Empty Cage

Well, I guess now is the point in which I finish talking about my trip and talk about my homecoming. Home… such a relative term. Any ways.

At Munich I also toured Dachau, the other concentration camp on my mission. I took a guided tour and it wasn’t quite as moving as Sachausen, but I learned a whole heap more about sort of what when on in the camp itself. On the whole Munich was a pretty average place to visit. I would recommend it to people who actually drink unlike yours truly.

Keyboards in Germany are bizarre. The letter ‘Y’ and the letter ‘Z’ are actually switched, so it was nearly impossible for me to type anything. In Munich I met an Aussie lady travelling actually with her daughter, I tried to imagine how that would go for me and my mom, and who would try and drown whom first in the beer garden.

There were some other strange things in Germany though, like every cup has a line on it to show exactly where, say o.4 litres is so they don’t accidentally give you too much soda, as well, most bathrooms have an automatic seat cleaner, which, after you flush, wipes down the seat with what looks like a wet napkin. So strange, and yet, so German. My German was terrible as expected.

My thoughts are scattered again, so apologies for another entry that seems disconnected, my mind is missing today. I’m just so… But nevermind.

From Germany I went down to Italy, stopping in a small Austrian town in the Alps. It was pretty, but we only stopped there half an hour. I think it was called St. Johannes or something. Regardless, very picturesque… but of course… I have no pictures of it.

Yea, my second camera was stolen in Venice. Go me. Ugh.

Anyways, Venice was quite interesting, but beautifully terrifying. When they say you ‘get lost in Venice’ this is not some sort of romantic sentiment, this is cold hard fact. You will get lost in Venice. I went into the city thinking I’d spend two or three hours just chilling in the city — seven hours later when I found the train station again. Haha. But yea, camera with all of my pictures from the trip… gone. Figures.

Venice is stange and terrifying with an hundred small streets and alleys the walls are all high so it’s almost impossible to navigate properly, and with all the mask shops and other rather eerie looking places it really is a bit of a creepy city. Though it is interesting to go into a shop and see some Italian painting a mask right there on the front counter. Seriously, genuine Venetian or what? I wish I had someone to talk to in Venice though because I felt very alone the whole time. My Visa stopped working for awhile whilst I was there too, thus leading to a little unbridled terror for one of my days in Venice.

The ‘hostel’ in Venice was actually a camp site, right by the airport. Yes, all night it was awesome all you could hear was ‘VAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!’ of the airplanes going overhead. And, my room mates who left on the first day left something rank in the room. Venice was, on the whole a place I was a bit uncomfortable in. I want to go back, but not alone, which is odd for me.

From Venice I hit Rome which was a bit on the surreal side I have to admit. Oh, look, there’s the Coliseum, and… the Forum… and the Pantheon… and a hundred amazing buildings and… well let’s face it, the city oozes awesome from it’s ancient pores. Seriously, if walking London is like walking a novel, walking Rome is like walking a history text book. Who knew the Pantheon was now a Christian church, because I certainly didn’t. Seems, I don’t know, ironic or something.

Vatican City was impressive to say the least, so extravagant, sort of like Versailles, where you sit there thinking no wonder it couldn’t last forever without some serious trouble. I even got to see the real version of my favourite painting, ‘The School of Athens’ by Raphael. And the pope paid for my lunch. Indirectly of course.

I go to the cafeteria and pick up a modest lunch, noting that they take Visa, as to be honest I never had more than 5 Euros cash all through Italy, anyways, I go to pay and wouldn’t you know it, the Visa machine isn’t working. I ask where the nearest ATM is, and she says there isn’t one in the Vatican. I’m starving and probably look it, because she mutters something in Italian and runs off, coming back with a manager looking guy, and they basically say ‘Go eat.’ so there we are free lunch.

Okay.

Sorry this entry is lacking my usual charisma, but my heart isn’t really in it right now. I really want to relate all these stories to you properly, but I’m so dejected about returning to Canada just opening up WordPress seemed unapealing to the point of nauseating.

Now everyone’s mad because I don’t want to come back, but it’s not the people I don’t want to come back to. It’s that I’ve fallen for this stupid country quirks and all. Everything from the robolady on the Chyuuube, to driving on the wrong side of the road, to the lifts. And I love all you nutty Canucks back home, but this is the place I feel like I should be, and leaving it is hard.

Back to packing.

Sweeney will not be coming out here until May 15th… Seriously, What the hell? It was set here!

And they have the GALL to call this western civilisation. Frontier territory, that’s where I am… I mean, what do they have to do? Translate it?

However, they do have literally shelves of the Battle Royale movie. No seriously, I have a photo. In the first section of HMV there were several shelves with Battle Royale on them. Definite shock there — thus I actually did take a picture.

I’m so bored and lonely. Honestly, only old people in my hostel, again I say, YOUTH hostel, not old-bloody-age home! I just need someone to spend some time with, you know, lone ranger skit is nice but complete isolation is going to have me chatting up a volleyball.

Hey! I’m alone on an island! It could totally happen!

Possibly Liverpool on the weekend. I should do my Beatlemania thing and past-stalk the Beatles. Maybe I’ll do Abbey Road tonight to get myself warmed up.

No, I didn’t do the Viking thing, I did that last time. However, I did tour the outside of minister and all of the cool little shops in the area. I was very, very stressed today for no reason, so I talked to the family a lot. As painful as it is to my pride to admit they are right, I have to calm down and actually enjoy at least some of this trip. I mustn’t forget that the UK is beautiful in all my insanity about getting a job.

And finally, some pictures for you all — maybe in a second, depends on if my internet lasts long enough to upload them.

So, I’ve been a bit more busy than I had hoped lately, so the website updates I had hoped to really dive into before I fled the country got pushed back a few monthshoursdaysweeksyears. Hopefully before I leave this site will get a bit more polished, and Cursed won’t get pushed to the bottom of the pile again. Nevermore needs the most help, but I’m trying to focus on shine building over fanlistings. I just have to keep reminding myself fanlistings are good free traffic but they should not conquer the domain.

To those who didn’t understand that first bit– congratulations! You’re probably here because I told you this was where my updates from England would be so I wouldn’t have to send a huge communal e-mail with loads of pictures to clog your inbox, I have a revolting amount of space on this domain, I can post all the pictures I like. And so I shall. Also, I can get the forum functioning enough that people can join there to talk to me as well… replies may take longer, but at least I won’t be on at 5AM your time.

Trip prep is a huge drag, and I’ve been quite the little insomniac lately. As you can see by the handy time stamp on this entry. I still have a lot to do but am too tired to actually do it. I just want to get the heck out of here, is that so hard to understand? Alas, I still have to do “practical” things — like pack! I blame the un-packing on the luggage my parents got me… in TAUPE. Half the walls in my house are taupe, I loathe taupe, taupe implies ‘I ran out of all the attractive colours, so I took all the leftovers and mixed them into one vomitfest.’ Taupe is lame, I’m exchanging it for black. I don’t care if everyone has black luggage, at least my bag won’t look like throwup.