ho ritornato

Well, only about 40 days left in Italy. Rapidly coming to an end. The weather is absolutly beautiful here almost everyday. Perfect temperature of not blazing hot and not weather that makes you want to stay in all day. I think the difference is the humidity levels compared back home in Iowa. Here, there is less humidity. Perfect place. The past 2 slash 3 weeks iv spent dodging ash clouds from the volcano and zipping across seas. Trying to speak languages I have no idea how to speak. Spent to much money. Been to a different continent. Practiced and succeeded on my bargining skills. Expereinced being a true minority. Ate some of the most tremendous food. Been held at customes becuase of my passport. Seen things I will never be able to explain and will never see again. And most importantly, i'v been living life.

On May 6th, three of my friends and I hopped onto a train from Perugia destin for Roma. We arrive in the Roma Termini Stazione and realize that we have missed the train to the airport that we needed to take. Decided to go see how much a taxi would cost, ends up being only 1 euro each than it would be to wait for the next train, so we do it. But he wasnt a taxi driver. We end up walking 4 blocks into Roma to a little blue car (no idea what it is) he clear out his back seat and welcomes us into the car. After a 35 minute car ride through Roma we arrive at Leo Davinci International airport. Paid the crazy man and off the Prague we went. It was my first time out of Italy since I was in London for a 5 days. And it felt even more wierder (if thats a word) leaving the second time. The plane ride itself was exciting. I was separated from the group to sit in the emergancy exit asile, which i have actually been picked on 3 flights now to sit there, dont know why i am always choosen; they dont have assigned seats on ryanair or wizzair flights so they just pick people as they walk by, always happens to be me. But, we were on board with all Italians and if you have ever been on a plane with all italians its fun. They put their hands up on take off like on a rollercoaster, they cat call at the flight attendents (mostly just the women) while they talk on the speaker or walk by the asile. And any turbulance you feel they will be 'ohhhing and ahhhing' in a joking matter of course. But the best is the landing, hands up agian on the way down until the hit the ground and just as all the wheels hit the plane errupts in cheer and clapping, laughter, and high fives. Really is a great expereince in itself.

Spent three days in prague walking around trying to understand cezch (impossible). Stayed in a huge hostel for online $8 a night which was nice met a ton of French students from Paris who were all language majors. We some how convinced them we were Italian and not American. (that is always our plan when we travel). We dont say we are American unless we absolutly have to. Dont know why we did it, it was just easier that way. I usually just past as an italian just by how i looked and not so much on the amount i spoke, hahaha. but my other two friends did most of the talking since they have been studying italian for 3 and 4 years now. Prague was beautiful, absolutly beautiful river that ran through the town and old style buildings lined the street in the oldtown center. The weather was a little chill and overcast but it warmed up some towards the end. Mainly, we just walked around and saw what we could and just chilled out. We bought a bottle of Absinth (sp) which i would classify as liquid fire. Absolutly brutal. Teasted like hot mouthwash with little shards of glass in it going down the throat. Which makes sense to me becuase it was 70% alcoholic; yeah, never again. Our flight from Prague to Milano was at 6am. We left our hostel at 415 and had to sprint to check the bus to the airport. Got to the airport at the completely wrong terminal. Find another bus to take us to the right terminal. Sprint to the gate (had 3 minutes till it closed) just to find that the flight had been canceled do to an 'ash cloud' over northern italy, from the volcano in iceland about a month earlier. Spent the next 3 hours trying to find someway to get into italy so we will be able to make our next flight the next day out of pisa. our first option was to take a flight to Bari, italy. bari is the heal of the boot and we were flying out of pisa the next day which is like the upper shin of the boot. Which would have meant about a 15 hour train ride and VERY expensive. Luckly we found a flight into Rome, but still had to pay about 90 euro extra becuase it was with a different airline. Got into Rome grabbed a train to Pisa and stayed the night in Pisa airport.

