my little (mis)adventures

Q: "is this organic?", A: "it's naturally irish"

dianacchan — Thu, 6 Aug 2009 10:06:00 GMT

some guy asked that to the shopgirl about a bar of soapp in one of the many souvenier joints in dingle and that was her answer, i just still think its funny.

so the dee & ed road trip continues: dingle was a good time, did a couple of loooong day drives. slea head, around the dingle peninsula was really good, saw like an ancient fort dating back to 500bc or something and some old beehive huts made out of stones that monks used to live in.

the ring of kerry was also good, we were on the road for like 9 hrs. valentia island was really nice and we ended in killarney which is like ireland on steroids or something. it had all the super irishness of small towns (ie. lots of souvenier shops selling anything that has to do with sheep, leprachauns, guiness and ginger haired dolls in green dresses, and chinese and indian restaurants and pubs pubs pubs) but as a city. well a city by ireland standards anyway. oh and i have to say, i am in love with paddy malone in dingle. this old man just singing his heart out and playing the guitar in onen of the pubs, he was sooo good. im gonna name my future cat after him. we went to see the cliffs of moher which were great. we had to climb over a wall and ignore the "extreme danger" signs to walk along the cliffs. we were the only ones in flip flops whereas EVERYONE else was in hiking boots. who are these people?! (prepared people, i gueeessss) we stayed in doolin which was a tiny little fishing village, spent most of our time in mcdermotts pub. did a day out to inis oirr, one of the aran islands and it was sooo good! the only drawback is you have to go in a smallish boat in the choppiest water EVER to get there (oh the seasickness, oh god). plus it was the ONLY fully sunny day i had in ireland, in 19 days, one day. but its so nice! its very small and had a nice sandy beach, and everywhere is criss crossed with old stone walls. we overheard one american say, "they must really like to build walls". i think that was the best part of all of ireland. and its irish speaking so everyone sends their skanky teens to the islands to learn irish. that part isnt the best but i just thought id mention it. ended our road trip in galway which was good. it was the horse races so it was mental, maybe too mental! and now im about to leave my friend claire;s in arbroath, scotland and go back to edinburgh!

cows, rain & knackers

dianacchan — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:06:00 GMT

had a great time on the horan family farm. had my first ever sunday roast dinner, mammy horan made roast chicken, bacon, stuffing, potatoes, carrots, brocolli, carrots...it was my first proper meal in i dont even know how long. defintiely the first time ive had vegetables in weeks.

ed met up with me in cashel and we went to see the rock of cashel. and just then it was SUNNY! it was really nice, castle ruins ontop of a hill, in the countryside. and it was sunny! irish miracle!

in the cashel visitor info centre i found the funniest thing: you can buy bags of IRISH DIRT. just a plastic bag of soil, for NINE EUROS. i'll admit, the packaging was flash, but seriously. oh and on it it says you can plant real irish lucky shamrocks (shamrock seeds not included). ooooh people will buy anything! (i shouldnt be allowed to talk, i bought a lanyard with leprachauns, sheep and cows on it)

back on the farm, i tried milking a cow. sort of. i put suctiony things on 2 udders on one cow. it counts i think. i like to think id be a good farmer, but i definitely didnt wanna rub cream onto the cows udders withmy bare hands, nuh uh.

so my main 2 big things in ireland are 1. cows and 2. pikeys/knackers. oh and ive seen knackers! the first time, i took a couple photos out the car window of their caravans in clonmel cus ed didnt wanna stop for fear of death by pikey. then at the tesco i saw heaps and heaps of fat pikeys! plus we had just missed a pikey brawl across the road. oh it was good.

on one of the days we went to kells priory which was really cool. all these ancient monastic ruins with sheep roaming around. then went to see kilkenny castle but i have to admit it was a bit disappointing. for example, in the tapestry room, there are no tapestries cus theyve all been stored for preservation or something. what the fuck. we also went down to waterford, but dont go there. its full of scummers. to round out our co. kilkenny experience, we went to piltown, mini's village to visit his mammy. she LOVED ed but she didnt know who i was for a good few minutes cus i introduced myself as diana. then a bit later she was like, 'are you dee!? i didnt know!' but she wants ed to live with her so thats good.

and now were on the ed and diana do ireland road trip! we been to cahir castle which is very good, there are some canon balls still embedded in the walls. there was also like this really old church thats all ruins with old tombstones all over the place all grown over with plants and weeds, it looked really cool. and we went to see a thatch roofed 'swiss cottage' which was cute. yay!

spent the last couple nights in ed's sister eithne's flat down in cork. on my birthday we went over to blarney and I KISSED THE BLARNEY STONE. i was never gonna do it but i did. its not what i thought, its at the top of a castle and you have to lie on your back and hold onto metal bars while some old guy's groping, ahem, holding you and you have to lean your head all the way back to kiss this rock. i hope i didnt contract any diseases. had a good night out and now were in dingle. its good cus ed has a mad 63 yr old lady friend margaret (shes totally mad, we drank with her and her daughter on friday, totally mad) and she's a b&b cottage here right next to the bay so here we are. living the dream!

