Back in January, Renee was all like, “You should come to the French wedding with me”, and I was all like, “No”. Because seriously, I don’t enjoy being people’s wedding date in the US, let alone traveling half way around the world. But then my brain started to think, like it has a habit of doing, and it was all like “You know you’re a sucker for new experiences, and we’re planning on going to Europe anyways”. To top it all off, I figured out that this would be a perfect excuse to ride a high speed TGV train from Paris to Munich, and I heart me some high speed rail. So the point is, I turned my Munich/Bavaria trip into a Paris-Munich/Bavaria trip.

In the past, I’ve blogged these trips as day-by-day diaries. For example, my 2009 London/Paris trip, and my 2010 Italy trip. The day-by-day thing gets very arduous though, so this time I’m just blogging about significant parts of the trip. This post is about the French wedding.

We flew to France Thursday night, (Air France, Premium Economy, very nice, I’ll blog about that later), and we arrived in Paris on Friday morning. Friday we checked into the hotel, did some basic sightseeing, and tried to adjust to the new timezone 7 hours in the future. Then on Saturday was the wedding. The first thing I learned about French weddings is that they have two ceremonies. The first ceremony is a civil ceremony held at the town hall or la mairie. Apparently, every Saturday French town halls are like marriage assembly lines. The ceremony takes about 15 minutes, and they do one after another for a good part of the day. We showed up at about 10:30 in the morning, and a couple from a marriage that had just finished was having their pictures taken on the steps in front of the town hall. Not long after that, the bride for the wedding we were attending showed up in this cool old timey car, as you can see in the picture below. I’m not sure what significance the car had or what type of car it even was, but I liked it.

Now would be a good time to talk about the kiss kiss. Do you see the young woman in the blue and black dress walking up to the car in the picture above? That’s Valentine. I lost my kiss kiss virginity to her in that very square. I was hoping to avoid the kiss kiss. As you might know, the French do this thing where they kiss each other on each cheek when they greet each other. Now, I’m not a big hugger, I like people, but I also like my personal space. If I can avoid it, I try not to hug people I don’t know, or people I do know. Kissing though, that’s waaaay more than a little hug. We are talking lips here. I knew I was in France though, and as they say, when in France do as the Romans do… or something like that. Still, I figured that I was obviously an American, and they’d probably let me pass with a handshake. Ehhh… no such luck.

I was introduced to Valentine, and she immediately opened her arms for what I thought would be a hug, and I tried to get away with just a hug, but somehow she made it clear that I was supposed to be doing something else. I was like, “I don’t know what to do.” and she was like “Just kiss kiss”, so I did it, and I lived.

Actually, the kiss kiss isn’t that bad. It’s kind of better than hugging. For one, there is less full body contact, and it’s over quicker. For some reason, I seem to attract people who want multi-second hugs (Excuuuse me, but we did not raise pigs together!). Fortunately, the kiss kiss takes less that a second. Also, there isn’t much kissing involved, it’s more like touch cheeks and make a kissing sound. Then again, I might have been doing it wrong. It also doesn’t hurt that Valentine is pretty cute, so you know, now I can say I kissed a cute French girl. Of course, by the time the trip was over, I had to kiss kiss a few French boys too, but let’s not dwell on that.

Okay, back to the wedding. Here are the bride and groom standing by the car in front of the town hall. The wedding guest are mingling about, waiting until it is time to go inside for the ceremony.

Here are the bride and groom in a waiting room type area of the town hall. When one wedding finishes, the group in the waiting room moves into the ceremony room, and the next wedding group moves into the waiting room. It’s almost German like efficiency, but French.

And here is the ceremony inside the town hall. I love that man’s sash. I guess he is the mayor, but we were in Paris, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the mayor of Paris. Does each arrondissement have it’s own mayor? There was a lot of talking in French, and then everybody clapped, so I clapped too.

After the civil ceremony, we went back out to the square in front of the town hall, and a lot of pictures were taken.

After the civil ceremony, there were few hours to kill until the religious ceremony in the afternoon. I think the bride and groom had pictures taken during this time, but I’m not sure. We walked around a bit and got coffee, or white coffee, or cafe creme, whatever, it was good. I took this picture while we were walking around. Note the Eiffel tower in the background.

I also changed into a suit before the next ceremony. Here is a picture of me and my shoes watching some French TV.

The religious ceremony was held in La Chapelle Saint-Louis de l’ Ecole Militaire. Basically St. Louis chapel in the military school. I guess it’s kind of a big deal to have your wedding in the Ecole Militaire. I think the reason the bride and groom could have their wedding here was that the groom’s father is in the national police force, or something like that. This is a picture of the back of the chapel, waiting for the wedding party to enter.

Here is the front of the chapel during the ceremony. It was a catholic ceremony, and it was the long version of the catholic ceremony with communion and everything. I was a little nervous when they did communion, because in American catholic weddings, you aren’t supposed to take communion if you aren’t catholic. I didn’t know what the French catholic rule was though. I was worried that everyone would go up, and so I would too, but then they would figure out that I wasn’t catholic, and you know, then all hell would break lose. Lot’s of people didn’t take communion though, so I didn’t either. Disaster averted.

Another view of the chapel after the ceremony as the wedding party is about to exit.

The bride and groom and their five children exiting the chapel after the ceremony. Kidding.. Kidding… those aren’t their kids, as far as I know.

I thought this view of the Eiffel tower from inside the Ecole Militaire was kind of cool. This is probably what it looks like to be in a French prison.

After the second ceremony, there was a lot of picture taking and mingling in the courtyard behind the Ecole Militaire.

Another picture after the religious ceremony, hey look! the car is back!

After the ceremony, there was cocktail reception for a few hours in another area of the Ecole Militaire. It’s hard to believe we were still in the middle of Paris, because it looked like some type of chateau off in the French countryside. At the cocktail reception, there were a few political discussions that I found interesting. First, the day before the wedding, New York had just legalized gay marriage. I had not heard about this, because you know, I was in France, but the French seemed very interested in it all. I’m kind of surprised that they were so interested, being that it’s just one state and all.

There was also some discussion of the IMF president scandal. If you don’t know, the IMF president was a French man who was accused of sexually assaulting a maid in a New York hotel room. Before the incident, he was considered a likely candidate to be the next French president. The French seemed to consider this scandal a big embarrassment, and a few people at the reception stated that they previously had planned to vote for the former IMF president.

Also, at some point during the reception, I heard that there were basically four political parties in France. Something like far left, moderate left, moderate right, and far right. Most people at the reception seemed to consider themselves moderate left.

I’m not sure why I just told you all this, but it was interesting to me. Really, I was surprised at how easily the French discussed politics, and how willing they were to state their political beliefs. In America, I feel like we generally avoid discussing politics, especially around people we have just met. Unless it’s on the internet of course, then we just say whatever crazy thing we want

Eventually, at 8:00 or 9:00 in the evening, dinner started. I was a little surprised that dinner started so late, because you know, surly this thing would be wrapped up by midnight. I mean, it started at 11:00 in the morning after all. This is the table I sat at, they were nice enough to sit us with a bunch of english speakers. Which is good, because the only things I can say in french are: “The cat is on the table”, “I want coffee with milk”, “Where is the restuarant”, “Good Day”, “Good Evening”, “Good Night”, “Good Bye”, “Please”, “Thank You”,… well okay, maybe I can say a lot in French, but I’m not good at follow up questions.

