Mike Fulcher & Hanni Relf. Travellers.

UK - Part Two: From Newcastle to Birmingham

Current location: Birmingham, UK

Next stop: New Zealand! (For Mike), March 13th.


About a month into our stay in Newcastle, Hanni started getting responses to the jobs she was applying for, and a few invited her to interviews. At the same time, we got wind of a possible job opening at Newcastle university as a technician -- just what Hanni had been looking for, but it was still uncertain if the position would be filled anytime soon or not.

The first proper interview was for the university in Edinburgh, which was a pleasant surprise -- we'd been waiting for a chance to go to see Edinburgh, and now we could! Interestingly, Hanni also got a second interview for a job at Oxford university -- which was scheduled for not only the same day as the Edinburgh interview, but the same time as well! The Edinburgh job won out -- the job itself was right down Hanni's alley, plus we hadn't heard particularly good things about living in Oxford. So we politely asked to reschedule the interview, but never heard back.

EDINBURGH

We both felt really good about this job. Not only was it perfect for Hanni (the job involved almost the exact same things as she did during her Masters), but it turned out that the guy advertising the job actually knew about the department Hanni studied in!

Edinburgh is a beautiful city. The only thing that lets it down is the sheer number of tourists -- but at the same time, having so many people around gives the city a real buzz.

After hiking up some 80-odd stairs to get to our backpackers, we dropped off our bags and set out to explore the city. First stop, the castle. But as we got closer, we noticed some huge seating terraces had been set up in front of the castle -- pretty effectively spoiling the view. We overheard one of the tour guides nearby explain that there's a ceremony held here every year for the Scottish Army's "Tattoo Ceremony". We didn't know exactly what that was, but apparently it takes about four months to fully erect the terraces for the two week ceremony. Then it takes another four months to take everything down again. So the castle is really only unobstructed for less than four months of the year. ("That's Scottish work ethic for ya", said the tour guide.)

When we made our way through the outer terrace, we found, to our dismay, a humongous queue to get into the castle. It was mid-afternoon already, so we decided not to bother trying to get in now -- we'd never get a chance to see the entire castle. Maybe we'll try again tomorrow.

So we set off instead to have a look around the city itself. Along the way we stopped into a beautiful old cathedral (not sure of the name), and later ended up on the edge of the central city area, facing a huge hill. We could see some people walking along a track leading up the hill, so, keen to get a better view of Edinburgh, we set off up the track as well. And the view from there was well worth it -- the castle itself stands out magnificently on the skyline.

We took the long way round on our way back to the backpackers, and by now we were really falling in love with the city. We came across a few places that reminded us of Dunedin, too (not surprising given that Dunedin was named after the Gaelic name for Edinburgh). We went for a nice stroll along the Leith River, had some pizza in a park, and went out for our first bar dinner, where we also fell in love with curly fries!

The next day was the day of the interview. We had already planned Hanni's transport -- there are several buses going direct to the building where the interview was being held, and so we went to the bus stop to catch the next bus. While waiting for the bus, I noticed a sign inside a different bus that stopped beside us. "EXACT CHANGE ONLY" it said. Wait, seriously? The buses here don't give change? But we don't have exact change! 

Just as we were contemplating what to do, Hanni's bus pulled up. Crap! Hanni got on and spoke to the driver, but no dice -- she couldn't get on unless she had the exact fare. We looked around us, but couldn't see any shops nearby that might be able to give change (we were on a bridge!), so we quickly checked the time of the next bus. Five minutes. Okay, Hanni can still make it on time, but we better hurry! We ran down the bridge to the main street and looked around for a suitable shop. There was a Burger King further down the street, but they often have a policy of not giving out change. So we took a risk and went into a hotel right next to us. The reception desk didn't carry change, but they suggested we try at the bar, and luckily for us, they were happy to give change (I wonder if they regularly get panicking travellers in need of change for the bus?).

We made it back to the bus stop in time to catch another bus, and Hanni set off for her interview. I just hoped that this little panic attack hadn't derailed her confidence going into the interview...

In the meantime, I set about exploring some other parts of the city, before finding a cafe and settling in to read a book.

When Hanni came back, she felt good about the interview. Although, she couldn't help but feel like she was being compared -- quite possibly there was another application who they were quite keen on. But either way, we couldn't wait to hear back!

BACK IN NEWCASTLE

While we waited to hear back about the Edinburgh job, we continued going for outings around Newcastle. At one point Gary & Sue took us out to Tyne Mouth and the coast. There was even a busy little beach which actually looked really nice! But we knew the water wouldn't be so inviting (though that didn't seem to bother the locals). Around Tyne Mouth are some other cool sights that we took a few detours to see -- the lighthouse, a huge memorial (though, we can't remember whom it was for), and even a little old castle (but we didn't go inside).

Soon after, we heard back about the Edinburgh job. Hanni didn't get it. 

Then we got some more good news: Hanni had been invited to another two interviews. Again, interestingly, both interviews were scheduled for the same day in different cities, but this time they were a few hours apart. The first one was in Birmingham, the other in Manchester. And again, the Manchester job was right up Hanni's alley -- possibly even more so than the Edinburgh job -- so we were feeling lucky. We figured that if we went to Birmingham a day early and stayed overnight, then we could make it to both the interviews. So we set about organising our next wee adventure!

BIRMINGHAM

In Birmingham we made our way to a small backpackers on the outskirts of the central city. It was a quirky little place, but very warm and friendly. It was just a pity that (as with so many backpackers), the bed mattresses were terrible.

Again we dumped our bags at the backpackers and set off to explore the city, and we immediately liked it. We walked past a small but impressive cathedral as we entered a ginormous shopping mall. Then as we left the mall, the rest of the city opened out in front of us -- but there were no cars. Only foot traffic was allowed in the central city, which made for a far more pleasant atmosphere (I wish more cities were like that). And we didn't have to walk long before we came across another even more impressive cathedral in the middle of an open green park. It may not have blown us away like Edinburgh did, but we liked Birmingham a lot.

The next morning we had to check out early to make it to Hanni's interview, and this time I tagged along. This interview was actually organised as a 10 minute presentation on one of two topics that Hanni had been asked to prepare for, plus a 10 minute interview. Hanni prepared both presentations, but still felt a bit nervous going in.

I ended up waiting a really long time -- way longer than the 20 minutes that it was supposed to take. I figured that had to be a good thing, though. Hanni was probably charming them with her personality and stories of our adventures.

When Hanni finally emerged, she told me that when she went into the interview, they told her that it was actually a 5 minute presentation! So, thrown off-guard, Hanni had to figure out how to fit her 10 minute presentation into 5 minutes. But she felt pretty good about it overall, so feeling positive, we set off for the next interview in Manchester.

MANCHESTER

This might've been a sign of things to come, but it started raining as we got closer to Manchester. Fortunately, it wasn't raining when we pulled in, but we couldn't tell if the rain would hold off or not. We hadn't brought an umbrella, and because it wasn't raining, we decided not to buy one. 

Big mistake.

It started raining soon after we left the train station. Just a little bit, but it was a bad sign. But we both had jackets, so we weren't getting very wet -- yet.

Well, the university turned out to be a lot further away than we first thought, and we were cutting it close to make it in time for the interview. And then, about 5-10 minutes before we got there, it really started to rain. Properly heavy rain. We got soaked, and Hanni wasn't happy about it.

When we found the correct building at the university, we stepped into a tiny little foyer room. It was barely big enough for the reception desk and a couple of chairs, and one side was blocked by prison-style bars with a keycard accessed turnstile. It was extremely imposing for a university, and it was cold too. Even more so considering how wet we were. Fortunately there was also a small bathroom which we used to try to dry ourselves a bit.

When Hanni was called for the interview, I had to wait behind. And again, the interview lasted a lot longer than we expected. So long, in fact, that the building was about to be locked down and Hanni was still nowhere to be seen. The lady at the reception desk was all ready to leave, in which case I would've had to wait outside in the freezing cold. I really didn't want that! Then a security guy came, and he agreed to let me stay a bit longer while he went off to find Hanni. And right then, on cue, Hanni came back.

Unfortunately, the interview hadn't gone so well. The interviewer was intimidating and extremely condescending, not only throwing Hanni off-guard, but making her feel pretty lousy as well. I couldn't believe the sort of things this guy said to Hanni. Does he have no compassion? He basically made Hanni feel inadequate for any job, let alone this one. What a jerk.

Besides, we didn't like Manchester all that much anyway. It rained on us. It was cold. The university wasn't friendly. Nope -- Manchester wasn't for us.

BACK IN NEWCASTLE

Back in Newcastle, we kept ourselves busy while we waited to hear back about the interviews. We were due to hear about the Birmingham one at the end of the following week, and we didn't even want to hear back about the Manchester job -- it was quite clear that Hanni wouldn't be getting that one.

Then the next day, out of the blue, Hanni gets a call from the University of Birmingham. She got the job! Woohoo! We have no idea how they made up their minds so quickly, but who cares!

Only, the job starts as soon as we can get there. That doesn't give us much time. We need a plan.

Okay. We'll both go back to Birmingham ASAP and start looking for a flat. We'll stay at a backpackers again. Then I'll come back to Newcastle to get our things together, and bring it all down to Birmingham, while Hanni in the meantime can start her job.

BACK TO BIRMINGHAM

That turned out to be easier said than done. We looked at heaps of available properties online prior to heading to Birmingham, and booked in appointment after appointment. And we didn't stop after arriving in Birmingham either. We tried to cram in as many places as possible into the weekend, even though we had no idea how we were going to get to them.

Sure enough, we had an absolutely manic time running all over Birmingham to look at flats. But we made it to each one, and we did see some nice places. But so far, nothing that really grabbed us. Then we went to look at one last flat, which turned out to be absolutely perfect. We were thrilled. We took some time to discuss it as we walked from the flat to the real estate agent's office (about half an hour), and announced that we'll take it.

Just our luck -- in the time it took us to walk to the office, someone else had already signed up for the flat. So close!

We asked if they had any other similar places, and fortunately, they had another one in mind. And amazingly, it turned out to be even better -- and cheaper -- than the first place! Boy did we luck out! And this time, we didn't waste any time. We decided to take it, and we got a ride back to the office.

And to everyones surprise, when we got there, one of the other agents was on the phone. It was the landlord -- they'd just found someone for the flat. Dammit!

Okay, last effort. They did have one more place we could look at, but it wasn't due to be available until the 17th of September, about a week away. If we took it, we'd have to keep paying for a bed at the backpackers, but we figured it would be worth it in the long run. Then we found out that this place was significantly cheaper than the other two we'd seen. So we might even get to save money in the long run!

When we got there, it was immediately clear that this place was the best of the three. It had a nice front garden and a large, clean back yard. And it was a good house too. And the landlords, who we got to meet briefly, were very nice. It was perfect.

Not wasting a beat, we went back to the office as quickly as possible. And this time, no one had beaten us to it. At last, we had secured our new home!

From there, we booked Hanni into the backpackers until the 17th, and I headed back to Newcastle. We organised with the landlords that I would bring our stuff down on the 16th, and store it in the flat overnight. Then we'd officially move in at 12 noon the next day.

The next week-and-a-bit goes by uneventfully, and I get all our things packed up and ready to go.

Then I realise something. We've accumulated quite a few things during our stay in Newcastle. How on earth am I going to carry it all myself? Gary must've had the same idea, because out of the blue he offered to drive me there instead.

So on the 16th, we move our things into our new place, and I meet up with Hanni for one last night at the backpackers. And the next day, we move into our new home!

Next stop, we're back to Israel for Christmas!

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UK - Part One: Newcastle

Current location: Birmingham, UK

Next stop: No plans yet.


As we prepared to depart from Israel, you might recall that our flight was due to leave at 6.30am, which meant that we didn't even try to go to sleep the night before. At 2.30am, we set off to the airport with a few members of Hanni's family, and boarded our plane. 

 

We tried to catch some sleep on the plane, but we don't have to tell you how difficult that is. Why is it that airlines have to make their seats so incredibly uncomfortable? (It seems to us that passengers these days are treated more like cargo, or cattle, than humans.) Anyway needles to say, in the end we didn't catch much sleep at all, and we still had a long way to go to get to Newcastle.

