Fourth (and final) Leg: Italia (I)

Walking into the terminal we were smiling, and if we had learned how to say it before-hand, we would’ve looked at each other and laughed, ‘io non parlo italiano.’ Evidently it’s ridiculously easy to get into Italy from EU members: they merely have to flash their passport, and not even the picture page, to the customs officer and they get waved through. Although the non-EU line was much shorter it took a little longer because they actually look at our passports and stamp them. When we got our bags I noticed that mine was open at the top, it was probably because it was too full. I later found out that the only things missing were the towel I stole from Paris, and a long-sleeved shirt I had bought in Orléans… not a big loss though.

We were supposed to be meeting Dee’s friend Alex (Alessandro) at the airport. As we were leaving the arrival area and baggage claim to the sea of faces that always awaits, I was looked every where for a girl who’s face I didn’t know when suddenly I heard, ‘Dany!’ I turned and saw Dee hugging a gorgeous Italian girl… so I supposed that was Alex. I supposed right. She drove us to her place, which was a (I think) rather chic apartment with her mom and older sister. When she first picked us up she didn’t remember a lot of English, but by the time we left she was translating for her friends. Her mom doesn’t speak any English, but damn can she make pizza. She made us two pizzas that night. The first was all right: thick-crust with no cheese or regular pizza sauce. I don’t really remember the topping, but it was a little burned. The second however… Again, thick crust, no cheese or sauce, but smothered in peppers that tasted like they had been slow-roasted for hours in deliciousness.

After dinner we got to call our families to let them know we had made it ok. Then Alex made some calls and asked if we wanted to go meet some of her friends. We had about an hour and a half until they picked us up, so we put in a little internet time, then set to work learning some basic Italian: io ho fame/sierto, io sonno stanca, io studio francese e educazzione, and io non parlo italiano. Translations: I am hungry/ thirsty, I am tired, I study French and education, and I don’t speak Italian. We brought along our little paper of phrases and our French-Italien dictionary when we went out.

I guess the Italien idea of hanging out is crazily-driving to a parking lot and meeting your friends there. We met quite a few people that first night, but I really only remember three of them: Frenchie (Francesco), Giorgio, and Genie (Genero). However many of them there was, we laughed a lot at not being able to understand each other. Most of them had at least rudimentary English skills, but Frenchie and Genie could speak pretty well so they and Alex helped translate. The funniest part had to be when one of them tried to say an English phrase or expression. For example, we said our feet were frozen, like ice cream. Frenchie took that and said ‘your feet are like ice cream?’ Then Genie went way off and came in with, ‘ cheese ice cream?’ Frenchie took this back into ‘you have cheese ice cream feet?’ We also learned a few slang and dialect terms that I won’t repeat here.

After quite some time in this parking lot, everyone agreed that we were cheese ice-cream feet so we left. But we weren’t going right home. They wanted to give us a little taste of Napoli first, so we were driven around for a while (I swear it takes 20 minutes to get any where no matter how fast they drive). We stopped at a little patisserie/ ice cream shop. They bought us croissants, but they weren’t just plain ones. They were warmed up and inside they spread both regular nutella and white nutella. Strange. Finally they brought us home sometime in the morning and we slept our first night in Italia.

Dublin (IV)

Unfortunately we couldn’t laze around and be hung-over in our beds all day because it was our last day in that hostel. We were supposed to be leaving Dublin that day, but for some reason I had accidentally booked our flight a day later. So after a hot shower, we headed over to the hostel we had booked at 12€ each for our extra night. We took another little nap there, not really caring how actually… sketchy it was. After the nap we had to get out, plus, we were hungry. A little stroll through what appeared to be a business section because everything was closed, and we found ourselves staring at the menus outside of the ‘Mona Lisa’s’. Now those Irish people know how to lake garlic ciabatta bread. I could’ve eaten three of them and had that as my meal. But I also had lasagne, and even better it was a student special. Right next to the restaurant was a little cinema… pourquoi pas? Inside there was as sign that read, “In the interest of hygiene please refrain from placing tickets in your mouth”. I took of a picture of it, and it’s being loaded onto photobucket as I type this up. We ended up seeing Eastern Promise, which was really good, with Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts. At one point Dee gasped really loudly, and the entire audience (maybe 20 people), myself include, were laughing at her.

Still not wanted to go back to the hostel, we found a pub close to it instead. While there I wrote a little something to remind myself of it when I finally got to writing about:

So, I am writing this in a little pub in Dublin near our hostel. I’m sitting at a bar and to my right in the next room is a duo, playing fiddle and guitar. They’re playing some really Irish sounding stuff, and this atmosphere and feeling; this is why I wanted to come to Dublin.

It was a nice experience. Then we walked to the hostel. There was a sketchy-looking guy on the corner of the street, and after we walked by, he walked after us until he was literally right behind Dee’s left shoulder. We stopped walking. He stops, then sees us giving him looks and says, “oh sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you” and after a few moments staggers off in the same direction. We kept a safe distance behind him, but then he went into our hostel. Shit. After a few moments he doesn’t come out, so we just go in, and the guy at the desk said, yes, he is staying there. Then we spent about half an hour in the company of a schizophrenic and thee semi-sketchy guys, but the details are too long for me to want to write them out.

A little while after getting to bed, the girl in the one under one came in. Then she changed. To put I nicely, Dee put lotion on her hands and slept with them over her face, while I slept with a bit of lavender I had plucked earlier on my pillow. If you’ve ever seen the move “The labyrinth”, it smelled like she had been dipped in the Bog of Eternal Stench. No joke. Aside from that the night was well slept. However at the crack of 8am the next morning: hammering, stone cutting and soldering… right outside our window. By 8h20 we had had enough, and we were walking out the door at 8h30. We stopped at a little place for breakfast, and then just hopped on a bus to the airport. Everything went smoothly there, and I took some cool pictures once we got over England.

Once in England we decided to get some pizza before our next flight. And my god they had: barbeque chicken pizza. They were 8£ each, something I would shoot my own foot over in the states, but really, what choice did we have? Then we thought we were about to miss our flight. When they brought out the pizza, we asked for the check. When they brought the check we gave them the money and asked for boxes. We boxed the ½ pizzas that were left and booked it through Gatwick. Supposedly it takes fifteen minutes to get from where we were to our boarding gate, but we made it in five. We still had to wait about 20 minutes though because boarding was late. We took that time to finish our pizzas and fan ourselves with the boxes. Guess who looked like the biggest assholes there? We did! As we were boarding the guy that checked Dee in asked if she had finished the whole pizza. Hell yeah!

With a final sigh and so long we buckled our belts for take-off.