June 15 - June 18 Firenze Fashion Victim

My trip from Bologna to Firenze was reasonably uneventful, aside from the nagging heat, the only point of excitement was on platform 3 in bologna station where ... having managed to secure a patch of shade i sat and watched the other passengers arrive and fumble around like fools just like i did... when suddenly,.. he emerged from the underpass,.. the last of the great exploreres,.. this was an american tourist who had obviously spent some time studying old tarzan movies before selecting the appropriate garments to accompany him on his no doubt adventure packed package tour of italy... i dont think kontiki stop in bologna.. maybe he is a scout for future expeditions. Now he wasnt wearing a pith helmet,.. but if you were thinking along those lines you would have been rather close because i would wager florence's coldest beer on the fact that he had forgotten the helmet on a bus somewhere because the outfit was screaming for it. I managed to keep the amusement internalised until, in a swift well practiced manouvre he turned moved both hands behand his back and opened the vents that ran along side his outdoorsmans jacket allowing the cool breeze which would no doubt soon emerge as predicted by his instruments to cool him down... this guy was tall too, and this is mne telling you he is tall... and im tall... the unzipping process was swiftly executed but still took a good 2 seconds to complete. Immediately after this i had moved into a reclining position and threw out one of the best belly laughs i have unleashed on this continent, ... i was alone in my outpouring of emotion but that didnt hold me back, his eurostar train should be just about pulling into some rugged tanzanian station about now.

Arrived in Firenze on Sunday afternoon and quickly tracked down my lodgings Sense of direction was spot on this time, room was ok, shower wasnt a shoe box, usual 3 star fire trap rabbit warren of buildings. As it so happens my roommate from Urbania Ben would be in Firenze and we had planned to meet at the you guessed it duomo, I of course4 waited nearby not wanting to give the japanese schoolgirls too much of a chance to photograph me... Ben swaggerred towards me, the confidence of a loca, having spent 8 months or so here as a student and even working one of the god damn souvenir stands on the ponte vecchio of all places.

Ben gave me a guided tour of the sites, we didnt venture into anything other than the odd gelateria but that suited me. We made it to a little bar in sant spirito ... which is on the (gasp) other side of the Arno and met with Samir and some other locals, Samir works the souvenir stand at the middle of the ponte vecchio and was an all round top bloke brought me a beer and all, now thats just top.

After 3 or 4 ales the 20 minute walk to the shack Ben had picked for din dins that night became a 35 minute stagger, i know this muich.. it was in santa croce, behind the church and the piazza. The regular calcio storico games take place on the piazza in front of santa croce church and yeah we had missed it... calcio storico is the italians justification for claiming the right to call themselves the originators of the game of soccer. Now calcio storic occasionally looks like soccer, but more often resembles an organised beating

Dinner was ok, but i started to get bad feelings about this towm, when the waitress who turned out to be Irish, was commenting on our Italian Having surviuved the tourist throngs in venezia i thought that florence would be a sinch, but alas no, it had found my weakness.

The next 2 days helped reinforce this thought in many ways. Sure venice is a tourist town, sure its hard to find people who are native italians and speak to you in italian. But the city itself has a spirit that has endured and which mocks the tourists that come there stay for 3 days and think they understand what makes the town tick. I havent sensed such a spirit in florence, yes there are stupifying landmarks and no doubt the worlds best art, but the city is sparce and the spaces between these highlights are to me totally demorialising.

Adding to my bitterness were 2 things,. 1 a bi-annual fashion extravanganze happened to be running in firenze on the days in which i wanted to find accomodation. The Pitti uomo is the mens fashion event and therefore every stick of accomodation in the town had been snapped up by some gutter dwelling industry type. Of my 3 days in florence i spent at least 1 walking around looking for accomodation or on the phone asking about it... what a treat.

The second of my 3 days in firenze was spent in my bedroom in bed. The heatwave broke with a ferocious storm on Monday afternoon, i stood in the rain watching steam rise off everything, it was a truly joyous 30 minutes or so, not an umbrella in sight, it even took the moroccans a good hour before they started trying to sell you little fold up brollies,.. actually at 3 euro a piece they were probably providing a public service for a change... but then again i didnt buy one.

