Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Venice

In the increasingly drawn out and chronologically fucked up saga that is the story of my summer holiday, we have today come to the penultimate chapter: Venice. I went up there on the second Sunday in Italy to drop off my two Norwegian guests and to pick up Albie and Court. In addition I met up with an old friend from Norway, who was on vacation with his family at a camping place about an hour outside of town (a fate worse than death, if you ask me). We met in a restaurant a couple of blocks from St Mark's Square and the service was good, but the prices were insane.

I've never really had much interest in the place and now that I've been there I have even less. It contains all the things I hate in a city - a confined space, large amounts of people and obscenely high prices. In addition the sewage mostly runs straight out into the sea, so on hot summer days it stinks to high heaven (fortunately not while we were there).

I don't hate it quite the way I hate Vegas. I don't want it to sink into the sea, for example. Albie insisted that walking around the city in the wee hours of the morning was a very nice experience, but if you have to get up at 4am on a holiday, what's the point? Anyway, I think I can say with a degree of certainty that I'm never going back there. You can view all Venice pics here.

St Mark's Square with the bell tower. Notice the insane crowds. Lordy, how I hate people.
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Some palace.
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Another palace, pictured from the quay at St Mark's.
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A big palace(?) thingy right next to St Mark's. Notice the deliciously tacky commercial banner on the right.
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Quote of the Day

Nothing is as frustrating as arguing with someone who knows what he's talking about.
- Sam Ewing

Monday, August 30, 2010

Yeeehaaaaawwww

I weighed in at 112,5 kg this morning, a new personal low (at least for the period I've been measuring). Take that, bitches!

Quote of the Day

Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don’t hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.
- Will Rogers

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Quote of the Day

Christian: One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
- Ambrose Bierce

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Quote of the Day

There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy.
- Ambrose Bierce

There's a train a-comin'

This story from North Carolina has made me laugh and laugh. One man was killed and two more hospitalized in unknown condition because they were among a dozen people who were out on the train tracks at fuckin 2:45 am... to look for a GHOST TRAIN! Ahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! The only sad thing about this story is that nine people seem to be fine. Hopefully they'll be killed next year when they're out on the tracks looking for the ghost of their dead pal.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Quote of the Day

Conservative: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Quote of the Day

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.
- Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary"

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Quote of the Day

Teamwork: A chance to blame someone else.
- Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary"

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Quote of the Day

Scout: Kid dressed like an idiot led by a an idiot who's dressed like a kid.
- Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary"

Monday, August 23, 2010

Quote of the Day

Egoist: A person of low taste, more interested in themselves than in me.
- Ambrose Bierce "The Devil's Dictionary"

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Quote of the Day

It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
- Woody Allen

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Quote of the Day

One gives nothing so freely as advice.
- De La Rochefoucauld

Friday, August 20, 2010

Quote of the Day

The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you're born, and doesn't stop until you get up to speak in public.
- Joe Moore

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Quote of the Day

If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t make anything.
- Marva N. Collins

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Monticchiello

I may have waxed lyrical about this little town before. It's not formally a town even, it's a frazione of Pienza. Anywhoooo, I brought both couples to this cozy little place, mostly because the landscape you can see (and photograph) from here is, to me, the essential Tuscan landscape. I've noticed that some Italian photographers agree with me, because a lot of the postcards I saw in other places in Tuscany were taken from Monticchiello. All of MY pics are here.

So, so purdy.
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Quote of the Day

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
- John Locke

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Quote of the Day

Homines dum docent, discunt
[Men learn by teaching others]
- Seneca, Roman poet 4 BC - AD 65

Monday, August 16, 2010

Quote of the Day

I cannot for the life of me understand why small children take so long to grow up. I think they do it deliberately, just to annoy me.
- Pam Ferris in "Matilda"

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Quote of the Day

There's so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones
- Mark Knopfler, from "Brothers in Arms"

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Tuoro

Our Umbrian villa was situated five minutes from Tuscany, in the little town of Tuoro. The villa we stayed in was swell, and the town was quite nice. They had a supermarket we frequented to the point where the non-English speaking staff would dive out of the way when we rolled up... They had lots of fresh, locally produced goodies there, including extremely cheap meat that had its expiration date on the day it was sold. Especially Court was drooling in there, I think we could have just given him a mattress and he would have moved in. He kept raving about the price and quality of the products, and comparing it to the rather boring fare that is served up in most American supermarkets.

All pics here.

