Just a note - the wedding day is present in the blog as well now :)
As I last wrote I was hoping that nothing too interesting would happen before I get to Harare - nothing much did :) Leaving Italy went smoothly other than the fight for getting on the airport bus. That was an experience on its own, lots of struggling and yelling and angry people. But luckily I got on it, quite many did not.
My flights were all in schedule and went by quickly. Route was long as usual (Venice-Frankfurt-Addis Abeba-Harare), but my layovers were nice and short. There was a minor setback entering Zimbabwe as the visa given to me in Stockholm did not have the required stamp on it. Guy at the customs was not happy about this and ran around the building trying to find out what to do. I was let in nonetheless though.
My friend had arrived already an hour ago and was waiting in the lobby. Seeing Tiina was a great relief for me as her making it out of Mozambique was under a big question mark due to uprisings taking place in Maputo. Claire - Tiina's friend came to greet us at the airport and took us around Harare a bit. Just so we would not have to sit in the airport for 6 hours waiting for our next flight to Bulawayo.
So Harare is my first impression of Africa :) As I don't know anything else of the local life I had zero reference points and don't really know what to think :) As Claire was taking us around she updated us on local life, politics, history and local happenings. It is always the best part to hear the information from a trusted source who is up to date and familiar with all the facts.
City of Harare is sandy, there is not much green around, but this is due to the dry season at the moment. Buildings are old, cars are mostly run down, streets are not very clean. Oldest buildings are from about 80 years ago or so. Streets are full of people, locals just chatting and going about their everyday lives. As I heard 90% of the population is unemployed.
I haven't updated myself on the history of Zimbabwe yet, so until then just some bits and pieces of what I saw. Photos - a big part of traveling - one is not allowed to take photos of government buildings here. Question I got is just that how I know which building is a government building :D Anyhoo, just gotta be careful when running around with a camera I guess.
One is not allowed to criticize the president Robert Gabriel Mugabe, which is understandable as well. Drove past his residence, it had soldiers with guns guarding the palace. During the night the road passing by the palace is closed to traffic alltogether. As far as I have understood there is some resistance towards former British rule from government and from the people as well. Once I get the bigger part of history cleared up for myself I'll update you too.
I did see lots of bits and pieces of British culture around like a golf course, cricket fields, horse race courses and such. As Claire has two little kids we learned about the public school system as well. Zimbabwe used to be one of the most developed countries in Africa some 15-20 years ago, but is now in the ruins in many areas, also in education system.
Claire was telling us stories of how the locals have strange names, some samples being: Broken Fridge, Pride, Gift and Breakfast (yea, no joke, Broken Fridge is a person's name here). What else? Umm, the electricity! There is more demand that they can produce so power cuts are quite common and many buildings have their own electricity generators. Quite a bit bigger problem is street lighting - it gets dark here around 6pm and none of the roads have lighting. Driving around at night time is mostly avoided as I understood.
Stopped by at Claire's house for afternoon tea. Claire lives a bit out of city center with her family in a nice private houses area. Their house has gate guards, a nice yard with a pool, 2 fluffy white chickens and a big balcony to enjoy the afternoon tea. Chatted a bit and then headed back to the airport to catch our flight to Bulawayo. As soon as we got out of the car there was an official greeting us who informed that the flight has been canceled and we can take the same flight the next morning at 9. Tried to see if there are alternative ways of getting to our destination, but train is not going on Monday either.
Claire invited us over for the night. Had wonderful dinner with her family, chatted about history and our countries, enjoyed a glass of wine - a wonderful evening alltogether. My first day in Africa has been full of surprises and I'm getting a feeling this should be expected throughout my visit here :)
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Arrived in Africa :)
Quick update - I have safely arrived in Harare, Zimbabwe! Currently waiting for a flight to Bulawayo with my friend (who made it here nicely yesterday as well). We were suppose to fly out last night, but the flight was canceled unexpectedly - new try now.
Will update you more thoroughly some other day.
Cheers!
Will update you more thoroughly some other day.
Cheers!