I returned to my bedroom soaked to the skin, opened the door ro my personal space and was greeted by a strong blast of cold air courtesy of my air conditioner, i switched it off, opened the windows squelched my way onto the bed and actually slept for an hour happy to let the mozzies feast on me. I awoke feeling good, feeling better about the town, had a shower and went about the usual process of appropriate attention being giving to various body parts. I bent down to search for garments when an almighty force tore into my back, suffering chronic backpain i know all about the occasional tightness and spike of pain but this was a new world, i slumped to the floor, .. not an easy feat in itself in this bathroom and let the pain organise itself into a committe and write a declaration of wart on the back of my brain.

I think i used my finger tips to drag me along the floor and to a space in which i could stretch out. I couldnt move my back at all, but felt no pain when stretched out flat so i was able to laugh... laughter is the best medicine,.. pigs ass it is. I could see the phone cable makes its way to the top of the bedside table,.. i reached for it and gave it a good tug, the lamp that landed on my face made it immediately apprent that this wasnt the phone cable. I could see the phone cable make its way to the top of the bediside table,.. i knew for sure it was the bedside cable as the lamp was now sitting on my chest... i tugged at it figuring what else could go wrong.

I dialled reception and in my pain found that my italian had improved, i dropped the odd swear word, told the guy i couldnt walk and used some of the phrases the beggars have used to appeal for assistance. He explained to me that all they had was aspirin but he would bring that up to my room ''pronto'' that means fast in this town.

He emerged complete with cup of water and a look of grave concern covered his face, yes i had not had the opportunity to put my pants on... thats makes 2 unsuspecting italians i have exposed myself to, way to go. Turns out that the word voltaren translates directly into italian, they change the pronunciation of course... typical,.. but i had to procure some of the goodness that only voltaren could provide. Signore from reception couldnt help me as he was the only person running the hotel, and the only farmacia that would definitely be open at this time was back at the train station.

I swallowed the aspirin, waited 15 minutes gritted my teeth and made my way down 4 flights of stairs to reception, he wished me luck, apologised again that he couldnt help more,.. i lied and said oh youve done so much.. and walked out into the tourists. Next door to the hotel was a 24 hour bar, these are handy as they serve alcohol... i walked up to the counter and said ''grappa'' she replied with about 5 words .. i replied with '' non lo so,... grappa!'' she placed one before me... i swallowed it and said '' un altro'' she saw it coming so had the bottle in her hand, i repeated this process once more and now found myself able to mmove my head back to the normal working angle and yes feet could be placed one generally in front of the other without too much ball tearing pain.

I swaggerred my way to the farmacia at the station and up to the counter, hey i was so lucid i even remembered that i had lost my toothbrush during the exods from my last hotel in bologna and looked through the vast array of brushes they had availabel and selected my appropriate weapon.

The pharmacist helped me out, got me my vol-ta-ren but just as i was about to pay she asked me if i had been drinking... i explained to her that i wa in a great deal of pain, this was made apparent by the fact that half of my 3rd grappa was actually located between my goatee and my shirt. She was well trained and refused to give me the pills if i had just had a drink, i got a bit upset, she said go get some food and i will give you the pills... and o i procured the worst 2 slices of pizza any person has paid money for from one of the bars on the platforms came back to the window of the farmacia, tapped a few coins aginst it to draw more attention to myself and chowed down on said slices. She kep her end of the bargain,.. gave me the pills i had 3 at the counter and went outside to let the lovely volatern cloud come and sweep all the bad stuff away... 10 minutes later,.. it did... right on cue, i toook the opportunity to head back to the hotel and prepare myself for a night of motionlesness... oh yeah.. the tv remote doesnt work either.

June 12 - June 14 Bologna

The heatwave that has swamped this part of italy continues unabated, it gets to about 40 on most days but the humidity and the breezelessness of it all make it hard to deal with. Despite this i have managed to do more wandering but as the days passed this has become rather aimless. There has been some interesting indulging in the food and bevvy departments however.

