October 31, 2002

prenanowrimoparisandaidancountdown

i'm still in italy. i went to a town about 100km out of florence to stay with matt, jonathon and christy who i met in spain. it was fun and i was able to get a taste of american college life (dorm rooms and mass produced food, the bitch and the jock). matt and i also carved a jack o'lantern called craig and i went on two field trips.

(go team!)

i was intending to go by train to paris tonight, but it's all saints day tomorrow, so i couldn't get a ticket as everyone is going on vacation, so i'm leaving for paris tomorrow night instead.

so i get to spend a night and most of a day in florence. how pretty!

and tomorrow i'm going to start work on my novel. i'm planning on writing a 3200 word "chapter" every two days.

as yet i only have a vague idea of what i'm writing about:

girl goes travelling, unfortunately gets groped and flashed in almost every country, maybe she finds love and the meaning of life, but she probably ends up buying a lot of stuff.

i've already got quite a few stories of my own, and i've been acquiring other people's stories to incorporate in with mine as well.

so, we'll see how i go. maybe one day we'll all get together at the premiere of the film version of my book?

or maybe you'll all just get to read an online copy of the first and only 1500 words!

Posted by pipstar at 04:27 PM | Comments:

 

October 25, 2002

cinque terre

check out the cinque terre website!

today i walked from rio maggiore to vernazza with stops for the a yummy toasted foccacia (ricotta and rocket with fresh rosemary on the bread before it went in the toaster), gelato, a couple of small watercolour paintings.

and then i caught a train with a girl called anna to the final town monterossa. tomorrow i'll take the potentially slippery hike.

Posted by pipstar at 09:45 PM | Comments:

 

the weather

the weather over the next couple of days in florence is going to hit maximums of 24°.

in adelaide the weather will hit 34° on tuesday.

and in paris it's been raining for the last couple of days.

guess where i want to be!

Posted by pipstar at 09:36 PM | Comments:

 

October 24, 2002

cinqua terre

after a relatively unproductive 2 full days in roma, i'm now heading off to cinqua terre for a couple of days before going to meet matt, jonathon and christy near florence. (they're the texan kids who cheered me up no end in bilbao).

i have seen the vatican museum, st peter's basilica and the sistine chapel. and i've walked around the forum, the colusseum, the pantheon, heaps of fountains and i've thrown coins in the trevi fountain to guarantee a return to rome.

i've also just started reading swann's way, the first book of in search of lost time by proust, and i bought war and peace. i doubt that i'm going to need a new book for ages.

and my pack! it's so very heavy.

i still have two turkish rugs in there, but i also have war and peace, half a kilo of muesli and a litre of vodka i bought duty free on the ferry from croatia.

but i have thrown away my pair of black summer shoes. they were about to fall apart and i've only worn them about ten times this trip. they wouldn't have made it to thailand, let alone back home.

arrivederci!

Posted by pipstar at 10:45 AM | Comments:

 

October 22, 2002

ciao, i'm in roma!

after fellow ferry arrivers and i managed to finally catch a train to roma, we arrived at 1750, rather than at my planned arrival of 1500.

i feel a little pathetic blogging this, but i had some of the best fastfood that i've ever had while here in rome. mr panini for €5.90, they made a mean (real) chicken baguette, pretty good fries and a bottled soda.

i'm staying at the best hostel of my trip so far, Yellow Hostel, a great kitchen, working washers and dryers, clean bathrooms with hothot water and good water pressure.

after i'd had a welcome shower and washed my clothes (the simple things in life are best) i met up with luke, one of the people i met on the train and we walked around roma for a while and looked at the forum and the colusseum at night.

wicked.

Posted by pipstar at 12:10 PM | Comments:

 

October 16, 2002

la dolce vita

in about 5 days i'll be in Italy!

dolce vita

trenitalia

Posted by pipstar at 07:39 PM | Comments:

 

October 12, 2002

travel information for italy

trenitalia

Posted by pipstar at 04:38 PM | Comments: