Rome pt 1

OK- Heres the first post from the first post! Click on the pictures to see them larger.
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Well, here I am in Camp de Fiori, sitting outdoors writing up a blog post, nursing a Limoncello. Not that I pronounced it correctly when I ordered it, I'm sure. Last night I tried to ask for the check in what I thought was Italian (il conto (?)) but the waiter misunderstood me and brought me a coke. So... now I stick to English. It's going pretty great so far. Solo travelling has a really different feel to it- the downsides stand out immediately, but there are upsides if you look for them. But, lets go in chronological order, shall we?

13 hours of travelling that I think we can gloss over fairly easily. KLM, the dutch airline, was efficient and problem free for me, but a woman from Peoria on my second flight had a terrible time of it, so I guess it's hit or miss. It was a huge plane, the largest I've ever seen. Amsterdam's airport is gorgeous with a number of nice amenities, Heathrow had better be looking over its shoulder. I heartily approve of the European Union... idk much about them, but it means that I had to go through about half of those passport stamping lines in total, so, they're cool by me!

Before I knew it, I was in Rome!

[0162]

I got a little more than I bargained for at Casa di Santa Brigida. It's run by friendly nuns, some saint died upstairs or something? I don't know. Rick Steves described it as a place soggy tourists can go to to think they've gone to heaven, and you can't beat the location, so that was enough for me. Bit strange though. I don't know that I've ever seen a nun in person before, much less had one explain to me (in very good English) how to unlock the gigantic front door with my key. They serve breakfast in the morning. I expected a buffet- every hotel I've ever been to served breakfast that way. Not so here. Nuns brought me meat and cheese for my roll. If talking to nuns feels weird, being served by them feels really really weird. There was about 15 tourists at those tables, all speaking in hushed tones to eachother, if at all. Weird. Two priests were at the next table. I've seen maybe 6 priests dressed with that iconic collar in Rome so far and it's been less than 24 hours. IDK, I guess there's some pope or something a mile away? ;) I'll be going there tomorrow!

After showering in the world's tiniest shower (great water pressure though), it was about 4pm local time on Saturday, so I took to the streets! The hotel is one small street away from Campo di Fiori, which is where I am now. In the center is a statue of that Bruno guy who the church burned at this spot. I am definitely not talented with this camera, but in the picture you can see the statue and a restaurant or two in the backround with the outdoor seeting- one of which I am now occupying. No wifi, but I'll upload this text later.

Out of this square, I took the Rick Steves tour through many of the very touristy places in this city. Very different from the parts of London and Dublin I've seen, there's a lot of really narrow streets lined with booths and/or shops leading into wide open pallazos and piazzas. The two words seem to mean pretty much the same thing from what I can tell. (?) It's pretty charming. Nearer to the train station I saw some more modern looking streets, so maybe it's just tourist paradise here. Either way, pretty lovely.

After Camp de Fiori, I arrived in Piazza Navona. Centuries old marble rennaisance statues forty yards away from blasting music and what appeared to be a giant party for teenagers. Lots of kids talking, some dancing. It looked a bit like a highschool or junior high dance, really-- if instead of the cafeteria we had had them in a piazza in the Eternal City.

This police baricade was where Rick Steves told me to walk next. Not sure what they were blocking, but I easily detoured through an alley. There are police EVERYWHERE in Rome.

I got a little lost here, all the streets are at angles and there aren't uniform streetsigns. The name of the street, if present at all, is often on a building or something. But, the place I was trying to find kind of stands out. You do notice it. Behold the Panethon- the most well preserved ancient building in the city. Look familiar? ;) This was the site of the first of many Rick Steves audioguide that I listened to on my ipod. They are great! You really can't appreciate it fully just by looking. The info is very good and I can pause to move at my own pace. I don't have any pictures of the inside, but it's pretty cool. There's a dome hidden behind that roof, it is very cool. Architecturally, even better than the Colloseum in my opinion. The columns are single pieces, shipped in from far away. The giant dome stays up as if by magic- and in fact, during the backwards dark ages, the locals didn't know how it was made, and made up fanciful legends to explain it!

Next, I had dinner at a place RS recommended. The style everywhere I've been so far is to choose your table, and then a waiter approaches you and you go from there. This simple difference very much confused me at first, and the result was that I sat down way in the back by the bar instead of outside like I should have. The food though, was excellent. I had lasagna and it was waaaay awesome. Haha. The musicians who have been playing in the middle of the square since I got here have now sent their violinist out for tips. Hard to refuse him when he comes over and looks you in the eye. Of course, my 1 euro tip for all the time Ive been here has probably been the best bargain I've gotten in Italy so far. It's hardly traditional Italian music, but still nice. One of their pieces is a stylized "Somewhere Over the Rainbow!" Anyway. Yes. The Lasagna was waaaay awesome. After I left I searched for the galeteria that RS recomended in the area, but I couldnt find it. So I broke down and got some from, my goodness, it's a terrible thing to admit to, this place "Blue Ice" which is a chain all around the city. It looks very tourist trappy, but hey, they had really good icecream and it wasn't a bad deal either, so, oh well.