"IN BRUGES"/in actual ireland, not just surrounded by irish people

dianacchan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:03:00 GMT

so first of all, traveller's nightmare: i was robbed!

just while changing trains in antwerp, belgium, got my wallet lifted right outta my purse! professionals i suppose. it was absolutely horrendous, i cried and cried and tried to go to the bathroom and the attendant wouldnt even let me cus i didnt have the 40cents to go in. what a bitch.

however there was some really nice people who helped me out, this belgian guy actually bought me my train ticket onto bruges (while asking, where are your friends!? do you have weapons!? mace!? why are you alone!?) and these american girls on the train gave me 5 euro to bus onto my hostel.

luckily enough i have a credit card my mom doesnt use and after much trouble that i wont get into, i can now access money. yay!

ANYWAY! i went to bruges! my mom was like, "are you in bruges cus of that movie?" "if i grew up on a farm, and was retarded, bruges might impress me"...with lines like that from the film, dont you wanna go to bruges too!? apparently in the 1800s there was a book that made bruges out to be a total shithole and that drew in visitors. and now with this film calling bruges a shithole, there are again loads of tourists.

but bruges is lovely, its so...so..disneyland! seriously though, cobblestone streets, horse drawn carriages, gorgeous buildings, loads of tourists... it was great. of course, bruges is not like the movie bruges like for example the tower you need to queue up and there's wire mesh over the windows at the top so i guess what happened in the movie cant actually happen. and jesus' blood is put out for like an hour a day and you can donate to touch the glass case. oh but it was good.

and oh god the BELGIAN FRIES. oh the mayonnaise. oh the fries covered in mayonnaise. and so apparently the fries are fried in beef tallow and maybe even horse fat. i choose to ignore this.

then i was off to brussels where their city mascot is a little sculpture of a little boy pissing. and there you have it, what else can i say about brussels really.

and then off i was to dublin! cant say i did an awful lot there but i did manage to drag my ass to the kilmainham gaol where all the easter rising leaders were kept and executed. and that was the morning after 2nd ever pub crawl, i was quite impressed with myself. managed to see miss emma kenny whom i worked with in melbourne. what started as a nice lunch turned into 2 older irish gentlemen buying us bottle after bottle of wine starting at 3 pm till we could both not properly function. i ate a double cheeseburger, deep fried mozza sticks and garlic cheese fries and then was passed out in bed by 9pm on a friday night. it was good to see emma!

i also managed to go to trinity college and saw the book of kells and then...i went shopping. and now im here on ed's farm! but were off at the moment so to be continued...

"you want to see windmills? uhhh...."

dianacchan — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:01:00 GMT

oh i wanted to see windmills sooo bad. and no one seemed to want to tell me HOW.
one of the guys working at my deranged hostel told me i could take a ferry from behind the central train station (oh reaaaallly) and then take a couple local buses but hes not really sure. then the guy at the visitor info centre said it wasnt possible buuuuut i could take a tour for 35euro that would take me there. i said i didnt wanna take a tour and hes like maybe you could take a train to some town but it would be terribly uncomfortable and from there on, he doesnt know.

sooooo after much pain and suffering, I SAW WINDMILLS AND I WILL OPENLY AND GLADLY SHARE WITH YOU HOW.

just go to central station and lo and behold, you can just get a return ticket for 5euro to zaanse schans which is 20 min away by train and then when ur there there's free maps and a free ferry across the canal to like a freaking windmill village! so there you have it.

and it was so good, i was so excited! im fully aware of how lame i sound but i was super super happy to see real working dutch windmills! there were a bunch of them all lined up along a canal, in the countryside with COWS and sheep everywhere! and a cheese factory with free cheese samples! and a wooden clog shop! oh it was so cheesey (in both senses of the word) and sooo good. and it was actually sunnyish (because the weather here is absolute shit) so it was a great afternoon.