The highlights were, a simple gnocci gorgonzola, with walnuts, a single layer of home made gnocci coated with a thick gorgonzola sauce covering 2 thirds of a large plate with a sprinkling of parsley and basil scattering the portion of the plate closest to its consumer, marvellous,.. followed this up with salsicce grilliata, which translats as grilled snags,.. but these were magic, char grilled and hefty.

Another massive highlight in both the financial and flavour stakes was a roasted scallop dish i had at the NU Big scallops roasted in shell with basil and a sprinkling of cheese,.. biggest scallops i have ever had which is usually a bad sign but these were full and flaboursome,.. there were only 3 on the plate and the pire was 19 euro... ouch.

Also at the NU managed to scvoff down a carpaccio of octopus, ultra thin slices of pussy surrounded by bolied taters, olive oil and balsamic on the table and lemon and basil in the dish, have never had octopus served this way, probably doesnt beat several slabs of the stuff on the barbie with a six pack of beer but it was excellent. Also knocked back a Bologna specialty their torta riso, which was nothing like i expected, mor elike a flan, savoury with a dusting of icing sugar, tasted very greek, didnt mention this to my host. As this was my last day in bologna i bid farewell to Toni and his crew at Nu Hotel, top bloke all round, he plans to head down to australia and gave me his email address. Toni spent 20 years in France and the menu and his knowledge show it, has friends in noumea and knows he will visit them one day and promised to make the journey further south, i convinced him to stop over in melbourne for food and wine once he had gotten sick of the harbour bridge and the sights of sydney.

Tonight bologna is holding a massive concert in piazza maggiore along with fireworks at 21:00, I told them not to go to too much trouble, but they insisted .. these crazy italians.

Tomorrow its off to Firenze for at least a few days, as it happens my roomy from Urbania Ben just so happens to be in Florence for a few days, which is good for several reasons, but mainly it gives me another chance to see the guy before we move continents and also the fact that he knows Firenze very well hasnt escaped me, wouldnt mind setting up base there for a few weeks whilst i explore the area.

And finally some pics

Courtesy of relatively cheap and speedy net access in Bologna plus a few tricks on my part to get past the security they have setup on the workstations.

Rome:
Took a lot of video in Rome and i wont bore you with long shots of the colloseum
colloseum slab | Internal collosseum | view from trastevere hill -1- and -2-

Urbania:
that bridge where | I spent a lot of mornings | thinking about shit | and who can blame me | Urbania view -1- and -2- AND -3-

The Stranieri hanging out at Bar Centrale
Ben Jess Jen | Jess Mehdy and Jen | Mehdy and Jen | Goodbye Urbania

That day in Apecchio
The crew Manu Mehdy Ben and Monia | Ben and Manu discuss what a cool guy i am | Getting down with the insinianti |

Venezia
will i fit? | Piazza san Marco portico -- Florian | paint shop | A steal at 20,000 euro | these things are everywhere | Piazza San Marco at night | Battle of the tourist bands | they didnt know any guns n roses | Pretentious shot of door | Gondola chunks | a tourist was photographing this

Thats it for now kids, sorry about size and darkness on a few of these,.. dont have the tools to fart about with them from here... fiddle with knobs on your monitor for now.. blame it on the IT department.

June 11 Bologna - I drive better when i am drunk.

The heat wave continues but the desire to feast upon the local food and bevvy is still strong. The other day i wandered into the nizzarely named ''nu lounge bar' which is right up there with the strange english names for businesses, My other favourite in this category is the ''PIZZA UP!'' in Urbania but the winnder has to be Italian mobile phone company called ''WIND'' thats wind like the breeze not like the clock, they have large banners around the place which simply say ''avete wind?'' translating, without need for massaging into '' do you have wind?''

