Here I am back in beautiful Canada and loving it!  Unfortunately there are are only a few days left of my visit here but I have had a wonderful time and am sure I will continue to do so until I leave for New York.  I was fortunate enough to celebrate my 31st (aahhh) birthday here among some wonderful friends.  During the day Laura treated Jane and I to a super tasty sushi lunch and Jane treated me to a movie.  We saw The Fantastic Mr Fox which was brilliant, I highly reccomend it.  Jane had to leave us to attend tap class so Laura and I lounged around at her house for a bit before heading to The Beast, a fabulously divey bar we used to hang out at when I lived here.  We had some excellent nachos and long island ice teas and i giggled at the fact the same surly bar tender was providing the same surly service after two years later.  Love it!

After this it was off to The Dakota, another place we whiled away many fun hours when I lived here, to meet Jane, Vanessa, Fran and Chris.  There was a country band playing which is apparently the new craze at the moment.  It was pretty amusing.  We especially loved the guy who played the cheese grater, the saw and the double slinky.  Very talented stuff.  It was a really lovely night, a few drinks and lots of lovely chat and some energetic country dancing. Brilliant!!  Afterward we headed to a diner style restraunt for some snacks and milkshakes.  Funniest comment of the evening goes to Vanessa’s friend Matt in reference to some army guys in full camo gear, “Why are there a bunch of bushes at that table?”  Maybe you had to be there but I found it amusing.  Thanks my awesome Canadian friends for giving me another fun Toronto b’day, love you all.

Other highlights of my trip have been:

- John’s b’day/housewarming:  a lot of fun catching up with Laura’s old room mates Marrielle and Broady, you guys are some of the funniest people!  The scary stairs which thankfully everyone made it up and down without incident.   The peanut incident.  Huey’s excellent taxi surfing. Marrielle’s awesome influence making it possible to have drinks ready when we arrived at the bar 3 step.  Lovely wine at Marrielle’s place after the bar.  Laura’s lovely shoe fashion show.

- Cheese afternoon at Brooke’s:  so much good cheese.  Brooke’s beatiful apartment with the weird and wonderful stuffed toy collection.  Psychologiser, a game where a person reads out a scenario and you guess how they would react, great fun.  Meeting new fun people, copy that to all the other events.  Hearing about Brooke’s amazing African adventure.

- Sneaky Dees nachos, wings and beer.  Yummy food, amusing gossip. Canadian trivia game purchased for $1.99 at Value Village at Janes house afterward, put your hand down Laura heh heh.

- Greg;s b’day/Chris’s farewell at 333: western theme, great costumes and decorations.  Catching up with more of my favourite Canadians. Sharing a love of Cider with my girl Jess.  Jane’s amazing cake. Vanessa’s love of the furry hat.  Walking Fischer. Kitchen dance party.  “Jane is awesone!”

- Dog Park!!!

- The Boat: bar tab.  Grace Jone’s t-shirts.  The fact that Greg loved his b’day party so much.  More dancing fun.  Huey’s dance floor standing.  Fran’s excellent hair flinging and shirt.   Brooke and Gree being adorable.

- All you can eat perogies:  Bye Gree, have a fabulous trip.  New taste sensation.

- Movie brilliance/all the tasty food:  Police Adjective and Herzog documentries, interesting stuff.  Super tasty noodles and Peruvian food.

Still to come: Laura’s return, vintage night, bands, Katherine’s b’day.  All the fun.

Well my Italian adventure is over which is a bit sad.  I left Rome to come to Vienna, Austria 4 days ago and it is strange to think I will not be going back. I got used to the lifestyle very quickly.  My last few weeks in Perugia were lovely.  I tried to really take in the town as I knew it would be awhile before I returned, if ever.  The christmas lights had started to go up and all the bars had stopped putting tables and chairs outside as it had become to cold so things looked a little different to when I arrived.  They had installed a Ferris wheel in one of the piazas in preperation for the christmas market but unfortunately it wouldn’t be working before I left.  I walked through the Rocca, the medieval city that modern Perugia had been built on top of, and ate my favourite pizza and gelato one last time.  I spent time with my friends, cooking, eating and laughing.  I made pizza for my farewell dinner that actually turned out quite well and we ate a tasty local cake that involved nutella and pinenuts, yummy.  I went out on the town one last time and visited all my favourite places saying goodbye to the bartenders who had become friends.  It was a very pleasant departure.  I did return one last time to pick up some bags that I hadn’t wanted to lug to Norway so got to see the christmas lights in action, so beautiful.

