In 2006-2007 I took an impromptu Gap Year. This was partially down to my sheer laziness at not applying to Art school with any real gusto and partly because my inner preppy just wanted to doss around and go traveling for a bit.
In May I went Interailing with my very oldest best friend Laura. We did a tour of Italy and then went up into Paris.
We were two EXTREME backpackers on a journey of discovery.
YEAHHHHHH HARDCORE EXTREMISTS!!!!
In all honesty - most of the trip was spent mocking foreigners, eating ice cream and taking photos of eachother's faces infront of famous Italian tourist attractions.
Looking back, I realise now that we really should have taken the focus away from our 'youthful' faces.
We started in Rome.
A nice enough place... during the day, bar the huge lake of urine that seemed to lurk outside the main train station.
One of the nights we were on our way back to the hotel after some dinner and drinks, when a young Italian boy offered us some yellow roses.... for money. In our well mannered young English girl way we sweetly declined the flowers and walked on. The horrid little boys ran after us and threw the roses at our heads, whilst shouting perverse profanities in his native tongue. Slimy Git
Next came Pisa.
A very lovely and scenic place to visit. Nothing hideous to report.
WELL, except the actual climbing of the tower of Pisa, which came with an incredibly dizzy downwards jaunt caused by the Tower's serious subsidence issue.
They REALLY ought to get that fixed.
Florence
Erm. yeah. So dull I actually forgot about it and skipped straight to Venice whilst writing this post.
We queued up to see The David for 3 WHOLE HOURS in smoldering sun.
It was magnificent. The rest of the museum was shocking.
VENICE - ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PLACES EVER!! Stunning, lots of shops, cafes, water, river boats, bridges and nice people.
However, we did get ridiculously LOST on our way to our Hostel/ Camp site thingy. So badly lost in fact, that we rang our parents in England and actually expected them to be able to help. Absolutely no logic there then.
Losing the will to live whilst lost on the outskirts
Two more things - Venice smells slightly of sewers in hot weather and Laura got pigeon pooed on in St. Mark's square. BA HA HA
Having been pooed on 8 times in my life by this point I was DAMN shocked it wasn't me.
Milan
OH MY GOSH - the most overrated place on earth.
Be warned - the men that reside here can be likened to horny pubescent neanderthals that have no qualms with looking you up and down, whistling, making depraved comments and even doing the following......
It was 8am and Laura and I were moving on from one Milan Hostel to a nice B&B closer into town (a treat to ourselves).
We were plodding along a main road, carrying our huge backpacks, no make up and very tired. We see a casual Italian jogger running towards us wearing a pair of VERY short bright green running shorts that left very little to the imagination.
The guy strode up to, gave a little smirk and looked us both up and down. He then decided to lift both sides of his shorts up and revealed a rather large, shaven, purple penis, which, with the movement of his jogging flew past us HELICOPTER styley. He had the audacity to shove his way IN BETWEEN me and Laura whilst displaying his manhood in all its phallic glory.
THEN he crossed over the road and started to run back ahead of us in an attempt to over take us and perform the whole indecent exposure for a SECOND TIME!!!
Both Laura and I actually started shouting across the street and telling him to bugger off, it finally worked and he ran off into the park to no doubt scare some unwitting old pensioner out of her skin.
Paris went off without a hitch - just a WONDERFUL day spent in Disneyland in bright yellow ponchos reliving our youth.
.........Oh also, don't bother going to the Musee du Louvre. It is shit. That is all.
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