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Last day in Italy - 5.sept
Got up early in the morning and walked to the bus station with my friend whose plane leaves at 11, I still have a whole day here, my flight is at 8pm. Getting to the airport seems to be nice and easy with a bus - 2.5EUR and 25 minutes. It is yet another trick that they send all the tourists to take the water bus. Coming over I was wondering where on earth did all those people go as on our water bus there were only 20 people or so, but there were many many planes flying in. Next time when I'm in Venice I'll be smarter than this :) You live and learn, in any case - you live :D
Around 9 walked back from the bus station, showered, tried my best at getting the printer working at the hostel, packed my bags and headed out. This town is crazy today. Currently there is a film festival in Venice and architecture biennale and it is Sunday - those narrow streets are so crowded that everybody walks at the same pace and it is impossible to pass anybody. At times the whole crowd just stops and you won't know why, can't move anywhere, luckily after a bit the crowd starts moving again. It is absolutely packed.
So on one of those streets packed with people I ran into a friend of mine from home :) Seriously, just bumped into him on the street of Venice (it was Martin K, Liina who were visiting with college friend). We were both surprised as hell :)
Walked all the way past Piazza S. Marco all the way to Isola di S.Pietro and Isola di S.Elena - there was much more space and not that many people. While wondering around I tried to keep my eyes open for any Internet cafe. When telling my sad story of trying to find a place to print few pages my friend jokingly said that most likely there is exactly one place in whole Venice where you can do it and it is impossible to find it. Well, I found it :) Absolutely randomly, just stumbled on the sign and found the only place to print (this whole time I saw only one other place offering Internet access, but there was no printing capability). Now I had to spend 3EUR on buying 30 minutes of Internet usage to print out 5 sheets of paper :( But at least this printing problem got solved as well almost by accident :D
While sitting at the balcony at the hostel, using the last bit of free Internet, I can hear the movie playing outside on the other side of the building - I did not make it to the film festival, chose to sit in the Internet for 2 hours instead :)
Now heading over to the bus station to go to airport. My route will be Venice - Frankfurt - Addis Abeba - Harare. Days here have been packed and intense, nights have been way too short - even Martin found the courage to mention that I look tired. All those long flights should be enough to catch up on sleep :) Hopefully nothing too exciting happens before I make it to Harare, Zimbabwe.
Around 9 walked back from the bus station, showered, tried my best at getting the printer working at the hostel, packed my bags and headed out. This town is crazy today. Currently there is a film festival in Venice and architecture biennale and it is Sunday - those narrow streets are so crowded that everybody walks at the same pace and it is impossible to pass anybody. At times the whole crowd just stops and you won't know why, can't move anywhere, luckily after a bit the crowd starts moving again. It is absolutely packed.
So on one of those streets packed with people I ran into a friend of mine from home :) Seriously, just bumped into him on the street of Venice (it was Martin K, Liina who were visiting with college friend). We were both surprised as hell :)
Walked all the way past Piazza S. Marco all the way to Isola di S.Pietro and Isola di S.Elena - there was much more space and not that many people. While wondering around I tried to keep my eyes open for any Internet cafe. When telling my sad story of trying to find a place to print few pages my friend jokingly said that most likely there is exactly one place in whole Venice where you can do it and it is impossible to find it. Well, I found it :) Absolutely randomly, just stumbled on the sign and found the only place to print (this whole time I saw only one other place offering Internet access, but there was no printing capability). Now I had to spend 3EUR on buying 30 minutes of Internet usage to print out 5 sheets of paper :( But at least this printing problem got solved as well almost by accident :D
While sitting at the balcony at the hostel, using the last bit of free Internet, I can hear the movie playing outside on the other side of the building - I did not make it to the film festival, chose to sit in the Internet for 2 hours instead :)
Now heading over to the bus station to go to airport. My route will be Venice - Frankfurt - Addis Abeba - Harare. Days here have been packed and intense, nights have been way too short - even Martin found the courage to mention that I look tired. All those long flights should be enough to catch up on sleep :) Hopefully nothing too exciting happens before I make it to Harare, Zimbabwe.
