Italia!

Greetin's. I am currently in Genoa, Italy, where my great grand pappy came from many moons ago. The place is pretty awesome. I am sure it was not like this when he was here, and I can only imagine what it looked like back then. Genoa, or Genova, has the largest aquarium in Italy in it. Needless to say that was actually the first thing I did when I got here and truthfully, it did not disappoint. They had a Nile Crocodile! It was a baby one, but still awesome. The aquarium had an amazing shark tank, dolphins and tons of other great features. They had a tropical reef set up with a giant sea-turtle as well. That was great. Made me miss Hawaii a lot, again. That was actually the second aquarium I went to this week. Before getting to Genoa, I was Milan and went to Italy's oldest aquarium. It was built in 1908. Obviously it had been renovated, because I am pretty sure they didn't have giant glass tunnel aquariums back then. I am curious as to what they first had in that aquarium in 1908.. a star fish, a lobster maybe, some dirty harbor fish? It was a neat place though, and free. I quite liked Milan actually. I had heard a bit of negative stuff about it before going there, but didn't really take it into mind, and I am glad I didn't. It is a pretty cool place to just get lost and wander around. The busses are pretty fun to just cruise around on too. For 3 euros you can get a 24 hour bus/metro pass and so you can just give yourself a cheap tour and hop off whenever you see something that looks cool. I am pretty happy that I have gotten over my hatred for busses. It seems like just yesterday I was in New Zealand trying to deal with bus schedules and hating it. Now its like I don't even have to think about. I can just go places and figure it out in a couple minutes. Pretty stoked on that. Now if only we had better public transportation in California. I doubt that will ever happen though because everyone likes to show off their cars and wouldn't want to stoop so low as to use public busses. It is pretty nice not having to drive at all. Where ever you need to go, you can always find a way there in Europe. Its incredible. It seems like the last possible thing you do is take a cab. In places in Portugal cabs were ok, they were cheap, and they did not always have as intricate of a public transport system as most other places. That was actually more Peniche. Porto and Lisbon had great public transportation. Porto was a great place. I really liked it there. It is where Port wine comes from, and there is a place next to the river that just has about 10 or so winery places where you can taste all sorts and ages of Port. It was pretty cool, and some of them were really tasty. I felt guilty asking for a refill. I don't know wine tasting etiquette, so I wasn't sure if you could do refills. They would try to push other ones on you, telling you all about it, and all this mumbo jumbo, pretty much just trying to get you to buy a bottle. I think thats the point of wine tasting, its not just about drinking as many different wines as you can. I remember I was in one place having a good time, and this spanish man came in with his wife and probably spent a couple thousand on wine. He would get all fussy if they poured more that like a thimbles about in each glass. Maybe he was a light weight. Didn't look like it though. He was there for a while and they were bringing out way better looking stuff than they were giving me. More than a few bottles I saw there were like 600+ euros. They were from like the 1940's and such. They wouldn't let me sample those. The oldest I had was a '72 LBV I think. I can't remember what LBV stands for, but I hope my terminology impresses you. Its like Late Bottled Vintage I think? I can think of 100 things LBV stands for but that one seems correct. Kinda sounds like a disease. Anyway, yea, Porto was cool. I met some amazing people from Germany there as well at the hostel I was at. They were so funny. I love Germans. We were sitting outside in the backyard part of this hostel and just listening to them talk german made me smile and then we all started telling jokes and turned into a giant laugh fest. My face hurt from laughing so much. They were great people. I love meeting people like that, they made that place fun. There was this guy from Korea staying there as well that really wanted to hang out too, but he spoke like zero english. He just made funny noises. He brought out his crazy camera and a little portable printer and started snapping pictures of everyone hanging out and just having fun. He would then connect his camera to this little printer and print out the ones he liked on like 2x3 inch polaroid type prints. It was awesome. He gave me one and the Germans all laughed at it because they said you could see the confusion in my face. It's true. I was very confused. The guy was really drunk when he came out and started making noises and taking pictures. He kept handing out pictures and saying "ahhhhhhh bes pizza," which I think actually meant "best picture." A few of the germans were staying in the same room I was in, and we kept telling each other best pizza the next day. Porto is good though, I highly suggest it if you are thinking of going to Portugal. The bridges there are incredible, and the board walk to the beach is beautiful. I had a nice exploration of that whole area. Felt amazing when I found myself at the beach looking at the sea. No way I was going in that water though. Looked so cold. So, anywho, Italy is good. You eat a lot of pizza here. And it is all amazing. Actually, if you order a pepperoni pizza in Italy, it is not what you get in the states (or anywhere else in the world that I have found actually). A pepperoni pizza here is just a cheese pizza covered in peppers. The first time I got it I thought they just botched my order and ate it anyways. The second time I was just like crap, I really wanted a pepperoni pizza (a normal one). But I learned that you must order a Salame Piccante pizza to get that. I had a greta one for breakfast today actually. I think 3 of the 4 days I have been here I have had pizza for breakfast actually. I feel like its a great way to start the day. Getting some good carbs, some dairy, some aged meat, some tomato, maybe some other veggies if you order wrong. In my mind it is perfect. The Italians are classic though. I can see how I am a bit of Italian decent. The hand gestures and motions for one. They are very animated here. Sometimes a bit spacey though. Which some could say is me a bit. But almost everyday someone will walk into you it seems like. Not on purpose, just because they weren't paying attention. It was ridiculous in the aquarium. It was like bumper cars. Put a bunch of Italians in a dark place with nice things to look at.. theres bound to be collisions. A small child walked directly into the side of my leg while I was watching the sharks. I could feel his little head just smash right into my thigh. I looked down and was just as confused as he was. Good people though. Can't get mad at them, because as soon as they start talking you cant help but smile. Well, I am off. Hope you enjoyed this little blog. Toodles.