Our villa with the poooool. As the water heated up we spent more and more time in there. We bought a couple of cheap, inflatable mattresses that proved to be worth their weight in gold. I dare the reader to envision yours truly, all rubbed in with sun lotion to the point where I'm slippery as an eel, dozing in an advanced state of physical degradation on one of these mattresses in the sun. Ahhhhh, bliss.
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Fuckin huge lump o' meat. It's what I ate most days.
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The supermarket sold these John Paul II candles real cheap. We couldn't pass up the chance to have all our meals blessed by the pope hisself, no sirree.
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Like pretty much all little Italian towns, Tuoro had a war memorial.
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This plaque reads "To the fallen of all wars".
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The incredibly aptly named "The more leaning tower". I kid you not.
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Us Norwegians signed up for a tour of a vineyard. I went along for the scenery while the two others saw a golden opportunity to get drunk cheap, and early in the day.
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The winery also had a few animals on the farm, and they must be used to tourists, cuz they came running as soon as we stopped the car.

Like what you see, sailor?
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You lookin' at me? I said, you lookin at ME?
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"It’s snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing."
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven’t had an earthquake lately."
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Sienna

Sienna was a new acquaintance. I'd heard a lot about it, but never been there before so I went with my Norwegian friends. I knew it would be somewhat crazy, since we were arriving a few days before the first of the "Palios". I was not let down in that respect, The whole city was teeming with tourists and lots of roads and plazas were blocked. To be honest, I found the whole city to be a bit too dark, too sombre and the atmosphere too... how shall I put it... FUCKING INSANE. All pics here.

The overpriced but good crepe I ate at the main piazza.
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Before the chaos. They run test races in the days leading up to the main race.
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Nice architecture.
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One of the participating horses. They are actually given a fuckin' blessing by a Catholic priest before they race.
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The Simpsons (a dubbed version) are very popular in Italy. Probably, the greaseballs think it's a documentary on Italian family life. Anyway, we saw Duff beer sold in several places, including this shop in Sienna.
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Quote of the Day

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.
- Jonathan Swift

Friday, August 13, 2010

Cortona

Another hillside town in Tuscany that I love dearly, is Cortona. The views from up there are simply incredible, and the town itself is very intimate and cozy. I brought both couples up there and also took a couple of trips myself, since it was less than 30 mins from our Umbrian village. All pics here.

If you tilt the screen just so, you can make out Lake Trasimeno in the distance, behind the hill.
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The views are also spectacular from even higher up in the hills.
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The view from Piazza Garibaldi in Cortona may be the purdiest in all of Italy.
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The Great Garibaldi hisself:
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The village square, where we conspicuously failed to get a table every single time I visited.
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That's not my dirty lense, those tiny specks are hundreds of swallows. I don't think I've ever seen more swallows than in Italy, they're absofuckinlutely everywhere.
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Neon Jesus & Madonna. I've mentioned this before... the Italians are just about the tackiest people in the world. It's a good thing they didn't have neon 2,000 years ago.
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Quote of the Day

It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.
- Benjamin Disraeli

Montepulciano

Montepulciano is a nice little mountaintop city where I took both my Norwegian guests and Albie & Court. Some (hopefully no readers of this blog) might know it as the film location for the second Twilight movie. There's "New Moon"-related stuff on sale everywhere and even items on the menus of the local restaurants. Ugh.

All pics from Montepulciano can be seen here.

Some nice views:
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The interior of a local restaurant where we had an overpriced lunch... they had a New Moon menu, which had Albie retching with disgust.
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Towards the top, where the main road takes a sharp right up to the very summit (we didn't climb up it) there's a place down the road to your left, where they sell all sorts of local goodies. Mostly liquor and wine, but also bread, sausages and cheese. They had these rooms full of cool, old wine crates.
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This guy was the cooooolest. The first time I was there, me and Heidi were certain he was stuffed, cuz he was sitting absofuckinlutely still. I almost jumped when he moved his ears. There was cold air coming from the cellar behind him so he had both airconditioning and sun. Also, he's probably the most photographed cat in all of Tuscany.
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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Castiglione de Lago

One of the numerous cozy little towns in the area was Castiglione del Lago, which was also situated on the banks of lake Trasimeno. It had once been an island, but landfills and a lowering of the water table over the centuries had now made it landlocked. The historical center of town is on the former island and is a well preserved medieval entity.

It was a nice town, not too touristified, just enough that it was convenient and comfortable. They had a weekly market (I forget the day) and we arrived as they were closing up. Court was especially intrigued by the design of their vehicles, which had a fold-in mechanism for the roof.

I managed to draw the ire of one of the shopkeepers when I suggested that all the shops in town had pretty much the same selection at the same prices. She sternly informed me that her shop was different from all the others and that they were just impostors from out of town who had bought their way in. That's as may be, but they still sold pretty much the same goods at pretty much the same price...

Gorillas in the mist? No, just Court & Albie *snortgiggle* That hill was a bitch to climb UP by the way.
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The view from the parking lot...
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Ish purdy.
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Under the Umbrian sun

At long last, the story of my two first weeks of holidaying - in Italy, without an internet connection. Hence the fucked up chronology. But, I have the pics to make it up to ya'll, wheee!

