(vincenzo ravina's words and pictures)

I’ve been home from Europe for a while

Laura and I returned from our nearly three month Europe trip in August. The journey took us to London (England); Glasgow, Castlebay, Vatersay, and Edinburgh (Scotland); Barcelona (Spain); Montpellier, and Paris (France); Florence, Pisa, Rome, Naples, Capri, Ischia, Pompeii, Venice, Trento, Riva del garda, Mori, and Revo, (Italy).

It was an incredibly complicated trip to plan, but nothing went EXTREMELY awry. We had a bit of an ordeal in Paris, but that was the same day we went to Disneyland, so it evened out.

The whole thing was incredibly fun and there will be many more videos and pictures added to Junior Pigeon Dot Com, let me tell you.

For now, let me tell you about some of the highlights:

• I fed a giraffe! IT WAS AWESOME. I love giraffes (see this article) and the London Zoo had a fantastic platform from which it was very easy to attempt to feed the giraffes! Laura grabbed me some of the branches they like to eat and I reached out and said, ‘Here, giraffe!’ and after a minute, one of the giraffes sauntered over and ate out of my hands! IT WAS AMAZING.
• We took a ferry to the Outer Hebrides of Scotland during a storm. During the course of the five-hour trip, I got pretty nauseous. I didn’t vomit, though!
• I hitchhiked for the first time ever in my life. It was in the Outer Hebrides and we had just visited Laura’s ancestral homeland of Vatersay. It was a long walk back to our hotel, so I stuck out my thumb. And someone picked us up! One of the passengers in the car recognized me from the ferry over to the island. She asked me the score to the Barcelona/Manchester game and I told her (despite my nausea).
• Our friends in Glasgow, Mark and Anna, bought us IRN BRU and a deep-fried Mars bar! Both delicious. The official meal of Scotland, as I understand it. No, that’s a lie. Haggis is the official meal of Scotland.
• And we ate haggis, in Edinburgh! It wasn’t bad at all!
• In Glasgow and Edinburgh, we were also dealing with a possible bedbug outbreak. We boiled all of our clothes and vacuumed the insides of our backpacks. It was a huge, stressful production. We bought a kettle for the boiling and had to do some lying and sneaking in order to get our hands on a vacuum cleaner. 
• Edinburgh Castle has a one o’clock gun, which I thought was lame because it looked like a pretty damn modern gun. Citadel Hill has a noon cannon, OK? Once you’ve seen gold, you don’t settle for silver, right?
• We visited a LOST-themed bar in Barcelona called BHARMA. Laura and I are pretty big LOST fans, so we had to make the pilgrimage. I got a Jacob beer and one of the owners gave Laura and I free shots. If you haven’t seen LOST, do yourself a favour and watch the first few episodes (after the first four you ought to be hooked).
• Some jerk tried to steal my backpack and our baguettes in front of the Arc de Triomf in Barcelona, but I yelled, “HEY!” at him, and he said, “Sorry,” and then walked away. What a jerk.

• In Montpellier, I ate a whole wheat Big Mac with potato wedges on the side instead of fries! Man, the French have it all. Oh! And check out what they call ‘The Hangover II’.
• Some crazy guy stole the pen cap off my pen while I was writing a postcard in a park in Montpellier. What a weirdo.
  
• In Paris, we enjoyed escargot (it’s delicious!) and frog legs (pretty tasty!) and duck (delicious!) and Subway sandwiches (they have better meat and bread in European Subway restaurants!)
• We hung out with fellow Canadians that we met at the hostel! With our new fellow Canadian friends, Annie and Andrew, we went to the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. They gave us Paris Museum Passes, because they were leaving and couldn’t use them anymore. On our way to the Eiffel Tower, we ran into EVEN MORE Canadians and they got to talking to Andrew and they said they had two Disneyland Paris tickets they couldn’t use. Well, since Annie and Andrew were leaving the next day, guess who got those tickets? It was Laura and I!
  
• Some day, I’m going to tell you all just how magical Disneyland Paris was. You don’t even understand.
• The Paris catacombs are pretty creepy. I don’t know, you see the pictures and you’re like, “Mounds of human skulls and bones?! I AM THERE.” But then, you’re way underground and you have to walk a kilometre or something to get to the human remains, and then you find yourself fighting the urge to vomit, and pretty soon you’ve seen your fill of skulls and you just want to get back to the sunlight. Or maybe that was just my experience. Oh yeah, and once you get back to the surface, a security guard checks your bag for bones and beside him, on the table, there’s a skull and a couple of bones he confiscated earlier that week.
  
• We didn’t get to see the Eiffel Tower’s light show. We were on the Eiffel Tower at the time, and by the time we got down, the light shows were over (they only go until midnight). So no light show for us!
  
• The toilets on trains just flush right onto the tracks. Our train ride from Paris to Florence was very long and got us into Florence about 5 hours later than it was supposed to! BUT, we had an entire compartment to ourselves, by some magical fluke (it was supposed to sleep six people).
• In Florence, we had the best chicken of our lives! Rob Lowe’s autographed photo was on the wall, with the words ‘Best chicken in Italy!’ Robe Lowe was so right. If you’re in Florence, go to Trattoria Sostanza.
  
• In Rome, I tried to find Woody Allen to no avail. I lurked outside his hotel, even. No dice.
  
• Some crazy guy pushed me into the street at the Piazza de la Republica in Rome.
• Naples. The dirtiest city. Filthy. It was in the middle of a garbage strike, but I bet it’s pretty close to that filthy all the time. And the cars! Red lights don’t stop them, obviously. They really don’t stop unless you are directly in front of them. Crossing the street is pretty scary.
  
• BUT the pizza in Naples is incredible. And SO CHEAP. You can get a big margherita for three euros. We ate at several of Naples’ most famous and renowned pizzerias and were not disappointed!
  
• Our boat trip to Capri with a pile of British kids from Essex was fun times. We got to swim in caves and the water was beautiful and I got quite a sunburn.
  
• We met up with our friend Megan and her family in Naples and we all took a day trip to Pompeii, which was pretty cool. It was also incredibly hot and almost none of the water fountains worked. I had a handkerchief and I kept soaking it in water and tying it around my head. We ran into some sleeping feral dogs. They run Pompeii at night.
• Mount Vesuvius is worth a visit. We scooped up a bunch of volcanic rocks and brought ‘em home as gifts (as far as I know that’s not illegal). The volcano is huge. And you shouldn’t wear sandals, because you have to walk up and down a path of tiny volcanic rocks that dig into your feet like shards of glass. Check out the dust and grime and filth.
• In Trento, we met up with my father and brother and headed up to Revo to stay with my grandmother. We went to my cousin’s wedding, which we almost missed, because my father lost the procession on the way to the church and didn’t know where we were going. By some miracle, we got there in the nick of time. My father was the best man, see? It’s fun to throw rice as hard as you possibly can at a happy couple. The reception had a lot of food and was crazy, with the dancing.
  
• Venice! I recommend Venice. It’s my favourite place to visit, because it’s so beautiful and different from every other place. It’s the world’s only pedestrian city and it’s built like a maze. Our hostel there was among the nicest. We had, basically, our own apartment, with a terrace overlooking a canal. It was amazing.
  
• We returned to Paris to fly home. We had one last day there. We ate at our favourite restaurant from our previous time in Paris. Escargot and duck! That night, we realized we could see the Eiffel Tower from our hotel, so we went to the top floor and we got to see that damn light show! The next morning, we flew to Frankfurt, then to Halifax.

PHEW. So, I’m sure I left out a lot, but that’s what came to mind. As I said, further pictures and further video (and probably even further text) is forthcoming.