No explanations; no one cares.

So, I'm in a 4-star hotel in Napoli, Italy... it's been two weeks since I last updated, so I figure that I really should write something. The week before I left Pb was pretty hectic, to say the least. However, I did have some fun. The last day of the German class, our teachers hosted a little party for us, with board games, coffee, and lots of cake and biscuits, which was really very sweet. I even got a hug from Frau Bartsch! So that was a good, fun afternoon. Most of our class wasn't there; everyone was already flown home or just not showing up, seeing as how we already had our grades for the level. (I got 90.1% for the record, so if I bother doing some work in the next level, I could get DSH-3, which is a level higher than I would need to study in a German uni. However, I have no intention whatsoever to study in their nightmare of a university system, so really, I could just sit back and do very little if I were so inclined.)

On the 17th, I headed up to Muenster with my suitcase... because the train lines had been closed several times in the previous days, owing to heavy snow and freezing weather. I was a bit concerned about being able to get to Rheine for my IC to Amsterdam, but thankfully Matt correctly interpreted the panic in my message, and I got an SMS from Tash saying that I could stay there overnight. In Muenster, I waited 50 mins for the bus to their house, but it never came... three buses should have come in that time, so I managed to catch another line half way there and walk the rest, which was only about 20 mins I think. So it wasn't too painful; pulling a suitcase through the snow was significantly warmer than freezing my toes off whilst waiting at a bus stop. I was pleased to finally get there! Anyway, those guys are the best hosts ever, so I even got fed dinner and delicious beer. Being in good company definitely alleviated some of my stress.

The next morning I set out on the first bus (which was actually running, thank jebus) and even had a conversation with the bus driver! It was a bit awkward on my end. Oh well. The bus ran a little late, but that was okay, because the train I was going to catch to Rheine ran even later. I'd left plenty of time to allow for this, however, and relaxed in the coffee shop with a Tash-baked lemon cupcake and a cup of coffee while I waited for my train. Said train also ran late, but at least it was warm, and I got to Amsterdam at about 2pm. I found myself at Amsterdam Zuid station, with directions to get on a tram to a certain stop, etc... I started by finding the tram line, then managing to get on the right tram, and even getting off at the right stop... and yet somehow, I never worked out where to buy a ticket. Oh well, I have no aversion to free travel.

I made my way to the hotel (small but okay; the roasted hazelnuts and walnut halves at breakfast definitely raised my opinion of the place!) and got a map of the town. Went for a rather long wander to find a branch of Maoz felafel that I vaguely remembered from being there in 2006. And yes, thankyou, I did find it. I rule. So, stuffed with delicious felafel, I headed back to the hotel. Jayne arrived, only four or five hours late in the end, and we went out for dinner.

In Amsterdam, we did the usual; the Heineken Experience (brewery tour; good fun, really), the markets, strolled passed the floating Bloemenmarkt, visited Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Musuem, the open part of the Rijksmuseum, etc... I'd already seen a lot of it, but it was still good. The second night, we ate at a highly recommended Chinese restaurant (which was delicious; I ate enough for three people, seriously! It's the only time on this holiday where I've been satisfied with my vegetable intake) and on the third night, we ate at The Supper Club. Basically, it was a hipster bar with 'beds' and low set tables sitting on them, and we got a 5-course meal for 65 Euros. Jayne was paying, because obviously I don't have that sort of cash to spend on dinner! They were perfectly happy to make me something vegan, and they did a good job; the first course was sushi rolls that had been dipped in tempura batter and deep-fried. Yum! They were on a salad of mixed lettuce and seaweed. Loved it. Mushroom soup for second course, a selection of grilled vegetables (including half a fennel that I just couldn't eat, because I'm not huge on fennel) for third, fourth (which I was too full to do any justice to) was stacks of beets and sweet potato with lentils and sauce inbetween... the lentils were a bit undercooked, but it was still fine. Dessert was fruit salad for me; not fresh, definitely on its last legs. Jayne also got chocolate mousse and creme brulee, so she was perfectly happy with hers!

