| (no subject) |
[Jun. 2nd, 2006|06:18 pm] |
Definitely witnessed a secret gay love affair today at Lake Claire.
Definitely almost committed a felony with Brett trying to get his car from the tow company. |
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| Good Sunday |
[Apr. 2nd, 2006|08:32 pm] |
| [ | i'm feelin this! |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | tunes |
| | Panic! at the Disco - "Find Comfort in Yourself" | ] |
Woke up after Kristen's 21st birthday party, computer didn't start, then it did, got to swim and sun before Greek kids arrived at the Lake, yelled at some Greek kids for messing with the kayak, got to nap on the ground behind the counter, made the birthday party kids stay away from the water's edge because the Gator finally made an awesome appearance, got free lunch from the birthday party folks, helped put up a piñata, got $10 that I couldn't refuse, relaxed with some comics after getting home, 2nd date with Megan to the Enzian for Invasion of the Body Snatchers and then home. Good Sunday. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 29th, 2006|12:58 am] |
| [ | tunes |
| | Coheed - "Three Evils (Embodied in Love and Shadow)" | ] |
We are SO American Eagle. |
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| Party Hardy |
[Mar. 26th, 2006|11:35 am] |
| [ | tunes |
| | Godspeed You Black Emperor! - "Sleep, etc..." | ] |
New favorite mixed drink:
2 shots Captain Morgan's Tattoo
1.5 shots Smirnoff Black Cherry Vodka
2 shots Sloe Gin
Fill the rest with Cherry Coke
Goes down smooth and tastes just like a Slurpee. |
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| Low |
[Mar. 23rd, 2006|07:09 am] |
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Got my car lowered yesterday....finally. I've had the parts sitting in the living room for quite a while, but now my suspension actually works (the stock struts were pretty leaky) and the car looks better. Pictures soon to come. |
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| Motorbike |
[Mar. 17th, 2006|07:04 pm] |
Dug a jacuzi on the beach, buried ourselves up to the knees, ate some pb&j sandwiches with pretzels and fingered-jelly, got splashed by little kids in the real jacuzi, saw a helicopter land on highway 520, invented a new drinking game with the foosball table, saw Christie almost catch the kitchen on fire, chopped down a tree with a hammer, rolled around a field inside a monster truck tire, chased and almost ate a very large chicken, hung out at the kiddie pool, will see Dane Cook in Vegas, will go to Vegas, and will come home with much more less money than we left with.
The good times continue. |
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| Rock, Paper, Scissors |
[Mar. 10th, 2006|01:54 am] |
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So you know that Budweiser-sponsored Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament I won at the local bar awhile back? Well I competed in the Orlando finals tonight in Lake Buena Vista and won....a trip for myself and a friend to compete in the national tournament including 4 days and 3 nights in Las Vegas, courtesy of Budweiser. Not sure of the hotel or anything, but we'll be out there Friday April 7th until Monday April 10th. Rock on! (no pun intended) |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 8th, 2006|12:57 am] |
Tonight I won the Bud Light Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament at Friendly Confines. Won a t-shirt, hat, gloves, and two tickets to Sea World. I get to attend the semi-finals at Lake Buena Vista during the second week of March and if, somehow, I win that, I get a free trip to Las Vegas. Let's hope the luck stays with me.
Thank you, Michael, for moving back to Orlando. |
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| Day 13 |
[Dec. 24th, 2005|08:25 pm] |
Got into Rome yesterday and found out, within half an hour, that the Hostelling International office near the train station was closed for the holidays, but the front desk guy referred us to a hostel not too far away (by using public transportation).
We venture into the Metro station, buy 24-hour passes, and attempt to get onto the subway with our bikes. First of all, no one deemed it necessary to tell us that bikes are not allowed on the subway in Rome (we had no problem with the boxes in Milano), but that wasn't the fun part. An impromptu security check found out that we had forgotten to validate the tickets we had purchased not five minutes earlier! Immediately the security guards demanded €51 and/or our passports and began to literally back us into a corner. While arguing that we had just purchased the tickets (they had time stamps on them) and that the lady in the ticket booth had simply waved us by, the guards tried to not allow us the right to talk with their superiors to run upstairs to validate the tickets. Luckily for us, one of their superiors was a more level headed and less bulldoggish female who looked at the timestamps, gave our tickets back and told us to go back upstairs so we could either validate the tickets without our bikes or leave the station all-together...needless to say, we did the latter.
