Three days in Italy

Day 1 (May 28)

We were up at the crack of dawn (or a bit before) and dawn cracks pretty early here at the moment. We had to be ready for the car that was arriving at 5am to take us to Stanstead airport. Nothing particularly exciting happened during the drive, at the airport or during the flight to Bergamo.

From Bergamo airport, we caught a bus into Bergamo, from where we had to find the bus that was going to Lovere. This wasn't too hard to do, though we did have to wait a bit for the bus. The trip from Bergamo to Lovere was about an hour.

Once we got to Lovere, we had to find the hostel. This was a bit tricky. The directions we had said the hostel was 200m from the bus stop, but we didn't know in which direction or whether the bus stop we got off at was the one that was 200m from the hostel. Anyway, after a bit of a walk in the wrong direction, and a bit more of a walk in the right direction, we found it. It must have been about 2pm by this stage (local time, which is one hour ahead of UK time). Unfortunately for us, the opening times in the window of the hostel indictaed it was closed until 3:30pm. We decided to go and find some lunch.

There was a pizzeria in view from the hostel, so we went there hoping to have pizza for lunch. Alas we were too late and they weren't doing pizzas anymore. We had sandwiches instead, followed by gellati. Where we were, we were right next to the harbour, so we went and relaxed under a tree for a bit to wait until the hostel would be open.


We headed back over to the hostel at about 3:45pm, but it still wasn't open. Upon closer inspection, we found that there was a note on the door indicating that on this particular day the hostel wasn't open until 4pm.

We decided to just wait across the road (there wasn't much room on the hostel side of the road). While waiting, we got to witness a car accident. It made a great noise, but neither car seemed to be too badly damaged, and after a brief discussion the drivers seemed to agree not to worry about it.

Anyway, we finally got into the hostel, signed up for HI membership (a requirement to stay there that we hadn't previously been made aware of) and checked in. When we got to the room, we pretty much all just went to sleep.

When we woke up, we figured we ought to get some dinner. We went back to the pizzeria, again hoping for pizza and again we were told that they were not serving pizza at that time. The people at the table next to us had pizzas however, that were still in the very early stages of being eaten. We never did find out what the hours for pizza at that place were, but we never went back again either.

We went back to the hostel and asked the woman working there where would be a good place to go for pizza, explaining how we had just been denied for the second time. She recommended a restaurant down the road. It was very good pizza, and not too expensive. We made the decision then that we would head back there the next night for a pasta meal.

That was pretty much it for day one. We were all too tired to do anything after dinner so we just went back to the hostel and went to bed.

Day 2 (May 29)

Day two was our only full day in Italy, so it was our main day for doing something. I think I was the one who first suggested that we go for a hike somewhere, and that's what we set out to do.

We asked the woman at the hostel if she knew of anywhere good to go hiking, but she didn't. She did suggest that we try the tourist information office, so that's what we did. When we got there, we had a bit of a look in the available pamphlets, though we didn't see anything particularly useful. While we were looking, a couple came in and started talking to the assistant, so we had to wait. I got sick of waiting (it was very stuffy in the office), so I went off and bought a postcard. Gen and Damien waited around and talked to the woman, then came and met me in the shop.

The woman had suggested that we hike up to a church, San Giovanni, which is on top of one of the nearby mountains. She said it would take about an hour and a half to get up there. It sounded good. We decided to buy food from the supermarket for a picnic lunch, which we'd have when we got to the top.

She had given us a map, though it was somewhat unclear and the directions were in Italian. Genevieve, having done a bit of Italian once upon a time, could figure out most of them.

First we had to make our way through some back streets of the town, before we could get to the mountain behind. There was a road all the way up, but it got rougher and rougher. It was cobblestones for a while, and then it consisted of bigger stones that were quite uneven.


