Europe Chapter 3: XX Olympic Winter Games

The last few weeks have absolutely flown by. On one hand, it's hard to believe I've been away for almost 6 weeks now. On the other hand, I feel like I've seen and done so much that I must have been here longer. I miss friends and family, Comet, my own bed, my guitars and a wide selection of clothing...I think I'm rocking the same pair of jeans and black sweater combo for like the past 10 out of 14 days! Yeah baby!

The Olympics and Torino have been amazing. I feared the worst the first day we arrived and spent the day on a wild goose chase for the proper bus station. You have to realize that an incredible amount of time traveling is wasted on taking the 'scenic route' and waiting for transportation. We spent an entire day in Genoa, Italy walking around the city with packs full of dirty laundry looking for a laundromat. Not to mention how expensive laundry is here (about $10 to do one load wash and dry). I will never take a washer and dryer or clean clothes for granted again!

Anyway, back to the Olympics. We've managed to see 3 events while here; Men's Ice Hockey (US vs Slovakia), Men's Curling (US vs Canada, NZ vs Germany, and Italy vs Switzerland), and Men's Snowboarding PGS Finals.

Ice hockey has probably been the most exciting. The US was always a step behind the Slovakians, but that just kept us on the edge of our seats. Stacey and I stayed until the last second of the game while Ken left early to get a head start on the last bus back to Monta. As we ran out of the stadium, we realized there were about 30 other people running down the street with us. It was quite a sight to see. Stacey and I looked at each other and laughed. I couldn't help running and asking why everyone else was runnnig. It turns out everyone was catching a last train, bus, etc. But no one wanted to leave early because it was such a close game (the US was favored to win).

Getting snowboarding tickets was a stroke of luck. On Sunday and Tuesday, we got up at 6am to stand in line for free tickets to the Medal's Plaza for those nights. The Medal's Plaza is where the day's medals ceremony takes place followed by fireworks and a concert.

On Sunday and Tuesday, Whitney Houston and Avril Lavigne performed, respectively. Of course, both times, we were just a few dozen people short of getting tickets. However, on Tuesday, another American was trying to get rid of his snowboarding tix as he had to meet family in Spain. We got €90 tix for less than €40! So the next day, we took the train to Bardonecchia in the Italian Alps where the snowboarding competitions are held. It had been cold the last few days, so we all packed on the layers only to have it be a very warm day in the mountains.

Ken, Stacey and I are convinced we've brought nothing but bad luck to team USA as everything we've seen, the US has lost. Nevertheless, we've gone all out with signs, flags, cowbells, and face paint. The Olympics are all about country pride.

Even the smallest countries have large and loud cheering sections! I'm really excited about Vancouver 2010 when I'm hoping many of you will join me in a roadtrip north. We have also been able to see a lot of the Olympics at our flat on tv, but the events broadcasted are mostly geared towards competitions with Italians involved.

The weather has been pretty good. We've gotten a few days of rain, one of which turned into snow. I thought you guys might be interested in what a typical day in Torino is like, so I logged one day:

6.15 Wake up.

6.40 Walk to bus stop.

7.00 Decide we either missed bus by a minute or it isn't coming.

7.05 Back in bed for 45 min until next bus comes.

7.50 Catch bus from Monta to Torino.

9.00 Arrive in Torino and stand in line for free tix for evening's medal's ceremony.

10.00 Tix are handed out. We're about 10 people short of getting tix.

10.15 I part from trio to check out the Egyptian Museum for the day.

10.30 Decide to see what's at Olympic superstore which is incredibly chaotic.

10.35 Leave Olympic superstore as quickly as possible.

10.45 Lunch at a kebab takeaway. Mmm...falafel!!!

11.00 Stumble on Swiss house and eat my kebab there.

11.30 After standing in line for Museo Egizio for 20min, I begin exploring museum.

14.00 Meet up with Ken & Stacey to queue for last attempt at scoring tix to medal's ceremony.

14.30 Rain turns to sleet.

15.30 We give up on standing in line and walk across town to pick up Curling tix. We're all very cold & wet at this point.

16.00 Catch bus to cinema to warm up and watch a movie (with several bus changes to recorrect wrong buses & stops).

16.30 Missed only movies in English or with subtitles and decide to go home.

17.00 Get on bus to go home to Monta. Snowing heavily now.

18.20 Bus ride is very slow going. Flash lights up the sky. My first snow/thunderstorm combo.

18.30 Bus driver probably was supposed to get off of work at 18.00. Decides he's had enough of the traffic and begins playing chicken with oncoming traffic.