At the nu i dined on carpaccio with carciofi and rucola, its the second time i have had carpacio here and both times its more like a slab of raw meat that gets delivered to you rather than the thin shavings i had become accustomed to in australia, but accompanied by the local oil and cheese it went down an sbolute treat, knocked down a couple of glasses of (gasp) semillon and one of the local semifreddo with chocolate specialties and i was anyones.

So nicely sloshed and with no real desire to head back out into the sunshine i outstayed my welcome to the point where the owner tony came over and asked me a few questions,.. most of which i understood and was able to respond to... i made the mistake of asking about one of the waitresses, he said ''that would be my wife'' but i managed to weazel my way out of it and suggest that i was referring to the other waitress who obviously wasnt italian... ''ah yes she is german'' and he invites her over for a drink... her italian was better than her english but also better than mine so we sat and talked about how she managed to wind up in bologna... again they all seemed fascinated by australia, despite my efforts to tell them that there really wasnt anything to be fascinated by other than the physical landscape of the place... but they all seem to yearn for empty space, where as we seem to yearn to spend time crammed into tiny interesting spaces wondering why the locals dont appreciate the culture that surrounds them.

It's kind of like Tasmania,... which is intersting because so few things are... We mainlanders think of tasmania as this beautiful untouched paradise a treasure which must be preserved at any cost in todays dollars, whereas the locals have to live there and after a few years of waking up to views across the mountains you learn to build houses facing away from them because thats the direction the cold winds come from and you dump your rubbish in the river because the council want you to pay extra to have the rubbish collected from outside your driveway.

I passed a few hours with my new german italian english speaking friends, she took me to the public which houses an old anatomy lecture theatre complete with wooden statues of skinned blokes and 3 rows of wooden seats arranged arouind a cold marble slab ) i didnt lie down on this one ) she asked if she could take a few photos of me, cant say i blame her cos i am freaking gorgeous... will have to keep an eye out for her exhibition when i make it up north to deutchand.

June 10 - Bums and Bombs

It usually takes around 3 days for the town drunks to start to speak to me. This formula held true in bologna. I was sitting in piazza maggiore early on sunday morning watching the shandows grow shorter across the town square, the bums and beggars circling the square holding their neatly printed cards asking for money for a whole host of causes, they would come close enough to confirm their suspicions about my origins and them move away.

Three days later and a few 1c coins cast into eager receptacles its waves and tipping of hats to the wandering Mr Ziz. My favourite,.. well if i had to choose just one i wouldnt id list them all... thereùs the guy who has a very neatly presented full beard and an uncannily steven wright like delivery, hat in hand he approaches passers by and im a perfect monotone says osmething along the lines of ''help me with something for the purposes of eating'' which sounds somewhat more poteic in italian. Unlike the Roman beggars he hasnt bothered gettiong a grant to translate his plea into other languages and also unlike the roamn beggars he doesnt throw 1 euro cent coins back at you. The beggars here are very mobile, i swear they must run down the quiet lanes in order to swing back for another passage along the tourist strips, this is a opposed to the venetian beggars who think they are competing for some kind of human statue award,.. in fact there is a rather famous human statue in venice who operates only 50 metres away from one of these motionless beggars,.. he leans against a wall in a long robe which allows him to move his hands and scratch the odd nbut, whilst the beggar sits on his knees one hand stretched out carrying a heavy cup in which to receive coins... and yet the tourists are paying the busking human statue full euro coins and turning their noses up at the beggar... where's the justice.

Along side piazza maggiore is piazza nettuno, so called because of the rather large and ornate statue of neptune and attendants in the centre of the fountain... impressive... but near this fountain is the standard wall of honour for those who gave their lives to world warr 2, these are usually quite impressive displays complete with small photos of those who died either in action or in complete inaction during the war. Near this memorial in Bolgona is a smaller, less ornate glass plaque paying respects to the 80 or so people who deid in the bombing of the bologna train station in August 1980. After a few minutes attempting to translate the inscription on the plaque i was joined by an elderly local who looked me straight in the eyes, pointed at the plaque and rather angrily suggested that i had no business reading it as a foreginer because i couldnt understand the significance of the event. I looked at him, subtracted 23 years from his life and saw a man who may well have been closer to the incident than first seemed,.. i tried to be polite but strangled by the language barrier i may have come across rather abruptly.

