Venezia, Italy

I left Florence after a couple of nights there, and took the early morning train to Venezia... I was finally coming towards the end of my vacation and I was starting to feel really tired. As soon as I arrived in Venice, I got in line to buy my ticket to Basel. The line was so long, I figured better get it now.

Anyhow, you get out of the train station, and there you are! In a city, completely covered in water. It's pretty incredible. Again it was very easy to find the hostel, almost right across the street from the train station. Again it was very hot and humid, but there was some breeze which made walking around more bearable. Also, I really loved the old, water and moisture damaged look of the buildings... It's a place that's completely out of this world.

Everywhere you turn there's a small bridge, and in both sides there's a beatiful view to see... Streets are not too full when you get off the really touristy places (and it's pretty easy to tell when you're going in a direction that leads nowhere because there's only a few old ladies walking around with grocery bags) but I enjoyed my walks along the long stretches of sidewalks... It would have been perfect to jog in if it wasn't so hot and humid.

It took me some time to find Piazza San Marco, but I eventually did. The trick is to keep going straight if you don't see a sign that tells you which street to take. It's a beautiful Piazza, but I didn't go inside the museums at all... Again, from having been burnt out from all the sight seeing... Outside there was live music and cafes and you cannot escape the pidgeons... If you have some bread in your hands, they land on you and eat from the bread. They're quite fearless. When a table gets empty, they all fly over to it and start eating from whatever crumbs are left until a waiter slowly walks over and shoos them away. But for me, each time I see a big crowd of birds, I think of the movie "The Birds" by Hitchcock.

In Venice, there are many cute shops... But they all pretty much sell the same things. Either masks, or jewelry made of glass, or gelato... But there was one shop that had these more unique masks than the traditional "phantom of the opera" masks that you see all over... I thought it was very Trek'y...

And then there was this store... not sure if these jackets were for men or for women... the mannekens had men's faces, with strange women's bodies... so I'm not sure if the clothes were for men or for women... Took the picture really quickly so you can't see, but he/she was also wearing high-heels...

By now it's been 3 weeks since I was in Venice, so I can't remember all else that I was thinking/feeling, except being hot and tired...

However, in Venice, I had really good pizza and really good gelato, and I found them cheaper than the other cities, as well. The living accomodations were definitely more expensive, but the food I thought was cheaper.

Firenze, Italy

The next day after my Capri get-away, Eric and I said goodbye to each other and I left Sorrento on the train to Florence. I took the fast train, but it took about 3 hours to get there. I found my hostel very easy (a very nice place called Albergo Paola with free breakfast and internet) and got settled.

As I'd been going going going, I felt guilty about staying in and taking a nap, but I was feeling really tired. I ventured out, though... I found Florence to be quite small and cozy in comparison to Rome, and it was really easy to find Piazza Duomo... It's really really grand so with my dinky camera especially it was difficult to get the whole thing. But I must say, after small open places like Pompei, Sorrento and even Capri, I found Florence to be too crowded for my taste. I was surrounded by large groups of tourists everywhere I went. So I walked around as much as could to appreicate the buildings and the statues, but decided to not go inside the Duomo.

The artistic appeal of the city is quite evident all over, though. There are many American students walking around with their big cases for their drawings, going to and from their classes... There are young artists copying famous paintings with chalk on the streets... Such as this one, Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" which was not yet finished... But very impressive.

This is Ponte Vecchio, a very popular tourist spot, where there seems to be nothing but jewelry stores that sell gold, gold and more gold... Right above the arch, there are local musicians playing guitars, or singing songs... I spent a very nice evening there, just sitting around and enjoying the music while watching the sunset and people on bicycles going by.

The beautiful sunset from Ponte Vecchio.

The next day, I ventured out early and went to the Academia to see "the David" which is how the owner of the hostel put it to me. I must say, it was very impressive to see the real thing. I don't think I ever understood its appeal until I saw it in person myself. You cannot take pictures inside the Academia, so this picture is just one of the copies in front of the Uffizi gallery.