Before I left Italy for good I spent a couple of weeks in Rome.  I had a lot of fun meeting people in the hostels and trying out a bit of the nightlife with them.  I met some great Canadians and Australians who were happy to explore with me.  We even saw the Pope who makes an address every Sunday.  He is such a cute smiley man and spoke mainly Italian but also a little in six other languages, pretty impressive.  Even though I am not religious the atmosphere was amazing, he is an absolute rock star in Italy, they love him.  Afterwards we had the most expensive, and unfortunately not the best, pizza I had in Italy.  Oh well, the company was very good so it didn’t matter too much.  I also went to the creepiest church I have seen on my travels so far.  It is decorated with the bones of one thousand monks.  They are arranged like light fixtures and wall hangins and all sorts.  Pretty crazy but its purpose is to show that life is short; ‘we were once what you are and you shall become what we are now’, is how the quote goes.  The idea is to inspire people to lead a good life while they still can, a pretty cool idea.

I also had one of my top five meals of Italy while in Rome, is it just me or do I spend a lot of time talking about food?  The restraunt was recomended to me and was full of Italians which is always a good sign.  I had the most amazing antipasto which was just simple salami, proscuitto and marinated vegetables but was so tasty, I don’t know what they did to it.  I then decided to be a bit adventurous and have pasta with hare sauce.  I was a bit dubious but it was really tasty.  Put that all together with a couple of glasses of wine and I walked away a very satisfied customer.  Some incredibly tasty honeycomb gelato (yeah it was a bit cold but it had to be done) in front of the lit up Trevi fountain was a brilliant way to spend my last night in Italy. 

P.S Sorry if there are a million spelling mistakes in this, I am using my friends German computer so it is saying I am spelling everything wron.  Oh well, hope it isn’t to bad. x

Especially when her computer charger breaks and everyone wants to charge her 5 euros to use the internet for an hour.  Am currently trying to get out of here in ten minutes for a Euro.  Will endevour to actually write something when she finds a place that doesn’t want to rip her off quite so much. 

P.S Currently in Bologna, beautiful city!

Not quite the next day but here I go with the rest of the story. While we were staying in Sorrento we went and checked out a town that was buried under the same vesuvian eruption that buried pompeii. The site is a lot smaller than Pompeii partly because it hasn’t all been uncovered yet.  I am not sure if they will continue to uncover more as it seems they built the modern town on top of it so it probably isn’t an option.  Herculeum hasn’t been given the tourist treatment that Pompeii has.  It is in a small town called Ercalano and sits on the coast beyond the modern shops and houses.  We managed to pick up a very good very cheap pizza for lunch which is a sure sign they haven’t gotten around to milking the tourists all that much yet, heh heh.  Anyway the site was really interesting.  It survived the erruption a bit better that pompeii because it was hit later so there are second stories to houses and some really amazing mosaics and frescoes.  Even some of the wood around door frames and windows still survives which is amazing.  It is crazy to think of people wandering around there thousands of years ago.  We invested in audioguides which was great as we knew exactly what we were looking at and learnt about what life would have been like when the city was at its peak.  A friend was telling me the other day that Herculeum was a favourite holiday spot of Cleopatra, pretty crazy!

On our last day in the area we spent a relaxing day wandering around Sorrento, checking out the sites and getting some shopping in.  We had lunch at a bit of a swanky place that wasn’t too badly priced and had a lovely view of a little piazza, very pleasant.  I picked up some more things to equip me for the coming winter; thermals, arm warmers, a handbag.  Ok, the last one won’t really protect me from the cold but necessary all the same.  We had our last lovely meal at the hostel and were lucky enough to hear the girl that would be singing in the bar that night rehearse.  She was very good.  We had our last game of cards and headed to bed, all a little sad that we would have to leave this beautiful place in the morning.