First course, raw scallops wrapped in a cucumber topped with a tomato slice and lime. That’s olive oil on the plate, it was tasty.

I’d say there was a good 45 minutes to an hour between courses. During this time there were speeches and some singing thing. Here is my second course. It was lamb on a foie gras sauce topped with a ginger bread breading. On the side were a form of cheesy potatoes. The cheesy potatoes were fantabulous. The lamb was good too, but I’m not so sure about the combination of gingerbread and lamb.

After the second course, they did one of those videos with childhood pictures of the bride and groom. I liked this, because we do this in America too, so it was cool to see the same tradition taking place in France. It’s like we are all the same even though we’re different… Woooah…. Sorry, try to forget I said that.

Third course, salad and cheese. Who doesn’t love cheese? The lettuce was decent too.

After the third course it was about 12:30 in the morning. At some point an American, who was engaged to the groom’s brother (I think), came over to talk to us. She casually mentioned that French weddings go until about 4:00 in the morning. Cue mild panic on my part. 4:00 A.M.? Seriously? And we aren’t talking the dance goes until 4:00, there were still lots of events left. As of 12:30, the first dance, father daughter dance, and wedding cake had yet to happen. I’m usually a trooper, and a pretty serious night owl, but I still hadn’t completely adjusted to the new time zone, and um, I might have scheduled a tour of Versailles for 9:30 the next morning. Oops. So, we ended up leaving a little after 12:30. Fortunately, our hotel was pretty close by. I still feel bad about leaving early, but there is no way I was going to make it until 4:00am. Renee, she’s the reason we are at a wedding in France, remember? Anyways, Renee had intended to go back after a quick nap, but uh, she didn’t quite make it.

Now we jump forward in time a bit. We did make it to Versailles the next day, and I even got to go up in the Eiffel tower. I’ll blog about that in another post though. Anyways, it’s the day after the wedding. While I went up in the Eiffel tower, Renee met her French family for drinks and cheese or something. After the Eiffel tower, I met up with Renee and her family for dinner at the Restaurant Georges on top of Pompidou Center, which is a museum of modern art. On the way to Pompidou Center, I had to take a Taxi, in Paris, by myself, and it involved being driven through those tunnels along the Seine river where Princess Diana died in a car crash. Motorcycles were zooming by the taxi and everything. I’m lucky to be alive.

I arrived at the Restaurant Georges right before sunset, and all I can say is, like oh my God, woah. The restaurant has a very modern motif with wall to wall floor to ceiling windows. It’s on the 6th floor, so you have a view of pretty much everything in Paris. It was so surreal, that if a pink elephant and his unicorn friend had flown in the room, I would have offered them a glass of wine. If you are ever Paris, you should eat here. Make a reservation for one hour before sunset.

Here is a view from Restaurant Georges after dark. In the background, you can see the Eiffel tower with it’s twinkling lights. It’s more impressive in person.

I feel kind of silly saying this, but dinner that night was actually one of the most interesting and somewhat amazing nights of my life, and I totally wasn’t expecting that. I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect. When Renee said that she had a half-brother in France, my mind kind of interpreted that as something like a second cousin once removed on a crazy uncle’s side. I figured we would meet her French relatives, but I didn’t expect to spend any significant time with them. I was wrong though, we had dinner for about 3 hours that night with Renee’s half-brother, his wife, their two daughters, new son-in-law, and other daughter’s boyfriend. Oh yeah, Renee’s American brother and sister-in-law were also there, but really, who cares about them? Kidding… kidding… They were all ridiculously friendly people, and they spoke fairly good English. Part of me wanted to feel like I shouldn’t be there, because, I mean, it wasn’t my family. I was kind of an intruder in the whole thing, but they treated me like some long lost brother they had always know, if that makes any sense.

So I’m putting myself in your position now, and I’m reading this, and I’m wondering what the big deal is. I had dinner in France with some French people, and they were nice to me, so what? Partly it’s that I love new experiences. Traveling to Paris leads to all sorts of new experiences, however, in a place like Paris, I always sort of feel like I’m on the outside looking in. I can be right in the middle of this exciting new world, but it still feels like there are all these invisible barriers between me and said world. I didn’t feel those barriers at dinner that night though. It’s like I got to truly see a little bit of French life beyond all of the touristy distractions, and also like there was a now link between my world and their world, and well, that was cool. Really cool.

There was more kiss kissing at the end of the evening, but we’re not going to dwell on that, remember? Anywho… this concludes my French wedding experience. Here is a page with more information about French weddings, which I really should have read before I left. You can also read all of my Paris-Munich trip posts here (if I ever get around to posting more), see more pictures here, and see a few videos here.

{Cousin},

Congratulations! You are either getting married, graduating from some type of institution, or having a kid. Whatever it is, it’s quite an accomplishment, and I’m proud of you. I wrote {Other Cousin} a note like this about a year ago. I don’t remember what I said, but I’m pretty sure it was hilarious. And not in that, I have to be nice to my relatives and pretend to laugh kind of hilarious, I mean actually hilarious. I also remember that I wrote it by hand. That part sucked, so I’m typing this one. I do think handwritten notes are a little more special, but maybe I can just print this out in a curvy font or something. We’ll see how it goes.

I was going to write you a list of advice to take with you as you move on to your next adventure. It was going to be one of those half serious half funny lists. I was going to try and make it a little edgy, just to remind you that I’m not nearly as old as the other old people in your family. I was going to say something about keg stands, but truth be told, I’ve never done a keg stand. Not because I’m opposed to consuming massive amounts of alcohol while inverted, but mostly because I don’t trust anyone to hold me upside down while suspended over a large metal object. I guess I have trust issues. Anyways… I decided not to do the list, because, well, it probably would have been lame.

I will give you one piece of advice though. Not because I want to, but because it makes for an excellent transition into this paragraph. If you are going to college, bring band-aids. Seriously, everyone forgets to bring band-aids to college. On top of that, people cut themselves a lot in college. I’m not sure if it’s a stress related mental issue, or if there are just more sharp objects in college, but someone always needs a band aid, and nobody ever has one. You could be the girl with band-aids. People will love you. This is excellent advice.

Now comes the part of this note where most people would end on a more serious tone. They would say something about how far you’ve come, and how important it is to hold on to the past while punching the stars, and also something about the wind and/or dancing like nobody is watching. Look, if you are dancing, people are watching, and if you are dancing like those people aren’t watching, they are probably wondering whether or not you are having a seizure. Dance like everyone is watching. Dance like everyone is watching, filming it on their iPhones, and posting it to YouTube. Because they are, and I’ll probably see it, and then I’ll know that you didn’t take my advice. That would make me sad.

Good Luck!

Hey look! It’s been seven months since my trip and I’m finally finished blogging about it. I’m actually closer to my next trip than I am to this trip. More on that later. Today we fly back to the great states of America and remember how grateful we are for all the things that seem normal to us. The company that rented us the apartment arranged for a car and driver to take us to the airport. We arrived at the airport fairly early, which was good, because the security lines were long, and we had to take this little bus to the gate area.

