After a long year of grad school and an exhausting 5 weeks in circus school, I was more than ready for vacation. Luckily my good friend Emily Rossi was willing to accompany me on some exciting travels. More than that, she's a real business-person-adult and got us a discount on a hotel. A REAL HOTEL.
And that hotel had the most amazing breakfast.
Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. In addition to fruit, delicious bread, several kinds of delicious cheese, smoked salmon sausages, pastries, and mimosas, they had bacon. REAL BACON. I was so excited I had to start the post with that, even though it actually came after the next to photos (tricky me!)
We arrived in Genova in the evening, checked into our hotel, then wandered the streets getting a feel for the city and looking for dinner. It was strikingly deserted. Apparently Sunday nights aren't to hopping there. After staying close on several dark and empty streets, both large and small, we finally stumbled on a perfect, truly-Italian, neighborhood restaurant, and ate in peace and company. Then we ventured back out into deserted alleys and found our way to the port (which is very much like many American port areas - think Baltimore, but more Italian).
The port area was lovely and filled with large pieces of odd art. Like this tunnel.
Surprisingly, the sketchy, empty-street portion of our evening was finished well before this sketchy picture was taken.
Things got creepier/more awesome when we found THIS SHIP:
Then next morning, after the aforementioned amazing breakfast, we checked out what the hotel had to offer. Of course the roof provided lovely views of the city.
But clearly the most important feature of this hotel was the place that trained us for our inevitable return to the pirate ship we'd found the previous evening: PIRATE SHIP PLAYGROUND:
No seriously, it was really cool.
Emily tried to pull the ship.
It didn't turn out too well for her
After we felt sufficiently pirate-trained, we took to the streets again, finding them much more lively than before.
I don't know what these buildings are, but they're pretty.
Not half as awesome as the TIRE AND TRASH DINOSAUR
Right?!
Then we checked out Christopher Columbus's house. Because that's what you do in Genova, apparently.
However, rather than paying the 12 euro to tour the inside, we opted to pay the 5 euro it cost to climb around on the PIRATE SHIP!
You would have too. I mean seriously, there were a whole clan of guys like this dude on the outside...
and gigantic anchors inside!
And of course lots of ropes, masts, cannons, and all that. I started playing with camera settings
I like the way these two turned out :)
There were some really cool details all around the ship. I wish I knew more about the history of it. But I was more interested in playing and seeing all the awesome things.
and Emily...um...had a good time.