Like the Pantheon, my next destination led me to it, but this time through the sense of sound instead of sight. I could hear the trevi fountain from about 100 yards, when it was still hidden by buildings. It is HUGE. I'd read about it and even seen Samantha Brown go to it on the travel channel, but nothing can convey how huge this is. Serviced by an ancient roman aquaduct... just incredible. This picture, I don't think, is very good. I threw in the traditional coin over the shoulder, and then stuck around to finish off my gelato. Like in the piazza navona, and nearly everywhere I go here, the place had a huge mob of teenagers occupying the steps on one side of it. It's really hard for me to tell if they're locals or not, because I hear them shouting and I can't really distinguish what language it is.

Finally, I got the Spanish Steps and sat down on them, as you pretty much have to :) It then rained for awhile, and so everyone shoved off. My plan of getting a taxi back to the hotel evaporated as hundreds of other tourists suddenly got the same idea. I ended up walking all the way back, maybe a mile and half. Not exactly a great feat of athleticism, but in the rain with a paper map having not slept in maybe thirty hours except a half hour here and there on planes, I was proud of it :) There were umbrella salesmen everywhere... guys who carry about ten umbrellas in a little umbrella-carrier thing and approach you saying a word that sounds very similar to "Umbrella"... romance language cognates are great. Well, I didn't buy an umbrella but I did say a lot of "Dov'e Campo de Fiori?" So, that was good. Rome looks pretty at night.

The forecast for rome has been rain this whole time, but it's never rained for longer than ten minutes straight that I've seen. Very on and off, rarely pouring. It drizzled a lot this morning while I was out but it was no problem. It just happened again- five minutes of rain, clearing out a lot of these tables. The first drop came and I got beneath the awning, but most people just left. Now five minutes later all those tables are filled with different tourists. I've been buying drinks and snacks here and there to keep the waiter placated. Peroni = ok, Limoncello = good, pizza = very very good!

Wow, I've already written quite a lot. It's all I can bear to do at the moment, though. Im so tired from that plane I couldnt sleep on that Im just trying to last a little longer before I zonk out. I slept a good eight hours last night, I wanted to wake up early to beat the crowds at Ancient Rome. I used my ipod touch as an alarm clock, since apparently nuns don't need alarm clocks to awaken early... my room didn't have one, anyway. This ipod touch is fast becoming my favorite possesion.

Ancient Rome was pretty sweet. It was pretty much the reason I decided to do Italy first- or the first reason, anyway. Rick Steves has shown me lots of other good reasons that I'm now looking forward to. For the colloseum photo, see the top of the screen! :) Since I had picked up my Roma Pass at the airport, I got to skip the infamous line at the colloseum. The colloseum was very awesome. Thank goodness for these Rick Steves audio guides. They're really interesting, and he even makes some really funny jokes, and he does this thing where he plays a little bit of music and then describes how the place must have looked two thousand years ago- during an actual match, for example. They're really, really good. [0169] Here I am next to some steps. How many ancient romans climbed these up to their nosebleed seats, free to the poor? I was glad to use the more recently built stairs, instead.

Next, the Roman forum! The political/social center of the ancient city. Temples, monuments, housing for the vestral virgins-- it is all here! Or it was. Two thousand years later there are a lot of very pretty looking ruins, plus the voice of Rick Steves in my ear. The pictures of indoors is actually the genuine senate building! Its well preserved because its been used as a church since then. There were a LOT of students in attendence. Buzzing around writing stuff down, making noise, when all I wanted to do was marvel at the pidgeons eating who-knows-what off the ground, mere yards away from the spot where Caesar was stabbed to death. A group of them appeared to be an art class; they were sketching columns. Pretty cool.

I went up to a much more modern city and ate a meal, but neglected to order a drink. I was walking to the subway when I saw a cart selling cold bottles of beer, which I thought sounded like a good idea. The guy selling it spoke English, almost everyone attempting to sell things to tourists does. I asked him if you could drink on the subway- it looked like a long distance on the map. He assured me you could, which turned out to be a lie. After I swiped my Roma Pass (3 days of transportation included), guys from behind glass started banging it. The only words I recognized were "no" and "bottle" - thank goodness for romance language cognates! It ended up for the best I suppose, I drank it lazily while gazing up at the colloseum. The metro was by far the fastest train I've been on, underground or otherwise, I think. I was surprised that no voice came over the intercom telling me what station was approaching. Also people hop on and hop off quickly- very different from the dolce vita steriotype. The doors dont open for very long. Look it's raining again and the umbrella salesmen are back! There are so many of them. I dont understand why so many people do it when there is so much competition?

The national museum of rome... lots of naked sculpture, and some other stuff. Im not sure why I came here. I guess I didnt want to be so unsophisticated as to come to Italy and not go to a single museum. Plus the Roma pass gives me admission to two sites, and this was my second, so, hey, it was free (The Vatican doesn't count for the pass-- it isn't in Rome! ;). Well, by this time my feet were killing me, so I didn't stay for long. The musicians are back and they're giving the guy next to me a really hard time. He's with his girlfriend who was giving him a look tho, so he gave em something in the end. I told him I was here last time and he went away :)

I made it back to my hotel and then came out here! Overall, very g
ood so far. I'm not even that jet lagged, but my itinerary has a looooot of sleep time built into it for tonight, just to make sure it doesnt creep up on me like it did last time, where I didnt feel it until after my second night. Hmm. I think I'll walk back go over to that icecream place on the other side of the pallazo which has been taunting me for awhile now. Then I'll walk to the internet point I saw a few blocks away.

Ciao!