other than that, ive finally succeeded on going on one of the free walking tours that everyone keeps ragging on me for for not going on in the other cities. the museums here are really good even though there are generally massive queues for everything. and for some reason, everytime im queuing, its pissing rain. yay! but anyway ive liked all the museums i been to, anne frank's actual house (very depressing, surprise surprise), the van gogh and today the rijksmuseum which has a lot of rembrandt.

aaaaand what was EXTRA good about amsterdam is that i got to see michel, whom i knew from darwin and marc from back in the day in melbourne. actual yay! so good to see more friends whom i havent seen in over a year! and imagine that, hanging out with actual dutch people in the netherlands. crazy. michel introduced me to FEBO, deep fried EVERYTHING that you buy out of dispensers in the wall. apparently the dutch version of mcdonalds. while i dont like the log shaped deep fried meat things, i do like the deep fried cheese souffles. and it was very nice of marc and his girl to spend more time on the trains from eindhoven coming to see me than actually with me. just sad we didnt have more time, but i feel so special.

and im off to see a movie ALONE tonight! my cold has resurfaced and i generally feel rather shite so its a very good option for me. this is my new thing, i watched transformers the other night ALONE as well. it took a lot of courage but i did it. im a real independent woman now. like destinys child.

berlin... and christians in amsterdam's red light district

dianacchan — Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:15:00 GMT

i LOVE germany!

dresden was really nice cept i came down with the mother of all head colds and could barely function. dresden was the most bombed city during WWII or something but theyve rebuilt it pretty damn good. due to my cold i was rather disoriented and am not really sure what i saw for most of my time there but i saw great stuff for sure. how about that. what i DO remember seeing is a CANADIAN RESTAURANT. ok i dont know why but im still getting such a kick out of it, i even took a brochure. words can not even describe so check out this link: www.ontario-dresden.de/ the wolf, oh the wolf!

then i was off to berlin where i ran into a couple people that ive met before in other countries, imagine that. i wasnt even going to go to berlin but then im glad i did cause it was really really good. theres so much to see and do but i did a big chunk of it, the wall, checkpoint charlie, that big gate thing, jewish museum... all sorts of shit! the big stretch of the wall at the east side gallery has some amazing art on it. there was one really good museum that had the whole gate to babylon or something in it (im probably totally wrong). also at the parliament building they built some massive dome on top that you can go up in and get a great panaromic view of the city so that was pretty cool.

also went on my very first pub crawl ever and i guess it was pretty good! not that i have anything to compare it to. the first bar was supposed to be set up like a beach or something, behind some big old buildings and there was some crazy old dude with a flame thrower. who knows. ended up in some club that had some rather unattractive cage dancers. not so sure whats going on with most of the bars in berlin, one night i went into one that was listed in the lonely planet (mostly cus it's right around the corner of my hostel)and it was supposed to be all the same decor as GDR times and they were playing some wierdo 60s music with beats, maybe? we were confused.

i even had time to go to the zoo and the aquarium (ok so i picked animals over museums and culture but whatever) sooo fun!

and now im in amsterdam, staying in the red light district. i know ive been hit on the head with a ping pong ball shot out of a thai girls cootch back in bangkok, but i still find the whole scene here kinda mental. just rows of girls standing at the window of their own little compartment, complete with bed and sink, trying to look hot in their bikinis or lingerie. and yes, lots of red lights. and fried food.

but you know whats the really fucked up shit? the CHRISTIAN hostel im staying in. i was like, oh its ok, how CHRISTIAN can it be! i like christians! well! there are numerous GOD LOVES YOU and JESUS signs, no drinking and smoking (ha!) and everyone that works there has to be christian. and then my worst nightmare: i met a crazy fanatical christian within 10 minutes of being there. there i was, eating some cheese, and this girl sits down. she works there. she loves jesus. starts reciting some bible verses, talked about how christianity saved her life from her 'dark years', talks about how hard it is to try and be as great as jesus cause jesus is perfect and did so much good shit. then i just sputtered, "ummm...im not christian" and she looked so wounded. she asked, "so where do u stand?" to which i replied, "like spiritually? uhhh nowhere. but my moms kinda catholic! and my grandma's buddhist..."

munich and on...heading back east (temporarily!)

dianacchan — Wed, 1 Jul 2009 16:58:00 GMT

so ive just arrived in dresden and i just bought the cheapest groceries (like 39 cents for a packet of spaghetti!) that its almost psychotic how excited i am over it. i am sooooo excited! and ive a kitchen in this hostel so i just cooked myself dinner which i also found verrrry exciting (im such a sad sad person).

anyway munich is definitely one of my favourite cities so far it was so good! one of the days i went out to dachau it was the first concentration camp and it was like the model for all the others so it was totally creepy and unsettling. its like youre in a room and itd say on the wall that that was the room where piles and piles of corpses were waiting to be cremated. sick!

