taken from an email to raynidays
ok.. so i missed my original flight because my passport didnt arrive thanks to the fuckheads at the gallaudet post office who i would like to slowly maim. lucky me as usual was able to reschedule my flight for a week later. so, i missed travels in south of france with parents which wasnt a huge loss anyway. so i arrived in paris on the 18th of may my flight from reagan was cancelled so had to get another one from dulles which was better cuz it was nonstop instead of flying to chicago first. arrived and then took a train to florence (firenze) where i wandered around looking at stuff. i saw an amazing botticelli show and went to the duomo among other sights and ate good chicken at a sidewalk cafe along with a bottle of wine. met my dad at an internet cafe then went with him to another museum full of classical art which was amazing. we met mom and my sister and her boyfriend mike and took the train to arrezzo where they had parked the fiat we travelled in. drove to tuscany to our villa which was amazing on a wineyard with a pool and spa and sauna. we stayed there for two days and hung out in arrezzo which is this beautiful vintage town with amazing stone ramparts and some gaudi sculptures. after arrezzo we dropped liz and mike off at the train station where they went to rome and we headed on to venice. we had a great hotel right on the grand canal in venice, which was incredible, and saw some great artwork in the guggenheim collection in an old palazzo, which i absolutely adored. after one night in venice, we headed up to the dolomites, which is the italian alps. stayed in another amazing hotel on the mountain and had a four hour dinner at this wonderful restoriante next door which will be remembered forever. the next day we had a long ass drive through the mountains to get to our next hotel which was run by a couple of jesus freaks there were pictures and statues of jesus and mary everywhere which was a little creepy. the cook was a pretty blonde and i got some play without even knowing her name. i kept on having these images of one of the hotel people catching us in the spa and kicking me out of the hotel which impeded my ability to really completely enjoy myself. i got very little sleep that night. the next day we hit the road again to leave the dolomites and stay at this medieval castle near milan, which was amazing. it was on the top of this huge hill in the middle of a vineyard with peacocks strutting around. we had another fabulous meal that night... another long one thanks to mom deciding she needed strawberry and rubaharb cobbler which dad said they must have brought from china as it took one hour for it to appear. took a swim in the pool near the castle and had a great workout got very tan!!! good night of sleep on a real bed instead of a cot like i had been getting since.. and then we took off to check out milan, walked arouund milan for the day its a pretty city overrun by tourists so we left by mid afternoon to go to our lakeside hotel in a city that outlawed cars so we had to hike for 2 miles with our heavy bags so it felt more like 20. we had pizza and wine in the room, because we were so burnt out from all of the grand, heavy meals we had been eating. got up frightfully early this morning to drive back to milan, where we dropped off our vehicle and headed for the airport. tearful departure (mom) and caught the train to rome. walked around the whole city just gazing at the beautiful buildings and daydreaming. thrilled to find my favorite audioslave cd as dad lost all of my cds somehow during the road trip which was abummer. snatched it up.. had a great chicken gyro at a sidewalk cafe and a huge cone of gelato.. then headed back to the hostel where i am finishing my first huge heineken and thinking about getting a second one to get properly drunk before bed. i miss you babe and hope you will write me a long email as this one turned out to be pretty long. i stay in rome for three days and then i head out to spain but am thinking about forgoing that and going to amsterdam instead cuz i need to toke dammit. this is the end babe.