FEELING FAT? MISERABLE? UNATTRACTIVE?

Just be glad you're not a blobfish.

Poor blobfish.

HOW THE FLUX CAPACITOR WORKS

In case, like me, you've been wondering for the last 25 years:

VIVA ITALIA

I've just attended the most marvellous wedding ever. EVER ever.

The wedding was to be held at a winery perched upon a hilltop by a village near Vicenza, Italy. Despite my (unfounded, I think) reputation as well-travelled, I'd never been to Italy. The wedding was the perfect excuse to address this terrible oversight. And I did so. With gusto.

Before visiting, I assumed that Italy was over-rated. History, art, food, blah blah blah. I don't even like pasta. I plotted a short jaunt from the capital up to the Veneto with the main objective of "ticking it off" my list and never having to go back. Mission failed, I'm afraid. Italy was amazing and brilliant and uplifting and very, very addictive. Over-rated? I was happily and emphatically proven wrong.

Rome

Oh how I love thee. Noisy and dirty and brash. Beautiful and surprising. And it was so, so packed full of treasures. During my first day there, I walked and walked and walked. I saw the tourist-clogged Spanish Steps, which were nothing special, and the  Trevi Fountain, which was exquisite. I visited the Pantheon (which I don't quite 'get') walked past an apparently famous statue of an elephant holding an obelisk in Piazza Minerva (wtf?), and huffed and puffed my way up the steps off Piazza Venezia, only to poke my head into a basilica for about sixty seconds and walk straight down again. I took a break to breathe some clean air as I wandered through the lush and green Villa Borghese. 



The Spanish Steps

Then, and only then, did I go to the Colosseum. It looked spectacular from the street. Yes, it was hemmed in by traffic and noise and 'real life'. Yes, it looked a bit like a Hollywood set that had been abandoned while the city whirled around it. But it was the Colosseum. THE Colosseum. Such an amazing sense of history. I must admit, though, that my sense of history was almost entirely dwarfed by my sense of Russell-Crowe-in-Gladiator.



You know what this is.

At times like these, I really wish I could draw. I sat myself down on a fallen column, resting in the shade while the light of the setting sun turned the arches and stone a burnished orange and the shadows gradually stretched across the facade opposite me. It was beautiful. So beautiful that I even went so far as to attempt to draw it. I stand by my assertion that it is only people who have a natural talent for drawing who spout that infuriating "everybody can draw" line. I challenge any one of them to look at the scratchy mess that vomited out of my pen that day, look me in the eye, and tell me again that anyone can draw.

 

As usual, I was staying in a hostel. Here I met some really fun Brighton girls and we decided to go out for dinner. After some filling food and reasonably-priced wine, we decided to stock up on some of the delightful and un-reasonably cheap wine available from the store instead, and to find a nice park so we could relax on the grass and enjoy a sophisticated chat with our Italian wine. Yeah, that didn't work.

According to Wikipedia, Rome has more green space than many other European capitals. If that is indeed the case, it was not in evidence that night. We didn't want to wander too far from home, and our map showed not a hint of greenery for what looked to our tired legs to be miles. So instead of a semi-picnic where we relaxed on the grass, drinking wine and nibbling on snacks while soaking up the balmy evening weather, we plonked ourselves on a median strip opposite the rail station, where we gulped down wine, monitored the successes and failures of the prostitute walking the strip of street in front of us, and soaked up the car fumes. You know, I'm pretty sure there's a deleted scene in Roman Holiday of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck doing the exact same thing. It's THE thing to do in Rome, you know.



Inside the Pantheon

The next day I was off to see the Pope. He was rudely out of the country, so I didn't get to see the people crowded in St Peter's Square to hear him say mass, but I did still get to tell my Grandma that I'd been to the Vatican. I went with one of the Brighton gals, and we decided to fork out some cash for a guided tour that focused on the art in the Vatican Museum. I highly recommend it. The Sistene Chapel was indeed lovely (but not quite as magnificent as I had hoped) and though I had to rush through the Basilica so that I could make my pre-booked entry slot into the marvellous Galleria Borghese, I enjoyed every second of it.

My time in Rome was sadly over, so I jumped on a train heading north. Next stop...

Venice

If I could choose only one word to describe Venice, that word would be "Lovely". If you would permit me an extra two words, though, I'd add "Romantic" and "Expensive".

A woman I'd met during the Vatican tour in Rome had said that "Venice is so beautiful, if you have any sadness in your heart it will make it worse." I arrived sleep-deprived, slightly hungover, and having just discovered that my treasured Dutch croissants-in-a-can had been stolen the night before. So with sadness in my heart, I walked the bridges and piazzas of Venice with a growing sense of melancholy.

The evening light in Venice was extraordinary. Forget drawing, now I wished that I could paint the beautiful scenes that I don't have the language to describe.

I don't think I'll bore you with too much about Venice, but will instead let the photos do the talking. What was carefully hidden from my camera, was the night of evening adventures that I had with some of my fellow hostel-dwellers. The tone was even lower than my night spent drinking on the median strip in Rome, so you'll have to use your imagination to guess what we got up to.