He asked me to read the plaque, whcih was lucky for me because i can fool just about anyone with my italian pronunciation as long as they arent too many pesky letter c's... so i turned on my best exaggerated italian and read the plaque back to him. This seemed to calm him down somewhat, but also managed to attract the attention of 2 or 3 other gentlemen who would otherwise have simply passed by another tourist pretending to read something which they dont understand. They stopped and started a conversation with the gentlemen, they (obviously) held a different view to himself and believed that it was good for foreigners to come here and be interested in the history of the town and who show respect, he agreed but found something to disagree with and the hand waving increased along with the velocity of the conversation which combined to a sharp drop in my comprehension of what was being discussed,.. as the gestures in my direction grew less frequent I made my way further along the piazza.

Bologna

Despite the heatwave I managed to haul my ass around this town several times. Assisting me in this endeavour was several centuries of sensible town planning. The entire centro storico of bologna is made up of porticoed buildings which allows for plenty of shade and places to sit and also maufactures pleasing breezes which tickle the seat on your brow and somehow trick you into thinking that 25 degrees aint so bad after all.

In contrast to this is the town's main square, piazza maggiore, a slab or concrete big enough to have a footy match in.

Bologna is home to Europe's oldest university, formed about 1000 years ago to argue about how to split up the cash the church was making... gee so glad they sorted that problem out once and for all... Bologna is also home to just about every left wing political movement and lobby group in italy and the town is not too over the moon about italy's current political saviour... In fact Mr Berlusconi os mocked quite publicly and i challenge anyone to find a copy of one of his newspapers for sale in this town, i have seen one copy of the corriere della sera whilst staying here and that was in the corner of the breakfast room in the 4 star hotel i was staying in when i first landed in this town. Most people that prefer their news on dead trees get to a copy of La Repubblica and its certainly the only paper you see advertised at the edicole around town.

The other advantage of the uni town is the fairly active nightlife and spirit of the town itself. Young, smart people wandering about arguing the point or just being pretty, lots of languages and culture all trying to hammer themselves into something that can loosely be called italian society. I am over the cobblestones and ancient walls, i look into the eyes of the poeple now and allow myself to be washed away by their passion their anger, contempt, joy, conflict, pessimism, hope and contradiction,.. this is what makes a culture, its not a formula, it's a cacophany of choices which when viewed from a distance all point towards the one destiny. This destiny isnt corruptible by the desires ofa single person, sure each person has their say and can influence others but you cant sway a culture just because you dont like something about it,.. it takes numbers, it takes time as much time as it took to develop the thing in the firstplace.

I have always been amazed by how impatient australians are to manufacture a culture for our country, i am certainly in no hurry, yes i think its important to discuss these things but not so we can come up with a consensus on where our cultural identity lies, to do so would mean to take a vote on which cricket player best captures the australian spriti... none of them do... none of them can... we cant decide how many australians need to die in a war before we can feel that we have contributed to the worlds development,.. thats a ridiculous notion, we cant conjure up history, conflict, resolution peace and tension, we just have to get throught it like every other society throughout history.

Hmm... back to Bologna now.

June 7 Off to Bologna

Caght the train from Venice to Bologna on Saturday morning thinking wow what agreat little trup to bologna this is going to be... peaceful, i dont even have to put my pack up on the rack, calm, tranquil,.. i can even hear the birds in the trees as we pass them by... and as we approached mestre,.. i could spend a few seconds trying to recognise the strange noise which was getting louder it sounds like... hmm.. i dont know... oh yes i do.

It sounds like about 1,000 soccer fans making the trip to bologna for the last of the serie A games for the season, 1,000 hot and sweaty, smoking, horn blowing fans, most of which chose my carriage from which to abuse the anto smoking policy that the italian train system had in place..