the next day though i went out to fussen to the neuchwasstein (? im too lazy to google it) and...some other one that starts with a h...castles. the neuch one was built by crazy king ludwig or something and its the one that DISNEY based his castles on! the king was apparently quite mad and one of the rooms in the castle was actually built to be like a cave. crazy. only 16 rooms were completed before he died but definitely cool. only sucky part is being all hyper german organized or something you have to buy tickets for a certain time to go on a half hour tour of each castle sooooo this whole day trip took 10 hrs but i only spent a total of 1 hr in the 2 castles. oh well!

but munich itself is soooo nice just everything about it! the buildings are great especially the new town hall with the massive glockenspiel that has figurines dancing about when it chimes. theres a part where 2 knights joust and one gets knocked over and theres a collective GASP coming from all the tourists gathered around. i dont know if its THAT exciting now. and after that it play "i dont have a wooden heart" or whatever its called like the song by elvis which is probably interesting only to my mom and sister.

theres also a big english garden that for some reason has a chinese pagoda in it, with a big beer garden around it of course. and theres a river through it and part of it people SURF on. mental.

boo theres someone waiting to use the internet so i better start wrapping up. i was happy enough to meet up with michael who i met in croatia and is actually german. imagine, drinking in a beer hall with an actual german! and my obsession in munich: pretzels with butter and chives sandwiched in it. oh god. if i lived in germany, i would turn into a giant heffer.

the hiiills are aliiiive.../another city, another sausage

dianacchan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:38:00 GMT

so even though linda tay already rang me for all the details, perhaps other people wanna know all about the SOUND OF MUSIC!!!

so i went on the sound of music tour and it was pretty fun i have to admit. we piled onto a big tour bus with a whole sound of music motif plastered all over it and went out around the salzburg area. saw stuff like the lake where the von trapp residence looked out over, the gazebo, out to a small town called mondsee where the church the wedding took place was in. it was totally good if youre geeky like me! they also took us out to a point overlooking one of the glacial lakes and it was all surrounded by green mountains and oooooh i love austria! the tour was 4 HOURS long but oh no, that wasnt enough sound of music for me.

they gave us a map showing where every single scene in salzburg was filmed so off i went, the abbey, the cemetary, the works. ooooh it was good! PLUS it was the first sunny day in austria in like a month so its like i dunno, god wanted me to have a good sound of music day.

now im in munich and its really good here, just wandered around the old town today. ive had my 3rd mystery sausage here, theyve all been different and i dont know what any of them have been but theyve all been yummy. i also went out to a proper bavarian beer hall and had my first beer in years, a whole half litre glass and i cant say i enjoyed it but it had to be done. well see if i can get a few more down while im here.

schnitzels, mozart...and h&m

dianacchan — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:28:00 GMT

so if it hadnt been raining absolute BUCKETS the last few days, vienna would have been even better! apparently its been highly uncharacteristicly bad weather and there were even flood warnings. either way, im so loving austria, eating schnitzels and mystery sausage.

i went to my first ever modern art gallery in viennas famous museum quartier and i gotta say, i totally do not get it. there was one canvas that was just grey. another with crayon scribbles like on brown wrapping paper. then i saw a lady admiring this one piece which was just a bunch of cardboard boxes piled up on each other and she was oooohing and aaaahing and all "just look at that formation, oh my god its amazing". so i stared long and hard at it and all i noticed that was one of the boxes was for fig newtons. oh well.

but the next day i went to the leopold museum and it was amaaaaaaaazing. not like i know anything about art but it was all austrian art from the early 1900s and it was so so sooo good. i also went to sigmund freuds old flat which had been turned into a museum which was interesting.

and one night i went to the opera. and yes, by myself. had to queue up to buy standing tickets and it was for mozarts the magic flute. apparently, quite famous. id never been to an opera before and i must say it was quite good. luckily there were little individual screens that showed translations or i wouldve been more lost than i already was. im still not sure what happened but there was a prince who loves a princess and needs to save her from an evil but turns out to not be evil cult, maybe? there were people dressed up like animals and a queen with a big sparkly crown, it was good. the only not good part was that it was THREE hours long which i hadnt anticipated and by the end of it my back was killing me and i was starving, but it was only 3 euro so what can i say.

other than that, i did a heap of shopping which id avoided til now but coudlnt help it, it was pissing rain! for some reason there are like 5 h&m stores all within walking distance of each other basically and i needed pants...and then today i bought 2 pairs of shoes....

