By the numbers

(Where applicable and unless otherwise stated, numbers shown represent totals for the two of us combined)

GENERAL

Days: 146

Duct tape used: 125 inches

Cheeks kissed: 32

Average photos per day: 8.2

Ed's facial hair growth: 2.75 inches

TRANSPORTATION

Train stations: 24

Airports: 15

Bus terminals: 14

Subway systems: 4

Horse rides: 4

Boats: 3

Funiculars: 1

Taxis: 1

Days with access to a car: 19 (4 cars)

Riding in cars driven by other people: 9 hours (10 rides)

ACCOMODATION

Houses: 4 (66 nights)

Hostels: 6 (20 nights)

Apartments: 3 (13 nights)

Condos: 2 (12 nights)

Hotels: 4 (11 nights)

B&B's/rooms: 4 (11 nights)

Boat cabins: 2 (8 nights)

Campgrounds: 1 (5 nights)

TOURISM

Guidebooks consulted: 9

Use of wrong language (ie "grazie" in France or "bonjour" in Greece): 2 per week

Cities and towns visited: 75

Museums: 32

Churches: 21

Castles: 18

Archaeological sites: 16

Parks: 9

Greek/Roman amphitheaters: 8

Mountain ranges hiked: 5

Olympic sites: 4

Zoos: 1 (not counting Paris airport)

FOOD AND DRINK

Beers: 132

Cappuccinos: 120

Drinks in piazzas: 47

Bottles of wine: 26

Ouzos: 6

Limoncellos: 4

Bottles of champagne: 3

ENTERTAINMENT

Books read: 38

Average book rating on 5-point scale: 3.23

Movies watched: 20

Average movie rating on 5-point scale: 3.0


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The time has come...

It seems very difficult to write a farewell type blog entry, now that we are in the Paris airport awaiting our flight home. There doesn't seem to be anything we could say now that wouldn't be cliche, considering the volume and value of experience to be summed up, and the real substance will come from the lifetime of conversations and shared memories this trip has given us. Hopefully it will suffice to say that we have had a magnificent five months that have changed us both in innumerable and often immeasurable ways, and that will have many impacts on our lives, from the mundane - how we do our grocery shopping - to the more profound - our priorities, future plans, and relationship with each other. Thank you all for coming along for the ride, it's been so much fun to share with everyone and we look forward to seeing you all soon!

So: bis spater, a piu tardi, hasta luego, a bientot, ciao. No goodbyes to Europe from us, just "until-the-next-time"s.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Quelles belles jours!

What beautiful days we have had so far this week. Tuesday we drove west to Avignon, to see the Palais des Papes - the Pope's Palace that was the home of the Popes in the 14th century. Very interesting history lesson on that period in the Roman Catholic Church (come to think of it, a great deal of travelling around Europe has involved learning about the RCC). Avignon the town is just beautiful, maybe one of the prettiest towns we've seen. It's all cobblestones and balconies, narrow streets and sidewalk cafes. We saw the Pont St-Benezet, a bridge over the Rhone built in 1177, and meandered the streets until our parking meter ran out. Then it was off to Aix-en-Provence, another lovely town that unfortunately we had to just drive through since it was getting late, the traffic was heavy, and we couldn't find a parking space. But it was a great day exploring Provence.



Yesterday we walked up to the old town of Mougins in the morning. It's perched up on a hill and had spectacular views of Provence, the Alps, and the Mediterranean. In the afternoon we went to Monaco, the one-square-mile sovereign state between Nice and Italy. Monaco is beautiful!!! The most over-the-top glamorous place we've ever seen, a must-see! We saw the guards patrolling in front of the Palais du Prince (Prince's Palace) and took a picture in front of Monte Carlo Casino. Very fancy. How people actually afford to eat and sleep in Monaco is a mystery, but it's well worth a trip just to experience how gorgeous everything is.