They had a store at the airport, so I made some last minute purchases. One of them was a kinder egg. These are chocolate eggs from Germany with a toy inside. I don’t remember what the toy was, but the egg was good.

The airport bathroom also sold disposable toothbrushes from this gum ball like machine. I was fascinated, so I had to buy one. I tried it out, and it worked okay, but nothing like a real toothbrush, and yes, I know what it looks like.

At the airport store, I also bought chocolate hazelnut bars and Pepsi. It’s hard to find Pepsi in Europe, but they always seem to have it at the airport. They make their soda with real sugar in the rest of the World (rather than high fructose corn syrup). Some people think it taste better this way. I think it taste good, but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t tell the difference in a blind taste test. Notice the guy on the Pepsi bottle, that had something to do with the World Cup, which was going on in Africa at the time. A quick tip, if you buy soda in a foreign airport and then take it back to the US with you, you need to remember to put it in your checked bags before you recheck your bags in the US, since you have to go through security again, and they won’t let you carry on liquids.

Here is my view on the plane. Economy is cramped, I wish more US airlines had a premium economy class.

Here are my left over Euros. I love the €2 coin, it makes carrying change worth it.

And there you have it, the Roseyland Italy adventure of 2010 is complete. A few final notes:

• The total cost of the trip was about $3000 per person for three people. I was surprised it was so low actually. This is about $1300 for airfare, $500 per person for the apartment, each context tour was about $100 per person, and the train tickets to Florence were about $100 per person. We saved the most money by renting the apartment instead of staying in a Hotel.
• I have mixed feelings about renting the apartment. It saved us a lot of money, and we had more space, but there is a certain sense of security that comes with staying in a hotel, and having a front desk with people to ask questions of. I’m not sure which way I would go again, but if I did rent an apartment, I’d spend a little more for one in the center of the city. Our apartment was on the edge of central Rome, which led to lots of long walks home.
• If you want to learn a bit of the language before you go, seriously consider trying Fluenz. I tried Rosetta Stone before I went to France last year, and it was okay, but not great. Everything in Rosetta Stone is in the foreign language, no english at all, which works okay for building vocabulary, but horrible for understanding grammar. Also, Rosetta stone teaches you words you will never use. I could say “the cat is on the table” in French, but shockingly, that never came up. Fluenz explains the foreign language to you in English, which greatly speeds up the learning process. Also Fluenz teaches you words you will actually use, and they have a fun audio component to help drill the information into your head. The audio component of Rosetta Stone was insanely boring. Trust me, go with Fluenz. I made my way through Fluenz Italian 1&2 before my trip, and while I wasn’t having any conversations in Italian, I could tell what the waitress meant when she said “Posso?”, I knew how to tell the taxi driver we were tired, and I even asked if could take the elevator (Posso usare l’ascensore?). Hey, I still remember it. Woo Hoo!
• It looks like my next trip is going to be a week in Bavaria, with a quick stop in Paris first. I’m really hoping to fly Air France in their Premium Voyageur class. For some reason, I want the experience of flying Air France, and their premium economy class is not that much more expensive than regular economy, but it looks way more comfortable. Finding the flights I want for a reasonable price has been a challenge though. I’m not looking again until March, then I’ll decide.

Hey, now maybe I can blog about something other than Italy! You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.

Welcome to Day 6! Today is our final day in Rome. I didn’t plan anything for this day, because I figured there would be something we would want to do, that I wouldn’t be able to predict ahead of time. Let it be known, I can function, without a plan, for at least 1 day. Of course I did have a couple of ideas sketched out in my head, just in case. One of those ideas was to visit Ostia Antica, which is what we decided to do. Ostia Antica is an ancient Italian port town that was covered in river mud a long time ago, and thus well preserved until uncovered by archeologist somewhat recently. It’s kind of like Pompeii, but much closer to Rome. Getting to Ostia Antica is fairly easy, you take the Rome metro system to the edge of Rome, and then you can use the same Metro ticket to board a regional train to Ostia Antica. As an added bonus, Ostia Antica is near the beach, so you can also check out an Italian beach while you are there.

We took the Metro to the Pyramide station, where we would switch to the regional train. Something seemed off, because there were a lot more people in the Metro stations, and they all seemed to be in a big hurry to board the trains. Still, we made it to the Pyramide station, and headed towards the regional train tracks. Then they started closing all the gates. When we looked confused at the Metro workers, all they said was “strike, strike”. The Rome public transportation system had gone on strike. Wonderful. The good news is we didn’t make it all the way to Ostia Antica, which would have been around 20 miles from Rome, but we were still about 2-3 miles from the central part of Rome. Fortunately, the taxis were still running, of course now everyone wanted a taxi, but after a little wait in line, we got a taxi to take us back to central Rome. Below is a picture of the Pyramid near the Pyramide Metro station, where we waited for our taxi.

I wasn’t really sure what to do at this point. We had seen most of the main attractions in central Rome, but with the public transportation strike, I wasn’t really comfortable going anywhere else. One place we hadn’t seen was the Castle St. Angelo, so that’s where we went. The Castle St. Angelo is near the vatican, and once upon a time, it was used as a fortress and hiding place for the Pope. Supposedly, there is a secret walk way between the Castle and the Vatican. I tried to find it, but I was unsuccessful. Today the Castle St. Angelo is a museum. Here is the bridge leading to the Castle.

The best part of the Castle St. Angelo is that you can climb to the top, where it has great views of Rome and the Vatican. This is the view of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Here is Rome and the Tiber river from the top of the Castle St. Angelo.

After the Castle St. Angelo, we took a Tiber river cruise. The Tiber river isn’t as scenic as say the Seine or Thames, but the cruise would take us to Trastevere for lunch, without walking or finding a cab.

This is a street in Trastevere. Trastevere is a neighborhood in Rome with many pubs and restaurants. I would describe it as artsy. If you look closely in the picture below, the restaurant has a chalk board that reads: “We are against War and Tourist Menus”. We didn’t eat there. We did eat at the Ristorante Paris, where Anthony Bourdain ate in his show No Reservations. We had the fried artichokes, and they were very good.

After Trastevere, we walked around the Villa Borghese park for awhile, where I saw this graffiti. I had been practicing my Italian before the trip, and I was able to translate this as: “And after a year, we are still here to talk” or something like that. Good for them. Also, is graffiti an Italian word? Because it sounds Italian, and that would make a lot of sense, because there is a lot of graffiti in Italy. Hmm…

A view of Rome from the Villa Borghese with St. Peter’s Basilica in the background.

This is some type of water clock in the Villa Borghese. It was so hot, I totally could have jumped in that water.

Here is another fountain in the Villa Borghese. This fountain is on the way out of the park, and while walking by it, an Italian girl came up to me and said: “Scusi, dov’e Villa Borghese?”. And I knew what she meant!!! I was so proud of myself, I pointed up the hill and said, “Uh, that way”. She looked at me funny, said “Okay”, and walked off. It was exhilarating. But now that it’s over, I wonder, why did she think I was Italian? I also got mistaken for German on this trip. That I can kind of understand, but do I not look American. I always heard that Americans stand out in foreign countries. Is that a myth? Or do I just have an international flare? I’m going with flare.

