VI | Thunderpants

Monaco - 29/9/22

Monte Carlo, Monaco. Literally only a 30 minute train ride and you’re in a different country. I still can’t get over how weird but awesome that is. I packed up from Nice quite early with a decent hangover and little sleep in me. My bus to Italy wasn’t until 6:30pm at night, so I had a bit of time to explore. My cousin Karen told me that Monaco is worth exploring if I was ever near it and Calvin went there yesterday and said it was cool. So I grabbed all my luggage and took a packed out train to Monaco. 

Beautiful place, it’s definitely for the rich Jesus Christ. Everyone here were dressed in sharp formal wear just about. I looked like a muppet walking around with my rucksack while wearing my skins and rugby shorts. The French in general have very good style, I’ve noticed that. Made me slightly insecure with all my wrinkled and limited “going-out” clothes on me while everyone in the bloody country wore expensive labels. As I was walking about, I went to go have a look around the wharf at all the flash boats. I was suddenly pulled up by a copper or a security guard of some sort. He asked if I had a ticket, bloody ticket for what I thought? I said “look mate, I must have taken a wrong turn, I’ll turn around.” But he kept asking me stuff, patting me and my luggage around and wouldn’t let me go. Finally someone talked to him and said that I probably took a wrong turn, where he finally backed off. I assume it was some sort of VIP area for some boat parties that I accidentally walked in on. He must have thought what the fuck is this idiot doing coming in with all these bags, dressed like that. It wasn’t obvious though, everyone dressed the fucking same throughout the city and nothing to me screamed that I was about to enter a private area. 

Monaco is just gorgeous. The district I visited - Monte Carlo has stunning views. The high mountains in the distance, the endless view of ocean, the houses on the hills, the ancient buildings, all these massive ships and boats!  This place is probably the most visually pleasing place I’ve been to so far. I still can’t get over how unreal the sights are. 

I walked around for a few hours before I made my way to the airport in Nice to catch my bus to Genova.

Genova - 29/9/22

I got here late at about 10:30pm via FlixBus departing from Nice Airport. Some of the views on the bus ride between France and Italy were pretty crazy as the sun was setting. Beautiful mountains amongst the cities, it’s more of the same but different, you know? I also met this Canadian / Vietnamese girl called Luknam on the bus too. She definitely had more of an idea of what she was doing in Genova than I did, she had a whole list she had shown me that she planned on doing. I personally didn’t even know Genova existed until two days ago! Luknam asked if I wanted to come with her to see some stuff, I kind of just said we’ll see. I appreciated the offer but I wasn’t really that interested in much stuff to see in Genova based off of my light research of it. I only wanted to come here to break the trip up between places like Florence and Venice and I wanted to stick with that plan as I knew my time in Europe was running out. 

Luckily when I arrived at the bus station my hostel called Ostello Bello was only a 5 minute walk. I got kind of weird vibes around here this late at night, I just wanted to get to the hostel and go to sleep. 

30/9/22

I’ve always dreamed of coming to Italy, but Genova personally isn’t my cup of tea. There’s some nice things to look at sure, but the general feeling of the city just doesn’t feel that good with me. Actually, I won’t hesitate - I think it’s quite a dirty shit hole. Not Marseille level of shit hole, though Marseille had more to look at. Genova has some nice things, but overall I really think it’s a shit hole which is a shame. Didn’t help that the weather was bad too I suppose. You get the odd weirdo, and classic random try and sell you something. I had this Kenyan bloke come up to me and he gave me all these supposed “good luck” items from Kenya. Of course at first he said they were free but then continued to ask for more money when I already gave him 2€. I got a tiny owl and this Rasta coloured bead bracelet. Second time I’ve been too nice with these people trying to sell me shit. But yes, I’m not a fan of this place. It’s dirty, full of tagging everywhere and not much to see in my eyes. I don’t know, maybe I’m not looking hard enough but I don’t see the attraction towards this place!

My hostel is nice, you get free breakfasts and coffees which I just went hard at after eating little amounts recently. I got on with some of the roomies too. This couple from North Hampton and York of England were good to talk to. I seem to meet a lot of poms, but blimey sometimes I may as well talk to someone who doesn’t speak English such as in this case. I could hardly understand this blokes accent where his words came out very quickly to me, I felt like a twat always asking a fluent English speaker to repeat himself so often. That bastard must have some sort of irritable bowel syndrome or no shame too. Because boy, did he not stop farting throughout the room constantly. I shit you not, he came in at 2am only a few hours after I first arrived to Genova, and let the fattest, longest, rip snorter of a blast out for like 10 seconds straight. It woke me up! I was trying not to be both disgusted and laugh my ass off as I pretend to still be asleep. I feel bad talking about him like this in case he actually has a problem, but let’s just pretend he just has no shame which is hopefully the case.

This hostel has very good social areas and bars for people to connect with but there was actually hardly any interactions of people meeting each other from what I saw. I had a beer down in the bar and there was bugger all people on a Friday night which was surprising. During the day is quite similar too. Over this trip I’ve noticed how much more comfortable I am with trying to get to know people in my hostel rooms. Believe it or not, I’m usually the one introducing myself and asking all the questions about them and usually carrying the conversation well. Most people who know me will know how reserved and shy I am, so that may come as a shock. I still don’t have the Kahunas to rock up to a random table of a of people in a social area though, need a bit of Dutch courage for that!