Unfortunately, we got lost on the way up. We missed a turn, and we ended up walking a reasonable way along the wrong raod. Eventually, we conceded we were lost and decided to turn back. We were ready to give up on finding the church and we were going to go back to a picnic table we'd seen on the way up to finally have lunch. However, on the way back down we spotted the turn we'd missed and realised we were quite close to the church now. Once we had it in sight, we stopped at another picnic table (much cleaner than the one we had passed) and had our lunch.

We had bought bread and prosciutto and cheese and cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes had been vine ripened and so were much tastier than most tomatoes you get nowadays. We also had yogurts.

Once we had finished our lunch, we walked the short remaining distance to the church. We were immediately disappointed when we saw that the gates were shut, until we realised that there was a way in for pedestrians. I proceeded to go and start taking photos of the view. Unfortunately, it was overcast. I was then confronted with two Italian men who looked like serious hikers. One of then said something to me I didn't understand. I couldn't quite remember either of the important phrases that Gen had taught me: "Non capisco" and "Non parlo Italiano". I got as far as "Non" and they got the idea. They then asked something (sufficiently slowly) that I got the idea they were asking my nationality. I replied "Australian" and immediately they exclaimed "Kangaroo" complete with actions.

I continued on my exploration of the church grounds. We spent a while at the church, Genevieve and I both taking pictures with our 20Ds (thank you staff purchase). The photo below shows the view from the church grounds. The hostel overlooks the marina, so this gives you an idea of how far up we hiked.


This is the church itself.


When the time came to head back down, we decided to follow one of the shorter routes on the map. We weren't sure exactly where the path shown on the map was, and we were going to head down one when an old Italian man came over. He started talking to us in Italian, though he was going slowly so I'm sure he knew we were foreigners. He also used a lot of hand gestures and pointed at the map a bit. Anyway, we got the idea that we shouldn't go down the path we were considering, and went down the way we came up for quite a while. Eventually we came to a point we could identify with certainty, so we took an alternate way down from here.

When we got back to the hostel, it was already after 4pm, so we could get in. We had been thinking of going for a walk to an adjacent village where we had been told we could go swimming in the lake (we couldn't go swimming in the section of the lake at Lovere). However, we all agreed we were too tired for this. We showered and headed out for a relatively early dinner at the same restaurant as the previous night.

This time we decided to have pasta instead of pizza. When I was in Italy with my family when I was nine, at one place we stayed, we often had lobster fettucine. So, for old time's sake, this is what I chose. It was very good, with plenty of lobster meat, and (I think) quite a bargain at 13 Euros.


We also had dessert. Our waiter went to the effort of reciting the dessert menu to us in English. I had profiteroles. After dinner, we went straight back to the hostel for a well deserved sleep.

Getting from there to here

Sydney to Singapore

(This post, while written at Singapore airport, has been posted later. I didn't feel like paying for internet access!)

The flight so far has been reasonable. My seat was located quite near the toilet, so there were people around regularly. It was an aisle seat though. It could have been worse. My personal inflight entertainment unit wasn't fully working, so I had no access to games. This is not a big deal, as they didn't look all that interesting. I still got to watch my choice of movie/TV so this was good. I watched "Walk The Line". It wasn't too bad. It finished at the same time as one of the other movies ("Brokeback Mountain") and so as the credits appeared on my screen, the aisle next to me filled with people queuing for the loo!

We have been fed twice so far. I had a vague recollection from a past overseas trip (the last time I went overseas was eight years ago) of getting an ice cream on the plane. I am pleased to report they still do this! I have had a bit of sleep, about two hours. I plan to get more on the next leg.

Well, that's it for now, as I will have to get back on the plane soon. The stopover here is very short.

Singapore to London

"Trip from hell" might be a little strong, but not by much.

For most of the flight there was nothing to complain about that was out of the ordinary. Of course, the overhead lockers were packed and so my bag didn't end up above me, so I wasn't able to access it all flight. So much for reapplying deordorant! Of course, I hardly got any sleep. These things are to be expected though.

