Day 1 Thursday, April 2nd- Day 2 Friday, April 3rd
Just two hours after a deposited my dad and sister at the train station, I meet my travel buddies Megan and Kathleen at the same location. Excitement was buzzing through the air as we anxiously anticipated our departure for Paris which would subsequently lead to our departure for Athens. We watched with impatience for the board to tell us which quay our train would be at and raced to our seats when we the time came. It was our first time on a double decker train- meaning there were two levels and we had to take the stairs to get to our seats. We knew we had a long night ahead of us because our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:25 ish AM and we had to be at the airport at least 2 hours in advance so we tried to get some shuteye but our energy level was too high. A french guy on the train overheard us talking in English and gave Megan a note on a torn piece of paper from a magazine saying he found her beautiful but his English is bad so he hoped she spoke french too so they could maybe go out (paraphrased of course) and he left his number at the bottom. It was so awkward cause he was sitting right in front of us! We could barely stifle our laughter but I think he got the picture that none of us were down for that game! I mean who does that! Anyway after the two our train ride, we arrived in Paris at a little before 11 and we had to figure out how to get to Orly Sud aeroport. Usually one would take the yellow RER and then catch a shuttle- simple right? Unfortunately, the metro info people told us that the RER we need wasn't running past 11 so we'd have to take a series of metros and 4 night buses or pay a ton for a direct shuttle to the aeroport. Of course we went for the cheaper, more complicated route, but when we got to the our metro stop where we were supposed to catch the first night bus we were totally lost! The place was crowded with people coming from god knows where and none of the information desks were open. We wandered around Gare Nord metro/train station looking for police officer or a map or even a janitor that could offer us some help but we came out empty handed. Luckily, this really nice fellow in a suite (who was actually pretty attractive) helped us out. We told him where we needed to go, and he told us that the RER was still running, and that there was one more leaving soon that would take us exactly where we needed to be to catch the RER shuttle to the aerogare...so the ladies who worked at Montparnasse were totally wrong! anyway he walked us to where we needed to be, told us which metro to get on, and which stop to get off to catch the RER. He was so nice, we couldn't believe it. Our time was very limited, so we ran and followed his directions to the letter. Luckily we had sometime before our RER left (the final one for the night!!!) although we weren't 100% sure at this point. I guess we still looked a bit lost, so this French older woman offered to clarify things for us. She was very impressed by the fact that we spoke French to her. She said that usually Americans just revert to English if they see that the French person understands them. We explained that our goal was to improve, and speaking English with a french person while studying abroad in France seemed very counterproductive. She was heading to the same RER stop as us so we chatted on the train. She was very nice and impressed by Kathleen's french accent. When we explained to her our situation, she worried that nothing would be running to the aeroport at that hour and offered to help us figure out a way to get there. Once we got to our stop, we learned that it was indeed too late to catch the direct RER shuttle to Orly, so she helped us inquire about a cab. The cab driver was going to cost 50 some odd euros or more so, and I was up for walking, but she offered to drive us instead! She lived in a neighborhood down the street and her car was in the parking garage! We could not believe our luck!!! We walked with her to her house and waited for her to get her car keys and then she took us down into the parking garage which is underneath the neighborhood!!! it was really strange and different but I guess its convenient space wise. We all piled in to her car and took off. By this point we learned that her name was Sophie, and she was definitely an angel because Orly was a good 15 minute drive away!! I couldn't even imagine walking there with our travel bags!!! She deposited us right in front of our departure door, and we said excessive thank yous! She gave us her business card and we promised to send a post card from Athens!!! So the worst was over!!! Now all we had tot do was find a place to sit, wait, and sleep. We accomplished the first two portions of our goal, but the chairs in aeroports don't make the most comfortable beds. We grabbed some madelines from the vending machine for a makeshift dinner and found a vacant area with chairs where we could be left alone on the lower level. 3.5 hours later we went to check in and got rid of the weight of our baggage. It was a relief to have that step over with. With an hour and half wait for boarding, we found food and continued to wait. Finally we got on the plane and took off for Greece. On the flight over, I saw an intense amount of mountains covered with snow! It was gorgeous! I wanted to sleep but i didn't want to miss out on all the beauty we were flying over. Upon landing we were so exhausted that our excitement level had greatly diminished. We'd literally been awake for over 24 hours- it was 10:00 in Athens. the first thing we searched for was a bathroom. To our surprise, the had water fountains in the airport! This may not seem like a big deal to you, but there are some things you should know:
1) Water fountains are few and far between in France
2) They keep the sink water at an unpleasant temperature for drinking thus forcing you to buy the ridiculously overpriced bottled water
3) In some places, like the train station for example, you have to pay between 50 centimes and a euro to use the disgusting toilette facilities.
So we filled up our water bottles at the fountain rather than the bathroom sink like we anticipated doing. We were surprised, upon exiting, that we didn't have to go through customs (because Greece and France are both a part of the EU, people can pass from one to the other freely) thus we didn't get our passport stamped. Bummer... well at least we didn't have to deal with crabby customs workers! We took a bus into the city which and we got our first glimpse of Athens. It looked pretty similar to a mildly dirty city in the states! I guess we were expecting dramatic differences but I don't now what kinds. There was a car dealership for mini coopers with an actual mini cooper attached to the building vertically as if it were going to plunge to the pavement- it was cool. Lots of people drive motorcycles in Athens, I noticed. Of course nothing can always be simple, so a strike was taking place in the streets and the bus had to drop us off a good distance from where we needed to be!!! To make matters worse, no one spoke any English and all of the street signs were in Greek, so we had no idea where we were or where we needed to go! This one woman didn't even acknowledge us when we tried to ask her for help!!! It was very disorienting not knowing what to do. Finally we just asked this man selling what looked like pretzels with sesame seeds on it in the middle of the side walk. He didn't understand us, but we kept on saying "Metro? Metro?" and he pointed us in the right direction. Once we got to the metro (Sigh of relief), we went to the information desk where this attractive, tall Greek man asked us about American baseball teams before giving us directions. We were going to try to walk to our hostel but gave up when we saw the distance on the map and felt the hot sun beating on us like a hammer. We sucked it up, bought our metro tickets, and said farewell to hot Greek baseball guy (the name we gave him during our discussions of him later on in the trip). It amazes me how easily someone could just slip on the metro without paying. There are these short poles with metro compost boxes on them that you stick your ticket in before you go down the stairs to the metro but one could easily walk past them without doing anything. They run on an honor system for public transportation in Greece just like in Nantes. I was designated the map person for the trip due to my savvy skills at figuring my way around, and I led us straight to the hostel. It was literally 2 seconds away from the metro stop, and right next to the acropolis! The street was filled with the smell of blood oranges and flowers- it was sinfully good. There were orange blossom trees in full bloom lining the street, but we later learned that they were a hybrid of orange-lemons. Upon entering the Athens Backpacker's Hostel we got a sense of the cool vibes emanating from the place. They had cool music banging and a chill guy at the desk who greeted us with an awesome Australian accent. We couldn't check in yet, so we left our stuff in the room with the big projector that they play films on every night. We headed into the main area of Plaka where there are many restaurants and touristy stores and it was insane! All the restaurant owners badger you to come into their place to eat. They shouted things like "Come, Come, I have good food!" or "Obama! I love Obama, come, come" as if loving our President would persuade us to come and pay their silly prices. Instead, we had lunch at this cool place that had gyros for 2.90 a piece. I had my very first gyro and it was incredible!!!! I never really know what Greek food was like with the exception of Greek salad and baklava, but this was like a fiesta in my mouth!! It costs extra to eat inside so we found a chill place to sit away from the crowds on the stairs heading down the main walk, with the Acropolis to our backs!!! After eating a good and very cheap lunch, we headed back to the hostel to check in. Our room was decent, it was just the 3 of us and one other girl. We had a nice balcony. We were so exhausted from lack of sleep, so we crashed for a couple of hours before going out to grab some desert back in Plaka and explore some more. We chose a restaurant where the owner shouted at us "Obama is my cousin! I give you free shots!" just for kicks. We sat on the roof of this decent place, but he menu prices were outrageous, so we got the cheapest dessert on the menu- Rice pudding- which was really good and it cooled us off. We chilled for a while before heading to the National Gardens. On our way there, we were once again bombarded by restaurant owners offering us free wine and desserts, so we promised to two different guys that we'd come to their places for dinner. One gave us a card promising a free bottle of wine and free live music, but his restaurant had uncooked entrees on display outside which was a real turn off. We decided we got to the place with free wine and dessert. I navigated us to the National Gardens where we explored the "ruins,"the pond, the zoo animals (which included peacocks, cats, chickens, donkeys, goats and a bunch of other random birds), and sat on the swings at the playground. It was a pretty big place with really cool trees. One thing I must point out is the fact that stray cats and dogs are EVERYWHERE in Greece. They fool you though because they have collars on them, but the fact of the matter is that the people in the cities actually take care of them!! They leave food out for them, get them neutered, wash them, have their hair trimmed and then they set them out in the street. The whole country is in out it! Its nuts! So this dog was following us around the whole National Gardens, but we thought he belonged to somebody because he had a collar on! Anyway, we headed back towards the restaurant and had a pretty good first dinner in Athens. As the guy promised, we got free wine and dessert. We also got bread which was exciting!! I had moussaka for the first time and we got this creme caramel thing that looked and tasted like flan apparently (I've never had flan, I'm just going based on Megan and Kathleen). After dinner, we went back to the hostel where they were showing Troy on the projector- we walked in on the part where Achilles kills Hector. We dropped off our stuff in the room and climbed the 4 flights of stairs to the top of the hostel and climbed the outside stairs to the roof where we checked out the Acropolis at night! It was awesome and unbelievable. It was one of those things where you know you're really there but it all seems so surreal because you never thought in all your wildest dreams that you'd be there. Afterward I went down to watch the last half of Troy while the K and M went to sleep. There's something about watching Troy in Greece that makes life seem so much cooler! I went to bed content with the day!
