Regardless, this weekend I was a homebody and stayed within the confines of my new city of residence, Genova. Poor me, I know lol. A weekend at home in Italy? That's a tough life I'll tell you ;) Let's just say after seeing the pictures of the snow and bundled up people back home, there's some things that are quickly ending up on the "not missing" list.
This weekend a few of us decided to get to know our new city of residence better. And what better way to do that then act like a tourist. That's right! We took a city sightseeing bus tour on Saturday.
Statue of Christopher Columbus
(Genova is his birthplace)
Marine Station
The great thing about this tour was that our tickets were good for 48 hours after the time of purchase. Therefore, if we wanted to do the tour again the next day we could. Also, with the company we used if you keep your ticket stub you can use it to get a 10% discount off a tour from the same company in a different city.
The tour led us to get off at one of the stops on our second round of the tour. We found a few historic places in various nooks and crannies, and a cute little shopping area that we perused for a couple hours. Next it was lunch by the port. Gotta love the views that many of the restaurants around the port and seaside have. Nothing like this back home!
Candy vendor was in town! ;)
View from our lunch restaurant: Eataly.
After some more hop-on, hop-off bus touring and shopping we headed home. But definitely not empty handed!
Luckily I am now heading home to my new bff: Internet!! Getting things done in Italy is a major process, no matter what it is. Even ordering food can be a challenge but the Internet getting was something I did not think would be so tedious. Here are the steps to get Internet in Genova (at least with the company I used):
1 - go to the company and request the service; fill out paperwork
2 - wait for the call to confirm your address and your request; btw the call is in Italian so you need to be near someone fluent in it or you are SOL (I had this happen 3x before they called while I was at school and had a native Italian speaker near me)
3 - wait for the second, third, maybe fourth call to do the same as #2
4 - wait for the call from the line technician (not part of the Internet company but from telecommunications Italy) and book an appt
5 - meet line technician to confirm line eligibility for Internet
6 - wait for call from company for station (aka modem) technician
7 - book appt for station technician
8 - meet station technician and FINALLY get Internet!!
(A total of 3-4 wks minimum after initial process start up)
Yep! I'll tell you, I've never had a greater appreciation for Sasktel until this moment. However, the price I'm paying for Internet here doesn't make me miss it too much. ;)
Now to somehow access tv from Canada......Hmmmmm.......
On Sunday we headed downtown to the Florence markets. A few vendors from Florence bring their goods to Genova once or twice a year and hold a market down by the port. This was quite an interesting experience as there is haggling, prices range from cheap to 'oh my word' and good are great leather to cheap knickknacks. There wasn't much that tickled my fancy there but the cool thing about being downtown today was there was also a garage sale like markets other squares (piazzas) downtown too. A great day to just walk, eat gelato, and shop! Thankfully the weather here is still holding out so we could enjoy ourselves immensely and even enjoy a western lunch outdoors at the Wild Wild West down by the port.
The tents are the various vendors at the market.
Port
Enjoying our wagon venue at the Wild Wild West.
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