After the Uffizi, I went to the Boboli gardens one afternoon, where you can see a nice view of the city of Florence. It was a nice garden, but I will always remember it as the place where I was being stupid and broke my camera (and had to buy a new one afterwards).

There's also a porcelain museum in there, which I must say I really enjoyed looking at. First, it was much cooler inside than outdoors, but also all the delicacies of the little sculptures and how old some of them are, and how well they've been preserved over the years...

And here's one of the most impressive things about Florence... Ladies, need I say more?

I would like to come back to Florence again, because I feel like I did not enjoy it as much as I should have. For me, it was too crowded and way too hot, I felt tired and homesick by this time... I would like to come back to Florence in the autumn because I bet it's the most beautiful then. It's not Florence, it's me...

Isola di Capri, Italy

Eric and I left our camp-site in Pompeii and headed out to Sorrento... Our intent was to go to the Island of Capri from there and stay a night. Once we arrived in Sorrento, again without a place yet to stay, we found out at the tourist information office that Capri is very hoity-toity and they do not have any hostels or camp-sites for people on a budget, like us. So we decided to look for a hostel and found the cheapest one of my entire trip, for 18 Euros a night!!! We were told that Capri is just a short ferry trip from Sorrento. We spent the night in Sorrento, and the next day took the ferry to Capri first thing in the morning.

I was so excited about Capri, because I knew all about it from the one-liner from an Enrique Iglesias song, and I really just wanted to spend a day doing nothing, on the beach, try to even out my weird tank-top tan. The ocean air made me feel so wonderful and I couldn't wait to get there. As you can see, it looked so beautiful from afar, too!

We found a beach just a few hundred steps away from the docks and just layed out my towel there on a small amount of sand that was surrounded by rocks. This was exactly what I was looking for in Capri... The water was so wonderful, the perfect amount of coolness, with way too much salt for my taste. But after a couple of gulps which made me feel like I was going to choke, I learned to stop grinning with glee and keep my mouth closed while swimming. After some time Eric left to roam the island and I stayed to sun-bathe and swim for about 3 hours...

My intention for the day was just to stay at the beach, but then I got hungry and realized that I was turning quite red. I decided to pick a place where there was no cover-charge or service charge (this I learned from Eric) and decided to have a panini Caprese, which is a sandwich with mozzarella, tomatoes and basil (salad with these ingredients is also called Caprese) and decided to have my first (and turned out to be my last) alcoholic beverage in Italy, una birra! It was very light drinking it, but it was a large glass, so I was feeling its effects.

After lunch, I decided to follow the signs to the Capri Centrale, where Eric and I and two Swiss guys from the hostel said we would try to meet up if we could. It turned out to be a 15 minute hike up a corridor surrounded by beautiful houses. I kept walking and walking and walking, and in my tipsy state, I kept asking people "how much further up??" It felt like forever to get there and mind you, it was steep! Probably 40 degrees or something... Anyhow, I finally reached it and as you can see, the view from the top is fantastic!!!

Basically it's your average rich island, with rich people, rich (but really really awesome!) houses, and rich stores... I tried to imagine what it must be like to live here, but I don't think it's healthy for me to torture myself in such ways...

I'm sure there is more to do in Capri... I think you can take a train ride and go all around the island... Probably it has some incredible history... But I was there for swimming and sunbathing, and I got what I wanted, so at the end of the day, I was so so happy!!!

Pompeii, Italy

So Eric and I left Napoli, a short train ride to head out to Pompei... He was really excited about it, and I was really ignorant, but it sounded fabulous, so I was game!

Basically, the history is, (from Wiki): Pompeii is a ruined and partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, its sister city, Pompeii was destroyed, and completely buried, during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning two days in AD 79.

It's hard to include a large scale picture of Pompei... It's so much more about the details... They came across it by accident around the 1700's I think...

Pompeii is the only place where we took a guided tour because we wanted to know what we were looking at.