18.35 Bus passes snowplow. Not sure how it works in Italy, but where I come from, you usually want to stay behind the plow where the roads are clear.

18.40 Snow is so heavy, you can no longer see roadsigns. Bus driver still driving like it's a bright sunny day.

19.00 An hour overdue, we finally arrive in Monta. We step off the bus into snow 6-8 inches deep where there was no snow that morning.

19.05 I initiate a snowball fight in the piazza where we were dropped off.

19.10 Lights in piazza and town flicker off. We begin walking down the empty and dark snow-filled streets back to our flat.

19.11 Large flash of light and clasp of thunder. We begin running down street back to flat.

Rest of night electricity goes on and off a few dozen times throughout evening. We eat broccoli for dinner and play cards.

The snow part is not typical, but the standing in line, missing buses, etc. is typical. Incidently, the woman that manages our flat said that it hadn't snowed like that in 20 years. She was worried and upset for us, but didn't realize that we loved it. Last Saturday, the night before closing ceremonies, Torino hosted 'Notte Bianca' aka White Night. Everything in the city center stayed open until 5am including bars, restaurants, shops, clubs, and museums and street performers and acts played in the streets and piazzas. The Saturday before, Torino hosted another Notte Bianca. It was so successful (600,000 crowded the city center) that the city decided to do it again. Apparently, this White Night was even more successful. I'm not sure how many people came out, but the streets were packed solid. It took me about an hour to walk a few city blocks. Unfortunately for us, our last bus to Monta left at 22.40 that night and didn't leave again until 7.05 the next morning.

We got back to the flat as people were going to church around 8.00 and immediately crashed. Yesterday, we took a train to a small town north of Torino called Ivrea. Every year during Carnivale, the town takes part in a massive orange fight. iI's hard to comprehend the extent of this orange battle unless you are there. There are 5 piazzas where the orange battles take place and 9 foot teams that throw oranges at 30 horse-drawn carts filled with men that circle the town and through the piazzas. Each cart is armed with oranges and each piazza has about 20 - 5'x5'x10' crates filled with oranges. We thought that was a lot for the 4 day battle, but it turns out they go through those every day!!!

Stacey and I had fun dodging the oranges while Ken played it safe behind a net. I ended up getting pegged in the leg by one (it's all fun and games til somebody get's hurt!) and now have a nice battle wound in the form of a large welt/bruise. Let me just tell you that it HURT!!! It almost brought me to tears and I was a good distance away from where the battles were taking place. I can't imagine how the people on foot take the hits at point blank!!! A lot of people had ice packs out, a few people appeared to have concussions (vomiting and passing out) and there was definitely blood. So why do they do this again? Tradition I guess. Go here for the story: http://www.carnevalediivrea.it/english/battaglia.asp

I'm really excited about March. I'm looking forward to the spring weather and trying some new food in Greece which is our next country destination. I used to love pizza, but I think I could go without it for a long time. I've tried most every possible vegetarian topping including cheese, asparagus, mushroom, olive, artichoke, egg, eggplant, zucchini, and tomato. I've yet to have the french fries topping, but I'm saving that for when I'm really desperate! Until next time...

Europe Chapter 2: Nowhere before noon & oh how we love to shop!

It has been impossible to accomplish anything before noon since we began traveling. It doesn't matter how early we get up, something will happen to prevent us from getting a single thing done before noon.

I blame most of it on the Lonely Planet city maps and the lack of proper street signs. For example, pretend you need to get to a highway from the center of town. You first need to confirm which street you are on so you can refer to your map. Sounds easy enough to accomplish except the street names are on the sides of buildings and never in the same position on the buildings. So as you're driving by a corner at 30 mph, you must locate where the street name is posted, then read the name which is mostly a blur at that speed. Forget it if it is dark. The names are not reflective nor are they lit up. Once you've established where you are on the map (and hopefully it's not a Lonely Planet map!) you can get yourself out of the city center where you then must rely on street signs to lead you to the highway. The problem with that is there are no heads up when you are approaching a turn. If you come to a sign telling you to turn for your destination, it means turn that very instant! And that's IF you understood the sign in the first place. They're basically little diagrams of the roundabout itself with little arms branching off the circle representing the exits/streets. The branches point to the names of the places/highways which sometimes mesh together making an already bad situation worse! If you miss that turn, you'll most likely end up circling the roundabout a few times while you argue with your passengers which exit along the roundabout is the proper direction! Oh, and if you weren't in the proper turn lane when you saw the sign, you will also end up circling the roundabout in an unintended car carousel. Once you've made that turn, there are no highway markers reassuring you are headed in the right direction. In fact, you are unlikely to see another sign at all until another turn approaches (if another turn approaches!) and if you miss that, you're S.O.L.!

AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED on how outrageously insane British drivers are. I was driving 95 mph on the interstate with people on my ass flashing their high beams at me! Before you reprimand me for driving at that speed, there were no posted speed limits and I was going the speed of traffic if not slower! We usually spend a good hour circling the cities and towns before we find the right highway towards our next destination. Nevermind the fact that we also usually spend the night before circling the town trying to find our hostel! Oh well. We see a lot of the city we normally wouldn't have that way, usually cobbled dark alleys which are better left traveling via car rather than foot anyway! Don't worry mom and dad, we keep the car doors locked! hehe.

After the Lake District, we made our way into Scotland with our first destination being Edinburgh. This is where the 'oh how we love to shop' comes in. For the life of us, we can't seem to get in and out of a grocery store in decent time. I don't know what it is about us. A lot of it has to do with searching the aisles for each other, trying to satisfy the taste buds of three different people, and drooling at all the food we really can't afford. Cheese and baguette anyone? This shopping adventure usually continues in the parking lot where we proceed to spend the next 20 minutes eating in our car. I feel really sorry for the person who has to clean the rental which we've aptly named, Fuchus as it is a crappy Ford Focus. The next day, Sunday 1/29, was more foot tours of the city. Stacey and I committed our first born child to get into the Edinburgh Castle where we learned a lot of Scotish history.

I won't bore you with any of that since the history lesson was in the last update. We strolled down the Royal Mile looking for some grub and decided on an all you can eat Chinese buffet.

We had a late start and a small scare on our way to Inverness later that evening which would be our northern most destination in the UK. About an hour into our journey, we found we were running low on gas. Fuchus has a cool little gauge that actually counts down the miles to empty. We started searching for gas around 60 miles to empty and panicked when we realized we were in the middle of nowhere on a Sunday evening. The first gas station we found was closed. It was 6:30 by this point. We flagged down a little old lady for directions to the nearest open petrol station and she proceeded to babble on with horrible directions! She would tell us to start going one direction, then pause to think outloud to herself, change her mind and give us complete opposite directions! Meanwhile, we're idling and the 'til empty' gauge is counting down the miles like a ticking time bomb. At one point, she said, 'No, that's not right. I'm talking crrrrap (roll that r) again.' We had to laugh. You just didn't expect that word to come out of her mouth and she had the cutest accent! We finally found the station she was describing just 10 minutes after the automatic pumps shut off. Damn! Fortunately, not too far up the road was another station that was actually open and $90 later, we had a full tank of gas. That's right kiddies! You think we have it bad paying a little more than 2 bucks a gallon, try having to shell out nearly 100 dollars for a tank of gas!!!

We didn't tour Inverness other than the local grocery store and headed south towards the west coast along the infamous Loch Ness. No, we didn't see Lochy, but we can see why she's made her home there. Scotland's lakes are beautiful!!! With no particular destination in mind, we made a last minute decision at a fork in the road to head to the Isle of Skye. This is where we've had one of the most interesting experiences yet.

On our way to Skye, we saw a hand painted sign on the road that advertised beds at 7.50 quid, a bargain compared to the 12 we'd been paying since leaving London. After a quick visit to the island, we turned back to take advantage of the deal. We turned onto this little one lane road and after about a mile, saw another sign saying the hostel was 11km further!!! Yikes! It was sort of too late to turn back. Skye was already a good 20 minutes behind us. So, we continued down the road. It wound along a mountainside through golden and frost bitten hills. There was a stream connecting several small lakes which were perfect and plenty for a fisherman's holiday.

We finally came to the house which held the reception. Stacey and I sent Ken to knock on the door. We could tell from the expressions on his face our 11k trek may have been in vain. We were given an ultimatum which turned in our favor. The hostel was closed for decorations, but for a quid more, we could share a guesthouse with one other person. Needless to say, it wasn't a difficult decision. Compared to where he had been sleeping, the guest house was a story for 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.' It had two bedrooms, a full bathroom (including bath tub!), a proper kitchen and living room with several movie selections and a loft complete with table tennis and billiards. As if it couldn't get any better, the views were astounding and we were given a dozen fresh eggs for dinner and breakfast.

