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I guess I’ll start from the beginning of my recent trip to Europe and the reasons behind it. I’ve graduated along with three other cousins this summer, and we decided that a family trip was in order. Really, Celeste and I (my cousin who is exactly two months older than me) declared that we wanted to revisit Italy and at least one other country. The trip was a b***h to put together, simply because my Aunt Marge is the most stubborn woman on the planet and didn’t want to come with my family to Barceloña for three days. The bitchiest part wasn’t her stubbornness, really, but her indecisiveness on the matter. We were planning and making reservations almost up until the day we left, which actually caused us some trouble along the way. I still have no idea why she detested the idea of visiting that city, but oh well. I managed to pull through and win the fight, going to Spain. I’ve wanted to visit Spain since I was in ninth grade, and my Aunt be damned if I wasn’t going to go.
The plane ride wasn’t interesting. I have a knack for having allergy attacks on oversea flights, for whatever reason. That wasn’t so pleasant, but I managed to get over it with a Benadryl and some Sigur Ros.
My dad’s a ******** lunatic sometimes, I swear. He has these crazy ideas that make
sense to him, but ends up inconveniencing everyone else. We arrived in Rome, Italy at ten o’clock in the morning incredibly jet lagged. Most people check into a hotel after getting picked up by a car (ours was an hour late, thanks to dear old Dad’s poor planning) but NO. Mike had to go to the Vatican, which was about 100 degrees inside. We dragged our feet around for two hours, bitching and moaning about being sleepy and hot. On top of that, he wouldn’t let us get food. Again, he’s a lunatic who might have masochistic tendencies towards his family. Just give us some food, dammit!
Rome wasn’t too exciting. I got to hear about my airheaded Aunt accidentally renting a bachelor pad. My cousin, Adrian, showed me pictures of her circular pimp bed, the disco balls scattered around the apartment, and the extremely lewd Victorian-esque porn on my Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Dave’s bedsheets. There were seriously orgies on the pillowcases. It was ******** hilarious, especially because my Aunt would rent a place like that by accident. She’s a great lady, but she’s not too smart all the time.
The next day we picked up Celeste, who I’ve mentioned, her family and then my other cousin Tanner. I don’t see Tanner much since he lives in Nashville, so I was eager to see what this vacation would be like. We hopped into a car to drive to Florence. Nothing interesting happened besides my mother falling face first out of the rental car (smooth, Jane. Real smooth.) When we reached Florence, we met with Massimo, the agent to our apartment. Jesus, he’s an interesting story.
He was an older man who wore a suit, had a friendly smile, nice too. He brought us cookies and wine, showed us around the place. It was only three days later that we got to see the worse side of him. After my family left to catch a plane in Rome to Barceloña, he had an absolute b***h fit. Massimo accused Celeste and I of stealing his shitty bedsheets and a pillow case. Seriously, what the hell? My aunt and uncle denied it, which made Massimo repeat, “I just don’t understand!” over and over. He ended up throwing my uncle’s deposit at him too, right across the table.
“He’s going to get one angry review on his website,” my Aunt threatened. Yeah, we’re that cool.
Anyways, I got hit on twice in Florence. It was pretty hilarious and extremely creepy at the same time. Those Italians really are blatantly out there with their sexuality.
The first time we were walking down some random street and there’s this guy outside this specialty store for meats and cheeses. I think he was a butcher, but as my sister and Celeste passed, I heard him say in a really creepy, low voice, “LOVELY.” When I passed with Adrian, he said, “SEXY LOVE.” Tanner was the only one that heard, and we first looked at him strangely before bursting out into laughter. The rest of the trip, Tanner leaned over to me randomly to repeat the creeper’s pick up lines. He also used it on various Italian women, who gave him weird looks. It was worth it though.
So now I come to the point where my family, strictly my immediate family of my mother, father and sister, travel to Spain. We met the agent Edder at the apartment, who was this young kid and much more relaxed than Massimo. It was incredibly nice, pretty chic. Best apartment of the entire trip, despite it’s leaking shower. Once we settled in, we set out into the city and I adored everything I saw.
Barcelona is an incredibly well structured city. The buildings were beautifully created, each a good size and unique, and the streets had a walkway in the middle strictly for pedestrians. Barcelona was surprisingly green, much greener than Italy, and the breeze coming off the sea managed to cool the temperatures a bit. I loved every aspect of it. The buildings, the people, the language, the smells, the food—I made a connection there, one that I rarely make in the cities that I’ve visited. Besides Seattle, I could fully envision living in Barcelona.
We were only there three days, and the first one wasn’t so great. It was July 10, my sister’s birthday. Anyone would normally say, “hey, you’re in Europe! What a birthday treat that is!” but that wasn’t my sister’s case. The morning that we were walking to La Sagrada Familia (one of Gaudi’s cathedrals), she realized that she lost one of her new, expensive birthday earrings bought from Florence. As my parents and she retraced their steps, I continued to the cathedral. It turned out later that she couldn’t find it, which depressed her some but the day went on.
We went up into the spires of the cathedral, which freaked me out. I can’t deal with heights or swirling steps going downhill. My legs were wobbly when I got to the ground level and I cried for about five minutes for no reason in particular. It took me almost an hour to recover and in that hour we started to walk to Park Guell.
