Music Music Munich... Bologna

Hi!! We've done lots more stuff since I last wrote! It's been a very exciting few days.

So, Friday-Sunday was the music festival in Domazlice. On Thursday I went to a learn-to-play-the-czech-bagpipes workshop, and there was one other beginner there. An American girl by the name of Stephanie. We got on very well, even though the workshop was a bit of a disaster(!!), and so I ended up hanging out with her and her tour group quite a bit. She'd won a Miss Czech-Slovak pageant and was sponsored to go on a tour for people with Czech ancestry as part of her prize. The americans were a lot of fun, actually! We went out for a few drinks and some dancing (normal nightclub type stuff) every night until I left. Note: If you ever go to Domzlice I can reccomend a bar with a mean Pina Colada. And now I have people to go and visit in Wisconsin and Phoenix!

The music festival itself was interesting, it was czech folk spiced up with a bit of modern rhythm and bass. Kinda cool! There were also some pipers from Scotland there (soem of the Royal Dragoon Guards I believe) and a scottish country dance group who did all sorts of scottish folk. they were from America though. The first night in the pub some of the scottish pipers turned up, heard american accents and asked if we were the dance group. They were good fun to chat to! One is going to Afghanistan in a couple of months, because he wants to fight for what he believes in. Very noble.

I also hung out with the daughter of one of Mike's friends, a czech girl called Elicka (Elishka) and some of her friends. She bought me a beer, (lovely girl) so the drinking age must be lower as she's 16. I hope she comes to NZ one day.

Anyway, after the festival (so much food! and drink! and sweets! I heart bratwurst..), or rather on Sunday morning, I took a couple of trains to Munich. It was a long hot day, but luckily my hostel in Munich was as close as they'd said and even though my booking hadn't registered properly they checked me in in time for me to go meet Mel (an old school friend) for 'coffee', which turned out to be a brief tour of the city centre, then a trip on the subway to see her apartment and a couple of beers in the beer garden near her place with her and her husband. It was a wonderful afternoon, the weather was perfect (read:sweltering) and I felt like I was dreaming after sitting on trains all day.

The trains in europe are quite good actually.

So, the next day (after a late night catching up on facebook in a very comfortable hostel) I jumped on another train to ITALY!!!! I'm there now, staying with a former flatmate from Spain. Her family is wonderful, they've made me so welcome. It was a bit unfortunate when I arrived thugh, as she went to the airport instead of the train station and I had forgotten to put her Italian cellphone number into my phone, so in the end I took a bus into town (with all my stuff lol) and looked her number up on facebook. When I finally rang her, two and a half hours after I arrived, they'd given up on the airport and had just arrived at the train station which I'd left half an hour before. Sigh! It was so hot and I was exhausted but these things happen and it was really good to see her again. And I got to see a bit of Bologna, as she lives about 30 mins drive away.

We did return to Bologna this morning, by train this time, to have a proper look around. It is so pretty! All these arches everywhere, and it's pretty empty. In august everybody goes to the beach I think, and September is the main shopping month. I can understand why. You sweat just standing still.
So we walked around for about three hours I think, we went into the main cathedral and as Giulia and I were both wearing sleeveless tops we had to put this stupid coatlike but very light gauze thing over our shoulders. I am not used to dress codes in churches, I felt very disgruntled, because despite being made of gauze they were uncomfortably hot.

And today for lunch we had Tortellini! Which originated in this area. It was sooo nice...Italian pasta in Italy. We'll eat pizza at some point too!

So that's me. Tomorrow we're off to Rome for a couple of days, then two nights in Naples, then I'm going back to Spain. I can't wait to get a flat and get my own room and not be travelling, but I'm not enjoying the heat! I do have a friend in Spain with a pool though. :)
Ciao!!