"hola...ciao...bonjour...howdy doody doo...it´s all the same to me at this point. city after city, they´re all the same. it´s time to head home! hey, what do you know? i leave for the Bay Area in 2.5 days, not that I´m counting the seconds. really!
so, where did I last leave off? (the rubber´s burning.) oh, I landed in Rome. yes, this is where things get REALLY interesting. so, we stayed with Omar for a week. (Thank you Omar!!! we had a fantastic time with you...and thank Wolfgang again.) At least that was our intention. Omar took us on a fantastic excursion to Umbria that weekend. It was definitely a scenic and cultural highlight of the trip. Classic Italy. we saw a number of small towns all built on hills. (i think this was due to protection from invading warriors back in the day, and trust me, those steep hills were effective.) Todi, Perugia (home of the famous Baci hazelnut chocolate), Assisi (and the tomb in the Basilica, where St. Francis´ body is buried), Spoleto, Gubbio, and...ahem...NORCIA. yes, well, as a vegetarian, all I can say is, what a gorgeous mountain town but plug your nose! (Omar and X will give you a different opinion, I am sure.) so, we walk into this place and the aromas start up immediately. stuffed boars and foxes and pigs everywhere...boar skins hanging in doorways...molded pig legs and sausages, hanging in doorways, ugh!...stinky as hell cheeses everywhere covered in dirt...and the BEST, culetto, which is truly the following (those of you with sensitive stomachs, ignore this description): pig BUTT meat stuffed in a pig bladder and hung in a basement, not refrigerated, for two years to mold and ferment and do whatever the hell it does. culetto is literally translated to "lovely little buttness," and the method of production is considered "unmodern" in America. go figure! well, this culetto stuff is a delicacy. once we left Nocia, no kidding, ask the guys, the aroma kept with us for hours. the scent particles attached themselves to our nose hairs. i have to stop talking about Norcia now because I am getting queasy. anyways, the weekend we went north to Umbria there were truffle festivals taking place. Truffles are fungi that grow in the ground at certain times of the year and little pigs go out and sniff for them. Once they start digging, a specially trained dog comes and scares the little piggies away, revealing a truffle (white or black), which is an extreme delicacy in Italy, a very expensive one, approx $200 per half pound. in fact, these things are so valuable, only 100,000 or so people are registered truffle finders. we got to sample truffles, that was something special. (turns out i am not a big fan.)
after Umbria, we hung out at Omar´s, literally sat on our bums for three days glued to the TV, watching the election. (i´m not even going there in this email.) in fact, i was so much in a daze about the whole thing, i screwed up our flight date and we missed our plane back to Spain! (thanks again, Omar.) so, we were "stuck" in Rome for 3 more days, which turned out to be pretty sweet. We got to attend a house party on some Roman island in the city (only two apartments on the whole island!) hosted by a famous artist, which was neat in principle. (fyi, Omar studied the guy in school, so he was really stoked to meet him...ironically he ended up in a heated argument with the guy by the end of the night over politics and now thinks he´s and asshole, ha!) interesting people, serious darts, way too much liquor, although i was good. :) needless to say, it was an interesting night, trying to maneuver through the city with two drunk boys in arm at 5am.
so, the night of our second flight came. i was paranoid about missing it, so we gave ourselves 5 hours to get to the airport. we got on the bus, which came 45 minutes late...then there was a traffic jam, the first we experienced in the city. (X says, when it can´t happen, it does!) all this took 1.5 hours or so. finally, we got to the metro. get this: X WAS PICKPOCKETED. a clan of gypsies stole his wallet. too many details to rehash, but I saw the wallet in midair and started yelling at the guy. I grabbed one of them and rummaged through his pockets, but 4 or 5 of them ran off the metro at the next stop. we ran out after them, but with our heavy packs, we didn´t stand a chance. no police in the area, so we hunted around for the station above ground. eventually, we ran out of time, so we got back on the metro and made it to the airport with literally 10 minutes to spare. X got onto the airplane with a photocopy of his passport. hmm...don´t you love RyanAir! we got back to Barcelona sans X´s passport, CA ID, credit cards, money, etc. Everything was gone.
This pickpocketing occurred on a Saturday night. The US consulate in Barcelona was closed until Monday, which was also the date of our cruise. (oh yeah, X and I booked a Mediterranean cruise to relax the last week of our trip.) amazingly, we walked into the consulate at 9:45am that Monday, and he had a new passport by 10:15, no kidding. UNFORTUNATELY, we made the cruise. let me explain. The cruise was great. We saw Nice, Civitavecchia (the Roman port, which was cool because it had surf), Naples (yes Foster, the drivers are nuts...i got clipped by side mirrors countless times, and the heel of X´s flipflop was run over by a car as he was crossing the street!), Malta and Tunisia. Before I continue with my reasons for hating the cruise, I´ll tell you about Tunisia. It was awesome. Totally third world, but truly hilarious. We get off the boat, and are immediately attacked by taxi drivers. These guys were seriously fighting with each other, hitting each other, trying to get closest to X and me for our business, yelling out prices. We were joined by a Portuguese couple, and the four of us joined forces for a better deal. We were sold by a guy who would take us all into Tunisia City for 10 euros total (we landed in La Goulette, a 10 minute drive from the city). We all pile into his car, and the price all of a sudden went up to 10 euros EACH! we started to get out, then it went down to 12 euros total...we just got out. Then, a policeman comes over and took the guy´s number off his car, and all the cars surrounding him. He´s like, in French, these guys aren´t registered drivers. holy cow! we head back to the "registered drivers" while the "unregistered" group chases us, yelling at us, and we get into another car. This new guy offered 10 euros total outside of the car, then it went up to 12 euros in the car, so we started to get out, and he dropped down to 10 euros. My god!!! the insanity. so we finally get into Tunisia, make our way to the medina. wow. This made Morocco seem tame. The medina was so crowded with people, one couldn´t walk through it. you just went with the flow, and maybe made your way into a store of interest. (of course, bargaining in the stores is a pain in the ass.) Claudia, our new Portuguese friend, and I got groped. Greeeeeeeat. Enough said.