After another train trip we arrived back in Rome where we would spend out last night to make it easier for mum and dad to fly out the next day.  We passed another pleasant evening eating, drinking and chatting then watched a movie, Angels and Demons which seemed appopriate as it is set in Rome, then went to sleep.  In the morning we had a last tasty breakfast at the hotel before it was time for Mum and Dad to head to the airport.  It was definitely sad to see them go but I am so glad they were able to head over and spend this time with me.  It was just brilliant!!!

Unfortunately my holiday with the parentals had to come to an end.  They are back in Oz and I am a little homesick as a result,  we had such a fabulous time. They spent a week in Perugia where I am living. I showed them all the fascinating parts of the town, like the old city which the new city was built on top of and the beautiful churches and art museum.  I took them to my favourite restraunts and introduced them to some of my friends over pasta at my house. We also visited Assisi which is a really beautiful nearby town famous for it’s association with St Francis who founded the Fransiscan order of Monks.  Mum and Dad stayed in a really nice hotel close to the town centre which was super convenient.  We had some beautiful food which would became a theme of the whole trip.  We tried my favourite pizza and favourite gelato and favourite aparatevo (really can’t remember how to spell that).  Very nice.

After Perugia we headed to Florence where we saw Michaelangelos David and some beautiful churches and art. We had a really lovely lunch for Mums birthday, super tasty food and a bottle of Prosecco (italian champagne), how could you go wrong.

Next was Venice which never fails to amaze. Mum and dad fell in love with the canals and windy streets. I found a really lovely place to stay on the Internet.  Unfortunately it was up a few steep stairs but it was close to the main train station which was good.  It had only been up and running for two months so it was lovely and clean and the people running it were really lovely.  We got a 48hour ticket for the ferries and rode around on the canals a lot which was wonderful, such a beautiful city.  We took a couple of trips to the nearby islands of Murano and Lido.  Murano is were they make the beautiful Venetian glass that you see all over the world.  They really are immensely skilled, such beautiful delicate things.  Mum and I picked up some lovely necklaces and earrings.  Unfortunately we didn’t get to see any of the glass factories in action because it was late in the day and the off season but just wandering through all the beautiful little shops was great.  We also wandered a bit further into the island and mum and I sat for awhile on a bench in a Piazza where a heap of kids were playing after school, while there Mums chatted.  They were so adorable, it was a really lovely little look at Italian life.  Lido is more of a resort island and is really geared towards summer with beautiful beaches and boardwalks.  We did manage to have a very overpriced meal served by an extraordinarily surly waiter though which was great (note the sarcasm).  The trip was worth it though because I found a great winter coat lined with down that Santa was generous enough to give me a little early.  That along with the great waterproof boots he also gave me will go a long way to keeping me snuggly during the European winter.  Thanks Santa, you guys are legends.

We were really lucky with the weather while Mum and Dad were here.  We had one of only two rainy days while we were in Venice.  Mum decided to sit it out in the room but dad and I went out for a rather drizzly walk.  It was still amazing though because we were in Venice.  That day we visited a great museum which is an old castle restored to how it would have been in the 18th century (I am having a mind blank, was it seventeenth or eighteenth dad).  It was beautiful with original furniture, paintings, frescoes and sculpture.  Really amazing to things which had been kept so beautifully for such a long time.  The most interesting part for me was the bedroom which had all the things a lady of the time would have used to get washed, dressed and made up in the morning.  We also got to experience a very Italian pausa (siesta) that day.  We stopped of at a little cafe for some pizza a little later than we would have lunch and a whole lot of Italians came in for drinks and snacks on the break from work.  It was loud and bawdy and great!

On one of our last nights in Venice we went to a Vivaldi concert which was amazing.  It was ladies playing three violins, a cello, a bass and a harpsichord.  I had never heard a harpsichord played live before so that was pretty fascinating.  There was also a male violinist who came in for the tricky bits.  They were all super talented, I don’t know how they get there hands and fingers to move so fast.  They were also in period dress which made it visually spectacular as well.  No matter how many times you have heard a piece of music it is and entirely different experience live.  It was marvelous.

Our last stop was the Amalfi Coast, a part of Italy I have been dying to see for a long time.  I wasn’t dissapointed. I happened upon an amazing hostel on line. It was really more like a hotel. We had our own room on the roof with an amazing 360 view of the surrounding area. Really beautiful! On our second rainy day of the holiday we decided to take the bus that goes from Sorrento to Amalfi on which you see awesome views of the coast and towns in between.  Even in the rain the views were amazing.  One of the towns on the way, Positano is so beatuful.  Lots of white houses built right into the rock, amazing.  Unfortunately it was a bit to wet to get out and explore.  We did brave it at the end of the bus trip and took a look around Amalfi.  It is a really cute little town with a beautiful church and lots of cute cafes and shops to discover.  Luckily the rain didn’t hurt our enjoyment of the place.  The bus ride back seemed even more spectacular as the sun was starting to set and the towns were lighting up.  It is definately one of the most beutiful places in Italy I am yet to see.  The only shame was that it was near impossible to get good photos out the rainy windows of the bus but oh well, it just means I will definately have to make it back there some day in nicer weather.

Unfortunately i am out of internet time so will have to leave it there for the moment.  Will hopefully get back to tell you the rest tommorrow.  Love you all. x

Hello all, how are we?   Lots of exciting stuff going on over here at the moment. I have just a had a very awesome visit from my friend Laura and am an hour away from welcoming my parents to this town I call home for the moment.

It was amazing having Laura here. We had a lot of fun trying out the culinary goods and perusing the Perugian nightlife. Her first night here we went to a couple of my favourite apperativo places. Gotta love getting a bit of free food with your drinks, sitting and watching the world pass by as you consume both. The first place we went to is a funky little bar called Cafe Morlacchi. It has displays of local artists on the walls and well priced drinks served with quaint Italian snacks. It is opposite one of the campuses of the Italian university so is a bit of a student hangout. I love to sit and listen to the rapid fire Italian being spoken even if I can’t follow it very well. We moved on to Lunar Bar Ferrari which is on the main, car less street of Perugia. The restaurants and bars put tables out in the middle of the street so it is a great spot for people watching. The owner is a lovely guy from Morocco, Muhumad, who has lived in Perugia for twenty years and is well loved by everyone. They also do one of the best apperitivo’s in Perugia. Lots of lovely meat and cheese with crudites and bread. Very tasty. We sampled the local prosecco and I pointed out some of the more interesting characters of Perugia. After this it was time for some pizza so we headed next door to Il Bacci, my favourite pizza place. One very tasty Margherita pizza later we were full and ready to go home.

It didn’t quite work out that way though. On the way home we ran into my room mate David who turned us around and convinced us to go back to the centre for just a little bit longer. Easily convinced we headed back in. After a short stop at the bar David took us too I decided to take Laura to my most common hangout, Dempsey’s. There were some friends of mine hanging around out the front so I introduced them all to Laura and we proceeded to have a few drinks a lots of chat. Very nice. We also showed Laura one of Perugia’s most popular nightclubs, Merlin, where we had a bit of a boogy before heading home for real.

The following night I decided to have a few friends over for dinner to meet Laura. It was quite the multicultural affair. There was another Australian, Firas; a few Germans, Stefan,Tina and my flatmate Andreas. We had a few Americans, Rachel, Chrissy and Ariel; an English lass, Becky and my Turkish flatmate Benes and, of course, our Canadian Laura. I have to say that that many differing cultures in one room makes for interesting dinner conversation. I made thin steak with Uncle Vince’s tasty parmesan and olive oil topping, salad and chips. It was hard to come up with something economical that wasn’t pasta or pizza (there were requests for something a bit different). Everyone seemed to enjoy the food and the dessert of gelati and Italian cookies, yummy. After dinner I tried to steer people away from the topics of politics and religion which were resulting in some heated discussions and we settled in for some card games and a few drinks. We had a heap of fun, lots of laughing and friendly competition.

Ok, I haven’t finished telling you about Laura’s awesome visit yet but will have to pause there as it is time to head to the train station to pickup my parents who will arrive from Rome in half an hour. Yipee! Very excited to hang with them for the next three weeks. Will continue the story very soon. Love you all and hope all is well. xxxooo

So,once again it has been awhile since my last post. Sorry about that. My social life kind of got in the way, poor excuse I know. So I have much to tell. I am having an absolutely brilliant time here. Perugia is a beautiful little town with much to see and do. September saw the return of the Italians after there summer holidays so the city is now a lot fuller than it was last month. On most nights hundreds of people gather in the main piazza,eating, drinking, catching up with friends and generally having a really good time. The mood is very sociable so it is very easy to meet a wide variety of people. I am having a lot of fun meeting the local Perugians who are very accommodating of our stilted Italian language skills. They wait patiently while I struggle to form sentences and gently correct my frequent mistakes. It’s all very enjoyable.