We spent the evening lounging on couches and playing fluxx (a hard to find card game I learned how to play in college) and watching 'Big Trouble in Little China.' I knew there was a reason I hadn't seen that movie before!!! We awoke to a valley of white the next morning. It looked like a dusting of light snow, but it was only frost. According to the owner of the guesthouse, Willie, the side of the valley we were on never gets out of shadow between November and the end of January because the sun never peaks higher than the hill. Brrr!!! It had reached -10C that night. Something else caught my eye as i peered out of our window. Something about the tilt of Fuchus seemed unnatural. A flat tire! Eek!

That explained the hissing noise ken heard the day before while he was sorting out our accommodation! We would have been better off with a bum engine. At least then, it would have been taken care of for free by Hertz.

Ken and I spent a good hour trying to take off the bloody wheel in the freezing cold alternating turns running inside to warm our hands. We had the car jacked and the lug nuts off, but the tire wouldn't budge! We thought maybe it was frozen, so we poured warm water on it with no luck. We finally decided it would be best to call Hertz. Willie insisted he would have a go at it before making the call. He probably thought we had no idea what we were doing when we explained the tire wouldn't pull off. The tire took a toll on him and we could tell he was frustrated and determined to get it off himself. He broke out an iron hammer, chisel, and wedge thingamajiggy and started pounding and prodding away at the thing. Ken and I exchanged worried glances before Willie said he'd try phoning the local (as in 40 minutes away!) garage for advice. There was a brief sigh of relief until he came back saying the garage instructed him to take a fence post to the tire. None of us were assertive enough to convince him we should just phone Hertz and we reluctantly let him bang away with the fence post. Who would have guessed a fence post would aid in the removal of a flat. Turns out Ford uses aluminum for their tire frames and steel for the brakes. Common sense is that the two will fuse together with a little heat, once again proving Ford has little or no insight!

With donut successfully on, we crawled into town and paid the ridiculously outrageous price of 15 quid/$30 to have a flat repaired!!! Yeah, I know. Any tire place in the states would have done it for free or would have sold us a brand new tire for the same price. Oh well, it made for a good laugh and new memory.

With little time to spare, we drove off to Glasgow only making one stop for the potty and a fill up stop with only 3 miles left til empty! Glasgow is where I currently sit rehashing all of this for you, that is if you're still with me! We fly out to France tomorrow where we plan to spend a few days before taking a train into northern Italy for the Winter Olympics! Hooray!

Europe Chapter 1: Part II How old is this? A history lesson...

We left London on Tuesday 1/24 on our way to Bath (called Aquae Sulis after the celtic goddess when it was established in AD 44!) stopping in Windsor and at Stonehenge just in time to see the sunset over the hills. We woke up Wednesday morning to tour the roman baths which were actually very interesting and more elaborate than I imagined them to be.

On our way up to Birmingham to stay and visit with a few mates I met while living in NZ, we sidetripped to Avebury where more unexplained rock formations similar to Stonehenge exist. They are a bunch of boulders standing upright and forming an outer circle and several inner circles that date back almost 5000 years! We also got lost in Oxford looking for a payphone and a net cafe. We didn't do the historic college town much justice navigating its busy streets by foot and car for only a few hours.

After a good evening catching up with my mates in Birmingham, we drove northeast to Nottingham/Sherwood Forest where we saw 'Major Oak,' an 800 year old oak tree where legend says Robin Hood hid and his Merry Men would meet. The oak was beautiful but looked very tired. Its branches were supported with many metal beams and trees and other plants were cleared away from it so that it doesn't have to compete for nutrients. It kind of reminded me of a lonely old man.

We spent the night in York and explored the medieval city via foot the next day. On our own walking tour, we gaped at the Yorkminster which is the biggest gothic cathedral in northern Europe (circa 1220, but a church has been there since 627). I don't know much about architecture, but anything over a few hundred years old with such elaborately detailed structures inside and out baffles me. Someone with an incredible imagination designed and built a masterpiece that has withstood wars, natural disasters, etc. and it's not just the cathedral...

On Saturday 1/28, we saw Hadrian's wall which was built by the Romans 2000 years ago. Ok, so that's not a masterpiece in an artsy sense, but it was a big feat; 74 miles long and much of it still stands today.

I was a little surprised to read that some of it was actually taken down to build roads within the last century! After York, we headed to England's nature capital, the Lake District where we did a bit of hiking around Lake Windermere and its surrounding rolling hills and pasturelands. We had a gorgeous day, blue skies and sheep grazing green grass in every direction. It's no wonder all of the Brits spend their summer holidays there.