Send The Bugger Back

I’m glad I got that jumper yesterday, even a tad chilly in the day now. You want to see the Italians, wrapped up like they’re members of Trondheim seal clubbing clubbers club.

The 1st leg of my train journey has been successful, granted it was only a 5 minute ride from the main station in Firenze to a smaller one where I could pick up a Milan bound train to get off at in Bolonga. It’s left 5 minutes late though so now I’ve only got 10 minutes or so to get a feel for Bolonga, probably not long enough to eradicate or illuminate my spaghetti and communists pre-conceptions.

Glasvegas’s self-titled album is what I’ve been listening to on the train. After ignoring them (or is just him?) for ages because I don’t like the name, I gave it a listen when at my friend’s in Brussels a whole 3 months back and now I’ve gave it a good few more.

I like it but it’s far from perfect. The pluses are his great voice with Scotts accent fully present and the the rousing tunes that back it. The negatives are the lyrics that don’t stand up very well by themselves and a lack of variety in the songs, cohesion in an album is good but repetitiveness is not. It gets the thumbs up from me overall though.

Beggars on the trains in Italy is something that appears to be common. They walk down the corridors distributing little square print-outs with sob stories on, then a few minutes later they will walk back, pick them up and plead for money. I decided long ago never to give to beggars, I’d rather give directly to charities.

I’m a bit excited now as I just discovered that I’ll be back in Manchester in time for City’s Carling Cup quarter final agaist Arsenal, whoo!

Speaking of City, my first task in Venice will be to locate a bar of mock Irishness to try and catch the game agaist Brum.

This hostel isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, in fact it’s quite nice with plenty of character. There’s quite a few stealth fees that they whack on top of the base fee but I already knew that would be the case from reviews I’d read.

The staff are a bit mental. There’s a lively Irish woman constantly bickering with a young fella named Michael, at least that’s what she calls him, he doesn’t look like a Michael, more like a Manuel really.

Also the WiFi doesn’t work here (and never will do with the ridiculous way they have it setup, I won’t bore you with the details) so it may be a while before I post this and subsequent blogs for the next few days.

Within a few minutes of checking-in I’d met a few Irish lads who wanted to come along with me in my quest (which would turn out to be futile) to find a bar showing the game.

They were good fellas and I spent the rest of the night with them and got a carry-out from the offy. We did have a look at finding somewhere to go out but the Venice nightlife seems a bit lacking.

We got stung for our evening meal. €17 for a tiny lasanga and a pint, ouch. This hostel has a kitchen though so I’ll be able to save a few quid for the next couple of nights.

Search of the day – ‘Komode in etc. Kosova’. Now how the rubber duck does Google work out that a search like that should end up here? It’s a thinker readers, a real thinker.

The photo is from San Gimignano, not took any Venice snaps yet!