On our last night, we ate dinner near the Spanish steps at the same restaurant we went to on night 4. Kiko was a fun waiter, and we wanted to see him again. We also walked around the shopping district near the Spanish Steps. Here is a street artist doing her thing with spray paint. She was fairly talented.

Our last stops on the trip were for gelato and to see the Trevi fountain at night. It was a Friday night, and the Trevi fountain was packed with tourist. Very pretty though. Afterwards, we tried to get a taxi back to our apartment, but the taxis in Rome on a Friday night only want to take you places that will pay them to bring people. Like some casino the taxi drivers kept mentioning. The metro was still shut down, so we had to walk for a bit until we found a taxi that would take us. Ugh.

And that is pretty much it. It was only 6 days, but they were exhausting. I’ll have one more post with some odds and ends. Expect that sometime in the next 4 months or so You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.

Yeah, I know, it’s been awhile since I updated my Italy travel blog, but hey, I’m here now and that’s all that matters. Today we travel to the small Umbrian town of Orvieto. Getting to Orvieto was easy, yet this was the point in the trip where everything almost went wrong. This was my first time traveling with “open” train tickets. Basically this means we had tickets from Rome to Orvieto that could be used any time on any train within a 30 day window. Which sounds easy enough, but this means I had to figure out what train to get on. Every other time I have travelled by train, my ticket has a specific train number, time, and seat, that I was supposed to be in. Specific numbers work well with my personal psychology, but hey, growth is good. Anyways, I downloaded a list of all trains going from Rome to Orvieto on RailEurope.com, but I think my list was a little dated. We got on a train that was supposed to go to Orvieto, but for some reason I was uneasy, so I tried to ask our fellow Italian passengers if we were on the right train. They didn’t speak much english, but the consensus seemed to be that no, this train did not go to Orvieto. So we got off, and then we had to run to catch the next train, which was off on some weird far away track, but we made it, and it took us to Orvieto. Lessons learned: make sure you have recent train time tables, double check at the station before the train arrives, and if you aren’t sure whether or not a train is the right train, don’t get on the train. It’s stresses me out thinking about how close we came to being on a train to who knows where in Italy. To be fair, I still think the first train might have gotten us to Orvieto, I am pretty positive that it would have gone through Orvieto, because it was headed to Milan, I’m just not sure it would have stopped in Orvieto.

So, we made it to Orvieto, which is a small town on top of a plateau of volcanic rock. You know that James Bond movie where he climbs up this steep pillar like rock with a fortress on top where this underage figure skater totally wanted him. It was kind of like that, but not as tall and there was a whole town up top. The train drops you off below the town, and then you are supposed to take a funicular up to the town. Here is a picture of the funicular stop, notice how steep the tracks are. The funicular was closed though, so we had to take a bus. Not as much fun.

Here is a view from Orvieto, looking down at the valley below.

Here is the Orvieto Cathedral. Very impressive, although it does not have a dome you can climb, bummer.

Orvieto had lots of these small winding cobblestone streets, as seen below.

Look! Real Italian kids playing soccer, I mean football, but soccer.

This is another winding Orvieto street. These streets were a nice change from the somewhat manic streets of Rome.

Here is the Orvieto bell tower. By now you should know how much a like to climb things, so yeah that’s what I did next.

I talked my aunt into climbing the bell tower with me. It wasn’t as tall as any of the other bell towers or domes I had climbed, but it still had great views. Here is the Orvieto Cathedral from the bell tower. Also, while we were on top of the tower, the time struck 1pm, the bell rang, and my aunt nearly had a heart attack, that was cool.

Here are the steps we had to climb to get up to top of the bell tower.

Hey, it’s another cat! When i see a cat in a foreign country, I am obligated to take a picture. This cat appeared to be fairly busy, because he was clearly going somewhere with purpose.

This is the inside of a small church we came across while wandering around Orvieto. It was so bright outside, that I couldn’t see anything when I took this picture, but apparently my camera could see just fine.

Another winding cobblestone street. The person in the chair is a shop owner sitting outside her ceramic shop. Orvieto has lots of ceramic shops.

You wanted to see another picture of an Orvieto street, right? Good, here you go.

After spending a fair amount of time walking around the upper part of Orvieto, we then decided to take a tour of the Etruscan caves below Orvieto. Like I said earlier, Orvieto is on top of a plateau of volcanic rock. This rock is very soft and crumbly, kind of like a pumice stone, so it’s fairly easy to carve into. While these caves are underground and below Orvieto, we are still above the valley floor, since Orvieto is so high to begin with. Make sense? At one point they had dug so many of these caves, that the town of Orvieto was at risk of collapsing. Fortunately they stopped digging new caves and shored up the existing caves in a few key spots. Our guide assured us that the probability of a cave in was relatively small.

They used to raise pigeons in these caves. The pigeons would live in these holes, but they would fly out to get their own food, and then return to their holes. When the ancient Orvietians would get hungry, they would eat the pigeons who so loyally returned everyday. Yum.

Here is another view of the valley below the town of Orvieto. The Umbrian countryside is pretty amazing.

This is St. Patricks well. Being that Orvieto is up high on a plateau of rock, it is fairly easy to defend, but it has no natural water source. So, they dug a well, and this is it. There are two spiral sets of steps around the well in a double helix pattern. This was so mules could take one set of steps down to get water, and then take another set of steps up, without passing the mules coming down. Now, you can walk down the well if you want, which of course I did. It was fun to climb down something for a change.

Here are the steps around St. Patricks well. It was dark and musty.

Orvieto was a nice change of pace from Rome and even Florence. You definitely feel like you have seen more of a country if you get away from the big cities. Not that Florence is a big city, but it kind of feels like it, when it is packed with people. I did all of my touristy shopping in Orvieto. I bough a bottle red wine, white wine, and olive oil from a very excited man who spoke very little English. After Orvieto, we took the train back to Rome, which was uneventful this time, and then took a taxi to eat at the restaurant in front of the Pantheon we liked so much. Here is the Italian style coffee, in other words expresso, that we had after dinner.

Here is the wine and olive oil I bought in Orvieto. I haven’t tried the wine yet, but the olive oil is great. Oh and it’s organic. The excited man who sold it to me wants you all to know that it’s organic.

That is all for today. Tomorrow we experience the fun that is a Rome public transportation strike. You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.

Welcome to Italy day 4. This is the midpoint of our adventure, and today’s agenda includes the Galleria Borghese and a tour of the ancient roman ruins. We had 11:00 am reservations for the Galleria Borghese, so we were able to sleep in a little bit longer. The Galleria Borghese is an art gallery, inside a villa, inside a park. Now here is where I get confused, sometimes Villa Borghese refers to the park in which the Galleria Borghese is located, and sometimes Villa Borghese refers to the Villa, which contains the Galleria Borghese. Basically, Galleria Borghese is an art gallery, inside a large fancy house (or Villa), which is located in a big park, that is something like central park.

