As is usual. I write these posts up a bit late. I will try to remember what I did during the week of the Norderney excursion and the following long weekend in Italy. At the moment, I do remember a few things about my very first day in Norderney and about the trip to the island. I did sleep pretty heavily for most of the ingoing train traveling. The ferry ride from Norddeich Mole was a nice little windy experience. Every time I stuck my head out the side of the ferry I had to hold onto my glasses. There’s no doubt the winds were strong enough to blow them clean off my face. The sound of the violent winds rushing against my ears was pretty deafening too. I haven’t reviewed my photos yet to weed out the mediocre ones, but I hope most of them are good enough to dump onto Facebook later. The evening of the first day ended in a very nice and calming sunset tai chi lesson with the tai chi master Dr. Wasser. The second day was Badehaus day. I never thought I’d have to strip down and be surrounded by so many naked people at one time, but it finally happened. The lecture and the tour that we received were pretty interesting. For some reason, I thought that the waters of the badehaus were initially fresh and then became artificially salted, but the water is in fact brought in form the surrounding sea. I was expecting for my eczema to magically disappear, or at least become less inflamed, with the help of the Thalasso water because of what our lecturer said. But alas, the giant glitch of eczema on my neck became even more angry; it was probably because the skin might’ve been a bit broken. Scratching your eczema-ridden skin is never a good idea, but I tend to do it anyways. wish I could’ve spent all day floating in the giant salt pool, but all the other activities needed to be tried, and I also might have turned into a salted raisin human. Despite being naked and covered in brownish-black mud, I really wish I could’ve experienced the Schlick spa again. I felt like I was 5 again, covering myself in mud and feeling a little silly. Later that day I found some dark brown clay on the beach that I strongly feel could be turned onto Schlick. Then came the mud flats. I do not, for any reason at all, at any point in time, no matter how much you are tempted, for any reason ever recommend pretending to skate on the mud flats. Your feet will be sliced up and diced up by the sneaky little shells hidden just below the mud’s surface. In all honesty, the mud flats was fun and entertaining for the first 30 minutes and then miserable did the next 1 1/2 hours. There’s no doubt exploring the mud flats would have been an absolutely wonderful and entertaining experience if the weather was a lot more pleasant. But of course, we can’t control the weather. On the day of the mud flats, that would have been very convenient. I do somewhat regret not participating in any of the sunrise training sessions., but sleep is such a wonderful thing. The very last day of the Norderney trip was full of souvenir shopping and downtown exploration before heading back to Bonn to prepare for the weekend trips to Rome and Florence.
1st things 1st: Florence >>>> Rome
Our group of friends arrived in Rome at around 6 pm. We didn’t do much that evening other than find our vacation stays and eat at the quaint little restaurant Tavernacolo on Via Aurelia Street. It was one of the few restaurants open in the area of my AirBnB, and thank God it was. It was a small restaurant with a book shelf spanning the bottom of the register counter. The food was absolutely deliiiissshhhhuusss and a liter of even more delicious white wine was only 10 euros. On Saturday the group toured the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and St. Peter’s Basilica. Saturday morning and afternoon were dangerously hot. I highly recommend that one avoids wearing a jumpsuit no matter how light and airy it may be. It will stick to every inch of you and cause you to take eons in the restroom. Trying to remain stylish and put-together that day, and honestly the whole weekend, was VERY difficult. St. Peter’s Basilica was the most breathtaking excursion of that Saturday. The ornate decoration of the basilica was astounding. I knew that the Catholic Church was rich, but man, they are RICH rich-incredibly wealthy, and they show it. Maria and I attended a very short mass in one of the side rooms. I’m not sure why, but I quickly became emotional. On Sunday Maria and I took a day trip to Florence, departing at 6:15 am. Waking up at 4 am was absolutely worth the experience. That day, we did not have much of a plan. We saw Michelangelo’s David statue in its permanent home of the Academy Gallery. We visited the small but fascinating Da Vinci museum, which featured all (I believe) of his ingenious contraptions and mechanical improvements. We walked through many Piazzas and also through the Ponte Vecchio bridge, which is now home to luxury jewelry shops. The weather in Florence was substantially better than the weather in Rome; I hardly broke a sweat. Florence is very rich in museum options and numerous basilicas and other landmarks. I definitely will be back in Florence one day. On Monday, our last day in Italy, the group only had time for a very rushed visit to the Vatican Museum. It took us an hour to reach and see the Sistine Chapel. We saw nothing else, but had a nice little breakfast across the street where Maria gave the waiter her US number for a free croissant. He has yet to call, and is probably just confused by the odd area code. Rome and Florence were rushed jobs. It’s too bad one can’t explore all Europe in a month.
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