another day older, much much poorer

we saw david. he is very very big. all parts of him. and he is only one of the many things we love about florence. we love florence! it is a much smaller city than rome, just a little bit bigger than saskatoon, so us small town girls feel right at home. it is much cleaner and safer feeling as well. our hostel is located out of the busy city area, a ten minute walk down a road that smells like cypress. its very big and beautiful, a villa as it were, and we share our room with an older and very interesting lady from australia. she and her husband are travelling all over the world for six months after having sold their business. unfortunately, we also share our floor with a whole lot of rowdy german teenage girls. it was somewhat entertaining, however, hearing them converse rapidly in german, then break into cyndi lauper lyrics in english.
so about florence, or firenze as the italians call it. very clean, very graffiti-free, much much nicer people. it doesnt have the mean edge that rome did. were kinda sad were only spending one full day here, but after spending a couple hours in the market, weve come to the conclusion that that may not be such a bad thing.
so today we set off before eight to ride a very crowded bus to the galleria academia to visit our old friend dave, as well as a number of other masterpieces... it was all very good, and well worth the e9.50 admission price. there was one room that was essentially a hall of heads... shelf after shelf of white plaster heads which all started to look the same after awhile... there was alot of religious art from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries as well, so we saw many a madonna.
later we visited the duomo, which was very nice, and very big. christine liked it better than st. peters because of its toned-down classiness, consistent with her quiet, demure attitude. kristen preferred the in-your-face ornateness of the vatican, in keeping with her wild personality. the duomo has the third highest dome of any church in the world, but we didnt climb it because we had already climbed number one!
later we perused the markets and spent lots of money, and enjoyed large gelatos while being accosted by a guy who thought he was funny. tonight: more food! tomorrow: venice!

free orange juice...?

so its our third day in rome. after two days of frantic sightseeing were chilling out today and washing clothes. yesterday we spent the better part of the day at the vatican, which had its definite ups and downs. the square was ginormous and impressive, and full of obnoxious tourists. the line was relatively short, seeing as we got there early, but still full of obnoxious tourists. the basilica was beautiful, immense, and beyond description... an experience which could not even be ruined by obnoxious tourists. we climbed up to the very top of the cupola for a fantstic view and lots of shoving by obnoxious tourists. got a good view of rome from way up high! Godàs view, as it were. later we stood in line for the vatican museum and the sistine chapel, and got told to go home by some especially obnoxious tourists. after a very long, long, long tour through the large and repetitive vatican museum, we reached the chapel, which was, to be perfectly honest, somewhat anticlimactic. perhaps my expectations were just too high... perhaps it was just the really, really, really obnoxious tourists... perhaps i was just tired of being herded like cattle through hall after hall of plaster statues with missing arms... but it was really just another room. it was cool to see the center panel that shows the creation of adam, because ive seen replicas everywhere... but all the obnoxious tourists were taking pictures and videos when they werent supposed to, and talking loud instead of falling into reverent silence, which really cheapened the experience. howsoever, i can check that off the list of things to do before i die, so i guess thats good. and it was beautiful. looking up, it had almost a three dimensional quality. for your information, michelangelo developed irreparable neck and eye damage while painting it.

be witty!

hello to all of you from sunny roma! we have indeed arrived safely, more safely than i expected personally, mostly due to the paranoia i developed due to my choice of travel literature... specifically "alive" - throughout the entire flight i was wondering who i should eat first, caitlin or christine, after our tragic crash in the andes. anyhoo, here we are, still alive, and the closest ive come to eating human flesh was the pickled artichoke and cheese sandwich they fed us on the plane... i think i would have preferred a tasty person. iàm also supposed to mention how we watched "just for laughs gags" on the plane... a little slice of home to go with the strange strange food...
so anyway... not much in the way of rome stories to share, seeing as weàve only been here a few hours. howsoever, so far, i love it! letàs not kid ourselves - athens was a scum hole. frankly, rome is too, from eye level down... graffiti and garbage abound. but when you look up, all else is forgiven. tonight we ate gelato in front of santa maria maggiore, which is a big amazing church... the first of many big amazing churches weàll see, iàm sure, but at this point, the novelty certainly still exists. the buildings are really cool, too, just what i imagine europe to be. i feel a bit of photo-mania coming on.
its also interesting that our hostel is in the italian version of chinatown. strange to see such a mixing of foreign cultures... although its pretty much the same thing as chinatown in calgary, or at least what iòve seen so far. incidentally, our hostel is fantastic. its very clean and safe feeling, which makes it alot easier to leave the safety of our tour group.
tomorrow were going to see the ancient city which im really excited about - running out of time so must sign off!

