Italy, the land of birds

There are a lot of birds in Italy. And they like to chirp at 6 am. And 7 am. And all other times when it is light out (which seems to be 6 am - 10 pm).

But that is not really important. Italy is also the land of Gelato (which is just slightly different then ice cream (though Knechtel will insist otherwise) and is pretty cheap and everywhere...we seem to eat it 3-5 times a day (honestly)). Oh, and the other thing you need to know about Italy is 'Prego'. To you, it may just be a pasta sauce. To Italians, it means everything. 'Hello', 'You're welcome', 'Word', 'Go ahead', 'Goodbye', etc...

We went on an overnight train from Interlaken to Venice a few (I'm too lazy to figure out exactly when) days ago. Venice was awesome. At least I thought so. Joj wasn't as big a fan. It is amazing to walk around a city with no cars. It is all just alleys and canals. We got lost a lot. But there are signs to the major sights everywhere, so we just learned what was near us, or what was near where we were going, and follwed the signs.

In Venice, we just walked around, and took the place it. It was pretty neat. We went to another Guggenheim art museum (seems to be a theme). Other than that, we just walked around. My favorite moment in Venice was one evening, having a dinner of pasta and pizza at a small resturante, when a band came and played for about 30 minutes in the street in front of us. We were just finishing dinner, so we ordered another liter of wine and listened for a while.

After a couple days in Venice (two nights) we caught a morning train to Florance. Florance was ok. It was really hot. The first day we just walked around, and hung out. The next morning Joj, Erti and I got up early and headed over to the world famour Uffizi meseum hoping to beat the lines. Well when we got there at 8, the line was long, and we eneded up waiting til 11 before we got in. Erti actually left at 10 cause he was tired of waiting. Joj and I spent 3 hours in the meseum looking at really old art and listening to our audio tour. It was actually really awesome. Saw about 6 things I was completely familiar with (which is a lot, as my art history is weak as can be). The audio tour was key, as I had no real understanding about how things like prespective and depth had to be discovered over time. So that kinda of stuff was explained to us, which was hot. We didn't go see David (we were all kinda arted out, and I personally get to see a naked guy named David all the time, so it's no big deal...). We also found a tex-mex place that had pretty good burritos (Va and Erti liked it the most, but they were both really drunk...and the meat was terrible, but the rest of the burrito was pretty good...anyway...).

Eventually on to Cinque Terra, which is these five smaller villages on the coast. It was beautiful. We (me, Erti, Va) spent a day hiking the trails between the villages (though the hike ended early when one of the trails was closed). Other than that, we swan and hung out and chilled. It was nice to relax after lots of meseums and whatnot. The beach was small and rocky. The water was crystal clear, but dirty in spots. Overall, the beach itself was pretty average. But still, it was such a beautiful backdrop...The pictures will have to do the rest here...

We stayed in the basement of this guy, Guin Luigi, who had it divided into four rooms. The room was meant for two, but we crammed in to save money and cause there werent many open spaced. He was the nicest guy, and we went to his wine shop and he would just pour us shot after shot of liquor and wine to taste.


After three nights in the village of Monterossa This morning we got up and headed to Milan. Our flight to Barcelona is on the night of the 4th, so now we are waiting to see if we get space in the good, cheap hostel, or if we have to cross town for the other. That's all for noce. Hopefully others will fill in what I left out...

Prego.