Rome photos

Ahhh Rome. Bellisimo. What can one really say...beautiful things to see around every corner, as I hope the 3 photos above illustrate. They are of course, just a sample - the place was amazing and packed full of history. I could go on about it all night. But I won't, coz it would just be more of the same, and I'm sure you would all like to hear about far more interesting stuff that how lovely the Vatican and pizzas were.

The hostel I stayed at was called the Navigator. It was a random pick from the hundreds of hostels in Rome, based mainly on price and what seemed to be a reasonable location. I didn't really look at the reviews written by people who had stayed there, which meant that I didn't have any expectations. I did not know then that the guy who managed the place, Omar, had been critisized by former patrons for not providing the free breakfasts offered on the hostel's website due to the fact that he was too high to get out of bed.

This was a party hostel like no other I have ever seen. I arrived after midnight on Thursday night and was greeted by Omar and a large plate of lasagne. I was also greeted by about 8 young early 20 something women who were also staying there. In fact, I was the only guy there, apart from Omar, who insisted at 1:30am that we go out dancing.

So we did. Omar dragged us out to, of all places, an English pub. I mean honestly, an English bloody pub, I couldn't believe it. I had a pint of London Pride, one of those warm beers you hear so much about. Not because I like the stuff but because it seemed to fit the ridiculousness of the situation.

The girls started dancing, they had been drinking cheap, cheap Italian wine for most of the evening, it seemed like the right thing to do. I hung back and watched for a while, trying to finish my 'beer'. I noticed that there were a lot of men on the dancefloor who had not been there on my arrival. I watched a bit more. It seems that Italian men hunt alone. The guys who were up dancing would perform some cheesy moves at a distance, working their way ever so slowly towards their intended target who, would try desperately not to make eye contact with them for fear of encouraging them even more. Before the poor girl knew it, she was dirty dancing with the man, who had clearly used some sort of magical jedi like powers. Being the protective, father-figure that I am, I decided that the best course of action was to get dancing myself, thus helping the poor women who were being harassed by these clearly untrustworthy men. Why wouldn't they trust someone they'd known for at least half an hour longer. It was quite amusing, one minute you would be dancing on the edge of a circle, the next the circle had turned into a circle with several slow moving Italian men, who snuck into it without anyone noticing. The night was still a lot of fun, myself and my new friends danced the night away to such well known Italian classics as the Grease megamix, YMCA and Come on Eileen.

You know what, the more I think about this, those guys were pretty successful, even the not-so-pretty ones. Perhaps we could all learn something.

This ended up being the pattern for the whole 4 nights. Worked out that I got about 14 hours sleep in total over the trip, including an hour on the flight back. It was great. If I was 10 years younger and didn't have as much responsibility, I would have stayed, learnt Italian and lived a good proportion of life there.

Apart from Rome, its been a busy month. Went to wimbledon on Friday evening, the only day so far which didn't rain. It was great, sat on Henman Hill sipping Pimms and eating strawberries. Went and saw one of the women play, Daniela Hantchukova. I told Helen that I wanted to see her play because she was hot, which caused many problems later on. When she missed a shot, Helen reckoned it was because she was too busy looking at me. I'd like to think that was true.

Moved house also, am now living in deepest darkest Clapham, on the main street, far too close to a number of pubs. Its a change of scene from the Streatham palace thats for sure.

Anyways, I've been drivelling for long enough here, you're probably all bored to tears. Time to go to bed. night.

Provence

Sometimes as I stand on the tube pressed against some stinky person's armpit, I do kind of wonder what on earth I'm doing in this city. I mean, lets be honest about this, its crowded, it smells, the people aren't friendly and during winter Santa Claus would be cold. (I'm being unkind there, 10pm sunsets during summer are a wonderful thing indeed.)

It does take weekends like last weekend to remind you what this experience is all about. The fact that a person can catch a 1st class train from Waterloo for a small expense and arrive in the South of France some 6 hours later was such a reminder.

The provence of Provence (ho ho) is the part of the South of France that people speak about when they talk about the South of France. Quite simply, it was stunning. I know that that has been said about just about everywhere I've been other than London on this trip, but this was a different kind of beauty. The countryside was amazing. There was no livestock, just fields of grapes, lavender, cherries and all sorts of other things.

The trip started in the city of Avignon, where my parents were staying. It has a population roughly the same as Ipswich. Unlike Ipswich though, the city itself is famous for 2 things. Due to a civil war in Rome during the 14th century, the papacy was moved to the large palace pictured above. (Mum, dad and wendy are in the foreground) 8 popes resided here before the return to Rome. The other reason is the nurseryrhyme which you do know - Sur la pont, d'avignon, lans y dance lans y dance.... Like ipswich, I'm pretty sure I saw some lappers on the friday night - ahhhh.

We moved from Avignon to our gite, or country house, in a small village named Menerbes. Mum and Dad booked this over the internet and really had no idea what to expect. What we ended up getting was a Mediterrainian style house in a small medieval style village on top of a hill. Wow, wow and wow, it was incredible. Funny thing is that villages like this are everywhere, you have to search long and hard to find mention of Menerbes anywhere, but it was typical of the many towns and villages to be found in this region. Probably the most visited is Gourdes, which is a bit bigger than Menerbes. I've tried to get a photo of gourdes on the post - hopefully it worked.

In fact, the only reference to Menerbes I could find was the 'world famous' corkscrew museum. Dutifully, we entered the darkened room and stared in awe at each of the exhibits. I've never been so underwhelmed. Thousands of corkscrews, each as ordinary as the last. Scarily, many of the exhibits were identical to several corkscrews owned by mum and dad. The trip and the 4 euro / $8 entry fee (upkeep of these things is expensive) was made worthwile by the girl behind the counter. I would have paid more than $8 for a guided tour of the museum, but alas, a couch full of French schoolchildren put that idea to bed.

The other highlight was the trip to the Cote d'Azure, most well known for the city of Nice and Monaco. Again, I've tried to post a photo of the view of Nice. How blue is the sea?? Monaco houses the Monte Carlo casino, which dad and I graced with our presence for an hour or so. I won 25 euros on blackjack before dad blew the lot on roulette.

It was amazing. Plan upon winning the lottery was to get a masters. Now I think I'll just move to a large vineyard near Menerbes and study externally while selling wine with a French girl in a tight red top.

See ya!