Drinking with Bulgarians

Today has been a long day, and full of suprises. We've been in Venice, on the train to Milan, seen a football game, and now we're in Bergamo staying in a hostel and drinking whiskey on our balcony with 5 Bulgarians on their way to a football match in Barcelona!

There is so much to do and so many things to accomplish here in Europe, it's mind blowing. In one day back home, I could barely make it to another city, let alone experience what I have here.

So tonight, we've experienced the Bulgarian culture (similar to Macedonia) and who knows what suprises tomorrow will bring.

AC Milan Football

Wow. You see soccer fans on TV absolutly dedicated to their favourite team. But it's one thing to see photos and video, and another to be there.

Today, Michael and I went to Milan to catch and AC Milan vs. Lazio game. It was unreal. The cheering section that we were sitting beside did not stop the whole game. The only time they say down was during the half, and even then they weren't quiet.

The one aspect I found strange however, was the lack of overall support for the team. For games in Canada, like a hockey or football match, there may be hardcore fans, but at times, everyone in the stadium is singing or chanting the same tune. But here in Milan, the entire crowd rarely gets into it. It's a bit of a shame really. But still, the overall experience is none the less amazing.

Venice and sorts

Well, last you heard I was searching out family history in Paese. I've since left there, and sepnt a few days exploring Venice. What an incredible city. Built on the water, you just sit there and ponder why?

We stumbled across the fire brigade eating at a take out Pizza place, and so we figured it was the best place in town. We bought a few pieces of pizza and a beer, and sat watching the gondolas go by. It is such a distinct city, with nothing else like it.

It is unfortunate however, that the city is sinking and the water is rising. You can see doors that once were the perfect hieght for the water, are now bricked in because the water has risen so much. In fact, at the highest of tides, San Marco's Piazza can be covered in water, and the Gondolas can come through.

It's hard to describe, but its a place you never expect to visit. It's something you see on TV and think you'll never really make it. But then you're there. You're riding the boats, and exploring the city, and you're really in Venice. It's incredible.

And what else should you do when in one of the most unique cities with incredible architecture and art? Have a little fun.

Family History

My dad and my aunt have always been very interested in family history. They've put an incredible amount of work and time into research. It's pretty neat stuff and I felt obliged while in Italy to do a little homework myself. And it sure paid off.

We went to a small town just outside Venice, called Paese. We know my grandfather was born there and have records of it. So I attempt to goto the church and ask to look for more records because we didn't have birth or death dates for my Great-Great-Grandfather and his wife.

We get to the church around 1pm yesterday, of course right when all of Italy is taking an afternoon break. So, we wait outside the church and wander the streets waiting for anything to open. Eventually we goto the Cemetary where we find a few grave sites for Berti, but they are all very recent. A fellow in the Cemetary tells us that the cemetary moved here 90 years ago, and that's why it's all very knew. The old one was by the church, but I'm not quite sure what happened to it.

There was also a funeral yesterday, so not wanting to bother people, we stayed away from the church then, and came back after. But there was still no one there until about 6:30 at night when they were setting up for an evening service. I tell this fellow I'm searching for records, and he immediatly takes me out of the church to the building next door.

Which was open all day...

So a man answers and takes me right in (I think I caught it just as it was closing). He asks what I'm looking for, and I explain it. I pull out a very basic camily tree I'd scribbled on paper and he starts looking at it. I couldn't completely understand him, but he starts rambling about some Berti who went to Canada that he knows, and maybe hes a long lost cousin.

The next part is the most amazing because he pulls a busines card out of his pocket with a few friends phone numbers scribbled on it, and at the top is Mariano Berti. At this point I'm getting excited because he keeps talking about some book with history and how he's got a copy at home. Next I heard the fastest most intense Italian of my life as this guy chatted on the phone with Mariano reading off names and dates. Sure enough, it's the right family.