We arrived at the Villa Borghese a little early, so that we could check out the park part of Villa Borghese. This park was one of my favorite parts of Rome. It had lots of winding paths, and different fountains and statues hidden all over the place. There were lots of runners, and it felt very peaceful for being inside a big city. The fountain below is somewhere inside the Villa Borghese park.

We were in Rome during the World Cup, but by this time Italy had already been eliminated. It looked like a part of Villa Borghese had been set up as some type of World Cup watching party, but as you can see, the party was long over and the place was covered in trash. Looks like it was a good party though.

This is the Asclepius Temple. It’s a temple, on an island, in a lake, in the park. There were also ducks. It was very pretty.

These are the gardens behind Villa Borghese, and this time I mean the Villa that contains Galleria Borghese. I want to say something like, “Hey, check out that statues butt”, but I’m afraid you’ll get the wrong idea.

This is a water spout. They have these all over Rome, and people use them to fill up their water bottles and splash water on themselves. Which is nice, because the summer is hot in Rome. In case you are wondering, you can drink the water in western Europe. I always say that I’m going to stick to bottled water, because even though the tap water is perfectly clean, it’s still possible that your body will need an adjustment period. I always end up drinking tap water by the first day though, and so far I have suffered no ill effects.

This is the Galleria Borghese, in the Villa Borghese, that is the big house and not the park. I’m not a huge art fan, but this gallery is nice for a couple reason. First, they only let people in with a reservation. Every two hours, they let a set number of people in for two hours, so that the gallery isn’t packed with people. The other nice thing is that this is a smaller gallery. It’s basically a villa filled with art, and there aren’t many barriers between you and the art. You can get right up close to some amazing statues. One of these statues was Apollo and Daphne, in which Daphne is being chased by Apollo and is turning into a tree for one reason or another. In the statue, her legs are starting to become part of the tree, and there are these leaves sculpted out of marble that are just unbelievable. The leaves are so thin, but they are marble. It doesn’t seem possible. Click on the link for a picture. If you visit the Galleria Borghese, you might consider getting an audio guide. They have cards you can read in English, but I find it hard to read and look at art at the same time. Of course like almost all art museums, you aren’t allowed to take pictures inside. I used the same website to make reservations for the Galleria Borghese as I did for the Galleria Academia and the Galleria Uffizi in Florence, which you can find here.

After the Galleria Borghese, we had lunch at the galleria’s bar. You remember that bar in Italy means something like counter service restaurant, right? Then we headed to the ancient roman ruins area where we took another Context Travel tour of the Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, and Colosseum. The tour we took was the Roma Antica tour, and just like the Vatian tour, it was excellent. Usually, I’m not big on tours. I’d generally prefer to explore on my own, but when it comes to something like the Vatican or ancient Rome, you really kind of need someone to explain it all to you. And again, the small group format of the Context Travel tours is way better than the larger group tours, in my not so humble opinion.

We started our tour at the Palatine Hill. The Palatine hill is the most ancient part of Rome, and it is where the most well off ancient roman citizens, including a few emperors, lived. I would like to take this moment to point out that I do not guarantee the accuracy of any information in these blog post. This is just what I remember, it could totally be wrong. The picture below is of an aqueduct that provided water to the Palatine Hill. It’s thousands of years old.

Here is a picture of the colosseum as seen from the Palatine Hill. I love those trees, they are so ancient Rome.

Here is a picture of the ruins on the Palatine Hill with the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the background. Yeah, awesome shot, I know. I learned a few things on this part of the tour that I’d like share with you at some point. How about now? First, the ancient Roman ruins were completely buried until the 1950’s. Initially treasure hunters started digging in the area for artifacts they could sell, and soon after that the government stepped in to protect the artifacts and excavate the ruins. Everything you see in these pictures had been completely buried until relatively recently. Second, you know all those white marble statues you expect to see in an ancient Roman palace? They were not white. They were carved out of marble, which was white, but then they painted them to have clothes and skin, etc… They were full color statues. Weird. The ancient Romans also had many modern conveniences, like running water and under floor heating. I’d love to tell you all about it, but you really need to go to Rome and take the tour yourself.

Now we are entering the Roman Forum area. This was the center of government for ancient Rome. Something like Washington D. C. The picture below is of an arch. Our guide told us that arches represented the open legs of a woman. Seriously. When soldiers would come back to rome after doing all sorts of bad things, they would walk through the arch to symbolize a rebirth and be forgiven for their transgressions. I will never look at the Gateway Arch the same way again.

This is an original road in the Roman Forum area. Actual ancient Romans walked on this road. I touched it, because other people were touching it, and it seemed like the thing to do.

Here is a good overall view of the Roman forum area. One thing to note, this area was in use for hundreds of years, and all of these buildings were built at different times. So you are looking at a hodgepodge of buildings from different times in this shot.

Another shot from inside the Roman Forum.

This is location where Caesar was cremated. There is a big story around Caesar’s death. It goes something like: Caesar was emperor, the people loved him, the senate did not, the senate had him assassinated, the people were outraged, and there was a big funeral where Caesar was cremated. You’ll have to take the tour if you want the full and accurate version. As you can see, people still leave flowers and notes for Caesar today.

After the Roman Forum, we headed to the Colosseum. You have probably seen the movie Gladiator, and you pretty much know what the Colosseum was. Gladiators used to fight here, and sometimes criminals were punished here. Also, the Colosseum was not buried for a couple thousand years like the other ruins we have seen so far.

This is a picture of the pathway you can walk on inside the Colosseum.

This is a cross inside the Colosseum. I don’t know why it’s there exactly, but I suspect that many Christians were sent to their death in the Colosseum, and the cross is probably a memorial to them.

Here is a good shot of the inside of the Colosseum. See the small section of floor that has been built at the opposite end? That is the level of the original floor of the Colosseum. What you see in the bottom now are the areas underneath the floor where they would keep various animals (lions, tigers, etc…). There were also numerous trap doors in the floor, and the animals could be sent to pop up from any one of them, for the Gladiators to fight. They could also flood the whole area for naval battles. I almost said navel battles, hee hee.

Hey look! It’s a cat in the Colosseum. He seemed to have somewhere very important to go, and was not interested in stopping for a picture.

After our tour we headed to the Spanish Steps for dinner. We wanted to eat at a restaurant called Hostaria Al, which is supposed to have this amazing shrimp risotto, but they were closed for vacation. Instead we ate at a restaurant called Da Giggi, which had a hillarious waiter named Kiko. You should go see him, he will make you order the lasagna, and it will be very good.

That is all for today. Only two days left. Tomorrow we travel to the small hilltop town of Orvieto. You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.

I was going to tell you all about Villa Borghese and the ancient Roman ruins today, but who wants to hear about that? Instead, we can talk about politics, everyone loves politics. I made the mistake of listening to the radio the other day, and they were talking about something called Prop C. According to the voices on my radio, a vote for Prop C will save freedom, strengthen families, and prevent the impending socialist take over of our country. Awesome! I’ll take two.