don't forget - the nest is the best... i promise you

an eventful day on the rash/pirate front! after a lovely afternoon of frolicking with pirates on a secluded ionian beach, kristen and caitlin acquired rashes! to remedy this, we got cream (see this photo, and others, by clicking the "europe photos" link to the left, way down).
in all seriousness, we rode a pirate boat today, more eloquently dubbed a "caique", pronounced "cake". we love caique. caitlin was not seasick, but we are all sunburned. we sailed the blue aegean sea, sporadically shouting "arrr!" and "opa!" towards our very own secluded beach, as mentioned above, where we had a very sexy photo shoot, courtesy of dan from quebec (relax, scott and blair). additionally, kristen jumped off the caique! it was quite a distance, probably four meters down (see photo).
this evening we wandered the streets of ios town, getting lost a number of times in the narrow winding cobblestone streets. in contrast to our prior encounters with greek men, we got garbage thrown at us today, most likely because christine didn't wear makeup. however, we may have merely intruded upon the "hood" of these ten-year-old hooligans.
in explanation of the title, i assure you, the nest restaurant is indeed the best in ios town. i assure you.
one of the many occasions on which we found ourselves lost this evening, we passed an elderly, toothless greek woman and her teenaged grandson. in response to our "yassas", she pointed to her grandson and shouted "no good!" this may also have occurred because christine was still not wearing makeup. poor ios citizens.
make sure to check out our pictures, because it took alot of time and money to post them! (the link to the left that says "europe photos")
hey kristen's dad: i figured out how to do it all by myself!
this post brought to you by the letters c, c, and k.

a community post from beautiful, slightly brown girls in ios

we spent the entire afternoon lounging by the pool and beach and all we have to show for it are fabulous tan lines. however, this period of rest did not come unearned. we did indeed wash copious amounts of underwear in the sink, the old fashioned way. as we type they are drying in the breezy moonshine, strung across our private and spacious deck.
before leaving santorini, our little piece of paradise, we went to the village of oia, the northernmost point of the island, to watch the sunset. according to... someone, this is one of the top three places to watch the sunset in the world. it was indeed beautiful, and we did indeed get some shots of ourselves that look like shampoo commercials, but kristen feels that a good old saskatchewan sunset may achieve the same effect on the soul. the others agree. we are especially proud of caitlin, as she managed to climb down some scratchy brick ruins in a dress to reach an optimum viewpoint, with only minor flashing of the bum to the chinese tourists.
after the sunset, caitlin bought a ring. whoop dee doo. (she made me type that.)
we also got a real, genuine, greek pickup attempt! from a guy on a motorcycle no less! walking from thira to karterados yesterday (listen to us talk like locals), we were accosted by a creepy, dark and handsome young man who caught a glimpse of our canadian bacon and just had to pull a u-turn to come back for a better look, and ensuing awkward conversation.
quote of the day from a santorini store owner:
store owner: where you from?
caitlin and christine: saskatchewan, canada
owner: oh, it gets cold there, no?
cc: yes, sometimes minus forty in the winter.
owner: oh, is good, you go home and make sex.
bystander: i think that's a greek thing, not a canadian thing.
loving and missing you all (but having fun and getting a glorious tan) --- all your little world travelers (caitlin, christine, and kristen)

i really, really want a smart car

the sun is setting on our time in santorini... or soon, anyway. i'd say it's really the end of the beginning of the end, which puts us at about 4 pm, four hours or so from sunset... anyhoo, we dilly-dallied around santorini again today. i bought something but i'm not telling what! i also bought some orange juice - at continental breakfasts they've been giving us some kind of tang with pulp in it, so i've been craving good canadian minute maid orange juice. this stuff i bought is somewhere between the two extremes.
a few minutes ago we met auntie therese's aussie-greek twin! she was a lovely lady from melbourne who decided to move to santorini and run a gift shop. as she put it, "the view from the corner office is pretty good." i should say so. we've got app. 278 pictures of that very view. i relate this story to illustrate exactly how fantastic this place is. a little slice of heaven on earth, as it were. she said she came here on her honeymoon and very nearly sent her brand new husband back to australia without her.
other than that, we haven't been doing anything of note (except the one stank experience i've given caitlin the privilege of writing about), except wandering the streets and the shops, soaking up the greek atmosphere.
greek shopkeeper guy: girls, girls, where you from?
cck: canada
guy: what part? is very important.
cck: saskatchewan
guy: is very important, because if there are girls like you, i move there forever.

i met a redneck on a grecian isle - he did the goat dance very well

so here we are, a week into our trip and the time is flying by in a blur of sun, tzatziki sauce, and cheese sandwiches. incidentally, the tzatziki is amazing, and even made the split-pea mush we had last night taste kinda good, but we're all getting sick of the sandwiches, which we steal from the continental breakfasts. we're on santorini now, which, i'm sure, is where God lives. today we drove (on very windy cliffside roads) up to the highest point on the island for an amazing panoramic view. naturally, we took copious amounts of pictures, but really, it doesn't do it justice. we spent some time on a black sand beach - the sand is volcanic rock or something of that ilk, and was really really hot. i tried another dip in the aegean. it was a little warmer this time, but i still wasn't tough enough for a real swim. we also visited "santo-winery" for another fantastic view and some not-so-fantastic wine. actually, as far as wine goes, it was pretty good, according to christine, our local wine connoisseur. even i liked the last one we tried, which was very sweet with only a trace of that paint thinner taste. unfortunately i still haven't acquired that worldly taste for wine i so desire.

Christine's Mykonos Post

Hello to all! It is day two in Mykonos, and we are back in town, soaking up the sun and the Greek culture! Last night we had a dance party in our room to our mp3 players, it got quite silly. I am enjoying Greece, but the resort is a little much for me, not quite my style.
Love to everyone!
my blog is christinekopperudineurope.blogspot.com
Christine