He then talks about the book at home and calling his wife and then just leaves the room and comes back with a copy. And inside this book, it goes back 7 generations from me and has the complete story of the Berti Family. Turns out the writer of this book is Mariano Berti, and he researches family history around Paese. He would be the same generation as my dad, only connected because their Great-Great-Grandfathers are brothers.

Theres about 12 pages in this book that describe the family history and some records go as far back as the 1600's with annecdotal evidence of the 1500's. Absolutly amazing. I've taken a photo of the tree and put it here. Some of it's blurry, but my grandfather is Riccardo, born 1906, son of Luigi, son of Antonio. So that's where I fit in.

I mention to this guy that we know not much about the Berti side (Grandfather) but we know a whole bunch about the Calzavera side (Grandmother). He asks where we've researched and apeared upset when I mentioed the internet and he was telling me to goto Saint Elena where the family is from. He calmed down after finding out some other family had been to the church there.

And to top it all off, his Grandmothers name is Calzavera as well...

San Marino

Yes Kent, I actually went to San Marino. Just for you. A friend of mine went and had these incredible pictures. It's a city state that's withstood all the changes in Italy over the years because of it's strategic postition.

We went up to the old city which is high on a mountain and you can see in every direction for miles and miles. It's very medieval and castle like. With all the flags up you actually feel like you might be back in time. There's also some incredible weaponry in a museum there. I'll have to post pics later when I can get them online. I would do it sooner, but this place wants to charge me €9 to put photos on CD. Screw that.

On the road

So we finally left Perugia. That one month absolutly flew by, and now we're on the road. The car we wanted to rent was about 350 Euros. Then we told them we were 23. Add a few more taxes and it was almost 800 Euros! Wow. We scrapped that plan. Instead now we're at a sea side town enjoying the beach and Heading to San Marino, a small little country within Italy, today. More to come later!

Mountain Riding

I wrote this post a while back but didn't post it. So here it is.
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I decided to explore around Perugia Friday after class. There’s a fellow in my class who is a hardcore bike enthousiast and brought his bike to Italy, although only a short distance from Switzerland (He’s German though). I’ve always wanted to do more road biking so I went and rented a bike for the weekend.

So we get the bikes and I suggest we go for a *short* ride on Friday. Now remember, we’re on a mountain. So at the end of any ride, it’s one hell of a trip back up the hill. We get down the hill and Uli, my friend, says “How does a three hour ride sound? Too long?” So you can see these bikers are hard core. Three hours is a short ride for him. I tell him it’s too long, but that didn’t matter. I got back home 5 hours later.

It was a great ride though. We went through all these villages down neat roads past actual homes. Because so far I’ve spent most of my time in cities where it’s all high density housing. So these are all your typical countryside home with a few pigs, chickens, vegtable gardens etc. The only tough part is the terrain. There’s not a single piece of flat land around for hundreds of miles. So it’s up and down, up and down and quite often up and up.

We had a map and found a route to take knowing nothing about the actual route itself except it was on a map. So we started to ascend a small mountain, and it just kept going up and up and up and felt like it would never stop. Finally we found a really old man 2/3 of the way up. This guy was a really friendly and excited that we were on bikes. It was a peculiar sight because he was picking fresh blackberries and putting them into his little basket, but he also had a giant rusty old sicle that could take your head off. And if you don’t know, Italians like to speak with their hands, so a few times this thing was flying through the air.

We stayed and chatted for a bit while eating berries. He informed us the road became dirt just ahead, no more ashphalt. And we were on road bikes, crap. But we didn’t really want to turn around because there were thunderstorms following us. So we proceeded on.

Also, things in Italy are generally smaller, including the bikes you can rent. So the bike was a little small, and I was trying to bike up steep roads with a road bike. I was also incredibly tired having not done much activity in the 4 weeks I’ve been here. That meant I was standing up on the bike pushing and couldn’t get traction. It’s an experience.

Shortly before the top, Uli went ahead because I was holding him back. I came across a small house and with an old couple working the garden. Stopping, I made it very obvious I was out of water and very thirsty. The signora looked over and asked if I would like some water. So I got invited in, and met two very nice people. Eventually my friend Uli came back around looking for me and he came in too.