Being slightly more serious for a second, you can read a good summary of Prop C at Ballotpedia.org here. Make sure you read the opposition section. I know it’s all the way at the bottom, but you can do it. Basically Prop C bans the government from mandating that individuals purchase health care or penalize individuals for not purchasing health care. Prop C is mainly a protest vote against the recently passed federal healthcare reform bill, and since federal law trumps state law, Prop C will accomplish little, if it passes.

If the Prop C supporters want to make it more interesting, they should propose a law that forces employers to reimburse employees who opt out of their employer provided group health care. I get great health insurance through my employer, and I feel very fortunate to have it. According to my employer, my health insurance cost around $450 a month. I pay none of that. I could opt out of the coverage, but I would not get to keep any of the $450. So basically my employer mandates that I either accept their group health care plan or I am essentially fined $450. Prop C aims to prevent the government from doing this to you, but if Prop C supporters were truly sincere in their intentions, they would also ban employers from mandating health care.

I know what you are thinking, you can choose your employer, so it’s not the same thing. I can see that point, but I highly doubt I could find comparable employment with a company that didn’t also effectively mandate health care coverage. Companies do this, because it’s a good plan. It provides excellent affordable health care to all employees and their families regardless of medical history or preexisting conditions. Is there anybody out there that doesn’t want this? Would you rather have an extra few hundred dollars in your paycheck and tell your coworker’s kid with asthma to suck it? Because that is what you would be doing, and it’s exactly what Prop C attempts to do.

I absolutely believe that group health care plans in the United States offer the best health care in the World. Unfortunately, a lot of people can’t get into a group plan and are denied coverage or have to pay much more for much less. We need to ensure that every citizen of this country can benefit from the structure and protections of group health care plans, and the only way to do this is to mandate health insurance. I don’t like being told what to do by the “guvermint” any more than anybody else, but your “freedom” to not have health insurance is also your freedom to go into medical debt bankruptcy and pass your debt on to society, or your freedom prevent someone who really needs it from obtaining coverage. I don’t want these freedoms.

In summary, Prop C is dumb, vote against it.

Today is a big day, we are going to Florence. I’ve wanted to go to Florence since I took art history in college. I looked back over my college papers, and it turns out I even wrote a paper on the subject of David from Donatello to Bernini. I totally don’t remember writing this paper, but you can read it here. If by chance you are a college student, I have some free advice for you. You probably have to take some type of upper level elective outside of your major. Take art history. I know what you are thinking, history is boring and I’m not into art. Wrong. Art history is like history with pictures, which is way better than regular history. Anyways, we spent a lot of time talking about Florence in my art history class, and I’ve wanted to see it ever since, and now I have.

Okay, so this is day 3 in Italy. We got up, took the metro to the train station, and took the train to Florence. The train was very nice. If you are traveling between major cities in Europe, you often have two choices. You can take a direct train between the two cities or a regional train that makes a few stops between the cities. The direct train is more expensive, but it’s a faster and nicer train. I’d go with the direct route if I were you. I’d also splurge on first class, because it isn’t that much more money, and it’s less crowded. The train got us to Florence in about one and a half hours, and we headed straight to the Galleria Accademia. If you are going to Florence, especially in the summer, you will want to make reservations to see the Galleria Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery. If you don’t, you will either not see them, or spend all day waiting in line. I used this website to make reservations, but I’ve heard that hotels can make them for you too.

The Galleria Accademia is where you can see Michelangelo’s David. You are not supposed to take pictures inside this museum. I did not know this, so I took out my camera, and took a picture of David. Then I realized that nobody else was taking pictures, which seemed odd, and then I saw the “pictures are strictly forbidden” sign. Unlike the Sistine Chapel, people seemed to be obeying the rules here, so I did too. From that point on at least.

After seeing Michelangelo’s David, the plan was to check out the Duomo, which is the big cathedral right in the middle of Florence. The line was super long though, so we skipped ahead to lunch. This was the only time I think we made a bad dinning choice. It was really hot, so we kind of just picked the first place we saw, and the food wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, and it ended up being one of our most expensive meals for so-so food. We should have realized this, because the place had tourist trap written all over it, but unfortunately the heat had impaired our judgement. The picture below is of the Duomo, we’ll go inside later.

After lunch, I climbed to the top of Giotto’s bell tower, which is the bell tower right next to the Duomo. I love climbing to the top of domes and bell towers in places like Florence. It’s fun, because you have this mini shared experience with a bunch of other tourist from all over the world. I like trying to guess where the other people are from, and then sometimes you’ll say something in english as you are passing somebody, and if they speak english, there is this moment where you realize each other speaks english, and yeah, I’m a dork. It’s also a lot of work climbing these towers, so you get a nice sense of accomplishment and some great views. Here is a picture of the steps in Giotto’s bell tower.

Here is a platform partway up the bell tower. It was nice that the bell tower had these, because it gave you a place to rest. Most of the domes don’t have a lot of places to rest on your way up.

Here is a grate where you can look all the way down the center of the bell tower. Nice shoes.

Here is a view of the Duomo’s dome from the top of Giotto’s bell tower with florence in the background.

This is the platform on top of the bell tower. I kind of felt like a gerbil being inside the little tunnel cage.

After I climbed down from the bell tower, we went to the Uffizi gallery where we had reservations, which like I said earlier, you need. The Uffizi gallery is a world famous art gallery, and it was pretty cool, but you can’t take pictures inside. I did take this picture of the Ponte Vecchio from the Uffizi gallery though. The Ponte Vecchio is a bridge over the Arno river in Florence. The bridge contains a number of gold shops, we’ll go there a little later.

After the Uffizi gallery, we headed back to the Duomo to see the inside. The line was shorter this time, and it actually rained a little. It felt good though, considering how hot it was. See that building with the gold doors? That is the Baptistery, which is basically a mini church in front of the Duomo where they used to baptize people, and maybe they still do, I don’t know. The gold doors are the Gates of Paradise by Ghilberti. The doors on the baptistery now are just a replica of the original doors, which are now in a museum. These doors are one of the things from my college art history class that I really wanted to see.

This picture is a little out of order. First we went into the main level of the Duomo. It was very pretty, but dark, and my pictures didn’t come out all that great. Also, being that this is a church, they want you to be quite, and every few minutes, this creepy deep recorded voice says “Silenzio” followed by “Silence”. It was scary. After we saw the main level, I went to climb the dome, because as we discussed, I like climbing stuff. I took the picture below of the inside of the Duomo on my way up the dome. Look at the people below, they are so tiny, somebody should feed them more.

Here are some of the steps on the way up the dome. See, how cool is that, just think how old these steps are and how many people have climbed them. Are there any domes I can climb in St. Louis? I miss it.

Here is a view from the top of the Dome. Notice the hills in the background. They are covered with houses. I would like one.

This is the platform on the top of the Dome. I took some time to sit up here, relax for a bit, and send some SMS messages, which cost 50 cents a piece from Italy by the way.

After the climbing down from the Dome, we headed to the the Ponte Vecchio. Hey look, it’s a picture of me on the Ponte Vecchio. People are always like, why don’t you ever take any pictures of yourself, and I still don’t really understand why I would want to, but here I am, standing on a bridge, in Italy. Like I said earlier, the Ponte Vecchio is filled with gold shops. If you aren’t interested in gold, like me, the bridge also has nice views over the river Arno.

