Rome, Day 1

Here it is...Our roman adventure.

To get from Paris to Rome, Andy and I took a night train so we could sleep through the 7 hour trip. Each little train compartment had three beds on each side so 6 people could sleep in there at once. It was so weird sharing such close sleeping space with a middle-aged italian man and two chinese exchange students who didn't speak very much english. I was a bit leery of the italian fellow, but he helped Andy and I convert our seats to beds and gave us some delicious bottled water. I read "Jane Eyre" while Andy indulged in "The Count of Monte Cristo" until we were ready to go to sleep. You don't change into pajamas, so it was nice that we had actually forseen that and wore functional and comfortable clothing. We dug our handy travel toothbrushes out of our bags and crammed ourselves into a very tiny (think airplaine size) bathroom in an attempt to be a tiny bit hygenic on this crazy train ride. And because this adventure is an Andy and Alianna classic, something weird happened in the middle of the night. Our train compartment was pitch black--door locked, windows drawn, lights off. Everyone was fast asleep, no one even fazed by sleeping next to strangers because this is apparently the way things are done. All of a sudden there was this loud, frenzied pounding on the door. We turn the light on and we are so disoriented. No one can quite sit up all the way because there is another bed 18 inches above you. We unlocked the door because the banging and pounding was caused by a group of Italian policemen. Andy and I don't understand the language so I'm still pretty unclear of what happened that night, but we all had to show our paperwork (train tickets, passports) and they asked us if we were travelling with a group of people. They even searched the middle-aged italian man's luggage and had some words with him outside of the compartment and then....left. I wanted to ask what the heck just happened, but considering I was still waking up (this all took place in under 4 minutes) and the only person who could communicate with these policemen was stripped searched, I fell back asleep in no time with absolutely no consideration that we may or may not have been sleeping next to a drug dealer or escaped convict. Sadly, I have no pictures to document this bizzare train ride. We arrived in Rome and were immediately sent on a wild goose chase to find our hotel room. What I didn't realize when I reserved it online was that it was just a room (with a bathroom) in an apartment building. So it was completely unmarked and only under the name of the owner (which we didn't know). I had a printed paper with a hotel name and address. We found the address with no problems. We even ventured to walk the mile or so from the train station to the address instead of wasting our time learn the metro system immediately and then be crammed into yet another train compartment. We arrived at the address and it looked like a plain residential apartment building with names next to buzzers and a locked door. We read through those names over and over again, trying to find the hotel name I had on my paper. We finally resorted to buzzing every single name and trying our best to communicate what we were looking for. Luckily, about 3 tries into this seemingly hopeless venture, a man buzzed us into the building (he must have been expecting someone) and we walked up to his apartment and knocked on his door. He was some young hip italian artist with crazy cool furniture and modern, picasso-like paintings everywhere. And he spoke a little english! We explained what was going on and he pulled out his cell phone and called the bazillion digit phone number I had written on the paper. He got a hold of the woman I reserved the room from and she came right over, gave us a key to the room and proceeded to tell us that breakfast was served every morning at her "actual hotel" a few streets over (finding THAT was a whole new adventure). This whole conversation took place with her speaking italian, Andy trying to communicated with spanish (thank goodness the languages have some similar words or else we would have never survived), and me nodding like a bobblehead. We had a great view of the city from our window though!

Okay, pictures.

The Colosseum was so amazing. It was huge and ancient an not overrated at all. It was really inspiring to be at one of the 7 wonders of the wold with such a history. I wish I had more to say, but there are no words. It was so weird walking around, sitting at, and standing in such a historic arena. I mean the Eiffel Tower was so great and the Tower of London was one of my favorites, but the Colosseum surprassed everything we saw in age and structure. To think that such a massive structure could withstand the people, the weather, the uprisings and war that have happened through the centuries was almost mind-boggling to consider. I mean it's almost 2000 years old!

After the Colosseum we went to the Roman Museum of Art which housed some pretty incredible pieces. It was free and huge and air conditioned so there were a lot of pluses to walking around for a couple hours. After that we walked around that corner of Rome for a few more hours and scoured for food (which ended up being delicious gnocchi in tomato sauce).We stumbled upon this architectural park filled with ruins of what used to be the government building of the roman empire. I'm sure it's a significant place with a name that every body else knows, but I just can't think of it at the moment.

We tackled the Pantheon, the shopping district, our first taste of gelato and the Trevi fountain on day two (coming soon!).

Naples

This is so pathetic. I have this nagging thought in the back of my head to finish posting our Europe pictures before I forget it all--the good and bad--and have to resort to romaticized notions that I read while I prepared for this trip. It seems silly and almost insignificant now that a whole year has passed since our trip of a lifetime and bigger things (namely my increasingly gigantic baby belly) are hovering on the horizon. But alas, I have to finish what I started....over a year ago. Alright, Naples was something special. I'm sure I'll say this about every city I write about, but Naples was one of my favorites. It was the first time Andy and I tasted REAL pizza. After all, pizza originated in the city of Naples. The crust was so thin and crispy and light and it wasn't doused in cheese, so it was easy to feel less guilty about eating half of a whole pizza. Our favorite was the Margherita Pizza. It had tangy, fresh tomato sauce. Each piece was topped with a slice of homemade mozzarella and a basil leaf. So simple. So good. It rained almost exclusively during our two night stay, but it was kind of refreshing after being in the hot roman sun the few days prior.

So yummy right? We decide to go to Naples on a whim and we didn't really know what kind of history was in the area other than Mt. Vesuvius. So most of our pictures were of all the things we deemed "cool." Unfortunately because of the weather, the ferry that takes visitors to see Pompeii and it's dreaded volcano was not running. But we did try to get some shots of it! It's overcast and dreary, but I kind of loved the foreboading image it created.

