.- quantum uncertainty -.

It's ten to 2 in the morning. I wake up in, oh, five hours.

The good:
- I showered tonight, so I don't need to shower in the morning.
- Apparently, I am closer to getting back on ET than I thought I was, because I'm tired, but I can't sleep.
...

The bad:
- I'm flying to Frankfurt and then to Montreal on five hours of sleep with my parents, and my mother in particular, who will be cranky as hell without nicotine in her system.
- I am not entirely packed.
- I am not actually sure that I will ever be packed, because I cannot see how all this CRAP will fit into two bags.
- I have the cold my father caught and so graciously shared with me.
- Have YOU ever been on a plane while seriously congested? It's not happy.

I should pack up my computer and then the rest of my bag and then try to sleep.

Greetings to all from Padova, Italia.

I am sitting in the lobby of my hotel, using their computer and their setup for the outrageous (to me) price of 2 euros per HALF HOUR. Eesh.

Why?

Because I have no access in my room.

But at least it's my own room. Much love to my daddy for getting me my own room.

Highlights of the last couple days, briefly, because the guy at the front desk turned off a light a couple minutes ago in what is probably a not-remotely-subtle-hint for me to GET OFFLINE already...:

- walked around Brera with my mom
- saw the REAL top of the Duomo with my dad
- wrote postcards from just outside the Duomo to five of you
- shlepped BACK to Brera with my parents and then actually left before we were served at the restaurant because my mother was going to reduce me to tears for no specific reason
- navigated my way BACK to the hotel ALL BY MYSELF OMG GO ME. I even transferred metro lines. My pride at having done so is only reduced by the fact that I actually left my parents in Brera, because we were on the verge of a fight.
- I explained to the doorman at the hotel that we had to be at the airport for 10 (it was 9:30 at the time) and that the first kind of taxi would be fine. IN ITALIAN. GO ME.

We walked around Padova tonight, and I saw the most gorgeous frescoes ever in this little chapel. No pictures allowed, alas.

Still, I have photos for you guys and I'll upload them in Florence, since that hotel has Internet in the rooms. (I just checked after checking out AOL and Earthlink which have SURCHARGES on top of the monthly fees.)

Tomorrow, VENICE, at ass o'clock in the morning. But I'll have my iPod and my little book of Sudoku puzzles (at which I'm becoming fairly adept!) and maybe my mother and I won't kill each other after all.

My time is about up, and I'm tired anyways. Lots of walking in Italy and I actually have the start of a tan or a burn. I can't tell which -- I'm too pale to start with. ;)

Ciao, amici, ti parlerò a presto! (Sundayish)

"Holy CRAP, is Italy FRIGGING EXPENSIVE!"
(or, Brin has the evening to herself, thank God.)

So much to say that it's actually, physically impossible to write it all down.

First, photos will be coming shortly -- gotta upload my edited ones -- and then transfer more from the camera to the computer, edit them and upload 'em. So watch this space!

My parents are out to dinner thanks to my father's conference, so I have the evening to myself and it's a damn good thing, because I am about ready to kill them both while they sleep. :D

Anyways, I'm sitting here looking through the room service menu.

A burger and fries is 16 euros. Which is abooooout $24 Canadian, so something like, $20 USD. Okay. I get that. It's a hotel.

Guess, JUST GUESS, how much a SINGLE Coke is.

Go on.

Guess.

WRONG.

FIVE EUROS. $7.50 CAD! Or like, $6 USD!

Water? 5 euros for half a litre. SIX euros for 750mL. How crazy!

And it's not that much cheaper outside the hotel, either.

In brief news, The Last Supper will not be seen, because they are sold out until mid-July. They do NOT mention this on the website. At least not in English. ... or in Italian.

Bastards. If any of you go to Milan and want to see it, book your visit RIGHT AFTER you confirm your flights. Seriously.

Okay, I'm going to order my food and play with photos. I'll have access to the 'net 'till about 1:22pm ET on Thursday (7:22pm here), so I can get your emails, etc. :)

I'll update the post when the photos are uploaded!

http://www.goodchatting.com/brin/lj/italy2006/

Voila. Some of you may have already seen unedited versions of the photos from the 12th.

13th is more Duomo, mostly (and the tiny bit of the roof I was on. :P) and the 14th is at Santa Maria Delle Grazie (Our Lady of Grace -- Notre Dame de Grace) and the place where The Last Supper is at. Which is sold out until July. Screw 'em. :P

But they did have a lovely cloister.

My computer clock still says 3:41pm, but it's 9:41pm here in Milano and it's getting dark.

So... I've arrived safely. Yay. So did my bags. Yay.

Montreal -> Frankfurt = 7h30m of being cramped in economy with my dad while mom took the good business class seat (at our urging). I don't think either Pop or I wanted to be anywhere near Mom after 8+ hours without a cigarette. She's scary when she's nicotine-deprived. Meanwhile my tailbone may never recover from the crampedness.

Frankfurt = 3h stopover. We stopped at a restaurant in the airport and had a good breakfast.

Also Frankfurt airport security = way tighter than Montreal. They searched me but good. Montreal was nice about the computer at least. The Frankfurt guy was like "computer out" and stuff.

The flight from Frankfurt to Milano sucked. Sardines, I tell you, we were sardines! More tailboney badness, being forced in that same position for another hour.

Then... a shuttle bus thing from the airport to a stop NEAR our hotel. My parents woke me out of a dead sleep to get me off the bus with them and then we schlepped for like, 10 blocks because we got lost. With all our bags.

And CONTRARY to what my father said, I do not, in fact, have my own room for this leg of the journey. Apparently he reserved one room for three people but neglected to tell me this when I asked him about separate rooms.

So.... I get to deal with both my parents snoring and my mom's smoking. HooRAY.

But at least I have Internet, right? Hahaha, 27 euro per 24 hour period, session limit of, I kid you not, 40 megabytes.

So I'm online 'till this time tomorrow (or thereabouts) and I'll be online on Wednesday afternoon/evening and then that's it until we get out of Milano.

I'm griping, I know, I know, but I've had like, 3 hours of sleep in the last 30 hours.

That said, dinner was excellent -- Italian pizza puts any other imitations to shame.

No photos yet, but I think mom and I are headed to see The Last Supper tomorrow. (Which probably doesn't permit photographs, but I'll be taking city photos anyways.) Then we have the opera on Tuesday, I think -- seeing The Barber of Seville.

Should be an interesting time, at the very least. Will post again soon. Send me more addresses for postcards, if you want them, please! :)

ETA: Er, it seems that everything cool is closed on Mondays. God only knows why. The Last Supper will have to wait until later in the week.

Also, I reread the entire "The Da Vinci Code" while on various planes and buses and in airports today/yesterday, so I was kind of like "OMG COOL I didn't KNOW The Last Supper is in Milan!!!". For I am a dork.