Day 3 Saturday, April 4th
We woke up relatively early to catch our free breakfast on the roof of the hostel. We were a bit disappointed that we paid 24 euro a night and a) the hostel lost their liquor license so we weren't going to get our free welcome shot and b) breakfast included hard boiled eggs and toast with nutella, butter or jam, and coffee or tea- breakfast of champions right? It was cool eating on the roof but it would have been nice to have other options. We decided to wait until Sunday to do all the museums and major sites because they are free the first Sunday of the month, so we decided to check out the first Olympic Stadium. It was really cool and still in use today so it was pretty modernized. It was hard to get a good picture in because there were crowds in front of it. You couldn't actually go into the stadium which was shaped like a big U with the mouth of the U blocked off by a gate. It would have been a bit more exciting if it looked old I guess and if we could read the Greek signs detailing the facts of historical Olympic games. Next we walked past the Zappion (some big pretty building for I don't know what) and checked out the Temple of Olympian Zeus and Hadrian's Arch. We learned there that all museums and historical sites are free for students! How sweet was that! That relieved some major pressure and worry for me, K, and M that's for sure! So we checked out those ruins and were overwhelmed by the historic value of this site. We learned about its construction and and K and I tried to show off our knowledge of the the different types of Greek columns that were learned about in Histoire de l'art (Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian). We saw the ruins of houses and bath houses and we took hundreds of photos with the columns in the background. After a good hour and a half or so, we went in search of the Blue Star Ferries location where we could pick up our ferry tickets to Santorini. We stumbled into the wrong place and the guy tried to schedule the rest of our stay in Athens for us- "No Blue Star Ferries is just down the street. You can pick up your tickets there. Now, we can talk about the rest of your trip!" We had to gently let him down by informing him that we were covered. He genuinely looked disappointed! Sorry bud! Anyway we got our tickets from the right place, and on our way to lunch at the 2.90 euro place, we stumbled upon this quaint shop selling halva, cheeses, and other grainy things. They had free samples of this off white cheese and crackers so I gave them a try. It had to be the best cheese I've ever tried in my entire life, no lie! My mouth was screaming "MORE, MORE, I WANT MORE PLEASE!! NEVER STOP!!" So I took 2 more free samples while the lady in charge was with another customer. We asked her what it was but the name never stuck on my brain. It starts with an M and has an A or two in it, I know that much! Anyway, we promised to return and get some later in the week. We checked out another store that had cool pomegranate art and those decorated red plates with mythical images on them of Satyrs or Achilles and Ajax playing a game. I was so excited to see images that I learned about in my Ancient Greek and Roman Religions class last semester!!! I explained all the different images and the stories behind them to K and M. The store owner was very impressed! We promised to come back, but sadly we never made it. After lunch we had an awesome dessert of ice cream! I had Ekmek and Lila Pause ice cream and it rocked my world! We all loved Ekmek! Too bad we can't find it anywhere else! Guess we are going to have to go back! We chilled at a Starbucks in Plaka for a while letting our lunch settle- we sat outside, don't worry. We made a pact to speak in French anytime we saw vendors trying to sell us stuff so they would leave us alone. At lunch, we sat on the same stairs, and some guy tried to sell us bootleg cds and dvds! We pretended we didn't understand English and he left us be. While at Starbucks we saw guys walking around Plaka selling anything from sunglasses to what we like to call squashed tomatoes (squishy toy tomatoes that squash and re-form on their own when you through them on the ground. Men just sit in front of wooden squar boards by the streets/walkways and throw them on the boards as if people will automatically be interested in them and want to buy them! After a good R&R, we headed to the Acropolis. On our way there, we ran into the other restaurant owner from last night that we promised we'd come to for dinner! He said "These are the ladies that I offered free bottle of wine to but didn't come." We laughed and felt so awkward but we kept on going. Finally, we got to our destination. I got so excited when we saw the Odeon (Theatre) of Herodes Atticas- only I thought it was Theatre Dionysus originally which would have been cooler. Theatre Dionysus ended up being a cluster of stones that we past on our was towards the entrance of the Acropolis which was very disappointing. Odem of Herodes is an ancient theatre that is in great condition! I explained to K and M the importance of each section of the theatre and what it was used for- Thanks Theatre History class!!!! (I must say that coming to Greece after taking several classes on the place makes the experience 10,000 times more incredible). Then we mounted the sumptuous hill where the acropolis sat. It was unreal! I mean I was at the Parthenon!! How many people can say they've been to the Parthenon?? Not many aside from the Greeks! It was like walking into the past! I was witnessing first hand, the places I studied last semester! There was a lot of scaffolding there which was a bummer, but, other than that, it was like being on cloud 9- for a history nut! The Parthenon!!!! We saw the Propylaea, the Erechtheum, and the Temple of Athena Nike to name a few. I know that all may seem Greek to you (haha I couldn't resist), but it meant a lot to me!!! We roamed around until closing and we went to the top of this hill near the Acropolis and wrote Sophie a post card to show our thanks before checking out the view of the Ancient Agora and the Stoa of Attalus. We had a panoramic view of Athens that was stunning! Its so green! More so than I would have expected anyway. Its like city city city big patch of green city city big patch of green etc. We enjoyed the view for a good while before being disturbed by this strange fellow named Apollo who claimed to be a traveling croupier. He bothered us for a while and got other traveling students in on the conversation- even giving some of the girls an unwanted hug and a kiss. We peaced out of there really quick and went to our favorite gyro place for dinner. They had a Menu for 10(maybe 8) euro that included a pork gyro, mykanos beer, fries and salad. We were excited because it sounded like a great deal! The beer was painful to swallow because it tasted so bad. The salad was the weakest I've ever seen, and the pork wasn't that great. Overall, two thumbs down. We brightened up the night with baklava- one walnut and one nutella. It was good but the nutella baklava was way too rich! That night we went back to the hostel and tried some Ouzu ( an alcoholic beverage famous in Greece that goes from clear to white when added with ice and tastes like licorice) It was really good! We met this cool girl named Lauren who is going to work at a resort on one of the small Greek islands for 7 months or so- room and board are covered and she gets free access to the resort! How cool is that! Anyway, we went on a bar crawl hosted by our hostel which ended up including only one bar where we paid a 5 euro cover charge to get in and get one drink. We danced with the people from our hostel and had a good time! This guy named Bob who works at the front desk at our hostel grabbed me for a dance! It was hilarious! There isn't a drinking age in Greece, so we saw a bunch of kids 14 years older and younger try to dance with girls. It was so weird! Lots of guys were doing techtonique* dance which is this weird no dance move with the arms that looks cool but very unmasculin. We stayed out pretty late dancing before heading back to the hostel with Lauren to crash for the night (poor thing lost her voice when she got to Greece and still hadn't gotten it back). Before hitting the sheets, we chatted with this hot Brit working at the front desk. He told us his whole moody story and gave us the dark low down on Greece. Apparently every business is connected to the mafia in someway. When I asked about Athens Backpacker's Hostel, he just repeated that EVERYONE is connected to the mafia. He told us that Greek girls are so stuck up and only want to be rich guys with mercedes benzes who can just go with them to clubs and stand there making them look good. It was pretty ridiculous. After a while, we went on up to bed.
Day 4 Sunday, April 5th
Today started off very sunny and bright! We walked through the domestic area near Plaka on our way to the Roman forum where my guide book said there were poppy fields. It was like entering another world where there are winding and turning stairways instead of sidewalks leading up to different houses and you can sit on the roofs of houses and enjoy the view- which we did for a while. And the homes were very open like the ancient Mayan homes only modernized. Finally we made it to the Roman forum but we didn't see a single poppy. We explored the ruins and learned about the history of the place. K and M got yelled at by this lady who worked their for making 'inappropriate' poses by the ruins. They were just doing arabesques but we quickly learned that the only accepted pose is standing with your arms to the side and smiling. Lame. So we headed to the place that excited me the most!! - The Ancient Agora! We went to the Stoa of Attalus which was both an indoor and outdoor museum. I learned a lot about the stoa in class, so it was so awesome to actually be there. There was a ton of stuff to read and learn about. A lot of stuff looked familiar from class including but no excluding the Cave of Pan relief with statues of different gods that were unidentifiable because the Christians hacked their heads off- Gotta love that tolerance for others! I couldn't believe I was actually seeing things that were on the slides in our class!! K and M were no where near as enthused as I was because they knew nothing of the history of the place or the significance of any of the images/findings. They even had a grave of a young girl from the Mycanean period! It started to rain outside and K+M got hungry, so we found a place in Psiri that had a great beef/veggie/cheese stew with good bread. It warmed us up very well. We headed back towards the hostel and chilled at a bar/coffee shop in Plaka where K and M got cafe frappes and I got a grilled cheese and ham sandwich. The bar was really cool with different colored alcoholic drinks covering the wall. Our server came over talk to us for a while- telling us his life story( apparently every man in Greece has to serve in the army for two years at some point in their life- and gave K his phone on a receipt. He was cute but it didn't got much farther than that. I was wearing my Brebeuf Swimming and Diving sweatshirt so I deemed it my man-warding-off sweatshirt because I was the only one not to be given a phone number so far! haha but that changed later... We headed back to the hostel to chill for a- the rain was pretty crappy. We decided to go light on the dinner today and bought some Greek yogurt, dried sweetened pineapple slices, peanuts, oranges and honey which provided a decent meal while we watched Peter Jackson's King Kong in the movie room!
Day 5 Monday, April 6th
Today was pretty rainy too. We sent post cards today, checked out a cool church, and chilled in a cool cafe for a while where I had pastisio for the first time! It was off the charts good! Its like beef lasagna with noodles in it and tons of cheese! it was great! The dessert was pretty crappy though- a fruit plate with sweet syrup that turned out to be a tiny dish of cherries covered in way to sugary syrup. I couldn't eat it all it was too sweet. We were the only ones in the restaurant/cafe and we lounged on the couches for a long lunch. The server even taught us how to make nestecafe frappes- even though I don't drink them-K and M are obsessed. Next, we made the eternally long trek to the National Archeological Museum. On our way there, it was raining, and Athens looked so gross and dirty! We walked past this horrific market place that M wanted to walk through that had the fully skinned carcasses of goats and lambs, cows heads, and other animals I didn't take the time to look at. It was worse than a gore film cause it was real life! K and I went vegetarian for about 10 minutes, any longer in that place and we would have been goners for life. We kept on walking past the chain restaurants that looked like the sign said TAMPONS- I have a picture, I will show you. We learned the real name the next day... Finally, we made it to the National Archeological Museum which was enormous! It was impossible to go through the whole thing and read everything. There was a lot of ancient pottery and herms and other things that I learned about in class. One thing we all noticed was that the museum was filled with French kids with their classes. We had to laugh! We saw many major pieces like the Mask of Agamemnon, Poseidon (or Zeus) of Cape Artemesion, many korus and kore statues, and loads more including the medical instruments used at Asklepion. Lets just say I'm extremely grateful for modern medicine. The duck lips that gynecologist use look like tools made of clouds in comparison. K and M got really tired of the museum early on, so we headed back towards the hostel that night. I stopped at a Tampons (the name we decided to call the place the rest of the trip) and got this awesome ham and cheese on bread in the shape of a viking ship (the closest thing I could think of) . It was great! We got some ekmek ice cream again that night. We stayed up pretty late that night chatting and goofing off in our beds. We probably drove our roommate nuts cause she had to get up early to leave the next day. She was really nice though and we had bonded over the many nights there even though she was irresponsible and left her computer sitting on her bed all day!! She is studying at Oxford and she'd seen so many plays in London, I was very jealous!