Day in Verona - 4.sept
Another early wake up call, quick breakfast and a tram ride to the train station. Have to mention that the tram kinda broke down at half way to the station after making a loud horrible sound. It would not move. So the tram driver made a restart :) All the lights went out, the quiet humming noise stopped for a while, then came a beep, humming noise started again, all the ticket machines ran a log and restarted themselves and our journey continued after a few minutes. Must be running on microsoft :) ?
It took a bit over an hour to get to Verona from Padova. All we knew about the town was that we need to go and visit the Arena and Julias balcony :) Of course we found more things to look at, the city is beautiful, city's flag is almost the same as Swedish flag only the cross made of two yellow stripes is aligned to the center of the flag. When Bologna was very massive and heavy, Verona is much different. There is a river winding through the city with many bridges crossing it every now and then, there are even more churches here than there were in Venice, there are statues on every corner and the heavy stone tombs are lifted up to about 3 meters from the ground and accompanied by lots of decorations.
Anyhow, first we found the Arena - a Roman amphitheater, which is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there. It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind. The building itself was built in AD 30 on a site which was then beyond the city walls. The ludi (shows and games) staged there were so famous that spectators came from many other places, often far away, to witness them. The amphitheater could host more than 30 000 spectators in ancient times, currently it seats 20 000 people. It is used for opera performances nowadays.
Next we found Julia's Tomb, but it seemed so boring and half way under construction that we did not even bother to get a closer look. Found Juliet's balcony. Statue of Dante. Walked by the castel- which was magnificent. As wiki knows to inform about the bridge by the castle: with a span length of 48.70 m, the 1356 completed segmental arch bridge Ponte Scaligero featured at the time the world's largest bridge arch.
History of Verona is colorful, starting from Romans, continuing with Napoleon and also Germans. Won't go any further with covering the history, but I strongly suggest looking it up ;) As you all already figured out Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was based in Verona. Oh and Leonardo Da Vinci was from Verona!
I just have to mention that toilets here in Italy are something different. Some of them are in the tiniest closets, most toilets in public areas (including bus and train stations) cost up to 80 cents. More than once I have found a toilet where there is no seat, there are simply locations for your feet and that is it. Kinda like they used to have in Lauluväljak times ago (this was my friends term). Toilets are all clean and everything but it just seems so ancient and strange to me.
Now comes the story of our wonderful hostel :) It is located right on San Polo square. In the directions that I printed out it was stated that it is best to call ahead of time so they can arrange a pick-up. Well I did call but as it came out this was the only way to get into the hotel, not because of a pick-up, but because they would open the front door via mobile :D Further instructions were given by phone to walk upstairs where we would find the key in a pouch stuck to the door, open the door with a key and keep walking towards a door with my name on it :) How cool is that :) And the house keeper would only come the next morning during breakfast, this would be the time to pay as well. Haven't seen anything that relaxed in a while.
And this place has INTERNET! With a cable and all :) Took me quite a bit more than an hour to make few posts, go through my e-mails and find out what is happening in the world. This was all followed by a quick dinner and off to bed we went - afterall tomorrow we need to wake up very early.
It took a bit over an hour to get to Verona from Padova. All we knew about the town was that we need to go and visit the Arena and Julias balcony :) Of course we found more things to look at, the city is beautiful, city's flag is almost the same as Swedish flag only the cross made of two yellow stripes is aligned to the center of the flag. When Bologna was very massive and heavy, Verona is much different. There is a river winding through the city with many bridges crossing it every now and then, there are even more churches here than there were in Venice, there are statues on every corner and the heavy stone tombs are lifted up to about 3 meters from the ground and accompanied by lots of decorations.
Anyhow, first we found the Arena - a Roman amphitheater, which is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there. It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind. The building itself was built in AD 30 on a site which was then beyond the city walls. The ludi (shows and games) staged there were so famous that spectators came from many other places, often far away, to witness them. The amphitheater could host more than 30 000 spectators in ancient times, currently it seats 20 000 people. It is used for opera performances nowadays.