 

When we arrived in London (about 10am), we had to make our way via the tube into the city. Again, taking the tube isn't a very pleasant experience when you're a weary traveller -- especially when you're carrying a couple of huge packs with you. The trains on the tube are tiny and often full, and it's a good one hour's ride into the central city. Fortunately though, we had allowed plenty of time before we had to catch our train up to Newcastle, so we picked up some food along the way and ate in the waiting lounge in the train station.

 

At the train station we also had to pick up our tickets, and we had organised for me to purchase a youth pass as well to save us some money. So I ducked into the reception desk to get that sorted while Hanni waited outside with our bags.

 

While Hanni waited, she kept noticing a suspicious-looking guy walking past her every few minutes. She didn't see him directly -- she saw him in the reflection of the window to the reception desk while she re-organised one of our bags. But the guy was making no attempt to disguise the fact that he was looking right at our bags, making Hanni feel extremely uncomfortable. She got the feeling he was waiting for Hanni to get distracted so that he could nab one of our bags.

 

When I came out with our tickets, the guy walked past again just as Hanni was telling me about him. He just strolled past -- about a metre or two from us -- never taking his eyes off our bags as he went by. But we didn't see him again after that. Hanni & I went off and boarded the train, and set off for Newcastle. Newcastle, by the way, is in the North-East of England, right up by Scotland.

 

Despite not having slept the night before, I felt wide awake during the train ride. And it was a beautiful day, so the scenery was amazing, and very typically "English"!

 

~The Ticket Incident~

 

At some point during the ride, the ticket officer came by and asked for our tickets. No problem -- we handed him our tickets and I pulled out my new youth pass.

 

"Where's the other youth pass?", said the ticket officer.
"Um, what?", I said.
"You've got two youth tickets here."
"Oh, I think there's been a mistake. We should have one youth ticket and one adult ticket."
"You need to show me another valid youth pass. You have two youth tickets."
"No sorry, we don't have one. There's been a mix-up, only I was supposed to get the one youth ticket."
"S ays here you got two youth tickets. You paid the youth fare for each one so you need to show valid youth passes."
"Ah okay, I can clear this up, I'll show you our receipt -- see, it says we got one youth ticket and one adult ticket, and paid this much."
"Anyone could've printed that off. That doesn't mean anything. Where's your other youth pass?"
"I don't think you understand, we don't have one. This is our receipt. What's the point of a receipt if it doesn't prove what we purchased?"
"Well you should've checked your tickets then. It says YOUTH PERSON on it."
"Well actually it doesn't, it just says "YP" -- how are we to know what that stands for? We're from NZ."
"It says YOUTH PERSON so where's your other youth pass?"
"Look, I really don't think you are understanding us. We don't have another youth pass. The operator gave me this ticket but he wasn't supposed to. And we had no way of knowing that "YP" means YOUTH PERSON, so we didn't know that anything was wrong."
"Look, getting upset about it isn't going to get you anywhere. It's your fault and you should always check your tickets. Now, show me your other youth pass."
"Argh! We don't have another youth pass! This is all just a misunderstanding!"
"Don't make a fuss at me. You're lucky I'm not issuing a fine. If I was, you would have to take it up with the ticket master at the next stop. It's your mistake and you shouldn't let it happen again."
"Well it's most definitely NOT our fault, but if you're not issuing a fine, why didn't you just say that in the first place!"

Okay, I may not have said that last bit to his face. No point in getting kicked off the train! But talk about putting a downer on the train ride. We were both really wound up by now. And I had been really enjoying the journey up till then!

NEWCASTLE

We arrived in Newcastle a couple of hours later and were met by my uncle Gary and auntie Sue, who I hadn't seen since they came to New Zealand for a holiday in 2000. They took us back to their place where we were eager to drop our bags and wash up, then we enjoyed a late dinner and sat up as long as we could telling Gary & Sue stories from our trip. At some point, I think around 9.30pm, we went to bed. We'd been given our own room and a very comfortable bed which, compared to the unbearably hot nights of Israel, was just wonderful.

The next day, a Sunday, was the day that Gary & Sue usually go to see Gary's parents -- my grandparents -- and we decided to join them. I hadn't seen my grandparents since I was 9 years old, so it would be nice to see them again. They live just north of Newcastle in Morpeth, which is a quaint old town with beautiful stone buildings (again very typically English!). 

We had a lovely time with my grandparents. It was great seeing them again and telling them all about our travels. After that, though, the days start blurring together. Our main goal was to find a job for Hanni, who was looking to put her new Masters degree to good use by finding a job in anatomy and research. The idea was that we would look for a job for Hanni anywhere in the UK, and when we found one, we'd look for a job for me in the same city. We ended up spending the majority of our days working on Hanni's CVs and covering letters, working hard to make each application as good as possible.

My birthday was also about a week after we arrived in Newcastle. Gary & Sue bought me a nice Newcastle shirt (which goes great with my Newcastle scarf that I've had since my family came to England in 1994!).

~The Bank Account Polava~

At the same time as applying for jobs, we also start trying to get our bank account set up. You might recall that the last time we were in London, we met up with BritBound, who help Kiwi's get settled in the UK. Part of their package is that they help to get a bank account set up -- the banks over here normally require you to show proof of your address through something like a utility bill, but through BritBound, that's not required. We were told that our bank details would be sent to us (we had given them Gary & Sue's address), but there were no letters from the bank waiting for us when we arrived. So we had to go to the bank to find out what was going on, but they didn't have any record at all of our application. So we called BritBound, who in turn called their contact at the bank, who in turn didn't answer his phone or return their messages. Days went by and still we heard nothing back from BritBound. Every now & then we would call them again, who would apologise and try calling the bank again, but they still never tried phoning us back and so no progress was made.

After about a month, we finally got a call from the bank manager, who told us that our applications had been mislaid and that he was working on getting it all sorted for us. Finally, some progress! And a couple of days later, we at last had our bank account.

The funny thing is, with the amount of time this took, we probably could've set up a bank account on our own, without BritBound's help. In fact, considering we paid for their services, BritBound really didn't do anything at all that we couldn't have done ourselves.

~The National Insurance Polava~

As well as our bank details, we also had to organise getting National Insurance (NI) numbers. These are our tax numbers and we need them in order to pay the correct amount of tax when we start a new job. Again, BritBound was supposed to help us with this, and again we got thwarted by English bureaucracy. BritBound organised having the forms sent to us, which we duly filled out and sent off. But we heard nothing for several weeks. After a while, I phoned the NI people (NOT BritBound this time), and got informed that our applications had been received too late and were dismissed. Well, thanks for telling us!

I later found out that we were in fact supposed to have been notified about our applications being declined, but there had been some changes in the various National Insurance departments, and at the time of our application, no one knew exactly who was supposed to be processing the applications. Normally one department is responsible for processing all the late applications, but apparently someone told them that it was now being handled by a different department. Only, no one told the other department! So long story short, our applications did arrive, were marked as arriving late, then spent the rest of their existence in limbo between two departments, with neither one willing to deal with them.

After that, we got new forms sent to us. We filled them out, sent them off immediately, and a few weeks later we finally got our numbers. By this time, we were thoroughly tired of dealing with this stuff.

A couple of weeks since arriving at Newcastle, we also got to catch up with my cousin Adam and his fiancee Emily. Over the next few weeks we managed to spend quite a bit of time with them. On one occasion, they took us out to the Lakes District, which is a stunning area about an hour or two's drive from Newcastle. We went for a walk up one of the bigger hills in the area, called the Catbells, which offers a 360 degree view around the area. It's a pity we didn't get to explore more of the Lakes District, but what we did see was unforgettable.

As well as catching up with my cousin, we found time to meet up with my other uncle (Adam's dad and Gary's twin), Callum, and my other cousins, and Gary & Sue's children Angela and Graham (as well as their own kids).

And of course, it wouldn't be right if we didn't explore Newcastle on foot, as we've done in every other city we've been to! In fact, Newcastle proved to be a very scenic place to walk (and bike -- we borrowed Gary & Sue's once or twice) around. Once we got harassed by a crazy local ranting about how all these Polish immigrants are stealing our jobs. We tactfully neglected to mention that we were here to find work!

We felt very much at home in Newcastle, and had we found a job locally, I'm sure we would've really enjoyed living there. But for the immediate future at least, that wasn't meant to be! 

Next stop, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Birmingham!

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Israel

Current location: Birmingham, UK

Next stop: Israel | Tuesday, December 22nd

Well we've been a bit slack again and haven't updated our blog in quite a while now -- I know, it's unforgivable. In the time since our last post, we've been settling into our new home and working (a lot).

But anyway, we left off last time as we caught our flight bound for Israel...

So, having had a crazy time trying to catch our plane in Rome, we were at last on our way to Israel. And our relief was two-fold: on the plane (keeping in mind that this is a budget airline) we got fed delicious fresh pita bread and hummus (nothing like the crappy bread rolls you usually get on a plane, if you are lucky enough to get anything at all...). Then, when we landed (our safe landing was accompanied by some clapping from the passengers), we breezed through customs & immigration -- no complaints whatsoever about the fact that we didn't have a return ticket! (Remember the palaver we went through back in Rome?)

Hanni's dad was waiting for us when we got through, and we set off for Netanya, which is where Hanni's brother Michael lives. We'd be staying at his place. But first things first -- we went to a nearby burger restaurant to catch up with the rest of Hanni's family (well, those who could make it. Hanni's youngest sister Maayan was in the army at the time, her twin (and new wife) was busy preparing for his second wedding, this time in Israel, and her other sister Dina was back in New Zealand).

But we couldn't get too relaxed. Hanni's friend Limor was getting married the next day, and the wedding was a long way from where we were. Luckily, she had organised a bus to take us and some of the other guests to the wedding, but unluckily, the bus left from another city (Herzliya) that Hanni wasn't familiar with (Hanni: I actually lived in that city for maybe 8 years but it has changed greatly in the last 12 or so years). So we were going to have to try to find the bus on our own.

THE WEDDING

Getting to Herzliya was no trouble though, thanks to the monit sherut's -- these are a mix between a taxi and a bus, and they run all over Israel. They're basically a van or mini-bus that drives along a particular route (like a bus), but you can get on or off anywhere along the way. They're a great way to get around Israel. And they're very relaxed about taking your money. You're supposed to pay when you get on, and some people do, but most just get on and find a seat, then pass money up to the driver with the help of the fellow passengers. The driver may even pass their change back down, too. It's great!

But they're also slightly crazy drivers (as are all the other drivers in the country I guess. It's an Israeli thing I think).

Anyway back to the story... so we got off the sherut in Hertzliya, but had no clue where to go to find the bus. Hanni had some vague instructions, but we were really just walking in whatever direction felt right, and we suddenly realised that it would be too easy to never find the bus, and miss the wedding (oh, and this wedding was planned specifically for when we would be in Israel -- so we couldn't let them down!). And to make things worse, we were all dressed up for the wedding. And it was hot because it's the middle-east. And Hanni was wearing fancy shoes that weren't made for walking. 

Lets just say it wasn't the most pleasant walk. But somehow, we lucked out and found the bus without too much trouble, and tried to hide in the shade behind a skinny tree to cool off.

At 5.30pm we then embarked on a journey that by car would take no more than 2 hours, but by bus (which also had to take a detour to pick some other people up) it took about 3 hours, so we didn't arrive until around 8.30pm, which didn't leave all that much time to enjoy the wedding.

I have to take a moment now to explain an Israeli wedding. They're absolutely mad and yet fantastic all at the same time. To start with, the guests don't bring gifts, they put in some money (which can be any amount at all) which effectively pays for the wedding. And trust me -- they go all out. Amazing food, lots of (loud) music, more food, dancing, more food, more dancing, more food... and the guests are welcome to stay for as long as they like, even well after the bride and groom have gone.

Limor's wedding was at a nice waterfront venue at the Sea of Galilei, with stacks of delicious food outside (and that was just the snack food). We mingled for a bit, then the ceremony began which was held on the water itself (the chuppah -- marriage canopy -- was on a platform on the water). Like the music, the speakers that relayed what was being said were far too loud, but that seemed to be typical for an Israeli wedding. Then the groom broke glass (which has something to do with remembering the fall of Jerusalem) while the crowd cheered "mazel tov!".

Following the necessary congratulations, everyone moved inside for the dinner and a great deal of dancing. The music was what you'd expect from a night club; not what I expected at a wedding! But everyone was in the spirit of the wedding and were dancing and happy, which is after all what weddings are all about.

The dancing continued for a very long time. Where did these people get so much energy from?

