Week 4: Goodbye to my second home and onwards to new (but very old) cities
Well, it’s been a good week and I’m really getting into the flow of travelling, and the flow of writing. I’m excited about where this book is going and excited about where I am going too. I also am remembering more and more about how much fun meeting people while traveling actually is.
The week began in Taormina and my second home Hostel Taormina. I really got into writing at the gardens and suddenly realized I was in my last two days in Taormina. The early weekdays we’re filled with reading and writing in the lovely shade of the flowered gardens during the day, struggling to maintain a healthy diet all the time, and evenings of conversations and meeting strangers in Hostel Taormina.
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| The view of Mt. Etna from my writing bench in Taormina |
The one flaw of travelling as an English speaker is that when you meet people from other countries whose language you speak at least a little of, you never get a chance to practice with them, as almost always, they want to practice their English. It’s a good exercise though in practicing clarity of speech and careful word choice, and interesting as an English teacher to see what is easier for them to understand. Beyond that, people are very friendly, and eager to communicate, which I love. I even got a free pizza dinner from an Italian friend who wanted to practice English, luckily I managed to reciprocate the next day. This love and challenge of communication reminded me of one day during my blood clot times when something unknown went wrong with my mind and I couldn’t talk properly (spoke in gibberish) Couldn’t read, and couldn’t write anything down (more gibberish) It only lasted a few hours but it made me realize how amazing communication and connection really is, and how much I take it for granted. In that summer I lost the proper use of my body for a time and coped with it, that few hours scared me more than almost anything and sent me straight to the hospital. The gift of the mind I have and a human’s ability t o connect and express to me is impossibly special. At any rate, it’s a lot of fun while travelling mixing English French Spanish and the small amount of Italian I speak to have a conversation, sometimes even discussing complex things with a very limited vocabulary.
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| Isola Bella: Great Snorkelling around the whole island |
My last two days In Taormina I forced myself out of the gardens and continued eating well successfully. On Thursday I woke up and decided to go down to Isola Bella (A place which would be perfection if you replaced the rock beach with sand) and do some snorkelling. After a fun but more expensive than last year cable car ride down to the beach, I walked down, baking in the warm sun and didn’t wait, hoping into the water and exploring the world under the sea. That 10 euros for a snorkel in Malta was money well spent and it made me wish I had a underwater camera. The colourful fish and countless sea urchins and crabs were entrancing.
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| Taormina from above. Less than halfway up! |
The rest of the day was spent writing (A scene I did not know existed in the book I’m writing and the start of a real feel for this story and the characters in it.) and finding a way to buy a bus ticket to Naples, but more on that later. My last day in Taormina I woke up without a plan but knew I had until about 7:30 pm for my bus. I decided to go to Castelmola, a tiny medieval town up in the mountains above Taormina and a place I never made it to in my entire month in Taormina last year. As it worked out another hostel guest was headed there and convinced me to walk up with him instead of taking the bus. We shared good conversation though soon I was breathless from the climbing. Hopefully by the end of this journey I’ll be so used to climbing it doesn’t hit me anymore. At any rate we reached the top of the first peak where there is a small church built into the rock and stunning views of Taormina. We also found an Ipad sitting alone inside, and along with a friendly American lady brought it into the church. Hopefully whoever left it sitting there got it back again.
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| “I’ve never seen a Penis look so much like a butterfly” |
After the first peak I cheated and caught the bus up as the rest of the climb looked boring and exhausting in the heat. My friend and I met up in the incredible little village after a dizzying bus ride. We headed straight for the main attraction. Something you can only call the penis bar. (Good taste prevented me from taking a lot of the pictures I would have liked too, but it really was a strange palace) We had delicious pasta and talked about solo travel and all the advantages that a lot of people don’t consider until they’ve done it themselves a few time. For me I love meeting up with friends on the road, having short trips together, but travelling alone for me is more enjoyable. I can write, have complete freedom, and you also feel the need to be social a bit more and therefore meet a ton of interesting people.
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| Blasted! |
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| Brings a whole new meaning to Brick’s classic line “I Love Lamp” |
After lunch my friend headed for the beach and I found a stunning look out to do some writing and again surprised myself with what came out. I’m at about 71,000 words now and my targeted length for book one of the trilogy (Something I realized and plotted out in Castelmola) is 90,000, so yeah almost done the first draft.
At any rate, after the great writing session I headed down the mountains and walked the whole way this time. A few highlights below:
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| The coolest flower I’ve ever seen! |
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| Confrontational Kitty! |
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| View of the eastern Coast of Sicily |
I often find I’m better creatively if I’ve done something to engage my body before hand so I’m going to keep that in mind in the future. The walk up primed me. I also find myself happier and more energetic mentally when I’m not cramming my face with processed foods, in a way I’m so glad I got sick in Palermo and am still recovering, it forced me to fast and I think I’ve managed to harness that momentum and turn it now into healthy eating (by my standards). Of course it’s not just the exercise and food helping me be creative, sitting in Italian mountains staring out at the Mediterranean doesn’t hurt the inspiration glands either. At any rate once I got back into Taormina it was a quick stop and sad goodbye at Hostel Taormina and then a very long and not so comfortable night bus to Naples.
