Friday, September 11, 2009
We're OK!
Mistakes…Rome, Day 2
THURSDAY, September 10, 2009
So today was a decent day, but there were a few mistakes that weren’t so great and one pretty big mistake that was way too stressful. But we’re both alive and ready to tell the tale.
We started out today pretty early. We had a nice continental breakfast at our hotel and then headed over to Vatican City. We first went to the Vatican/Sistine Chapel. There was an extremely large line. (Extremely doesn’t even cover it…it was just so huge!) But luckily I bought tickets online so we surpassed the massive amounts of people and walked right in.
We decided to do an audioguide and that ended up being pretty cool. They said you wanted to have 1 per person since there really wasn’t a speaker on the audio machine, but we opted for just 1 and I told Sam he could just repeat what it said. After the first couple of minutes Sam realized that there was a place for headphones. I realized that I had the splitter and our headphones in our backpack, so boom bam, we could both listen! We found a loophole, and surprisingly didn’t get in trouble!
The Vatican Museum was pretty amazing. There was just so much to take in. So many statues and frescoes (the paintings on the walls/ceilings). They’re called frescoes because it means fresh in Italian and they would paint on the walls/ceilings before the concrete was even dry. Just an interesting fact we learned due to our audio guide! YAY!
We took our time and then sped up a little to get to the Sistine Chapel. It was extremely amazing. There were also a lot of people inside, but we were able to find a seat and listen to everything the audioguide had to say. The amount of time and effort put into this one room is incredible. To think that Michelangelo painted the entire walls/ceilings when he was 33 and then came back when he was 60 to do the wall of the Final Judgment. Pretty awesome. We were very taken aback by the Sistine Chapel.
After this we went to St. Peter’s Basillica. This is apparently the place where Peter was buried. It was a little too churchy for us…Sam called it a “Great and Spacious Building”. The architecture was quite stunning, but I just didn’t get excited by it. It was interesting to me that they had a dress code, such as no shorts – but apparently that wasn’t very inforced…I think it was more so as to no knees showing, but there were plenty…No bare shoulders, lots of women wore shalls. It was quite packed, so we made it through pretty quickly.
We then wanted to find a place to eat. We were quite hungry by this point, but we weren’t in a very good area for good food. I’m sure it probably would have been fine, but on the menu it said that all the pizzas and pastas were frozen products. No thanks! So we headed towards Palantine Hill and found a cart with some prepared foods. It was a little more expensive for a snack, but we were able to get a little energy from it to head on to the rest of our stops.
We then headed over to Palantine Hill. We were a little confused and decided that this would have been a good place to have an actual guided tour. We didn’t have any kind of map or book that talked about the history of the place. We were just a little confused, but it was cool to see nonetheless. Just a lot of eroded architecture. Couldn’t really tell what things once were.
We were really really tired by this point, along with being really hot and really hungry. So we hopped on a bus and got to the Pantheon. We were able to see it from the outside yesterday and lit up last night, but we went inside today. It was another stunning sight of architecture and paintings, but again quite churchy.
We then found a spot for some food. It wasn’t the greatest, but we aren’t complaining. It was definitely a tourist spot, right there in the Pantheon square. We were just so hungry that we didn’t want to spend the time searching anymore. So we ate and enjoyed.
Now, onto my big mistake…We made it just fine to the airport and arrived with plenty of time. We got in a very long line to check in and while standing in this very long line I realized that I booked our flight for Friday, September 11 not Thursday, September 10. I was really shocked at the date printed plainly in front of me and the date shown clearly in front of me at the airport. I had no idea how I could have made such an awful mistake!
So we waited in line and got to the check-in counter only to find out that we had to go to a different station to change our tickets. We talked with the man at the ticket office and he was pretty helpful, but I think he was either new or filling in for someone because he kept asking the other woman questions. He also wasn’t giving me any indication that we were going to be able to get on the flight tonight. My nerves were not doing so well by this point.