After the Ponte Vecchio we had dinner in Piazza Vecchio and then headed to the train station to catch our train back to Rome. Here is a picture of the tracks in the Florence train station. Cool picture huh?

The train ride back to Rome was nice. We sat next to an american couple who had been in Italy for 10 days. It was interesting to hear their stories. Also, on the train we were given olive flavored crackers. I thought they were okay. A few people have asked me whether I liked Rome or Florence better, and of course this isn’t really an answerable question. Rome has so much to see and do, but it’s also a big big city with a definite rat race feel to it. Florence on the other hand is smaller, and is more laid back and relaxing. Florence was also nicer and cleaner. I would much rather live in Florence and I do wish I had a few more days to just hang out there. Tomorrow we visit the Galleria Borghese and take a tour of the ancient roman ruins. You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.

Welcome to day number 2 of the Roseyland Italian adventure. You have of course read day 1 already, if not, use the link above and go read it. Do not read day 2 without reading day 1, just don’t. Today is our first full day in Rome and there is only one item on the agenda. Touring the Vatican. Before we left, my aunt and uncle (who had just been to Rome) convinced us that we had to take a Context Travel tour of the Vatican. I had always planned to take a tour of the Vatican, but I was planning on taking one of the larger group tours. The Context tours seemed a little expensive and overly academic to me. I’m so glad I changed my mind. Context tours have a maximum of 6 people on their tours, and your guide knows everything about the Vatican, and I mean everything. It’s like strolling through the Vatican with your good professor friend that loves to answer questions. The larger group tours would be okay, but they are groups of around 30 people, and that wouldn’t be so bad, but there are like 30 groups of 30 people all trying to shuffle their people from place to place while they recite their script. I’m probably being a little too hard on the larger group tours, but the Context tour really was excellent. If you spent all that money to go all the way to Rome, spend a little more on the Context tour, and no, I’m not getting compensated in any way to say this. In case you are wondering, we took the Arte Vaticana (with Reservation) tour.

We met our guide in a bar (think coffee bar) just outside the Vatican museums entrance. There were three other people on our tour, a husband, wife, and son from Massachusetts (I think). They were nice. The husband liked to take lots of pictures, like me. I wonder if he has a blog. Anyways, we entered the Vatican and our guide gave us a good overview of the Vatican and it’s history. The we walked out on this terrace that was absolutely beautiful. It overlooked the Vatican gardens and you could see the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in the background. You can’t tell from the picture, but that dome is huge, and by huge, I mean really really big.

Here is a picture from a courtyard inside the Vatican Museums. See that sphere in the middle? That sphere used to sit right between the World Trade Center towers. I don’t remember the story, but somehow it survived 9/11 and now it lives at the Vatican.

The Vatican museums are filled with priceless art. This statue is apparently very famous. Of course I don’t remember it’s name, but I believe it was an ancient greek statue had been lost for hundreds of years but was still well known among ancient Roman artist. Then it was unearthed and people flocked to see it. I probably butchered that story, but the point is, this statue is kind of a big deal. He should probably be wearing sunglasses.

Here is a hallway in the Vatican museums. Very beautiful building, lots of people.

Ohhhh. This is one of my favorite parts. This is a Vatican parking lot. This is where people who work at the Vatican park. See anything unusual? There is a big yellow Hummer in the parking lot. Who at the Vatican drives a Hummer?!? Doesn’t that break a vow or two? And don’t say, “I bet it’s the Pope’s!”. That joke is far to easy to be funny.

This is the School of Athens by Raphael. I had just finished reading Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King, which talked all about the painting of the Sistine Chapel and the rivalry between Michelangelo and Raphael. The book also talked about Raphael’s paintings in the Papal apartments, and they sounded very cool, but I didn’t think I’d get to see them, because I figured the Pope still lived there. Turns out he moved a while back, and you can go see them. Hurray! I actually liked this painting more that the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but that might just be because you can get closer to it.

Here is the famous Sistine chapel ceiling. The picture is a little blurry, because you aren’t supposed to take pictures and I had to be all sneaky. The whole thing is kind of ridiculous. There were a few hundred people in the Chapel, half of whom are taking picture after picture and then the guards in thick Italian accents say, “No Phoooto… No Veedeo…”. On top of that, supposedly the only reason you can’t take pictures of the ceiling is because the images are copyrighted by the Japanese company NHK who funded the restoration of the ceiling, and supposedly that copyright has run out, so you can take pictures of the ceiling. It’s just that nobody has told the guards.

This is the official staircase of the Vatican. It’s what heads of state use when they visit and it leads up to the Sistine chapel.

This is the inside of St. Peter’s basilica. This building is huge, it’s as long as two football fields and ridiculously beautiful.

This is the alter of St. Peter’s basilica which sits directly under it’s massive dome.

Here is picture from St. Peter’s square in front of St. Peter’s basilica. See the building in the background with all the windows? The three right most windows on the top row are where the Pope lives and works.

Another shot of St. Peter’s square, this time with St. Peter’s basilica in the background.

Our tour concluded in St. Peter’s square, and just to mention it one more time, it was awesome. I learned so much that I could probably pretend to be catholic now. Our guide mention a couple things on our tour that were not about the Vatican, but have stuck with me. First he talked about the difference between the cultures of northern and southern Europe. Basically he said that the germanic cultures (Germany, the Netherlands, The UK, etc…) tend to be very orderly and structured cultures. On the other hand, the romance language countries (France, Spain, Italy, etc…) tend to be more chaotic and less structured. I think I experienced this last year when I went from London to Paris. I really liked London and I felt very comfortable there almost instantly. Paris on the other hand was a shock to my system. While I loved Paris, it felt very out of control to me. At the time I chalked this up to not understanding the language, but now I think it’s a deeper cultural issue too. Supposedly the U.S. is more like the germanic countries. I’ll have to test this theory with a trip to Germany. Rome was chaotic like Paris, but the people were friendlier, so it didn’t shock me as much. Either that or I’m just more used to it now.

The other thing our guide said that has stuck with me is that the European cultures are at serious risk of going extinct. The birth rates in most European countries are around 1.8 births per woman. 2.1 births per woman is the rate needed to maintain a population. On top of that, immigrant cultures in Europe have much higher birth rates and could over take the native cultures in a generation or two. This worries me, because the European people are wonderful, and I don’t want them to disappear. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the immigrant cultures, without them, Europe would be in even worse shape. Still, I hope traditional Europe is around for many generations to come, or at least for the rest of my lifetime. I did some research, and birth rates in Europe are increasing, so it looks like the trend is slowly reversing. It seems like an easy problem to fix. I mean Rome is filled with attractive young European women, how hard can it be to get them all pregnant? If by chance you are a European woman reading this right now, stop, go get pregnant, then come back and read the rest. Thanks.

After our vatican tour, we ate lunch and then headed back to St. Peter’s basilica to climb the dome. Unfortunaly, we had to wait in the security line, but it’s much shorter in the afternoon. Here is a picture of part of the staircase heading to the top of the dome.

Here is a picture of St. Peter’s square from the top of the dome with Rome in the background.