Today we drove along the Route Napolean, a road through the mountains that retraces Napolean's journey north to Paris after his escape from Elba, into the Alps to hike. We found one trail head but only walked five minutes before we came to a hand-painted sign that said: "Attention! Danger! Un fou habite plus haut! Meurtre!" (A crazy person lives up here! Murder!) So we left there and hiked Montaigne de Thiey instead. It was a bright, sunny day and we had a great time. Tomorrow we may head back that way to see a canyon that is supposed to be beautiful and maybe do some more hiking. And that will be our last day... Not thinking about it...

Bienvenue au Cote d'Azur

Welcome to the Cote d'Azur, aka French Riviera!

We had a pretty long travel day yesterday that began with a 6am Large Marge car ride in Taormina and ended when we pulled into the condo in Mougins around 6pm. In between, a train, a bus, and two planes with stops in Catania, Rome, and Toulon. It all went smoothly and was well worth it!

Mougins is about 15 miles north of Cannes and the condo is great. Today was overcast and drizzly so we decided to take a ride along the spectacular coast, through Cannes to Antibes and then on to Nice. The vistas are gorgeous and everything is so luxurious! Our only disappointment is that it will be impossible to capture it all on film. Towering palm trees, belles hotels complete with wrought iron balconies on every room, water of the bluest blue, picturesque hill towns nearby and the Alps in the distance. Everyone here must feel like a starlet. It will be so fun to just drive around and soak it all in for the next few days!


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Last week in Sicily

We have had a very nice last week here in Sicilia. Last Saturday Cathy/mom and Uncle Art came to visit and stayed for a few days. It was wonderful. We were just at the point of getting bored hanging around Anna's every day so it was perfect timing to have other people there and since everything was new and exciting for them, it all felt fresh and special for us again, too. We spent plenty of time just sitting in front of the house drinking espresso or wine and admiring the view. We also took day trips down to the beach town Giardini, to Tindaris to see the Black Madonna, to Taormina for shopping and the Greek amphitheater, and to Siracusa to see the Greek ruins. Especially memorable were the harrowing car rides through the mountains to reach those places, made especially frightening by Uncle Art's tendency to watch the scenery instead of the road!(Averaging 2 near death situations a day) They left on Thursday morning to visit Agrigento and Palermo before returning to the States today.

Since we are leaving tomorrow for France but Anna is away for two more weeks, she arranged for new people to come for the rest of the time. We were expecting the new wwoofers to arrive today and so yesterday was to be our last day alone at the house. We walked up to the hill town of Castelmola in the afternoon and on the way back were looking forward to our last walk with the dogs, a nice dinner and wine. We arrived at the house to find Antonella pulling out. She stopped to say, "they are inside. Will pick you up tomorrow three o'clock." With that, she sped away and we trudged towards the house to greet our new guests. It turned out fine because the three girls are our age and very nice, and one of them loves to cook so she made us all a great dinner. We had a fun night but were a little sad we didn't get to enjoy it one last time on our own.

Since Antonella kept pushing back the time she could pick us up, today we walked into Taormina with our full packs, which wasn't as difficult as we feared it would be. We are now in Anna's apartment trying to pass the rest of the afternoon and first thing tomorrow morning we'll be off to the airport to go to France! Hard to believe it's our last night in Italy - we've been in this country for about 2 months of the trip and have gotten pretty used to the language and culture. We're happy to spend more time in France before going home, though, because we had originally hoped to be there for a lot longer than just our 2 weeks at Cavalus (though perhaps we have enough memories and stories from there to make up for the short amount of time).

Side note: We have decided to blame George W for us having to go home early, since if we weren't spending 1.5 dollars per Euro we would still have plenty of money to last another month, and probably also to go home with some leftover. Have to take every opportunity to blame things on him before he leaves office.

Animal House

One of the reasons we were excited to come to Anna's was because we would be dog- and cat-sitting. We haven't been around dogs during our whole trip (the dog at Cavalus had to be shot a week before we arrived - chalk that up to just one more instance of lunacy at that place) and at worst we assumed we wouldn't be bothered by the cats. Our excitement was perhaps misplaced, as dealing with these animals hasn't always been fun, but they have never failed to entertain.

