Life Walking Along Canals

Even with my busy schedule I have fit some time in to write my dwindling audience another blog I will have to write more often if I plan on winning back any of my lost followers. It may be to late for all I know they have moved on to a new and more exciting blogs about cats or other less important things. I however will not change the nature of this blog to connect with a new target audience and become a slave to the masses so even with my two or three readers I will write on about my travels. I believe I left you off at the epic moment of leaving the boys to there own devices after organizing their lives for the past few weeks. I was nervous to do this but I did need some girl time and really wanted to see charlotte so I just had to hope for the best and pray they did not stray into the purple zone on there last night in Naples.

Section Sixty Four- Life getting my sanity back

I left Naples a day before the boys and took a train to meet Char in Arezzo a city close to Florence where she has been house sitting for the past six weeks. It was a great time. She picked me up at the train station and we went to the house which was out in the country side of Tuscan and reminded me strikingly of how mom would decorate her house with an excess of candles and paintings. The best part of all was the house was equipped with two cats and a dog so I got some to get some quality animal time in and Char had some one else to throw Molly’s ball. After dropping my bag at the house and throwing in a load of laundry because I came equipped with a large quantity of dirty laundry we went into town. The town itself is very nice has two main squares and is the home of some famous family and or guy in history that wrote a famous book that Char talked about but I can not remember the name of something manuducci. I also bought a beautiful leather bag there and had some gelato. Then that evening Char made dinner and we sat on the patio eating and talking. Oh we were also waiting for fireflies to come out which Charlotte promised me there always was but I did not see a single one she also told me the cat always laid on her lap but that did not happen either. The next day after I got to sleep in a double bed the two of us headed off to Florence to meet the boys once again.

Section Sixty Five- The Search for Gelato

We arrived in Florence at 1:30 and I had told the gentlemen to meet me at the hostel at 2:00, however, that did not turn out exactly as planned. When char and I got to the hostel they were not insight and I began to wonder if I had put to much faith in them and getting themselves out of Naples alone. But I decided not to worry about it and dropped of my bag and the two of us went out to explore the city. Florence is wonderful. And we spent the day walking around looking at the cathedral and outdoor statue museum as well as walking along the canal and its bridges charlotte knows a lot about the city and its history so I pretty much had my own personal tour guide. Then after walking around we went to a cafe to share some presucco and food and contemplate more life matters such as why anyone would want to live in Canada instead of Europe. Sitting there we also met a fellow traveller from Australia who was obsessed with food and ended up showing us the best gelato ever which I will elaborate more on later for now all you need to know is that it is called Grom. After are appetizers charlotte headed off to catch her train and I headed back to the hostel to try and track down the boys. I ended up finding them in the pool there and made them feel slightly guilty for leaving me all alone. It turns out Ryan some how read the message wrong and wanted to pick me up from the train which he for some reason thought got in at 2:30 which was sweet of him but wrong so we missed each other and he worried all day and I explored Florence. That evening the four of us (David, Zach, Ryan) in case you forgot who I am now travelling with went out for dinner with the cooking obsessed Australian I had met earlier. It took a little convincing to steer Zach and David away from the Chinese food restaurant but in the end we went for an authentic Italian meal. The next day after I got very little sleep (since Zach spent the evening talking to this girl outside my window whose catch phrase was Shit Yeah said very loudly every 20 seconds or so and zach coming in at all hours of the morning to ask for a wine opener) we spent the day exporing Florence first stop was the ubissi museum (spelt wrong) the line was ridiculously long but we figured out that by calling we could reserve a time to go in for 3 extra euro so that is what we did in order not to waste time in the line. Well waiting for are time slot we decided to climb the hill in Florence to get to the city this took longer then expected because we did not want to pay to see some castle which was blocking are way. David was intent on jumping a wall and making a run for it but we finally talked him out of it and just walked around it. After the view point we headed back to the museum to take a look at some renaissance art which was cool but the gallery consisted of about a hundred painting of Madonna and child which I am sure all had some deeper meaning but they got boring after a while. That evening we ate some more Italian food and the boys went in the pool I have never met someone so pool obsessed as David. I went to bed early that night warning the boys not to wake me up since I didn’t get enough sleep before, however, I got woken up at about 4:00 in the morning by Zach and David informing me they had lost Ryan. I asked them how this happened and they informed me that they had all been downstairs in the bar and Ryan and Michael (food Australian) had been playing foosball (Ryan is obsessed with foosball by the way) and Zach and David had been of chatting to girls I am sure and then when they went back Ry and Michael were gone and they went looking but could not find them for the next two hours. I asked if they had tried calling them and they said no they had not thought of that so I called Michael’s phone and low and behold he answered informing us they where in the square. It turns out Ryan and Michael had decided at two thirty AM they should go for a late dinner of authentic Wild boar meat (Florence specialty) but neglected to inform the other of this decision. The next day we decided to do a Chianti wine tour through are hostel which was fun but the guy leading it knew little to nothing about wine except for a story about roosters but it was delicious and we tried some wicked extra virgin olive oil and a wonderful lunch in the hills of Tuscany. That evening was are last in Florence and the next day we hopped a train to Venice to meet back up with Ashley.

Section Sixty Five- Life getting lost in Venice

We were staying at a campsite just outside of Venice that had a shuttle everyday to the center since it was so expensive to stay in the center. When we got to the campsite Ashley was there waiting for us and David was already in the pool. It was nice to have another girl and some one else to help with the organizing. After dropping are bags in the tents ash and zach in one and ry and I in another we sat down to watch some fifa world cup and eat yet another pizza or maybe it was pasta. That evening we spent at the campsite playing pool and hanging out. The next day we headed to the center and began exploring Venice. Venice is by far the easiest city ever to get lost in with no street signs and a maze of dead ends but it is very cool all the same. We spent most the day walking around looking at all the cool things. Then while we were sitting having lunch I saw a woman walk by with a cup from the amazing gelato place Grom and decided we must find it. Now this cup was pretty fresh looking over half full with minimal melting of gelato so we figured the place could not be far. The woman had come from across a bridge in walking in the westerly direction so we began are search on the other side of the bridge, first just walking around, then when that turned nothing up we started asking at restaurants which we are pretty sure all just pointed us in the direction of the nearest gelato place to them but not the one we wanted which lead us to desperate measures of peering into garbage cans looking for discarded cups to judge which direction the person may have come from. At one point we found a gypsy lady begging with one of the cups and attempted to ask her but she was no help at all. And then miraculously we finally stumbled upon Grom had divulged ourselves in delicious ice cream but the next day when we tried to find it again we had no such luck. The last day in Venice we met up with two aussie girls we had met in Naples and the seven of us attempted to bargain for a gondola ride soon learning they only allow six people on a gondola leaving us with little options. So instead we decided to all pile on a water taxi for 45 minutes and make it drive us around. This turned out to be great and we got a nice guided tour of the city from the canals. That night Ryan and I the cool couple we are fell asleep at 6:30 and didn’t wake up until nine the next morning to catch are train to the ferry terminal so we could head to Croatia.

I will leave you all at this cliffing hanging moment when you can ask yourself the questions did they make their ferry? did is sail safely across to Croatia? does Liseanne have an amazing tan now? where in the world is Carmen San Deigo? does Ryan have a ginger beard when he grows it for more then four days? All these questions and more will be answered in my next instalment bye for now
Hugs
Lele