During the last few courses the place started to fill up, because it's something of a club, too. The music was definitely too loud for us to be eating dinner in. I thought the crowd there was pretty young, but Jayne didn't seem to agree. Anyway, part of the deal is that there's some sort of theatrical art piece during the dinner... and, accordingly, at some point a woman dressed in white lace decided to do some interpretative dance to creepy music. Then she got up on the bar, picked an apple that was suspended from the ceiling, and began to eat it with increasing desperation until the apple was a mess and all of a sudden there was fake blood everywhere. (Jayne and I discussed it later, and decided it was in her sleeve, because we saw the apple being strung up earlier in the evening and it was perfectly intact, plus she was chewing her sleeve a bit eating the apple.) So this woman, dripping with blood, starts writhing and dying on the floor, after grabbing at a few people first. It was pretty entertaining, but not the sort of 'performance' I'd see on a regular occasion; it all seemed a bit cliche and cheap. Anyway, it was a good evening, and the food was mostly pretty good.

Our trip from Amsterdam to Paris on a Thalyss train was a little... hm. Interesting. Or rather, insanely boring, because we were sitting on the train for nearly an hour in Amsterdam Centraal with "mechanical difficulties", reading magazines and listening to to the train's engine running, then stop running, then finally start running again, and then stop running again... you get the picture. They told us to get on the next train (scheduled an hour after hours) and we managed to get seats for about half the journey, and had to stand in the aisle for the rest of it. That train was about an hour late because of snowy tracks and waiting for a section of rail to get repaired. So we finally got into Paris, found our hotel (which was really nice) and went for dinner at the Bistro across the street (as recommended by the receptionist). I had an artichoke in vinaigrette and a salad (literally just lettuce). At least the waiter was good-looking, to distract me from the fact that I was filling up on bread for dinner. Jayne didn't seem to catch on the entire time (or deliberately ignored) how Megan-unfriendly French restaurants are. The last day, we stumbled across this awesome looking place that had couscous and vegetable tagine and other potentially flavourful food, and she refused to go there. I ended up eating tomato pasta. Again. Ugh. I'm so sick of bread right now. All I want are some vegetables... whimper...

Anyway, in Paris we had a bike tour, which was fun, and not too strenuous. We had a wine tasting in a cellar that was a few hundred years old. I didn't like any of the wines, but I learned a little about how to look for viscosity and acid before I drink them. That was cool. The next day we had a desserts class that I'd organised, which ended up being my Christmas present for Jayne. (The bike-friendly poncho was more of a joke than anything. She gave me lunch at Joel Robuchon, plus a cute scarf with hearts on it.) We ate terrible pizza at the nearest place, because we hadn't had lunch before going to the class. Oh well, it was cheap. We learned about making lemon meringue pie, madelines, and choux pastry (cream puffs!) and everything involved about a thousand eggs. Was fun to watch, and to participate with piping, zesting, mixing, etc. I also got to use a blow torch to caramelise a creme brulee. That ruled.

Anyway, that night, we went to Mon Vieil Ami, which was a restaurant I'd found online whilst searching for candidates for our Christmas lunch. It was recommended by David Lebowitz, too, so I figured it should be good. And it was! We hurried there after the class, and the wait staff were lovely, not to mention also good-looking. Must be a theme in better Parisian restaurants. Anyway, they were more than friendly about making me some vegan eats. For entree, I had a generously sized beet salad, which was incredibly delicious. It had a nice scattering of greens, some spicy radish sprouts, a delicious oil and vinegar mix (so good I mopped it up with bread) and both cooked red beets as well as paper-thin (mandoline-sliced) pieces of coloured beets. (Well, yellow beets and chioggia, which are pink and white in concentric circles. I grew them once, but was always more impressed with red. Red have the best flavour, followed closely by yellow.) For mains, they gave me a claypot with some meltingly tender leeks, button and oyster mushrooms, sultanas and orange, sauteed in some kind of alcohol; I'm guessing Cointreau. It was aweeesome. Jayne said her main was good, but wasn't impressed overall. We have such different ideas about food.

On Christmas Eve, we went to the Louvre, which was cool. We went our own separate ways, which was much less stressful. We met again for lunch, in the same food court as where we'd eaten during the bike tour; this time I had 'Mediterranean' mixed salads as opposed to the 'Moroccan' mixed salad that I'd had earlier. Anyway, the hommus was delicious, and it was nice to get some vegetables. After that, we went to Galeries La Fayette, which was ok... the highlight was the gourmet food section, where I bought some tropical fruits for Christmas day, plus some Chestnut bread, some hommus, and some 'spicy' green olives. Jayne bought Cheese, a baguette, and some more macarons. She bought more macarons in Paris than I've ever seen in my lifetime, but she didn't like most of the flavours. I guess that's what happens when you don't like chocolate or coffee flavour. Weird. I did buy some dark chocolate from a little shop, too, and discovered, much to my dismay, that I don't really like crystallised ginger. I should love it, theoretically, because I quite like sweets and I fucking love ginger. But no, it just didn't do anything for me. I'm a little heartbroken. However, I had candied orange slices dipped in dark chocolate in the same box, which are one of my favourite chocolate treats ever, so it all balanced out in the end. Christmas eve was when we ate the terrible pasta, by the way. All I wanted was couscous... sigh.

