Into the Wilderness

One of the most interesting things I've learned of the Ligurian area in Italy is that it holds a vast number of hiking trails which can challenge you while offering amazing views of both the countryside and the coast.

In the past couple of months, a group of friends and I have traversed all over this lovely countryside. Trails around here can lead you from one town to another, along the coast, across rock faces, into deep jungle like terrain, up the side of a mountain and down the other, through forestry, and keep you on your toes as you turn a corner and BAM! surprise, new terrain!

The paths we have tread upon have also entertained our feet and ensured that we kept an eye on what would appear below them.   From dirt, to stone, to paved lanes, through towns, up stairs, amid the woods carefully stepping over exposed tree roots, etc. And all of those usually occur during the same hike.  It's interesting to see the unique way these trails have been created.  As long as you continue to follow the markers for your path, and read the signs that pop up at intersections you can usually ensure that at least you'll continue along the right path and not veer off onto another, drawing you into unknown depths.

We've hiked for hours, usually exceeding the "estimated" time it takes to supposedly complete the desired route.  Actually, I would really like to know who makes these "estimated" times and to see their physical status.  Are they human??  I know I'm no athlete, but I do consider myself an average individual.  However after completing some of these trails I feel a little......well, below average.  And completely insignificant to nature and all the wonders it holds.

It would also be nice to have warning signs before the trails.  I've often thought as I'm plugging away along some of these trails: there should be a warning for short legged people.  I've often really had to stretch, and even jump, at times. Do your research people before embarking on any hike, because in most cases there's no going back.  Either you continue or....I guess hope for cell service so you can be airlifted out?

Needless to say I've become addicted to hiking.  Whether it's here near Genova, or while on trips like the hike we did while at Lake Como.  I'm really wishing I would have gotten into hiking here before this summer as I'm really going to miss this.  The hiking in Saskatchewan will not be able to compare to what I've experienced here in Italy.

Santa Margherita to Portofino to San Fruttuoso

Santa Margherita - the start

Our first symbol to follow

Portofino

San Fruttuoso

Camogli to San Fruttuoso

Goodbye Comogli

Crystal clear water

Endured one scary part, but more were to come :s

50€ Later

My roommate were all planning on getting criminal record checks (aka police checks, or whatever you may call them in your country) in lieu of their jobs for next year.  I, returning to my old school division, was unsure if I needed one.  Well, after some prodding and endless peer pressure, I decided to go along with them and get one as well.  If I had known about this whole procedure ahead of time.....I may have changed my mind.

First, we headed to the building where the checks were done.  The lady, only speaking Italian, told us that we had to fill out 2 forms.  At this point I was confused.  Two forms? For what? Why?  Again, I was coming from a very different previous experience here.

To get a criminal record check back home I would:
a) pay for it at city hall
b) walk 20 steps to the police station
c) request a check, with my name and photo id
d) hand over the receipt
e) wait for a few days to pick up the results

Oh, not here.  Not in Italy.  This was quite a different procedure than what I had previously encountered.  And here's how it all went down....

1.  Got the forms we needed from, and let's just use general references here, Place A, Room q.

2.  Filled out said forms the best we could considering there were no english options; solo italiano.

3.  Walked a few streets over to a Tabbacchi, Place B, to buy stamps for the forms.  ??  Yeah, apparently we needed these stamps as the verification in obtaining a criminal record check.  25€ for each piece of paper.  Each piece of paper you ask?  Yes, this is where I got extremely frustrated as to what we were actually getting done.  Why do you need two different checks for?  What was the point.  Well, supposedly one is for previous criminal convictions and one is for pending criminal activity, where you have been charged yet not convicted yet.  I know, I know.  Why isn't it just rolled up into one check?  Typical Italians: anything to create more paperwork and get more money out of you.

4.  Return to Place A, Room q with stamps and forms completed.  Frustration #2 occurred for me here.  When it was my turn to come up to the window, and I just knew something like this would happen, she couldn't understand my information.  See, my country of birth and my passport were different.  And apparently this was difficult for her to comprehend.  After repeatedly saying yes, I was born in this country but I am a citizen of a different country MULTIPLE times, I called in my friends, at which point I was ready to bawl.  C entered, literally reiterating what I was saying and the woman was like, "Oh, ok." What?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?  Oh, I was risking that current criminal pending charges sheet right there I do tell you.  Now, we were told to wait 45 minutes and we could pick these up.  Yep, that quick.  Makes me wonder how well they really do check one out.

