Will Rickards
Storage Is My Life
Anybody live in italy?
I've be visiting Rimini, Italy end of may and early june.
I've be visiting Rimini, Italy end of may and early june.
Italy
- Thread starter Will Rickards
- Start date
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
There's always Prof Wizard is you feel masochist.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Tell me where to FedEx the bag of Full Height Micropolis hard drives!
Will Rickards
Storage Is My Life
Do we know where he lives in Italy?
sechs
Storage? I am Storage!
Do we care?
Will Rickards
Storage Is My Life
Well, if I have to deliver a bag full of Full Height Micropolis hard drives, I would care. I mean getting them through customs alone will be interesting.
Groltz
My demeaning user rank is
Maybe Merc would like to explain what the bag of hard drives is to be used for.
"Delivery" isn't really what he has in mind, if memory serves.
"Delivery" isn't really what he has in mind, if memory serves.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Well, it's a delivery in much the same sense that US Warplanes "deliver" high explosives to Iraqi villages...
Will Rickards
Storage Is My Life
I leave on thursday night, so if you all don't 'see' me around for a while, don't worry. My sister does have a computer but I'm probably not going to touch it.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
Have a great trip 
Bozo :mrgrn:
Bozo :mrgrn:
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
Live it up! Italy has lots of beautiful things to see.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I did not find out in time to get Will his payloa... I mean delivery.
Will Rickards
Storage Is My Life
So LiamC asked in the F@H thread how I liked my trip. So some info here.
I had previously traveled to New Zealand for business.
That was my first trip outside the US.
The plane trip to italy wasn't nearly as long timewise. We stopped in Frankfurt germany and then onto Bologna. Then a 2-3 hour drive 'home' to Rimini.
I was traveling with my family which of course includes my 3 year old Liam and 10 month old Alex. They behaved well on the plane both going there and coming back so that was a great thing. Actually you have no idea how great that was. Normally Liam has so much energy we have to let him outside just to use some of it so we get some sanity. Having him couped up in a plane for 8+ hours had us very nervous.
We stayed with my sister. She married a real italian and moved there and had a kid, Josh. He just turned 3. Liam will turn 4 in september. So they played together a lot. Part of the purpose of the trip was to help Josh learn english from Liam. After they visited the US last time, his english went up significantly after exposure to Liam.
We rented a car well what they call a minivan, emphasis on mini. It seated 7 but we had at times 9 people in it (My parents came too). When you are used to a Toyota Sienna this was really tiny but all the cars over there are tiny. Sometimes you'll see a full-size car even a hummer and I spotted a general lee but definitely smaller cars and more bikes especially motor bikes. Crazy drivers and circles galore. I was glad I didn't have to drive. What I did like was the rule about trucks on the highway. The trucks could only go certain speeds on the highway and be in the right lane. And the speeds were based on the truck, not the posted highway speed. This was much safer than some crazy semi drivers in the US. We really should adopt this law.
We took daytrips to Venice, San Marino & Florence. Unfortunately getting that many people ready and the 3 hour drive meant we didn't get to stay long in the cities. This was the most disappointing part. Next time I would like to stay in each city at least 2 days. We also didn't make it to Rome (kids got sick), so that was a real downer. But a day trip to Rome would just not do it justice I think. We were very much tourists doing the site seeing and obligatory shopping for useless junk.
We also drove up into the hills around Rimini and ate at some of the places there. One place had the best pasta ever. We had a three course meal and everything was delicious beyond compare. I definitely like the northern italian pasta that has light sauce not heavy like many italian american dishes have. I find myself scrapping off sauce here at home and not liking the sauces to begin with that much. Their pizza wasn't bad, always thin crust and personal pizzas. I tried not to eat it too much as I wanted to try other dishes. We also ate these pita bread things a lot that my parents really liked but I could really pass on. But my wife liked them so she bought one of the pans to make them, basically a completely flat frying pan. It proves useful to make pancakes and such. I don't drink so I can't comment on the wine but we did bring back a bottle. Overall the food was good, with a few places having great food. But there is bad food in italy just like the US.
