marble statue in Naples, but did have a good time looking at bizarre churches, monuments, and old buildings squished between modern apartment buildings.

Also, deep fried spaghetti. Weird, but strangely delicious.

The next day, we got up early and caught the train out to POMPEII!

…

Sorry, I had to pause there to pose dramatically.

Anyway, these trains were a bit more like metro trains than the kind you’d actually want to travel in, but Pompeii was relatively nearby. After a bit of a mixup that saw us waiting at a graffiti-covered station in the middle of the poorer neighbourhood and inspired Shona’s and my next photoshoot, we got on the right train and came out in Pompeii.

And holy shit, it was incredible. If you ever get the chance, GO. There is nothing like it in the world.

We wandered all over the city – to the amphitheatre, the coliseum, the forum, the temples, the houses, the streets, the vineyards, the bathhouses. We hopped across the stepping stones placed at crosswalks to keep the ancient citizens’ feet out of the mud. We investigated ancient Roman fast food joints. We saw pomegranate trees growing in places that haven’t yet been excavated. We saw the bones of people who died in the eruption. We went through the brothel, giggling at the rather well-preserved frescoes of bedroom acts. I swiped a couple lumps of pumice stone for a friend. We crisscrossed the whole city, or at least as much of it as we could without dropping from exhaustion, before finally making it home to collapse.

Our third day in Naples was mostly spent hopping around on the cable cars and the metro to ultimately get us to the archaeological museum. There, we witnessed a vast and rather wonderful collection of statues, mostly of gods, muses, and heroes, a giant gallery of paintings, mosaics and artifacts from Pompeii, and the “secret cabinet” – a room dedicated entirely to the sexual artifacts of the ancient Romans. There, we witnessed several… interesting… frescoes, some rather bizarre statues, many small stone penis charms, a few odd brass sculptures (I kid you not, there was a flying penis with a pair of legs and a penis of its own, and one of a hero fighting against his own penis, which had apparently turned into a vicious monster of some sort), as well as a rather amusing mosaic of the god Priapus, whose erect penis is about the length of one of his own legs and twice as thick.

I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

We had our final dinner in Naples – pasta, again, we ate rather a lot of it and none of us got sick of it because pasta is AWESOME – that night, then once again got everything packed up and ready to leave for the morning. Then we said goodbye to our rather wonderful apartment with its marvellously comfortable beds, and headed off to the train station to get on the train to Rome. The ride was generally uneventful, except for a hustler dragging us and our suitcases onto the train at top speed and demanding money for his service (dad gave him five euros instead of twenty). We pulled into Rome in good time – finally starting the last leg of our adventure.

Hello Venezia!

Hello again, Canada! Here I am, back from Italy, and as promised, I will present to you a full report of my adventures there. This is the first of three parts: Venice! Photos from the first three (and a bit) days of the trip have already been posted on Facebook, so make sure to check them out.

The start of our adventure was early afternoon in Toulouse, when we rolled our suitcases down to Jean Jaures station and caught the airport bus out to Toulouse-Blagnac. Barring a minor setback at security (where they took my craft scissors – seriously, my freaking CRAFT scissors) the trip went smoothly, we caught our connection in Lyon, and arrived safe and sound in the Venice airport that evening. Then we took a waterbus into the lagoon, where we got installed in our apartment (which was super ritzy, by the way – the one we were supposed to get needed repairs so they offered us another apartment at a seriously reduced rate – and it overlooked the Grand Canal!) and then went out to get dinner at a nice pizza place our landlady recommended.

The excitement didn’t really start until the next morning, when we got up (at a decent hour, for us) and headed out to explore the city. I say we, but I really mean me, mom, and the siblings – dad had to go pick up his race kit for the marathon the next day. So we wandered down the main street, checking mask shops and trinket booths all the way, until we eventually came to the Rialto Bridge and, from there, to St. Mark’s Square.

And let me just say, it is absolutely incredible. Venice is possibly the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen, even with all the tacky tourist crap. I got some lovely photos in the square while we wandered around, looking for a place to buy waterbus passes and museum cards.

We were eventually successful in our mission, and so, pausing to get some midafternoon sandwiches on the way, we wandered back to the apartment.

The next morning, dad was out long before any of us, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, for the marathon. The rest of us got up at a more leisurely pace, catching the waterbus down to the finish line, where we cheered him on. Eventually, we met up with him in a park full of nifty statues and big trees, to decide on our plan of attack. It was concluded that he would head home, while the rest of us (despite some whining on the brother’s part) would go to investigate the Correr Museum.

Unfortunately, once inside, I learned that we weren’t supposed to be taking pictures by being yelled at in Italian by a very stern museum curator, but other than that the visit was quite enjoyable. The museum was full of historical artifacts, old books, paintings, maps, statues, sculptures, frescoes, glass chandeliers, and weapons. It really drove home Venice’s unique history as an independent city-state. By the time we had finished wandering through there, we were quite tired of walking, so we caught the bus back to the apartment.

On our third day in Venice, we went out to Murano, the glassmaking island – several centuries ago (I forget exactly when) all the workshops were moved out there to prevent them from setting fire to the city. Our first stop was the glass museum, where we learned about the process of blowing glass – which is awesome, by the way – and looked at various pieces from all stages of Venetian history. Then we wandered down towards the foundries, investigating shops all the way, until we got to an open workshop, where we sat and watched a professional glassmaker and his assistant make parts for a chandelier, as well as a little glass horse sculpture that they knocked off for fun (and tips). On the way home, we tried to stop at the cemetery island, but unfortunately it was closed, so we got back on the boat and headed back to Venice proper, taking the scenic route through the ghetto area – the oldest ghetto in the world. In fact, the word “ghetto” is believed to come from a corruption of geto or “foundry,” as the Jews were forced to live in the area that had been vacated by the glassmakers moving out to Murano. Today, very few Jews actually live in the area, but there are synagogues, a museum, points of historical interest, and many kosher shops.

The next morning, our last in Venice, we went down to St. Mark’s again to visit the Doge’s Palace – the former seat of government from Venice’s days of independence, and the residence of the Doge, or elected duke, who governed the city in its early years and served as a figurehead in the later centuries of the republic. We saw his private quarters, the council rooms and state areas, and the prisons, as well as many paintings by famous Italian paintings of the Renaissance, including the widest canvas painting in the world. There were so many details flying past my face that most of them, at this point, have completely slipped my mind.

After the Doge’s Palace, we headed back to the apartment for the last time, picked up our stuff, and caught the waterbus to the only area of the city with access by car. Then we got on the airport bus and headed across the causeway to the airport. Our last view over the Venetian lagoon was a spectacular sunset as we took off.

Naples and Pompeii are on the agenda for tomorrow, but for now, I will say, ciao, and goodnight to all!