anyway now im in salzburg and its absolutely gorgeous! walked all over and went up to this big fortress on a mountain which had the most stunning views, really. sound of music madness all over the place. and tomorrow im booked in for the sound of music tour (im sorry linda tay it had to be done!!!) so looking forward to that! im a total loser, i know.

buda! pest!

dianacchan — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:12:00 GMT

after split spent one night in zagreb, capital of croatia. it was ok nothing special really. i tried finding this lord of the rings themed bar but failed miserably. i was good and ready to leave croatia and here i am now in the pest of budapest'

met some great people at this hostel, love it here i actuallz have my own freestanding bed with a comforter its amaaaaaaazing, truly. met 2 great girls, alyssa of texas and beatriz of brazil and we had a girls night out on the town. went to this "ruins club" instant which was 3 floors filled with like shit furniture and weird shit that people would generallz chuck out. it was weeeeeeirrrdd.

then that night, we found "mitch buchanan". the only hot guy ive seen in all of europe so far and the hottest guy in the universe. hes a bartender and possible rock climber and magical, we spent hours upon hours just gawking at him. and it was obvious. the manager of the place told us his name is mitch buchanan and we totallz believed it, even though itd be a bit odd for a hungarian name...then this aussie dude at the hostel broke it to us that its a character from baywatch. oh well.

next day we went to the castle in buda and wandered about there and went to the terror house which was the best. it was where the communists and nazis had their headquarters and is now a really cool museum, very good.

had some dinner at a hungarian fast food joint, im not really sure what i ate. was it chicken, was it beef? we couldnt tell. had little bottles of wine in some plastic coca cola cups aka what the guy there called "wine glasses" this whole trip is just pure class. a bunch of us went to some club on maragaret island and got home maybe 6 am and then today: worst, most horrible, wanting to die epic hangover of all time. by 4 pm all id done was nap and eat 2 mcdonalds cheeseburgers.

but me and beatriz got our acts together and dragged our sorry asses to the largest thermal bathhouse in the city park. we didnt know what to expect and when we first got there it was totallz weird. the change rooms or whatever seemed like a mental institute. the baths themselves are kinda cool, its just loads of different baths with different temperatures of water. the best one was outside and since its actually quite grey and cold here, the hot water was nice. whats not so nice is that ive never seen more hairy backs, pot bellies and man boobs in my entire life. i swear, biggest collection of ugliness in one building ive ever seen. horrendous. course we didnt bring towels with us so afterwards, we dried ourselves...with hair dryers. and now were home, showered and about to order pizza delivery and watch some dvds. gooood times!

slooowly creeping along from naples to split

dianacchan — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:15:00 GMT

croatia has made me sooo lazyyyyyy.

backtracking, ended up having a pretty decent time in naples minus the harassment and groping. went on a day trip to capri with "i texas texas" scott which was full of posh people and posh things. highlight was our little venture into the magical blue grotto. it felt very disneyland, had to queue up to pay 10 euro to lie in a rowboat cause the entrance to the cave was soooo low. had a good view of our 'captain's ass as he got us through the entrance. inside its totally cool, something to do with light refraction or something so the water is all lit up bright blue. we hadnt seen a photo of the grotto so didnt know what to expect so was extra magical. best 10 euro spent for 2 minutes of fun ever!

5th night in naples, ended up in a piazza with a bunch of people from the hostel where there was us and like 70 possible mafia guys drinking and smoking joints while leaning up against their vespas quasi staring at us. the thrill of being out on the town in dangerous naples.

then it was 2 trains to bari which got there at 2 but no ferry til 10 pm so that was a bit shit. when i saw my overnight ferry i was kinda like, oommggareyoufuckingserious. it was absolutely tiny! like a mere fraction of the size of a bc ferry. but once on it it was quite alright i was pretty lucky to have a bunk and was absolutely infatuated with the fact that the cabin had carpet. i also got a shower which was very exciting. i dont know what that means when carpet and showering is super exciting.

got into dubrovnik by 7 am, then accompanied by noam, of vancouver who looks just like frew, and spent the next 2 days getting nice and burnt on the beach. at this point i must say for anyone going to croatia, beaches here are rocky so not exactly comfortable to sprawl out on for hours but the water is gorgeous. and prices arent low, its all about the same as italy which was a bit disappointing but what can you do. finally by the last day, made it to the old city which is very nice and walked around the top of the walls surrounding it. met dutchie valentijn in my hostel the day before i was leaving without knowing where i was leaving to. he said there was a ferry the next day to hvar, so off to hvar i went.