Some of the views up in the hills were great. I took lots of pictures. Maybe I'll post some to google web albums and share them with you all. I already showed them to family. Florence wasn't as impressive as I'd thought but the churches are big and impressive, same in venice. We took a gondola ride in venice but it is not that romantic as there are gondola traffic jams and the water is not so clean.
We also went to the beaches as Rimini is a beach town on the north east side of Italy under Bologna. The beaches are great. They are owned by the state but given to private companies to run. And each little section of the beach is run by a different company. So you have beach 15 and 16 and so on. They provide lounge chairs and umbrellas, kid toys to play on, bathrooms, lockers, etc all for a yearly membership. They clean the beaches. They are nice. Much easier to go to the beach everyday and that is pretty much what my sister does.
Can't forget the ice cream or gelato from the gelaterias. Some places had GREAT ice cream. We ate it up almost every night. Some not so great. But all better than breyers (blah!). I prefer turkey hill ice cream or wawa sometimes. If you head to the New Jersey shore for vacation you probably want to know how it compares to Springer's ice cream. Hard to say but I liked some of the stuff in Italy better, even the stuff in the mall, and we all love springers.
That is another weird thing, I kind of didn't expect them to have malls and blockbusters and mcdonalds and burger king. But like New Zealand, it is all there in Italy too. You get sucky fries in McDonald's compared to what you get from the restaurants though. They were good too.
All in all it was an interesting and world expanding trip but somewhat disappointing in that we didn't get to see everything we wanted to. We were very glad to be home though. The trip was tough on the family. We enjoy the frills of living in america. Big cars and big food stores and lots of other stuff.
Would I go again, sure... but it isn't high on my list... at least till I can ditch the kids and get a real travel itinerary and stay in a hotels instead of with family.
Incidentally, as soon as we got back we heard about all these people that recently went or are going this year. It was weird. I'm sure it is like the effect you get when you buy a certain car and then notice all of them on the road. But my Boss just got back, my former coworker was there at the same time I was practically in the same cities at the same time (I checked my pictures and he isn't in any). My son's teacher just got back and my neighbor's parents are still there. And that is what I can remember off the top of my head. My parents go about once a year.
The next trip is disneyworld in January. Hopefully the kids will like that better.
I had previously traveled to New Zealand for business.
That was my first trip outside the US.
The plane trip to italy wasn't nearly as long timewise. We stopped in Frankfurt germany and then onto Bologna. Then a 2-3 hour drive 'home' to Rimini.
I was traveling with my family which of course includes my 3 year old Liam and 10 month old Alex. They behaved well on the plane both going there and coming back so that was a great thing. Actually you have no idea how great that was. Normally Liam has so much energy we have to let him outside just to use some of it so we get some sanity. Having him couped up in a plane for 8+ hours had us very nervous.
We stayed with my sister. She married a real italian and moved there and had a kid, Josh. He just turned 3. Liam will turn 4 in september. So they played together a lot. Part of the purpose of the trip was to help Josh learn english from Liam. After they visited the US last time, his english went up significantly after exposure to Liam.
We rented a car well what they call a minivan, emphasis on mini. It seated 7 but we had at times 9 people in it (My parents came too). When you are used to a Toyota Sienna this was really tiny but all the cars over there are tiny. Sometimes you'll see a full-size car even a hummer and I spotted a general lee but definitely smaller cars and more bikes especially motor bikes. Crazy drivers and circles galore. I was glad I didn't have to drive. What I did like was the rule about trucks on the highway. The trucks could only go certain speeds on the highway and be in the right lane. And the speeds were based on the truck, not the posted highway speed. This was much safer than some crazy semi drivers in the US. We really should adopt this law.
We took daytrips to Venice, San Marino & Florence. Unfortunately getting that many people ready and the 3 hour drive meant we didn't get to stay long in the cities. This was the most disappointing part. Next time I would like to stay in each city at least 2 days. We also didn't make it to Rome (kids got sick), so that was a real downer. But a day trip to Rome would just not do it justice I think. We were very much tourists doing the site seeing and obligatory shopping for useless junk.
