The Eternal City
Day 1: I am here with Wouter and our journey was...efficient. Wouter drives a Citroen 2CV circa 1985. Google it. It is a stick and the shifter is in the dash. there is a choke. you have to add your own lead to the gas. it is nicknamed "the duck" and there is a cult in the netherlands devoted to its lawnmower-esque existence. anyway, it is a thing of beauty and it scares the crap out of me. so we drove to brussles at 4:45 on Monday morning and made it safely without any incidents to speak of. it 6:59 when we checked in for our flight...check in closes at 7:00. We were one minute away from not being here at all, and miraculously, i kept my cool. we walked straight onto the plane, and although we were among the last onboard, we found two seats right beside each other which wasn't the luck others were having. our seats were perfectly placed at the end of the plane, so we walked straight off too without having to wait around at all. long story short, the entire trip was wait free!
we only got into trouble when it was time to find our b&b. later we discovered we are just blind. this place we are staying is really nice, you can see it online at romeby.com. it is called Maian. We didn't waste any time and got right to it. the first day we covered a lot of ground, checking out the colloseum, the roman forum, a nice little restaurent for lunch, the pantheon, a gelateria, and the monument victor emmanuel II. We even sat in the Esquiline park in Nero's backyard. A theif tried to snatch my purse there from where it was sitting between us. Before I could think about it, a choice phrase completely inappropriate for a young lady escaped in a bellow and i think i actually might have scared the bastard. anyway, my purse is safe and now duct-taped to my person. the rest of the picnicers in the park started pointing and immitating almost immediately and a nice man on the bench across from us assured me that they must have been high.
After that, we came back to home base and took a nap. Wouter was trying his best to convince me he wasn't tired, but passed out almost before i did. the sun is hot in rome and the walking is long. i was ready to just call it a day. but dinner! we had pizza OF COURSE.
Day 2: We decided to visit the pope yesterday. But he wouldn't have us. Although we were clearly within the guidelines on their goofy signs, the Vatican fashion police didn't approve of our attire, so we will go back tomorrow. to save the day, we went to the Vatican museum and the sistene chapel instead. It was beautiful! my favourite was Raphael's School of Athens. The Sistene chapel was nice too. We walked to the Vatican city of course, because it is much more fun to walk, and on the way, I saw a Lotus Elise. Pictures to follow!
We had lunch at this awful little local spot who i think didn't approve of tourists. they served my coke with a shot of beer in it, which raises a great number of questions, and they didn't appologize for the mistake either. anyway, it was a horrible dining experience, and in general i have to say the service in rome is horrendous so far. it wrecked our mood, so it was clearly time for some retail therapy. We hit the Via Condotti for some museum shopping. as in, look but don't touch. I fell in love with a little something from Prada, and it is still torturing me. Wouter is so cute. he estimated it at 20 Euro. he forgot where we were apparently. anyway, the item of my affection was 6 times that, but i think Wouter's guess was more accurate in terms of actual value. therefore it still rests in the glass case at Prada. by the way, it was only a keychain. it was shaped like a skull and cross bones and would have been really hot on the purse i had also picked out for 500 euro.
Then we sat on the spanish steps and people watched for about two hours. i tried to find the restaurant apparently owned by the family member of a family member, but i coudln't find any likely candidates.
last night, frustrated as i was with the service around here, i decided that it was time we went somewhere that would leave me both satisfied and satisfied. So we went to the Piazza Navona for dinner and found a great little place where the food was tasty and the waitress nice enough (and dutch, as the prying americans sitting next to us weasled out of her) (but we still spoke to her in Italian) . It was a great meal, the best yet, and a real bank buster, but if you know me well, you know that i can't stand bad service. i was getting desperate. that will hold me over. We wandered back the piazza, watched a man juggle fire whilst balancing atop a unicycle 6 feet high. we looked at the artwork that was on display there and then wandered to the pantheon again. in that piazza there were a pair of mimes making fun of all the passers by. they were a riot for the most part. we watched them for awhile, and then we made our way to the Trevi fountain. i tossed in a coin, of course, and then it was home to bed.
Day 3: about to find out!
we only got into trouble when it was time to find our b&b. later we discovered we are just blind. this place we are staying is really nice, you can see it online at romeby.com. it is called Maian. We didn't waste any time and got right to it. the first day we covered a lot of ground, checking out the colloseum, the roman forum, a nice little restaurent for lunch, the pantheon, a gelateria, and the monument victor emmanuel II. We even sat in the Esquiline park in Nero's backyard. A theif tried to snatch my purse there from where it was sitting between us. Before I could think about it, a choice phrase completely inappropriate for a young lady escaped in a bellow and i think i actually might have scared the bastard. anyway, my purse is safe and now duct-taped to my person. the rest of the picnicers in the park started pointing and immitating almost immediately and a nice man on the bench across from us assured me that they must have been high.
After that, we came back to home base and took a nap. Wouter was trying his best to convince me he wasn't tired, but passed out almost before i did. the sun is hot in rome and the walking is long. i was ready to just call it a day. but dinner! we had pizza OF COURSE.
Day 2: We decided to visit the pope yesterday. But he wouldn't have us. Although we were clearly within the guidelines on their goofy signs, the Vatican fashion police didn't approve of our attire, so we will go back tomorrow. to save the day, we went to the Vatican museum and the sistene chapel instead. It was beautiful! my favourite was Raphael's School of Athens. The Sistene chapel was nice too. We walked to the Vatican city of course, because it is much more fun to walk, and on the way, I saw a Lotus Elise. Pictures to follow!
We had lunch at this awful little local spot who i think didn't approve of tourists. they served my coke with a shot of beer in it, which raises a great number of questions, and they didn't appologize for the mistake either. anyway, it was a horrible dining experience, and in general i have to say the service in rome is horrendous so far. it wrecked our mood, so it was clearly time for some retail therapy. We hit the Via Condotti for some museum shopping. as in, look but don't touch. I fell in love with a little something from Prada, and it is still torturing me. Wouter is so cute. he estimated it at 20 Euro. he forgot where we were apparently. anyway, the item of my affection was 6 times that, but i think Wouter's guess was more accurate in terms of actual value. therefore it still rests in the glass case at Prada. by the way, it was only a keychain. it was shaped like a skull and cross bones and would have been really hot on the purse i had also picked out for 500 euro.
Then we sat on the spanish steps and people watched for about two hours. i tried to find the restaurant apparently owned by the family member of a family member, but i coudln't find any likely candidates.
last night, frustrated as i was with the service around here, i decided that it was time we went somewhere that would leave me both satisfied and satisfied. So we went to the Piazza Navona for dinner and found a great little place where the food was tasty and the waitress nice enough (and dutch, as the prying americans sitting next to us weasled out of her) (but we still spoke to her in Italian) . It was a great meal, the best yet, and a real bank buster, but if you know me well, you know that i can't stand bad service. i was getting desperate. that will hold me over. We wandered back the piazza, watched a man juggle fire whilst balancing atop a unicycle 6 feet high. we looked at the artwork that was on display there and then wandered to the pantheon again. in that piazza there were a pair of mimes making fun of all the passers by. they were a riot for the most part. we watched them for awhile, and then we made our way to the Trevi fountain. i tossed in a coin, of course, and then it was home to bed.
Day 3: about to find out!
posted by Unknown at Wednesday, June 15, 2005
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