hvar's tiny but lovely and lounged around for a few nights there. our hostel was basically up on what i would consider a mountain so im thinking my legs are probably mighty and muscly by now. some good times in hvar, though it was pretty quiet i guess cause its not quite high season yet, one night of which i had zero sleep thanks to the boys in the hostel and an evening started off on wine and my smirnoff in a powerade bottle, classy classy.

now in split, we went to the diocletian's palace where the old city which is all like shops and restaurants and stuff is basically built in the palace grounds i guess. anyway me and valentijn didnt know that so we went in and saw that we needed tickets for the basement and asked the guy how we get tickets for the upstairs...he thought we were total retards.

will be off on a train to zagreb tomorrow morning and then will hopefully be off to budapest by the next day. these lovely quebecois girls i met in dubrovnik had a return train ticket to budapest they didnt need and gave it to me so hopefully i can use it and will soon be in hungary, land of....i dont know. hungarians.

roman holiday, with ed

dianacchan — Sun, 7 Jun 2009 16:15:00 GMT

sadly, my week with ed has come to an end and now i am stuck in napoli until the 10th. im not exactly loving naples and 5 nights here is not how i imagined my time but what can you do, no ferries to croatia til then!

met up with ed in rome and the first thing we did was...get lost. in the chinatown ghetto. but eventually we made it to the coloseum which was very cool despite the old fat dudes dressed like gladiators smoking and talking on their cell phones outside of it.

i think the 2nd day we were there it was some sort of national holiday so they did crazy shit like shut down the whole coloseum so that firefighters could put up a massive italian flag down the side of it for 5 minutes. they also shut down the metro station there so we got lost somewhere (its a bit of a theme here in italy) and stumbled upon the what would you call it...mission? nun home? i dont know, im not catholic, where mother teresa would stay when she was in rome and a nun took us to her room which was a nice little side excursion.

we meant to go see the pope but then we slept in instead...we still made it to the vatican though! its kinda funny, in the sistine chapel youre supposed to be SILENT. and to emphasize this point, they have it on LOUD SPEAKERS saying basically, "please be quiet, blah blah blah..." in like 6 different languages. oh, the vatican!

i want to say here, that ed claims he was having a bit of a "blonde week" and one standout soundbite would be "this calendar is 2010, dont you think theyre a bit late for that".

we then came to naples where everyone weve met has made it out to be horrible and dangerous. those 2 italian dudes i met in florence said i had a 50% chance of getting robbed and "ah, we will see your face ah, in the newspaper!" its not too horrible, but it sure seems like some sorta ghetto compared to the rest of italy. in my lonely planet it says something like "youll never feel more alive than when youre in naples" i think maybe its cause every few minutes a vespa or car is trying to run you over. the one good thing about naples is the PIZZA! we went to one of the best pizza restaurants in the city where pizza was born and it was delish. under 4 euros for a pizza the size of my upper body.

yesterday we went to the pompei ruins which was really cool. standout site would be the brothel, but of course. they have beds carved out of stone or something in each room and above the doors there are "erotic" paintings to show those ancient pompei people how to get it on. and that is how they learned doggy style.

and then boo, ed left! am now in naples getting steadily harassed by males ranging from 17 to 80. jeeeeeez. by the way, does the train line "trenitalia" sound dirty to anyone, or is it just me?

david, the leaning tower, and my first real italiano meal!

dianacchan — Sun, 31 May 2009 23:02:00 GMT

gotta make use of this free internet, man!

so i was super stoked that i finally found decent (well to be fair, im not really sure, its in italian) sunscreen for under 17 euros (that would be 13 euros. yay!) and then it started PISSING rain today.

was talking to ed last night apparently its so sunny and is gonna stay sunny in ireland this week for the first time in eons. and when he arrives in roma tomorrow, it will RAIN RAIN RAIN. i think hes a bit heartbroken. or as my argentinian dormmate put it ¨ah, maybe he wants to ah die¨. (i do not know how to make quotation marks on this keyboard!)

anyway yesterday i went to the top of the huge ass cathedral or duomo. as i was climbing up those 460 or something winding stone steps i kept thinking ¨omg why did i just pay 8 euros to do this to myself whaaaaaat the fuuuuuuck¨. but when i got to the top it was so gorgeous i forgot all about the self inflicted pain. 360 views of florence, with the terra cotta tiled roofs, the churches, the river, the rolling tuscan hills, oh bella bella!

then i was off to find the statue of david. and i must say, david is absolutely enchanting! and its not just cause hes naked. too bad david is so amazing cause then the rest of the galleria de academia or whatever its called seemed a bit like filler. oh i feel kinda bad for saying that.