5.  Roomates go for coffee.  I go for a walk to......ease my mind and do some retail therapy.

6.  Return at 10:30am to Place A, Room q and pick up documents.

7.  Go upstairs to floor 9 to find Place C, Room r to get some sort of verification stamp.  We had to make sure we put which country we wanted our documents for.  Not sure why, we complied and then were told to return between 12-1pm to pick them up.

8.  Go shopping!

9.  Return to Place C, Room r at 12:15pm and pick up documents.  It was here we realized that the verification varied for different countries.  US and Australia had the same, but this poor Canuck's was different.  Still would like to know way.

Either way, it's done!  I have in my possession criminal record checks from my time here and....I had yet another very Italian experience to add to my repertoire.  How many more I'll have before leaving?  Well, only time will tell. ;)

Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad....Post Office??

So there we were.

It was noisy. Yet eerily silent as one waits in deep anticipation.
First, standing in front of a machine with buttons, unreadable options beside, not knowing which one to push but crossing fingers and taking a leap.
Lights randomly flashing, in uneven intervals, to the left.  Then the right.
The overwhelming din of soft voices, eyes darting from screen to screen.
And my anxiety spiking as I watched the numbers marching closer to the one on the slip of paper in my hand.

Then, it was our turn!
Heavy footsteps plodded toward the window, hoping beyond hope that language wouldn't be a factor here (which inevitably it would be).
Hearts pounding in our ears.

And where was this place......this place causing so many mixed emotions, unease, nervousness.....

The Post Office.

A place up until Italy, I never found threatening.  Or scary.  Or somewhere to avoid.
That's all changed now.

Preface:
I had ordered a pair of shoes online and of course they didn't fit.  Not wanting to suck up the cost and call it a write off, I decided to brave the post office and send them back.  What could go wrong?  I'm a grown woman who should be able to do this, even though I could guarantee language would be an issue and gestures used frequently (and perhaps Google Translate).  Thankfully, one of my roommates who has a good expanse of Italian language under her belt decided she also needed to get stuff from the post office and would accompany me on this endeavour.  Thank goodness!

The thing here in Italy is that nothing is ever easy.  EVER!  If it's not something bogged down in paperwork, then it definitely requires multiple steps.  There's times when you need to go to many places to get different things bought or done, as they can't be always found under one roof.   And other times when you can get or do multiple things at one place.  There's no hard and fast rule as to when any of these situations will occur; it's just a learn by experience situation.

The post office fits into this latter category.  Now, coming from a small town in Western Canada a post office is used primarily solely for posting / mailing and picking up things - packages, letters, envelopes, priority items.  (Now if that's changed in the last few years, then I'm strictly speaking of my own experiences in this case).  Here, the post office has MANY more multiple options.  You can of course do all the above BUT you can also pay bills, get out money (the postal service has it's own banking system), and more that I can't even begin to describe because I just couldn't read what it said, lol.

The story begins at the postal outlet by the school.  We hopped over there during one of our prep periods, me standing in one line to pay a household bill and my friend in the other line to ask about getting a bag to send my shoes back in (I only had the original packaging box, and wanting to get a large box to ship things home for herself.  Well, needless to say this place didn't have either for us.  So this meant.....dun dun dun.....we'd have to go to the big scary post office downtown.  The one with tickets, and numbers, and different letters.  Yeesh!

The next day this is precisely where we found ourselves.  And, well, it was an experience.  First, we stood in front of the ticket machine, trying in vain to figure out the Italian wording beside each button and hoping against hope we'd get the right ticket.  If not, we were risking a return trip to this machine, and start the waiting game process all over again.

Ticket in hand, P### (P for Postal??? or so we'd hoped - although there was also an International version too) we sat down and waited, in what slightly reminded me of a hospital waiting room.  Numbers were flashing at various counters, some with I###, some with E###, some with P###, just waiting. Waiting and watching in nervous anticipation.

Then finally, we were up.  Upon reaching the counter, we discovered that thankfully the lady beside the one helping us had a bit of English and could help out as needed.  Either way, we achieved results.  And they were not good.  Apparently, one cannot buy shipping boxes and bags at the Post Office.  Oh no.  You must buy those from an independent paper store before even getting to the post office.  Oi vey!!

Slightly daunted, frustrated but really not surprised, we went to the nearby paper store.  I was barely able to find a bag that my very small shoe box would fit in.  But my friend could not find a box big enough to ship her stuff home in.  A kind english speaking employee informed us that you could send any box, as long as it's covered in paper as the Italian system apparently does not like other writing to be on the boxes, but they only carry small boxes for sale.  Hence why many teachers use a special shipping service to send things home we found out.  And I have a feeling that the size of the box actually accepted at the post office would be pretty small.

