Slack, Lazy, Slothful, yup, that's me!

1:05 AM Edit This 0 Comments »
Which ever synonym you choose, write it on a sticky label and whack it on my forehead, because I have been the epitome of all these things this past month when it comes to maintaining my blog. In fact, do you know how cheeky I've been? I changed the setting of my blog to hide it away because I was ashamed at how far behind I had become. Imagine that, its like dropping some cake crumbs on the floor and then hurriedly sweeping them under the fridge with your foot to avoid having to wipe them up...what lazy person would ever do that?

Shame on me! The garden path has been wrought with dead plans, weeds and a few over grown bushes as my lovely adventures become old news hanging around for far too long. It's time to plant some new blooms for you and me to enjoy; I enjoy telling them, as much as you (hopefully) enjoy reading about them.

So I've asserted some control over my lazy side and vowed to get back on track. What's next? Well we wait. Being absent from our place at the moment makes it impossible to upload photos to my stories, and they are my most favorite part. But they WILL come, as promised.

A few general things of major significance that have been happening in my life at present...

1. My mum and dad are over visiting. It's been just so wonderful to see them, it now feels like normal, as if our 8 months away from the family wasn't actually that long at all. We're enjoying showing them some of the excitement on this side of the world and they seem to be having a ball. Moulin Rouge = awesome. That's all I'll say for now.

2. My sister is about to pop....out a baby. A little girl to be precise. So I have madly crafted up a storm of baby practicalities to voyage home with mum and dad next month. Hang in the Lozza! Can't wait to see Peachey!

3. We have given notice to conclude the tenancy of our little flat. We'll be out of there the 28th October, roughing it in the big wide world, back packer style. That's til mid November when we head to.......Africa! For a safari! And then home some time early next year.

4. Yes, home to Townsville. We've had an amazing year abroad, but Townsville is calling and two puppy dogs are pining (hmm...yeah right, spoilt canines, more like two owners are missing two puppy dogs like crazy). With dogs to love, and a new niece to spoil, grandparents to cherish, a house to buy and definitely more money to be earnt, home in the new year is a comforting prospect.

But lots to do and see and tell of between now and then, so I'll leave off for now, but promise to return again real soon! Bye bye.

At peace in Greece

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And peaceful it was. Glen and I were a little  apprehensive about sailing in Greece.  Not for fear of the water or boats, but for fear of having to skipper our own sailing boat in a team of 6 people.  Though it was all very unnecessary as it was a piece of cake really (says me who manned the rudder (apparently it's not a rudder Glen says, that's the thing under the boat), well the steering stick then, for oh, 3 minutes :) ).

We spent 3 nights aboard our little boat, cruising around the south west coast of Greece and taking in Corfu. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the stereotypical Greek Island fare, that being white buildings with blue trim, but we did get to swim in the most amazingly deep blue water at least a dozen times. Our days consisted of chugging across the ocean (due often to the lack of wind) then pulling up to jump in and have a swim.  It was heaven.  The ocean is the one place I really love to swim, even though I equally fear it (you know, Jaws might be lurking).  Have a look at the water...

Our boats

the faithful Ermioni

That amazing water


Some Greek dancing on Corfu Island

More swimming

Docked for the night

And we finally get to sail


Captain for 3 minutes

And just for something new, I'm going to try to add this little video we took. I hope it works.  This was from our sailing leg, when the wind finally picked up and we could unfurl the sails.  It was awesome. 

All in all it was a relaxing few days and an experience I've never had before.  I enjoyed it so much that I toyed (momentarily) with the idea of getting a little sail boat one day, then I thought about Jaws, and jellyfish...

Here's my final photo, an artsy attempt that I like to think I pulled off ok.


Bye bye for now!

