The Flaming Q-Tip

Steve wants to have a shave by a turkish barber. We finally find a barber open on Sunday and Steve waits his turn. He promises to back out if the barber doesn't have a new blade- yes, the nurse in me is freaking out! Turns out the straight razors today are equipped with disposable blades. Phew! The barber lathers Steve up- he rubs in the cream and it is thick like whipping cream. He uses the blade in every which-way while stretching Steve's skin taught, and I have never seen Steve sit so still! The shaving is only part of the process. Next he pulls out some kind of tool that looked like a giant black q-tip. He lit the q-tip on fire and starting bouncing it on Steves face, nose, and ears! Then he trimmed up Steves haircut, plucked any stray hairs, trimmed the nose hairs, gave him a massage, powdered his neck, after-shaved his face, and cologned his shirt! I've never seen his face so Hairless! It was amazing! Since this shave (about a week ago) Steve has decided to grow a beard. The decision was based on two factors. 1) The beard is growing in nice and full due to the amazing shave 2) No mirror in our hostel room...hmmm- I'll let you know how long he can stand it! 

Arrive to Turkey!

Ever been on a Turkish bus? Luxury my friends! First, lets get to Turkey. We leave our little studio at 2am. The hotel driver is clearly practicing for the Indy as he speeds us to the airport. My seatbelt doesn’t work so I slide over to squish in behind the driver who is in a half laying position. Duct tape holds the seatbelt together but at least it works. We know this flight has a stopover in “Sofia” but neither of us knows where that is! At the check-in counter I ask and the clerk laughs at me- its in Bulgaria. We spend the night on the plane and with the stopover in Sofia we don’t arrive in Istanbul until 0900hrs. We have planned a route through Turkey, so instead of staying in Istanbul we take the metro directly to the bus terminal. Its a flashback of the moroccan ferry terminal with with over 100 stalls selling tickets. We are approached but not hounded by a few vendors. We get tickets and have 20 mins to wait...naturally I am starving so I run back to the metro area to get a snack of sandwiches and on my way back to the bus I hear “BJ NOW!!! Its leaving!!!” Steve is yelling at me and is clearly in one of his over anxious panic stricken travel moods. He hustles me on the bus and scolds me- turns out we still have 10 mins to sit there and wait...

The bus is new and very comfortable but the best is yet to come. Two server men board the bus, wearing dress shirts and bow ties! At precisely 1030hrs the bus backs out of the station with every other massive bus in the station- its like synchronized swimmers- all in perfect time they pull out of the station in this grand performance. Our servers get to work. First they go around to each passenger with a bottle of heavily perfumed hand sanitizer! We soon learn that they do this every time we leave and get back to the bus. They even febreeze the bus if it smells bad! At one stop, the outside of the bus is washed while the passengers get food and stretch! I will also point out that the windows are free of greasy hair splotches that tend to be present on planes and trains! We are served water, juice, tea, coffee, pop, and snacks of cakes and pretzels etc. The servers are picky about tucking in all the overhead luggage straps and collecting any garbage immediately. A passenger’s cell phone rang and the server bolted over and politely gave him the ‘slit the throat’ signal to shut it off. Following our drinks and delicious sandwiches we were fast asleep. I woke up at one point and my jaw was sore so I knew I’d been sleeping with my mouth wide open but I just went back to sleep. I woke up again and saw the most turquoise blue water ever- I nudge Steve and he mumbles ‘wow’ and we both fall back asleep. The bus eventually stops and then boards a ferry- surprise! Apparently there is a ferry ride too! Its a short ride on calm water. Our hostel owner meets us and leads us to our home for the next two nights. We get to the room, sit on the bed, fell back, and wake up an hour later with our feet still on the floor...its been a long journey- time to explore Cannakale!