When the dancing did die down a bit, some food was brought out. It was at this point that I started hearing a car horn somewhere, or maybe it was a truck horn. I couldn't put my finger on it -- the music was too loud. But the horn keep going, sporadically, but not stopping. Then I realised -- it was coming from the DJ! He had taken a perfectly good song (well, even that was questionable) and he decided to mix it up and show off his DJ talent by adding in -- of all things -- a sparodic truck horn. I had my doubts about this guy.

In fact I later found out that he was a bit of a fraud anyway. He had very specific instructions from the bride about what music to play and when it should be played, so that at a certain time of the night, a slideshow of the bride & groom would start playing to a nice slow track that couples would slow-dance to. Well, this DJ joker decided to play the slideshow just as some people were sitting down to eat, and moreover, he kept on with the nightclub music. You should've seen the bride. She was not happy. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of the look she gave the DJ (who apparently just said something like, "hey, I'm a DJ, I do what's best for the moment" or something equally cocky).

Not long after, the main course came out, rapidly followed by dessert. Unfortunately for us, that was also the moment that the bus driver decided to show up again, which meant we had to leave, even though it was still only about 11.30pm. The wedding celebrations would no doubt continue into the early hours of the morning. Limor had actually tried to organise the bus to come back much later, but the company refused to turn up any later than 11.30pm. So we didn't get to finish the main course or the delicious-looking dessert.

And it was a loooooong ride back home. Some guy in the back of the bus had drunk way more than his body could handle, and kept vomiting despite being unconscious. His mates solved the problem ingeniously: they took a regular shopping bag, hooked the handles around his ears, and hung the bag in front of him just under his mouth. Gross and clever all at the same time!

Fortunately for us that guy got off the bus half-way, but I felt bad for his mate who had to try to walk him home.

As we got closer to Hertzliya, we started wondering how we were going to get back home this late at night. One of the other guests on the bus heard us talking and to our surprise offered to give us a ride home. So we got back to Hanni's brother's apartment soon enough and, exhausted as we were, went straight to bed.

After that, things started to relax for us. We didn't have any weddings to run off to (Hanni: ammm well we did crash a wedding to catch up with some of my friends!) and we didn't have any immediate plans. So we relaxed, enjoyed the beautiful weather, went to the beach at least once a day, and ate fantastic food. It was wonderful. On occasion, we tagged along with Hanni's dad on his work trips; he builds swimming pools all over Israel, which allowed me to get to see the country -- which, so I've heard, is only about the size of Canterbury.

We also had an important task: we were still travelling on our Emergency Travel Documents, and so we needed to apply for new passports. So we filled in the application forms and sent everything off (including the ETDs) to the NZ Embassy in London. This meant that we couldn't buy any tickets to fly out of Israel until we got our new passports, but that didn't worry us too much -- it was great to just relax and not worry about how we would get to our next destination.

THE FOOD

We also went to some nice places with Hanni's brother, Michael, who introduced me to a whole new way to eat hummus (ie, the proper way). We went to a little eatery in Netanya and got a platter which contained some delicious home-made hummus with fresh pita bread (the pita bread in Israel is amazing) and chunks of white onion. You might be asking, "what's the onion for?". Well, take a chunk of onion, dip it in the hummus, take a bite and you've got some very happy taste buds. It's delicious!

Having been absolutely blown away by the freshness and deliciousness of the food so far, Hanni also introduced me to something called "shocko" (that's the phonetic translation) -- a yummy chocolate milk. But it doesn't come in bottles. It comes in these little sealed bags -- you have to chop or bite off a corner, then just squeeze and drink! The flavour was great, but there was something really fun about drinking from the bag. Long story short, I was quickly addicted to shocko. (Hanni: it's a childhood thing, we'd have it for breakfast with a plain bun)

Next I was fed "chamin", a sort of bean stew that gets put on the hummus with egg -- amazing! And there was also cooked eggplant in a pita, and falafel in a pita, and... well, put anything in some pita bead in Israel and you've got some very tasty food.

Oh and we can't forget the iced coffee. It's not genuine coffee that's been chilled, in fact I'm not sure if there is even any real coffee in there. But the flavour is amazing, and being a cold drink in a hot climate, it's just wonderful.

PLACES

~Sachne~

When we started getting restless, Hanni & I took a car and made for Sachne -- a real-life oasis (even if it is partly man-made) in the middle of nowhere. Here there is a natural spring which produces clean mineral water at a constant temperature all year round -- and the temperature is just perfect. On a hot day, it's just bliss. The water is deep in parts too, so you can dive off the sides, and there are heaps of fish in the water that nibble your toes if you stay still for more than a few seconds. We stayed there for most of the day, but it was hard to drag ourselves away when it was time to go home.

~The Dead Sea~

Not long after seeing Sachne, we organised a trip with Hanni's mum & dad to go and see Maayan (Hanni's youngest sister), who was doing military service at an Air Force base near the Dead Sea. Let me tell you, around the Dead Sea, it is HOT. Really hot. We couldn't go inside the base, so we ate lunch with Maayan just outside, then paid a quick visit to see the Dead Sea. I didn't know what to expect, but I was still quite surprised at what I saw -- the main beach-front areas are populated with hotels and shops and cafes; other parts of the Dead Sea are sectioned off to harvest the salt for production; and much of the shoreline is scarred with sinkholes, a result of the receding water levels (part of the river that feeds the Dead Sea was diverted by Jordan to use the water supply. As a result, the Dead Sea is evaporating, and the water level is dropping by 1m every year, and as a result of this, much of the shoreline has become quite dangerous as sinkholes collapse).

We didn't go swimming at the time seeing as both Hanni & I forgot our swimming gear, but we planned to return soon anyway.

~Jerusalem~

Our next outing took us to Jerusalem, with Hanni's dad playing tour guide. In Jerusalem, we went to Mount Olives which has a lookout over the city. One whole side of the hill is covered with graves, including the grave of Schindler. From there, we went into the Old City -- this area is a very important site for several religions, and includes the Western Wall (which is incredibly old). We walked around a bit going through narrow alleys packed with stalls and hawkers. Hanni and her Dad then led me to this place called Christchurch which has a church and accommodation which Hanni's Dad did some construction work on many years ago. When Hanni was young, they sometimes stayed there or had Christmas there.

On our way out of Jerusalem, we passes a magnificent new bridge. It's a single-tower bridge, so it just has one giant tower in the center with cables streaming out to the main bridge to support it. But here's the crazy thing -- the bridge curves, which means that the tower also has to act as a cantilever, and it leans out at a sharp angle to balance the weight of the bridge. It's a remarkable feat of engineering -- how anyone can calculate the forces involved and work out what angle and height the tower needs to be is just beyond me. Very impressive stuff.

We then spent the next few weeks bouncing between Hanni's brother's apartment and her parents' house (which had air-conditioning!), and generally not doing much at all. We ate a lot of fantastic food, went to the movies, and spent most days at the beach. And every day the temperature got hotter and hotter. When we first arrived in Israel, the temperature was perfect -- not cold, but not too hot, and with a nice cool breeze. But by this time, it was getting very, very hot, even in the shade. We started spending more and more of the time indoors, out of the heat of the day. 

Eventually, we received word that our passport applications had been processed and our new passports were on their way. So we could at last buy tickets to fly out of Israel. But where would we go? We had originally planned to keep travelling around Europe for a bit, then eventually arrive in the UK to settle down for 6 months or so. But by now, we were looking forward to settling down for a while, so we decided to head straight for the UK, and explore Europe at a later date. So we booked a flight for the 27th of June bound for London, and booked a train from London up to Newcastle, to see my family and settle in to life in the UK.

A week before our flight, we organised to borrow Hanni's dad's car for a day and go back to the Dead Sea -- this time with our swimming gear. Hanni also wanted to take me to a nearby place called Masada (or Metzada), which is an ancient fortress located on the top of a huge, solitude cliff.

Because the Dead Sea is way off at the other end of Israel, we had to set off early. Like, 5am early. By the time we arrived at about 8am, it was already incredibly hot.

~Masada~

We first went to Masada, where we had the option of getting to the top by cable car or by walking one of the original trails to the top. We were game for the walk, so we gave the cable car a miss, and we set off armed with a bottle of water.

We were not prepared for the ordeal that followed. Even this early in the morning, the sun's strength was intense, and any sort of physical activity required vast amounts of water to be consumed. And the trail climbs up a cliff face that is almost vertical after half way! Long story short, we consumed our water before we made it to the top, and by the time we were only a few steps from the top, we were almost at the point of collapse, and it took all of our strength to climb the last few steps. Fortunately at the top there are tanks of clean, cold water to replenish our energy. (Hanni: Mike my hero left me and rushed ahead to find water as we were now on the verge of dehydration. It was great to finally reach the top and have cold water waiting for me)

I later found out that it was well over 40 degrees that day -- probably not the ideal temperature for an intense hike!

Once we had our energy back, we went walking around Metzada. It's not a huge area, but it does take a while to walk around the edge. All around were rooms used for various purposes: small homes, wash rooms, big store rooms... and a huge (and remarkably efficient) network of drainage channels feeding underground water cisterns. One cistern is absolutely immense, and must've held enough water to last an incredibly long time.

And then there is the palace. The entire city was built by King Herod the Great, who was apparently a little crazy and eccentric. He had Metzada built as a fortress for him to retreat to should the need arise, and so a palace was also built on one side for the Herod's residence. 

Herod never did get to use the fortress, but a large group of rebels did (almost 1000 of them) when the Romans began invading Israel. The rebels took up residence for quite some time, until the Romans became aware of their location and sent a legion to deal with them. But because of the steep cliff faces, this wasn't an easy task for the Romans, so they set up camp on one side of the fortress -- on this side, the elevation of the land placed them not far from the top of the cliff, but there was a narrow ravine separating them from Metzada. So, according to the tale, the Romans built an armoured war machine, which carried earth to the edge of the ravine and dumped it in -- slowly but surely filling it in. Over several months, they had filled in the ravine and built it up to form a ramp straight to the top of Metzada, but when they finally broke through the wall into the city, they found the entire population was already dead, preferring death to surrender. But for those people, religion prevented them from committing suicide -- and so instead they drew lots and killed each other in turn, until the last man standing was the only one to have to commit the sin of taking his own life. 

This story survived through some women and children who had hidden in one of the water cisterns, and has been backed up by evidence found by archaeologists who found, among other things, the lots that were probably used on that fateful day, each with a name inscribed on it.

For reasons still unknown, we chose to walk back down again -- not having learnt our lesson from the morning. But the walk down was much easier going and we reached the bottom with ease. (Hanni: Not quite, I twisted my ankle coming down and my shorts, due to the sweat, were chafing my thighs) 

~The Dead Sea... again~

We then made a quick drive to the Dead Sea so that I could experience swimming in it (but not before making a quick stop for iced coffee!). I'd heard heaps about the Dead Sea and how salty and buoyant it is, but it still took me by surprise. The first thing you notice is how dense the water is, absolutely saturated with salt. The water even feels slightly gooey. It's so salty, balls of salt crystals the size of golf balls carpet the sea bed. In fact, further out, small mountains of salt crystals poke up above the surface of the water, looking almost identical to small icebergs -- a strange site in the middle of a desert!

And, wow, the water really is incredible buoyant! it's so buoyant, you can quite easily float when the water is only up to your knees, and you can happily just "sit" in the water. It's bizarre when you look around at everyone else in the water -- people are so high out of the water that it looks like they must be standing on the bottom, but you have to remind yourself that they're actually floating.

I've also been told how painful the Dead Sea can be if you have even the smallest cut in your skin, but luckily for me, I didn't have any cuts. (Hanni: it is advised that you don't shave at least 48 hours before going to the Dead Sea! And just my luck, I chafed my thighs on the walk down from Masada which meant I couldn't stay in long. You'd think eventually if you stayed in long enough it would eventually be ok, but no. It's quite possible that the salt might actually act like acid and use the break in the skin to get into the body and cause damage. Well I wasn't going to hang around to find out.) But the Dead Sea can be deadly, too. Take a gulp of water, and you can die. Submerge your head, and you can die. It's kind of scary how such salty water can actually be deadly.

By the time we'd had our fill in the water, the day was already coming to an end. And we still had a long drive home, so we packed our things and set off.

For the next week we settled into a routine of eating copious amounts of pita bread and hummus and drinking copious amounts of shocko. (And loving every minute of it.)