After that mess, we began the trek to the hostel on foot, which proved to be a much lengthier task than originally thought. Lots of wandering around in the cold night (we were in casual clothes and using our road bikes on these streets would be suicide) led us to a bus terminal next to a nice little pizzeria. We ate dinner and luckily found a bus driver that both recognized the address and spoke English. We were only about a mile away! Eventually found the hostel and found out, throughout the night, that it was basically a dump. €18 later (plus €2 to store the bikes in their "luggage storage" room) and we had a place to sleep (plus free breakfast including: a roll, butter, jam, hot chocolate, and fruit juice). All the computers with internet access, at least 8, were broken and had apparently been that way for a while. Took showers and went to bed.
Woke up at 8:00, at the free "breakfast," and left our bikes in storage while we left to explore town and look for another place to stay unburdened. Stopped by an internet point, found out that ferry prices may be too high for us, and found a few hostels to look towards for a place to spend the night. Wandered around the old city (Roman forum, Coliseum, etc...) and bought another wonderful wonderful Panattone.
We eventually found the Sandy Hostel to stay at for €22 (a few days ago the prices were down to €12/night), which is worth it because it's a few blocks from the train station and about 100 steps up in quality from the last place!
We set out to the phone center to call family (especially my sister; it's her birthday) and then walked around before eating pizza, having a few shots of celebratory liquor (Disarono for Matt and Jäger for myself, of course), having a bit of ice cream, and then some Nutella-filled crêpes. Afterwards we headed to Vatican City to stand in the cold in front of St. Peter's Basilica for 3 1/2 hours (where I'm writing this entry in order to waste time). We can't wait for the Pope's Midnight Mass to be over so we can go somewhere warm!
Tomorrow we head to the airport to talk to the Alitalia offices about changing our tickets for cheap.
Ciao until then! |
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| Day 12 / 17 |
[Dec. 23rd, 2005|02:51 pm] |
Today we got a late start in the little industrial town of Grosseto. I got about 15 seconds of warm shower water, so Matt and I decided to put off full showers until tonight.
We purchased our train tickets to Rome (we decided to skip the bike ride from Grosseto to Civitavecchia due to the lack of civilization between the towns), found an Internet cafe to send a few more emails, and made it back to the train station with about 20 minutes to spare. Looks like we made the right decision about skipping the bike ride from Grosseto; the trip between town seemed to be filled with lots and lots of farmlands and a few power plants, not a whole lot as far as places to stay.
We're still on our way into Rome right now and are really hoping to be able to find an inexpensive place to stay soon after arriving (we'll be getting there near dark). Every time we realize how much time we have left in the trip, it's just killer: still about 12 days until we can settle down in Naples before our flight out on the 7th.
More tonight... |
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| Days 10 and 11 / 17 |
[Dec. 22nd, 2005|09:27 pm] |
Was woken up by the hostel owner at 8:20 yesterday morning because everyone had to get out by 9:00 (she even turned on all the lights, turned off the heaters, and opened the front doors). At least it was a warm place to sleep... Matt and I stopped by Internet World right when it opened at 10:30 and spent an hour getting information about having our airline tickets changed. Afterwards, because my calling cards don't work outside the US, I called my mom (6:00 a.m. EST) and asked her to call Travelocity about the flights. Upon answering, they said it would be at least $200 plus the price difference for the new tickets; looks like that is out of the question! We then decided it was way past time to leave and got on the road.
For everyone's information, Livorno is a much worse and much more depressing town than La Spezia could ever hope to be! It is, at this point, my least favorite city in Italy. Made it through that hell-hole and bwegan our ride on a seaside road up in the hills where all the rich people live. We ended up spending the night in our tent set up in the back corner of the public park in one of Castiglioncello's suburbs, where we originally stopped to eat pizza at the Ghostbuster Pizzeria before finding out their prices were much too extravagant. Instead, we ate some wonderful pizza at a cleverly named "Azzip" on the street behind. After that, it was basically a restless night full of tossing and turning for both Matt and I because it was freezing (frost on the grass when we woke up) and because we were afraid of getting caught by the police.