For example, this hole on the side of the road is for people to tie up their horses, carriages, or dogs, if they were dog lovers... (btw, there were many homeless dogs living in the ruins... and they guard their territories!)

This groove in the ground is called a vomitorium. When you had guests over or a feast, you would binge eat... and drink... And then you'd come in this room with the vomitorium, obviously with the intent to vomit, and then keep eating!!!

I didn't see a drain in there... Pretty disgusting!!!

Here's an idea of what the city looks like... it's full of what used to be homes, shops, bakeries... you name it. Archeological students still work on bringing about the details of the structures to find out more and more about each building, about the people of the times, the botanical history of the time... In some gardens, they've grown the exact plants that used to exist back before the earthquake... It's actually quite huge! We probably spent about 3 hours there, and did not cover the whole area.

They've recovered bodies... You may be able to tell, there are women, men, children... There was no escape! I can't even imagine what that was like to be covered with lava and to have died this way.

As there must be in every city, there was a bordello in Pompeii as well. I'm not showing it here, but each room has a different picture on top of the door, depending on on what kind of service you'd like to receive, you pick that room.

This is our tour guide, Mario... Offering me a cigarette after we exited the bordello...

We found out, it's tradition for all the tour guides to light up after leaving the bordello... At least the one in Pompeii... :)

I believe this was a bakery, with these brick ovens where they made the breads...

I really feel bummed right now because I feel like my words are just not enough to describe how amazed I was to be walking thru the ruins of Pompeii... My pictures don't really tell the wonderousness of the story and I must apologize for it. You really must see it on your own one day. It was so unbelievable!!!

If I can think of more creative details, I'll have to update later.

Napoli, Italy

When I was in Rome, a guy from Los Angeles, named Eric, and a girl from Taiwan, named Claire, stayed at the same hostel as me... After going around with them for a couple of days in Rome, Eric and I decided to venture out to Napoli, because I had heard such great things about it from the girls who I met my first night in Rome. My original plan was to go to Florence from Rome, but I figured a few days out of the schedule couldn't hurt.

And it was the best decision!

However, it was rough waters in the beginning. Eric and I took the 2.5 hour train ride from Roma to Napoli. As we got off the train station, though, I felt like I had just landed in a bad part of Istanbul. We didn't yet have a place to stay and Napoli is not like Rome, where there are 5 hostels in every block. We were tired and unsure, and I really didn't want to walk around with the heavy backpack on my back for too long, so we picked a place... Not my first choice because the room only had a double-bed... But whatever! I was also really cranky because of the hostel situation and was totally doubting myself for coming all this way with a guy I've only known for 2 days!!! Anyhow, once we settled in, Eric decided to venture out but I stayed in and just went to bed. That night I don't know how neither one of us didn't fall off the bed because you could have fit another two people in between us, or a really large person... Whatever! And there was so much noise coming from the outside!!! People were talking and singing in the streets... Dogs howling... ambulances going off...

Finally morning came... I told Eric that we were not leaving Napoli until we had the pizza. It's supposed to have the best pizza in the world!!! So we go out, looking for a pizza place, at 10AM!!! Everyone we asked told us it was too early. But we met a nice kid, who told us where to go for some sight-seeing and where we can find some good pizza. So we went back to the hotel, got our bags (as check out time is 11AM) and headed towards the city center.

We walked about 30 minutes to get to a nice safe area where we could do our sight-seeing. I asked Eric to take a picture of me since I felt like a pregnant turtle carrying both my backpacks.

We waited about 30 minutes or so for the pizza places to open up. As we were sitting on a bench, munching on some raisins I had bought from the store back in Rome, a homeless man (at least I think he was homeless) came up to me and opened up his palm... for some raisins... I gave him some, and he then walked away... It was one of the oddest and most heart-warming experiences of my life! I don't think I will ever forget his face.

Finally Eric and I picked a pizza place, because Eric thought it looked like an authentic mom-'n-pop place... Very nice little restaurant. Nice host/owner.. not sure which..