Overcome with the history and romance of Venice, and with my delightful visit to the Galleria Borghese in Rome fresh in my memory, I decided to spend some time in the highly-recommended Gallerie dell'Accademia. It was amazing. By now I was starting to question my view of myself as 'not an art gallery type'. Italy was seeping into my skin, and I was enjoying history, art, architecture. And I was now very much looking forward to the opportunity to overload on food and wine at my friend's wedding. Next stop, Vicenza.

The Wedding

Like I said, this was the best wedding EVER.

I met the groom’s family, and two other Aussie girls who would be staying with them, in Vicenza and we all set off to spent the night in a gorgeous farmhouse. The drive there took us along winding roads and past vineyards, corn fields, even a palazzo as we climbed up the hills behind Vicenza. The wedding was the next day and was held at a registry office - apparently the only legal options in Italy are a church or a registry office - but the reception was at a magnificent hilltop winery owned by the bride’s aunt.

Oh my, it was extraordinary.

The two girls and I were the only Australian guests (apart from the groom’s family) but the happy couple had a huge circle of Italian friends and family who were just hilarious. We were all seated outdoors at tables beneath a marquee, with views of the hills and a lovely breeze that kept the temperature perfect for the entire afternoon and evening. The wedding lunch went on for hours, at some stage morphing into a wedding dinner. And the wine - oh, the wine. And the Prosecco. And the Limoncello.

As night fell, music was cranked and the outdoor dance floor went crazy. Most guests had pitched tents so the party was set to go in to the wee hours. By now the classy wine had disappeared, to be replaced by a keg of Tuborg beer and, later, some very dodgy home-made cocktails that essentially consisted of moonshine and coke with four teaspoons of added sugar to sweeten the deal. My memories (such as they are) are of moshing to Nirvana and wresting control of the music-making-machine from its owner in order to play Mambo Italiano.

It was SUCH a good wedding. I’ll share just three of my favourite memories:

• The groom being accosted on his way into the ceremony by a bearded man in a wedding dress and lipstick, clutching his suspiciously bulging belly and yelling “Marry me! Marry me! What about our baby??!!”  (The man turned out to be the bride’s best friend, which is probably why she forgave her husband for showing up to their wedding with pink lipstick smears on his face!)
   
• The crowd had called for the bride and groom to “Kiss, kiss, kiss!” whenever they were spotted sitting together at the table during moments of rest between socialising with guests; when the bride’s best friend (now thankfully sans wedding dress and fake pregnancy) briefly sat in the groom’s chair to have a chat with her, someone in the back started the  “Kiss, kiss, kiss!” call again; the gentle, Buddhist groom then raced up from the back of the tent with feigned outrage and pretended to deck his 'rival' before kissing his bride. Shenanigans. Very sweet.
   
• Climbing to the top of a hill overlooking the vineyard with five new friends, sitting on a bench, drinking wine we’d smuggled out of the reception marquee and watching the sun set over the valley and hills beyond. At that moment, Italy felt like heaven.

It was such a marvellous, wonderful event. It had a relaxed vibe and everyone was genuinely having fun. To put its awesomeness in context, I should probably mention how much I usually dislike weddings. Intensely is probably the best word. (Can you feel a rant coming on now? I know I can...).

I find weddings incredibly uncomfortable. They're so formal. Firstly, I find the idea of a woman being 'given away' by her father completely insulting. At the reception (after the mandatory period of guests standing around awkwardly, doing nothing while the bride and groom are whisked off for their wedding photos), you're told where to sit and therefore who you must speak to for the next hour or more. What am I, five years old? There are so many other stupid traditions you're forced to endure, which I'm trying very hard not to bang on about here. The thing I hate the most is probably the expectation and intense pressure the couple inevitably face about the guest list. If the groom hasn't seen great-uncle-whatsisname for twelve years, what right does his family have to make him invite him? And to pay for his (no doubt overpriced) meal? Don't get me wrong, I'm not actually anti-marriage (though I was when I was younger), it's just the wedding thing that I have a problem with. I genuinely think it's great that two people have decided to publicly commit to being with each other forever, I just think that they should be able to do so without being constrained by other people's expectations of how it should be done. This Italian wedding had that feeling. It was casual, and celebratory, and really great fun.

So, unlike my extended rant, this amazing wedding was too soon over. In fact, my entire Italian trip was now drawing to a close. But before leaving I had managed to cram one more stop into my itinerary...

Verona

...In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...

Verona was fair indeed. Though many scholars believe Shakespeare never set foot here during his life, he couldn't have picked a better choice in terms of somewhere to set his tragedy about two warring families and its effect on their children. I only had one night in this lovely city, which was unfortunately not long enough to fall in love with a handsome Italian and arrange a mock double-suicide.

It was, however, just long enough to fall in love with the city. Walking along the Adige River, I imagined myself living here and cycling to university every day. It was exquisite.



True love
 - outside "Juliet's house"





And this, sadly, brought my trip to Italy to an end. I set off back to London, to start a new maternity cover contract at the workplace I'd left a few months earlier. 

Goodbye Italy, I'll miss you!