Woke up at 7:00 and put the tent away right before people started coming to the park to walk their dogs. Ate breakfast next to the train station and made the 100km trek to Grosseto. Fairly decent ride without major incident once we warmed up and could feel our toes again (actually took more than an hour for me!). Some sun, some clouds, open landscapes, and lunch at a grocery store (what else is new?). Made it into Grosseto, another dumpy industrial town, I got another flat tire, we found a decent place to stay for €35 total, got pizza, got more dinner and a Panettone for desert. We east so healthily! Ate desert in the room, I fixed my bike tire, and we had some half-laughs about how we could see our breath before going to sleep. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention how we skipped showers because the shower, toilet, and bidet are all placed in a 3-foot square section of the 'bathroom' in a raised corner of the room.
Tomorrow we ride a train into Rome and desperately try to find a cheap place to stay for a few nights before Christmas. |
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| Day 9 / 17 |
[Dec. 20th, 2005|07:00 pm] |
Woke up and caught the first train out of Monterosso al Mare, through La Spezia, and into Massa. Mass is apparently the armpit of Italy, so we changed into our biking clothes and got the heck out of there too! Spent a measly two hours on the bikes and decided Pisa would be the place to stay for the night. Saw the leaning tower, was offered some fake Rolex watches, and decided not to buy Dan some boxers with the crotch of Michelangelo's "David" printed on them because €5 was just too much. Maybe I'll get them if they're sold in Rome?
We searched around and found out that all the nearby campsites are closed until next year and the going rate for a single hotel room is about €35 per person, so we ate dinner and lucked out when a small hostel on the edge of town had vacancies for €14/person. Met a Vietnamese student named Duc that is studying in France and is here on vacation as well (if you can call this a 'vacation' for Matt and I). Talked with him a bit and discussed with Matt how we both really want to get our airline tickets changed to an earlier date (maybe even a week earlier?!)
Wish I was home. |
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| Day 8 / 17 |
[Dec. 19th, 2005|08:00 pm] |
Decided last night that today would be spent out of the saddle so we could visit La Cinque Terre and to help our bodies heal. We rode a train out of La Spezia, missed our stop in Riomaggiore, and ended up in Monterosso al Mare, the last of the five cities from La Spezia. We went out walking along the Via dell'Amore ("Path of Love") and didn't even make it halfway to the second town before deciding on a place to camp and returning to town for dinner and our bags, which we stored underneath a closed restaurant overlooking the beach. Coming back it started getting dark, cold, and a little rainy. After weighting our options for a few hours and really not wanting to spend more money on a hotel, we ended up wandering around the mostly deserted (it is not tourist season, so most businesses here are shut down) town with our bags being cold, wet, and hungry. Went to the police and they suggested we talk to the local priest. We did and he offered us a place if we'd come back after services were over, so we went to one of the three open restaurants in town to catch a bite to eat. It was only after we were seated that we noticed the incredibly high prices on the menu, so we put our tails between our legs and apologized to the owners that we couldn't afford the food. Bought groceries instead, ate them in the cold outside the church, then knocked on the door and was let inside.
Thank God, literally. Time for sleep again. Tomorrow is Pisa. |
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| Day 7 / 17 |
[Dec. 18th, 2005|11:00 pm] |
Spent the night camping in Chiavari and woke up this morning to another sunny day. Paid for our bungalow, cleaned our cleats of all the accumulated mud and rocks, and got on our way to La Spezia. The day's ride was set to be full of large hills and equally large descents, so it would be a challenge. Early on in our first large ascent, Matt and I got separated. The rest of the daylight hours for both of us were spent unsure of the other's position. Ends up that he had passed me somehow and that both of us assumed I was still in the lead, so confusion and panic ensued.
I stopped quite a few times to wait upwards of 30-40 minutes each and even stopped maybe 15-20 vehicles going either way to ask if they had seen him, but no one had. Eventually I decided that he must've gotten ahead of me and that I should try my best to catch up at that point. Because we had not made definite plans for the day's destination and because we had no contingency plan for if we got separated, I became rather scared when I approached the fork in the road, one way leading to La Cinque Terre and the other leading to La Spezia.