Before we sit down, I asked the guy "could you please tell me what is the best vegetarian pizza you have? one with a lot of veggies?" He points to one on the menu, which is Italian, but someone else has the English menu, and he'll give it to us once she's done. Finally we get the English menu, and we're comparing, and same pizza has different number of ingredients on the Italian menu compared to the English menu. So I ask him again... "this one is the vegetarian one, right?" "Si si si!!!" "OK, I'll take this one." The pizza comes... I'm like "what's this?" And Eric tells me it's anchovies!!! So much for vegetarian, but since I eat fish, I'm OK. Looks good, smells fishy, but OK. I've never had anchovies on my pizza before... makes me think of an 80's movie with Patrick Dempsey, named "Loverboy"... But I digress... The whole pizza tasted like anchovies!!! It wasn't bad, but needless to say, it wasn't the best pizza in the world. Eric got one with artichoke hearts and that looked much better. I think they brought me something other than what I picked... the list I saw did not include anchovies!!!

Then it turns out, as we talk to the pizza guys, it's not really a small mom-'n-pop pizza place at all. They have something like 200 of these places all over, even some in Miami!!! WHAT??? Anyways, I found this out after I took a picture with the pizza guys... You can probably buy these shirts on e-bay or something... Oh wellsky!

We left the pizza place because we could see this castle from the area, and we walked towards it. It looks like something out of a princess story book! This is Castel Nuovo!!! We didn't go inside, but outside was so magical, I'm sure the inside was another world. According to wikipedia, Castel Nuovo was "the nucleus of the historical center of the city." Fantastic!

Never judge a book by its cover... Napoli is a beautiful city, along the coast... once you get past the train station area. The walk along the coast was so wonderful, I forgot how heavy my bags were. We came upon another castle, and Eric went inside, but I just wanted to sit outside and look at the Mediterranean... There were people swimming and sun-bathing right below my feet... There were people getting their wedding pictures taken in front of and inside the castles... It was just really breath-taking! I wish that we could have spent more time there, but we decided to keep moving... And see other even more exciting places!!!

Coming up -- Pompei!!!

Roma, Italy

Although getting to Roma was quite eventful, I was so excited to be here! It was quite easy for me to find my hostel and get situated. I had never stayed at hostels before so that itself was a new experience for me.

As soon as I put my bags away, I ventured out to get some food and walk around. It was hard to believe I was in Rome!!! I was breathing the Roman air, and kept wanting to pinch myself and couldn't stop smiling.




After making phone calls back home to let them know I arrived safe and sound, I started following the map the lady at the hostel gave me. Once I got on Via Natzionale, I could pretty much keep walking to hit many historic sites. I spent 4.5 days in Roma, and I could have spent more.


This is the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II (National Monument of Victor Emmanuel II). It seems to be surrounded by ruins, and it's a wonder to me that it's in such good shape being in the middle of these ruins.



At the hostel, I met some girls, and the next day with one of them we ventured out to the Vatican City.

This is St. Peter's Basilica. There was such a long line outside to enter it that we decided to skip out on it that day. A couple of days later, with some other people from the hostel, I went there early in the morning and got to see the inside. It's pretty amazing, the art, the history, the nuns!!! Actually, in the Vatican, everywhere you turn, there are nuns... more than priests, actually, I think!





I had to take a picture of the guards at the Vatican... So unintimidating!



















As we were walking towards Castel San Angelo, there was some construction going on in Fiume Tevere... Granted it was a hot day, but I never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined seeing a construction worker in speedos, working with nails and nail-guns and hammers, etc. But I guess if you want to get an all-over tan, you do what you have to do!!! Zoom in if you don't believe your eyes...










This is me, at the Spanish steps... One of the first afternoons I spent solo. It's really not very steep but I had to catch my breath once I reached the top. At the top, there are many artists painting pictures, drawing your caricature, etc. And it's a wonderful view of the city. In front of the steps, there's a fountain, but it's not so magnificent compared to many of the other fountains in Rome.






