Day 1 - Looking For Solace

Hey gang!
OK, now that I've finished salivating over all the epic new music coming out in the very near future, I guess I should hit you with the first of twenty (yes, TWENTY) diary entries from my Italy holiday diary. I know you hate it when I do waffly intros, but to give you a bit of premise to this adventure, the main part, as you'll see, is set in the same place we stayed last year, so this wasn't particularly new territory to me. Nevertheless, this let me look at everything in more detail than before, when I was trying to take in everything at once! So yeah, I give you Day 1!

Today our adventure began at about ten thirty, when we loaded our bags into the car and began the drive to Gatwick. Despite, several traffic jams, we arrived in the car park roughly on time and caught the coach to the airport itself. Gatwick seemed to me a lot different to other airports, in that we had to go up two storeys to hand over our luggage. Luckily Mum and Dad had checked in online, so the bag drop and security were both generally painless.
Once through to Departures, we went up a level to get a bite of lunch at Eat. I love Eat; they make the best sandwich combinations - today I had ham and some posh cheese, as well as a brilliantly sticky banana and walnut cake! Fueled up, we gave ourselves five more minutes to look around the shops - I tried to find the latest Heroes magazine, but to no avail. Instead, I topped up my phone credit.
Eventually, we made our way painlessly onto Flight BA2562 as we watched the EasyJet passengers getting messed about - that was me a few weeks ago! After a short wait it was our turn to fly, and we were tearing through the clouds once more. Safely in the air, I tucked into my cut-down lunch pack of two sandwiches (yes!), and began to watch Quantum of Solace! Long-term followers will remember that I breivly gave my first thoughts on the latest Bond movie in the very first post, and I can now safely say that it is not as good as Casino Royale. In QoS there's just too much going on at once: as well as the characters themselves suffering from this, you get the impression that they forgot halfway through what the movie was actually about and went off on some massive tangent to rival even my own. Then they realised "Cripes, guys, the whole premise of the movie was supposed to be Vesper's death" and bolted that extra Russia bit on the endto give her plot at least a little closure. In this way, I think it completely failed as a sequel, and the opening was also quite unfulfilling - too many men in suits and cars that all look the same! To a layperson like myself, the only way to tell Bond a part from the others is because 'the car has no door'! I'd like to have seen the car have more use - that's two he's trashed in five minutes of screen time! Even the Ford KA got more exposure!
Anyway, enough ranting, when I was about halfway through the movie, the plane began its descent and before long we were stepping into the terminal at Bologna airport. Sorting car hire is never simple, and today was no exception, as we had to pay extra money or something; I might have got completely the wrong end of the stick as usual! Either way, we eventually climbed into our Ford C-Max (similar to the S-Max at home), Mum and Dad did some car stuff, and I discovered (just my luck) that my door wouldn't open from the inside! Finally, however, we were on our way, taking in the views and trying to listen to the radio which kept going out of range every five minutes or so!
Typically enough, our hotel was hidden away up the second most obscure country lane ever (stay tuned for the first!), so parking was quite tricky, but somehow we found the hotel and unloaded the cases. Rather than having 'rooms' as such, we had individual flats, which was an interesting change. After settling in and dropping our bags, it was time for dinner! Getting the car out of the car park proved to be quite tricky, as the entrance was very tight and steep, but eventually we were heading down the lane to a quaint restaurant on the corner of two quiet roads. It was dark by now and the canopy was lit up around the edge, lending the whole scene a very relaxed feel.
I managed (somehow) to order some food and drink, and before long we were tucking into the first meal of the holiday! I had seafood pasta to begin with, which came with mussels, tasting of the sea as usual, and a garlic-buttery sauce, which is probably murdering my arteries but at least it tasted good! After this I went for the beef steak, which was quite rare, but full of expensive-tasting juices. This came with a traditional Tuscan sauce - cue a few amusing Tusken Raider impressions around the table - which, presumably, had anchovy as its main ingredient, which I wasn't a huge fan of; it had a strange texture, quite gravelly. There was also plenty of spinach - which was today's specialty - roast potatoes and various other roasted vegetables. Together, the whole combination was quite filling, and for once I was gald not to have any pudding.
The waiter unexpectedly offered me some kind of alcoholic drink (Someone better informed will tell me the correct name) and I accepted out of courtesy. We returned to the hotel and briefly stargazed, hoping to catch glimpses of the meteorites which were due to be visible tonight. Unfortunately we didn't see as much as a single sattelite! A while later, we decided it was definitely time for bed!

So there you go. If you thought that was good, firstly, are you feeling alright? And secondly, join me again TOMORROW, when I explore the legendary (ish) town of San Gimignano. Need I say more?
See you then!

Jack