I chose to go to La Spezia because it was close, was all downhill, and we had talked about it more than La Cinque Terre. After getting lost on the way into town, I found my way, with the help of Lisa the Unicef lady, to the central train station, where we had planned to meet if we got lost in Genova. I spent only about 10 minutes there before considering going to the police station in case Matt had gone to La Cinque Terre instead. As I walked out the door, Matt was on his way in and we proceeded to welcome each other in a warm jovial embrace. Our luck has not yet run out!!! Apparently he ahead been in La Spezia for at least 2 hours before me, had found a hotel to stay in, a grocery store, and an Internet shop and was revisiting the train station one last time before going to the police. We unpacked my stuff after a fiasco with the hotel owner, found a place for dinner and went online. After that was only sleep. |
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| Day 6 / 17 |
[Dec. 17th, 2005|08:00 pm] |
Woke up today in the Hotel Doria (€50 total instead of the €32 that our Lonely Planet guide promised us) and prepared to head towards La Cinque Terre. Found out that the guide book actually had a route to Genova from La Spezia, so we could just follow that in reverse, which was really nice. Found a local farmer's market on the way out and bought some delicious honey to go with our bread, water, and Gatorade. On the way out of town, Matt's bike computer fell off his bike and was run over, but luckily I have one too.
Spent the next four hours or so climbing some grueling hills and then going upwards of 32 miles per hour on the downhill sides. Only a few minor troubles with Matt's pannier, which was much better than the past couple of days. Tried to stop for pizza in a town along the way, but ended up buying some oranges at another farmer's market instead, so we ate those later while sitting soon a ridge overlooking the Mediterranean (as most of today's ride was).
Eventually stopped in a town called Chiavari only a few miles from our destination where we saw a sign for camping. Surprised to find the place open for business, we were also surprised to find that a 2 bunk-bed bungalow was the same price as the space for one tent (€25). Score!! After setting down our stuff and changing into our casual clothes, we walked into town to treat ourselves to some food. Pizza and a Bacardi Bay (apple and kiwi) for myself and just a pizza and water for Matt. We went grocery shopping for tomorrow and saw that a 0.71 liter bottle of Jagermeister was less that €10! I'll be visiting the duty-free shop in Venice airport, that's for sure!! Hot chocolates in a bar on the way back to the campground (note to self: remember to make hot chocolate with cream from now on, not milk!!).
After discussing trip-related stuff for a bit, we decided that we'll be taking a train into Rome instead of trying to penetrate its interstate0laden boundaries by bicycle (we may leave the city the same way). Hot showers are €0.50 here, so we're foregoing them tonight. Again, we have escaped real camping; even though it gets close to 60 degrees (F) here during the day, it's far too windy at night to be truly comfortable.
More tomorrow. |
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| Day 5 / 17 |
[Dec. 16th, 2005|10:52 pm] |
Woke up today at the San Bernardino mission and was surprised by the cafeteria attendant, who gave us a breakfast of espresso and peach croissants for free! We left, went to an ATM, got groceries, and left town for Genova.
Either a front of some sort went through last night or the weather closer to the coast is just much more sunny, dry, and relatively warm (+10-12 degrees Celsius as opposed to -1 degrees yesterday in Pavia), which made our ride quite pleasant. That is, until we readed the "mountains" where it got cold and incredibly windy; enough at one point to make us get off our bikes and walk a few hundred yards. We were making slow progress up the hills and were worried about making it to Genova before dark, but then we reached the peak of our journey and began the long descent towards the sea. At first, for a stretch of at least 5 miles, we were coasting at an easy 30 mph!! The rest of the journey probably lasted only an hour or so until we reached el centro.
