trieste and last night of rome.

hi all, sorry for delay in posting, the computers at the last hostel only let you go on for fifteen mins before they logged you off!
im now in trieste after a great last night in rome.
i'd met up with an american called jeff who is a jazz musician studying italian in rome, (who is now added to the hero list!) and we decided to hit the vatican (leaving the killer of saints t-shirt at the hostel this time!)
the place is absolutely stunning and my phone camera doesnt do it justice really.
the level of detail put into everything is amazing and the pure affluence of the place is amazing, if not disgusting.
jeff had heard through the www grapevine that there is a big jazz festival from june to september in a park in rome which attracts world famous acts, so we went to scout it out, but realised it didnt start till ten thirty so had to go back into town for six hours :-)
went and had a proper look around the colloseum, though it was too bright for my poor little phone to get a decent photo (edit-added one in previous post)
on returning to the hostel with a few beers, we met some hot (and i mean HOT) aussie lasses in our dorm who had no plans and were more than keen to accompany us to the fest that night. turns out they were in the minority of quality aussies we'd met, and proceeded to party hard :-)
the fest was dam cool, though some of the tracks were a bit too out there for me.
we'd screwed the bus times on the net so began a long walk to the nearest metro, only to find that shut 15 mins earlier!
stumbled upon a rare late night pub and stocked up on lager and paninis and got taxi back, only to be up four hours later to head to trieste!

hero list now includes,
jeff (awesome american)
anna (hot hot hot, but shagging an argy)
ylan (hot hot hot, but shagging a french canadian)
bridget (hot hot hot but shagging an aussie)
ben (the french canadian whos shagging ylan)

well arrived in trieste majorly knackered, and greeted by the grumpiest hostel man ive ever met. got a pizza and a beer and headed into the old town. the place is electric at the moment, seems to be some boating and music festival on.
theres stages all over the city with bands on all day,.
sat listening to a couple of bands of which was a jazz quartet (picture below)
and the worst of which tried to mix chic "le freak" into jamiroquai "cosmic girl" and the singer was shite.
still, good banter.
got another night here and then heading to ljubljana (again) for last part of trip.
cj

roma, pub crawl and crash n burn

well its day two of rome and im absolutely shafted.
my feet hurt, my shoes rub, im tired, and im sick of pizza.
went on a bit of a pub crawl last night, kind of an organised thingy but it seems the itit's don't quite get the concept of a pub. as out of the whole city centre there were only 4 bars that opened late enough.
so it was more of a pub saunter/stroll, but it was top quality banter. yanks are officially the worst drinkers ever, these two lasses were on the porcelain phone afte the second pub. they got outdrunk by a muslim! hahaha
met some sound guys on the 'crawl' one of which is featured below with some random shots of rome :-)




had a bit of a nightmare with the camera, as its so sunny, the stone reflects the light and blurs the shot.
going to crash and burn tonight catch up o some zeds and then do my touristy thingy tomoro and do the vatican and do the colleseum properly too. then need to start heading north towards slovenia. probably gonna go via trieste, but might see if i can ditch ljubljana for two nights as theres not that much to actually do there.
maybe hang around piran for a night or two, but i'll see!
anyways, the time nazi's are at it again so need to sign off for today..
more soon.
cj

ciao bella!

awright
arrived in roma today, have to say its awesome, not just because of the sheer volume of cliche tourists here either.
though i think theres probably more yanks here than in america, and theres millions of jap tourists complete with shiny camera thingys.
had a wander round this morning and saw the colleseum, and ended up getting thouroughly lost, but i think thats the best way to be here. theres so much old stuff, and you can just be wandering the streets and then pow, your in a lovely piaza eating pizza by a fountain (which are all drinkable. the only drink you need to buy here is alcohol)
speaking of alcohol, its the spanish steps pub crawl tonight. after our exposuretopolish drinking, these iti's dont stand a chance :-)
time to fly the union jack high!
promise a better post and photos tomoro, its siesta time now..
cj

scuba photos and italia day 2

hi all,
loving italy at the moment, all be it its probably because i'm on a high because i actually have clean clothes...
no, its not just that, ancona has a really nice chilled out vibe to it.
loads of plaza's and leafy boulevards with the oldies and young romantics sat around chilling out/eating each others faces.
gonna have another wander into town now, only thing is i've gotta lug all my clean clothes with me cos of this stupid archaic hostel locking everyone out till 4.30.
its nice to be chilled out, but most of the businesses here have like a four hour lunch break!
very different to the uk, including the driving.
jesus, i thought bradistan was bad, but here people pull out just in time of full speed lorries on a moped whilst on their mobile phones.
traffic lights are mere suggestions of what you should do in your vehicle and indicators are an arcane magic banned by the clergy.
it'd be interesting to do a placement on an italian head injuries unit to see how many of the guys on there were previously intrepid vespa boys.
as promised here are some photos from scuba diving,
note the accentuated curves given by the wetsuit :-)



the plan is to head to rome tomoro, see some sights, marvel at lots of graffiti and do the spanish steps pub crawl..
more soon..

more piccies

Hi all again, more photos to gorge yourselves on. they're not in any kind of order so i'll caption them for you :-)

lake bohinj in northern slovenia near the landing site of paragliding.

leaving the port of split for korcula island (where i did scuba course-photos of that coming soon)

the piccy of the glider when airborne

us being suitably first class from prague to budapest

a foot shot from several hundred feet up in the air (paragliding)

dl kitting up ready for take off

pimp my daewoo (budapest) that thing is like a 1l engine bag of crap, the owner either watches "the fast and the furious" too much or has an excellent sense of humour!!

italia!

hi all, arrived in italy safe and sound, got a wee bit soggy this morning!
the thunderstorms had been chasing me over the adriatic and while it was a dry night, it certainly was a wet morning. my trainers fell apart in a puddle at the ferry port and my combats looked more like waders. oh well, it only lasted half an hour and its turned out to be a glorious day. the ferry was 'interesting' read:carnage as it seems that common sense bypassed the continent..
instead of setting up a queuing system the ferry guys thought it'd be hilarious to let everyone charge and form a swarm in front of the ramp so that the 2 passport control people didn't actually stand a chance, and on top of that, rather than get all the passangers on board and then worry about the cars, they thought it'd be even more hilarious to do 2 jobs extremely badly, dribbling both on board in small dollops, delaying the boat by over an hour.
why the stupid idiots didn't use the passenger side entrance also baffled me, as once you did actually get in, you then had to dodge the parking traffic to get to the stairwell.
inside doesn't even get a mention as complete and utter chaos doesnt even come close to describing it.
i bailed out of the way as stroppy croats battled with raging italians over who's seat this was and why the other couldn't put his suitcase there or anywhere near and retreated to the sundeck to observe the sunset and passively smoke a cigarette factory.
i had to sleep on the sundeck of the ferry as there was no room inside, and no way was i paying fifty quid for a seat! only to battle it out with the locals.
it wasn't too cold in my jumper jacket and sleeping bag, but i won't be rushing back to do it anytime soon :-)
ancona seems very nice, if it wasn't for the graffiti and italians it'd be gorgeous.
of course its a sunday so not much is open, but i'll have another look around tomoro and hopefully see the place at its best.
i can get a signal now on 3 ITA so i can mms off my phone, hence the photos above!
theres a wilted flower on the auschwitz-birkenau memorial that i though particularly poignant, krakow old square, a paraglider coming into land at bohinj and ljubljana's old town castle.
i'll post more up when i can!
cj