Day 6 Tuesday, April 7th
Today was ultra, ultra busy! We started off with further exploration of the Ancient Agora ( we found our poppies here!!) where we saw the ruins of many different stoas, the Temple of Apollo Patroos, the Metroon, and the Temple of Haphaestus to name a few. It was really interesting and epic. I mean I was standing on the Panathenaic Way!!! That is out of this world!!! After I covered every bit of the place, we headed to the best slouvaki place in town for lunch where we witness more balloon and sunglasses vendors. We also saw a little kid selling tissues from those travel packs! And other kids with instruments were coming to outdoor tables at restaurants and singing painfully for 30 seconds before moving on. After lunch when I went to the bathroom inside, one of the waiters shouted "Obama" to me and then proceeded to flirt with me when I came out. He told me his name, which I promptly forgot, shook my hand, and asked if we could meet up. When I broke the news to him that I was leaving the next day, he told me I was very pretty and continued his work- and this all happened while I was wearing my sweatshirt!!!! Guess the power of deflecting guys wore off. haha After lunch, we went to Keramikos and checked out the cemetery- or what was left of it. Most of the stone tomb markers and statues were actually in the National Archeology Museum so we just walked around mostly. Next, we headed towards the market area were all the terrible meat was and bought some halva- which I've learned that I really don't like. The texture is just too strange. Like eating packed and hardened hay or something. I dunno, it was just bizarre. We stopped in a Tampons to grab a refresher, and we learned that the actual name of the place is Gregory's!!! How funny is that?!! We liked Tampon's much better, so we were sticking with that. Finally, we got up the nerve to trek up Likavitos Hill, this giant hill in Athens that provides the best view but kills your legs! Just getting to the hill was a work out itself! All the streets were up hill and winding! I had worn a long sleeve t-shirt because it was very cold that morning- big mistake. It made going up that hill even worse! It wasn't so steep but it was at enough of an angle to really feel it. Inside, I was doing a dance when we made it to the top ( even after I saw the mini tram that takes you up and down the hill like an angled elevator). Anyway, the view was totally worth it! We saw all of Athens! We could see the Acropolis, Keramikos, The Olympic Stadium, The Ancient Agora and Stoa, the port Piraeus where we were leaving from the next day, and the Saronic Gulf. Basically we saw everything we'd been to and more, and, from that view, it looked like we had covered an enormous amount of ground in 6 days! We were very proud of ourselves and excited! We sufficiently conquered Athens! no stone left unturned. We met some other Americans on the top who are studying at Oxford too. We chatted for a while and shared our halva ( I was more than willing to give mine away). We watched the sun go down and reflected on all that we had accomplished so far. The trek down hill was much easier!!! We stopped at that market that had the incredible cheese and I got enough to satisfy my taste buds. That night packed for our early morning voyage to Santorini and spent our last night mingling with these engineering majors from New York who were studying in Denmark and leaving for Amsterdam the next day. One guy, Sam- I- Am as we called him, was really cool and let us use his computer to check out email. The hostel charged a euro for every 15 minutes!!! We watched Wedding Crashers at the hostel and made the aquaintance of two British girls who were very nice. We talked for a long while and learned alot about each other. They both were done with school and working. One of them was a teacher and she explained to us the heirarchy of the schools in England and how applying for Oxbridge worked. Apparently if you go to public school you might as well save it because there's no way you're getting into Oxford or Cambridge. Extracurriculars actually matter in England too! They told us that they love American films and that some of the British films have different ending for the Americans. Apparently the ending of the Kiera Knightly Pride and Prejudice is totally different for them. It ends after Mr. Bennet and Lizzie talk and he agrees to her marriage to Darcy. They said the kiss was added to the end of the film for American audiences and that the English can watch the American ending as a special feature on the dvd. Isn't that crazy! It makes total sense. We are all about our happy ending with the final kiss to seal the deal. They said that The English have a starker view on life and reality and don't need nor necessarily want the fairy tale ending. I would loved to have talked with them some more but it was getting late so qwe decided to call it a night! Before going to bed we tried to go to the roof top again to see the Acropolis by night one last time, but the gate was locked, so we stayed on the balcony for awhile. A man from Eastern Europe came out on the balcony and asked us where we were headed next. He said he didn't understand why so many people go to Santorini. I tried to explain that it was because people have seen it in a lot of films and found it to be beautiful so they want to go there. He asked me which films I was referring to and when I said "Movies like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 1 and 2," he said " What? Sister Act?" We all died laughing!!! After that guy peaced out on us, Sam-I-Am came up because he heard us apparently loudly talking! We hung out a bit longer than expected and he even invited us to join him and his friends who were calling him back down because he accidentally locked them on their balcony. We politely declined and parted ways. Finally we offically called it a night!
Day 7 Wednesday, April 8th
Today we started off really early in the morning- at4:15 I think, and we took a long metro ride to Piraeus- the huge port next to Athens. The port was filled with grand ships and the water looked beautiful with the sun slowly starting to rise. It was like a big outdoor train station on for boats. There were televisions telling you which gate to go to for your ferry and everything! We found our gate pretty easily and got on board after a quick breakfast at Tampons. It was incredible inside. i was expecting the ferry to be ind of small and ghetto, but it was almost like being on a cruise! There were tiled floors, several restaurants, cabins with beds and full bathrooms for those who wanted to pay extra, and their was a huge space on the first floor for people who were taking their cars to the different islands. You could sit in the cafes, on deck, or in rooms with comfy airplane style chairs facing a flat screen tv. We sat in the cafe area for a while- we were there one hour before departure- before finding a places in the comfy chair room. When we started moving, I watched as we slowly got further and further away from the mainland and the sun got higher and higher in the sky. They do the same emergency exit talk on the ferry as they do on the airplanes. It was pretty funny to watch. We tried to sleep, but I was too distracted by the strange Greek shows playing on the tv. Their commercials are so catchy and annoying! We went on deck a coupe of times to get a better view of the water and the different islands we stopped at (4 islands before Santorini). It was so fun! The wind felt great against my face, and I got to see beautiful greek isles! K and I had the best apple pie ever at one of the cafes. Finally, 7 hours later, we arrived at Santorini, and it was gorgeous- very quaint. Its definitely not a place where you'd find chains stores or restos. The cars drove directly out of the ship and all of the other passengers spilled out of the ferry. The port (Athinos) was radiant with the sun shining and the Mediterranean glimmering. We were at one end of the island, and we could clearly see the other end from where were standing- that's how small it is. My eyes were greedily gobbling up the view. People from our hotel met us at the port and they drove us in a van to Perissa Beach where Anny Studio's was located (on the southern part of the island. I watched as the ferry took off again while we drove up a zigzagged road on a hill headed towards our hotel. I guess I really didn't know what to respect, but I must say that Santorini is not a really well developed island. I mean its not commercial, which is cool, but a lot of the houses are very far from modern. There are bakeries and grocery stores around, but there aren't any big stores or suburban areas. Its almost like another world- not 3rd world though. Let me put it this way, it didn't seem that inhabited. When we finally got to Perissa beach, we got so excited. I hotel was literally right on the beach, and the beach had black sand! How cool is that? So we got all checked in and saw the place. It was way nicer than our place in Athens. It was so white and blue and clean! There were two pools with a bar on deck, a restaurant, computers, a free laundry machine, and a huge collection of movies for us to watch. But it gets better, our huge room had a bathroom, a kitchen, a tv, two single beds, and one double bed. It was so awesome! And only 10 euros a night! What a steal! The only catch was that we couldn't drink the water, and we couldn't flush the toilet paper in the toilet (we had to throw it away (yuck!) The guy at the front desk was nice enough to mark off the important places for us on the map and tell us how many minutes it would take to get there by walking. If it weren't for the contract we signed with IES, we totally would have rented 4-wheelers to get around the island (it was only 15 euro for the entire day!). So we checked out the two 24 hour bakeries near by - the lady at the first one was pretty tense, but the baklava looked divine! We stopped at a grocery store and got some Milka chocolate at the second bakery. The man(this weird but good kind with air bubbles it) before buying real food at the other 24 hour bakery. It was so much more chill there and we there, and the man there was really nice. We bought 4 humongous water bottles and headed back to the hotel. There were many quaint hotels and restaurants along the beach that we passed on our way back. Most of them looked closed and even the stores that were supposed to be opened- like the post office- were closed. I guess when the island is not in vacation season, it becomes like a ghost town. After depositing the water in our room, we chilled on the beach for a while. Unfortunately, Santorini is even worse than Athens when it comes to stray dogs. They were all over the beach and trying to cuddle with us, but we felt highly uncomfortable by the fact that they continuously scratched themselves (fleas perhaps), so we tried to keep our distance. K hated being so severe to the dogs, but it had to be done. That night we had dinner at this great restaurant near by. We were the only ones there! The owner was this nice young woman who was very friendly with us. I got grilled feta and pastisio, and it was awesome! The owner even gave us each a free glass of wine with our receipt. Needless to say, I had a good night's sleep.
Day 7 Thursday, April 8th
We went to the 24 hour bakery for breakfast and older man working at the counter who looked like a baker from Agrabah, gave us each free bread sticks (the hard kind with seasme seeds on them) with our food. I tried out this doughnut half the size of my head! It took me a couple hours to eat it, and it was just like plain bread with sugar sprinkled on it (but it was still very good). We chilled on the beach for a while, catching some sun. It was dog free but pretty windy. I tried stepping in the water- big mistake. It was freezing!! And the sand stops at the shore and the bottom of the water is solid stone with slipper algae. There were dips and crevices everywhere in the stoney surface, and it was quite unpleasant to walk on. We decided to check out Oia (pronounced like "ee-ah") where all the action happens: The best sunset in the world, the houses with the blue roofs, and the filming of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movies. We ran to the bus stop because we were running late- the next one wouldn't come for 2 hours and sunset was in 5 hours. We wanted to check out the city of Thira on the way. We got to the bus stop on time, but it ended up arriving 30 minutes late. We ended up chatting with this guy named Jake who was studying in Paris for the semester, an engineering major from Colorado. He was really cool, and we bonded pretty quickly. The bus to Thira was a charter bus, and we only had to pay a little over 3 euros to get from one end of the island to the other. When we got to Thira, we only had 20 minutes to look around before the bus left for Oia. Obviously that wasn't much time, so we only stopped in two shops before getting on the road again. We stopped in this one touristy place where they let us try free samples of the different wine they had. It was awesome! The Santorini wine that's in a bottle that is shaped like the island was this really sweet red wine that made me rethink my detestation of red wine. I didn't end up buying it till later at Oia but obviously it made a big impression. After Kathleen bought her olive oil soap she'd been searching for all vacation and megan bought some beads from a bead shop to make earrings, we headed to the bus stop. Megan bought cup of yogurt and I got some juice from a stand, and unfortunately half way through eating it she found mold!!!! Talk about gross. So she got something else in exchange. Jake had run into an acquaintance on the first bus and went to find food with her, so he accidently missed the bus. It was a short ride to Oia, and once we got there, we had no idea where to go. We were excited to be there but we had no maps no guides, nothing. So we started following people for a while. The streets were so clean and pretty and all of the houses were pristine white and open. The streets were made of blue-ish grey tiles and I daresay they weren't wide enough for cars. We ended up wandering on our own a bit and checking out the restaurants to look at prices for dinner later. Finally we made it to this open square area that looked right out at the sea. It was beautiful. We were basically on a cliff in the city. We made it to the far edge of the town where a main street runs through the main part (the commercial) part of Oia. From this street there a paths and stairways that branch off and go down the cliff towards hotels and houses and what not built agianst the edge of the island. Its incredible. I've never seen anything like it. You look down and you see roofs or pools or terraces. We walked along the main path and looked at the architecture and the little shops. We wanted something sweet so we stopped into this cute cafe called Flora where I had the most incredible strawberry cake. The owner told me it was fresher than a strawberry! It was awesome! We continued to promenade down the path and cherished the awesome view of the rest of the island and the sea. Oia is at the most elevated point of the island that you can see all of the rest of the island from it! There was a cute dog taking a nap on one of the roof tops. Contrary to common belief, there are about 3 or 4 buildings in Oia with blue roofs. One of them is a church, I believe. They were magnificent nonetheless. We checked out this cool park with a tree bent close to the ground and took plenty of photographs there. It was amazing just exploring the town and always looking over my shoulder to see the sea with its ships and the sun slowly going down. Sunset, the most beautiful sunset in the world, begins at 7:30, so we started heading to the far edge of the town. It was all up hill like going up a long but pretty staircase, so it was quite a work out (but the view was to die for!!) Looking down the side is amazing, there are so many random stairways down that I wish I could have explored and so many elaborate homes built into the side of the wall of the island that I bet were great to stay in. On our way up, because it was pretty far up hill, I saw our African dance teacher from Nantes! I looked at him while we walked towards each other, uncertain as to whether or not my eyes were playing tricks on me and I said, "Heeeey." Typical american greeting, not very french at all. It was the randomest thing to happen! I totally didn't expect it. We had an awkward, short conversation with him and his girlfriend/wife/ whatever she was before continuing on our separate ways. It was bizarre for me because I hadn't been to class in about a month! Oops! We saw a sign pointing to the spot where all the post card shots of the blue roof views were taken and we followed where of course the sign was true. We got some great shots of the blue roofed buildings juxtaposed with the sun going down and the sea! It was incredible. People were practically wrestling for the one sport available for photos to be taken of people with the buildings in the background! I don't know how the professionals got such great shots. They had to have laid on the roof of other buidlings or something because there was no room at all down those stairs! We got back on the path and continued up and up. Suddenly I heard this voice next to me say something and a jumped and screamed! It was Jake! He found us! I was totally startled and creeped for a second, but we were all glad to see him. We were afraid we had lost him forever! He explained that he missed the bus by that much! He showed up right as it was pulling away. So he caught the next one- the girl he tagged along with in Thira ditched him. We all enjoyed the sunset together. It was unbelievable. I had never seen anything like it. The water was so calm and flat, the sky was clear The island went down for days yet there were still buildings in the side of the cliff. We went to a higher point and saw a wedding taking place. It was tres mignon. From the plateau we were standing on there was a sort of wall kind of blocking out view. Megan hopped on top of it, but my shoes were so worn I couldn't get up myself. Jake actually got down on one knee and offered his leg to give me a boost. It was so nice, but I was mortified about potentially crippling him for life- being the dramatic that I am. Well, I can proudly say that Jake is still walking and I got to sit on that wall! LOL. It was a bit scary because there was nothing to obstruct us from falling to our deaths, and it wasn't really a normal wall. We were kind of sitting on rocks and divets. It was pretty uncomfortable. We gazed at the sun as it slowy set and changed the colors of the sky, and we looked behind us to see what the rest of the island looked like as the natural light rapidly faded. Lights were coming on all over the island- that is, the locations that were more inhabited and busy. It was beautiful and the Oia with the blue roofs looked wonderful! We could see all the way to the other side of the island and all the water that surrounded the island. It was unlike anything I've ever seen! Could you imagine living there? We had to leave before the sun officially went down if we wanted to catch the bus to Thira on time, but we saw the sky turn pink behind us. The sun quickly went down as we tried to spot the airport on the island- no dice. We made a few guesses though! From the height we were at on the road, we could see the whole island. Finally when we made it to Thira, I found a place to exchange my last bit of American money into Euros and we found a place to eat. After searching through the busy streets we found this great place calleg Lucky's where we had the best gyros I've ever tasted! And they stuffed it with fries too!! Jake said he read about the place in Lonely Planet. I grabbed some chocolate before we all grabbed a cab back to Perissa Beach. Our cab driver was so chill talking to his girlfriend on his phone. Us girls sat in the back while Jacob sat up front. When we got back to Perissa, the cab ended up costing just just over 13 euros! It was so cheap even thought it was like 20 minutes long! We went to the 24 hour bakery closest to our hotel where the people are crabbier and less pleasent. They were very touchy but their deserts were displayed well! There were some awesome cakes and different kinds of baklava! Jacob, Kathleen, and Megan got baklava while enjoyed my chocolate bar :( We all went to the beack and sat there gazing at the moon. It was very fun and we got to know more about Jacob! He was really nice. It was really cold, so we decided to call it a night. We made no official plans to meet up with Jacob tomorrow, but we told him we'd be at the beach all day. We hoped to see each other again. What a great day! We slept well, that's for sure.
Day 8 Friday, April 9th
We got up at a reasonable hour and got breakfast at our favorite 24 hour bakery! The owner gave us free breadsticks once again which made us exceedingly happy! I got baklakva from there as well, and it was so so good!!!! I almost ate the cardboard box it came in!! Anyway, we spent an ultra chill day at the beach while taking advantage of the free laundry at our hotel. The water was still cold but after an hour or so of basking in the sun, I decided to take a chance and emmerse myself in this time. It was FREEZING! It made it easier to get around the slippery rocks on the bottom once I could swim instead of walk, and it got warmer as I got used to it. After a while, it was so nice, and Megan even joined me! Jacob had found us and joined Kathleen on the beach as she lounged. Megan and I saw along the beach and found some big rocks to climb up and sit on. It was so fun! We even sang "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid because that rock reminded us of the end of the song. I showed her and Kathleen my butterfly stroke! Megan decided to call it quits after a while, but I just couldn't get out once I found it comfortable. I persuaded Kathleen to get in because who knows when she'd have the chance to swim in the Mediterranean again. It took a little bit longer to get her totally in, but when it finally happened she had a blast in the water! We went over to the rocks again and hung out for a while. Kathleen just loved going totally under and swimming. It was hilarious. After a while, we came back to the shore and laid out for about an hour or so more. Jake left to go shower up and we planned on meeting him for dinner later. That night was bitter sweet because not only was it our last night in Santorini, but it was our last time with Kathleen before she left us for Spain. When the sun started to fade and it got colder, we all went in to shower and pack up a bit. We went to the same restaurant we went to our first night there. We had a good meal that included grilled feta, greek salades, fried mozzerella and pizza. It was a splendid meal, and the owner gave us free wine with our check again! We took a picture with her and the little wooden chef outside. It was sad to say goodbye! That night, Kathleen and I watched Ratatouille in the hotel lobby while waiting for the airport van to come pick her and some other girls up. We all said our goodbyes and hugged before she left us to go on a separate adventure. It was just me and Megan from then on. We met up with Jacob that night and played pool at a bar that had billiards games. It was pretty fun and I learned a game that allows 3 people to play together! Later we walked around for a while watching the moon pop in and out from behind the clouds. We shared interesting stories and learned about Jacob's excursions in Europe and his life back in the states. He had already been to Crete and was headed to Athens for a while the next day! A whole bunch of dogs kept following us around and it wigged me out a bit. guess they are used to drunk people walking around and dropping bits of food and what not. We went to the 24 hour bakery where Megan and I got juice boxes! We said our goodbyes and good luck to Jacob before heading back to the hotel and calling it a night.
Day 9 Saturday, April 10th
That morning was pretty hectic. We tried to rush to our favorite bakery for breakfast before our van to the airport left but we couldn't make it. We grabbed some snacks at the grocery store nearby and headed back to the hotel as quickly as possible. We grabbed all of our stuff, checked out, took one last longing glance at the beach and hopped on the van with a bunch of Aussie and British women. they were a bit older than us from the looks of things and they seemed to have a charm and sophistication that a woman doesn't develop until they hit a certain age. I was fascinated by them and listened intently to their awesome accents. I told Megan that we were going to be like them the next time we came back to Santorini. Megan, Kathleen, and I made a pact to return one day when we are much older and much more financially secure. We also made another pact, but that's a secret. I let you know when it comes true ;) The van stopped at the port to drop off the glamorous ladies first before heading into the part of the island we had yet to discover. Other tourists were driving around on 4 wheelers. It was so strange to see the streets occupied by them more than cars- but it was only 15 Euro a day for a 4 wheeler. I've got to say that Santorini is really quite bare in a lot of places and the "city" areas are strange. They aren't like anything you'd find in the states. Not nearly as modern, thats for sure. And the airport! It is so small, there's only one gate! It looks more like a big post office than an actual airport. Security wasnt that tight, but I had to drink all my water from my water bottle before entering the wait area for the plane. We sat there for along while in that one room filled with people sitting anywhere they could find a free space. They had one duty free store filled with loads of different perfumes and chocolates and what not but it wasn't very entertaining. We got to the airport maybe 45 minutes before our flight, but we ended up boarding almost an hour after our departure time luckily our flight had a 5 hour lay over in Athens, otherwise we would have been in serious trouble. We had to ride buses to the airplane which was different, but when we finally got on we were impressed by how nice the airplane looked. For such a lax airport, we were expecting much less. The flight to Athens was really shore- less than an hour which made a real difference considering the 8 hour trip we made a few days ago. We ended up chilling in the Athens airport for a goodwhile before we could even get our tickets. I can't tell you how greatful we were for the opportunity to flush our toilet paper again! You don't realize a good thing till its gone that's for sure! We had lunch at Tampons which made us exceedingly happy! We explored a couple of stores and met two American girls who were studying abroad in Rome. They gave us a few tips about what to do, what to skip, and how to get around. It was very helpful of them! Our flight to Rome ended up being slightly delayed as well but, on the upside, they gave us complimentary drinks and snacks!!! That was the first flight ever to do that for us! It was nice. And we could watch random stuff on the tvs at our seats. It certainly made the flight move a lot smoother. When we finally got to Rome. I was so excited yet nervous because it was pretty late, and the directions to our hostel were confusing. We got so turned around in the huge airport, but finally we managed to get out baggage. We grabbed some pizza from this place in the airport for dinner. I was so excited to finally have Italian pizza! It was airport food, so it wasn't the best. This guy who looked like he worked for the airport said that he could drive us to our hotel for 30 euros per person. I didn't trust him, and I told him we had our own way there (total lie). But I was right not to trust him. We went outside looking for an airport shuttle or something to take us where we needed to go, and we started panicking a bit because it was getting late and the last shuttle to the hostel was going to leave if we didn't get to the designated spot soon enough. Nobody spoke english and all of the information centers were closed! Finally we found a family outside that told us where to go, giving us a brief moment of relief. We wandered around following the signs and saw a bunch of other scammers offering to drive unsuspecting tourists to their desired location for a "great price". They wore official looking tags around their necks in an effort to trick people. It wouldn't work on me, that's for sure. Finally we made it to the trains that would take us into the city. Airport never are in the city they claim to be. The train took us to the center of Rome (11 euros) where we had to catch a metro to Flamminio. We thought we were going to make it in time for the hostel shuttle, but then when we tried to get off the train, we found that the doors were broken!!!! And we were the first ones at the door so we had to wait for everyone else to turn around and exit at the other end of the car before we could get out. Needless to say, we missed the shuttle. It took us forever to walk through the train station to get to the actual metro station where we hopped on a subway train to Flamminio. There we tried in vain to find some one to help us, but again, no one spoke english. We tried to figure out what the hostel directions said about getting to the hostel after the last shuttle, but it was really confusing, and not many of the signs were very helpful. All that was open outside the Flamminio station was a Burger King. Finally we met some other students who were staying at the same hostel and they told us to stick with them while we all waited for the night bus. Unfortunately it was 11 and the night bus didn't start running till 12. So we got to know each other a bit. They informed us that the Tiber Camping village is not exactly a hostel but more like a trailer camping ground!!! My stomach started to drop. We hadn't really did our research on this hostel because it was the cheapest one we could find on such short notice with a decent rating. They told us that they were staying in a cabin that had a spider problem and no hot water in the showers!!!! I wanted to sleep next to a fountain rather than stay there!!!! I took another look at the directions for how to get there and I found that there was an above ground metro car we could take to get there! So instead of waiting for the night bus, we waited for the F train while the guy and girl we met went into the Burger King- why one would go there while in Rome of all places is beyond me. The train started to come before they had gottent their order, so I ran in to get them and we quickly hopped on the metro. It was kind of like those trolleys they have in San Fransisco only older and shabbier. Megan and I didn't have metro tickets, but there was no one there to check or stamp them. Rome ran on an honor system kind of like Nantes. The only places you had to stamp to get on was the underground metros. It was a long ride out to the middle of nowhere Rome that lasted maybe 30 to 45 mnutes. We got off at the end of the line and then had to hop on another bus which took us even further out!!! After the bus, we had to walk a mile and a half to get to the hostel along a road with no side walks! It was dark and totally sketchy! Megan and I played a distracting word game for a while to forget about the dread I was feeling for the place we were staying in. When we got there, I felt like I was at girl scout camp! There were a bunch of cabins and campers parked out. The check in office was way different than what we're used to at hostels. Its like at a drive in window. This guy in and office while we stand outside and talk to him through his little window. He gave us a map Rome and the hostel and marked off where the dorms were that we we were staying in, where the bathrooms are ( a five minute walk away from the dorms, the market, the restaurant, etc. He took Megan's passport and told her she'd get it back when we paid at the end of our stay. He told us to pick a bed, and that was the end of it. We entered the all girls dorm with hesitation and found that it was organized with a bunch of thick dividers separating square spaces that each containted to bunk beds- four girls to a "room". We took a peek in each room trying to select the best one. It was difficult to see because the lights were off, but we found a space with 2 vacant beds together and heavy comforters. Some of the other beds weren't even made. Weonly had one "roommate' who was already asleep. Megan took the top bunk while I took the bottom reluctantly for the first time. Under the top bed the spines of the metal lining were like death spikes! If I woke up suddenly and rose up with enough force, It'd be game over! We went to the bathroom to get ready for bed and found that it was a pretty open air building. No doors or anything except for where the stalls were. There was a hall of bathrooms for women and a separate one for men, a hall of showers for the women, same for the men, and a shower, bathroom place for families with babies that actually had a door to it. And there were sinks on the walls ouside the building as well. I found myself cracking up about the state of the hostel and our rashness in picking it! Never again is all I could say! We quickly got ready for bed. Before I fell asleep, I wished that I was already dreaming and that when I woke up, I'd find myself in a real hostel.
Day 10 Sunday, April 9th
For the first time all vacation, I woke up before Megan. She is a natural early riser, but I know she was very tired after everything that happened yesterday. I decided to surprise her by grabbing stuff for breakfast from the market in the building across from the all girls dorm. It was interesting looking at all the different foods in itaian and the pastas and wines! It was cool! I got us this awesome hard bread sticks covered in sesame seeds, juice boxesm and those crispy creme wafers that they used to give me when I was a kid. Megan was really happy about my surprise breakfast! And we had a pretty chill morning with no definite plans. Since it was Easter Sunday, trying to do any major touristic things was out of the question, most places were closed and everyone who was anyone (aside from us) was at St. Peter's Square in Vatican city- which, by the way, I learned along my travels is its own cite-state making the Pope like the king or the prime minister or president of sorts which makes Vatican city like a different country! Anyway so we chilled at the tables outside the restaurant at our hostel and had breakfast while enjoing the general splendor of just knowing that we were in Rome. We found out that the hostel has free internet!! It pretty much made our day and made up for the whole it being a camping village situation. I could check my emails and facebook and what not! We got decided to go get lunch somewhere and check out the Villa Borghese. Unfortunately, we missed the hostel shuttle that takes you to the metro station so we decided to walk the mile and a quarter (or a half, I can't be sure) under the overpass, past a small fruit truck and a bunch of fields and finally near civilization at Prima Porta. There we found a great restaurant that was still open, so we grabbed lunch there. They gave us free bread!! Restaurants in Europe don't do that usually. The pasta we had was incredible! Made fresh at the restaurant with an amazing tomato sauce. The people who work there are really nice too! After a splendid lunch we took the extremely long train ride into the city at the Flaminio stop (which where we had to catch another train to the Spagna stop unaware that we could have entered Villa Borghese from Flaminio because the place is so big it covers nearly 3 metro stops, but we didn't learn this until later. anyway, we had to walk like a mile underground through the metro station to get to the proper exit. Guys in Italy are ultra forward. There was a man that was clearly with his wife in the station and whistled at us and said something to us in Italian that didn't sound like a warning about our shoes being untied I'll tell ya that much! Anyway when we got out of the station we could see this huge wall running along side the side walk while Villa Borghese was across the street. I think the wall was the original boundary of Italy. I took a picture in front of it so most of you will get to see it later. Now Villa Borghese is a villa- big surprise- but its on this huge estate of sorts with elaborate gardens and different places sto visit like a zoo and playgrounds and an old track where horses train or race. The first thing we went to was this cool cinema cafe and store. We only checked out the store but they had a lot of cool books on films and actors as well as tons of italian films and posters. One thing is perfectly clear, Italians love their erotic cinema. They have tons of books and posters and movies on the subject. Its intense! And they view it more as an art than a pornographic thing. Anyway after checking out the store, we walked around the gardens and sat on a big tree trunk for a while just people watching and enjoying the general splendor of it all. There were so many families and couples and groups of friends spending time together just chatting or passing around a frisbee or picknicking. There was a park near us with a building for kids activities behind us, so we walked through the playground trying to balance on these wooden beams with the kids for a brief moment. We saw this charming pond with little row boats that people had rented and there was a little island in the middle of the pond and ducks every where. It was a site to see! We could have walked around that place for hours! And there were many different changes od scenery- wooded areas, ponds, old buildings, fields, etc. What excited me the most though was the Globe Theatre they had there in honor of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London! Its an exact replica! And they do summer Shakespeare shows in Italian! How exciting is that! The next shows they have planned for this summer are Il Merchante di Venezia (The Merchant of Venice) and Sogno Di Una Note Di Mezza Estate (A Midsummer Night's Dream). I cannot believe I got to see two Globe theatres in one semester! We walked around a lot and took pictures. We found a comfy bench to sit on along an avenue of trees lining a wide path for pedestrians and bikers. We sat there for maybe an hour an a half just watching. There were families on 6 person bike carriages that had two rows of sets, a canopy, a steering wheel and pedals for everyone. It was so cool! I wanted to rent one! Loads of people passed us on those things. It was adorable. Everything was so peaceful. I just loved being able to sit like that and witness the ever changing world. The gardens were so huge, we barely saw a third of it, and I don't think we ever officially made it to the villa itself. We ended up heading towards the Spanish steps. Once again, I was the navigator responible for following the map and quickly getting us from point A to point B. We walked passed this old worn out warehouse building of sorts where all the huge funky bikes were rented out. We found this incredible overlook where we could see all of Rome and the amazing architecture. It was surreal. We asked this nice, well dressed Italian man to take our picture and he was hilarious. He was so meticulous and picky about the shot and the angle- getting me to remove my sweatshirt, moving our things out of the frame, picking the best spot on the overlook, and he even forced us to strike a more intimate friendship pose! It was funny- he was like "Are you guys friends? Then look like it! Hug each other or something!" He took about 8 photos with different poses and angles. It was great. I feel sorry for his girlfriend who was waiting. After we parted from our dear new friend (by the way, Italian accents are intoxicating even if the men can be a turn off) we wandered on down the road and got gelatto and checked out the entrance hallway of the French Alliance museum. Everything was on a downward slope, thill finally we made it to the Spanish steps. I could not believe my eyes! I had never seen so many people just chilling in one area! No plans to move are do anything! Its this huge, epic, ancient staircase done in the baroque style. Believe it or not people just gather on the steps and sit there! There were also hundreds of people in the piazza below just shooting the breeze around the fountain. Above the staircase there was an ancient egyptian obelisk. It seems there's one of those in every country. We decided to follow the crowd and found a good space to chill for a while. We were doing a lot of chilling that day. These guys I noticed were watching us. It creeped me out a bit. I guess we were sitting above their friends on the steps, so they eventually came down to sit by us. Two of the guys below us started talking to us. They were decent looking, I guess. One of the guys was totally interested in Megan and asked if she had facebook. We promptly peaced out and wandered around the piazza. The street that runs from the foot of the stairs was full of glamorous, expensive shops like this awesome Louis Vouton store. I read some where that there's a fashion show that runs down the Spanish Steps in the spring or summer. How awful would it be to walk down all those stairs in skin tight dresses and killer heels! Two things I noticed that day: 1) Everyone in Rome dresses like celebrities. They are so fashionable, even some of the homeless beggars look better dressed than some college kids. 2) I don't know if its just a Rome thing or what, but men are way more affectionate with one another. They hold hands, stroke each others ears, and keep their arms around each other while on the train. Not all of them of course, but I saw enough of it to know that they couldn't all possible be gay. I saw a an ad with Marion Cotillard on it and got excited! She is gorgeous and an amazing actress! We looked around for a cheap place to eat but were pretty much out of luck in that area. We decided to head back to the hostel and have dinner. The metro stations in Rome are kind of cool in the fact that they have tvs broadcasting the news and such while you wait for the train and there are little tvs on the train that show short clips of cartoons or other things. It was nice. When we got to Flaminio, the market men were still working even though the sun was starting to go down. One thing I noticed a lot. At dinner we got pizza and had a good nights rest.
Day 11 Monday, April 10th
The next day we headed to Vatican City. We grabbed some pizza from a place near the metro stop and then we had the best gelato ever! It was like an explosion of goodnees in my mouth that I never thought possible. My tastebuds went into shock! They didn't know what was going on. I will dream about my first real gelato experience (Yesterday doesn't count). I wanted to cry it was so good. There was this big open air market in front of the border wall of Vatican city where people were selling things like leather portraits, jewelry, religous images, and other unique things. It was al very exciting. Megan and I looked around for a bit and I bought this necklace with matching earings that looked likea small sea anemone trapped in glass. After we finished exploring the market, we walked along the huge wall till we found the entrance to the Vatican museum. There was a huge door in the wall that made me think of some Jim Hensen movie or something. There was a big sign indicating the calandar of open and closed days, and wouldn't you know it- The museum is closed on Easter Monday. So we decided to go check out St. Peter's Square and St. Peter's Basilica instead. It took a while to walk along the wall to get to the square. We passed the official car entrance of Vatican city where officers in funny, baggy blue get-ups were standing guard. They seemed very rigid. When you step into St. Peter's square, its like stepping into a dream. The sun is shining and you're surrounded by this circle of pillars and ancient statues polished white! Everthing looks so pristine and glowing from the sun. A tall egyptian obelisk is in the center of the square, and beyond that there are hundreds of chairs leading up to the entrance of the basilica. A line that goes on for days curves along the side of the square which is really more like a circle. Hundreds of people are waiting to see the most important church of the Catholic faith. I bet there were people from hundreds of different countries there in that single moment. I couldn't believe I was actually there. I might have forgotten to breathe for a moment. Its such a historical place that has maintained its beauty. We final got up the courage to go to the end of the line, and it actually ended up moving really fast. We got to know the study abroad girls in front of us and chatted while waiting to get closer to the entrance. There are signs every where about the strict rules in entering the basilica. You can't wear any pants or skirt that doesn't fall below the knees or a sleevless top. My host brothers warned me about this. Thibaud told me he had to pull his shorts down so they went past his knees even though his underwear was showing just so he could go in. People were forced to wrap their sweatshirts around their legs- anything to get in. Luckily we passed without any problems and entered- Megan told me to brace myself for a shock. Boy was I surprised. When you first enter, you see the long nave (center aisle) of the Basilica that has many chapels that branch off. There are two aisles running parallel to the nave on the north and south side of the basilica. In the center of the long nave(of which you could only walk along the edge because most of it was blocked off) there is this large black structure that houses the steps down stairs to the tomb of St. Peter aka the first pope ever. If you've seen Angels and Demons its the location at the very end where a certain someone covers themself in lantern oil and lights themself on fire. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. When you walk to the right, you see the sculpture Pieta by Michaelangelo behind a huge glass wall that people have their faces pressed against. Its th famous marble Renaissance sculpture of Jesus on Mary's lap after the crucifixtion. Its quite intense, and it was pretty difficult to get a good photo of it with the glare of the flash. To see it for yourself, click here. When you turn to the direct right of this wall you'll see a large possibly bronze cross against the wall. The base of the cross is worn in color as well as a patch of the wall beneath the base of the cross. I learned why the two spots were worn when I looked at the line of people in front of the cross. One woman approached the cross, reached up to place her hand on the base of it and the drag her hand down to the space below the base. I think it is a form of reverance, so I got in line and did the same. It was strange and i didn't really feel anything from it but it was still very exciting to be there. So as we continued down the walk aisle to the right heading through the Basilica we saw huge sculptures of famous Popes on either side of major arches and on either side of these arches we walked under, there were small breaks in the wall rectangularly shaped that formed different chapels where there were more sculptures and paintings and at the back wall of each chapel there is a tomb of a pope, some incased in marble ans some were glass cases with the stone or wax version of the pope (at least I hope it is a wax version) inside. It was very strange. Here and here are two examples. There are kneelers in front of some of the tombs where people could go pray. As we continued walking we came upon this room that you coulding see into because of two huge curtains and a guard. It was the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. There were people lined up, however, to go in. A sign read that this was a place for silent prayer and that photos aren't allowed. Naturally I wanted to see, so Megan and I waited in line. As people came out, more were let in. When we finally got to go in, the guard pulled aside the curtain and we walked in to the most intense chapel I've ever seen. There are rows of wooden pews with kneeling cusions, but the first thing you notice when you walk in is the large tabernacle holding the eucharist at the back of the chapel with an epic painting of the Holy Trinity on the wall above it. Everything was gold and marble including the two angels on either side of the tabernacle. And there are epic paintings of biblical scenes on the wall to the right and left of the chapel. If you look up, you'll see that the ceiling goes on for days and there are big versions of those incense canisters that the priest swings at us during lent hanging. There are scenes from the Old Testament designed in gold all over the ceiling in mosaic form. It was overwhelming. Check it out for yourself here. I couldn't believe how much gold was everywhere! After spending a good amount of time there in silent prayer and wonder, we left and continued down the aisle. I took a peak in the nave (center aisle) where people were gatherd around the state of St. Peter taking photos. Talk about a line! You'd think we were at Disney world waiting to take a picture with Cinderella or Mickey! I skipped out on that portion of the visit and we continued looking at the altars and paintings and sculptures in the south aisle. We reached a break in the narrow aisle where there are several altars and chapels branching off to the right and the rest of the aisle was blocked off. This blocked off section is refered to as a Transept- there is a right and a left transept with the Confessio, The Papal Altar, and the Baldacchino in the center. This is space I talked about earlier from the Angels and Demons. There were people surrounding the Confessio and taking pictures. Theres a marble railing around the Confessio which is shaped like a big U. Beyond the railing there are two stairwells leading down to the tomb of St. Peter- the first Pope of the Catholic church. If you get up agains the railing at the center of the arch of the Confessio U, you can see the lower level beyong the stairs and see the ancient painting of St. Peter. For an actual image click here. Directly behind the Confessio is the Papal Altar, and above that is the Baldacchino which is a bronze pavillon designed by Bernini and located directly above St. Peter's tomb and directly below the dome everyone sees when they look at St. Peter's Basilica from the outside. The Baldacchino is made up of four thick bronze pillars that twist as the travel upwards to the bronze canopy they support which contain bronze sulptures and a cross. Take a Look! Beyond this epic altar and pavillion lies The Tribune where the altar of the chair of St. Peter is located. This part is the apse that makes up the back of the Basilica. It was blocked off but it is the most ornate altar I have ever seen. From the distance, it was difficult to catch the details, but above the design of angels and cherubs and other figures, there is a stainglassed window designed to look like the radiant sun with gold figures and rays branching off from it. Its breathtakingly magnificent. As we headed back towards the other aisle, we saw this statue that I will probably never forget. Its is the statue of St. Veronica holding a veil with the imprint of Jeusus' face from when she wiped the blood from his face. It is made intirely of marble,and the vthe way the veil was sculpted it seems to be moving. Its amazing how the stone could be made to look like fabric, and it was so cool how Jesus' face is carved into the stone to look like a blood inmprint. I was fascinated by it. Here's the best picture I could find, but I took my own which are better and closer up. We passed a large monument to Pius VIII which was above the entrance to the Sacristy and Treasury Museum- the not so free portion of the Basilica. We did take a peak inside and saw a large tablet on a wall with a list of all the popes that ever existed. I was quite surprised at the sheer number of how many there were. I guess they DO tend to get Pope's that are near deaths doorstep, so it kind of makes sense. We continued on; the north aisle being pretty parallel to the the south one. The only major difference is the space opposite The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrement which is the Chapel of the Choir which is an open space with pews for sitting and the walls are lined with wooden confessionals. and there's a huge organ! There's an Immaculate Conception altar and a veryr ornate ceiling. Well, everything about this place is pretty ornate. We checked out the nave where there are sculptures of the Founder Saints against the pillars and the ceiling is very high. At the begining of the south aisle opposite the Pieta, there is the chapel of the Baptistery where there is a golden baptismal font unlike any I've ever seen at the back on an altar. I don't even understand how it works. Anyway, there is a large painting of Jesus being baptised by john the Baptist above the altar. The dome like ceiling is designed with many golden mosaics and paintings and the walls are all a work of art. Its a wonder to behold. The sun seeps through and bounces off the gold illuminating the space naturally and brilliantly. Finally we returned to the blazing sunlight of the outside world and walkled along the poritco of the Basilica. I had to take some time to absorb all that I just saw. I must say its quite ironic that the church is all about saving the poor and what not yet with all the gold in in there they could probably solve all the problems of third world countries. Or at the very least help out the legless guy who sits outside the walls of Vatican city begging for money or help. Well, after a brief time outside deciding against paying to go up in the Dome, we headed down to the Grottoes beneath the basillica where the tombs of all the old popes are kept as well as some an ancient artifacts. The Grottoes are basically like one big basement that stores a bunch of stuff including but not excluding dead bodies. It wasn't too exciting. The only thing worth mentioning is the tomb of Pope John Paul II. It was the most subtle tomb in all the Grottoes. It was just a slab of marble in the ground with his name in it. Many people were surrounding this tomb which was blocked off by a rope; many people were crying or praying. It was really moving. I learned from my obsevation of the Grottoes that the men who become Popes change there names. There were a few back in the day who kept there actual names but its been hundereds of years since the last one. From the Grottoes, you could also see beneath the confessio the painting of St Peter. There were a lot of spaces blocked off, so we didn't spend much time down there. When we exited, we were on the south side of the Basilica and we saw some of the guards with the mutlicolored clown suites and funny hats. I got up the courage to ask one of them if I could take a picture with him and he gave me a big NO. Talk about stiff! I guess I'd be bitter and mean too if I had to wear a clownish uniform all day and expected to be taken seriously as a guard and I'd resent the other guys who got to wear the blue costumes whom are way easier to take seriously. They look more like the Pope's court jesters than guards. The sun was still high and made everything in St. Peter's Square glow and shine. I took several more pictures before we headed east outside of the round portion of the square (oh the irony) and grabbed some gelatto. We were meeting a friend of Megan's who is studying abroad for the semester in Rome at Castel Sant'Angelo (also in Angels and Demons). You have to pay to go inside, but it was cool to look around the outside. Its not your gerneral castle, in fact its just one cylindrical building that was a mosoleum, fortress, a castle and now a museum. We walked around the whole thing eating our gelatto, goofing off and talking. We rested for a wall because our feet were killing us from all the walking we had done. Finally, we met Megan's friend Sarah at the Ponte Sant'Angelo or the beautiful bridge of Sant'Angelo that goes over the Tiber River- which is actually a pretty grubby River. Not at all worth photographing because it is so dirty. We walked around while Megan and her friends got caught up. We grabbed some pizza and sat on the stairs of an old building talking for an hour or so. We were in no rush to go anywhere and we had had our fill of historic art and buildings for the day. Some kids were kicking a ball around near us- it was kind of like a huge sidewalk space in front of this building. We just people watched and chatted for a good long while. What a relief to be off our feet! Cobblestone is not fun to walk on all the time! After we were well rested and Sarah and Megan had caught up, we caught one of the trolly/above ground trains and headed towards the area where Sarah lived. She wanted to take us to her favorite restaurant! On the way, we walked through a piazza where there were loads of people gathered around this clownish fellow putting on a show with balloons or something crazy like that. There were tables set up along the street where people were selling jewelry and sunglasses and things. The streets were filled with people rather than cars. The place Sarah wanted to take us to kept on sayin they'd open in 20 minutes. Seriously, every 20 minutes they added more time. We decided to find another place to eat. Good think my water bottle was filled because this place didn't serve anything but water from the bottle. No tap! isn't that so bogus! Anyway I had my first taste of pasta carbonara and it was sinfully good! I never knew eggs and bacon could make such a spectacular sauce for pasta! It was like a celebration in my mouth!! Gotta love those! So after the amazing dinner, we said goodbye to Sarah and headed back to the camping village for bed. On our way back, we saw that the market from that morning was still open! I love how things are still kickin after the sun goes down. There were also some strange men on the train with us who seemed very affectionate with each other. They were stroking each other's ears and resting their heads on each other but I couldn't be sure if it was just a culture thing or if they were together together. Megan and I just listened to my ipod and tuned out the background noise.
Day 12 Tuesday, April 11th
Today Megan and I decided to do our own thing. She went to go check out a market and the Jewish Ghetto. I, on the other hand, went to explore the Roman Forum. I bought the Roma pass- 23 euros that provides entry into 2 museums, discounts on any other museums and most things going on in Rome like plays and concerts, and a 3 day pass for all public transportation. It was so convenient; I totally recommend it to those who visit Roma! So I decided to use my first museum entrance on The Roman Forum/Colosseum/Palatine hill. The line to get in to the Forum was really long, but the Colosseum line was way longer so I decided to do the latter later. It was fun explorig all of the ruins, although I must say it was tricky taking photos of myself, but occasionally I enlisted in the help of some fellow tourists. It was pretty epic. There was so much to see and so much to read. There were markers everywhere explaining the history of the ruins and boy were they significant! I learned more there than I did in one year of history class. The only problem is its hard to retain all that info at once. I actually saw Ceasar's grave! It was really just a big mound of dirt with a bunch of flowers thrown on it at the Temple of Cesare. It wasn't all that exciting honestly. The view of all the ruins was amazing. There's this white building called Il Vitoriano that has two men on chariots that you can see from the Roman Forum, and it is gorgeous! Its one of the Rome's staple buildings. So anyway, Megan was supposed to text me when she got to outside the Roman Forum, and I had hoped that I would have finished walking around there and the Palatine Hill but I wasn't even close to completion! Its so big and there's so much walking and reading, plus none of the pathways are smooth or paved of course, so I had to manuever over ancient stones and hope around. I nearly twisted my ankle once because I my foot slipped into a divet where grass pops out- not fun! Its quite the work out lemme tell ya! And it sucked because my shoes were so wonr down in the soles that my feet made contact with the rubber fom the inside. So anyway, Megan texted me, but it took me nearly 45 minutes to get out of there because I got lost! There are supposedly a bunch of exits you can use to get out, but every single one was blocked off for some inexplicable reason. I wandered around forever before I came to the conclusion that my only way out was the same way I came in- which was a really long path. Finally I met up with a less than please Megan, and we went hunting for a place to eat. It was difficult because most of the resaurants in the area were expensive and the food wasn't fresh but frozen. We found a place that looked like it had amazing gelatto, so we decided we couldn't wait and decided to eat desert first. Luckily there was a pizza place next door that had great margarita pizza with cherry tomatos on top. It was delectable. I also gave soupli a try. Its this fried ball of rice with tomato sauce and cheese inside. It was so good! I wish I had just gotten a bunch of soupli instead of pizza. I wish I could find it in the states! After lunch we went to check out Circus Maximus which is basically a large field that dips into the ground. Literally the hill you have to go down to get into the field is practically vertical! Anyway, Circus Maximus was for chariot races so it was pretty much as big if not bigger than a football field. We walked around there for a little while before heading to the La Bocca della Verità or the Mouth of Truth. Its this big sculpture of a man's face with an opening in at his mouth in the side of a wall by the Church of Santa Maria. It was made famous by the film Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. The myth is that in ancient times when the Mouth of Truth was used as a manhole, men who doubted the fidelity of their wives would force them to stick their hand in the mouth. If the wife's hand was "bitten off" it proved that she was unfaithful. If someone knew she was unfaithful, they would be waiting behind the manhole to cut their hand off. Supposedly your allowed to stick your hand in for free and take a photo, but now you have to wait in a line and pay a euro for 1 photo good or bad. There are no retakes. its such a con! Well I stuck my hand in, and I must be an honest person because I'm still intact! Megan and I walked around the small church before heading back towards the Colosseum. We parted ways again, and I went on to explore the place where gladiators battled!! It was the most intense place I've ever been and so surreal. Its like one big museum filled with a limitless supply of information. I tried to read all the information but it was just too much even for me. I had planned on going on to Palatine Hill, but I spent 5 hours at the Colosseum. Can you imagine the amount of history that went down there! I kept thining about how I couldn't believe I was there, really there, and my parents may never see this place. It almost made me cry. I've been to so many places that my parents will never see. Isn't that crazy! Anyway, I wish that I had more time to just absorb everything and just be! There was this guy that climbed up on a part of the second level of the interior just relaxing and taking in some sun. There were some nice people who took my picture for me at different locations. Did you know that the priest holds a ceremony there every Easter. And during the times of gladiators, sometimes they would fill the Colosseum with water and have naval battles. Amazing! Reluctantly I left just before closing to meet up with Megan outside. We walked around the outside of the Colosseum as the sun was setting.It was incredible! There were pinks and purpes and oranges and yellows painting the Colosseum and the sky. I'll never forget it. We saw those same touchy feely men on the train again. They had strange paper 3D rings on their fingers. It certainly was entertaining to observe them. They definitely aren't Italian, thats for sure but from Africa. I'm sure of it. That night, we ate at the camping village. I had gnocchi which was spectacular. Our waiter was really nice, and he gave us a lemoncello with our bill. Megan loved it, but it was way too strong for me! I don't recommend it for the unseasoned drinker. It served as a nice night cap though!
Day 13 Wednesday, April 12th
So today we had to get up really early because every Wednesday the Pope comes out to St. Peter's sqaure to talk to the people. Our Andrew friend from IES came into Rome the night before, and we had planned on meeting up, but he wasn't returning my texts so I told him where we were going to be and hoped for the best. There were these cool French girls who were with this group of French kids staying at the same hostel. We saw each other every morning and we finally ended up talking to each other in the bathroom. They asked us if we were French, which made us feel very cool. We exchanged facebook information which is awesome. You can never have to many French connections. Well on our way to the St. Peter's we stopped inside a pastry shop for breakfast and grabbed these pastries that basically looked like a big ball of bread dusted with powdered sugar split down the middle and filled to the gushing with this awesome whipped cream stuff. It was magically delicious but almost too sweet. When we got to the wall outside the square, we were met with a major crowd of people milling in. There were lines waiting to go through security and the clock was ticking. The Pope was schedule to start at 10 and we had about 3 minutes. People were starting to cut and then this one family held up the line because they had issues with the stuff they wanted to bring in. I was a bit annoyed along with most of the other people in line. Finally we made it moments before the pope began to speak. There were so many people in the square there was barely any free space! Can you believe it!? Megan decied to hang back and avoid the crowd, but I pushed myself as far in as I could. The pope still looked like a speck from where I stood and the blazing sun didn't make it any easier, but luckily there were megatron screens around the square offering the audience a close up all the action. Besides so many people had their kids on their shoulders which made it difficult to get a good natural view. There was this weird cart floating the pope through the crowd while he stayed in his wheel chair. People reached out to him and cheered. It was kind of funny. He's a totally celebrity! When Benny, as they call him, started speaking everyone went quite to listen. He spoke in German and sounded really, really old and they had to put the mic up to his mouth as he stayed glued to his wheelchair. It was all very exciting at the time because I grew up Catholic and the pope has always been a big deal. Apparently it was Benny's birthday so the audience sang Happy Birthday to him. Because it was Easter week, there were many groups there on spring vacation, so all of the religious groups by name and by country were recognized and the Pope addressed them all in their native language: French, English, German etc. It was pretty cool. Some of the groups had posters or little chants/ cheers/songs that they performed after they were recognized. It felt more like we were at a pep rally than Vatican City. At one point I decided to turn around and try to get Megan's attention, and to my surprise who should be standing right behind me but Andrew!! I couldn't believe it! What are the odds!!! He didn't even realize he was standing behind me! Megan joined us and we all shared the excitement of finding each other. God was truly on our side. We decided to beat the crowd and head to the Vatican museum before event in St. Peter's Square ended. We checked out the market outside the Vatican city walls for a bit and saw some cool stuff like faces and designs made out of molded leather. Finally, after Megan bought some stuff, we decided to brave the museum. There was a pretty long line going into the museum, but we used that time to get caught up on each other's travels. When we finally got in the museum, we were spoiled for choice as far as where to start. The Vatican Museum consists of around 13 different museums. You could spend the whole day in there and still not cover everything. And its pretty easy to get lost. We checked out a few sculpture galleries and saw some tombs and that had a blend of pagan and Christian designs. There were a lot of sculptures of Hercules and other Greek figures. It was amazing. I could lost in that place forever, except my companions weren't as gung-ho about lingering as I was. We saw a lot of wonderful paintings from different eras. I noticed an abundance of art work featuring St. Sebastian with his sinewy bod tied to a tree as arrows pierced his flesh. They were quite moving. There was also this Grand Hall of tapestries that had massive tapestries in glass, temperature controlled cases. Each tapestry told an elaborate story. I very much enjoyed this room. At some point we grabbed a bit of lunch in the museum cafeteria because we were there for an upwards of 4 hours. It took us forever to find the Sistine Chapel. We kept on following the arrows. We came into this courtyard that had fountains on either end with large pine cone looking sculptures above them. There was a strange goldish bronze ball near the middle of the courtyard and it was practically begging us to take a picture with it! As we continued our journey to the Sistine Chapel, I swear we had to go through 2 miles worth of other museums to get there. There were several rooms with many Greek god statues- which surprised me. some of them had their faces destroyed because that is what the Christians did when they booted out the pagans, but I recognized most of the figures due to some signifiers on their attire. Like for example Athena wears a pendant of a gorgon head on her breastplate and she has a helmet and spear while Aphrodite is often nude. Yay! My college education proves useful! So I was excited to see all of the Greek statues because I'm kind of obsessed with Greek mythology and history. We saw this one sculpture that had its eyes painted in with pupils, an iris, and everything. It was so freaky because it felt like she was watching us. Sculptures should never have complete eyes in my opinion. There was a hall of ancient maps and more tapestries. The rooms themselves were works of art too. There were paintings on the ceilings and walls, frescoes, and beautiful trimming designs. The experience was quite breathtaking. We had to go through this modern art section that didn't really move me, and Megan made me skip the Egyptian museum on the way. When we finally got to the School of Athens painting, I couldn't believe it. I guess I never expected to see it in person, so the moment was epic. Not nearly as epic, though, as being in the Sistine Chapel. It was unbelievable. I didn't know what to expect, so when we finally got there I was stunned. It was so huge, and there was so much going on in the painting. Megan told me that Michaelangelo apparently got paint in his eye while working on the ceiling part lol. I wanted to sit down and gaze up at it but the signs everywhere said not pictures, no cameras, no sitting down, and no load talking. Too bad everyone was doing the exact opposite. You'd think everyone there was illiterate. So we sat down near the far corner by the exit and looked up until our necks were about to snap. Its hard to describe the experience really. Honestly its a moment best experienced for yourself. I'll just say that seeing the part of the chapel where the finger of God and the finger of Adam touch was surreal. Sadly part of it is missing due to earthquake damage. Also, Michaelangelo did a self portrait in the form of falling skin off of a body on one of the wall paintings- very bizarre indeed. Finally after about 10 minutes, we broke from our trance and left the Museum. We were hungry, tired, and we still had a few things on our list that we needed to see. Our next objective was to try to see the Crypt of the Bones and the Pantheon before they closed. It was quite a scramble, but we managed to get to the Crypt of the Bones alright, but it was 15 minutes till closing. So we decided to save the crypt for tomorrow and go to the Pantheon. What an ordeal! When we finally figured out what train to get on, we ended up getting on in the wrong direction. We were worried about getting there before it closed, but we just stayed on the bus until it went all the way around to the stop we needed. Navigating from the bus stop was a bit challenging, but we got there. We had to go through Piazza Navona which is gorgeous! We couldn't linger though because we were on a mission. When we finally got to the Pantheon, we relaxed and looked around. The Pantheon is this huge perfect dome that was built by acrobats or something because they didn't use any scaffolding to build it. In the very center of the roof of the dome there is a hole. I guess when it rains, the convex floor collects all the rain were it just drains out. I guess you need to see it in action to understand it. Anyway, there was a choir singing and what looked to be a mass going on in the back of the Pantheon. We learned that the Pantheon was originally built for the Greek Gods but the Christians- of course- converted it to a Christian Church. There were several niches each containing a sculpture and a few chapels in the the interior of the Pantheon. I was more amazed by the structure than anything else really. Raphael's tomb is in one of the niches with a Mary and Baby Jesus sculpture above it. After the mass ended, we were pretty much kicked out of the Pantheon. It was time for dinner. After a few deliberations. We ate at a place that had a good deal on an appetizer, a main course, and a cappuccino for a reasonable price. I had some amazing gnocchi and bruschetta! I had my first cappuccino ever and it wasn't half bad! After dinner we walked around the Piazza Navona a bit. There were a bunch of painters trying to sell their work and offering to paint people's portraits. This one creepy guy chased me around for bit which wasn't fun but we eventually got him to back off. There were these two women and a man performing flamenco for money and a large crowd was gathering around them. The did the sevillanas! I totally wanted to join in! The sun was down and the light shimmering off the water in the fountain was beautiful! One of the best piazzas, in my opinion. I got some gelato and we headed towards the Trevi Fountain. Talk about a journey. We got so lost and turned around. People were telling us all these different ways to get there and the signs with arrows pointing the way were useless. We made up songs and joked around, making light of situation. It was pretty fun. Finally we made it to Trevi Fountain, and it was packed! There were so many people surrounding the fountain that you'd think it was a pool or something. People were just lingering around the edge or taking pictures or eating. It was insane. The fountain was beautiful but it was hard to get a good shot of it without getting 20 someodd tourist in it. Andrew took some decent shots of Megan and me. Even though it wasn't our last night in Rome, we followed the tradition of throwing a penny over our shoulder into the fountain before walking away not looking back. They say if you do that on your last night in Rome, you're guaranteed to return. I think its true. The food alone is enough to make me go back. Anyway, before we parted for the night, we checked out a few stores. The grocery store was just fun to look at because there were all these delectable items like fresh mozzarella to drool at lol jk (we didn't drool). This one store has the strangest, funniest kinds of pasta. There were these big red, yellow and green colored sombrero pastas. They were huge!! Then they had... genitalia shaped past for both sexes. I had heard of it before but it was hilarious to see it for real! We came up with a plan for our final day together in Rome and parted ways for our respective hostels. All in all, it was a great day!
Day 14 Thursday, April 13
Today I woke up early and went on my own to meet Andrew at the Colosseum-Palatine Hill-Roman Forum because I wanted to finish looking at the stuff I missed before. Andrew and I started off at Palatine Hill. A lot of stuff was blocked off, but we got to see the bulk of it. Most of the structures were gone and only the foundations were left. There was a lot of reading. I learned so much that I hardly retained any of it! lol. I do remember reading about the cruel leader Domitian and his murder. There was a conspiracy against him and we saw the supposed exact location where he was stabbed. The home of Augustus was also on the hill. There were these beautiful gardens that we walked through. They weren't in full bloom yet, but it was still wonderful to walk through. I eventually finished up looking around the Roman Forum and reading everything. It was great having somebody with me to take pictures! Going it alone makes it difficult, and you can't trust just anyone with your camera! I wanted to see the Capitoline Museum but Andrew wanted to check out the Colosseum, so we agreed on a meeting place and time. The Capitoline museum is supposedly the best museum in Rome-only second in quantity to the Vatican museum, but first in quality. I had to see it for myself. The rumors are true! The Capitoline museum is stunning. I managed to see 75% of the whole thing in 2 hours, but I could have stayed there all day. I loved it because there is a lot of art work of Romulus and Remus and the She-Wolf. There is a lot to learn there about the creation of Rome. They have the famous bronze sculpture of Medusa's head, the bronze sculpture of the infants Romulus and Remus suckling on the She-Wolf, and many paintings of the battles and the Rape of the Sabine Women. I am truly fascinated by the store of the Sabine women. I love the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers which is based on the story. For those of you who don't know the story. The Romans needed women to produce more Romans. So, they went to the Sabine village and asked for women. Of course the men said no! So, the Romans came up with a plan to capture the Sabine women and take them to Rome. "Rape" in the context of the story actually means capture according to the museum factoids. So the Roman's finally had women, and though they resisted for sometime, the Sabine women grew to love the Romans and they started their own families. The Sabine men wanted revenge, and a war was waged. There's a famous painting in the Louvre called Sabine Women by Jacques-Louis David depicting the war between the Romans and the Sabines with the Sabine women and their Roman children in the between trying to stop their husbands, brothers, and fathers from fighting. I find it to be truly fascinating! Anyway there were many rooms in the museum and the walls and ceilings had massive paintings in lieu of wall paper. They were epic works of art that told stories and had great detail. There was also the famous glass room with the bronze state of Marcus Aurelius on his horse. It was amazing. There was also an excavation site of ancient homes that you could take a look at. There were a few galleries with paintings of Catholic images as well as Roman. Of course there had to be a handful of St. Sebastian paintings- they love him for some reason. And the way the painted his body was very sensual and sexual as if the penetration of the arrows was somehow erotic. There were many sculptures- mainly Roman pagan sculptures like a faun! The time came for me to reluctantly leave- its my new favorite museum-and meet Megan and Andrew. We had to get food! Andrew needed to find an atm first, so we scrambled around looking for one. During out search, I GOT HIT BY A CAR!!!! Can you believe it. A bunch of pedestrians including me, Megan and Andrew were passing this narrow side street that had no light or stop sign, and this woman just thought she could squeeze through us! Nope! She hit me in the shin. Don't worry, it didn't hurt. It was all very surreal. I was a bit shocked. Megan and Andrew were beside themselves! We moved on quickly, got Andrew's money and found a place that had a good deal on pizza. We ate outside, and it started to rain! lol It was alight drizzle, but we had to be moved under the canopy. We ate Really well, and headed on to the Crypt of the Bones. Now this place is ultra freaky. Firstly, its supposed to be free but donations are welcome. The lady at the door wouldn' let you in unless you made at least a euro donations. So much for being free. So this place is underneath a church. Its called the Capuchin Crypt where the bones of over 4,000 monks decorate the walls. There are about 5 small chapels decorated with skulls and tibias and...well, every bone that once was a part of the monks. They were used to make crosses, chandeliers, hourglasses, altars, and other religious designs. There were a few full skeletons with monk attire in different poses in the different chapels. Some were lying in tomb like states while others were standing and pointing or looking creepy. It was the most harrowing, horrifying, experience ever. Can you imagine? Camera's weren't allowed, but you have to really see it to believe it. Even the ceilings were decorated with bone designs. Pelvic bones, heel bones, finger bones, rib cages, everything! Whew, talk about creepy! After a breather in he fresh air, we looked around the church above the crypt. I am glad to say that we had finally accomplished seeing everything that we really wanted to see. There were a few things we missed, but they weren't dire. We all needed some R&R after all the scrambling we did to see everything. We ate gelato for the last time and found a nice cafe where Megan got her daily caffeine fix. We just sat there for an hour or so chilling. I had one goal left that I could not leave with out doing which was eating manicotti. I love manicotti, and I always have a hard time finding a place in the States that made it well enough. Surprisingly, all of the places we ate at during the week didn't make it! Well, Megan and Andrew were devoted to my cause. We searched for a long time before finding a place that would be serving it during the dinner rush! We decided to hang out for a while and wait for them to open for dinner. I was so thrilled. Apparently we had stumbled upon a pretty chic area where all the ritzy hotels were located. We walked around a bit and checked out bookstore. There was this interesting building that had these huge bronze doors with creep things sticking out of it. There was an arm, a face, and other strange things sticking out as if they were trying to escape whatever was behind these massive doors. We took some pictures and goofed off until dinner time. When dinner rolled around I was so happy! I finally got my Manicotti, and Andrew and I split an order of profiteroles. Mmm so good I dream about it! That was the perfect final meal for our journey. After dinner, We took one final group photo and said our farewells. It was so wonderful spending time with Andrew in Rome. He was the perfect addition to our group. A duo is always nice, but Trio works just as well! Megan and I headed back to our hostel to arrange for our departure early the next day.
Day 15 Friday, April 14th
I can't say I wasn't thrilled to be leaving Tiber Village. We got maybe 4 hours of sleep before we had to hop on a van to the airport. It was bittersweet leaving Rome. There was still so much for me to explore, but I was way ready to go home. When I first arrived in Rome, I thought we had planned on being there too long and that we would run out of things to do. Was I wrong or what!? Now I can't wait to go back and continue to learn more about the history of Rome and enjoy its beautiful people, culture, and excellent food. Spring Break came to a close, and I can say without a doubt that (Tiber Village and all) it was perfect!