The horror quickly subsided however, they were young and raucous but by and large a good bunch of people... chanting, waving flags,.. comparing flares (of the non panteloon variety) and generally being a good way to pass the time whilst travelling through the otherwise flat and relatively uninteresting countryside between venezia and bologna. The other bonus was that the girls who frequent soccer matches have taken to imitating brazilian soccer fans, the yellow brasil t shirt tied just below the jubblies, whistles, hot pants and dancing queens... yes one wasnt game to get the camera out in the confines of the carriage im sorry to say sports fans, but i am happy to give those interested a minute by minute description.

I brought the weather with me to Bologna, arrived at around 2:30 to 35 degree heat and figured the 2km walk to my hotel wasnt going to be a good introduction to the town, a quick tour of the bustilng and apparently very dodgy train station and i taxied my ass off to 4 star luxury. Was greeted by an indian receptionist who spoke lovely italiam amd better english than most of the english i have met,... she was a pom of course and laughed when i suggested that she had never been back to india... she wasnt into banghra so we quickly ran out of things to discuss until she asked me what i did for a living.... i dont remember the batch oif lies i extracted from my ass but they began with me asking ''which name i had booked my room under''

This seemed like a good idea at the time,.. smalltalk with the staff and all,.. but i recalled my encounter with the carabinieri in venezia,.. i dont think i was game to mention it here but suffice to say that the piazza san marco was subject to a ''credible'' terrorist threat... i didnt ask whether the terrorists or their threat was the credible bit,.. i uess both. But the carabinieri were interested in speaking with solo non italian travellers who had changed hotels within venice on or about monday June 2. o yes on the thursday evening my time had come and the nice carabinieri types sat me down in the bar of my hotel with a few other stranieri to have a chat... i was the only one who asked for an espresso,.. i foolishly thought this would impress them... some german kid started to cry... they asked me what i was doing in italy, i told them i was here to meet chicks.. they said... no seriously... i said, yes seriously .-.. i didnt say i was going to be succesful.

They have some fabulous uniforms them carabinieri, once again i didnt think this was a photo opportunity, but they did take the chance to have a look at the holiday snapshots i had taken,.. i guess passing up the chance to take a few snapshots of the guy selling mussolini posters and cufflinks was a good call after all.

June 3 -June 6 - Venezia

Tips for being alone in the city of love

Venice is not the city to head for if you are on your own and the type of person that enjoys the company of members of the opposite sex but is unable to acquire said company and the drop of a gondola... however, it is a pretty place so for those loners like there that plan to spend some time here, learn from my finite but poignant wisdom

You will generally get by without breaking down into tears as long as you dont spend too much time on dimly lit canal bridges, or frequent restaurants that people who would otherwise be spending tiem on dimly lit bridges eat at.

Saying the words ''sono solo sta sera'' may sound poetic to the foreign ear but they are a sad combination of parole italiani ... in this town when you utter words to this effect after entering a restaurant you are immediately ushered away from the eye gazing couple which adhere to the street side tables and are usually sent to a seat where you can usually at least see the outside world but usually are part of the ashtray or napkin storage area,.. i guess this is to minimise the pain that you may undergo by having to watch people being happy sharing expensive cocktails deliberating over whether cozze are mussles or some kind of mushroom or arguing about why the fella always refers to the map... ( i ditched my map days ago,.. im not bragging.. its just rather useless)

Once you are seated various adjustments are made to your personal space,.. firstly the waiter whisks away the glassware, cutlery and napkins from the vacant side of your table, this is to remind you that there is something missing in your paultry existence, a void, an aperture which you have neglected and which may become infected and lead to serious harm unless you do something about it. Everyone else is now aware that you are alone, you cant pour a sip of wine into the spare glass and pretend that your beautiful dinner partner has merely popped out to speak to the amassed throng of foreig journalists or deal with a problem the chef has with tonights souffles.

No buddy, you aint gonna fool anyone.

But you have the chair, the chair, it sits there staring at you, a constant reminder of the fact that yuou cant manufacture shared experience despite how seasoned a traveller you are, how refined your tastes or profound your knowledge of local customs, ethics and culture.