Next we found Julia's Tomb, but it seemed so boring and half way under construction that we did not even bother to get a closer look. Found Juliet's balcony. Statue of Dante. Walked by the castel- which was magnificent. As wiki knows to inform about the bridge by the castle: with a span length of 48.70 m, the 1356 completed segmental arch bridge Ponte Scaligero featured at the time the world's largest bridge arch.
History of Verona is colorful, starting from Romans, continuing with Napoleon and also Germans. Won't go any further with covering the history, but I strongly suggest looking it up ;) As you all already figured out Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was based in Verona. Oh and Leonardo Da Vinci was from Verona!
I just have to mention that toilets here in Italy are something different. Some of them are in the tiniest closets, most toilets in public areas (including bus and train stations) cost up to 80 cents. More than once I have found a toilet where there is no seat, there are simply locations for your feet and that is it. Kinda like they used to have in Lauluväljak times ago (this was my friends term). Toilets are all clean and everything but it just seems so ancient and strange to me.
Now comes the story of our wonderful hostel :) It is located right on San Polo square. In the directions that I printed out it was stated that it is best to call ahead of time so they can arrange a pick-up. Well I did call but as it came out this was the only way to get into the hotel, not because of a pick-up, but because they would open the front door via mobile :D Further instructions were given by phone to walk upstairs where we would find the key in a pouch stuck to the door, open the door with a key and keep walking towards a door with my name on it :) How cool is that :) And the house keeper would only come the next morning during breakfast, this would be the time to pay as well. Haven't seen anything that relaxed in a while.
And this place has INTERNET! With a cable and all :) Took me quite a bit more than an hour to make few posts, go through my e-mails and find out what is happening in the world. This was all followed by a quick dinner and off to bed we went - afterall tomorrow we need to wake up very early.
Day of the wedding - 3.sept
Ryan and Elena's wedding day. We were all asked to gather in the hotel lobby by 10:30, bus would pick us up and take us to Arqua' Petrarca.
Everybody who stayed at the hotel slowly gathered, basically everybody who were from out of town so Ryan's family + friends. Two small buses got decorated with beautiful bows and the wedding day started. About 45 minutes later we arrived at the church in Arqua' Petrarca, they were just finishing decorating the church doors, more people arrived and gathered by the church. Photographer was busy taking pictures of the groom, his family, Elena's family and friends. A bit after 12 we were all invited into the church, everybody took their seats and Ryan was up at the front patiently waiting. Music was playing and he kept waiting for Elena :) Church was decorated quite moderately but it all looked very stylish. More people arrived. Then more people arrived - although the wedding was not very big all in all. Finally all were there and now everybody was waiting for the bride :) Couple of more minutes and there she was, walking down the isle with her father, wearing a beautiful white dress (or perhaps it was light light cream color).
Wedding was held by Italian traditions, it was a catholic church wedding. I don't know enough the religion to go into more details about what was going on there :) Ceremony took an hour and ended with newlyweds walking out of the church into flying rice - just like in the movies. Elena walked around the whole afternoon with rice in her hear though. Ceremony was beautiful and very special in many ways.
From the church we were taken to a local restaurant up on the hill where some refreshments were served. More and more photos, nice music, socialising, wonderful snacks and sparkling wine. Table settings were arranged beforehand and everybody was divided between the tables named after poets - our table was formed of international crowd: 2 Estonians, 2 Germans, 1 person from Sweden, 1 from US, 2 girls from UK and one Finn :) There were total about 7 tables plus Elena and Ryan's table.
Once at the tables the eating feast started. I can't remember how many courses there were, but there were a lot, definitely more than 10 rounds were served :) First came appetizer, then introductory snack, then first course, then intermediate course, followed by something and something and then fruits and desert and cake and coffee :) It was something really special. And the food!! Oh the food was so very delicious. After every 4th plate we went for a walk outside to help deal with the amount of food served. It was all very very good and wonderful. There were more photos and some speeches and more food. Towards the evening some people left and the rest picked up the dance :) Eventually even the dancers packed themselves into the buses and headed back to the hotel in Padova. All guests received a small gift: a small artistically decorated notebook and candy.
It was a beautiful and a special day. I wish a happy life to Ryan and Elena and I hope to see them soon in Estonia (they promised :) ). First they will go to their honeymoon trip in Australia though, leaving in couple of days.