On our last night in Israel, we brought as much of Hanni's family together as we could muster, and made my mum's famous Chinese Chicken Salad for dinner. Our flight departed at the unfortunate hour of 6.30am. That meant checking in at the airport at 3.30am, which meant leaving home at 2.30am. So we didn't bother going to sleep that night (besides, we were yet to pack our bags!).

At 2.30am, we set off with Hanni's mum, dad, and sister Maayan. We arrived at the airport with enough time to have a drink before having to say our goodbyes. It was sad to be leaving, but at the same time the excitement of travelling was starting to creep back in as well.

When we got on the plane, we were in for one last surprise. The airline wasn't IsrAir like we thought (that's the airline we came in on), but their European partner airline, BMI. Which meant only one, very sad, thing: no delicious pita and hummus!

But anyway. Next stop, London!

 

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Italy - Part Six: Rome (days three & four)

Current location: Birmingham, UK

Next stop: No plans yet.


Well it's been a crazy couple of weeks for us: applying for job after job, going to interviews, getting offered a job that starts immediately in a city 3.5 hours away, moving into a backpackers, looking at 10-odd flats in 2 days, finding a flat but finding out that someone already nabbed it from under our nose, finding another flat but someone nabbed that too, finding an even better flat at a better price and to our surprise managing to actually secure it... yep, it's been a crazy couple of weeks. 


Anyway enough current events -- this is about Rome!


When we last left off, Hanni & I had just gone to sleep after our second day in Rome. When we awoke, we had yet another full day planned, as our flight left early the following morning and we still had to go and see a whole bunch of famous sites. First up, Vatican City.


~The Vatican~


Unfortunately by a sudden wave of stupidity, I (Mike) couldn't get into the Vatican itself. Why? It was another hot day and I had decided to wear a singlet, completely forgetting that you're not allowed to bare your shoulders inside the Vatican. Doh! Hanni, being the smart girl that she is, was much more appropriately dressed and went inside armed with two cameras to record life inside the Vatican.


Meanwhile, I hung around inside Vatican City and scoped the place out. It looks just like it did on the movie Angels & Demons, except Tom Hanks and Ewan McGregor were nowhere in sight. It was also super hot, so I stayed in the shade and contemplated how on earth I was going to find Hanni in this massive crowd. I'd have stayed by the entrance so that she could find me, except that once you go in, you can't come out the same way. Neither of us knew where she would exit the Vatican, so I picked a spot that gave me a good view of the crowd and stayed put.


Back in the Vatican, Hanni bravely continued on. I'll get up now and let Hanni tell of the adventures she went through inside...


The plan was to get as many photos of the place so that Mike would get to see what I saw as if he was right there beside me. Now, I have on some occasions snatched the camera off Mike and went off snapping photos. However, Mike usually takes care of the settings on the camera and I forgot to get Mike to do this for me. So I spent a lot of the time while in Saint Peters basilica flicking through the settings and taking multiple shots. Anyway enough about that, the Basilica was I think the biggest we’ve seen yet. Inside there are loads of statues of the past Popes and in some areas you can actually catch a glimpse of some dead pickled (preserved) Popes. You had to line up to get a proper look at these but I didn’t bother. But I thought Mike might like to see this so I thought I’d get a photo. A guard nearby was trying to stop people from snapping photos and peering over to get a look at the pickled pope without getting in line, so I had to be cunning! I walked towards the pickled pope while looking in all directions but the Pope and at the last moment I spun around and snapped a shot. It didn’t work. Mike’s camera requires time to focus and adjust the settings blah blah blah… long story short it was fuzzy so I decided to try again. This time I’d use the video camera… I didn’t have to put much effort into it this time because I just stood back and zoomed in. And then I decided that I’d get the Basilica on video so I started all over again. 


There is this scene in Angels and Demons where Ewan McGregor pours this stuff all over himself and sets himself alight…. I saw where that was filmed! Oh and on the far side there was this huge red marble statue that has this long flowing gown or fabric that looked so cool. It really looked like it was made of fabric. I was completely engrossed in capturing everything on video that at one point I almost fell over an old women in a wheel chair. At that point I decided it was time to leave. 


Once outside I found out I couldn’t go back the way I came and more importantly to where I left Mike! And there were like 10 times more people in the square than before. I started planning what I’d do if I couldn’t find Mike, would I go back to the backpackers or just stay put in the square and hope that Mike was doing the same…. But luckily Mike found himself a vantage point where he would be able to spot me. And spot me he did!! 


Back to me again (Mike).


While Hanni may have been wondering how on earth she would find me, I spotted her in no time. Like an eagle. True, that's probably because I had gotten rather bored and had taken to scanning the crowd constantly, but still I impressed even myself when I noticed Hanni as she looked for me.


~The Spanish Steps~


After our reunion, we left Vatican City for the real world, and ended up at the Spanish Steps. Hanni was in full tour-guide mode and was doing all the navigating, so I never knew which famous place we were going to turn up at next [Hanni: that way if I got it wrong and ended up at the wrong attraction I could pretend it was the place I was looking for without Mike knowing any better]. At the Spanish Steps the fountain was undergoing a thorough and meticulous cleaning, which was a bit disappointing, so we got a bite to eat and sat down on the famous Steps to eat. But get this: you can't eat on the Spanish Steps! We got kicked off almost before we had finished sitting down. So we sat on a step beside the Spanish Steps instead.


From there Hanni whisked us off on a wild adventure through the city. I suspect that she had no idea where we were going, but she insists that she had it all under control. Either way, it was quite cool walking around all these little Roman streets and alleys. Eventually, we ended up at the Pantheon.


~The Pantheon~


The Pantheon, for those of you who don't know, is a massive temple built some 2000 years ago. Much of its fame came from the huge, unreinforced concrete dome covering the temple, which has a central opening which lets in a brilliant beam of light. This concrete dome has never been topped -- it's still the largest in the world. If you were paying attention, in Florence we visited another huge dome that was built quite some time after the Pantheon, except that it wasn't round and is a masonry (not concrete) dome. The reason was that the method for making the concrete had been forgotten since building the Pantheon, which just further reinforced how unique & important the Pantheon is.


And, wow, inside the Pantheon is seriously cool. It's quite dark because there are no windows, but you get this beam of bright light coming in through the opening at the centre of the dome. It's really impressive. And cool. Did I mention how cool it is?


But we had a busy day still ahead of us, so we moved on. Being such a hot day, we grabbed an ice cream to cool us down -- Italian ice cream (I should probably say gelato) is the best. After another maze of small streets and alleys, we ended up at a big piazza, the Piazza Navona (which is where Tom Hanks saved a guy from drowning in the fountain in Angels & Demons). There wasn't much to see or do though, so we set off again, ending up going past the Spanish Steps again on our way to some big park. 


We had to go up a small hill to get to the park, and this extra effort suddenly and completely drained any energy I had left in me. I found a nice patch of grass and fell asleep while Hanni walked around a bit, before joining me for a snooze. I woke up feeling refreshed, so we strolled around the park for a bit until we ran out of energy again, and decided we should probably make our way back to our backpackers for a proper snooze and then some dinner.


~Trevi Fountain, for the 3rd time~


After dinner, we went out again -- being out last evening in Rome, it was time to go back to the Trevi Fountain where we went on our first night. The one that I took photos of that ended up mysteriously corrupted. So it was time to go back and take the photos again (because it is such a cool fountain) before calling it a night. Before we set out, we got talking to a fellow backpacker who had just arrived and was keen to see a bit of Rome at night, so we invited him along too. And when we got there and I took some photos, I made double sure that the photos weren't corrupted. Hanni found one of those free water fountains and decided to give it a go except the pipe must’ve been bent out of shape a bit and when she shoved her finger in the end it squirted out the hole in a sharp angle and sprayed a guy, taking photos of the fountain in the back. 


And with that, we had finally done everything we had set out to do in Rome. Of course, there were countless other things that we could've done if we had had the time, but those will have to wait until next time. We do plan to go back to Italy. It's such a cool country and we never got to go further south than Rome, so we still have plenty to explore. But for now, this was it. Our last night in Rome. In the morning, we had to get up ridiculously early to catch our flight to Israel (even though the flight didn't leave until late morning...).


DAY FOUR: THE AIRPORT


In the morning we were up at dawn, in time to catch a train just before 7am. Even though the flight didn't leave until 10.40am, check-in was an insane 3 hours before departure. The reason, as I would soon see for myself, is because of the additional security checks that passengers must go through when flying into Israel. I'm not talking about the usual airport security checks either -- these checks are done before you even get to check-in, which means that by the time you get in the plane you will have gone through at least three security checks.


Anyway, at the train station, the departures board still wasn't showing which platform our train left from, so we had to wait. And wait. And wait. It was getting rather close to the train's supposed departure time, but still the platform number wasn't showing, and we were getting a little worried. Then at last it came up. But how typical... it's the platform at the far end of the station -- about as far from the main entrance as you can possibly get, and we only had minutes to get there. About half way there, my heart sank as I realised that we weren't going to make it. I started running, even though Hanni couldn't keep up because of her knees, and watched my watch tick onto the time when the train was due to leave. But it didn't, and I made it to the train, as did Hanni soon after. Luckily for us, they had decided to hold the train for a few extra minutes. Whew!


~The airport experience~


A short time later, we arrived at the airport -- 3 and bit hours early. At the main terminal, we found that flights to Israel and the United States leave from a special terminal which required us to catch a bus to get there. And when we pulled up, it was clear that this was no ordinary terminal: the entrance was tiny, and flanked by armed guards. And inside the terminal was no better. In your typical airport terminal, there will be signs everywhere to point you in the right direction. Plus, most terminals make at least some effort to make you comfortable, like having nice carpet, sofas, TVs and plants to create a nice atmosphere. Not in this terminal though -- it was cold. And I'm not just talking about the temperature.


The first thing we noticed was the lack of information to tell us where to go. In front of us we had two options: on the right was an Israeli security area that I didn't particularly want to go into, and to our left was a path that took us around the security station with a tiny little sign indicating that check-in was that way. So that's the way we went. But by the time we reached our check-in desk, we were quickly turned around to get checked out by security, which based on Hanni's stories sounded like a particularly unpleasant experience -- we had packed our bags very carefully and spent a huge amount of effort just to get them closed, and the prospect of having security rummage through our stuff and then having to re-pack it all... I wanted to avoid that at all costs. And also a scary thought was that as they check your bags, another security person gives you a light interrogation -- and they are apparently very good at getting information out of you, whether you realise it or not.


So I strode into the security area looking as confident as possible but actually feeling rather intimidated. Hanni was probably used to all this. Once inside the security zone, a lady in an airport security uniform came up to us and The Interrogation started. "Why are you going to Israel? How long for? Why are you not staying, don't you like Israel? To Hanni: You speak Hebrew but you are not Israeli? Why? To me, in Hebrew: You speak Hebrew too? Then in English: Why do you want to go to Israel? You will love it you will want to stay it is such a nice country."


This continued for several minutes with most of the questions directed at Hanni (in Hebrew, so I couldn’t follow), but luckily as yet no one had attempted to go through our bags. Then another lady came along and joined in the questioning briefly, then took off again. Then she came back, this time talking on the phone -- she had been checking up on us. But we had a trick up our sleeve: Hanni's friend in Pisa, Irit, has a friend who works in airport security. Irit spoke to her friend and mentioned we would be coming through, and when the lady called to check up on us, she discovered that we were “best mates” with this guy (whose name we didn't even know) and that no bag checking would be required. Woohoo! Although Hanni says that they only randomly check bags anyway.


But hold on! Not so fast. That was just the first stage of security. We still had a long way to go. As we moved back through to the check-in counter, we were stopped again and pulled aside for further checks, this time to test the bags for suspicious chemicals. Only then were we allowed to check-in, making it clear why they ask you to be at the airport so early before your flight.


At the check-in desk, we encountered a different problem. First we got asked if we had a return ticket. 


"No, we didn't know how long we would be staying for." 

"Oh, well do you have a visa?" 

"Not yet, being NZ citizens our visa is granted automatically on entering Israel." 

"Oh, sorry, you can't fly to Israel unless you have a return ticket or a visa." 

"Say what now? But we will get our visa when we enter." 

"Sorry, that's the rule. You can't fly to Israel." 

"Um, hold the phone, how on earth were we supposed to know this? Even the guy we bought our flight tickets from didn't know of this." 