Italian Holiday

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Hello Everyone,
Here's a little update of what we've been up to recently. We took a Topdeck (that's the name of the tour company) camping tour from Rome to Budapest (Hungary), and it was fantastic.  I must say, I'm a lover of the camping. There's just something about having your own room and your own bed that makes everything a-ok. I guess camping is in my blood, and I have a load of childhood memories of holidays at the beach or in the bush with family and friends... and with the tent (Ha ha Loz, do you remember Camping Cubs? You were such a good camping skills teacher, cooking sausages on a Golden Circle fruit tin and Dylan and Kristen were the best cubs. I, on the other hand, was the renegade cub who undoubtedly caused a little havoc, probably because I secretly wanted to be a Camping Cub and win all your homemade badges, ah the memories).

So anyway...  I'm going to give you a little pictorial rundown of what we got up to in Italy.

We walked all over Venice, criss-crossing the canals, got lost in the back lanes then found our way again...



 
 We took a Vaporetto ride (water taxi), squshing shoulders with tourists and locals alike for a little bit of standing room...



We visited the island of Murano, and wandered thorough the glass shops...



I love these kitschy pendants



We admired the pretty masks, famous in Venice for Carnivale (in March?) masquerade celebrations...




We watched people go by in gondolas, making the difficult decision to forgo the ride ourselves to avoid the cost of 90 -120 euros...


We wandered along to the Rialto Bridge, the oldest bridge crossing the Grand Canal in Venice...




Next we got on the train to head to Verona, the town made famous in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare's play was originally an Italian story, and as is the case of many age old tales, he took the story, translated it into English and made it his own. Juliet's balcony in Verona is not the original balcony (whether there actually was a balcony is questionable I'm sure), it was added on to the house in the early 1990s to create a shrine of sorts to the famous star-crossed lovers and to attract tourists to the town. And attract tourists it does.  Have a look at the crowded courtyard.


Entry to the Capulet House and Juliet's Balcony. heartfelt messages of lovers past, present and future.  You can see one man climbing to get his piece of the  wall...




I wonder how Juliet would feel about this declaration eh Mihaela?

The balcony
The Bard himself

View out to the balcony

Assuming the Juliet pose

The original costumes from Zeferelli's R and J film


The crowded courtyard, this may have been is a lull, becasue when we came in we had to squeeze our way through

'Glen and Juliet': It just doesn't have the same ring

We saw these locks in a few places around Verona, and also in the R and J courtyard.  Apparently it's about 'locking' your love together




Next we headed to Lucca, a little town in the region of Tuscany. I really wanted to to do an Italian cooking class, and what better place to do it than there?



Glen getting into mixing the biscotti

Shaping the biscotti

And it's done. It tasted just as good as it looks!

Chef Paolo who led the class

Making the chicken liver pate, guess who was in charge of mixing this? Not my favourite thing...

And the vegetable ravioli, it was actually really easy

Rack of pork, wrapped in prosciutto

Enjoying the fruits of our labour...

Tuscan bread salad
Chicken liver pate
Vegetable ravioli with tuscan meat ragu, yumo!
Pork and seasoned potatoes
Biscotti and a dipping liqueur, it was strong!


Our road from here led to Rome, apparently all roads do, don't they?  And there we took in the most famous sights.

The Colosseum by night...



And by day

The Trevi Fountain
The Pantheon and some gelati
At the Papal Palace - St Mark's Square
Nice getup fellas

The extravagance inside...

Circus Maximus, where chariot races took place

And finally, the feature photo of Rome requires you to look through this fairly average looking, if not a bit manky looking, keyhole. Yup, put your eye to it and peer through, I promise you it's worth it...


And this is what greets your eye... (scroll down, I'm doing the suspenseful thing, please humour me)










Ta Da!
Isn't this an amazing picture? It looks like a make-believe land, like something from a Disney story.  But it is real, it's known as the keyhole picture and we had to hike to the top of a hill to get it; it was so worth it.  The really cool thing about this picture is that it looks through three countries: It's the courtyard of the Knights of Malta (1), over looking Rome (2) and into the Vatican City (3) - it's all kinds of special.

Well that's the End of Italy, we board the ferry next for Greece.
Ciao bellas!
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