how do you say "your trousers are amazing" in Italian?

So we're in london right? we've just finished watching dirty dancing twice in a 24 hour period and we're thinking, this is great. We're going to be going to Italy, sitting by the pool, drinking wine, tanning, what could possibly go wrong? So we get on the plane and before we know it we're in sunny italy. We got up after a nice sleep and went to sit by the pool. That's when the relaxation ended. Jenny's aunt Liz fell and broke her back. This event led to many back and forth journeys from possibly the sketchiest hospital I've ever seen. Not that I can honestly say that I've seen many (knock on wood, throw salt over shoulder, etc.). Eventually, everyone got somewhat okay with that fact as Liz seemed to be somewhat well taken care of, minus the food, which included one rather unfortunate incedent with a hamburger that looked like it was soup.

So what we do? We went out to dinner. A lovely dinner I might add. Then we get back to the Villa and see that the door is ajar. Now the place we are staying is quite a nice place and is located in a rather...rural part of Italy. You wouldn't think there would be any crime. As we ran in we saw that the door had been jimmied. We were rather upset to put it mildly, and ran about looking to see what had been stolen. In terms of our valuables, Our passports, my ipod, Jen's camera and all my documents had been stolen. In terms of non-valuable, they stole my socks, Jen's underwear, my wash kit, and Jen's cousin ellie's tampax bag. Oh, and they left four other ipods on the kitchen counter. I think the only appropriate response to that is WTF?!

We called the police and they arrived in good time, i think it only took them an hour or two. At that point tea had been brewed and drinks had been poured, and everyone was slightly less freaked out. We had calmed down enough to notice the fact that the Italian police wear VERY tight pants. I mean, not much left to the imagination if you know what I mean. So they take our names and such and things that have been stolen and we spend a rather sleepless night in bed.

Next morning we contacted our parents and they arranged for a package to be sent to the Villa via FedEx. It had a couple backpacks, my british passport, jen's bank card, some clothes and some make up. Nothing overly offensive, right? WRONG. While we were waiting for the package to arrive, Jen went to Rome with Iso and actually managed to get another Britsh passport within 24 hours. It was amazing. But then we get a phone call.

The package was being held at italian customs, because apparently you have to pay duty on cosmetics. So we phone them and they say we have to pay the fee. So we ask if we can pay via credit card over the phone, and they so no, it is impossible. They say the only way to pay is to do a bank transfer which will take 4-5 days. Jen and I were leaving for greece in 3 days. We ask them if there was any way to do it faster they say, no, it is impossible. We ask if we could drive 9 hours to Milan and hand them the cash and they say, no, it is impossible.

So having had our fill of Italian beurocrats we called in the troops. By the end of the day we had my parents, Jen's uncle, several fedEx associates, one Vice president and a new aquaintence we made at the British embassy, all trying to get this package moving. Finally they said that the package would be delivered before we left. The next day however, we contacted them and they said that no, actually the package still hadn't cleared customs. So we decided, to hell with it, we would try to fly to Greece the next day, even though the only thing I had to fly with was the police report.

In order to get any sleep that night there was only one reasonable solution. Drink wine. Many, many bottles of wine. While we were doing that Jenny, Iso and I plotted ways to overthrow Italian customs. We thought that perhaps the most appropriate way was to light the very boozy Tiramisu that Ellie and I had made the night before on fire and throw large chunks of it at them. "You live by the dessert, you die by the dessert!"

The next day we woke up at 5:00 and drive to the airport, believing without a shadow of a doubt that there was no way we would get on this plane. After all, at this point we figured that somebody was punishing us for something terrible we did in a past life. I mused that in my past life as a goat I must have stolen my neighbours cheese. For once, we were wrong. They did let us on the plane and we found ourselves sweltering in Athens, tired, sweaty, but incredibly happy to be there.

More photos

You can find more of Jenny's photos (esp the geology ones!) at:
http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j84/Jenny120390/

Leaving the country

We're heading off to London tomorrow for two nights, and then we're flying down to the heel of Italy for a week or so. :D I hope all of you starting school are having tons of fun, but don't do too much scandalous stuff during frosh week, etc.
Lisdoonvarna was good, nice and quiet, and generally sunny once we made it outside. Very windy though, especially near the cliffs.
We went to Newgrange (yes Heather, it looks almost the same as our gr. 7 project) and the Hill of Tara today, but it poured buckets all day. I think we had the most rain today of our whole trip so far, and we spent half of it outside. :S
We've been trying to upload pictures, but haven't had much luck with the hostel computers. Will try again this evening, but computer time is limited.
More later, but potentially not for a while because we don't know what the computer access will be like in Italy and Greece.