so the last week was interesting…

I flew to Milan for some scheduled meetings for work, and by Thursday I was ready to leave. Not sure if Milan just wasn’t my thing or I was feeling under the weather, etc. The final conclusion was that Milan was not my type of city, it reminded me of Bakersfield. Yeah, that Bakersfield. The Duomo was beautiful, and the shopping may have been incredible had it not been for me working ’til their closing hours. The trip was summed up into: meetings, walking back to hotel, walking down to bar, walking back to room.

So I woke up to a twitter feed full of discussions about Volcano eruptions that Thursday, and didn’t really put much though into it. By mid-day I realized that my flight might be in jeopardy, when I arrived to the airport I knew I was royally F#@#@! I was then told during check-in that I had 2 options, fly into Paris or Frankfurt. I don’t know French but I definitely don’t know German and I did know that you could get to London by train (yeah, I’m smart 😉 I originally thought the airline was doing us a favor by trying to get us closer, and offering to help locate a rail solution when arriving to Paris—that was the thought until I arrived in Paris. There was no one to greet us, no information and no manned desk. WTF!!??

I know what you’re planning to comment up to this point, perhaps “could be worst places to be stuck”, or “lucky you, I’m in Nogales”. That’s not the point, but I agree. So I was temporarily displaced in Paris for a total of 4 days, 3 nights and Paris is expensive. Most hotels (including the one I stayed in) was well over 160 euros a night, calculate that here. I finally found a one way ticket on Eurostar to get me home late at night on Sunday, a ticket that cost 223 euros…., if you want to feel bad for me, go to that link again.

I’m back in London now, and I plan to stop whining as well (for now).

Enjoy Paris:

Staring at the Sea

Took the train down to Cinque Terre , which was my first time at any “Riviera“, not counting the one on the Strip. I didn’t mess up the experience by being a tourist and buying keychains, I just saw on some rocks and started at the sea.

I accompanied it with a small soundtrack, as the sounds of the ocean were too cool to ignore for a long period of time:

Kite-U2

Estranged-Guns N Roses

Sometimes-James

Fuera De Mi-La Ley

I’ll let you read into the songs. I thought a lot about how I don’t get out to the ocean much in San Francisco, and that could be attributed to the lack of “life” I had in my work/life balance. Now that I’m unemployed, I will have more time to do so, but I also feel the next job has to have some boundaries (set by myself). Perhaps my biggest regret is that I gave so much to the last job that I never really appreciated the life that it gave me. Yeah, shitty, but at least I got to go to Italy. Thanks eBay 😉

Florence

Another easy train ride to Florence, and amazing weather greeted us. I’m thinking that Obama needs to hurry up and approve these high speed trains in the U.S, I’m betting that even Bobby Jindal would take one here in Italy.

I further embraced my public transportation by taking a bus up to Fiesole on a tip from a friend and had dinner at the most amazing place, called Ristorante I Polpa. I could not finish the plate, I feel bad for the cow they killed to make my dinner 😦 Oh and the Chianti was amazing, and I drank way too much. Round 2 is tonight

On the way to the Forum…

Nothing really funny happened, it was so intense and unreal. Sure, I somewhat watered down the mystique of it all by having a beer outside the front gate and eating overpriced Gelato while checking out all the cute german girls (not sure if they were teens or adults, eek).

But it was pretty damn EPIC, no doubt.While in the Colosseum, I listened to the Verve’s “Love Is Noise” through my headphones while looking out and it was spine chilling, for me at least 😉

The road to Rome is filled with many tunes

After spending 24 hours in Venice (we’ll be back on Saturday), we jumped on a train to Rome. I decided that the ride would be best spent with a nice “soundtrack’. The songs didn’t start out intentionally having a theme, but it kinda ended up that way.

I call this playlist “tripped and fell”, after the same titled song by Townie that made it on the list 😉

(Celebration) Got It Right This Time
Keith Urban

Motorcycle Emptiness
Manic Street Preachers

C’Mon People (We’re Making It Now)
Richard Ashcroft

Movin’ On Up
Primal Scream

Tripped and Fell
Townie

Desolation Row
Bob Dylan

Mrs Potter’s Lullaby
Counting Crows

Then I went on shuffle while dozing in and out, so not an exact order:

Win, Lose or Draw
Allman Brothers

Helplessly In Love
Debbie Gibson
*yes, I have her on my ipod, she was a teen idol when I was a teen!

Sky Blue
Peter Gabriel

Long Walk Home
Bruce Springsteen

El Novio Del Olvidio
Andres Calamaro

My time is all screwed up…, day 1?

The good news is that I’m alive and LOVING Venice! The bad news is my internal clock is all messed up. Right now it’s 12:42am in San Francisco, but in Venice it’s about to be 9am. I slept about 7  hours of DEEP sleep, but still feel all groggy.

The flight to JFK was smooth sailing, and the flight to Venice was just as nice. I ended up sitting next to a genuine Italian who didn’t speak any english, but it did not stop her from thoroughly enjoying “The Express” and clapping loudly when Ernie would score a touchdown (as well as being visibly upset when she found out about his death). I was extremely proud of myself, I only went to pee 5 times total, for both legs of the trip, that’s a record for me. I’m also proud to say my streak continues, I have yet to go #2 on any flight! Flying into Venice was gorgeousWe really lucked out with our Hotel, it’s on the water and we actually left on our Gondola ride a few feet away from the front steps of the hotel. This was the view going back:

Though our flights were relatively cheap, and the whole world is going through a recession, this is STILL Europe, so for those of you planning a European vacation, please note that you’ll still have to pay 3 Euros for a Diet Coke 😉

Now the Gelato on the other hand, that’s 1.50 Euros and SO WORTH IT!

We’ll be on our way to Rome shortly, can’t wait to see all the hookers near Vatican City!

Ciao!