Italy Day 4 – Last Kendo World Round

Today was the first day we woke up in a timely manner and actually made it to the train on time.  Due to this, we met a wonderful couple from New Zealand.  They were so funny and they actually ended up giving us their business cards to exchange information. (This is not this first time this has happened, I didn’t realize exchanging cards was so common!)

We went to Novara again to the Kendo world tournament. When we arrived our buddy in the ticket desk, Dominique, actually had good news.

They found Alex’s tickets!

So we got our tickets and Alex also received a 50% refund. All was good and happy. On the way in Sindy and I ran into our Armenian/Paris painter friend, Stephan, at his booth. We finally got to see his water color paintings, the man’s a genius.

We then proceeded to watch a WHOLE bunch of Kendo. The USA team was amazing and they got an awesome 3^rd place in team matches. As before, it came down to Korea and Japan. It was probably one of the best matches I have ever seen.

Side note: We realized the guy who had been recording behind us the whole time was with the website, kendo-world. He lives in Japan, was kind enough to give Alex his ‘press pass’ and let him go take pictures on the fighting floor. Baptiste was pretty awesome. (That was his name- he's the white one)  

We started making conversation and found out he is French but lives in Chiba, Japan. He said if Alex took any good pictures, that they would publish them on the site/magazine and give him credit even. That’s pretty awesome.  :)

Fred said the following. “So far, Ashly’s talking to random people…has gotten us some pretty cool free stuff.” Made me feel awesome. Although apparently at mid 20’s age……I still talk to strangers…. :\     OH WELL.

All in all it was an awesome day, even though for lunch Sindy and I went to the grocery store….ONLY TO FIND. Closed. Closed due to that European ‘siesta’ thing. After cussing for a bit, we decided to try a McDonalds in Italy. (This is also where I got hit on by at 10 yr old Italian boy….good times)

After 1 hour and 30 minutes later of waiting in line.

Lunch was finally had.

The kendo tournament ended by (an expected) win from Japan. Those guys are lightening fast and deadly with swords. It really ticks Korea off.

Anyway, on the way back to Milan, I had an unpleasant surprise. I sat next to, what I thought was, a normal woman and her son. Halfway through him talking to himself and all and all being a little boy, he transitioned from the seat next to me, to the one next his mom.

His mom was apparently upset.

So she smacked her son straight in the face. He started crying as I tried to not look shocked and not make eye contact. When looking back up, the boy was bleeding profusely from the nose and the mother was hurriedly working to stop the flow of blood with tissues.

WAY different parenting over here.

He was quiet for a good 30 minutes after this and the French people next to me seemed traumatized as well by the situation.

After getting off the train we did the usual 12-25 minute trek to the hotel.

I’ve had so much exercise in the past 4 days, it’s a little ridiculous. Haha

It’s around 11:44pm here and we are preparing (via packing) for our 2-hour train ride tomorrow to Cinque Terre (aka. 5 towns).

Beach time is on the way!!!  

Quotes of the day:

Stephan: Serving his coworkers food* ‘LADIES! Let me finish with my service **wink**, then I’m all yours”  (I have yet to here this much sass from any of my male friends)

Little boy at McDonalds:  

**shyly** “Hola”
Me: Hiii   smiles
Boy: -grins and nudges friend- looks back- “J’mapelle Tomas”
Me: Tomas? J’mapelle Ashly
Tomas: -grins nudging friend and repeating my name-

Fred: “I’m the Liam Neeson of the navigational [and] ball hitting world.” – Supposedly the ‘and’ was said at the time…no one heard it…so confusion abounded.