Italy

Last weekend we went down to Italy. Why? Because we can...

Herve had scoped out Genoa as potentially a fun place to go. (See link on the left) It is about 4 hours south of Geneva and is the 2nd largest port in Europe (and the birthplace of Christopher Columbus). We took the tunnel through Mont Blanc (wow) and ended up in town with little difficulty.

On the way, Coby had downloaded Italian lessons from "World Nomads" so that we could learn some basic phrases. So we learned how to say "Hello" and "Thank You". Apparently you can download a variety of language courses from them for free. As the instructions progress, you learn more and more useful phrases which culminated with "Don't shoot! These aren't my drugs". Um. thanks.

We parked downtown and looked around for places where we wanted to be that night. I took a lot of pictures of the old architecture with narrow streets and beautiful detail work on the buildings which were easily older than our country.

We wandered into a little Italian restaurant to get pizza. Coby went exotic and got a four cheese pizza. I got mine with anchovies so that I wouldn't have to share... It was good.

We found out about a couple of clubs and then found a hotel. It turned out to be the same hotel that George Bush stayed at for the G8 summit. It was right on the harbor and seemed incredibly palatial after the Geneva walk-in closet. The odd thing was the bathroom (again). You walked into the room and it was entirely marble. Now this was a four star hotel -- as the hotels in Europe all have to publish their ratings on their signs. So the bathroom had the normal sink and toilet -- and a bidet, a shower and a rack to heat your towels. Okay, so nice. However, when you take a step back, you realize that there is not a division between any of it. So the shower did not have a curtain or walls. It essentially just drained into the drain in the middle of the room. (I found out later that this is common in the US in big houses and is called a "Rain Room"). I did think that it was kind of ironic that they gave us a soap labeled "Bath soap" because if I made this a bath, it was going to take a lot of water and som caulk around the door.

Being the manly men we are, we took naps that afternoon in lieu of dinner. I wandered next door to the aquarium and was entertained by a very active octopus. At the stingray petting area, a little girl wandered up to me and asked me if they bite. I said no, and complimented her on her English, asking her where she was from... California.

We then went to a club for Coby to roll the dice and try his luck meeting Italian women. Oddly, he had better luck talking up a Danish woman there on business as absolutely no other women there spoke English. We closed the place -- and got back to the hotel at a respectable 5 a.m.

The next morning we headed back after getting the requisite new country McDonald's for Coby. After 3 countries doing this -- amazingly it all tastes the same.