Once there, we stopped by another mission to ask for accomodations, but they had none. Soon thereafter, I got a flat from a tiny shard of glass that just happened to puncture my "carbon"-reinforced tires, but replaced that in 1/2 an hour or so. We eventually found a hotel to sleep both of us for €50 total. Dinner, internet access, and now sleep! |
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| Day 4 / 17 |
[Dec. 15th, 2005|08:00 pm] |
Still incredibly amazed by the kindness of the college students last night. We woke up after 5 hours' sleep at Andrea's house, stopped by the grocery store, and bought some cheap gloves before leaving Pavia and heading towards Genova (Genoa to you Americans). Temperatures during the ride dropped to about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Along the route (SS35 and SS10), there were endless farm fields covered in snow that reached as far as the eye could see, which wasn't more than a few hundred yards due to the ever-present fog. I'm incredibly sorry I didn't stop to take a picture because it was both very beautiful and very depressing. At this point, we had all but given up hope for camping because of the temperature and closed campgrounds. We made a pit stop after about 40 miles in Tortona for the bathroom and signs that promised a library. After stopping for a few minutes, we realized Genova was out of our range for the day, so we went in search of la biblioteca, which we never actually found. Stopped to rest in town, an elderly man named Franco approached us and asked about our trip. After some questioning back and forth, he referred us to the local Catholic mission where we ended up sleeping in a back corner of the lobby. We ate dinner (hot chocolate, cheese, bread, tuna, energy bars, and croissants) in the cafeteria and convinced the man in charge to let us sleep on the floor.
Tomorrow we head to Genova and hopefully find a place to sleep and an internet café to update everyone.
Arrivederci! |
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| Day 3 / 17 |
[Dec. 15th, 2005|03:12 am] |
Picture (left to right): Caterina, Alberto, Tamura, Andrea, Matt, and Myself.
Spent the morning hours around a bike shop as they so kindly fixed my spoke and gave me a quick tune-up within two hours. Beautiful city park and real sunlight while this happened.
Left Milan around 3:00 in the afternoon on the 14th (started getting dark/foggy), rode 19 miles (about 30km) to Pavia, and hot chocolate/croissants before searching for a hotel.
Rode around 'till midnight when 2 girls at a church graciously offered to show us some places to look for a free place to stay the night. No churches accepted us (at least 4...not even the Bishop said okay!), no homeless shelters open past 10 p.m., campgrounds closed for the season (the one we tried to sneak into had 2 guard dogs), and one option for casual camping, which involved a small park full of snow-covered mud.
Andrea took us in for the night (thank God), and we all talked until around 3:00 in the morning. That's about it for today except for sleep. |
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| Day 2 / 17 |
[Dec. 13th, 2005|10:45 pm] |
$100 charge for bicycles on the airplane.
Flight into JFK was late about 10-15 minutes, but because Travelocity changed our itenerary, we arrived about 45 minutes after the Alitalia check-in desk closed, thus the scheduled connection was an illegal flight. We raised a fuss and Delta moved us to a flight through Paris that was an hour and a half later, instead of our direct flight into Milan. Matt spent most of the waiiting period on the phone with Travelocity trying to get compensation for our inconvenience, but was only offered $50 off our next flight/hotel combination purchase, which is bascially useless to us.We heard the last call for our flight, Matt hung up on the Travelocity manager, and we sprinted to our plane.
Once in Paris, we check in, are rescheduled unnecessarily for another flight (also only like an hour later), and when we try to board the flight, we discover that Matt's luggage will supposedly not be on the flight with us. Obviously, the hour-and-a-half flight into Milan was spent in an upset mood. We disembark in Milan and are ready to raise more hell about his missing bike when we find both our bikes had arrived on the flight we were supposed to have been on an hour earlier. Our boxes, however, were in states of accelerated disrepair, so we were unsure if they would last th etrip into the city.
€11 each later and we're on the train into Milan. We arrive to find our way to a hostel by train/subway/tram and Matt gets handed a free ticket by some cute girl...overall a good start to the day.
The "fun" starts again when we arrive in southern Milan and have to transport our huge 53 lb. boxes down the streets and on the crowded trams. As our boxes are ready to fall apart, we finally found La Cordata (the hostel) and found it to be packed to capacity. At this point we're cold, tired, and have no idea where to spend the night (we got into the country around 3 p.m. instead of 8 a.m., so we hadn't yet explored).
We decide to stay outside in th ehostel's parking lot to assemble our bikes since the boxes would fall apart at any moment. To make a long story short, it got cold quickly, we were given weird looks by people attending a nearby party, and one of the spokes on my back wheel was broken from in-transit.
We walk the bikes around and eventually find a quaint little hotel on the 6th floor of a building for a total of €40 (originally €50, but the owner lowered it since we were obviously students and on a budget). Decent rooms, clean facilities, and a rooftop balcony view of Milan. Just ate my dinner of Pop Tarts and now it's time for bed. |
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