I left Oslo on a Thursday and made reasonably good speed, reaching the Danish-German border and then some before nightfall. On Friday I had a hellish drive through Germany, from the very north to the border with Austria and then into Switzerland and Liechtenstein (notch up another country!). I had to pay a ten day toll for the Austrian roads and the exorbitant TWENTY-NINE fuckin Euros for the Swiss road tax.

I first looked for a room in Liechtenstein, but at the first place I came to there didn’t seem to be anybody in the reception (I called) and the second one was full. I think I spent all of 15 minutes in Vaduz, and I’m happy to report it wasn’t much of a town. I snapped a few pics of the stunning mountains and left again.

I spent the night in a Swiss town called Chur, in a hotel much too expensive for me, but I really had no choice. I was dead tired, dizzy from driving and dirty. Wanna know how dirty I was? Well, I had spent two days on the road eating gas station food and downing sodas and sitting perfectly still in my car - yet when I weighed myself in my hotel room in Chur I was the exact same weight as when I left. I had sweated it all out on my way through Germany. (A quick nightsnack at the local McDonalds soon took care of that.)

Saturday I drove through the stunningly purdy Swiss countryside. There were impossibly tall mountains, deep blue lakes, green hillsides and dark forests everywhere. Swiss roads are engineering marvels and the vistas were simply breathtaking. I made the final stretch into Italy and was subjected to the insane Italian roads, with long, long traffic jams several places on the way down to Florence. South of Florence there were no jams, but by this time I was so tired that I still drove below the speed limit. I finally reached Tuoro at 4PM.

The apartment was big, with two large bedrooms with double beds and a small one with two single beds (a double bed more than I had thought!). There was a nice living room and kitchen and a satellite TV with hundreds of channels, most of them pimping Arab phone sex lines.

There were two bathrooms, and there was some trouble here, because the one that had a detachable showerhead (European bliss!) had very low water pressure and there was no curtain around the bathtub - while the one shower with good water pressure had a curtain, but still managed to send the water flying everywhere... and it was not detachable. Argh. To top it off, the water in the swimming pool was freezing for the first days, it took almost a week for it to warm up properly.

One word on the local food - I bought some tomatoes at the supermarket in Tuoro, and sweet Jeebus, these are the real thing. Big, juicy and tasty. Later, when my yank friends Albie and Court came, Albie lived on a diet largely consisting of bruscetta, tomatoes and mozarella cheese...

Ok, some pics from Liechtenstein:
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Quote of the Day

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight to the blood.
- George Santayana

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Quote of the Day

Man was born to live, not to prepare for life.
- Boris Pasternak

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

So wrong

My last picture from France, taken on the motorway somewhere around Montelimar is a study in wrongness. Look at the individual drawings - 1)children playing, 2) noguat and 3) money and... well, I shall leave it to you to, ahem, fill in the blanks, dear reader.

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Quote of the Day

I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain.
- Carol Leifer

PAIN

I had a small bout with kidney stones again last night. At somewhere between 1:30 and 2AM I awoke with a murmuring pain in my left side. As it quickly turned to excruciating agony, I got up and got to the emergency room. They gave me a shot and told me to use suppositories for the pain in the next few days. Ugh!

The pain was less horrible than the first time I had kidney stones, so I'm hoping this one will pass on its own. If not I can look forward to pain, pain and more pain, a few days in a hospital and a rotten end to my summer holiday. On the other hand, a world filled with pain is good preparation for the coming school year...

Monday, August 9, 2010

Quote of the Day

You can't be truly rude until you understand good manners.
- Rita Mae Brown

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Quote of the Day

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "does not!".
- Unknown

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Quote of the Day

Leaving the rented house in France and beginning the long trek home...

Live each day as if it were the last day of your life, because so far, it is.
- Unknown

Friday, August 6, 2010

Au revoir

I've just waved goodbye to 3 Swedish girls in their mid 20s... earlier today the two yanks and a French guy left. I am alllllll alooooone again, and tomorrow I begin the long, sad trek towards Norway. Home and work awaits me. Sigh.

Some final pics...

I went with the Americans to Mount St Baudille Wednesday...
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And finally got a pic of the War Memorial in St Jean De Fos on the way back...
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We also went to the Grotte Demoiselles... here's the funicular...
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The rocks were as impressive as the first time I was there...
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I finally went inside the actual cloister at Saint Guilhem, it doesn't cost a dime unless you go into the museum. I was here both with the yanks and the next day with the Swedes.
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The crypt of Saint Guilhem, which according to my best attempts at deciphering the frogspeak on the wall, was reconstructed in the early 1960s.
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The expression on the face of this Little Red Riding Hood is downright psychotic. If I were the wolf, I would run.
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