I’m beginning to feel a bit burned out with how I’m doing this solo travelling thing now. It sounds soft of me to say as it’s only been 8 days by this point - not really that long at all. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved this experience but the way I’m doing it is getting to me. I’m eating little and skipping meals just so I don’t need to spend much money. The tight ass in me is really proving to be strong over here, but for good reason. I’m not scraping for cents or anything but I don’t want to potentially end up that way and put pressure on myself for when I look at settling in England. I feel gross as I’m avoiding washing my clothes as long as I can because… well I just can’t be bothered and the machines are always full in hostels which is frustrating while you’re out exploring most of the time too! My sleep is so out of whack between having fun with people I meet and being disrupted by loud room-mates with noisy asses. I do know for a fact that my diet and lack of sleep is really taking it’s toll more than anything though. I just feel so drained and not thinking straight half the time.  

With the amount of money I have set towards travelling I can’t actually go to many of the places that I actually want to go to. I spent a lot of my travel money on essentials (and not so essential things) and public transport to get around in England for four months while I was waiting for my passports, even though I never had to pay for accommodation. I know I could push it much further and probably get a couple more weeks of travelling out of this, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. After sitting in my hostel thinking heavily about this, I ended up booking a flight to London for Sunday where I’ll probably stay at cousin Karen’s and rest for a bit before hopefully going to Scotland. This is just a loose and rough thought in my head for now, but I plan on finding a work-away and spend a couple of weeks up there. I enjoy doing the work-away thing, and if it’s out of the city too then even better. I do find staying in cities draining, that’s becoming apparent to me already. I just want ocean and mountains without all the people. I often just want to go to butt-fuck nowhere and enjoy nature. Hopefully I find a paid position too, that is what I’d find ideal right now. I think I’d struggle to find something like that now that summer is over, but I will have a look. If not, then it’s time to find a car, a job and somewhere to live in Devon which is also exciting!

I’ve booked buses from Genova to Florence and back for tomorrow which I’m super excited about. I’ve wanted to go there even since I played Assassins Creed 2 on Xbox 360 over 12 years ago where Florence is featured a lot in it. It looks awesome and I can’t wait. I’ve done a fair bit of walking around and honestly I’m still not over the moon about Genova. The cathedral was very nice, but still I don’t get what the hype about Genova was on the internet when I looked it up. It repetitively said that the city is underrated and it should be a tourist must - I personally don’t think anything of it. It’s more of a bloody tourist miss. As I said in the past, I’m not going to enjoy everywhere I go though. 

Florence - 1/10/22

I’ve dreamt of coming to this place for a long time. It was one of the only places I was certain that I would enjoy on the journey so far, and that thought proved correct. I grabbed a bus from Genova to Florence at about 8:30am and arrived in Florence at 11:30am. My next bus back to Genova wasn’t until 5pm, plenty of time to do what I needed to do. 

Once I arrived at the bus station in Florence, I needed grab a tram to get in to where was actually the city Florence in Santa Maria Novella. Didn’t realise that I’d arrive 30 minutes away from where I actually wanted to be, but hey - don’t think I’ve been on a tram before!

My great-grandfather Bill Baker on my Kiwi side served in the war and got to visit some places in Italy while he was out those ways. He took a tonne of pictures and several included ones in Florence. My old man had a hold of them on his computer and sent them to me some years back. I always wanted to go to places like Florence even before then, but this fuelled my desire to far more. Dad always said he wanted to follow Great-Grandad’s footsteps of where these pictures were taken and ever since I’ve had these pictures too, I decided so do I. My dumb ass unfortunately left all the pictures on my laptop back in England, luckily I remembered that I typed down all of the destinations he went to on my phone a while back! I’m only able to try and match the ones he took in Florence for now, I think I got all of them but one! I know that one day I’ll get the rest across Italy.

The beautiful architecture, the bell towers, cathedrals, monuments, the churches. There’s so much history here and I got to stand and lay my eyes on so much of it. There were a tonne of tourists on the streets, probably more so than I’ve seen recently which isn’t surprising I guess. There were lots of horses towing carriages for people to take a ride on. I loved the look of it but I wasn’t interested in paying €50 for half an hour. I needed that time to capture photos from my list! I got held up by African blokes trying to give me good lucks charms for money on two separate occasions. Same as the one from Genova I mentioned before. Except I’m getting better at saying no! Both having the exact same story and script of that I would be paying for their sons to live. I sound heartless but I can’t help the entire world. I was getting annoyed with how they kept eying me and not letting me get on with my day. The second one was pissed off and starting aggressively saying something in African when I kept telling him no. I can only imagine it was something very nice and full of good luck I’m sure. I seem to be racking up quite the resume in attempting to fend off these sorts of people. They must just think I look like such a lovely and approachable bloke! They don’t target me because I obviously look like a foreign solo tourist I’m sure… 

I never really know what to say in these entries when describing them other than “wow that was cool!” Or “yeah was ok” or “nah, don’t recommend that shit hole.” I usually leave it to the pictures and videos I post to do the talking. I really did enjoy Florence though, I’m glad I finally got to come here and squeeze in a quick trip before leaving Europe. I highly recommend it to anyone who’s in to their ancient architecture and what not. I definitely prefer this to Genova that’s for sure!

Genova - 2/10/22

My last night in Genova was cool! Me and my new room mates all got along and talked and laughed all night. This room has definitely been the most friendliest and well-rounded one I’ve been in yet, sad that it was my last night but no worries! There was Brent from Canada, who was biking across Europe. Me and him in particular got on very well, he’s a very chatty guy and had a lot interesting things to say about his travels on the bike. Then there was Jolie from the Netherlands who was real chill and nice. Jolie arrived the same time as me I think, and we both had a laugh about that farting bloke who previously roomed with us. These two German girls - Karina and Eliah who were travelling together were a good laugh too. It was just good energy, I wish we all could have got on the beers together or something. I now write this as I’m standing in line at the Genova airport awaiting for my flight to London Stansted. It’s been a good trip, I’ve seen and done a lot in just 10 days. I would love to do more of Europe but that will have to be another day.