Anyway, on to Christmas. We chatted to the parents on Skype briefly, but the connection was pretty bad and Mum was making dinner, so I didn't really get to talk to her. Jayne cut in on everything, so I didn't really get to talk. Oh well, next time. She and I just don't have overly compatible personalities, I've decided; I don't care about being rich or pushy. She's so hell bent on having her own way on everything, and I'm generally pretty relaxed, so I'll give in just because I can't be fucked fighting. I think I'm just lazy, but also, I'm smart enough to see when fighting has absolutely no benefit to anyone. She just doesn't let up. I was talking about food systems and she was trying to accuse me of saying that Asia should just eat rice. Um, hi, rice doesn't grow in all of Asia, for a start. I was talking about crop productivity, and citing some statistics from a book I'm currently reading, and she just wouldn't have a bar of it. I thought about showing her the passages, but I decided against it, because I was sick of arguing about something that she clearly doesn't know shit about. Yes, you guessed right; my holiday with my sister isn't nearly as good as I'd hoped. I'm wishing I was in Adelaide right now, which is my usual reaction to discomfort.

So, to quit being a sook, and get back to Paris: we went to lunch at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon on Christmas day for lunch. I enquired about the vegetarian options; they were only willing to make two vegan. One dish was an entree (tomato pasta) and the other was a tapas-sized plate (vege stack). So I filled up on bread again, in the most expensive restaurant I've ever eaten in. It was depressing, actually. Jayne ate fois gras and other expensive things. She had three more plates after the first two, actually, so I just waited until dessert. Then I got some sorbet (the basil was good) and an espresso, which was also good. But, really, two options that can be potentially vegan, and a complete unwillingness to talk to a chef to come up with something else? Pretty abysmal. Much better was Christmas dinner, which was the food from La Fayette. The hommus was amazing. The olives weren't spicy, much to my dismay. But they were okay. The fruit wasn't too bad, either. I found Twinings Lady Grey in Amsterdam and bought some, so I had a cup of that after dinner, with some dark chocolate, courtesy of the hotel. It was nice. Talk about simple pleasures, hey?

The next morning, I hung out at the hotel, packing and catching up on internet, while Jayne went for a walk. About 11:30am we headed out to Orly Airport, getting there an hour later. We had to wait to check in for our flight, because it was a 15:15 flight and apparently with Easyjet the check-in opens two hours before the flight. So we waited around and dropped off our bags, then looked for lunch... I found absolutely nothing, and Jayne ate a quiche lorraine and a square of pizza. Then we went through the security checkpoint to get us through to the gates, and, hooray! I found a place with some vegan options; I had a carrot salad and a warm rice and vege-mix type thing. Expensive, but at least I was fed. And hey, it was considerably cheaper (and better) than some of the food I ate in Paris...

Our flight was delayed by two hours, so we didn't get in to Naples until about 7pm. Caught the shuttle bus to the main station, then a taxi to the hotel. (10 Euro; probably should have been about 5, but hey, whatever. We got here, which is the important part; every time I'm in Napoli traffic I feel like I'm going to be in a car crash... not joking, that's just how they drive.) Went to a trattoria for dinner; I ordered a salad, some grilled vegetables, and an entree-sized pasta. I was hungry, and craving vegetables. Unfortunately, the vegetable dishes were tiny, and the pasta came out with parmesan (despite the "no cheese!" pleas) so I filled up on bread again. At least it was bread with olive oil and balsamic this time.

I haven't been enjoying Napoli. I'm only here because Jayne insisted that Italy be on the itinerary, so I organised it. I wanted France, she wanted Italy. But I have no enthusiasm for anything. Yesterday was a modern art museum and an archaeology museum, and it was just an ordeal. We went to the castle in the evening, and that was ok. Ate a square of pizza for lunch; just tomato with heaps of garlic, and no cheese, freshly microwaved from a street vendor. Probably the best pizza I've eaten here. Not that the pizza isn't good, but it's just so 'same'. This square had heaps of rich tomato topping, and wasn't as bland as the others.