First we should say that Anna's house is small. Originally just one crowded room downstairs, though workers have been here since Anna left and now there is a separate kitchen. So two small rooms downstairs and two small bedrooms upstairs. In this small house live two adults, three large dogs, and two rambunctious cats. Luckily, Anna's friend Antonella took the largest and hairiest dog (named Puttu) to live in town with her while Anna is gone. One down. We are left with Krober, a black and white high-strung dog of the sort you always see on TV winning agility contests and jumping twenty feet in the air for a frisbee, and Simba, a rottweiler mix who has an inexplicable fear of people and other dogs that doesn't fit with her intimidating size. Add one male gray cat ("Gray Cat" or "Big Cat") and one female white cat ("White Cat" or "Small Cat") and you've got yourself one Animal House.

There was another small pitbull-type dog here for one day but she happened to be in heat at the time and the incessant amorous advances of Puttu seem to have deterred her from returning. It's too bad. We liked her.

All of the animals run free in the yard all day. It's a very big yard and abuts a dirt road that has relatively little traffic, so they have a pretty happy life. Though Krober would probably prefer there to be more traffic - he secretly dreams of living alongside the interstate - because the highlight of his day is the sound of an approaching vehicle. Preferably a little truck with dogs in the back. Whenever a vehicle passes the house we are treated to an agonizing 20 seconds of waiting to see whether, this time, Krober will actually be run over and die. He runs right next to the front tire and I'm sure the driver can clearly see the color of his eyes. There is a lot of swerving and honking from the uninitiated, while those already familiar with the color of Krober's eyes just drive straight on through without slowing. This is terrifying to watch but somehow that dog is never hurt.

We take the dogs for a walk about four times a day. Every time we go outside for anything they both start barking and jumping in the air, thrilled at the possibility of going for a WALK!!
for the first time in two hours. If we were just going out to dump the garbage we feel guilty and end up taking them for yet another walk. If we need to walk somewhere without them, like into Taormina, it's even worse because they cry and moan like their little dog hearts are being broken.

We would like to be able to bring them into town with us. It's an hour hike and they would love it, but unfortunately doing so is impossible. At the sight of another dog, Krober morphs into rabid Old Yeller, lunging and snarling until everyone stops and stares thinking "why can't those people control their dog?" Of course we can't defend ourselves and the only word we can say to him in Italian is "no" so we can't tell Krober to sit, stay, or heel. Simba, on the opposite extreme, is too scared to go into town. Apparently she melts into a quivering puddle and cannot proceed once she sees all of the people and dogs who inhabit Taormina. So, the dogs stay home.

A few days ago, when returning from a walk with the dogs, we suffered the most terrifying animal experience of our lives. The dogs, as usual, had run off ahead when we got back to the house, and we could see that they had spotted a neighbor's cat about four terraces below the house. These dogs get along perfectly with Gray Cat and White Cat, often submitting to mutual grooming and the like, so we weren't particularly concerned. However, as we watched, Krober and Simba cornered this poor cat, pinned it to the ground, and then Simba picked it up in her mouth and shook it furiously back and forth while the cat screeaaamed. So we screamed and covered our eyes, worrying that we were about to witness something worthy of the Discovery Channel. The cat somehow got out of Simba's mouth and we took off running for it. We had to climb down and by the time we got there, the scene was deserted. No blood, good sign. We found the cat in a nearby olive tree and it appeared to be okay - a miracle. By this time the dogs had somehow made it all the way back up to the house and were staring down at us from the yard, tails wagging, ready for dinner.

Neither of us has much experience with cats so maybe it is normal that Gray Cat and White Cat pee everywhere, but we weren't expecting it. They peed next to the shower, under the family room bench, on top of the family room bench, in the wood box, in the fireplace vent, in the crawl space underneath the stairs, in the garbage can, and under the sink. For some reason they have no litter box. So we made the executive decision that the cats could stay outside all the time except when eating. They don't seem to mind.

Last night we were afraid the peeing epidemic had spread to the dogs because after we ate dinner we returned to the family room to find three large puddles on the floor and both dogs looking guilty. Turned out they had just been drooling uncontrollably at the aroma of our chicken soup, but it required Ed's nose an inch from said offending puddles to make that determination.