After a couple of hours, the rain started. (yes, this is when it gets really interesting, so keep reading.) Tunisia essentially flooded in a matter of minutes. there were huge, deep puddles everywhere. we walked by a hotel...the front was flooded, water pouring into the lobby. I have to mention this is the first rain of the year. not the cleanest water! we run over to the train...we learned about the train while in the city, only 1 euro for 4 people to La Goulette, much better than a taxi. once back in la goulette, the rains had stopped, the sun broke, everything seemed to dry up, so we walked around a bit in that small town. made our way into a farmers market. yummy. a puddle of sewer rested in front of the veggie tables, and some guy walked through it barefoot.
now, let me explain. those rains passed quickly. Claudia mentioned a lightning storm in the Mediterranean, but there were no announcements on the boat about bad weather, no warning, etc. we´re like, it´s probably short-lived, nothing to worry about. ha! (ok, here goes my anti New Flamenco cruise spiel.) we get into our cabin and watch BBC World. the weather comes on. the entire Med sea is red. huh? the boat leaves the port. everything seems fine. it´s "elegant" night, so X and I dress up, grab some drinks, check out the show on board, eat dinner, head down for bed. we start watching BBC again, and it begins. The boat starts rocking like mad. every now and then, there´s a crash. this goes on and on and on...there is still no announcement by the captain. seriously people, it gets scary, and in fact, it gets so bad, i start freaking out. things are falling all over the boat. our stuff flies all over the cabin. i did not sleep a WINK all night. X was up all night telling me everything was ok. we head into the lounge at 4:30am to get a view of the waves, and it´s dark, so we don´t get a great view. (is that good or bad?) my stomach starts up with sea-sickness. around 7am, i get some sleep for a couple of hours or so when another crash wakes me up. it´s still going! i was ill at this point, totally freaked out (i was shaking for over 12 hours), tired as hell...still, no announcement! was our captain crazy? i thought i was, so we left the room wanting to see if everyone else was taking this lightly. yeah, as X said, it was like walking into "the walking dead." we barely made our way up the rocking stairway, just as some guy ran out of the dining room, vomit pouring out of him into his hands. (sorry for that description, but it is needed for effect.) the staircases were loaded with bags, and people were using them. the illness just creeped up on you out of nowhere, and oh boy, were those bags useful! the boat was actually empty. X thought I would feel better if we sat upstairs and watched the waves. not a good idea! i never want anything to do with the sea again after this experience. the swell was huge!!! 15 feet lines coming right at us, slamming into the boat, which really wasn´t that big! (no stabilizers on the thing, it´s so old...really, the ghetto cruise!) turns out we were in the middle of a Force 10 storm. that is touching the edge of a hurricane, folks. we come to find out that 1) we weren´t supposed to leave Tunisia that night in the first place because of the storm, yet we did, and 2) a typhoon missed our boat at la goulette by a few feet...it passed right in front of our boat, tore apart a neighboring boats tie-line to the dock, and prevented another boat from docking. we finally got the announcement. the captain was changing course, and he told us to have a safe trip! huh? isn´t that, like, HIS responsibility?!!! everyone on the boat is sick, freaked out. the lounge turned into an infirmery. the entertainment show was cancelled. We heard a couple older gals paid the doctor 100 euros each to go into their room and give them sedative shots after the doors ripped off their closet. Insane...insane...insane. The storm subsided after 36 hours. I vow never to go on a cruise again. I hate the sea. I will never surf again. I hate that captain. X and I were looking at some pictures of the crew before getting off the boat, finally (8 hours behind schedule), and a picture of the captain was there. A guy walked by and commented, "cabron." yeah, that´s not a nice thing to say about someone. the funny thing was, people are supposed to leave a cruise relaxed. all the passengers walked out looking tired, pissed, haggard...the passengers waiting for the next voyage were like, what the hell happened? oh, if only they knew! the cruise from HELL!!!!!!!!!! really though, up until the storm, it was a good time. We met some great people (couldn´t meet too many peeps...we were on a Spanish-speaking cruise, after all!), including a guy our age who threw away his college degree to sing on cruise ships. We saw a few new cities. Got daily showers and lots of sleep. Spent so much time reading, I got through 4 books. Oh yes, X got food poisoning from the lasagna. That wasn´t such a great time!
so yeah, that cruise was my "relaxing" portion of the trip. we´re in barcelona now. we did the tourist thing before the cruise, saw Park Guell, the church of Sagrada Familia, the cathedral, the rambla, etc. This city is sweet. I saw a Starbucks here, actually went in to get a coffee. I threw it in the trash it was so bad compared to the coffee I´ve been drinking for two months now. anyways, we just bought train tickets back to Madrid to catch our flight out in two days. that´s right. it´s already been two months. I´m coming home...not soon enough!!! (although the way this trip has gone, I am really worried about my flight.)
signing out.
gg"
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