We have figured out the best value bars and restaurants in the city. It has been a tasty experience figuring out where to get the best pizza. Perugians seem to have very varied opinions on which is the best pizzeria but we have been very happy to give them all a go in order to form our own opinion. Even more enjoyable has been the search for the best gelato. Really it is all very good so sampling the wares of different shops has been more than pleasant.

The competition between the many bars and clubs makes for interesting drinking experiences. There are always special offers and themes to take advantage of. We have picked our favorites. We are frequent costumers of Dempseys a bar with really friendly bartenders always ready to invent new cocktails for you. It is also a favorite for lots of Italians so is a good place to get some language practice. We occasionally go to the only nightclub in town Domus. It is a good place for a boogy and having made friends with a lot of the staff we always get in for free which helps with the budget. The only problem is they tend to play the same music all the time which is getting a bit boring.

My classes are going really well but unfortunately are almost finished. One more week and I will be on my own on the language front. It is quite sad because I have really enjoyed the lessons and there end means some of the really good friends I have made will be leaving to head back to their home countries. My Italian is improving but we have learnt three tenses in the last week and they are all a bit jumbled in my head. Oh well, I will have plenty of time to figure it out in the months to come.

Unfortunately the end of my course means the time has come to find a job. After asking all the friends I have made who have jobs and speaking to the owners of some of the more english speaking friendly bars and restaurants it was clear it was going to be pretty difficult to find anything. Due to the financial crisis even Italian are finding it hard to get work and any foreigners who have work have either been in the jobs for a very long time or are highly skilled bartenders or djs who needed no training. Luck was on my side though when a Canadian friend of mine who has been here for over a year put me on to the idea of teaching English, gotta love those Canadians. She thinks that even if I can’t get a position at an official school I will be able to eek a living out of private tuition. She has done quite well with it and says its either people wanting to learn super basic English for a holiday or who already know English quite well and just want conversation practice. My flyers go up tomorrow so keep your fingers crossed for me.

My most exciting news is that Mum and Dad have decided to visit me over here. They are making tentative plans to be here in the last month of October. That combined with the fact that my favorite Canadian, Laura,might be coming in the beginning of October is going to make this next one a very very good month. I am so excited. Mum and Dad plan to stay for three weeks, with the possibility of a jaunt to France and Malta. That will take me up to the middle of October at which point I may just wander around Italy a bit and try and squeeze in a trip to Norway to visit a kiwi some of you might know. Halfway through December I am heading to Austria for a week. I have made a very good Austrian friend on my course, Anna,and all her talk of the beautiful christmas markets etc had me booking a ticket quick smart. It’s also a perfect excuse to finally do The Sound of Music Tour. Anna has never seen the movie,apparently it was never big in Austria funnily enough. She is happy to indulge my whims though and has agreed to watch the movie with me before we head to Salzurg. After Austria I will head to London for the Christmas/New Year celebratory period. I am sure it will be a hell of a lot o fun. After that it will be down to how far the funds (and credit card allowance) have stretched as to what happens next. I would love to make a quick visit to Canada so hopefully I can stretch the budget to include that. Only time will tell.

So those are the tentative plans. A whole lot crammed into what is really only a few more months. Aaahhhh!!! Pretty excited about it all though. Going to be brilliant! Hope all is well with all of you. Missiing everyone. Much love xxxooo