Finally he told us that this was going to work and that made me feel a little better. But come to find out that after spending more time rearranging our flights he had to void what he just did for Sam’s reservation. He ended up having to leave to go to a gate, so the woman took over. She was the only one there and the phone was ringing non-stop along with a line beginning to form.
She finally got our reservations printed and we paid our fee which was actually quite less than I expected it was going to be. Then we headed back over to the check-in counter. The woman there was expecting us, thankfully, but it turned out that the woman at the ticket office printed 2 reservations for me and none for Sam. She was pretty frustrated….and so was I. I kept hearing that menacing beep from her computer – you know the sound that comes up when you click something you’re not supposed to…yeah, it was pretty awful. But finally, it all worked out and we were headed to security.
There were a lot of people, but we had about 30 minutes until our plane left so we figured we’d be ok. And thankfully we were!! We even got seats together – the plane isn’t too full, and it’s quite nice. They just fed us a meal…something we’re definitely not used to in the US. I don’t think very many people sleep on these planes though. The lights are all on and there’s a guy behind and someone in front of me who both have their music coming out of their laptop speakers.
Oh well, the dinner was quite yummy, a potato salad, quiche – not for me, and a sweet dessert. I was pleased…So hopefully we’ll arrive at our hotel just fine and sleep in! We need to give our feet and bodies a break from walking 8 hours all day. Sam says he feels like a missionary tracting. We actually saw 4 missionaries at the main metro station tonight. That was pretty fun, but they were late for their English teaching class, so they had to run.
So we’ve finally calmed down, relaxed a little, and will hopefully sleep very well tonight. I’m going to upload some pictures tomorrow, so look for the link for those!! We plan to go to the beach tomorrow as long as the weather is good, which I don’t know why it wouldn’t be. It has been pretty nice days so far! If anything, just a little too hot, but we’re surviving! Just about an hour to Athens! YAY!!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
ROMA!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Grazie is probably my word of the day. I think that sadly that is really the only word I know the for sure meaning of here. But everyone we have talked with has been very helpful and spoken English, so we really lucked out not having time to really put into learning a new language…
Alright, let me tell you about our day. Well, I guess I’ll begin with our night. We were quite exhausted by the end of the night, which was actually good because I don’t know how well we would have slept on the train otherwise. But I definitely got a full 8 hours and then lazed around until we arrived in Rome. It was surprising to me that we made quite a few stops along the way. It was weird when I couldn’t decipher if we were moving or not and then we’d start moving again and I felt really silly. But you just got used to the rocking of the train.
It took us about an hour to figure out Rome’s metro station. We were able to check our luggage there, but then had to figure out which bus to take and how to get where we needed to. It’s a very interesting experience. It’s probably a little harder for us because we are so not used to any public transit. But, we eventually figured it out and then came to realize that a lot of the places we were going to were within walking distance. It’s also interesting how everything is so close, even if it’s like 15 minutes, it’s still pretty close together. Just another thing we’re not used to, being from the US.
So once we figured out how/where to go we were finally out and about. We headed to Campo dei Fiori. It is known for it’s marketplace, or farmer’s market. There were lots of vendors and the first one we stopped at had large containers of fruit. Boy do I love fruit so I was hooked! We each got a large cup of all the different types of fruit. Watermelon, Pineapple, Nectarines, Coconut, Jicama, and probably a few more that I’m missing, but it was delish! We just walked around and saw all different types of vendors. From meats to cheeses to fresh dried pasta…I was so wishing I could take it all home with me…We then found some dried candied fruit and the guy told us to try some. He asked me where I was from and then wanted me to try to figure out what I was eating…It ended up being dried candied tomato. I had no idea! I thought it was apricot and Sam thought it was a blood orange. Then he gave us candied carrot. That was very interesting too…I again had no idea. But it was fun trying to figure it out. And apparently dried candied ginger is spicy. We were just under a gram of fruit so he had me choose which to add and I said ginger and he told me to try it first…so I did and then decided to go with bananas instead…it was definitely different.