Everybody who stayed at the hotel slowly gathered, basically everybody who were from out of town so Ryan's family + friends. Two small buses got decorated with beautiful bows and the wedding day started. About 45 minutes later we arrived at the church in Arqua' Petrarca, they were just finishing decorating the church doors, more people arrived and gathered by the church. Photographer was busy taking pictures of the groom, his family, Elena's family and friends. A bit after 12 we were all invited into the church, everybody took their seats and Ryan was up at the front patiently waiting. Music was playing and he kept waiting for Elena :) Church was decorated quite moderately but it all looked very stylish. More people arrived. Then more people arrived - although the wedding was not very big all in all. Finally all were there and now everybody was waiting for the bride :) Couple of more minutes and there she was, walking down the isle with her father, wearing a beautiful white dress (or perhaps it was light light cream color).
Wedding was held by Italian traditions, it was a catholic church wedding. I don't know enough the religion to go into more details about what was going on there :) Ceremony took an hour and ended with newlyweds walking out of the church into flying rice - just like in the movies. Elena walked around the whole afternoon with rice in her hear though. Ceremony was beautiful and very special in many ways.
From the church we were taken to a local restaurant up on the hill where some refreshments were served. More and more photos, nice music, socialising, wonderful snacks and sparkling wine. Table settings were arranged beforehand and everybody was divided between the tables named after poets - our table was formed of international crowd: 2 Estonians, 2 Germans, 1 person from Sweden, 1 from US, 2 girls from UK and one Finn :) There were total about 7 tables plus Elena and Ryan's table.
Once at the tables the eating feast started. I can't remember how many courses there were, but there were a lot, definitely more than 10 rounds were served :) First came appetizer, then introductory snack, then first course, then intermediate course, followed by something and something and then fruits and desert and cake and coffee :) It was something really special. And the food!! Oh the food was so very delicious. After every 4th plate we went for a walk outside to help deal with the amount of food served. It was all very very good and wonderful. There were more photos and some speeches and more food. Towards the evening some people left and the rest picked up the dance :) Eventually even the dancers packed themselves into the buses and headed back to the hotel in Padova. All guests received a small gift: a small artistically decorated notebook and candy.
It was a beautiful and a special day. I wish a happy life to Ryan and Elena and I hope to see them soon in Estonia (they promised :) ). First they will go to their honeymoon trip in Australia though, leaving in couple of days.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Quick shout:
Just to update all of you - I'm currently in Venice, arrived from Verona few hours ago. Water level is stable and if there ever was a storm here I don't know anything about it :) There is a film festival right in front of my hostel tough!
I'll do my best on getting the posts up about last few days as well - wedding and Verona.
Tomorrow evening I'm taking off and flying to Zimbabwe. EMT does not have any roaming services there so my phone will be switched off, if I get a local SIM I'll let you know. There are some uprisings in Mozambique, but I won't be going to Mozambique for another 20 days, so all should be fine in this regard.
Just to clear everything up so that nobody is worrying :D
Cheers!
I'll do my best on getting the posts up about last few days as well - wedding and Verona.
Tomorrow evening I'm taking off and flying to Zimbabwe. EMT does not have any roaming services there so my phone will be switched off, if I get a local SIM I'll let you know. There are some uprisings in Mozambique, but I won't be going to Mozambique for another 20 days, so all should be fine in this regard.
Just to clear everything up so that nobody is worrying :D
Cheers!
Visit of Bologna - 2.sept
Alarm went off at 8:45 like every day. Managed to finally get out of bed at 9, like every morning :) This is tough, like a training camp :) But we have things to do and we did not come to Italy to sleep, right? Breakfast and off to the train station we went. The plan was to either go to Bologna or to Verona for a day - today is the day for Bologna as decided. Got the tickets for a regional train leaving in 1.5 hours.