then at like 3pm i was like, hmm maybe i should just hop on a train to pisa to see that ol leaning tower! and so i did. when i arrived in pisa, i had no map or anything and had kinda figured id just...see the tower. fortunately after a while i found a map plastered to the outside of an info centre and finally found the way. and the way is not straight ahead of the train station which is what i figured based on absolutely nothing. the tower really is a weird sight and i just spent like half hour walking around the square.

this afternoon i went up to michelangelo square which is ontop of a hill overlooking florence. it was a bit of a hike up there, well maybe not, more like im just unfit and lazy. well when i finally got up there, apparently the square is more like...a parking lot. what can ya do! then on the way back to my hostel i met two crazy italian men named valter and alessandro whom i then spent the next 5 hrs hanging out with instead of doing laundry.

best of all they got me dinner at a real italian restaurant with zero tourists and i got to eat pizza, 2 kinds of spaghetti, some sort of cake and some italian champagne. yay! sure beats the mcdonalds cheeseburger i had earlier for 1 euro (yes thats right, mcdonalds. 1 euro, can you blame me im poor!) then they drove me back up to the square so we could see florence at night. i was feeling pretty good about being in a car instead of walking back up, soooo much better. im very happy to have met those two! apparently it was good luck as we met while rubbing coins on a bronze pig statues tongue that apparently brings you luck. fact.

so im leaving tomorrow morning to meet up with ed in rome. ive got a ticket for the ¨cheapy crawly¨ train. a bit choked about it cus while the ticket cost less than half as much as the eurostar, it takes twice as long. ah well, off to bed!

italy, this edition: lost in venezia and firenze

dianacchan — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:10:00 GMT

so here i am in florence now holed up in my dorm cause I HAVE FREE INTERNET! this hostel is so great, i even got a free dinner of a whole pizza! so now im being anti social and rather happy about it.

so my initial landing into italy was a bit rough. id had no sleep in 24hrs before and the airport i landed in near venice was so tiny i just accidentaly walked right out! then i couldnt get my backpack and found that if i couldn't get the shuttle into venice, the next one would not be for another two hours! (almost tears-inducing experience!) luckily i finally got it thru lost and found and was on my way, wheeew!

soon as i was in venice i met a lost londoner by the name of kaspa and we set off getting majorly lost in venice for the next 8 hours. i did pretty good off of no sleep. so we mandered around and around and around and i must say venice is beeeaaaauuutiful (also, it reminded me of disneyland. i dont need to explain myself). it is a bit smelly i suppose but what can you expect really. and i liked the novelty of no cars.

so after a couple hours we were like, 'so what do people do in venice? maybe we should find out'. well whaddya know, piazza san marco but of course! it took us literally HOURS to find it and you know how we finally got there? by asking people but more importantly: following the directions to mcdonalds restaurants posted on trash bins. no joke, it'd be like a picture of mcdonalds near the square, with an arrow and approx. number of minutes to get to. and that my friends, is how we finally found it.

so wearing one of kaspa's extra shirts and a big ol piece of cloth wrapped around my legs costing me 1 euro, we went into the basilica (and once inside, we were like, so what is this?) then we went into palazzo ducale/doge's palace and roamed and roamed some more. btw, i was pretty pumped that i didnt have to use a public toilet cus they cost 1.50 euro! highway roberry! and then asleep by 11. yay!

and then this morning i hopped aboard a train and am now in florence! i went to the uffizi gallery which is home to the world's greatest collection of Renaissance art (straight outta the lonely planet). it's got the 'birth of venus' (you know, the one where shes standing in a shell with her hair strategically covering up her bits and pieces) and was very cool indeed.

then i met an old italian man who told me all about florence and where to go while overlooking the river. i was all like, aw, this is so nice, hes so old. then he wanted to take me out for fancy expensive dinner. i thought, is this like kate winslet and that old jewish dude in 'the holiday'? just in case not, i declined (and on this note, i admit defeat, i can never be a golddigger. sadness.), got my first real italian gelato, got lost for the umpteenth time today and then came back to my hostel.

can you feel the looove tonight (in london)?

dianacchan — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

so it's 2 am now and im to take a shuttle at 3 to swoop me off to the airport for my 6:30 flight to venice! oh how i wish i were in bed...

so i arrived in london yesterday evening, staying in picadilly circus but i am ghetto so am in a 10 person dorm filled with stinky boys. i took the underground tube which i must say, im not sure why its a big deal cause its just like a crowded hot skytrain.