"Well, getting angry isn't going to help. You'll need to buy a return ticket." 

"No!"

"Yes!" 

"No!" (Supervisor comes over) 

"You need a return ticket or a visa." 

"Well we know that now!" 

"Ok, I'll let you fly, but you need to be aware that Israel may not let you in unless you buy a return ticket there." 

"Fine! Just get us on that plane!" 


Apparently if you aren't a citizen of Israel, you need to have either a visitors visa or an exiting flight ticket before you are allowed into Israel, but the only people in the world who know about this are the airport check-in staff. Maybe they just made it up. But anyway, we were through -- another hurdle behind us. 


Right! On to the next stage of security: the x-ray machine and metal detector. This part was reasonably painless, but there was a catch: on the other side was a huge long queue, which was quickly growing and didn't seem to be moving at all. We stood here for quite some time before the queue started moving, and when it did, it took us onto another bus -- interestingly, one that took us right back to the main terminal again.


Back in the relative comfort of the main terminal, we found our departure gate and sat down to wait until boarding time. After some time, I realised that we were the only people sitting there; there weren't even any staff from the airline there yet. And boarding time was fast approaching. In fact, we were still there, all by ourselves, when boarding time came and went -- starting to feel that uneasy feeling again, I double and triple-checked our tickets. Yep, this is the right departure gate. Then I went up to the nearest person and asked if they were on our flight, and they kindly told me that the gate had been changed! Doh! Why do these things always happen to us??? Fortunately, she knew the correct gate, so we took off, hoping we hadn't missed boarding the plane. Why oh why didn't anyone tell us that the gate had been changed?


Typical. We got to the gate and the plane hadn't even started boarding. It had been delayed. So, we settled in to wait yet again. And eventually the plane did board, and we got on, and there were no more problems, and we sighed a huge sigh of relief -- we had made it! 


Next stop, Israel!

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Italy - Part Five: Rome (days one & two)

Current location: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK

Next stop: No plans yet.

We're in Rome!

Capital of Italy. Birthplace of the Roman empire. Home to some of the most incredible historical places in the world. Rome, where a gladiator defied an emperor.

To be fair, by the time we arrived in Rome we were getting pretty tired from all the travelling we'd been doing over the past week. So we were quite keen to get sorted and find our backpackers. First on the cards, get some milk for Hanni who was getting a bit of indigestion. Then, buy a couple of Roma Passes... somewhere. 

The only problem was, Rome's central terminal is ridiculous. It's not just huge, it's that everything is on opposite sides of the station. We found a shop with some milk, but then had to find the information desk. And when we did find the information desk, it turned out they didn't sell Roma Passes, and they sent us way back to where we started -- on the far end of the station -- to get them. And then of course once we had our Roma Passes (which give us unlimited travel by public transport, plus entry to key places like the Colosseum, over a 3 day period), we had to walk all the way back again to exit the station.

Fortunately, our hostel was just a few minute's walk from the terminal. Unfortunately, the hostel is located on the 3rd floor. Fortunately, there was a lift! Unfortunately, the lift seemed to have been put in as an afterthought once the narrow staircase had already been built -- it was so tiny and narrow that when Hanni walked in, she couldn't turn around! And there was no room for me, so I took the stairs. Getting Hanni out again was also tricky, as she had to walk backwards, with me guiding her out. Strangely, once we had checked in we discovered that our room was on the floor below, which is a real pain, because you have to go all the way to the 3rd floor to get to the reception or dining room, then go back down again to get to the dorm rooms. This was all too confusing for Hanni, who constantly ended up on the wrong floor.

The good thing about the Legends Hostel & Backpackers is that it provides not only a free continental breakfast, but free pasta for dinner as well! So after relaxing for a bit before dinner, we joined the party in the dining room for a yummy bite to eat.

~The Colosseum, Monumento Nazionale a Vittoria Emanuele II, and Trevi Fountain~

After dinner, we went for an evening stroll to see a bit of Rome at night. We didn't intend to walk very far, but as usual we ended up walking for a few hours. After walking for a bit, we found ourselves at the mighty Colosseum -- what an incredible sight to see this for real. It didn't look quite as impressive as it did in Gladiator, but then again it is a ruin, only a fragment of what it once was. We couldn't go inside at night, but we resolved to go there the next day for a proper tour -- the only occasion on our trip where we opted for the guided tour.

The area around the Colosseum holds a huge number of ruins and artifacts and ancient structures -- no matter which way you turn, you end up staring at something that is a couple of thousands of years old. In fact, it's impossible to escape all the history all over central Rome. Around each corner is an incredible basilica or piazza or monument or sculpture or something! 

So having walked around the Colosseum and the surrounding area for a bit, we set off, following our trusty map, to see if we could find some other famous parts of Rome by moonlight. We walked through the Piazza Venezia, where the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II resides, a massive monument to the first King of Italy, credited as the man who unified Italy.

We kept walking and arrived next at the Trevi Fountain, a stunningly beautiful fountain that words cannot describe. I snapped off a few shots as it looked particularly stunning at night, before we decided we'd done enough that evening and headed back to the hostel. When we got back I went to look through the photos I'd taken, and found that the last 3 photos I'd taken -- the ones from Trevi Fountain -- had been corrupted! I was gutted, but thankfully we were only on our first night in Rome, and we would have plenty of opportunity to get those photos again.

~The Colosseum... again~

The next morning, we had our free (but rather crappy) breakfast and made our way back to the Colosseum, taking the metro this time. Not surprisingly, it was mega busy. And not just with tourists -- there were heaps of gladiators and Roman soldiers hanging about too.

We had decided to go for a guided tour here, partly because the Colosseum is so big and has so much history, but also because our Roma passes give us a discount on the price. There were people everywhere selling guided tours, so we picked one at random and joined a group on the way in. Oh, that's the other perk to being in a guided tour -- you get to bypass the humongous queue to get in!

During the tour, we learnt heaps of interesting facts about the Colosseum. Some I remembered learning from school, but not in so much detail.
  • The valley where the Colosseum now resides was once owned entirely by the Emperor Nero, who built an artificial lake and a small water arena.
  • Nero wasn't very much liked by the Roman people. Especially because he owned so much of the land which he kept as his own private estate.
  • Many years later, Vespasian became Emperor of Rome and was well liked by the people. Vespasian filled in Nero's old artificial lake and gave back much of the land Nero had held, and as a gift to the people he began construction of the Colosseum.
  • Construction began around 70-72 AD, and was completed in 80 AD, a year after Vespasian had died and passed on his rule to his son Titus. Titus's rule was soon passed to Vespasian's other son, Domitian, who then added to the Colosseum by constructing the hypogeum, the series of tunnels, rooms and elevators underneath the stage
  • The Colosseum was open to absolutely anyone, and was open all day long. During games, bread and water was given to the spectators (in fact there was -- and still is -- free, clean water throughout all of the city of Rome).
  • Games were held in the Colosseum until the mid-5th century. Over the next few centuries, the Colosseum changed roles several times (as did the rule of Rome), gradually falling to disrepair caused by earthquakes, culminating in a major earthquake that destroyed a huge portion of the outer rings.
  • The Colosseum was then robbed of the more valuable stone, marble, and iron by invaders to Rome. The iron was cleverly used during construction to strengthen the stone -- a pretty radical application of engineering at the time. The pits and holes left from the removal of the iron still scars the remains of the building.
  • The Colosseum then became a stone quarry, up until a series of Catholic Popes and later the Italian government helped to restore and preserve the Colosseum, and re-open it to the public.
Walking through the Colosseum was great, but it is in such a state of disrepair that it takes quite a lot of imagination to visualise what it would have been like in its heyday. It is also unsurprisingly an incredibly busy tourist spot, which does take away from the overall experience -- there are so many people that it can be hard to stick to the right tour group! 

After the tour and our little lesson on Roman history we continued to explore the Colosseum and then the surrounding area. When we got hungry, we started to make our way back towards the modern day city to find some lunch. As we walked further & further from the Colosseum, I expected to find fewer & fewer old Roman relics, but I was very wrong. Everywhere there were old remains and crumbling buildings that had some incredible historical significance, and it was mind-blowing to see it all.

~The Sandwich Bar Ordeal~

We eventually found a sandwich bar to get some lunch, but we weren't expecting to be so cunningly ripped off. We went in and had a look at the food on offer, but at first we couldn't see any prices. Then we saw a sign off to the side with pictures of sandwiches & paninis and their respective prices. The prices were a little steep, but not too bad, so we picked a couple of the cheaper paninis and were told to go and pay at the cashier at the other end of the bar. We were then told the price was way higher than we had thought, so we figured that Hanni's panini (which had much more in it than mine) must've been a different price and went to swap it. But it turned out that it was mine -- a bog-standard, plain, cheese and ham (and nothing else) panini. I have no idea why such a boring panini would cost so much, but still we thought we could at least swap it for a different one. Right? Wrong! Because the guy had already put the paninis through in the register, they wouldn't accept swapping it -- despite the fact that we hadn't paid anything yet. It was plainly clear that they were just trying to rip us off, and so I was quite keen to walk out right there. But Hanni was starving. After some arguing, we managed to swap the panini but we had to buy a coke as well so that we still gave them the same amount of money in the end. I've never paid so much for two paninis and a coke.

Anyway we put that ordeal behind us and went across the road to a small park to sit and eat. As we ate, this incredibly drunk guy stumbled along with a bottle of spirits and crashed down on one of the seats. He hadn't been sitting there for long when he tried to get up again, but although his mind was determined to reach its goal, his body wasn't, and he collapsed on the ground in a heap. There he lay while Hanni & I munched on our expensive paninis. He kinda brought the mood down during our lunch.

After lunch, we tested out the free water that is available throughout Rome via little taps of constantly running water. The faucets all curve downwards so that you can fill up a water bottle or something, but they also have a hole drilled into them at the crest of the curve so that if you stick your finger on the end to block the flow of water, it shoots up out of the hole so that you can drink it with ease. And best of all, it is amazing water -- it's so fresh and clean and cool, like chilled mineral water. Brilliant stuff.

~Palatine Hill and the Mouth of Truth~

With lunch out of the way, we set off again and made for Palatine Hill, which is not very far from the Colosseum and which holds several palaces where Roman Emperors once lived. Like most of Rome's relics the palaces are in ruins, but they have been preserved as much as possible and are still very impressive. Surrounding Palatine Hill are yet more remnants of ancient Rome, and although not particularly high, the view from the top of the hill has amazing views of the area.

After spending quite a while walking around the ruins in and around Palatine Hill, we found the road and headed for the Bocca della Verita -- the Mouth of Truth. This is a face (that looks like a face carved into a pizza base, though it is thought to be part of an old fountain, or a manhole cover) on a wall outside a church. It became famous for its role as a lie detector: it is said that if you tell a lie while your hand is in the mouth, your hand will be bitten off.

There was a huge queue, so we didn't stick around long enough to try it out.

From there, we took a bus back to the Piazza Venezia where we had been the night before, then followed the same route to the Trevi Fountain again to check it out during daylight and snap off some more photos.

By this time we were feeling kinda tired, so we headed back to the backpackers (besides, we also had to get back in time to sign up for the free dinner). During dinner they also play movies, and guess what movie they just happened to be showing that evening? Gladiator!

We had a pretty quiet & relaxing night from then on. We still had a lot to see & do in Rome, so the next day was shaping up to be another long one, and so we hit the sack early and got ourselves a good night's sleep.

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Italy - Part Four: Pisa

Current location: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK

Next stop: No plans yet.

As we cruised across Italy on our train bound for Pisa, we were looking forward not so much to going to see the famous Leaning Tower, but to be able to hang out with Hanni's old Israeli friend Irit for the next day or so, and not have to worry about where we would stay for the night or what to do during the day. We had also heard that Pisa really doesn't have anything other than the Leaning Tower that's worth seeing, so we didn't have high hopes anyway.

When we arrived at the train station in Pisa, we were supposed to be meeting Irit who was picking us up. Well, she wasn't there when we arrived. We waited and waited, ate some food, then waited some more. Finally we got a message to say that she was on her way. As it happened, she was in a rush to meet us (on time) at the station, so she jumped on a bus without enough time to buy a ticket (this apparently happens all the time in Pisa; it's a student city and most of the students don't bother buying bus tickets because there isn't anyone to enforce them). Well, talk about bad luck -- she got stopped by a police officer checking tickets, and not only did she have to pay a fine, but the guy made her march down to the nearest bank with him so that she could take out the money and pay the fine on the spot! Ouch. Hence, Hanni & I had to wait some time before Irit finally arrived.

