• Language through Osmosis
Shockingly my grade 11 french and perhaps my 40 plus years of flipping past CBC French TV channels, and reading bilingual labels on everything from shampoo to cereal boxes here in Canada was enough of a foundation to allow me to manage conversation, map reading and translation for most things in Paris. Must say, I surprised myself with how much ‘I got’, even if I was a little slow in getting my words out. Can’t say the same about my mastery of Italian. Apparently, too many cervesa filled Mexican vacations have crippled any hope for my Italian, I seemed to interchange Spanish and Italian 'willy nilly' and adding an ‘oh’ to the end of every word I said didn’t endear me to many Italian merchants and waiters. C’est le vie….or in my Italian…..oops-ee-oh
• Giuseppe-ism:
Our affable guide Giuseppe had a wonderful Italian way of describing things he was passionate about. “Clearly” for when stressing anything Italian...which is “clearly’ the best.
And the orgasmic “Oh, My, God” used to accentuate any food or beverage that tastes really really good.
Clearly, his passionate way has stuck with us!
• Toilets:
They really do play a big role in your trip and we saw it all!
The ultimate? An automatic spinning disinfecting rotating toilet seat top with music playing in the background at the Business lounge in Frankfutrt Airport.
The worst? The disastrous public park outhouse in Greve where you rolled up your pant legs, took a big breath and to this day try to erase the memory of what you saw for the 20seconds you were inside. Ahhhhhh. It's something I can't talk about. Ahhhhhhh.
• Less is more.We packed efficiently and light and we still didn’t wear everything we brought. When you are moving from town to town every few days, no one notices if you are repeating your wardrobe. Handwashing works fine. A small bottle of zero worked wonders. In Florence I brought in my suitcase crammed full with both our wellworn clothes to a laundromat near the hotel. They washed, dried, refolded everything in my suitcase and we picked it up later in the day. For 8 euro, it was a great bargain.
• To roll or to backback....The Rolling Suitcase is ‘clearly’ the winner! (refer to post 3 for the full background on this story)
Even Bert will admit, my small size roller suitcase left his backpack in the dust. The carry on size roller suitcase rolled over every cobblestone path and roadway like a charm. It was great to tote on the trains and subway and doubled as a seat when it was standing room only. It was light, carried all my crap and never gave me a sore back or shoulder to complain about. Bert’s pack, got heavy, had straps that would come off at inconvenient times on the train and narrowly missed many a passerby in the train hallways and paths. He was showing signs of backpack stoop before we hit Florence.
Hands down. No contest. the rolling suitcase was the right choice for me.