im sad to say, i ate a mcchicken. it is true. and it wasnt even good! they put some goopy 'sandwich sauce' on it instead of mayo, just plain wrong.

so as i was alone and wanted out of my dorm, i wandered round and round, literally. then i got lured into the ripley believe it or not museum which was actually quite entertaining. you know the whole, portrait of princess di made out of lint, shrunken heads, medieval torture items...

then as i was thinking of heading back to the hostel, i ran into shirley's adonis and his friend on the street! seriously, what are the chances of just running into someone from home in the middle of london when neither of you know the other is in the city. it was our destiny. so it was off to various drinking establishments we went. not sure exactly where we were but i do know adonis' friend was standing atop a phone booth at one point. all capped off with a visit to a pizzeria (where adonis managed to spill beer on every single article of clothing i had on) and...burger king.

and then today the morning was rather rough and i tried to hunt down gatorade but only found some other thing that ended with '-ade' and i must say for something so saturated with sugar it was revolting. then i met up with the lovely miss kavitha! i hadnt seen her since she was an electrical socket and her man reza was a plug for halloween a couple years ago (how cute, AND saucy).

we wandered around, had some touristy photos taken at trafalgar square. to be honest, im not exactly sure where we went today but it was all very nice to just walk around (and sit around really) london with kav and her friends and friends of friends. i havent actually really seen much of anything, tho we made a little jaunt into the national gallery but then we had to head off to see THE LION KING. soooo great! the costumes and props were absolutely amazing and im quite sure the adult simba is pretty hot. oh and possible SPOILER ALERT!: scar totally tries to hit up nala, dirty twist or what!? anyway, if only we had more theater back home. then we could say stuff like "oh, im just off to the thee-a-ter tonight"

anyway 40 more minutes to go for my 45 minute shuttle to the airport. im thinking no more to these budget airlines flying in and out of boonie airports...

first stop: eastbourne, UK

dianacchan — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:20:00 GMT

so here i am, blogging from the lovely clare's living room in eastbourne!

my flight over was ok minus the fact that i sat next to a creepy drunk man who was downing straight vodka mini bottles. and when i arrived in london i ran into a dude from high school who had just gotten off the same flight, how random. and then i was off! trained out to the lovely eastbourne which is famous for carpet gardens, floral displays and alfie the 12 year old 'daddy' who later turned out not to be a daddy.

we went for a romantic stroll along the sea front, taking in the pier and the bandstand. the main view was the smorgasboard of pasty chunky white men with their tops off, very sexy. so that was the lone hour of sunshine so far.

charlie came over from brighton and we went for a scenic drive in the countryside (i slept for a lot of this). we stopped in a village called alfriston. pretty, not a lot going on. charlie bought some fudge.

we saw the 'long man of wilmington' which is a big chalk outline of a man on a hill. perhaps formed in medieval times, were not too sure. purpose of: also not sure.

clare fed me pizza from the supermarket and salad, which ties in nicely as i fed her frozen pizza and costco salad during her whirlwind 12 hrs in vancouver last october. and that's about it really! i have now met up with clare in melbourne, alice springs, darwin, vancouver and eastbourne. just can't keep away from her.

Well we're just sitting here sipping juice, I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to feed Diana throughout her stay! Last night we swapped trashy mags to catch up on Canadian/ British gossip and the great Jolie vs Aniston divide that appears to separate our two countries more than anything else!! Diana is definitely the person who I've met in the most amount of random/ unplanned places and it's been a treat to have her in little ol' Eastbourne - when Charlie came over yesterday and the sun was shining we could almost (squint and) imagine we were back in Melbs -ahhh, happy days. Safe travels D xxx

still...packing...

dianacchan — Sun, 24 May 2009 07:57:00 GMT

it's official: packing is not my forte.

on the bright side: i'll be at YVR airport in 10 hrs. wait, thats not the bright side....the bright side is by this time tomorrow i'll be in the uk!

whenever i think im done packing, i realize im not. so close...

goal for the day: pack

dianacchan — Fri, 22 May 2009 01:41:00 GMT

so i wasn't gonna write a blog cause my sister confirmed my greatest fear in the universe that absolutely no one would be that interested in reading it other than maybe her and my mom. yay? but then i figured i may as well just so i could feel a tiny bit important and interesting. so it's friday, i leave on sunday for my 3 month european excursion and i am determined to pack my backpack today. which even as of last night, i didnt think of doing. i was all, 'i have nothing to do tomorrow, what should i do!?' we'll see how i get on...

(judging by the fact that right now im watching 'roman holiday' and setting up this blog instead doesn't bode well.)