When she did turn up, she took us to her friend's flat. On the way, she explained that she couldn't put us up at her place because she lives in one of the university hostels, and so she had arranged for us to stay with a friend of hers, Maya, another Israeli studying in Italy. The only problem was, Maya's flatmate didn't like letting just anyone stay over, so Maya told them that she and Hanni were the closest and bestest of friends (even though Hanni had never even heard of Maya prior to this). In fact Maya and Irit may have exaggerated a little and made up some grand story about how Hanni and Maya had been friends since birth, and were inseparable up until Maya had moved to Italy -- and they hadn't seen each other since. So the pressure was on for Hanni, who had to pretend to be catching up with a close friend even though they were really only meeting for the first time!

Sadly, she didn't get to put on the act in the end -- Maya was home alone when we turned up, so there was no flatmate to play along for. So we joked about it instead.

~The Leaning Tower of Pisa~

We still had plenty of the day left, so Hanni & I took off with Irit to see the only thing worth seeing in Pisa -- the Leaning Tower. On the way we picked up some food for a picnic, as there is a large grass area surrounding the Leaning Tower and it's not-so-popular neighbours, the Campo dei Miracoli Duomo and Bapistery. 

Before getting to the Leaning Tower, we ended up walking along a high wall, and if you looked closely, you could see the odd inscription -- someone's name carved into the wall. Irit told us that those names were all Jewish people who had died a long time ago (I can't remember if there was a reason why they died or not), but instead of being given a proper burial, they were buried underneath this wall. Having their names carved into the wall was the only thing left to remember them, and even then, not all who died had their names inscribed.

It was quite an amazing sight when we turned a corner and finally saw the Leaning Tower. I thought that having seen it on tv so much would make it a bit of a non-event seeing it for real. But I was wrong -- it's something else seeing it with your own eyes. For one, it's bigger than I thought. And for two, it really does have a ridiculous lean! Typical for us though, it was also under construction (by now, rather than getting upset upon finding famous things under construction, we were laughing at how bad our luck had been with construction work). Fortunately it was only a small part that had the construction, and if anything it made the tower more interesting: how exactly do you put scaffolding (which has to have level platforms) on a leaning tower? And the tower also has some intriguing little quirks to it as well -- if you look closely, the top section is just a little more level than the bottom section. It's as though the tower had already started to lean before they had even finished building it, and so the builders tried to correct it as they went!

Given that there is not much more to see here other than the tower, we didn't linger long. Well, we lingered long enough to take the obligatory "hey look at me, I'm pushing over the tower!" and "hey look at me, I'm holding up the tower!" photos. 

That done, we set off to have a walk around central Pisa. On the way, we had a bit of a laugh when we saw a bottle of coke displayed on a wine rack next to several bottles of wine -- a bit of an inside joke: a friend of Yonni & Katja from Sweden who we met at the wedding had referred to coke as "American wine". 

Irit had also been telling us about how incredible the gelato (ice cream) can be in Italy, so she took us to a busy gelato bar to get some. And all I can say is, wow. Delicious stuff! We then walked around a bit more until we arrived back at Maya's flat (which didn't take long... Pisa is very small).

~The 1 Metre Pizza~

In the evening, Irit wanted to take us all out for dinner at a pizzeria. We took the bus there (without tickets, which is the norm here; Irit's fine earlier in the day being the unlucky exception). This particular place was very popular, and we were told it served pizzas by the metre! Being quite busy, we had to wait outside for a short while before we could get in. The guy in charge -- possibly the owner -- was quite impressive to watch. When we came up to the place, he quickly greeted Irit, asked how many of us were with her, then instructed us to wait along with several other groups. He then re-emerges every now & then to let groups in, and he knows which group is next in line by remembering people's faces. He'll scan the groups gathered outside, find the face he's looking for, then point at them and say "you" (but in Italian).

Once inside and seated at our table, we ordered our pizza. That's pizza, singular, because one pizza would be all that we needed between the four of us -- the pizzas at this place are enormous. And fantastic. This pizza was so mouth-wateringly good that I'd go back to Italy just to go back to this pizzeria for another slice (only, I can't, because I don't speak Italian -- Irit had to order the pizza for us).

What really impressed me, other than the magical taste of the pizza, was watching them cut the pizzas that came out of the oven. Using those little circular pizza blades to cut the pizza, the guy would place his hand on one side of the pizza to keep it from sliding, then in a lightening quick motion he would cut the pizza crossways, somehow managing to stop the blade just millimetres from his fingers. Then he would repeat, moving further down the pizza each time, always leaving it to the very last moment to stop. That left one remaining cut still to go. This time, he held his hand at the very top of the pizza, holding it with his index finger and thumb so that the part of his hand between thumb and index finger was stretched, opening up that soft, sensitive bit of joining skin. Then in another lightening quick motion, he would cut lengthways from the bottom of the pizza to the top, stopping the blade only just before slicing his hand in half.

I was really impressed that he still had all his fingers. This guy was like a pizza ninja.

After we finished eating, the guy who we thought was the owner impressed us one last time by discounting our meal. What a guy.

Irit then took us out to show us what the teenagers do when they go out at night: they buy some beer, and sit on the walls beside the river. Yep, that's it. Those crazy kids!

That night we slept at Maya's flat, only there weren't enough pillows to go around. So Hanni slept on a stuffed toy animal that no one could decide what animal it was. Needless to say, she didn't have a very comfortable sleep. But we had enjoyed spending time with Irit and Maya, and funnily enough, Hanni & Maya got along really well -- even when they weren't pretending to be best friends.

We had always planned to leave Pisa the next morning as there just isn't enough to keep us occupied, but it was a pity that Hanni couldn't have spend more time with Irit. In the morning, the three of us went out for breakfast before Irit had to get to class, then we said our goodbyes and jumped on a train bound for Rome (Roma in Italian). This was exciting for two reasons: one, we were going to Rome, one of the most incredible cities in history, and two, in just a few days we would be jumping on a plane bound for Israel! The train ride was long, but we couldn't wait to get there.

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Italy - Part Three: Firenze

Current location: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK

Next stop: No plans yet.


After three incredible days in Venice, we caught an afternoon train and departed for Florence. In Florence we had given ourselves three nights, as we had read about the enormous number of things that there are to see and do there. As we pulled in to the station, Florence didn't look quite as impressive as we had hoped -- or maybe that was just because we had just come from Venice. It was much more... ordinary. But still very Italian (and so still very cool)!


When we arrived at our hostel, we had a hilarious welcoming. The guy at the front desk greeted us and then showed us to our room where we could choose which beds we wanted (as the dorm was not full). He said something along the lines of: "You can have that bed and that bed, or, if you want, you can have that bed and that bed. Or! Come, I show you another room. Here is much nicer for you. You can have bunk beds OR, because you are couple, you take two single beds. You can push them together if you like!" A bit later on, the guy came back into the room followed by a couple of people who would also be staying in our room. "Are you a couple?" he asked them. They said no. "Ah, good! You take bunk beds then."


You really need to put on an Italian accent to appreciate how funny this guy sounded.


The next day we set out to explore the famous Florence. Birth place of so much famous art. And as we later learned, birthplace of the economic world -- it was in Florence where modern money was born, and used by wealthy Florence families to drive new developments all over Europe. For a long time, Florence was the financial capital of the world. Or so they say.


But first things first -- breakfast. We went out to find the local market at the Piazza del Marcato Centrale, where we bought some fresh bread, some lovely cheese, some olives and sun dried tomatoes and a small bottle of wine. We found some shade behind a nearby basilica, the Basilica di San Lorenzo, where we could stop and eat. We used the remaining bit of bread to feed the birds; some pigeons and sparrows had come to scavenge what they could. The pigeons were just big, dumb, bullies, always trying to muscle the teeny sparrows out of the way for the food. But the sparrows were cunning. They'd bounce along right into the middle of the group of pigeons and snatch the bread before the pigeons knew what hit them, then fly off to eat (something the pigeons never thought of doing). Ah we had some good laughs watching these birds. Maybe that was the wine talking.


After eating we decided it was high time to set out to start exploring Florence. Our first stop was the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Florence Cathedral (or Duomo). This is one of Italy's largest cathedrals and for a time, the cathedral's dome was the largest in the world -- and is still the largest masonry dome in the world. In a strange twist of fate, the dome was actually inspired by the impressive Pantheon in Rome, which in an amazing feat of engineering was perfectly circular and made from concrete. But the formula for making concrete had long since been forgotten! So for this dome, they had to settle on boring old masonry (and hence a faceted dome, rather than circular) instead.


Anyway, the plan was to go inside this massive cathedral but we were in for a shock. The tourist crowds were out in full force and the queue to get inside the cathedral was ridiculous. We'd have waited hours to get inside at this rate. Well, we still had two and a half days left in Florence, so we figured we'd move on and try this cathedral another time.


Next up, the Piazza Della Signoria -- this is where the original statue of David once stood. There's still a statue of David here, but it's not the real one. But it's a cool piazza: there's a whole heap of amazing statues all over the place, and heaps of people (ie tourists) too. Among the crowd were a handful of street performers and vendors, and being a city built on incredible art, most of the vendors are artists trying to paint you in 30 seconds or so and competing against each other for business (and by competing, I mean yelling and slagging each other off). The vast majority of the artists drew basic caricatures, or semi-realistic sketches. But a select few had real talent, and were quite cool to watch.


After weaving our way through the crowd, we found ourselves near the river and made our way towards the Ponte Vecchio bridge -- this is another well-known bridge which has been jam-packed with little shops, resulting in a bizarre exterior with bits of shops hanging over the sides. The bridge used to be lined with butchers until a Medici duke removed the butchers and replaced them with gold merchants -- who are still there today. We walked a bit further down the river to cross it over another bridge which gave us a nice view up past the Ponte Vecchio, and made for the Piazza de'Pitti. Here is the Galleria Palatine, which houses four different galleries and, more importantly, a large and stunning garden. Or so we were told -- we weren't allowed to see the garden without paying a hefty fee to see the galleries, which we weren't so keen on (apparently they're nothing special anyway). So we gave that one a miss.


At this point, it must be said that we were so far not blown away by Florence. Not like we were with Verona and Venice anyway. True, the city has the most remarkable history -- families from Florence drove the progress of a great deal of Europe, and produced some of the most famous pieces of art ever known. But as a city, it is rather ordinary, and there are just a few too many tourists (all here to see the Statue of David, of course). Besides, even if you did want to see the real Statue of David, you're not even guaranteed to see the genuine article -- they sometimes swap the real one with a fake, so that they can keep the original in good shape. So we figured that seeing the fake is as good as seeing the real thing, and that's good enough for us.


From here we wandered semi-aimlessly up some winding streets towards a lookout (the Piazzale Michaelangelo) that we were told gives a great view of the city. We almost got completely lost [Hanni: ahem, I wasn't lost I knew where we were going, I was the navigator] but eventually the road we were on opened up and showed that we were on the right track. And right on the edge of the city too -- on the other side of the wall beside us was beautiful rural Tuscany, and on the other side was the packed city of Florence. And we still had a big hill to climb to get to the lookout.


By the time we got to the top, we were well exhausted (it was a hot day too). Fortunately, the lookout really is a good one -- the view over the city was very impressive. There's also another fake Statue of David (a bronze one this time) up here as a tribute to Michaelangelo.


After we'd had our fill of the wonderful view, we decided it was time to head back to our hostel But on the way we thought we would scope out the Museo Nazionale, the museum where the original Statue of David stands. It was too late to go in today, but we were still thinking about checking him out before leaving Florence. As it turned out, we almost walked right past the museum -- it is the most ordinary looking building in a tiny little street, and the entrance is so tiny it looks more like a service door or an emergency exit. But sure enough there was a small queue waiting to get it. But we decided not to bother seeing the real David. We've seen the fakes. Good enough for us.