For example, the most wonderful fountain I think in all of Italy, is Fontana di Trevi. I fell in love with this fountain. It was impossible to take a the whole thing in in a picture because not counting the fact that it's so big, but it's also very crowded. The water was so clear though, and since it was so hot, I was so tempted to jump right in. People seemed to be sitting there for hours... I heard that you toss a coin and make a wish to come back and see Trevi fountain. I came here twice during my stay in Rome. LOVED IT!!! It was a cold drink of water in that heat.








Although I went to where the Colliseum is located twice before, I only finally had time to go inside it on my last day in Rome. I must have spent a couple of hours in there, and if it was not so hot, I could have spent more time in awe of it. I didn't take a tour, but I tried to listen to the tour guides as much as I could. They set you straight about the un-truths in some of the things in "The Gladiator" movie, such as the "thumbs up" which I guess never was used. It's incredible to see where they kept the gladiators and the lions and the tigers, etc. It was amazing walking thru it. Again, had to keep pinching myself in disbelief!








And finally, the real Roman gladiators in front of the Colliseum!!!

As I was taking his picture, they call you to get a picture taken with them. But you have to negotiate on how much ahead of time. Being on a budget, I was happy to find a happy family of gladiators and get a free picture of my own.






Rome was my favorite city in all of Italy... I took more than a hundred pictures there, but none of them really do it justice. I was really not very interested in the food when I was there, and mostly ate bread and cheese and fruits from the supermercato. I was walking around so much, all day long, and I couldn't get enough of it. I was really tired from 4.5 days of sight-seeing, but I would do it all over again.

Rome -- the round-about way

I had been really excited and nervous about my trip to Italy, but my day actually started out well. Woke up on time, Ingrid brought me to the SFO on time, took off to transfer in Philadelphia on time.
From then on, things started changing. There was some turbulance and the plane had to be on a holding pattern for about an hour so by the time I got off the plane, it was 5:55pm and the plane to Rome was to leave at 6:10pm. So I ran like I never ran before, with my big backpack and my small backpack. I was so out of breath. When I saw people at the gate, I relaxed because I was there by 6:00pm, only to find out that those people were not being allowed on, just like me. They had to close the doors 10 minutes before so they wouldn't let us on, even though the plane was still there. I was so mad... I could not believe the pilot didn't inform the next plane that we were going to be late.


So I had to go to the service desk and try to get on a different flight. The lady gave me a new ticket to Madrid and then from there to Rome. That plane was supposed to land in Madrid at 8am and take off to Rome at 9am. But that plane ended up leaving 3.5 hours late with us sitting in the runway with no idea as to when we were going to take off. Lucky for me, when I first found out that it was going to be late, I changed my Rome ticket to leave at 12:35pm.


The only funny part about waiting was that the kid sitting in the aisle across from me kinda kept me entertained, staring towards the window and saying "1 hour later..." "55 hours later..." It was quite funny.


Finally arrived in Madrid on time and got on my plane. As I found my seat and I was getting ready to put my backback up in the compartment, I heard two men starting to yell at the very back row, just a few rows away from me. Then I see them looking like they are trying to revive a third man, couldn't tell from what. I thought maybe he was having a seizure. Then one of the men yelled "Medico!!!" calling for a doctor. The man asked for gloves from the flight attendant and then gave the sick man a shot... There was blood on the man's arm and it got on one of the seat covers, too. The man who gave him the shot also had hand-cuffs with him, not sure why, because he wasn't dressed like a cop. The sick guy was finally revived and breathing and coughing, after which the medics arrived and checked him out. I had no idea what was wrong with him. I think they tried to get him to go to the hospital, but he refused to, and about 30 minutes later than we were supposed to, we

Genova, Italy - Torta, futbol and trumpets

I never thought that I would be able to see a futbol (soccer) match while I was in Genova, but I guess I was lucky that my co-worker Pier asked if I would like to go, and another co-worker, Matteo, was able to get me a ticket for a minor league game. I was really excited for the opportunity and it was so much fun.