Malta

A nice flight from Rome takes us to the Mediterranean island of Malta. Its getting dark out but its still hot and humid. We jam ourselves into an old school red and yellow bus, pay 47 cents each, and are on our way to the main station near Valetta. The bus stops are not marked making it impossible to know where we are and when to get off to catch the next bus. We make it to the main station, but on our second bus I (for once its me and not Steve!) pretty much panic and get off too early. Unable to find our hotel or any sign of life, we wandered around for 45mins. Finally, Steve asked an intoxicated old man who was trying to get in to his apartment where the street was that we needed. The old guy started laughing and said “you have long walk”. Hmmm. We go to a restaurant on the bay and Steve goes in to get directions and a cab. As it turns out, we were on the right road but in the wrong harbour! Ai-eee! We were over 5kms away from the hotel. A cab shows up- but we didn’t know it was a cab because the car was a sleek/black/tinted window/leather seat deal with a nicely dressed driver. My first thought was “kidnapper”...then I get realistic and wonder who on earth would kidnap us on a tiny Island? Turns out he was a personal chauffeur. We make it to our hotel which turns out to be really nice- its actually a small studio apartment.

Malta has some neat character. My favorite thing was the balconies on apartments- they  looked like the captains balcony on an old wooden pirate ship! Many of the buildings were old and worn- but charming. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a possy of pirates strutting down the street- but the closest we came to any pirate action was a giant sized lego man in pirate attire. Argh. I suppose the guy who drove us in his delapitated boat across the harbour (Steves bright idea) could have qualified as one because he tried to rip us off- but Steve used his magical bargaining powers and got us a reasonable ride. I also found a candy shop (yay!) selling strange and familiar candies for a minimal ninety cents for 200g! My other favorite shop was the coffin maker...yup, a coffin maker carving up caskets...we didn't go in :) Basically we spent our three days in Malta lounging by the rooftop pool (both of us sustained nasty sunburns), wandering the streets, and eating delicious and cheap food. 

Oh Spartacus!

The shopping in Rome was nothing like Florence. There weren’t street markets with leather vendors selling delicious colors of gloves, purses and jackets. The shops were mainly overpriced designer labels found in any city. I was still on the prowl for my euro-chic jacket but nothing popped out in the few leather shops we found on side streets. The energy for leather wasn’t the same in Rome- no streets overflowing with deals, no italian men singing “pretty woman” with every jacket I tried, no fierce haggling...I began to feel defeated. We actually considered jumping on a train back to Florence just to shop! We decided to be rational and stay put. On our last day in Rome we were walking to the colosseum for a tour. We encountered another leather shop...entered...and left with nothing. We saw another one, I had accepted defeat but Steve insisted we try anyway. I tried on a couple jackets and then the lady brought me a “new design” their company had come up with (The same one Steve spotted in the window before we had entered). It had a high collar with two buckles on it, and stretch material on the cuffs and hem. It was a matte chocolate brown and I liked it before I tried it on. Once I tried it on, I loved it. I had yet to try one on that was so comfortable! The leather was soft and perfect! I found my jacket!!! YAY!!! It was cool outside so I even got to wear it to the colosseum. Our tour was super interesting (I was still smiling over my fabulous jacket) and the tour guide talked about gladiators- ‘Spartacus’ being the most famous one- I found my inspiration and have named my fabulous jacket Spartacus

"All roads lead to Rome...Don't they?"

The skies were still cloudy the morning we left Siena. We met with our new travel friends from Parksville (Bill and Maureen) around 9am and were on the road shortly thereafter. Steve took up the co-pilot seat and Maureen and I sat at the table in the RV. Turns out that the road signs in Italy can be a little deceiving. To leave Siena we followed signs that pointed to Florence/Rome. But some time later there were no more signs with Rome on them- only Florence...hmmm...Maureen and I sat quietly while the men figured things out on the map...turns out we had gone on the right highway but in the wrong direction...There weren’t any “exit to Rome”, or “this way to Rome” signs...Maureen said ”Well, all roads lead to Rome...don’t they?” We all had a good laugh- and its true as we were soon on the right road to Rome. The RV ride was fun, it was nice to chat with other english speaking nice Canadians! We took a stretch at a roadside rest stop and Maureen spread out food for some nice sandwiches and wine. It also rained most of the drive and at some points it was down pouring- so it was a good day to be in transit. I don’t know if I could ever rent an RV in Europe- we still think Bill and Maureen are very adventurous and brave! We hope your travels were wonderful! We arrived to the campground just before 4pm, we said our goodbyes and Steve and I took the train into the city. We had a map from the campground and had no troubles finding our hotel. Our room was spacious and we were upgraded to have our own bathroom- yay! My favorite feature in the room would have to be the art over the bed. You know how every hotel has cheap art above the bed? This was a religious scene (of course) of a famous work in the sistine chapel. What I liked was the fact that it was actually a puzzle glued on a board and then saran wrapped! Hahaha- it made me laugh...