At dinner time, we set off in search for an all-you-can-eat Italian food bar that was recommended to us by the guy at the hostel. And what a place it turned out to be. My mouth is watering again just thinking about it -- the food wasn't particularly unique, but it was easily as good as some restaurants, yet the idea was incredibly simple. Basically, you grab a plate, go to a buffet bar, grab whatever food takes your fancy (the food on offer changes each night), then when you're ready the guy simply microwaves your food for you. Once you've finished, you just go back and do it again. Somehow though, despite being microwaved, the food was absolutely delicious. And to top it off, it was incredibly cheap too. We didn't bother going anywhere else for dinner for the rest of our stay in Florence!


For our next day, we decided to take the morning off and chill out a bit. We'd seen most of what we wanted to see in Florence, so we figured we could use the extra time to relax, though we did want to go back to the Florence Cathedral in the afternoon when it would hopefully be a little less busy. And sure enough by the time we did turn up, the queue had shrunk until it was only a 5 minute wait to get in. So in we went! From the outside, the cathedral is clearly very big. But from the inside, it is just immense. It's absolutely humongous. It's like a huge cavern. Very cool.


That evening, we went back to the all-you-can-eat bar, and started talking to some students from the States who had come here to "study art" (which is American for "have a vacation and party a lot"). Then just as we finished eating, the owner of the joint came over and poured us and the other remaining patrons a glass of bubbly -- on the house!


After eating we went for a nice stroll around Florence, to check the place out at night. We cruised past the bridge that we had crossed the day before, and stopped by at the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo, which is where they have a statue of a boar -- the tradition is that you rub its nose then put a coin in its mouth, and if the coin falls into the well you'll eventually come back to Florence. When we walked past the Piazza della Signoria again (where the fake David stands) there was a concert on, which lit up the statues in colourful lights -- very dramatic and cool looking.


After hanging around for a bit, we went back to our backpackers to retire for the night. The next morning we didn't stick around for long, and caught a morning train bound for Pisa. Hanni was looking forward to catching up with her old friend, Irit, who was now living and studying in Pisa and was kind enough to put us up for our stay in Pisa, and besides, we were both eager to see the Leaning Tower with our own eyes!


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Italy - Part Two: Venezia

Current location: Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK
Next stop: No plans yet.

Yes, it's been a while since our last post. Sorry about that. In between our last post and now, we've travelled from Bat Hefer in Israel to London and then Newcastle in the UK, and our first priority has been (and still is) to find Hanni a job. In fact we've been spending so much time doing job applications that we haven't had time to write this blog post! But I've hijacked the computer from Hanni tonight so here we go.

So we left off last time in Verona, Italy, and we were about to set off for Venice (or, Venezia if you're Italian). It was a fairly short train ride but as soon as the train left the mainland bound for the many islands of Venice, we started getting really excited. I mean, Venice! This is the kind of strange exotic place you only see in movies, and we're there! In no time we'll be soaking up the gondolas and water taxis and hundreds of canals. We couldn't wait!

When we got to the station we didn't have to go far to see the real Venice. We had only to walk out of the door, and we were greeted to a view of the famous Grand Canal, and a stunning view of central Venice. We couldn't stick around for long though, as we had to get to our hotel on the island of Lido, which is separate from the smaller islands and canals of Venice and requires a short boat ride via the city's water taxis, or vaporetti. Plus, we were eager to dump our heavy packs so that we could properly enjoy the place.

Our hotel proved to be a great choice and our room had a beautiful view across the water to the main city, and we had a nice walk around Lido and a nice Italian pizza for dinner. The next day though was going to be a big one. We had a lot planned and had only booked two nights at our hotel, so we had to fit as much into the next day as possible.

BURANO

We had aimed to get up nice & early to start the day, but as usual we slept in and took our time in the morning and so our plan for an early start went right out the window. But who cares, we're on holiday in Venice, baby!

Our first destination of the day was another island called Burano, an island famous for its lace (which is beautiful, but expensive, as is almost everything in Venice), and it's a real gem of a place -- most of the houses are individually painted a vibrant colour, giving the place an incredibly colourful appearance and an allure that is hard to resist. We figured it made things easier when you had to explain to someone which house was yours ("the pink one"). Interestingly, Burano also has a leaning tower; though not quite as impressive as the one in Pisa (check the photos).

Burano also has small canals of its own, and here we got to see how the locals manage their everyday lives where the only roads are made of water. Most houses have a boat parked outside (but it has to be a narrow boat) which enables the locals to get about. And when major work needs to be done on the canal, there won't be any diggers with huge caterpillar tracks to be found -- they bring in digger boats, which have a hole cut out in the middle to allow the digger to dig beneath the boat. We even saw a hearse-boat. In fact the more we explored, the more we realised that the Venetians don't need to rely on road-bound vehicles at all.

TORCELLO

Next stop was the island of Torcello, which is famous for an incredibly old church, the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta. We quickly found that there is not much else to see on this island, but it was very nice and peaceful.

MURANO

As Burano is famous for its lace, Murano is famous for its glass, and the locals have shown off their glass-making skills with glass art pieces all over the island. Thanks to our late start though, we couldn't linger. So we grabbed a bite to eat, walked up & down the island, and caught the next water bus to central Venice -- the Piazza San Marco to be exact.

PIAZZA SAN MARCO

When we arrived at San Marco it was getting late in the day. We resolved to walk around a bit more but we would hold off from doing any more than that as most places would be closing soon. But we really enjoyed just walking around and soaking up the architecture and atmosphere. Unfortunately for us, there were a lot of buildings that were under construction, and it seemed to be the norm in Italy to cover up any visible construction with a massive poster, displaying either a 1:1 scale image of the building behind the scaffolding, or a ginormous advertisement. Worst of all though, one of the canals beside the piazza holds the famous Bridge of Sighs, and the buildings on both sides of the canal were plastered in humongous ads masking some construction. We let out a sigh on seeing the construction and understood why the bridge got its name. This was a real pity, but frankly we were getting used to finding major construction everywhere we went -- it seems to be our curse on this trip. (Hanni would like to stress that she is very annoyed about this!)

OK maybe the construction isn't why the bridge is called the Bridge of Sighs. The bridge is actually part of the Doge's Palace in St. Mark's Square, which spans the canal we were standing next to. On the St. Mark's Square side of the bride was the palace proper, and on the other were the palace's dungeons -- crossing the bridge meant that you were condemned to the dungeons, and prisoners would be heard sighing as they crossed.

Having checked out the awesome Piazza San Marco with its amazing works of architecture, we walked along the Grand Canal until we reached the next famous icon of Venice: the Rialto Bridge. At this point I should note that central Venice is actually quite small, and is easily walkable. In fact it only takes about half an hour to get from one end of the Grand Canal to the other by foot, but as soon as you move away from the Grand Canal, it is so easy to get lost. It's just a maze of tiny canals and meandering alleys and occasionally you'll see a sign pointing in one direction but once you've lost sight of the sign, you're lost again! Strangely, we seemed to have no trouble at all getting through the city -- possibly because we didn't particularly mind if we got lost, so we just wandered aimlessly -- and as fate would have it, we ended up wandering in exactly the right direction. 

When we emerged on the other side, we were back at the far end of the Grand Canal where we had arrived by train the previous day, and we decided to take the water bus back via the scenic route along the Grand Canal (as opposed to the quick route that we had taken the day before which bypassed the main part of the Grand Canal). The water buses can get quite full, but we managed to get a seat right at the front which gave us a good view of Venice as we cruised past.

SAN MARCO... AGAIN

The next day we were (very sadly) due to leave Venice and take the train to Florence. But we weren't done with Venice yet! We had to check out of our hotel, but they were able to store our bags for the morning so that we could head out again to do a bit more sightseeing. So we took a water taxi back to Piazza San Marco with a plan to explore the Doge's Palace in St. Mark's Square (San Marco = St. Mark's, FYI). The palace absolutely blew my mind -- it was just stunning, both externally and internally, visually and historically. Long ago, the palace belonged to the Doge of Venice, which was an honorary role held for life. When a Doge died, the entire palace was cleared of all his belongings to make way for the new Doge. So the place as we saw it was tailored to the wants and needs of the last Doge.

The palace is also huge. Way bigger than you'd think from the outside! We opted for the self-guided tour (even forfeiting the expensive audio guides), but it wasn't a problem seeing everything -- everyone must follow a very specific route through the palace which made it a piece of cake to show ourselves around. Unfortunately, there was also a class (or ten) of school children, so many of the rooms were jam packed. Still, my mind was still exploding from the sheer awesomeness of the place to care. At some point we managed to lose the school kids, but by that time our feet were getting tired, and we still had a lot to see.

The upper part of the palace was a stark contrast to the lower dungeons. Above the dungeons, every part of the palace is grand -- from ginormous doors to massive fireplaces and stacks of artwork (one room contains the largest fresco painting in the world). The dungeons however were... well, like you'd imagine a dungeon. Cramped, dark, and cold. Interestingly, we learned that when the palace's dungeons were being designed, they were built to maximise the comfort of the inmates -- there was the odd window to the outside world which let in fresh air and even a little bit of light! Those inmates must've felt like they were in a hotel. The cells themselves were particularly interesting, as a few of them still had the names of their occupants engraved into the stone. Some even had pictures engraved. The Lonely Planet tells us that Casanova once spent time in these dungeons, too.

After finally emerging from the palace -- feet numb from all the walking -- we then set off for our next target, the Basilica San Marco. The church is very old, and shows it: thanks to the common flooding of St. Mark's Square, parts of the church floor have become sunken (quite dramatically) in parts. It's a strange sensation walking on such an uneven floor, but also it is a bold demonstration of how old the church is, and it is pretty cool to be able to experience something so ancient.

After having a good look around (it's a pretty small church), we then moved on to explore a bit more of Venice by foot. Our final destination was another basilica by the train station, but I can't remember what it was called. All I remember is, it was incredibly beautiful and ornate inside, and I felt really humbled to be standing in such an amazing work of architecture and art and history. Photography wasn't allowed, sadly, and I was just about to snap off a sneaky photo when the minister emerged and motioned that it was closing time and we had to leave. I distinctly remember thinking that this particular church impressed me even more that the one we went to in Berne -- but without photos, I can't remember exactly why I felt this way. Hopefully we'll get to revisit one day.

And on that final visit, it was time to leave Venice. We took another scenic water taxi ride down the Grand Canal on our way to Lido, to pick up our bags from our hotel before heading back to the train station. Our next destination was Florence (Firenze if you want to be Italian).

P.S. We'll try to be more onto it from now on so stay tuned for more amazing adventures!

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Italy - Part One: Verona

Current location: Bat Hefer, Israel
Next stop: London, UK | Saturday, June 27th

So we last left off as we departed from Switzerland on a train bound for Milan, Italy. But we had no intention of staying in Milan -- from what we read & heard, there's little to see there unless you love fashion and have a lot of money to spend. So the plan was to jump straight onto the next train for Verona where we had booked a B&B for the night.

When we arrived in Verona it was about 7.15pm, and according to the email we got from the B&B, we had to get there by 8pm or else we'd have to pay extra. The directions said that the B&B wasn't far from the train station, but when we found a map, we couldn't figure out which way we were facing -- so we had no idea which way to go! Aware that we were on a tight schedule, we opted for a bus instead (the B&B's directions also had directions by bus), so we went to the bus station and waited with a bunch of people for our bus, and when it finally arrived, we all crammed on board. 

Given that we both had our packs on, this was extremely awkward as the bus was completely packed (the whole aisle was full as well as the seats), and we kept getting in people's way as they tried to get off at various stops. It was so packed we also couldn't even see the ticket machine, but we figured that even if a ticket officer was on board, they too wouldn't be able to squeeze through the bus to check if we had tickets. The bus drivers in Italy also seem to be totally insane, taking corners at crazy speeds (hurling everyone around the bus) and slamming on the brakes at every stop. Not easy when you have 20Kg packs on!

But, we found our stop easily enough and checked into our B&B with about 5 minutes to spare before 8pm. The place was a very nice apartment with a huge room for us, and the owner, Francesco, was awesome -- after we got our packs off, he gave us a quick tour of the house and then marked off a bunch of places on a map -- not just the typical tourist sites, but also good places to eat or to get a view of the city. That night we went out for dinner (at one of the places Francesco recommended) and had our first authentic Italian pizza (and a lot of cheap but delicious red wine).

After dinner we went for a quick walk around the city to scope the place out. Before we got to Verona, we had the impression that Juliet's house is all that Verona has to offer, but just walking around at night was amazing. The city is really cool, and still has heaps of remnants from the original city. And yeah, there's the famous Juliet's house (but it was closed at that time of night). We could easily live in Verona. 