Luckly Pisa has just reopened the flights out of Pisa about 12 hours before our flight was to take off. Left Italy again destined for Ibiza Spain; which is a small island south east of spain. The island itself is only 24 Km across. It was a little paradise. Solely run on tourisum, mainly from folks from the UK. It was a nice place to just sit back and relax on the beach and soak up some sun. Had a good three nights in Ibiza before departing for Barcelona, Spain. Spain Spain was awesome compared to Ibiza which was more like a resort. It was good to actaully hear spanish and i was actually pretty suprised how much i could pick up on it and understand it because of my italian and the 2 years i studied in highschool like 6 years ago. They speak with a particular lisp in Spain which I didnt like at first but towards the end thought it was very beautiful. Didn't do much in Spain but walk around and look at stuff. They did have an AMAZIng fresh market everyday which some great great great food. I spent about a couple hours there each day. I made sure i had a traditional dish in each place i stayed and I would have to say that my dish in spain was the best. a tub full of rices and veggies bread and chicken. I dont even know what it was but it was amazing. I just saw the guy keep taking scoops of stuff and pilling it higher and higher.

Left Spain for Morocco on the 16th maybe the 17th. while in costoms in Reus Airport outside of Barcelona two of my friends Ruth and Corey got stopped because of there passports, which held up the entire line and almost cost about 100 people to miss their flights. The conflict ended up being the security at costoms didnt understand what the passport was saying and if it wasnt for a guy fluent in spanish and english they would probably still be there. They really really really really really take a close close look at the US passports. Anyone EU or honestly almost anywhere else the just glance. They looked through mine for about 5 minutes, and i dont have that much information in their. I dont know if it was just becuase we were on our way to morocco or what, but it got a little intense. But, we made it to morocco regardless. And completely thrown into a culture and continent none of us had been in before. It was awesome. All the poeple crowding the streets, the venders trying to say 'hello' in every language they could think of the have you try their orange juice or eat their dried friut, loved it. Usually, alls i had to say was something in italian and they would just start listing off cities in italy to try to get me to buy something, then alls i would have to do is said i didnt understand in italian and that would get them away from me. but it was great. we got our room in the heart of the major market area and spent all our days walking the alleys going into shops bargining for items, eating new foods, just completely being overwhelmed with what we all were expereincing. I highly recommend you going if you so desire. After or time was up in morocco we got on our night train to Tangiers. First time on a night trian. It was actually fairly comfortable, i enjoyed it a lot. Once we made it to Tangiers we had to take another 45 minute taxi ride to the port where our fairy was waiting to ship us across to to malaga spain. Going through costoms in Tangiers was my time to hold up the group, the man wouldnt let me leave for 15 minutes as he checked through my passport, would look at me and look at the passport picture ( and in all fairness, i look like a 35 year old terrorist in my passport picture, so i had a feeling it would happen sometime) I also am about 25 lbs lighter now then i was in the picture. My hair is long and faded back into a fohawk and in the picture i am buzzed to about an 1/8th inch. I just look scray in the picture, flat out. hahaha. But, he asked me a whole bunch of questions, mainly in French (everyone in Morocco speaks french and arabic) I could only understand little things of what he was saying just because it sounded a litlte like italian sometimes. But after awhile he let me go. I thought it was funny.

Rest of the journey went well, flew from malaga to bologna, italy where Tim Dodd picked me up (a friend of mine that took a month to travel Europe and take pictures, big tax right off, he is a photographer) We drove the 3 hour drive back to Perugia and it was good to be home at last. spent the next two days showing Tim around Perugia and Assisi then we headed to Florence and Cinque Terre, breathtaking views in Cinque Terre. Had a blast. Took a train back from Florence on sunday to Perugia where I am currently for the next couple weeks.

Life in Italy is great. My friends I took the long trip with are done with school here in Perugia so they are traveling around Europe still while i go to school, sucks i know. But i cant complain to much. everyday in this country is a vacation to me. It will be hard to leave.

ciao tutti
michele