The shape of the chair will vary, some are short and stout, motherly, the kind of chair you would turn to when you needed advice, a hug, or got your thumb caught in a blender again, others are tall and slender and have southern accetns, they knock you off your feet and make you think of a world you never knew existed, these are the kinds of chairs you pass by thinking i will sit with that chair next time i see it,.. but of course that day rarely comes... Other chairs are a flamboyant aray of angles, material colours and form, you keep hoping that they are just shallow but you keep wanting to be with them and learn more about the simple complexity of their world.

But the shoulders of the beautiful chair are always there, peering back at you over the top of your table, waiting patiently for you to come up with a witty anecdote, say something inspirational anout the things you have seen today, the smells from the fish market intermingling with those from the pasticerria, the sunlight reflecting off the canal and onto the ceiling off the casa on the bank, the things americans say to people they think cant speak english.

You can say this things, you can think them up, you can write them down, but nobody will be there to understand them.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, but a thing you must come to terms with.

For me this is the end of the line in Venice, tomorrow I am off to Bologna for at least 3 nights and then will probably leapfrog ,my way through Toscana to siena, but then again thats one advantage of travelling alone, i really dont know where i am going, but for once .. thats a good thing.

whats wrong with you people down there they should just arrest the guy who thinks his fridge magnet tells him how to analyse people.

imagine having mud on your boots, there could have been an atomic bomb in that mud... you can cover just about anything with mud... ive seen them do it..

If you cant be a mindless dickhead in Australia then where the hell am I supposed to live!!!

June 1 -2 - Venezia

All i wanted to do was get lost in venice, it didnt take long, in fact i am typing this right now thinking hey its dark out now... how the hell am i going to get back to my 159 euro a night cupboard for a nap? But what better city to get lost in, wandering past rumbling doorways that you swore you just walked past a few minutes ago and which you probably did. Doing stupid things like using the armani store in san marco as a marker,.. aha... yep.. there are 3, or the even more sutpid mistake,.. following the tourist reading the map.

My first 2 days were spent in the Hotel Hesperia which is far enoguh from the station to be quiet but doesnt require you to lug your luggage over canals ... clever hey.. and it was a nice place,.. interesting rooms,.. nice people... real coffee for breakfast... so my first 2 days were spent walking through the jewish ghetto and making the trek on foot from ferrovia to rialto and piazza san marco.

It was on such a journey that I met mario and his care giver, whose name i never caught.

Mario had some issues, he was short and stocky, he was fat and really hadnt kept himself in good shape,.. but it seems that today was the day that mario wanted to break free from the shackles that had bound him, and I played my part.

Strolling along the canareggio canal towards tourist land i saw a small dog appear from a doorway, its little legs only barely keeping its belly from the pavement, it looked to its right saw nothing .. looked to its left ... saw me... figured i was the safer bet and sprinted madly towards me, seconds later the frantic screams of mario mario mario expolded from the sam doorway from where emerged a woman who although a difference species did resemble mario in stature and certainly in speed... mario shuffled headloing towards his destiny, she shuffled like a madwoman after him,.. mario mario mario... i had time to assess the situation and thought... aha... i can help this poor hapless local who has lost her dog, surely the only source of income for her and her starving... err...sparrows...i moved swiftly into position... stepping in front of mario and his dash for freedom,.. mario took onle last look at his prize amd moved his gaze towards me, the expression puppy dog eyes is a cliche but cliches become cliches for a reason.. this was the reason.

However stumbling care giver was not satisfied with merely a distriaction she wanted mario in her posession, custody she wanted him back in the chains which he had lived all his life, she even had the keys with her i could hear them jangling during the pauses in her cackling... she continued ... mario mario mario.

Mario leaned one way and moved the other and implanted the thought that he may have rabies into my mind to make a getaway,.. but he didnt count on another australian traveller who had also scouted the situation and saw a chance to impression the locals. He lunged at mario forcing him backwards into the path of ... of that woman... mario had no choice... h had come this far and was going to be free without second throught he plunged.