After Campo dei Fiori we walked around and then decided to head back to get our luggage and check into the hotel. We finally found the hotel and then entered our room. It’s a little small, but definitely nothing to complain about. We do have a shared bathroom but I don’t think the room that we’re sharing with has people in it, so it’s just a bathroom down the hallway, but we were happy to have a bed and a private room.
We then headed over to the Trevi Fountain. It was a pretty short walk from our hotel and was just gorgeous. The thought hit me when we arrived as to how amazing it would be to actually live here and have all this amazing architecture and fountains and history in your everyday life. I wonder if the Italians take it for granted or are annoyed by all the hype we travelers give to it. It was definitely jammed-packed with people, but it was still gorgeous none the less. We found a little pizza/sandwich shop to grab a small bite to eat. It was quite tasty even though it looked like it’d been sitting in it’s case for a while. I really enjoyed the salami and cheese sandwich. These Italians really know what good bread tastes like…really, I don’t think it would matter what was put in between the slices, the bread is that good!
We then wandered over to Campidioglio. We walked up some steep steps made by Michelangelo and then saw the great buildings at the top. From there we could look out over the ruins and see some really cool stuff. We’ll actually get to walk through the ruins tomorrow.
Then we made it to the Colosseum. It was pretty stunning right from the start. Pretty amazing, but really crazy how 2000 years will really do some damage. We then actually went into the Colosseum and enjoyed looking at the inside. It was nothing like I really expected, but you could imagine how amazing it once was. I overheard a tour guide say that all the women had to stand up on the very top rows while the men sat close to the stage. It would have been a sight to see in it’s day.
We then began to get really really tired. Our feet were achy and we just wanted to sit down. But we wanted to get to Palantine Hill. Unfortunately we just missed closing time. So then we decided to just head over to where we were going to have dinner. It took us a little while, probably felt longer than it was because our feet just didn’t want to walk anymore. But we made it.
It was down an alleyway just off of Piazza Navona. The ambiance was definitely not there at all, but it was good food for the price we paid. We didn’t really do dinner the Italian way though. We just ordered a pasta dish and chicken dish. It was pretty tasty but not as filling as we had hoped. We decided we were in the mood for some gelato, so afterwards we headed to a place that was pretty packed earlier on in the day. I got a chocolate and caramel crème – so yum! It was a dark chocolate, so a little overpowering by itself, but with the caramel, so good. He asked if I wanted whipped cream and I said yes…only to find out that it was basically just whipped cream with no sugar…not the kind I’m used to. Sam got a white chocolate/chocolate chip mix and that was quite yummy too.
We then walked around Piazza Navona. It was pretty cool to see everything lit up for the evening affair. Tons of restaurants lined the Piazza and they were all quite full. It looked like we would have had to pay an extra $15 or so to eat at one of these restaurants. We then headed back to our hotel because we have an early morning tomorrow.
It was so wonderful to take a shower! We were definitely deprived the last two days and with it being hot outside we definitely needed one. I think we both took much longer showers than usual, but it was quite relaxing. Well, we’re off to bed…a little hard it feels like, but hopefully we’ll sleep ok. We get a continental breakfast tomorrow, right outside our hallway, so that’s nice. We are looking forward to seeing the Vatican and such. I’ll write tomorrow and will hopefully get this posted tomorrow morning!! Wish me luck!
The Rockwoods have landed!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
So we made it to Paris! Only one minor issue, but thanks to the wonderful lady who works for AA we were able to save $150 and not have the possibility of me being detained in Paris on the way home. Ok, let me explain…my passport has my maided name on it, and I called the Passport people before we left to make sure that was going to be ok and they said yes as long as I have my marriage license and birth certificate. Well turns out that there is a new law going to be put in place on Sept. 14th that won’t allow you to have documents, you must have the exact same name as your passport.
So the brilliant lady at check-in said it would be fine if Sid could just change my name…Thankfully we were flying standby too! So thanks to Sid we were able to put my name on the flights in my maiden name and voila no more problems…well, hopefully. We didn’t have any with the train passes, so hopefully I’ll be fine…the only other thing I’m a little worried about is our flight to Athens, but we’ll just hope that goes well too.
