Italy Pictures 4

Cinque Terre

Ah, those were John's salad days

Florentines, hide your daughters

Our front door in Cinque Terre

Italy Pictures 3 - How Could You Not Vote For Him?

There was some kind of big election going on in Sicily. Roberto Calica seemed like a fine choice. My trained Italian eye sees that he is "Autonomous and Legal."

I hope Roberto realizes that his Sicilian constituents are feisty.

At Sicilian bars, I got way more attention from stray dogs than from girls.

A crappy-looking door on the street in Palermo was open and it was hot outside, so I went inside. Not a bad place to sit for a minute.

In Pompeii. What a cute lil' guy.

More Pictures of Italy

St. Peter's is a little church somewhere in Italy.

Michelangelo's sculpture in St. Peter's. I wonder how many Ninja Turtles jokes are made in Italy each day. I certainly didn't contribute to that number.

Pantheon.

The view from the train as it entered the ship. Los Angeles can't even get a decent subway, yet Sicily can have trains that are carried onto the island by huge ships.

In Palermo, no street is too narrow for cars. Including streets packed with people at 3am that are about 7 feet wide.

Pictures of Italy

Our best friend in Palermo. This guy is from Mali, but has lived in Palermo for a long time. When he found out I was from the U.S. (and had even lived in Los Angeles), all he wanted to talk about was "The Bloods And The Crips." His English wasn't perfect, but he knew every word to all 250 gangsta rap songs that came on in the bar. He kept asking me if I liked the Bloods or the Crips better, what I thought about Tupac, if I liked Tupac as much as Biggie, if I had spent much time in Compton, why I hadn't spent much time in Compton, etc etc. When I asked him how he knew about all of these things, he said "Becuase I listen....I listen....And I use the Internet."

Nothing to do with Itally, but I thought this picture of Reid was funny.

Venice is a tiny Italian town that was built on the water and therefore has tons of pretty canals. For some reason, tourists haven't gotten wind of its beauty, so no one is there at all. If you're reading this, book a ticket to Venice quick -- there's no way it can stay a secret for long.

When the Maestro conducted us out of his bar, we went to this cove to drink with the locals. They threw a cord out the window of the tower and hooked up their iPod to it on the rocks so we would have music. It was here that the man said, "We used to fish. Now we rent rooms."

Graham and Mike, on a bench in Cinque Terre.

Picture This: Sicily. 2008.

I can't believe I just thought to use a Golden Girls Sicily joke. But perfect timing.

I rode an 8+ hr train to Palermo today. I sat next to a delightful Sicilian gentleman named George. He wanted to talk for all 8 hours, apparently because he loves learning languages and needed to practice his English. He was 62, but "still has the heart of a child." The heart of a child involved showing me "inventions" he had made, including a strap he bolted into his cell phone so that it will stay on his belt. He showed it to me and proclaimed "I ingenious!"

George loves dancing, but "like dancing with slim girls more; girls with big butts make me tired when we dance. I too small for girls with big butts." He loves to dance the "waltz, mamba and booooogey wooooogey." Just a solid dude.

He left our train car when it was taken over by five kids who decided to run down the aisle throwing plastic bottles, jumping on the seats, and kicking each other in the crotch. Shirking all parental shouts, they did this for the last four hours of the journey.

This is my first night in Palermo, and already it's up with my favorite places I've been. The city map I found prominently displays the three puppet theaters in the city, all of which are near my hostel. I think tomorrow may be the first Sicilian puppet triple feetch by an American. I'm giddy with excitement. If all goes well, I may have to cap off the day with a visit to the Sicilian International Marrionette and Puppet Museum. Sicilians, hide your daughters.

Palermo is tons of tiny streets, churches, bars, restaurants, and no street signs. It is incredibly beautiful in a gritty, happy way. George told me to "buy the historical DVDs on Sicily. Five or eight of them in the set -- much much much history here."

The last two days were in Sorrento, where I finally realized that hanging out with American girls is the only way to get any attention in Italy. Walking around with two girls from Tennessee, I was treated like an emperor. Our cab driver on the first night said that he would love to hang out with us, but couldn't because they "are my women." We tried very hard to tell him that these were not my women, but it wasn't until after we dropped them off that he finally cracked, and said "Okay okay, please please please call me tomorrow. I give you my number. Please. I love to spend time with you all...as long as you don't think I'm taking your women." We tried calling him five times the next day, with no luck. Gianluca, where are you??

Shake It Hip To Hip

I'm not even sure if those are the right lyrics to the B-52s song. Appropriate nonetheless.

Yesterday saw a tearful goodbye with John, Graham, Casey, and Mike. In John's case, 'tearful' meant waking up as early as possible and running out of the hostel as if it was on fire. I can't imagine why he wanted to leave so quickly. It may have been the 7-inch deep puddle of murky water in our bathroom. Or the three guys who ended up in our room somehow, out of whom we scared the bejesus when Graham threw his backpack against a bunk bed at 1am the previous night. The star of our room was Dennis, a kindly Slovakian man who wanted to know if it was safe to 'drink tap water in all of the U.S. territories.'