For dinner, Jayne had circled a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet, and we walked there. On the way, we passed a pizza place not yet open, with a lineup out the front. We found the restaurant she'd circled, and I read the menu, and was really happy with my options; the pizzas sounded good and there was an amazing salad that I wanted. Of course, Jayne wasn't happy, and made us go back to the place with the lineup, so that she, too, could line up. Ugh. It was rated #3 of all Napoli restaurants on Trip Advisor, she informed me today. That doesn't excuse the plastic cups and drinks option; I asked for an Italian beer, a Peroni or something, I don't remember... and was told the only had one beer. So I shrugged my acquiescence and was brought a can of fucking Pauliner... I was a bit disappointed to get a tinny of German beer, as you can well imagine. Anyway, the pizza was nice, but nothing special. Their veg options tended to just have one vegetable; I ordered the artichoke pizza, and asked for mushrooms too, but without cheese. The mushrooms were a bit slimy, actually. Anyway, the moral of the story is that I wasn't happy to be there. I missed out on the salad from the other place because we didn't eat dinner tonight.

Today: Mt Vesuvius is currently off-limits to tourists after a freak storm a few days ago, so today we went on a tour to Pompeii. It was quite interesting, and the guide was pretty amusing, especially when he was talking about brothels and phallic imagery. Yep, there were carved stone dicks pointing to buildings, supposedly to bring the occupants prosperity and fertility. Hell, if that's all it takes to get rich, I've got a few friends who would be more than willing to point their dicks at my wallet for a while. I'd even shout them a drink for it. Anyway, as I was saying, the guide was good, and quite knowledgeable, even mentioning my old friend Emperor Constantine... Matt, if you read this, then yes, I wrote an essay about that guy for your Imperialism topic. And I think the guide was a bit too quick to dismiss my comment about the Roman Empire overextending itself, saying that it was just one of many reasons for the fall of Rome... yeah, it was the cause of many of those reasons. Ahem. Anyway, there's my uneducated 2c worth. I didn't learn anything about the explosion, sadly, so I'll Wikipedia that later. I only know that it lasted 3 days and that people all died of asphyxiation. Lovely.

So, after that, we got dropped off near the other castle we were going to visit. We found a pizzeria, finally, where they put cheese on my pizza and I had to explain to the waitress that no, I didn't mean just one sort of cheese on my pizza, rather, none at all. It was all a bit painful. I ate too much, too fast, and then followed Jayne around the castle. Telling her to slow down does nothing; I catch up at signs because I'm a much faster reader than she is. But I don't enjoy walking for hours without sitting down; when I travel alone, I wake early, see things for a few hours, then sit down for a while, eat lunch, and sightsee some more. Then I sit down and relax and have a tea or coffee and read a book for an hour. Then I get up and do some more. Jayne doesn't seem to adjust to that sort of pace. I've been hobbling a little on sore feet lately, and my stuffed knee (I slipped on ice in Amsterdam, twice on the same night). She's been looking down at me for taking the lift to the room on the third floor, and wanting to take the Paris metro. Oh well. The knee is nearly better; the bruise is pretty much gone, but it's still a bit stiff. Meh.

Anyway, we went around the castle; I trailed a few minutes after her, because she didn't slow down. On the way back to the hotel, I finally found a pharmacy, and bought a pack of bandaids for my blistered heels; I wore my running sneakers, and they were beginning to rub. Will be back to my snow boots tomorrow, irrespective of how warm they are. (It's too warm to wear them here, really. It'll be better and colder in Florence, and in every city from then on.) Anyway, didn't have dinner; went to the bar here for our 'welcome drink'; the bartender said the drink had to be sparkling wine, but somehow it ended up with peach in it. Gross. He never said it had to be a welcome 'cocktail' instead of something drinkable. Anyway, we were served some peanuts and green olives, and I had an unpleasant experience with a really seedy caperberry. I'll be steering clear in future, as cute as they are. Came back here and wrote this. Now am talking to Amy on Skype, which is good, because I'm actually feeling kinda lonely. Should get some sleep, though... train to Florence in the morning.