And a few shots of us on the way to Florence. We really loved the train system in Europe. It was so punctual (maybe a little too punctucal on a few occassions that I'll detail later).

Florence

Florence was my favorite city. There was no metro system to learn, as everything was in walking distance. Unlike Rome, Paris, and London, Florence was soooo clean! It was beautiful. Even the view from our hotel room was enchanting. It was out of a storybook with the clothes lines, green shutters, and red roof tiles.

Our room was lovely. We even had our own bidet right at the foot of our bed. The toilet and shower were in a separate room that was shared with the rest of the floor. But it was a small hotel, and we never even saw anyone else, so the bathroom-sharing was no problemo.

Florence was home to the best geltato ever! We had our very first taste of it in Rome right across from the Pantheon, but Florence topped them all. It was the perfect mix of creaminess. We tried all sorts of flavors from tiramisu to mint to blood orange. I'm sad that we were to busy stuffing our faces with it every chance we got that we didn't even take pictures of it! Of course I couldn't have cared less at the time...the only thing that mattered was savoring the gelato before it melted in the Italian sun.

On our first day, we went and explored the city and came across the Duomo. Brunelleschi had to build the dome out of bricks due to its light weight compared to stone. He was commissioned to build the largest dome in the world and though that's obviously not the case anymore with new architectural technologies, the Duomo is still the largest masonry dome in the world.

I literally could not stop looking at it. Something about it just seemed so awe-inspiring. That's kinda cheesy--and not all of Italy was sublime and romantic and other-worldly--but something about the Duomo really spoke to me. I was so mad when I saw that Andy had taken this picture because it's, well, it's kind of weird (and I had burned my bangs with a curling iron in London due to a bad outlet converter, so they were poofy and frayed for a lot of our trip). But I didn't delete it because it captured my genuine wonder of the building.

After we explored the city (and ate our weight in gelato), we walked down to the Medici chapel. It was in a beautiful courtyard filled with replicas of famous sculptures.

That's the best photographic evidence we have of "David" and the others. The originals are housed in the Uffizi Gallery (which we went to the next day) and the Accademia, but they don't allow cameras. We even had to go through security where they make you check your bag...so no sneaking pictures...at either place.

Our next stop was Poncho Vecchio. It's a beautiful bridge that houses a ton of luxury shops. I was drooling at all the window displays. Jewelry stores lined both sides and I couldn't fathom the kind of money people dropped to shop there.

We loved the view of the river that ran through Florence so we took lots of pictures of it. We got really good at holding the camera out at an angle that put us both in the frame. Some turned out better than others.

Our last stop before we headed to Venice (I'm posting these backwards because of photo accessibility), was the Duomo at night. We had a tragic mishap at Versailles and our camera was dropped and subsequently...broke. We had to buy a new one in Paris and we spent a lot of the trip learning how to use it. The flash was a little weird, so we decided to play around with it in front of the Duomo.

Our first attempt was less than successful. I will have to put this into photoshop and see if I can lighten it.

The second try was a little better, but it still came across as too bright.

But there is a reason they say "third time's a charm."

Europe Part 1: Venezia!

Yes! We finally have a valid Internet connection and a new laptop. I feel like such a slacker since we've been back from Europe for almost two months now and I haven't posted a single picture...anywhere.

After loading our pictures onto our (new!) laptop, I realized that blogging about 2000 pics would be ridiculously tedious, not to mention horribly boring. So with that in mind, I decided to post pictures according to each city we visited so hopefully I'll only be boring people with relevant pictures of our backpacking adventure.

The last city on our trip was Venice, Italy (I'm going backwards because these are the pictures that are most easily accessible). If we look really grungy and smelly, it's because we are. Living out of a backpack is surprisingly difficult. We rotated four or five outfits and hand washing really takes a toll on clothes! The hope is that we'll look better, more put together during later pictures.

This is the glass bridge that you can cross to enter the actual city of Venice. We didn't stay on the island because of the outrageous prices...and we were on a budget.

We saw incredible architecture in the buildings, bridges, and parks. It was impossible to take pictures of everything, but we tried our best. I had heard from others that had been to Venice that the city was dirty and stinky. I wholeheartedly disagree. The city had an old world charm full of what was once Venetian opulence. It was once the richest city in the world. The pealing paints and scuffed walls only added to the testament of its character. The pigeons, however, were dirty and stinky...and aggressive. As you may or may not know, I have a fear of birds. So me+mean birds+an open courtyard by the sea=worst nightmare ever.

I was quite enraptured by the gondolas, as they kind of represented a mythical creature or something. You grow up hearing about them, but you never actually see one. We didn't get a chance to ride one because they were about $130 an hour. Now that we're back from Europe and not totally broke, I think I would have liked to spend that money for the experience. Ah well, ces la vie. The gondolas, the water, the character of the city really to make Venice the most romantic place in the world. After seeing museum after museum for three weeks, Andy and I decided to spend money on a candlelight dinner on the canal and a baroque opera (the photographic evidence of which are temporarily missing). The dinner was three courses of deliciousness. I had a grilled salmon, spaghetti, roasted veggies and a chocolate mouse. Andy opted for the roasted chicken, vinaigrette salad, and lasagna with the same dessert. When we were finishing the started pouring rain. It was almost like a fairy tale where you have this amazing, romantic day ending with kissing in the rain.

Only our fairy tale ended with us running a mile in the pouring rain to catch our bus. But we laughed almost the whole way, until we got lost and had to back track. Then we were grumpy. Then we were laughing at how ridiculous the whole situation was. It was a fitting end to our three week trip.

Next Up: Florence

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