What I LOVED & LOATHED about Italy...
I was so over their toilets from the moment I stepped into the boot. They are literally a hole in the ground! Or then you get a toilet with no toilet seat. And you are probably thinking...where are you staying? No... these toilets were in nice restaurants or in hotels. Yeah, believe it. I got really good at the ol "hover" mechanism and I can aim pretty well now too! Ha ha. Or maybe I should just pee like a man and miss the seat entirely.
I loved looking at the Italian women. They were gorgeous and stylish all rolled into one. Not to mention they looked so hot riding around in their vespas while wearing stilettos. HOT! I wanted to be them!
I hated trying to cross the street. Man! I thought the driving in London was scary. Nope, so far, Italy, Rome especially, takes the cake. Pedestrians have no right away what-so-ever. Then I just did what the other Italians did...walked confidently across the street and watched all the cars swerve around you. Yeah, good times.
E & I couldn't get enough of the gelato. OMG! It's so yummy. We went as far as locating the back alley locale of some "famous" gelato place in Florence. Florence is where it all started. We would go around all the gelaterias just checking to see if the banana flavor is grey (that's how you know they use real fruit). To be honest we actually got pretty good at distinguishing good from bad. "Nooooo, this one is too icy. Let me taste yours again..."
Hailing a cabbie was a bit of a bitch. I'm used to the good ol reliables in London. In Rome, we would wait for ever trying to flag one down.
The Italians hospitality is second to none. They were great from the start. We were treated very well. Our B & B hosts would not let us leave without a glass of their home made vino and would love chatting our heads off (even tho we could not understand them). The men were everything and then some of what we expected. Loud, proud and seductive. But we had fun with them. It's funny bc we got so much attention in Italy, I'm not used to it. I'm used to being ignored by the English. It was a nice change.
I didn't know how dirty Italy was! It's pretty filthy! I was a little disappointed about that. Again, I compared it to London, and how clean London is. Florence, Rome, Venice, were really, really dirty. I enjoyed staying along the Mediterranean Coast where the villages where so clean and beautiful.
But even with all it's greats and not so greats, Italy was fucken amazing. I'm already trying to figure out how to go about doing the south. I hear it's a completely diff experience from the North! I can't wait!!