“It’s only a few miles,” my father commented, waving our idea of taking a taxi off. Another one of my lunatic father’s plans. His map didn’t tell him that getting to Park Guell took walking SIX continuous miles, and almost all of it uphill. It took us two and a half hours of power walking to get to our destination, and by that time my sister was sobbing walking up the hill. I felt terrible for her because it was her birthday, the hills were steep, and the heat unbearably beat on our necks. Also, we couldn’t stop to eat until we reached the park. My dad needs to learn some people skills, or at least figure out that living with three women means that there needs to be periods of eating and resting. We were downright bitches by the time we reached the park.
On top of my sister’s “fantastic” birthday, we couldn’t shop. July 10th was a Saturday, and the city was host to a huge protest that we had no idea about. Apparently a law was passed or something in Spain allowing the Catalunyans to recognize themselves as an independent territory. Or something like that. I really don’t remember the details, but I know that the Catalunyans were pissed because they wanted to break away from Spain fully and Spain doesn’t want the Catalans creating a nation. One million people filled the streets that day, which prevented us from going shopping. It sucked, not gonna lie. It was the only day we could shop, too, seeing as everything closes on Sunday. It was pretty wild, though. It was a friendly demonstration filled with grandparents, young children and everyone else in between. Signs were carried, chants were spoken loudly in the group, and flags were worn as capes.
The next day was even better, seeing as we were in Spain when the World Cup was won. People were shouting all over the city that night and we rushed out to join them. Since the city is mostly made up of people who support the Catalans, partying was kept to a minimum because of their disdain towards Spain. But there was still a party, partly because of the fact that a good deal of football players were from Barcelona. People were wearing cape flags, others wore jerseys and they were all shouting and screaming “ESPANA! ESPANA! VIVA ESPANA!” over and over. It was absolutely wild. I got a jersey, actually, and the frantic sales guy gave it to us for cheapsies because a) his boss was gone and b) Spain won the cup for the first time ever. I got Jersey 9, Torres. I looked up a picture of him, and he’s handsome in the Heath Ledger sort of way. Maddie got Villa, number 7, and I have to say he’s much more attractive.
After our Barcelona adventure, which was what I would consider the highlight of the trip, we returned to Rome once more to meet up with Celeste and Tanner, who had visited Venice instead. Celeste was getting weary of Tanner and complained to me often about him. Personally, I didn’t find anything wrong with him, especially when I could bully him into taking me places. I have a horrid sense of direction and no map skills. He does. I made him take me to jewelry stores, which he did (which was nice) but only after I agreed to help him find a man purse.
The apartment in Rome that my parents had found was absolutely horrid. It was dirty, had no air conditioning and was in the Jewish ghetto. Yeah, we didn’t stay there long, especially after we found the bottle of wine left was half drunk and some random man’s clothing was in the closet. (The agent had no idea who’s it was, which freaked me out.) We then moved to a hotel, where I shared a room with Tanner and Celeste. My family returned home early, leaving me in Italy alone with my Aunt, Uncle, Celeste and Tanner. We rarely interacted with the adults and rather went about the city on our own. It was great. Celeste got hit on multiple times, especially when she visited the Jewish ghetto on her own. A guy started stalking her, which thoroughly freaked her out and she ran all the way back to the hotel.
I got hit on again too, but it was much funnier than Celeste’s encounters. We were in a taxi going to dinner, and we stopped in a line of cars. Italian streets are narrow, and I was looking out the window when I came face to face with this waiter at a café. His blue/green eyes got wide (“buggy,” says Tanner) as he uttered something that sounded like, “GUAY” before the car took off. His expression was priceless. Again, Tanner was the only one who noticed and laughed his a** off. This also became another pick up line for women, and, as you could probably assume, it didn’t work so well.
The last notable experience in Italy was the ******** insane taxi cab driver we had. Celeste, my uncle and I got into the cab to go back to the hotel from the Coliseum with a man that I would classify mentally unstable. He had this wild curly dark hair, probably in his mid to late forties, and these absolutely insane brown eyes. His English wasn’t bad, and we began talking about dogs on Vespas since I pointed one out in the streets.
“My brother, eh, he has a dog and, uh, sometimes, yes, he puts the dog on the scooter and, ah, drives around.” He would pause sometimes while he spoke, making hand motions. My uncle was polite and continued conversation as Celeste and I exchanged amused yet astounded glances at each other.
“So,” my uncle replied. “What type of dog does your brother have?”
The crazy man turned away from the traffic to look at my uncle and said, “YES” in the strangest tone before turning back to the road. He didn’t saying anything for a good minute or two, which made us crack up in the back seat.
He cut corners really fast, to the point where a local Italian began yelling at him and waving a newspaper angrily at him. He replied something to him, made a rude gesture and then looked at us and said, “******** you! Eh? ******** you!” He was looking for our approval, but it was short lived since we came to our destination. The guy was absolutely bonkers but so funny.
Then we got on the plane to come back home. Overall, I stayed in Rome 4 days, Florence 3, and Barcelona 3. It was a pretty good vacation, but I’ve learned my lesson from jumping from place to place. Planes wear you out and I’m so happy to be home.
 Lilith-sama · Mon Jul 19, 2010 @ 05:32am · 0 Comments |
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