We leaned .. over the edge of the canal ... a drinking straw, a piece of miscellaneous plastic,.. some patented veneziano floating scum... but no mario... still the mad womans screams continued... mario ... mario.... mario...

We waited for at least a minute ... but mario was free,.. my companion turned to me and spoke a few words in his honour ''lets get the fuck out of here man''

I am for 6 days, lets hope i dont kill ... again.

Saturday May 31 Urbania - Pesaro

On saturday morning i packed my worldly possessions into the old fairydown and headed off for more adventures,.. i was kind of looking forward to leaving the sactuary that urbania had become, although there was still much to experience and we had put together a nice little posse the sands of time theory was always going to win and i whisked myself away while the stranieri slept in their uncomfotable beds.

The last time i was in Pesaro was the weekend before the course began, so i was familiar with the layout of the town, the bars near the station etc... and now i had a bit of italian wih me as well... the experience was much more appealing.. i bounced up to the ticket ounter at the station,.. booked my ticket for venice got snappy when the girl behind the counter told me i would have to go to anopther counter for a seat reservation... went to the bar and ordered coffee, mineral water and yeah why not a focaccia and i could sweat the girl had the gee he doesnt look italian look on her face.

Yes some progreess had been made,.. the guy who stumbled into that roman bar in trastevere makign every error possible 5 weeks ago had died and left the planet.

Pesaro, lovely town alongside the adriatic,.. it aint Fano and it aint Rimini but buggerred if i can tell what on earth the difference is.. there is what they pass as sand, sea and sun... but i realise i am no espert on the subject... so... i sat in bar in the shade of a dot dot dot tree... sipping some kind of bevande watching the chicks walk past adjusting themselves like the trained proffesionasl that they are, had enough of that and was about to leave when some goddess type thing landed her spaceship next to me and came into the bar, she stood next to me talking to the barman... the heat radiated off her body ... and i didnt even have my face that close to her.. ok i moved a little closer... but not too close.. really... i mean ... yeah.

My confidence evaporated after her third, ''this smile is brought to you by the city of pesaro'' moment and i headed off to find that caffe, and yes... my sixth sense kicked in,..turned off the main road,.. turned away from the church and there it was... darn i almost told you its name... cant do that... this is gold... the sounds of coffee cups being stacked and the coffee grinder at work,.. 6 tables all under umbrellas a small piazza complete with leafy trees, sleeping dogs, vespa and an old woman sitting in her first floor window singing or praying or doing something noisy.

If nothing else happened in pesaro and you can bet your ass it didnt! i would be happy and take fond memories into my head long plunge into that tourist land where italian is rarely heard... venezia

Day 30 - Friday May 30 - i never could count

Friday was the final day in my course in Urbania... whenver somebody has stopped long enough to listen i have ben using the analogy of a brick wall to describe my grasp of the italian language... how so you ask? Well,.. having been around italians italianness and italianism for my entire existense i have picked up loads of vocabulary which i stoed in a large pile,.. we shall call these ... bricks... after some basic schooling i have managed to arrange the se words into simple phrases, sentenses or what i like to call... a wall... or more correctly a garden edging... now this wall looksed ok,.. people would pass it thinking yeah theres that wall again, seen more like that one somewhere ah yeah just over there... as long as nobody leaned on it, played soccer against it, attempted to construct a swimming pool grandstand using it as support it basically worked as a wall... oh,.. water management was also right out...

my wall had lots of bricks but nothing holding it together,...sheesh do i have to spell out everything for you people...

well now.. after some intensive schooling... which i refer to cement... parts of my wall are kind of secure, parts are patchy,.. and others have had the bricks broken down and bright yellow and red tape used to keep tourists away from the area...

I am pretty happy with how the course went, dur to the fact that my conversation teacher was a bit of a tool ... actually he is a tool, a sidchrome 12'' shifter, my conversation skills arent quite what i hoped they would be, but you dont want somebody like me randomly going up to the locals and actually communicating with them now do you... see they had it all planned.