Hello all! How’s things. Things are looking up for me. I did unfortunately end up fairly sick and laid pretty low all last week but thankfully I am feeling a lot better now and apart from some risidual tiredeness am pretty much back to my old self. Unfortunately i haven’t got much to say as a result though. My big news is that I moved apartments. I now live with five other students and am much much happier. The day before I left the last place my key broke in the lock and my former landlady completely lost it. She seemed to have a very long list of complaints about me, almost all greatly over exaggerated and it all came gushing out. I really can’t understand why she was so unhappy with me, I tried very hard to do everything she said but I guess she found me difficult anyway. Really I was rarely ever there as I so much wanted to stay out of her way but apparently this was also a problem. She was angry that she never knew where I was. I hadn’t realised I would be getting a new, super crazy mother when I moved here.
Anyway, all that is behind me now. My new place is really nice. My room is much bigger and I am free to use the kitchen and loungeroom whenever I like which is brilliant. It is also €100 cheaper per month so I am very very happy to have found it. I live with two german’s, one girl one guy, a south african guy, a hungarian guy and an Iranian girl so it is an interesting mix of people. They all seem very nice. The German girl is in my class and a good friend so I think it will be a very pleasent month.
This weekend I am off to London for Cass’ 30th birthday party. I am super dooper excited because it means Laura, Mikey, Cass and myself will all be together again. Add to that all the other awesome people I will get to play with and I think it’s going to be a great weekend.
My Italian is coming along slowly. I am trying to overcome my fear of speaking it and worrying about making mistakes. I understand much much more now though which has made life a lot easier as I can concentrate on what my answer will be instead of deciphering the question. I am considering adding another month onto my studies. I am not sure though, I will see how much I improve in the next couple of weeks.
Not much else to report. I hope all is well back there. I have thoroughly enjoyed checking out photos of all the babies and fun times you guys are enjoying. Loads and loads of love. xxxooo

Hello all, I hope all is well wherever you are. I, unfortunately, have been a bit sick. It is nothing serious but due to a bit of misdiognosis and much difficulty making myself understood in Italian it has gone on a bit longer than necessary. I managed to get myself the right card to recieve the reciprical healthcare that Italy offers Australian’s so at least it hasn’t been expensive. It only took a few rounds of arguing about wether I needed the medical card to get my permit of stay or my permit of stay to get the medical card but eventually they gave it to me. The Doctor was a bit more difficult. I think now that he just didn’t understand what was wrong with me so he gave me a treatment that made things worse instead of better. After a few days of this I went back to the doctor again. This time he said I would need to see a speacialist which I thought was quite ridiculous as it is really a small thing but I went along with it. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get an appointment with the specialist for three weeks so I was advised to go to the hospital instead. This was all getting a bit out of hand for a simple complaint but off I went on the half hour bus ride to the hospital. After a bit of searching I found the emergency centre but they didn’t really want to treat me because it wasn’t an emergency. I couldn’t have agreed more, really all I wanted was a prescription for some antibiotics but it didn’t seem anyone wanted to give me one. The emergency doctor pointed me in the direction of a clinic in the hospital that might see me but after an hour of looking for it and being directed to about forty different places, none of which were the clinic I gave up and got back on the bus home. It was a very long and frustrating day. I don’t blame it on the Italians of course, my poor Italian meant that most of the misunderstandings were because of a language barrier. I am sure I was given the right directions many times but I just couldn’t understand well enough to follow them.
Anyway, luck has smiled on me. I found out after all this that there is a Dr at the Uni who speaks English so after a visit to him tomorrow  I am sure this will finally be the end of the story. The most annoying thing is that I never once needed a doctor in my three years living in foriegn english speaking countries. Oh well, it will be another adventure to look back on. It certainly made me use my Italian and I realised I know a lot more than I thought. I promise I will write a cheerier post soon about the wonderful time I am having hear. It’s always the whinge first with me. Heh heh. Love to you all. xxxooo

Ok, it has been a week since I posted.  It seems I am just as bad at blogging as I am at regular email.  Unfortunately today isn’t going to see me get any better.  I have been out the last five  nights in a row making new friends.  It seems I forgot I am 30 and that that would nearly kill me.  Also when I said it was hot before I was mistaken.  It seems Italy is now having a bit of a heatwave so the temprature has gone from 35 which was painful enough to 40 today.  Not very comfortable when airconditioning isn’t something the Italians seem big on.

There I go whingeing again.  Really I am having a wonderful time.  Perugia is a beautiful place to spend some time.   I have made fun friends and we are enjoying discovering Perugia’s nightlife together.  I promise I will write more about it later.  Right now I must head home to cram some Italian into my head, I have neglected my studies a bit and fear falling behind, then fall into bed for an early night.  I hope you are all well.  Bouna serata. xxxooo