With so much to see in Rome, where do you begin?! Steve and I bought a guide book to  Rome that had daily itineraries mapped out. With this book and our guide book pages we made a list of all the places and monuments we wanted to visit. The list was long. 

The guide book also gave us advice and rules for crossing the streets in Rome which turned out to be a daunting if not life risking task. I’ll give you the lowdown: 

Step 1: Know that pedestrians do have the right of way. This will not be obvious. If you stand at a crossing cars will NOT stop- you must step out onto the road.

Step 2: Step onto the road when you think the speeding cars will have enough time to brake for you. 

Step 3: Once crossing, do NOT stop. There is no room for hesitation and you must go. Cars time their driving around you- especially the scooters- so even though they are slowing down, they will drive around you if possible.

Step 4: Look confident and pretend you know what your doing. 

It took us a few days to get used to this...but once we got the hang of it we were golden!  We would approach cross walks where tourists who didn’t know the rules yet would be waiting. So, we would get to the front of the crowd and walk out into zooming traffic, and sorta like how Moses parted the sea, we parted the traffic and the people could cross. 

Rome is big. There are only two metro lines...which took over 20 years to build because there are many ruins in the ground beneath the city, and below the ruins are water springs for Rome. We occasionally used the buses to get to other areas of the city, but lets just say there was a whole lot of exercise done everyday. Which was good because there was a whole lot of carb eating going on too! I read somewhere that Italians stay true to the ingredients- they don’t try to jazz them up and make them what they aren’t (the writer explained that this is what the French tend to do). I agree with this writer- the food was simple but good- pizza has one or two toppings, pasta sauce has one or two veggies or meat added, but they do work some magic with eggplant and definitely make it taste better than I have ever had! I had eggplant lasagna and it was delicious! I find it hard to name more than three dishes you could consider as “traditional Canadian food” (I can think of Nanimo bars...and poutine...or a caesar! Mmmm...I would love a caesar right now...no spice...hahahha) but food in Canada is highly varied and you can get pretty much anything! I’ve really noticed this...in Italy you eat Italian food. The restaurants all seem to have very similar Italian dishes. Thats it. There are other types of food available- but definitely not abundant or easy to find! We saw some Kebab joints...and a pub that made burgers- but other than that, you can expect pasta and pizza. And other than McDonalds and a place called Autogrill on the side of highways and in airports, there don’t appear to be chain restaurants around. Coffee and a pastry at breakfast and perhaps a sandwich or panini at lunch. My family always made bacon spaghetti- forget beef- and that is what they do in italy! There was always bacon spaghetti on the menu! I had to try it out- could mine be as good as the true pasta masters??! I tried it more than once of course...the first time was the best one- and was only a little better than mine :) But they added something to the tomato sauce ( I suspect it was cream) and it took the acidic edge off and it was soooooo goooood! But the part I didn’t like was the flavor of the bacon itself! This is common here for me, the way the meat is flavored or smoked isn’t...well...good ol Canadian!

As for the sites in Rome...amazing! We saw everything on our list and others as well. The day we went to St.Peters also happened to be public mass with the Pope- an unexpected surprise! St. Peters was incredible and the vatican museum/sistine chapel were great! I loved the colosseum and all the plaza’s and fountains all around the city. Another highlight would be the crypt in one church decorated with the bones of over 4000 monks! Creeeeepy!