To pass the time our search for internet started - it has to be hiding somewhere :) From information desk they gladly guided us to McDonalds as internet is supposedly there. Well, for McDonalds internet one needs to have Italian SIM card - we don't have it. Luckily the guy behind the counter could direct us to the internet cafe down the road. It was this awful dark little room with about 20 computers all locked and boxed off. Seemed like going back in time. Oh well, there was internet connection at least. 30 minutes went by in a flash - just few updates to the blog and paying a bill. Off to the train we went.
So Bologna. Town of the oldest university in Europe. First impression of the town was not very good - the area by train station has very busy traffic and no trees and lots of lots of people running around, there was no information desk to see which direction the town is at and so on. Bought a map from a coffee shop and started to make our way towards the sights.
So the oldest university in Europe was built on the 12th century already. Buildings in this city are all huge, huge and old. Buildings are nicely labeled with information, but all the text is in Italian of course :) Basically the only thing we can make out are the dates. And the dates go anywhere from 12th century. The arches we saw in Padova are double as high here.
Bologna is also the town of towers. There are 2 very tall stone towers (kinda like very tall pillars) still standing close to the center square. At some point there was about 200 of them but today only about 20 of them are still standing. Read a bit about the history of those towers as well - something to do with defending the city.
Criss-crossed our way through town and found all sorts of neat buildings and places on our way. Stepped into Dominic Basilica - yet another huge and magnificent holy building. This one was not as colorful inside as the others, had mostly white walls and white statues. And yet again many outside courts and little hallways here and there.
As we walked through the city my impression of the town got better and better. It is hard to grasp all the history and how old all the buildings and the whole city really is. Can't even imagine that their university was already up and running on the 13th century (founded supposedly 1088) and quite a bit of the city was already built by that time.
Took a train back to Padova at 8, quick stop at the hotel and search for a place to have dinner started. Found this peaceful restaurant by the river. Seemed to be a family restaurant where the owner would run around and talk with customers. Later came out that the lady of the house was from Bulgaria so she was more than happy to speak Russian for us. It was wonderful 3 course dinner and a long walk was needed before getting back to the hotel as it is not possible to sleep with full stomach.
To pass the time our search for internet started - it has to be hiding somewhere :) From information desk they gladly guided us to McDonalds as internet is supposedly there. Well, for McDonalds internet one needs to have Italian SIM card - we don't have it. Luckily the guy behind the counter could direct us to the internet cafe down the road. It was this awful dark little room with about 20 computers all locked and boxed off. Seemed like going back in time. Oh well, there was internet connection at least. 30 minutes went by in a flash - just few updates to the blog and paying a bill. Off to the train we went.
So Bologna. Town of the oldest university in Europe. First impression of the town was not very good - the area by train station has very busy traffic and no trees and lots of lots of people running around, there was no information desk to see which direction the town is at and so on. Bought a map from a coffee shop and started to make our way towards the sights.
So the oldest university in Europe was built on the 12th century already. Buildings in this city are all huge, huge and old. Buildings are nicely labeled with information, but all the text is in Italian of course :) Basically the only thing we can make out are the dates. And the dates go anywhere from 12th century. The arches we saw in Padova are double as high here.
Bologna is also the town of towers. There are 2 very tall stone towers (kinda like very tall pillars) still standing close to the center square. At some point there was about 200 of them but today only about 20 of them are still standing. Read a bit about the history of those towers as well - something to do with defending the city.
Criss-crossed our way through town and found all sorts of neat buildings and places on our way. Stepped into Dominic Basilica - yet another huge and magnificent holy building. This one was not as colorful inside as the others, had mostly white walls and white statues. And yet again many outside courts and little hallways here and there.
As we walked through the city my impression of the town got better and better. It is hard to grasp all the history and how old all the buildings and the whole city really is. Can't even imagine that their university was already up and running on the 13th century (founded supposedly 1088) and quite a bit of the city was already built by that time.
Took a train back to Padova at 8, quick stop at the hotel and search for a place to have dinner started. Found this peaceful restaurant by the river. Seemed to be a family restaurant where the owner would run around and talk with customers. Later came out that the lady of the house was from Bulgaria so she was more than happy to speak Russian for us. It was wonderful 3 course dinner and a long walk was needed before getting back to the hotel as it is not possible to sleep with full stomach.
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