I don't know if I ever want to leave Rome. Yesterday we toured the Vatican and saw the Sistine Chapel. I learned two important lessons:

1) being a guard inside the chapel is probably the coolest job in the world. You are supposed to be quiet in the chapel, and pictures are strictly forbidden. So four guys in sharp-looking suits have to enforce these rules. They get to walk around all day, SHOUTING at tourists to "STOP TAKING PICTURES IMMEDIATELY!!!" and "Miss, COVER UP YOUR ARMS!" and my favorite "People! SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" I can't think of any other jobs where there would be absolutely no reason to be nice to anyone.

2) Renaissance painters drew women with fake-looking breasts because they had never seen naked women. Weird. Every woman from the 1500s in Italy had implants.

On a more somber note, someone in the hostel stole my salami from the refrigerator. Outrageous. I think they used some of my bread and cheese too. For revenge, I'm thinking about making a giant sandwich with the Nutella in the fridge.

Maestro

We are staying in a convent in Spoleto, Italy. Graham, who is traveling with us, spent a couple summers here and led us to it. The convent mother is incredibly nice (and old), and Graham told me that when he was here one summer, she leaned back and slapped the hell out of one girl who was talking back to her.

We walked back to her office yesterday and Graham whispered 'Here comes the big TV.' As we rounded the corner, the huge flat-screen TV came into view. I guess that explains the large satellite dish near our room, in the courtyard of the convent.

In Cinque Terre, we spent most of our nights hanging out with the staff of The Blue Marlin bar, including the owner, whom we dubbed Maestro. At the end of each night at the bar, he would put on Pachelbel's Canon, followed by Mozart's Requeim, as loudly as possible. He would stand on a bar stool and conduct. Or play an enormous air gong.

One evening, he drove past us as we were eating at a cafe. He stopped his car, rolled down his window, waved at us, then smiled and turned up the car stereo, which was blasting Mozart's Requeim again. Followed by more air conducting.

Cinque Terre

We just went on a hike through the Cinque Terre on the coast of Italy. Five beautiful old towns linked together by train, boat, and footpath. No cars anywhere. Just more wonderful Americans like the aforementioned John Moss, who just impressed the locals in the tiny internet cafe by giving me a "Wet Willy."

Old Italian people are the coolest. There is a group of old men who sit outside in the square and play some bizarre card game all evening. We can hear them shouting from our room, and it is a wonderful rising excitement. "Aaahhhh.......ahhhhh.......AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" They smoke cigars and play this bizarre game. We are too scared to try to join, because the old Italians seem to love arguing as much as cards. The owner of a gelato shop just asked me if "Why hey, you want to sample the entire store??" when I asked for a sample of more than one flavor. He ended up giving me the sample.

We spent the whole day hiking with some sorority girls from the University of Georgia who were absolutely verclemped that I worked for ABCFamily, and therefore GREEK. The only person who loves the show more (besides my friend Derek) is the other guy on the hike, the Wet Willy perpetrator. I think we discussed GREEK for about 3 hours.

It is the most serene piece of land I have ever entered, and I must spend the whole time discussing whether or not Cappie will ever be with Casey for good. At least my now popular "Trenitalia" joke went over well.

Trenitalia

I cannot stop making jokes about Italy's train company -- Trenitalia. No one else seems as enthused. I think it's especially hilarious since Germany's company is 'DB'. Ah, the jokes are endless. Alright, alright, no more translation jokes.

Today is our second day in Florence. So many museums, so much time.

My favorite game to play is 'Avoid The Americans' since there seem to be millions everywhere I've gone. I figure out which neighborhoods my guidebook tells me to hang out in, then find other neighborhoods on a map and go there instead. Voila! It's much more fun to be around people who don't know what I'm saying and who will sell me a banana for 20 cents than to be around Michelle, a raving drunken UVA graduate from Maryland who we met on the street who was furious that 'NO ONE in Munich speaks English!!! NO ONE!!! It's so annoying!!! And they hate me!!!'

Venice was incredibly beautiful. Florence feels like Manhattan with famous masterpieces stuck in the middle of unbelievable churches and buildings. We are staying with a woman and her daughter who rent out five rooms in their flat to tourists. It is like staying with your grandmother, who speaks very very little English. I understand about 10 percent of what she says to me, and I imagine she understands about 15 percent of what I say to her. But she's lovely.

I have averaged about three eatings of gelato per day. I do not understand how it is so much better than normal ice cream.

Munich was like being in an MTV-planned frat party in the middle of Germany. I saw more Americans vomiting from alcohol intake than I did throughout four years of college. Weird.

Time to get home to grandma. We are off to Cinque Terre tomorrow.