We also drove up into the hills around Rimini and ate at some of the places there. One place had the best pasta ever. We had a three course meal and everything was delicious beyond compare. I definitely like the northern italian pasta that has light sauce not heavy like many italian american dishes have. I find myself scrapping off sauce here at home and not liking the sauces to begin with that much. Their pizza wasn't bad, always thin crust and personal pizzas. I tried not to eat it too much as I wanted to try other dishes. We also ate these pita bread things a lot that my parents really liked but I could really pass on. But my wife liked them so she bought one of the pans to make them, basically a completely flat frying pan. It proves useful to make pancakes and such. I don't drink so I can't comment on the wine but we did bring back a bottle. Overall the food was good, with a few places having great food. But there is bad food in italy just like the US.
Some of the views up in the hills were great. I took lots of pictures. Maybe I'll post some to google web albums and share them with you all. I already showed them to family. Florence wasn't as impressive as I'd thought but the churches are big and impressive, same in venice. We took a gondola ride in venice but it is not that romantic as there are gondola traffic jams and the water is not so clean.
We also went to the beaches as Rimini is a beach town on the north east side of Italy under Bologna. The beaches are great. They are owned by the state but given to private companies to run. And each little section of the beach is run by a different company. So you have beach 15 and 16 and so on. They provide lounge chairs and umbrellas, kid toys to play on, bathrooms, lockers, etc all for a yearly membership. They clean the beaches. They are nice. Much easier to go to the beach everyday and that is pretty much what my sister does.
Can't forget the ice cream or gelato from the gelaterias. Some places had GREAT ice cream. We ate it up almost every night. Some not so great. But all better than breyers (blah!). I prefer turkey hill ice cream or wawa sometimes. If you head to the New Jersey shore for vacation you probably want to know how it compares to Springer's ice cream. Hard to say but I liked some of the stuff in Italy better, even the stuff in the mall, and we all love springers.
That is another weird thing, I kind of didn't expect them to have malls and blockbusters and mcdonalds and burger king. But like New Zealand, it is all there in Italy too. You get sucky fries in McDonald's compared to what you get from the restaurants though. They were good too.
All in all it was an interesting and world expanding trip but somewhat disappointing in that we didn't get to see everything we wanted to. We were very glad to be home though. The trip was tough on the family. We enjoy the frills of living in america. Big cars and big food stores and lots of other stuff.
Would I go again, sure... but it isn't high on my list... at least till I can ditch the kids and get a real travel itinerary and stay in a hotels instead of with family.
Incidentally, as soon as we got back we heard about all these people that recently went or are going this year. It was weird. I'm sure it is like the effect you get when you buy a certain car and then notice all of them on the road. But my Boss just got back, my former coworker was there at the same time I was practically in the same cities at the same time (I checked my pictures and he isn't in any). My son's teacher just got back and my neighbor's parents are still there. And that is what I can remember off the top of my head. My parents go about once a year.
The next trip is disneyworld in January. Hopefully the kids will like that better.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I don't imagine little kids would be very fun to take on tours of the great art, architecture and historical sites that no-doubt abound throughout Euroland.
At least your kids get the chance to travel.
At least your kids get the chance to travel.
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
Great trip report Will. When you see the gas prices in most of Europe you understand why lots of people drive cars/trucks with dinky little engines, and a lot of diesels.
paugie
Storage is cool
Yes, it is a good travel summary. Lots of info in just a few words.
If ever I get to travel to italy, I'll dig this up first.
Thank you, Will.
If ever I get to travel to italy, I'll dig this up first.
Thank you, Will.
Sol
Storage is cool
I'll be heading over to Turin at the end of August, my sister is getting married there so the whole family is going over. After that I'll head back to London to live and work for a year or two so hopefully I'll get a few chances to go over and check out Itally (My return flight from London to Turin is costing about 40 pounds so it seems like I should be able to afford that fairly often).
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Sol, to be a citizen of the Commonwealth... so easy to move around the world.
Sol
Storage is cool
It is nice and easy, although I am limited to two years living there and one working, if I had a parent or grandparent who was a UK citizen I'd be able to live and work over there for up to 4 years with no restrictions.
My next challenge will be to find out how hard it will be to take my target rifle over. It would kind of suck to start to get good at shooting and then just stop for a couple of years. I think I'm going to need slightly more than just being a subject of the queen to pull that one off...
My next challenge will be to find out how hard it will be to take my target rifle over. It would kind of suck to start to get good at shooting and then just stop for a couple of years. I think I'm going to need slightly more than just being a subject of the queen to pull that one off...