So again, we sat down and had a friendly chat with the locals for about an hour. They had just picked three big crates of pomodori, and they were delicious! They offered to give us some to take home, but we had no means to carry them unfortunatly. I had somewhat been planning this to some extent. I told Uli earlier we needed to stop and ask for directions even when we didn’t need help, simply to chat to the locals and just see what kind of an adventure we get into.

So I kind of expected it when after a few tomatoes they offered un café, and we graciously accepted. But what surprised me most was that immediately after coffee comes grappa apparently. If you don’t know, grappa is pretty much straight alcohol, at least in my past experiences. Luckily for us, this stuff was only 40% and didn’t taste like straight alcohol.

The rain was starting to worry us because the roads become slipperly, so we thanked them for the hospitality and moved on. It seemed like that mountain was never going to end. Then after we hit the summit, we couldn’t even enjoy a lot of the ride down because it was still dirt roads and we had to keep it slow. Eventually however, the paved road came back and we flew down the mountain. Perugia was still a long ways away, and I was incredibly sore from an uncomfortable bike, and getting tired.

So we made our way to a town with a station to catch the train back to Perugia. It was really starting to rain, and we made it to the station just in time. But trains here are very unpredictable, and the schedules are often complicated and completely wrong. By this point it was 6pm (we left at 2), and the schedule said a train came at 6:20. But there were some notes. Only during the summer, only on Saturday 2, not during the weekends (it was a Friday) and only on the weekends. So we just sat at the station. The station is a building that is all shut and locked up and just a place for the train to stop. So no one to ask.

Lucky for us a train came, and back to Perugia we went. All in all it was pretty fun, and the plan is to do it all over again today. But it was pissing down rain all morning, so we’ll have to wait and see.
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And I did go on another bike ride. This time to a lake. Here are the pictures.

Phone Number

Ok, so I broke down and got a phone, otherwise there is no way to connect and meet up with people. If you want to reach me, dial +39 320 561 1344. From Canada it would be 011 39 320 561 1344. Or I can get text messsages too. It costs me nothing to recieve calls or messsages. Ciao.

Told you I lived on a hill

They really don't care about perfection here at all. Back home, roads are always repaved, buildings fixed up, everything has to match. Here, what you see is what you get. For instance, here is a car parked beside a building. You park where you can. In this case, not all the wheels need touch the ground.

More Apartment Pics

Ok, I promised the rest of the pictures of my bedroom. Here they are.

It's a very bright room with a giant window. Great for letting in lots of light, and of course, sound. There must be 10 different bell towers in this city that ring every fifteen minutes, or not. It just depends on something random. Or, the other night some guy started sorting bottles at 2am right outside my window. Sure it's about 4 stories up, but it's diffferent here. In Canada, the noise has places to go besides into your living space. Here the streets are so narrow, that the sounds bounce their way up the buildings and into the rooms. You can hear absolutly everything.

Next, here's the two beds in my double room. I kind of fit, but only when curled up into a ball. It's ok though, I'm always really tired when I sleep so no problem. This place really reminds me of my grandparents place in Toronto we used to stay at 15 years ago. I think there were two beds, it was built by my Italian grandfather and the place even smells the same. Really bizzare. The bedding is from the 70s I think, and there are little doilies on every surface. We also have a TV. I'm starting to almost comprehend what's on TV.

Lastly, here are two photos of the view out my window. If you can't tell, we're on a hill. The whole city is on a hill. There isn't one level road in the city. But this helps you navigate. If you look at a map, the city makes no sense. Yet somehow you just know how to get through it after only a couple days or two. And it's all because of the hill. The main piazza is basically at the top.


This is a very basic map, I don't think it shows all the streets, and this is only a small section of the center. There are much more complicated parts. Everything is named for some historical importance, so maybe if I knew the history of Perugia well it might make sense, but if you come from somewhere like Calgary that's on a grid of numbered streets, this place appears to be a nightmare.