What one does not expect is to bite down on something hard when eating one's breakfast. Well, you can now add this to your list of things to be wary of. It turns out that a piece of rock made it into my Raisin Bun, and now I have a chipped tooth. Nothing so serious as to require immediate emergency dental treatment, but enough to make me pretty distressed. I reported it to the Qantas staff of course, but nothing much was done apart from them taking the bit of rock and a form being filled out. I guess I'll have to find a dentist to go and see and if anything needs to be done, the bill will have to go to Qantas!

Unfortunately, once we'd landed, things could still get worse. Don't worry, no rubber gloves or anything of thet sort.

Once I got through customs at Heathrow, and bought my ticket for the Heathrow Express I sms'ed Gen to let her know (as she told me too). Although I asked her not to reply in excess (because with my Australian mobile it costs me to receive messages), I did expect a response if it wasn't going to be the case that she'd be waiting for me at Paddington station (as we'd arranged). I got no response.

I got to Paddington station. No Gen. I sms'ed again. No response. I tried calling but it went to voice mail.

After a while she called, and as she was still at home, she gave me two choices: wait for her to come to me (at least half an hour) or I catch the tube alone. She didn't seem to want to let me ask any questions to help me make this decision (like, how many different tubes I would have to catch). Nor did she give me a chance to tell her why I was upset, namely my tooth. There were some raised tones from her, and she threatened to hang up on me. I beat her to it.

Eventually, she called back. Her mobile phone credit got exhausted calling me. It will have cost me a fair bit too! Then some how she ended up being put through to some Chinese people. She admitted during this call that she'd been asleep until she got my first SMS. They were out late at a party last night. Grrr! Anyway, in the end, I told her to meet me here. Thus giving me the time to jot down some notes for this blog entry. She still didn't know about the chipped tooth.

I was pretty pissed off with Gen for for having slept in. After all the things I've done for her, and specifically, with all the things in my luggage that were for her, she should have been a tad more keen to up to meet me this morning.

Then it took quite a bit longer than half an hour for her to get to Paddington Station to meet me. It was closer to an hour. When she arrived, I got an earful when I indicated that I was annoyed by her sleeping in. It was all about how they had come home early, but then the party came back to their place too, and kept them awake until 2am. Blah blah blah!

On the plus side, I did eventually get to Gen's place. Though it took quite a bit longer than I thought it would.

This will be my last entry ...

... from Australia anyway. At least until I come back. It's now about 4 hours until I'm due to depart. We're about to leave for the airport. See you when I get to London!!

'Twas the night before my departure...

... and I'm still up at 11:30pm. I should so be in bed by now, but there are so many last minute things to be done, like installing software and setting up email on the laptop, finding paperwork I need to take with me (so I can open a bank account over there), talking to relatives who call to wish me well, updating my CV and posting to my blog! Less than 18 hours to go now.

Seeing Sarah at Cedar Lake

I've known Sarah for just over 12 years. She has been living in London for the past 5 months or so, but is back in Australia for a visit. She heads back over not long after I go.

Cedar Lake is where Sarah's family has been going for family holidays for many years. While she is back in Australia, Sarah and her parents have spent a week at there.

Today I went to visit Sarah at Cedar Lake. During my visit, Sarah and I went for a trail ride. My horse's name was "Appy". We went kayaking on the lake, and we chatted a lot. After all, we hadn't seen each other in over a year!

Last day of work

Yesterday was my last day of work at CISRA. Finishing work was an important milestone in the lead up to my trip to the UK. The highlight of the day was, of course, my leaving lunch. Here are some pictures.





At my leaving presentation in the afternoon, I was given a fabulous card with a picture of me and the "Coware Beast" (drawn by Kevin). Although I had meant to leave work "early" on my last day (around 4:30), somehow I didn't get away until 6:30. I think more people came and said goodbye to me because they were going home than there were people still there for me to say goodbye to when I went home!