September 27, 2005
la vida italia
Wow, so now we’re in Sardinia. In St. Theresa. It’s a really cute port town. Hard to say not speaking the language and all, but I think I really like Italians. They’re so colorful and funny!
Our stay in Corsica with doug’s family was just breathtaking. His tanto Jean put us up in an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean for free. FREE. His friend owned the place and he had an empty room. And by room I mean a full kitchen BBQ, 3 bedrooms and porch/balcony bigger than my front yard. It was really a luxury condo type place. Then he took us out fishing sea urchin the second day. At noon or so we sat on the rocks on the beach and sipped the amazing red and rose wines from his vineyard. i watched this salty old guy of 81 raking up sea urchins into a bucket. Tanto Jean always wears the same camouflage pants and shirt, but this time he had on his wetsuit and wetsuit booties so he wouldn’t prick his feet with the spindly black things that poke out of live sea urchins. we later found out a splinter of these hurts like hell and is hard to remove with out a tweezer.
Tanto jean sat on his rock -out of his wet suit now– slicing open these sea urchins and scooping the juice and meat out with a piece of french bread. We all followed his lead. I have rarely had moments in my life where I felt so at peace with the world. the water felt nice on my flip flop clad feet and the wine buzz was just enough. I felt energized yet slow and just there soaking up the world. Tanto jean was worried that other like the German students staying at the resort would find his sea urchin spot, but they never followed us. no worry for tourists coming here. he presented us with a spot where we would grill some steak to have after the sea urchin snack. this spot was just a little into the woods right above the rocks we drank and ate on. he named this are “portland shores” for doug, mike and i because it hadn’t a name before and now he was able to share it with someone who felt more like family to him. he said a friend of a friend is his friend. an enemy of his friend is his enemy. This old world tanto jean lives in is odd to us, but we welcomed the appreciation of nature he had. thanks tanto jea! i hope we meet more of him. i’m not sure how many of him are left in this world.
September 12, 2005
dirt coats prague’s prettiness
I found free wifi finally, so here i am checking it out. I lost my socks for the 3rd time since traveling. no, seriously, we got laundry done and they lost my damn socks. the kicker is that the last socks i bought cost me like 30 bucks for 2 pairs!!! i needed good ones so i can walk a lot, you know? oh well. c’est la vie, as the french say. so we go back to France tomorrow. we’re taking a 12 hour train ride and going to Strausbourg to see mike’s family who speak very little English. should be fun. I speak a little french and people think I understand a lot more than I do, so maybe his uncle will talk to me and tell me stories I don’t quite get. I’ve been pretty surprised to see that hardly any people speak English in prague. Everyone always makes it seem like English is everywhere, but it’s not. Granted, mike and I like to travel in the locals areas, so that could be why. So, Prague is dirty and pieces of it are falling everywhere. the street fall apart when you walk on them. Running on cobblestone sucks. The parks are not taken care of. People start drinking at 9 or 10 am. Beer! Bars open before bakeries. Strange. I love the bread dumplings. They’re cheap and boiled. Boiled bread?!?! why didn’t i think of that? The Goulash rocks when it’s made right (not with ketchup).
People are really weirded out by us. I don’t know what’s so freaky about me, but they stare and stare like I’m a circus freak. this has been the case Everywhere!!!! Even Ireland. I speak that damn language. Or so I thought. They didn’t really understand me when I talked sometimes. It took awhile to adjust to their English too. Camping has been interesting and fun. We camped at one place with no toilet paper and horrible facilities, but a beautiful ocean view and another with a nice night sky view and hot showers!!! The private camp sites in France rock and are cheap. Virgin airways lost my sleeping bag and tent so i had to buy a new one. the tent is cool (except mike broke a pole 😉 and my sleeping bags sucks big ass. it’s tiny and sweaty. yuck!!! I love my backpack. It has been such a nice thing to have so comfy and all. What a sweet and thoughtful gift from the girls back home.
Next we’re heading for Corsica to meet up with doug, maybe meet his family. The Mediterranean!!! heat and sun and water!!! I can’t wait. God, I totally miss my friends. I can’t believe I’m not able to wine to everyone all the time. I feel every once in awhile like turning to someone and asking them to go shopping with me or something 🙁 SOME people don’t have the patience of my girlie friends!!!! I miss you all sooo much.
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