We only had one night planned for Verona, so we had to check out the next morning. But Francesco was so awesome that not only did we wake up to a very nice breakfast, but he then told us we could leave our bags in our room so that we could see more of Verona without lugging our packs around. So that's what we did.

Did I mention that Verona is a really beautiful city? Seeing the place in the daytime was great, and as we walked around, we kept seeing bunches of padlocks locked around things like lamp posts all around town -- on closer inspection, each lock has people's names written on them, so we figured it was like a "star-crossed lovers" mark or something. Juliet's house (actually "Giuliette" in Italy) was typically packed and there's not much to see, though interestingly all over the gate and the walls leading into the courtyard people have scrawled their names. It seems to be another tradition here as the walls were covered in paper so that every now & then (we assumed) the paper would be replaced to give people space to keep writing their names. There wasn't much free space on the walls (which were covered right up to the ceiling!) but we found a little spot to make our mark. Wonder if it's still there...

There is also a statue of Juliet in the courtyard and it's said that if you rub her breast (which is now much shinier than the rest of the statue) then you will find a new lover. We're starting to get the impression that this is a bit of a love-struck city.

After Juliet's, we tried to find Romeo's house. This was a lot harder than it sounds, but that's because when we found it, the only thing to set it apart from the rest of the buildings was a tiny little plaque. The place was extremely uninteresting. Oh well.

As we walked around some more, we kept stumbling across old ruins -- parts of the old wall that used to enclose the city (see the photo I took of the old city). We also checked out a semi-cool old castle (nothing special really) and had a nice walk along the river on our way back to our B&B. Along the way we went on a quick detour up the hill, where Francesco had said there was a view of the city, which turned out to be totally awesome.

By the time we arrived back at the B&B, it was time to catch our next train to Venice. So we picked up our bags and set off for the train station. Walking, this time -- those bus drivers are seriously crazy!

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Switzerland - Part Three: Thun and the Wedding

Current location: Bat Hefer, Israel
Next stop: London, UK | Saturday, June 27th

So we were at last on a train bound for Thun where we would finally meet up with Hanni's family and, for once, not have to worry about finding a place to sleep! The ride to Thun was another scenic one, heading closer and closer to the famous and stunning Swiss Alps. It's an amazing contrast between the rolling lush green hills that are framed by huge snow capped mountains just a stones throw away.

Day one: arrival

When we arrived in Thun, everyone had come to the station to greet us: Yonni & Katja, Michael (Hanni's brother), Maayan (Hanni's sister), and Patricia (Hanni's Mum). Hanni's Dad unfortunately wasn't able to make it to Switzerland for the wedding, but Yonni & Katja would also be holding a celebration in Israel later in the month. We all made a quick drive to a Bed & Breakfast where Hanni's Mum would be staying, got ourselves organised, then all of us (except Katja, who left to get her nails done) drove further into the Alps to Interlaken for some sightseeing. Being so close to the mountains, Interlaken's scenery is breathtaking; though it was getting late by the time we arrived, so after a quick walk and some expensive coffee, we headed back.

Back in Thun, we met up with Katja who would take the rest of us to her sister's flat where we would be staying for the next few days. Hanni & I had been under the impression that we would have a place to ourselves, but it turned out that all four of us would be crashing in the one flat, and not only that -- it was only a one room apartment! Fortunately she had a second bed (a fold-out couch) so Hanni & I took one bed while Michael & Maayan took the other. Oh well, for once we weren't paying for our accommodation!

Day two: Hanni & Yonni's birthday!

Having slept in and cooked breakfast, we all headed out to meet up with Yonni & Katja around lunchtime. To celebrate Hanni & Yonni's birthday, Katja was treating everyone to a trip to a mountain village called Beatenburg -- which holds the prestigious title of "Longest Village in Europe", and is not far from Interlaken. Leaving the car at the base of the mountain, we made the final leg by mountain rail car which took us on a slow ride up the steep mountain while we took in the incredible views. At Beatenburg, Katja threw in an extra treat -- a walk up to the next village, where we would be able to enjoy even more remarkable views and (best of all) speed back down to Beatenburg by scooter! This sounded like a heap of fun so we all set off, with the exception of Michael and Patricia who would wait for us in Beatenburg. But the novelty wore off after only about 30 seconds, which is about how long it took for us to get completely exhausted trying to walk up the steep mountain path. And we had a looong way to go. Yonni & Katja seemed to take it all in stride, setting a grueling pace up the hill while Maayan, Hanni and I staggered on. At one point we looked up to see where Yonni & Katja were, and saw a little old lady with a backpack effortlessly strolling up the hill.

When we FINALLY made it to the next village (which itself was still a long way from the top), the view was indeed pretty awesome. And we were rewarded by hiring these bike/scooter things called korkinets and coasting down the mountain roads back to Beatenburg, which was well worth it -- we all had a blast! Pity they were so expensive, but we were getting used to ridiculous prices in Switzerland.

Once we got back to the car we went back into Thun, but we were late to go out to dinner with Katja's Mum and so we had no time to change out of our (now sweaty) clothes. We went to a place that is supposed to make incredibly fantastic burgers at cheap prices. With Katja's help, we all put in our orders and settled in to wait for our meals. An hour later, our meals had still not arrived and we noticed other customers were getting their meals, so Katja asked the chef how long ours would take. "As long as it takes" was his gruff reply; Katja suspected that he was deliberately discriminating, making us wait because most of us weren't Swiss.

Some two hours later, just as we were about to walk out, our meals finally arrived -- not bad food, but not fantastic either. At the end of the meal, Katja and her Mum presented Hanni and Yonni each with a birthday present of a candle and some chocolates, before we all went our separate ways for the night.

Day three: the day of the signing

After a quick breakfast, we (Michael, Maayan, Patricia, Hanni & I) went to meet Yonni & Katja at a church where they would be signing their marriage certificate prior to the official ceremony the next day. When we met up, I asked Katja whether they had organised a photographer for the wedding -- I knew already that they wanted me to take some photos, but not being a professional photographer I had wondered if they would also hire a professional wedding photographer. In reply, Katja threw me a confused look and said, "but you're the photographer, no?". No pressure!!!, I thought nervously, but I just told Katja that it was fine. I'd never shot a wedding before, nor did I have the equipment to make the most of the shoot (not to mention one of my lenses was crapping out on me), but I figured I'd do my best.

The actual signing took place in a beautiful mansion-like building by the lake (just beside the church where the wedding would be), and after the signing we all went to Katja's sister's place (her other sister) to eat.

Later on, we went our separate ways again. Maayan went with Patricia to the B&B for the night (as Yonni would be bunking with us for the night), and after dropping Hanni & I off at the flat, Michael went out to park the car... but never came back! It turned out he had ended up meeting up with friends David and Marie who had come from Sweden for Yonni's wedding, and together they had gone out for the night. So Hanni & I finally had some peace & quiet until Michael and Yonni came home later that night.

Day four: the day of the wedding

This was the big day. After having some breakfast, we all started getting presentable for the wedding and went to meet Maayan and Patricia for lunch at the B&B. Which, it turned out, was a big no-no -- apparently B&B's in Switzerland are literally for BED and BREAKFAST ONLY, even if you happen to be staying there for a few days -- after breakfast, you're expected to be doing your own thing somewhere else, and so we weren't greeted particularly kindly when all six of us sat down for lunch at the picnic table outside! I also made a bit of a fool of myself when a huge bug latched itself to my arm, and when I tried to discreetly shrug the bug off, I also inadvertently spilt banana yoghurt down my pants -- crap! My wedding pants! It wasn't really a big deal; I went inside and cleaned up and my pants were fine. But I had apparently made everyone else's day, and to this day Hanni's family won't let me live that episode down. I guess it looked funnier from the outside.

Hanni: Yes it was very funny! Picture this... we are all sitting round a garden table eating sandwiches. Mike was slouching in his chair looking all cool and stuff. I passed him a banana yoghurt to try when suddenly for no reason he spazed resulting in yoghurt flying in the air, some of which went down his pants (which he didn't notice at first) and when we burst into laughter he said (with cute puppy eyes) "what? There was a bug on my arm." Which didn't help one bit... I'm cracking up just thinking about it.

Mike: Just so you know, Hanni giggled to herself the entire time that she wrote that. 

Right, now that we've got that out the way, where was I?

Ah -- so after lunch we had very specific instructions from Katja to help prepare for the wedding reception, so we all headed to the reception venue and started loading gear into the room and moving tables around and blowing up balloons. There were also these crazy decorations hanging from the ceiling which we wanted to take down, but they were also quite delicate -- each decoration had a series of strings hanging from it, and each string had a series of delicate hand-made ornaments attached. Needless to say, we had to take the decorations down with great care. Once that was done and the reception room was properly prepared, we made for the church for the wedding.

~THE WEDDING~

The wedding itself was lovely. The church was small and old, but very nice; unfortunately for us though the wedding was all in German (or maybe Swiss-German... not sure). But the minister occasionally translated the gist of the ceremony in English, and best of all even illustrated one of his points using Lego -- this guy was good. Of course, this whole time I'm madly running around the church snapping photos, but I'm also trying to soak up the wedding as much as possible too.

Here's a link to the photos from the wedding ceremony: http://yonni-katja.mikefulcherphotography.com.

After the ceremony, we went outside (back to the mansion where the signing took place) and snapped off more photos. At this stage another guy started taking photos of the group as well, which was awkward, and he eventually took off with the bride & groom, posing them in some pretty interesting/bizarre ways before they disappeared completely. Oh well -- posing isn't really my thing anyway, so with my job done, we made our way to the wedding reception.

The reception was initially very subdued, but then again, that's because the DJ was also the other photographer who took off with Yonni & Katja earlier. Neither of them had yet turned up, so there was currently no music. After a long time, the bride & groom made their appearance, and then eventually the DJ came too and got the music going. After cleaning up the nibbles, Katja's Mum started cooking the meat on the BBQ: pork, chicken, and... horse! Yep, horse is a common dish in Switzerland. Hanni used to ride horses while she was growing up in Israel, so needless to say we stuck with the chicken. 

Then there was more food, dancing, dessert, more dancing, some communication-building games for Yonni & Katja, and there was a game for the guests too. This involved a peg which someone would try to clip onto someone else without their knowing. Then every now & then throughout the evening, an announcement would be made by the DJ and whoever had the clip had to make a promise of some kind to the bride & groom. These were things like promising to pick them up from/take them to the airport and things like that. If you found the clip on you, you would have to try to clip it to someone else, without their knowing, before the next announcement. I got caught with the peg once, but because I couldn't promise to do anything like picking them up from the airport, I made up my own promise (to let them use my car in New Zealand if they wanted, which is where they were Honeymooning).

We also did this tradition in Swiss weddings, where each of the guests write their own promise to the bride & groom on a postcard (postage paid and addressed to the bride & groom) and attach it to a helium balloon. Together, we released all of the balloons outside. The idea is that if any of the postcards make their way back to the bride & groom, then the person who wrote the note must uphold their promise.

After this, people started leaving, but it seems to be tradition to say goodbye to everyone in the room -- shaking hands and air-kissing (3 times) with each goodbye. So it took a long time for the guests to dissipate, but Hanni's family and I stayed behind along with Katja's sisters to help clean up. This also involved putting those crazy ceiling decorations back up, but someone had moved them under a table to hide them and they had all become impossibly tangled up -- Maayan and I began to try untangling them, but it proved to be much harder than we could imagine. The cords hanging from each decoration were clear, and it was extremely difficult to figure out which cords went where, let along how to untangle them! Before long we were all (me, Maayan, Hanni, Michael and Patricia) working on them and we ended up breaking more than we were untangling, which meant that we had to try to repair them after we had finally gotten them all separated. We finally finished around 1.30am. What a night! And with that done, we went home to bed.

Day five: departure from Thun

In the morning, we got ourselves packed up and all of us (minus Yonni & Katja) left Thun for Berne. In Berne, Hanni & I got dropped off at our backpackers (the same one that we stayed in last time), and we said our goodbyes to Hanni's family; though we would be meeting up with them again in Israel. Hanni & I spent the rest of the day going through the wedding photos and putting them online, and it was late by the time we got to bed.

Day six: departure from Switzerland

When we got up, we checked out, did some washing, had breakfast (Nutella, which had become our staple food over the past week), and then we jumped on our train. 

Next stop, Milan, Italy!

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