We spent a lot of time at the airport this morning. First we wanted to change out of our nice clothes and into something more wearable around the hot city of Paris. Then we waited and waited to get our stamp in our passports. J That was pretty fun! (Another stamp…yay!)
We ended up getting on the Metro to figure out where our train would be departing from and get that all taken care of. So after a little research we found the right train to be on and made it there…everything went smoothly, but we came to find out that the place to store our luggage was back at a station really close to the airport…basically where we just were. So we ended up spending a little too much time on the metro, but we finally made it out to some sunshine!
After getting off the metro we were filled with so many choices for lunch at a café. There were probably 2 on every corner. No joke! We walked by a few and then just decided to pick one. We were sure they weren’t going to be bad….and they did not disappoint! I was so happy to eat some delicious paris food. I got a 3 course lunch – 1st course: soupe l’onion (French onion and it was sooo yummy!) 2nd course was lasagna bolognese – it had a red sauce and a cream sauce and I was practically full before I even took my first bite, but ate the whole thing because it was so tasty! And finally to top it all off, a crème brulee. Sam and I shared that and it was also delish! Sam had a really good ham and cheese sandwich on a delicious baguette. We couldn’t figure out what he was going to get because we didn’t know what “emmarnet” meant…I think that’s how you spell it. But it just was a different kind of cheese…he said it tasted like swiss, so he was quite happy too. We probably sat down for an hour and Sam said that he loved how if he were home and out to lunch he would be very irritated that the food was taking so long, but he didn’t care because we’re in Paris and we just want to relax! I totally agreed.
Ok, enough about our food…We then headed over to Sainte-Chappelle and saw that there was a line that went on for far too long. We weren’t sure we wanted to stand in line for that, so we headed over to Notre-Dame. It was really gorgeous just walking up to it. We then stood in a line to get up to the top floor and see the gargoyles and towers. It was worth the wait…but they definitely did not put enough emphasis on how hard 400 steps really was to climb. It was quite the workout and by the time we were going back down my legs were pretty shakey. Not as easy as it sounds…let me tell you!
But we had such a wonderful view of Paris. We could see the Eiffel Tower and all the amazing churches and cute buildings. We were just so intrigued. It was a very memorable experience. It was also cool to see inside. I love stained glass windows and they had some really great and tall ones. I especially loved the huge pipes on the top floor from the organ.
After Notre-Dame we headed over to Luxembourg to see the Gardens that are there. It was pretty amazing. There was a huge palace right in the center of everything. It was quite spectacular. We walked around for a bit admiring the random statues that were placed all over. We ended up also finding a really cool playground for little kids. Sam and I were tempted to jump on this rope that was all the rage because there was a huge line to get on. We refrained though…not wanting to upset the French or give Americans a bad name…hehehe. But I was definitely jealous, this was an awesome playground.
We then began to head over to the train station and ended up running into a little trouble with our tickets that we bought. We still don’t really know how they work, but we bought 10 and had reused a few over and over and then all of the sudden none of them worked. So we went to buy some and they wouldn’t take our credit card….so then we had to find a ticket center and were behind schedule and began to be frazzled and stressed thinking we may miss our train. We ended up running through the last metro station and Sam said we ran over a few people. Sorry! I honestly had no idea…but I did say excusez moi every time I was cutting someone off….and thankfully we made it. We are currently on the train to Rome and boy are we exhausted!! We maybe got 3 hours of sleep on the plane and then just pushed ourselves through the day. I’m sure we’ll sleep well tonight…if only we had a shower then I could really relax, but unfortunately we’re stuck smelling like the French do, and I guess that’s ok, because we’re fitting in just fine! ;) Well, I think that’s about it for today. We took quite a few pictures and are excited to post them…hopefully tomorrow I’ll have internet and so you’ll have 2 posts for one day…sorry!