Here is a picture of the back part of the Vatican. Visitors aren’t allowed to go there, it’s where they have secret Pope meetings.

Here is the platform on top of the dome and all the people taking pictures.

After the climbing down from the dome, we walked to the Torre Argentina cat sanctuary. There are lots of stray cat’s in Rome. Something about italians not believing in sterilizing their cats. The Torre Argentina sanctuary has a little section of ancient ruins where the cats can live, and the sanctuary gives them food, water, and shots. The people that work in the sanctuary are wonderful wonderful people. You should go to the link above and donate. The cat below is Earl’s italian cousin. While all the other cats were sleeping, he was running and jumping from ledge to ledge. It was actually really hard to get this picture.

Here are more cats among the ruins.

The cat sanctuary is pretty close to the Pantheon, so we headed there next to see the inside this time. The Pantheon is (I think) the only ancient Roman building that has survived all this time in pretty much it’s original condition. At some point it was converted into a catholic church. Here is the inside.

Remember that great restaurant in front of the Pantheon that I talked about last time. Here is a view from our table, that’s my glass of red wine. I don’t know why, but wine tasted so much better in Italy. Maybe it was the atmosphere, but it seems like they serve it at the perfect temperature, or decanted it, or something. It was good, I wish I knew why.

Day 2 is now concluded. Tomorrow we travel by train to Florence. You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.

Hey look! Roseyland is back. I know, you’re excited, totally understandable. I just got back from a trip to Italy, and now, I’m going to tell you all about it. I loved the blog post I wrote about my trip to London & Paris last year. You can read them here. I shouldn’t admit this, but I go back and read those post every few months or so. It’s a great way to revisit the experience. Naturally, I now have to do the same thing for my Italy trip.

Where to start? How about food. Ahhh the Italian food. It’s nothing like the picture below. This picture was taken in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport. They have great BBQ in the Charlotte airport. See that thing that looks like a giant french fry? That’s a fried pickle, and it’s awesome. I went to Italy with my Aunt (from Nebraska) and my Mom (from South Carolina). I arranged it so that we could meet up in Charlotte and fly to Rome together. This was our last meal before boarding our 9 hour flight.

After a couple hours in the airport, we boarded US Airways Flight #720 from Charlotte to Rome. This was on an Airbus 330. The picture below is from my seat. During the flight I was constantly comparing the US Airways Airbus 330 to the American Airlines Boeing 777 that I flew on to London last year. At first I liked the 777 a lot better, because it was a bigger aircraft and felt roomier inside, but the 330 grew on me. It might be a tad smaller, but the 777 had 5 middle seats, which means some poor sap get’s stuck with two people between him and the aisle. That would suck. Also, US Airways has a better in flight entertainment system than American airlines. I say this because the movies are truly on demand in that you can start them whenever you want, on American, they just play in continuous loops, and you have to catch the movies when they start. That being said, US Airways didn’t have a situational display that would show you where the aircraft currently was and how fast you were flying. Although I think the TSA might have made all airlines get rid of those.

Despite my best efforts, I didn’t get any sleep during the flight. I did watch three movies though. When In Rome, Date Night, and something else that for the life of me I can’t remember. I’m sure it was really good though. By the way, the fountain in the movie When In Rome, it’s not a real fountain. You can’t find it in Rome, so don’t go looking for it, that would be a total waste of time.

Upon arrival we went through customs. The italian customs process is much less strenuous than the UK customs process. The UK will have you fill out a form and ask you a few questions, the Italians, they look at you and stamp your passport. Which is fine by me, because it’s a lot faster. Since there were three of us, I decided to rent a short term apartment for our stay. I was a little nervous about this, because I like the connivence and security of a hotel, but this apartment got good reviews on Flipkey.com and it was about the price of one hotel room. It all worked out well and the apartment people were nice enough to arrange a private driver for us from the airport for €50. Below is a picture of our apartment’s living room. There were also two bedrooms, 1 bathroom, and a terrace that you had to take this tiny spiral staircase to get to.

All in all our apartment was pretty nice, but you did have to go up these steps to get to it. Not only that, before these steps there are three more flights of steps and these two weird metal gates that had to be unlocked to get in or out. The locks were strange too, I don’t know how, but they functioned differently from american locks, and it stressed me out every time I had to deal with them.

After settling into our apartment, we headed out to see Rome and get oriented. Below is a picture of Piazza del Popolo This piazza was pretty close to our apartment and we ate lunch at a ristorante here. I had some type of risotto. It was good. After walking around for a bit, we realized that it was just too hot and we were too tired to keep going, so we heading back to the apartment for a short nap until it cooled off a little.

Later in the evening, we headed out again. Our first stop, the Spanish Steps as seen in the picture below. Lots of people here. See those guys with flowers, they are really annoying. If you are female, they insist that you take a flower (because you’re beautiful of course), then if you take one and nobody pays for it after a few seconds, they take it back. I believe these are mostly illegal immigrants. Every once in a while the police show up and they go running, but they come back just a few minutes later. It’s like this weird game they and the police play that nobody ever wins. Fortunately we didn’t have to deal with this kind of activity too much in Rome, I thought it was a lot worse in Paris last year.

This is the Fontana della Barcaccia that sits at the base of the Spanish steps. Supposedly the water streaming into the fountain is drinkable, and I did see people drink it. I was not that brave however.

After the Spanish Steps we walked to the Fontana di Trevi. Pictures don’t do this fountain justice. It’s beautiful, and huge, and I wanted to swim in it. This area was also packed with people trying to see the fountain. There is a video of this fountain on my Flickr page, you should check it out.

Next we headed towards the Pantheon and ate dinner somewhere along the way. The Pantheon was closed, but it still looks pretty impressive on the outside.

This is the piazza in front of the Pantheon. I think this might be my favorite place in Rome. See that ristorante on the right with the yellow table cloths and brown wicker chairs? That was our favorite restaurant in Rome. We ate there twice. The guide books will tell you to avoid the restaurants on the main piazzas, because they tend to be tourist traps, and they are probably right, but tourist trap or not, I loved this restaurant. The waitress was super friendly, there is a great view of the piazza and the people, with the Pantheon in the background. Music was always playing from somewhere, and the food was great. On a nice night, it’s just amazing. If you ever want to go sometime, I’ll buy dinner.

This is Piazza Navona. Somehow I thought this would be a bigger deal, because it looks like a big deal on the map. It was cool, but there were a lot of other piazzas I liked better. Like that one in front of the Pantheon I just talked about.

After a lot of walking, we got gelato at the famous Giolitti. It was very good. I had chocolate and carmel with whipped cream. Their chocolate chip (called stracciatella) is also very popular. A quick side note, at the bars and gelato places in Italy, you pay first at the cashier, who gives you a receipt, then you take the receipt to the bar where you order your food. So don’t just go up to the bar and order food, you’ll look like a silly tourist, but they’ll still be nice to you. Also, bar doesn’t mean bar, bar means counter service like restaurant where you can get coffee, pastries, sandwiches, etc…

That’s it, day 1 is over. Tomorrow we tour the Vatican, hopefully we’ll be over our jet lag by then. You can see more pictures from my trip here and a few videos here.