Bag in hand, but boxless, we headed home.  And all I could think was, great...I have the bag but now I have to do this all over again?!?!?  Short story here: an Italian woman from school came with me the second time and made this round go much more smoothly.

In the end, lesson learned: 2 years in and the learning experiences still continue.  Just wait until you hear about the police record check. ;)

Kilt Necks - In Search of Nessie

Kilt Necks - In Search of Nessie is a continuation of blog posts about our Easter break in Scotland.

At this point in the trip, we found ourselves leaving the Isle of Skye and heading back onto the mainland.  Our destination: Loch Ness.  Yep, we were in the mood to hunt for Nessie.

First though, we had to make our way back along the road, off the island via Skye Bridge.  Again, even seeing this landscape a second time, for the most part since we were retaking some of the same roads as we did before since there is only one to get onto the island, we were speechless.  One could not help but feel at peace here.  That is until you hit a construction zone.  Yep, just like every other country: it was now construction season.  At least in some spots you had just a traffic light and the wait wasn't too long.

Someone actually put down the sun visor today after commenting, "The sun is so

bright".  Not something we thought we'd say in Scotland.

Yet another sunny day for us!

Back through the highlands we do go :)

Arrows to help out us tourists

(or to keep the locals safe, lol).

Pep had a sky light :o

On the banks of Loch Ness, we first stop to take a gander at Urquhart Castle.  This had to be my favourite castle so far.  Although it was pretty much in ruins, the grounds were so expansive that you could just imagine the parties that were held here.  There were many different quarters, and in the information we read it was mentioned that due to destruction and being left in ruins for many years, there are parts of the castle that are unknown as to their uses.

Down to the cellar

Keeping the riff raff out ;)

After we had spent some time exploring the castle, we headed to Drumnadrochit, a little village  nearby.  It was here that after we spent some time walking through the town and making a lovely purchase or two, we got ready for our main day's event: hunting Nessie!  The night before, Whitney had booked a Nessie hunting tour with Loch Ness Cruises and so we were excited to see if we could spot this elusive sea creature.   Our boat was called the Nessie Hunter and our skipper was none other than the infamous George Edwards.  George had grown up around Loch Ness and had been sighting the creature for well on 40 yrs.  The deepest recorded part of Loch Ness is named after him, "Edwards Deep" for he was the one to discover and record it.  HIs boat was also the one National Geographic climbed aboard when they were in Scotland doing a piece on the Loch Ness Monster.  George is a true believer in Nessie and even has photographs to prove it.  Whilst we didn't spot her/him/it/them, we did have a fabulous time listening to all his knowledge, partaking in his lively banter, asking him questions, and getting a chance to go boating in a small group setting.  I would totally recommend his tour to anyone wanting to head on on Loch Ness to find Nessie.

The sheep weren't too concerned about Nessie.

Perhaps because they are quite far inland.

Drumnadrochit

She's ready to spot a sea creature

The clouds don't look good this way 

Skipper George and his first mate

Ok Nessie, where are you?

Found her! ;)

The water is gets extremely deep quickly that you can actually drive this close

to the shore without running aground.

Us with skipper George

Oh no, Nessie escaped!

Whitney said she was a quieter co-pilot than me :(

After our tour, we headed south along Loch Ness to Fort Augustus where we were staying for the night.  It was interesting this drive along the lake as it was a forestry area, not an industry I normally would have associated with Scotland.  Again it amazed me at all the different landscapes this small country encompassed.

Once we arrived in Fort Augustus, we checked into our hotel, The Lovat then took a stroll through the tiny, tiny town to sightsee and find a place for dinner.  We heard from a lot of locals that many of the towns we've been to so far in this trip up in the more northern areas of Scotland are only prospering due to tourism.  And it's quite easy to see that unfortunately that would be the case.

We found a nice place to eat called The Boathouse which was situated right on the banks of the south end of Loch Ness.  Although many of the places we've eaten at to date haven't been fancy or extravagant, I can easily say that I've had some of the most delicious meals of my life on this trip.   And The Boathouse was no exception.  Some humus, a yummy pot pie and a croissant completely satisfied me and were a nice send off as we ambled back to the hotel to await travels the next day.

The Lovat.

Yes, they even made jokes themselves about the name.

Eg. "You'll love it at The Lovat" (lol, groan)

Locks on The Caledonian Canal

Connects Loch Ness with the waterway to the south

We were excited to see this.

Weren't sure if it was a.m. or p.m., but found out after 8:30pm that

it was actually a.m., lol.

Loch Ness