goodbye italy, hello spain

Finally a way to tell everyone about all that is happening. a little late, i know, but i feel like trying to describe my past three months at spannocchia would leave me really frustrated and you all very confused. as courtney likes to say, "it was what is was- it was magical. i dont even want to try to touch it with words." i met and lived with 8 amazingly fascinating people, worked for some incredible italians and thoroughly explored an area of Italy so beautiful that i really have no words. only pictures. 700 of them. yet i have a faulty set of technological skills and up to this point have been using a really slow computer, so unfortunatly it will be a few weeks until any of the pictures are online.

annnyways, I am in pamplona, spain right now, waiting to board a final bus to roncevalles with courtney, another intern from spannocchia. and let me just say, if the next month follows anything like the past 24 hours, we are in for some great adventures...

the infamous hunk of a 9 passenger van dropped us off in siena for a final time yesterday and a hard hour of goodbyes. knowing that we no longer had our trusty american haven hidden in the tuscan hills to return to at the end of a trip was a bit scary, and being without a definitive home for the next 2 months was equally unnerving. not to mention, saying goodbye to 7 interns was no fun. these guys, they rock. no one rocks like they rock. at least it was not a final goodbye, as hopefully most of the common closet ninjas will reunite for the palio in a month.

becky, carmella, courtney and i tried to delay the fairwell for a few more hours, though. we had one last afternoon in siena at bar l´incontro, a final `i want to get my nose pierced, lets find a place´ escapade, and, of course, one last failed attempt before carmella and becky headed south to sicily and courtney and i headed north to pisa. yes, a pretty sad afternoon, but equally exciting when we realized that we were going to spain to begin the camino. now, just a quick summary of the places that we have slept so far:

1) bar at the Siena train station. helps if you keep elbows on the table and prop your head up with hands to look as if you are playing cards.

2) train, well sort of. unless you have faulty windows and 100% humidity inside the cabin

3) pisa airport. well, sort of. courtney and i had an ingenius plan when mapping our route to the start of the camino de santiago in st. jean, france. leg #1 consisted of flying from pisa to barcelona on the earliest ryanair flight that we could find. this way, since we had to be at the airport so early in the morning, it would not look suspicious if we showed up the night before and happened to take a little nap throughout the night. i mean, who needs a bed? so we found an empty corner at the end of an isolated hallway and immediately collapsed into a deep sleep under some sort of modern-looking mural that seemed to be inspired by the Last Supper. we were protected. jesus was watching over us. or so we thought.

after 3 and a half hours of solid sleep a security guard woke us to say that the airport was closing and that we needed to leave. what to do? of course, move base camp to the benches outside of the airport for the 4 hours until the building reopened. well, i can only summarize the next few hours with a song ``OHHHHHH, what a niiight dooo dooo dooooo doooo, dooo dooo doooo...´´ immediatly after exiting the airport courtney and i ran into a frantic woman who said she was being watched by some men, and she wanted to know if she could stay with us. we said of course. so there we are, 3 benches with 3 vagabonds, all attempting to fall asleep. just as sleep seemed like a possibility, a few more decided to join the party. all i know is that our guests sent me into a swatting fit everytime i heard them buzz by my ear and that they left me a very nice hostess gift. the gift? i looked like the subject of a bad collagen injection- my top right lip mirroring lisa rinna´s (http://www.plastic-surgery-world.com/wp-content/images/Picture%204.jpg) while the other three-fourths remained their normal size. either that or i was in a fight. a boxing match. pshh, you should have seen the other guy.

the sun finally came. and so did the plane. we flew to girona, bused to barcelona, took a night bus to pamplona, and are now waiting in pamplona to take a final bus to roncevalles and taxi to st. jean. and then tomorrow, well, the first official day of the camino- we hike from the french base of the pyrenees over the mountains, across the border and down into spain.

keep tuned as i will hopefully record our progress.

ps- Ciao Bella just blasted over the stereo at the internet cafe here in pamplona.  i just had a giulio/ 2:00 pm on mondays and thursdays moment.

pps- a few hints on the ins and outs of barcelona

Tip: Barcelona has the sickest break dancers I have ever seen. blew my mind. they deserve your money.

Warning: DO NOT try the coconut meat.  all i can say is that i could have been gnawing on tree bark.

well, will talk soon kids. buhh BYE