Hmmmmm...

So I'm off to Firenze tomorrow. I'm definately looking forward to it, what with the sheer boredom of the last few days - absolutely no disrespect to my cousins here, who've made me feel very at home... I've just felt quite suffocated. I haven't been able to do anything at all. I've really wanted to explore the gorgeous little town they live in but I haven't been able to. Today, the one chance I had to explore, we ended up having to go to the train station in Cuneo to buy my train tickets for tomorrow. That's fine, but for some reason it took all day. Seriously, the little glimpses I've had of this town have made me itch to go a-wandering, but I haven't been able to.

And it's such a gorgeous town. Yes, I'va said that already, but I mean it. It has to be seen. It's surrounded by mountains, in front of the apartment is a cute little church courtyard, the streets are like those from a 1950s Italian movie, cramped, discoloured walls (but pretty, discoloured walls), with flower pots on balconies...

Anyway, I arrived on Tuesday having had no sleep at all. No, that's a lie. I had an hour at the hostel, 45 mins on the plane from Paris to Milan, and about 45 minutes on the train from Milan to Torino. I feel like I've just been trying to catch up on sleep since then.

I'm currently staying with Nadia, my Nan's neice, her husband Ignazio, and her sons Andrea and Alessandro. Andrea is about 18/19 and Alessandro is 14. No one here speaks English. We've been communicating through hand gestures, Google Translate, an Italian-English dictionary and my ability to remember certain words that we were taught back in highschool and putting enough of them together to create some form of meaning. Good fun. I really did think I'd get by OK. I tend to understand my grandma when she speaks in Italian, but looking back, she tends to only speak sentences that I already know... Those two years of Italian that I did back in highschool have been no help to me whatsoever. I haven't once been able to ask, "Dov'è il Coloseo, per favore?" No, my one phrase we learnt that I've gotten maximum mileage out of has been, "Mi dispiace, ma non ho capito." But we've gotten through it all.

I've learnt a lot about "the scene" from my cousin Andrea (my term, not his). The other night we went out to Cuneo, the closest town, with a bunch of his friends. Basically what everyone does is walk up and down the corso saying, "Ciao" to people they know, not stopping to chat though. They keep walking, not a fast walk, more an amble. A meander, if you will. It is the most frustrating thing to have to do ever. Then they'll stop for a drink at a bar, which is essentially a cafe. They'll drink their drinks really quickly, then start back up on the walk, up and down the corso.

I think mostly I was frustrated because I hate walking slowly and without purpose and I was also incredibly tired and just wanted to go home (it was about midnight).

But Andrea has been really good to me. He's taken me out trying to do things to alleviate the bordem. We went to the beach at Ventimiglia on Thursday which was a great day. It was hillarious how worried his mum was because I'm so white. She was in such a panic. Never fear - I pulled out my SPF 30 to alleviate her worries. So we set off at - wait for it - 7am on the train which took 2 hours. We then walked for another 45 minutes to the beach. We passed a lot of other beaches on the way but they were all pebble beaches which Andrea informed me are "Shit beach". Basically anything remotely crap is referred to as shit. Loves it. We went off-road, up this random, windy path, then suddenly there was sand. Perfetto. Such a great beach. Not really any waves, but it was nice to just cool off in the water because it was such a hot day. Or it would have been nice to. Basically, I got a piece of sand in my eye under my contact lense very early on in the day and for some reason being in the water aggrivated it? So frustrating. So I lay on the beach, slept, read, ate. Good times. I got a little sunburnt on my back, but nothing major because I was under the umbrella most of the day. It's so weird though how deep some people's tans were - Andrea's friend Mauro kept spraying oil on his back, which was coffee coloured by this stage. And there were so many people that colour. It seems to be the in thing.

Not much else to report on my stay here. I think it's just been hard after being able to essentially do my own thing for the last month and suddenly not be able to. But it's been so lovely meeting people I've spoken to online for such a long time, and I love meeting family. It'll be sad to leave them, but I'm excited to be getting the travelling part up and running again.

PS. It's one month exactly since I left. It feels like about 20 years. So much has been packed in.