I live right on the top left corner just off Piazza Matteotti, right beside the word "Via" (steet), only you enter from the other side.

What we discuss in class

If any of you have taken a language class at school, you probably recall have disucssions about basic things. You talk about the weather, food, taking a voyage somewhere. You might talk about what you did last night, but it's pretty basic stuff.

Here, not so much.

For the first while, things were somewhat simple, and then we starting disucssing some pretty tough topics: For instance, Does true love exist? Now that's a tough one to answer in English, let alone basic italian. But I think we understood each other. We're also learning a bit of history, again a tough subject with a limited vocabulary. But you know what, that's how you learn a language, immerse yourself in it and best of luck. You wont learn much always talking about food.

More thieves?

Well, unfortuntaly, during a recent trip to Orvietto, my camera dissapeared (small point and shoot, not my SLR). A friend and I went there on the weekend, there's a very large and impressive cathedral, and some underground caves and such. On the way back I was lying down on a bench, waiting for the train, and had my camera on my chest as it was uncomfortable in my pocket. The train arrived and I picked it up and can't recall if I held on to it, or put it in a pocket, or what. When I went to enter the carriage, an elderly lady was getting off. She had a bunch of bags and, being the friendly Canadian, I helped her get her bags off. I then gave her bags to her son (in his 40s) and got on the train. I recall going to the washroom after the train left, but can't recall my camera. I realized it was gone half an hour later when the local train musician came along playing his accordian looking for money. So I have no clue when it went missing.

My parents think I might have been set up, but I'm not so sure. I'm being super optimistic, and hoping it ended up in the bag of that old lady and she found it and will turn it in to the police, whom I will give my cameras serial number to and all will go well. That would be a miracle, but I'm willing. Maybe someone grabbed it from my seat as they walked by?

As for the weekend, we did the trip to Orvietto on Saturday, and then Florence on Sunday. There's an incredible well in Orvietto, built because the pope was using it as a hide-away from constant attacks on Rome. Orvietto was also being besieged often, so a well was needed inside the city walls. This thing must have been 100 meters deep. There are intertwined steps the whole way down, so they could use donkeys (I think) to go down and get water while another was coming up. Very impressive indeed.

I couldn't believe how touristy Florence was, I can't imagine having to live in a city that is a constant show for the rest of the world. Line ups to get into the Cathedrals and musems and such are so long, and it's a sunday so they're aren't open long. We made it into a few places, like the Santa Croce, an old Cathedral and a bit of a museum. Contains some famous works and even the tomb of Michelangelo.

Well, I must be going, I will post more often, I promise. But maybe not this weekend. I'm off to Sciliy!

Still Alive

Sorry to those of you who have been eagerly awaiting a new update. I'm just having such a good time, I kinda forgot about you guys. I'm only kidding. To be honest, I just encountered another typical Italian custom. The internet shop I used and prepaid for closed up on the weekend so the staff could have a holiday for the rest of August. No warning, no signs. It just didn't open one day. I figured it would open again soon, but they finally put a sign up indicating 'chiuso - ferie'. Closed for holidays. Like half of this city.

August is the time Italians take their holidays, and it appears to be one of the few Capitalist societies that doesn't care so much about their business. There are so many tourists here, and more each day it seems, but no, it's holiday time.

We've also seen this in local wine bar we often visit. The owners are Yuri and Sara and are very friendly. A few friends and I decided one night to make a potluck, and I offered to have it at my house, as it's one of the largest, but still very small. Ryan (a fellow Calgarian) talked to Yuri and asked if we could bring our food there. The plan was to make the food and Yuri and Sara would provide the wine and join us. Instead, he offered to close up the wine bar and bring a selection of wines to my place. Crazy! We didn't want them to close up, so we went there, where they provided all the dishes, cuttlery, bottles and bottles of wine, water, dessert cookies and finally a coffee thing at the end. There were 8 or 10 of us, and it cost 60 Euros.

We still don't know how they charge us, it's all so arbitrary.