Good thing the animals are here. Otherwise, a quiet and solitary two weeks in a house in Sicily could have been pretty boring.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Blaze. Of. Glory.

From here on out, this is the theme of our trip.

Due to our rapidly diminishing bank account, we have recently come to the bittersweet decision that we will have to leave Europe sooner than planned (Feb 9, to be exact). As you may already know, we prefer to go out in a blaze of glory. To meet that aim, we are spending our final week as Europeans in the French Riviera and have rented a car for our whole stay.

If you have any of your own blaze-of-glory-inducing tips, please feel free to send them our way.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Anna's Place

We have now been at this fine establishment for about a week.
When we arrived at the train station a mile from Taormina we anxiously awaited Antonella, a friend of Anna's. Her lack of english only made the situation more exciting and scary as we piled our packs into the back of her van. We were about 10 minutes away from Anna's house and the drive turned out to be one of our most thrilling experiences thus far. Some things you must know that made the ride treacherous include, first and foremost, the striking resemblance of Antionella to the character Large Marge from Pee-Wee's Big Adventure; and Anna lives in the mountains and so the NASCAR like speed in which Antonella drove (through the one car width constantly switchbacking road) made the journey more than a little perilous. After what seemed like record time we arrived at Anna's place. We enjoyed a lovely meal and were shown to our room, which featured a dangerously lofted bed that could only be reached via a ladder not designed for the weak at heart.

Before Anna left she gave us the list of things she would like us to do while she is away visiting her daughter, which will be for the rest of our stay. " Anything you would like to work on you may...feel free to be creative." Judging by the state of her house and yard, we would guess that "creative" wwoofers have done most of the work around here. This judgement is based upon a "chicken house" that houses no chickens due to the fact that 4 different people have worked on it and it still couldn't protect the inhabitants from murder by stray dogs on their first night of residence; the brick fence around the deck that cannot bear the weight of a strong wind; and the reed fence that falls down every time it is accosted by dogs, wind, or rain.

The other day while Anna was still here we hiked into town with her to see her apartment. Taormina is a quaint village and we're looking foward to our several planned visits there.

Now since Anna has left we've been making good progress in creating a more comfortable environment in which we can play house. We rearranged the living room and set up the kitchen (don't worry she asked us to do this) and planted our first vegetable garden and some trees. We also have done some brick-laying which is still holding up (fingers crossed)!

It's really fun to be here now and enjoy a little vacation from our trip. What a luxury to leave our shampoo in the shower and have our clothes in drawers! The scenery is beautiful and since we're in the mountains there are great views. Anna also has two dogs and two cats who are here with us, so we have an excuse to take lots of walks. Now that we're here we wish we had arranged to stay longer!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Oh my God!!

E: I think we should have taken the chopper instead

M: This is about ten times worse than I imagined. Stupid Hogwarts train.

E: Not only does the old woman look a lot like the Mom on Everybody Loves Raymond but she is by far the most pissed off. I hope there's a rumble between her and the family soon. Could you tell the little girl to stop touching me/taking my seat and the teen, tell her to pull her pants up.
PS I hope the diaper gets changed soon

M: Ray's mom was ticked about the packs. She thinks they're going to fall. I hope they do. She's not related to the family, right? Just an unfortunate bystander? These people are gross. She was asking the little girl whether she pooped and they're eating so loud. Disgusting. They're probably going to buy junk from every sketch vendor on the train. I can't really imagine how this would be worse unless they each had an extra 200 pounds.

M: Ok my loyalties have changed. I am aligning myself with Ray's mom. What did you think of the whole window debacle? That woman next to you is unbelievably rude; an ogress. Why must the teenager sing?? And she talks SO loud, even though our faces are all only a blessed 2 feet apart. The other lady is just bizarre. When do you think they're getting off? Also, what do you think the chances are that the bathroom is actually useable?

E: True the woman is rude but at least she's not passive aggressive. I honestly don't like them all. I would have to say that I would choose Ray's Mom as the best passenger. It's just that the annoyingness of her personality comes out (understandably) because of the gross family. Is the weird one with the pooped handed child expecting another loud crazy child? Did you catch the wiff of fecal matter when the window thing was going on? Hopefully they will get off in the very near future. PS tell teen brat that whatever she's laughing at is not funny. And please tell them all to pipe down.