We set off Thursday from work to the part of town where the Genoa Stadium is. First we got some Focaccia bread from a store, which was extremely yummy! So warm and soft and salty. Not like the ones we get in the U.S. It was so delicious.

Then we went to a small restaurant and Pier helped me order my vegetarian Torta Pasqualina and Farinata di ceci. Basically cakes made with spinach and rice and chick peas and garbanzo beans... Don't let the picture deceive you. It's all very delicious! Especially with some red vino.

After the restaurant, we walked over to the stadium. But before going in, we stopped over at a bar next door to get some beers and drank outside. It was a really nice night, with people wearing their Genoa team colors, rossoblu (red and blue).

Watching futbol, you stand up the entire time... and then you sit down during intermission... then you stand back up when the second half starts. I was doing a lot of people watching of the futbol fans... There was a guy who was walking around, asking people for a "trumpet" which my co-worker Mauro informed me that is a nick-name for a joint. I was thinking, "that's a strange name" but then I saw one, and knew why. It's for the way they roll it. I might be naive, maybe this is a common thing... I realized then there were trumpets everywhere... I was worried I was gonna get a contact high. But no...

My co-workers Mauro, Matteo, and Pier. There was also Filipo (gosh, I hope I'm spelling the names correctly), but he was away when I took the picture (mi dispiace!). But he's in the video!

The Genoa team won, 2-0, and I had a blast with questi ragazzi... Pier was singing the futbol songs the loudest, and it was a really fun experience for me. Italians are very friendly, and very funny, and my coworkers kept me very entertained with their light-hearted jokes and conversations. I had a blast!

Lugano, Switzerland

On Friday, May 1st, I took the train from Genova, Italy to Lugano, Switzerland. The first connection was to Milano, which was about an hour and a half from Stazione Principe in Genova. Then the connecting train took about another hour. It was really nice to take the train in Europe, as this was my first time. Although both times someone took my window seat. The first time was an old couple and they were just so cute, I didn't mind. But the second time was an ugly guy wearing sun-glasses indoors, obviously thinking it's hot to wear 80's style golf pants and his girlfriend (they weren't Italian, so I won't hold it against the country)... Even after showing them my ticket, he kept acting like it was their seat... Then they kept sending little kisses to each other, which was really disgusting! At first I couldn't fathom sitting there for a whole hour, but thank goodness they got out in Como so I could seat in my window seat for half the trip.

Lucky for me, things vastly improved from that point on. Cousins Lerna and Tamar came to greet me, and after many years of not seeing each other, it was quite emotional for me to see them.



In Lugano, Switzerland, with my cousin-in-law Sarkis and my 2nd cousin Alin...

Here we are in front of a fruit stand where you cannot handle the fruit. You have to specifically ask the fruit-man to bag the ones you want.

With Sarkis, Alin, cousin Tamar, and Tamar's fiance, Allen.

A chocolate shop in the city center.









At cousin Lerna's house... Everyone's laughing at me saying "Ismail" instead of "Smile"... I guess that's not as common among Armenians in Switzerland as it is within my family back home. :)





Sarkis was in charge of the vegetarian BBQ... Those on the grill are cheese patties and a tofu sausage.










Allen was in charge of the real meat... As you can see, he's really into it and had to concentrate very hard.





With cousin Lerna, Allen, Sarkis, Tamar, Armin and Alin.


Finally we get to eat... Everything was so very tasty... Well... almost...







Here, cousin Armin's reaction to the tofu sausage... After taking a small bite, the verdict was in. I didn't even try it.










So I had the honors of feeding the tofu sausage to the dogs, Sirun and Terry, who didn't mind it one bit.






We had a lovely breakfast with all kinds of cheeses and meats and tea Armenian style. I was so lucky because after a rainy work week, the weekend was so lovely, and so enjoyable at Lerna and Sarkis' lovely home and backyard.






I had a joyful 3 day weekend in Lugano with my family. The weather, the city, the company. One can really not ask for anything better.

And finally, a short video of Lugano from the train...