I arrived in Napoli around 730 in the morning, an hour behind schedule and fairly sleep deprived. (My blood clot means if I want to risk a night bus which was half the price of the cheapest train I can only sleep for maybe 45 minutes at a time, then I get up and make a spectacle of myself stretching in the aisle. Those passengers who were awake seemed to find it amusing) I sadly left my E-reader on the bus and will have to replace it, luckily It was only 30 pounds so not too dire a loss, still I should have been more careful and known how tired I would be. Oh well.
My hostel was a good 40 minutes on foot from the train station and I was so tired I caved and took my first taxi of the trip. It was worth it. I arrived in Giovanni’s Home to a very warm welcome and incredibly detailed breakdown of Napoli from every perspective imaginable. I felt like I knew the town before I even set foot outside.
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| If it hadn’t have been 3 euros a roll! |
I was exhausted upon arrival but being 8 am, my bed was not ready so I embarked on a 5 hour walk through the streets of Naples exploring the sights. Naples is incredibly beautiful once you get past the dirtiness of it and it might be the one city with more churches then Rome. Around every corner you walk into some incredible building. I was too tired to fully appreciate everything but still had a great time. Beyond the churches, castles and museums I learned one thing. Napoli sells some weird stuff. Customized toilet paper was almost irresistible, and a moving sculpture of a soccer event that happened in 2006 gave me a good laugh.
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| Zidane!!!!!!!!!!! |
I returned to the hostel at 2, with the idea to take a nap but found Giovanni was cooking and giving a lesson on Italian cuisine and I could not pass that up. So an hour later after some learning, some delicious pasta, and some delightful conversation with fellow guests I retired for a nap. 2 hours became 5 accidentally but that was alright. The beautiful thing about travelling for so long is if I don’t do much one day, that’s alright. I had an incredible Pizza for dinner. (Naples is where Pizza was invented) and then returned to the hostel and slept some more.
Castel Nuovo in Napoli
Today was a good day even though the majority of the morning and early afternoon was full of intense thunderstorms. I found my way to a church Cloister full of mosaics and a small museum and camped out under the spectacular ceilings and got some more writing done. Then headed towards one place Giovanni had mentioned that I really wanted to check out. A museum of the ancient city and aqueduct system under Naples.
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| Abandoned toys from WW2 |
You had to go on a guided tour through the place and our guide, Alex, was a real laugh. Italian, but he’d learned a lot of his English in Glasgow and had the accent down pat. He said he loved Canada because we were more relaxed than our neighbours to the south. Apparently his Canadian friend had this to say about us. Canadians Fuck, Get Fucked and Don’t Give a Fuck. I laughed and sort of agreed, so long as the Don’t give a Fuck part isn’t referring to Apathy but rather a general calmness and positive attitude.
All in all the tour was incredible and also provided a strange mix of ancient history and recent history as the underground city was opened during world war 2 as refuge from the bombings. I also learned that Napoli was one of the first Italian cities to rebel and oust the Nazi’s after Mussolini died. It apparently took only 4 days and made me thankful that I was raised in a place free from such widespread violence and oppression.
I think I must be getting older because after the incredible tour, which included squeezing through a narrow tunnel (rock pressing me on both sides) by the light of a candle, I ended up having a long conversation with a lovely married couple from London and their young son. At 25 I didn’t feel out of place doing it either, in my previous trips I always felt a bit like a kid talking to grown-ups, that didn’t happen here. I guess that year of being a functional adult in Bradford did leave some mark on me. Not too much I hope!
At any rate, that brings us up to date. It’s been a great week and Naples is a city I think I could fall in love with. Over the next few days I’m headed out to Vesuvius and Pompeii and up into Rome before flying to Croatia. Should be a good time. I also hope to get a good amount of writing done and visit some of the setting s for my upcoming scenes. This book has sections of it which take place in an ancient/eternal version of Sicily and Rome and it has been really cool to follow that old writer’s phrase, write what you know? Even if it is with a magical twist. I’m been feeling extremely inspired and now actually have some plans thrashed out for my first major non-fantasy work, an episodic novella about life and love tentatively titled Sparks. I don’t know when I’ll get to writing it though.
At any rate, hope you enjoyed reading. I’m trying to force myself to take pictures but it doesn’t come naturally to me. They tend to come in fits and bursts. Feel free to comment with suggestions on facebook or here in the comments on how to improve my blog. I’m new to it and will do my best not to be offended.
Song of the week: Kids in the Street by The All American Rejects.
Emo music I know but I think it is a beautiful song and deserves to be listened to.
“Candles burn, cause the world will always turn,
and I’ll burn both ends until my fires out
Lost in the darkness I can still scream out”
I’m lost in the darkness but with no desire to scream, because the more time you spend in the dark, the more your eyes adjust, and I’m busy seeing the beauty of hidden corners in this world and exciting new places. More and more I realize I’m a very lucky boy.
Ciao,
Luke.