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
Oooh, target shooting. What match/rifle are you using?
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
Sol: This may help - http://www.met.police.uk/firearms-enquiries/forms.htm
Looks like it will be pretty tough. You could get a visitor's permit which is good for up to 12 months, but you will need a sponsor. Also, will you have a place to stay when you get there?
Other option is to become a member of a target club, wait the minimum 3 months of probation, and apply for a license. Then import the rifle.
Option 1, bringing the rifle with you, is easier. Or forget about bringing your own rifle, and borrow the clubs guns.
Hell, the members of the UK pistol team store their guns in Switzerland, and travel there to train, England is so freaking anti-gun/sport.
Looks like it will be pretty tough. You could get a visitor's permit which is good for up to 12 months, but you will need a sponsor. Also, will you have a place to stay when you get there?
Other option is to become a member of a target club, wait the minimum 3 months of probation, and apply for a license. Then import the rifle.
Option 1, bringing the rifle with you, is easier. Or forget about bringing your own rifle, and borrow the clubs guns.
Hell, the members of the UK pistol team store their guns in Switzerland, and travel there to train, England is so freaking anti-gun/sport.
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
Oh yeah, if/when taking guns out of Aus, make sure you get a permit to export from your local customs office, it's pretty simple, they will stamp your two copies, you then use that in conjunction with your gun registration paperwork when re-entering Australia (go thru the Red channel).
Sol
Storage is cool
The option of just borrowing a club rifle does seem easier, but it would be a bit of a shame since I only just bought my target rifle (actually I expect to get a permit for it this week, but I only just paid for it).
It's a musgrave single shot mouser-style action in 7.62, with a custom stock made by a guy in Bendigo (I think), a davies trigger (made in Castlemain), and I think it's a trueflight 30" heavy barrel. It has open sights and a sling for fullbore shooting.
Unfortunately I won't have anywhere to stay that I'd be able to store a rifle when I get there, but I'm guessing it'll be easier to store it at a club anyway, it seems like that's what most people do over there.
It's a musgrave single shot mouser-style action in 7.62, with a custom stock made by a guy in Bendigo (I think), a davies trigger (made in Castlemain), and I think it's a trueflight 30" heavy barrel. It has open sights and a sling for fullbore shooting.
Unfortunately I won't have anywhere to stay that I'd be able to store a rifle when I get there, but I'm guessing it'll be easier to store it at a club anyway, it seems like that's what most people do over there.
Italian food.
When my wife and I went, we discovered quick smart to avoid the restaurants near travel embarkation point (train/bus stops etc.). O.K. food, but nothing special. I remember us walking around in Firenza/Florence one night and avoiding a number of places with only a few souls (mostly tourists) in them. Then we walked into this one place with a small front room, with almost no-one in it and a hugely crowded back room. Walked in there and found a seat. The staff thought we were Italian (I got that everywhere I went in Italy--I got used to shrugging my shoulders and saying "e stranieri") PS. What with this new interface? If I try to input accented charactes using ALT+numeric keypad, it kicks me right out of this thread!
Anyway. After getting across that we weren't Italian, had the best meal, it cost peanuts, and got a dose of dining Florentine style. It was well worth taking a little extra time to source a good local restaurant rather than take the easy way out.
Glad you had a good time in Itally Will.
When my wife and I went, we discovered quick smart to avoid the restaurants near travel embarkation point (train/bus stops etc.). O.K. food, but nothing special. I remember us walking around in Firenza/Florence one night and avoiding a number of places with only a few souls (mostly tourists) in them. Then we walked into this one place with a small front room, with almost no-one in it and a hugely crowded back room. Walked in there and found a seat. The staff thought we were Italian (I got that everywhere I went in Italy--I got used to shrugging my shoulders and saying "e stranieri") PS. What with this new interface? If I try to input accented charactes using ALT+numeric keypad, it kicks me right out of this thread!
Anyway. After getting across that we weren't Italian, had the best meal, it cost peanuts, and got a dose of dining Florentine style. It was well worth taking a little extra time to source a good local restaurant rather than take the easy way out.
Glad you had a good time in Itally Will.