M: I pray to god that's chocolate on her hand...

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Southern Italy

We have had a great past week in southern Italy. We visited Napoli for a day on Friday, then took the spectacular (and death-defying) bus ride along the Amalfi Coast on Saturday. Sunday we bar-hopped all day; coffee bars, that is. It was a drizzly day (as so many have been lately) and we had no agenda and little cash, so we spent the entire day traipsing from bar to bar, downing cappuccinos, and people-watching. It was quite a nice day.

Monday was our 10-year anniversary of the day we started dating (!) and Tuesday our 4-month wedding anniversary. We celebrated by spending those days on the enchanting island of Capri. We stayed at a B&B in Anacapri, the western side of the island, which is at a higher elevation so has amazing views of Capri, the Mediterranean, and the mainland coast. We visited an old monastery, an enormous natural arch (very neat), and some lookout points and Tuesday we did a long hike along the entire west coast of the island. Just beautiful.

Today we are en route to Taormina, Sicily where we will be house-sitting until early February. The train ride from Naples has been excrutiating due to the fact that we've been crammed six-seat train compartment with possibly the rudest and most repulsive family Italy has to offer. THREE of the seats in our compartment have been occupied by this family of FIVE (yes, that's correct). Two obese mothers, a teenage girl, two kids under 4. The mothers openly talk about us and even point and laugh, and don't flinch from the most pointed glare. The teenager was singing at the top of her voice and actually got spit on us. They were hitting and yelling at the kids the whole time and put the window down even though the elderly woman also in our car said she was too cold and asked them to close it. The more obese woman has been laying back with her feet up on the opposite seat and her stomach exposed. They were all eating chips and candy and leaving the wrappers on the floor. And this is within a compartment approximately seven feet long by six feet wide. Luckily they got off a while back, leaving behind lots of trash and an unpleasant odor. We'll post a transcript of our email conversation for your enjoyment.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Do you smell something?

We were wondering about all the trash on the streets in Sorrento (in Campania, same district as Naples)...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22541976/
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Happy New Year!

We rang in the new year in Palermo and had a great time. They had a fun Italian rock band in the main city square, along with lots of vendors selling bottles of champagne and firecrackers going off everwhere all the time. New Year's Eve was one time we were glad to be wearing our frighteningly un-stylish raincoats because at midnight everyone in the square popped their champangne corks and we all got drenched. Most of the locals had umbrellas.

The next night we took an overnight ferry from Palermo to Napoli. They actually made us get off the boat at 6:30am so by 6:45 the two of us were wandering around the Napoli dockyard in the dark (seems everyone else arranged to be picked up). We made our way to the Circumvesuvio train station, which will be our primary means of transportation for the next week because it links Napoli, Sorrento, and Pompei and is very inexpensive. By 9am we had dropped off our packs at our B&B and were sitting in a cafe in downtown Sorrento drinking glorious cappuccinos (how we survived without daily cappuccino for the past 25 years is a true mystery). Sorrento is an absolutely wonderful, beautiful place. Highly recommended. We are staying at a cooking school called Mami Camilla that also provides some accomodations. It's lovely. We would have liked to take a day of cooking classes but they're a bit pricey so we'll have to make due with eating the meals prepared by the cooking classes - also a bit pricey but reputed to be worth it.

Yesterday we spent the day at Pompei which is so fascinating. The most remarkable thing about the city, compared to other archaeological sites we've seen, is how enormous it is. We spent four hours walking around there and probably saw less than half, and that is only of the 12 acres currently open to the public! There are over 30 acres not open for touring because they're still being excavated. It's amazing to see how well people really lived 2000 years ago - big multi-story houses, apartments for rent, shops and restaurants of all kinds, sewage systems and fresh drinking water, wide sidewalks, spaces for recreation and performance. Incredible!

Today we're headed back to Napoli for the day to visit the archaeological museum where they have all of the artwork and objects excavated from Pompei and hopefully to eat some delicious pizza since that's where it was invented!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry