Ciao! I am currently sitting in Treviso airport in Venice, waiting for a 20:45 flight. We've been here since 17:00, when we got off our bus from Piazzale Roma, since there is very little to do in Venice besides go to beaches and shop in the five million tourist shops. It's been fun, but both Maureen and I are ready to go back to Paris!
When we arrived on Sunday and grabbed the suitcase, we realized that the next water bus left in ten minutes so we had to rush to buy our tickets and get to the pier. We had a great hour and a half ride from Marco Polo to San Marco, with stops at Murano, where there's a glass museum, and a few other areas of Venezia. Our stop was San Marco, where the main Piazza is, with Saint-Marc and the Palazzo Ducale (Doges Palace), and I'm pretty sure I recognize it from an Absolut ad.
The best part about arriving on a Sunday night was that mass was going on, so people were pretty much filling the square and not letting anyone pass. Since the first part of the directions to the hotel required us to go through the square and under the clock tower, we were forced to go around and get a preview of the wonderfully cheap souvenirs Venice has to offer its tourists. We also passed a ton of places to get dinner, which made us even hungrier than we already were and in a hurry to find our hotel.
While it was a little difficult to find, we didn't have to stop and ask for directions, which made us pretty pleased with ourselves. We ended up in a small square in the middle of a few buildings and a church, with a restaurant and the fountain we were supposed to use as a landmark. We found numbers 593, 592a, 592b, 592c...and 597, when we were looking for 590. After walking around the square in a slight circle, we ended up in front of this random tunnel under a building and saw a sign for none other than Hotel Citta di Milano! We clearly have good luck. We checked in and got our key, though the guy tried to get us to leave our passports with him for a few minutes, and were pleasantly surprised to be given a room with a bathroom even though we'd expected not to have one. While there was no WiFi and the air conditioning didn't work very well, it was still nice enough, so it all worked out well.
We wandered back out to Piazza San Marco to find dinner along the canal, and ended up stopping at this little place where everything was 9€. Every restaurant in Venice has what's called a Touristico, a tourist's menu, where everything is 14€ or 15€, so this was a sweet deal. We had nothing else to do other than get some gelato (stracciatella e menta...delicious) and preview what we wanted to buy for souvenirs, so we headed back to the hotel, showered, and passed out on top of the cover's due to the heat.
In the morning we had planned to meet Walter, since the entire Venice summer program was going to the Palazzo Ducale instead of having class, so we went to the breakfast room around 9:30. The selection was not as amazing as our Rome breakfast, but still pretty good: granola and cereal, tiny packets of cheese, jam and butter for the rolls and toast-cracker packages, chocolate or apricot filled croissants, orange juice and tea or coffee. I took my croissant with me for a snack, and we set off for the five minute meander through the alleys of Venice to Piazza San Marco.
As luck would have it, Walter was sitting on a bench by the entrance with the rest of the class, waiting for Professor Braman to arrive! We bought our tickets and met everyone inside, but the class had been given about two hours to wander the entire palace slash museum, so we had to waste time and wander through it slowly. We met a lot of the girls in the art class, the other class in the Venice summer program, who were drawing paintings for their final papers. Some of the more memorable rooms we saw were an entire collection of rooms filled with swords, funs, and even suits of armor on sculpted horses, a room that supposedly entertained 3000 people with a painting of Il Paradiso covering one entire wall, and the prisons that we wandered through and almost got lost in. There will be humorous pictures on Facebook soon, courtesy of Walter, Maureen and myself.
We managed to use up the entire two hours, but then waited outside for almost another hour because Dan and some kid in the program named Ryan failed to exit the museum on time. Walter let us go since he was going to a Jesuit church with the class, and so Maureen and I spent the next five hours wandering back and forth near the Rialto bridge, searching for the best prices on Venetian masks, Murano watches, necklaces, wine stoppers, keychains, magnets and the like. I am not souvenir shopping in Paris; I think I am pretty much set with Venice.
Around 17:30 we headed back to the hotel to drop off our purchases and get ready to meet Walter for dinner. We met outside of Palazzo Ducale, and when we finally found him he was dumping a water bottle over his head cause something wet had gotten in his hair. It had nothing to do with a pigeon, we think, but he used some antibacterial stuff just to be sure. We then walked half an hour across Venice to this place called Ae Oche, pronounced like "A-OK!" It was fun, and we got to wait outside for ten minutes before it opened. Apparently Walter has done that twice recently.
The restaurant was fun and very Italian, with tons of pasta and pizza options for cheap. I tried a spritz, which is apparently THE drink in Venice, if that means anything. We got gelato afterwards, of course, and then since Piazzale Roma was very close to Ae Oche, we went there to check out prices and times for bus tickets to Treviso for today. It was determined that our best bet was a 16:10 bus from the Piazzale, a full four and a half hours before the flight. Oh well.
Since Walter wanted to show us his island, where his classes are, we decided to fool the vaporetto service by buying one 24-hour pass, so Maureen would have the ticket and I would have the receipt. It was then a half hour back to San Marco to catch the boat, where we had just missed the 21:15 boat and had to wait 45 minutes for the 22:15 boat. The 15 minute ride was awesome at night, as was his island, which apparently houses only the university and a modern art show, which consists of random obelisks, green dog statues, huge chairs and lights in the form of "TO BUY IS TO CREATE" which you can read from out on the water. Crazy.
The first thing Walter wanted to do was find the vending machine, where he decided to buy Maureen and I peach juice to show us how great it is; it was extremely good. He tried to get the last pear juice box, but it was too far back in the row and didn't fall, then got stuck when we tried to shake it out. Oh well. When we went back to the building where his room is, all the art girls were sitting in a lobby drawing, so we stopped to talk to them for a bit before heading across the way. Walter's roommate was sleeping, so he tried to knock on Dan's door to see what was going on and if he could borrow his book to do the reading, but Dan was half asleep and trying to do the reading himself so it didn't really work out. Walter took Maureen and I over to the computer lab so we could check our email quickly before catching the boat back to San Marco at 23:20.
Unfortunately the boat back in doesn't come until 23:50, so we ended up rushing to check our email and then waited around for half an hour on the pier. It was still fun though; we took some more commemorative photos and talked about trips to Notre Dame and apartment troubles and how crazy it will be to be seniors. Walter kept trying to figure out how to make sure we got back to our hotel safely, given he didn't want to catch the boat with us and we didn't have Internet. The best solution seemed to involve a flare gun. When the boat came Maureen and I were the only two people on it, and we sat in the open area in the back and our tickets were once again not checked. No wonder it's so tempting to go without a ticket!
We got back after midnight and went straight to bed, despite how horribly hot it was in our room. At some point during the night the power went out, so the air conditioning cut out, and it was equally gross in the morning. Our plan had been to catch breakfast before it ended at 10:00, then come back to pack up and be ready to leave by 11:00, which worked out well. We left the suitcase in the reception area of the hotel and went to Piazza San Marco to go through Saint-Marc, but we couldn't have backpacks in there either and had to wander to find the left luggage area before we could go in. While it was free to walk around inside, there were about three other things you could do if you paid, so we only spent about ten minutes total in the very pretty church. Maureen couldn't even find a candle to light.
To make the most of our hour without backpacks, we went window shopping on the other side of the Piazza, where the high end shops were. When we finally had to pick up our backpacks, we decided to finish our souvenir shopping and then figure out where we were in terms of time. Half an hour later we had nothing to do and three hours before we had to head to Piazzale Roma, which was great. We had a free entrance to one of four museums around Venice because we'd paid to get into Palazzo Ducale, so we decided to go searching for the Museo Ca' Mocenigo, which was the closest to us and seemed like it would kill enough time. We got all the way over to where the map said it was, and found instead about five alleys that ended in locked gates or piers to the Grand Canal. Only in Venice is the possibility of a road ending in a river a problem. Walter's favorite phrase of the weekend: "into the lagoon..."
Since the failure to find Palazzo Mocenigo killed time either way, we decided to get a cheap lunch, pick up the suitcase, and then head to Piazzale Roma. For 4€ each we got a slice of pizza and gelato; once again, I love Italy. We sat on a bridge to eat and talked about UGBC nonsense before heading back to Citta di Milano for the suitcase.
Then began the long, hot trek to Piazzale Roma, which we had not been looking forward to all day. Apparently when we went to Ae Oche, Walter took us a quicker way, because we ended up walking all the way around the edge of the main part of Venice instead of cutting across it. Eventually we made it and bought our bus tickets, only for the bus to not be there. We sat at a stop and waited for it to show up, and when Maureen went to go check the times a bus did pull into the space, so we thought it was the right one and crossed the parking lot to get on. That bus was for Marco Polo though, not Treviso, so we spent another twenty minutes in the sun waiting for the right bus to come. Eventually it did, and so ended our time in the Italian heat.
I slept on the bus to Treviso, and we arrived at the airport around 17:00, three hours and forty five minutes before our flight would take off. We couldn't check the bag until 18:30, so we went into a little restaurant and set up shop there. Maureen got food and I plugged in my laptop to edit pictures, and we spent the next two hours there before checking in and heading downstairs. The lovely people manning security stole Maureen's laptop lock, despite the fact that she had kept it in her carry on from the US, from France to Ireland and back, from Paris to Rome and from Rome to Venice. Apparently it could enter the country, but not leave it. Clearly Maureen seems like the type of person who would strangle someone with her laptop lock. Using Treviso's logic, belts, necklaces and scarves should also be confiscated for their strangling ability.
It's now about 20:00, and we should be boarding soon, though not before the priority boarders of course. We still have to navigate the mob that is people trying to board a Ryanair flight, get on the plane without it being delayed, get our bag from baggage and get on our Beauvais-Paris shuttle before we catch the Metro to Maureen's apartment. It is going to be a late night, and I'm not even allowed to sleep on the plane because I want to see the Alps!
Tomorrow Maureen wants to study for her final, so I'm waking up late and then wandering into the city to see l'Arc de Triomphe, la Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame, the Tuilieries, the Louvre and whatever else I come across. I may even go into the Louvre, if I feel like dealing with Bank of America again to get money out of my account! Thursday Maureen and I are climbing la Tour Eiffel and going to the d'Orsay, because it's my favorite and I want to go again. I don't know the plan for Friday, but Saturday Maureen has her final and then we might go to the Centre Pompidou and then have a good dinner. And Sunday, it is back to the States! I can't believe my trip is over a third complete.
Le plus demain! A tout a l'heure,
Sam(bam)
Showing posts with label gelato. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gelato. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Roma: Part II
Greetings from 30,000 feet! I'm on the plane to Venezia right now, so I'm not sure when exactly this will be posted; our hotel in San Marco does not have WiFi, so I am guessing Tuesday night when we're back in Paris. Until then, I can write about Rome so the entry is ready to go when we return!
Yesterday morning we were woken with the best thing ever: breakfast, delivered to our room and set up on the table on our balcony. It was fantastic; ResLife should look into installing balconies, and BCDS should starting delivering room service. We were served tea with lemon, some cheese, ham and salami, two types of yogurt, bread fresh out of the oven with butter and jam, wrapped pieces of toast-like crackers, some cookies and pound cake, plus orange juice and two hard-boiled eggs. It was pretty much heaven, and definitely made our first full day in Rome start beautifully.
Well-fed, we walked back to the Colosseo where we would catch our hop-on, hop-off bus. Headphones were provided, so we could listen to happy Italian music and hear fun facts about things like the Jesuit church we passed on our way to the Vatican, or the rose gardens that hold a competition for new varieties of roses every year. The way the route went, we only passed a few stops before we were pulling up in front of San Pietro's square and the Basilica in Vatican City!
Using a scarf to help adhere to the dress code, we wandered into the Basilica, where there are tons of paintings, statues and even bodies of past Popes. It was slightly creepy and only vaguely relevant to someone who is not Catholic, simply because I do not know the entire history of the Vatican or who all of the Popes were slash what they did. It was definitely interesting and awe-inspiring though!
From the Basilica we wandered in the Poste Vaticane, where you can send postcards straight from Vatican City. I have now technically been in 5 countries in the past week! The gift shop was similarly fun to poke around in, though obviously nothing humorous with the Pope on it would be found within the walls of the Vatican. While unfortunate, this was expected.
Before we could completely melt into Saint Peter's Square, we decided to walk to the Vatican Museum, where the Sistine Chapel is located. I was excited to find the bas relief of the West Wind that is the air marker from Angels and Demons, centrally located around the obelisk in the center of the square. Clearly all of my knowledge of the Eternal City comes from the movie, which I saw less than a month ago. On the way to the museum who did we find but Walter and Dan and the rest of the group from the Venice summer program, Practicing Mortality! This was incredibly exciting for Maureen and I, since we had been trying to figure out how exactly to meet up with Walter in Venice, and so we made a few potential plans, gave him the address of our hotel, and continued our journey to the museum.
I had forgotten my BC ID for the discounted rate, so I had to use Maureen's card while she used her ID from Sciences-Po. It worked rather well, considering they do not check at all. Inside were thousands of statues, tapestries, paintings, pieces of furniture, pottery, sculptures...and people trying to reach the Chapel. After about an hour of winding along the hallways and climbing up and down stairs, we finally reached it. It was a huge room, covered in paintings, and the ceiling was absolutely gorgeous. I hurt my neck staring at it for so long, so I can only imagine how Michaelangelo must have felt painting the entire thing. The floor was just a sea of people slowly being pulled from one side of the room to the other, and finally we made it out, only to have to walk through another mile of hallways before reaching, as usual, a gift shop. Not even the Vatican is above trying to sell you postcards of the art you just saw.
After a slice of pizza at the Vatican cafeteria, we slowly walked back to the square so we could buy postcards, write messages on them, and mail them from the Vatican Post Office. Consider yourself special if you receive one. From there it was a walk to Castel San Angelo, the fortress that also features in Angels and Demons, before we would hop back on our bus. As were were about to cross the street to the castle, we once again bumped into Walter, who had broken off from the group! This time we commemorated the event with a photo, then talked about various things to do in Venice before he decided to walk with us to our bus stop. Such are the ways of Boston College; you can always find the people that go there!
I had a great time taking pictures of every single one of Bernini's angels on the bridge to Castel San Angelo, of which there are many. The bus took about fifteen minutes to arrive, so we stood across the street taking more pictures and discussing life back in Boston. When the bus finally did come, Walter headed back to his original destination, and Maureen and I got back on the bus, this time opting for a lower level seat to get out of the sun. We had been expecting to get off at the stop closest to the Trevi Fountain, but due to a Gay Pride parade about ten of the bus stops were closed. This was good news for us, because it meant our tickets remained valid for an extra 24 hours, but also not so good because it meant we were let off at a stop we were not expecting. C'est la vie.
Using the beautiful map of Roma that was given to us when we arrived at Ciampino, we made our way to the Fontana di Trevi, which is a pretty fantastic site. There were a ton of people around, but we still managed to throw our coins, make our wishes, and take pictures from every angle. Our route then led us past the Tempio Adriano, a rather amusing-looking fake statue who ended up being pretty lame when someone gave him money, and straight to the Pantheon. The crowd by the door informed us that it was closed for the 17:30 mass, so we wandered to Piazza Navona instead, where the Fontana dei Quattro Fuimi is. Being the water marker in Angels and Demons, it was pretty exciting to see, but didn't take up a lot of time. We decided to get dinner at a little place by the Pantheon as we waited to go in, and I ended up eating about 7/8 of a pizza. Italian food is by far the best of all the food in all the countries I've been to. You cannot go wrong with pizza and pasta.
Around 19:00 we tried to wait to get into the Pantheon again, but apparently the mass at 17:30 was private and the Pantheon would be closing when it was over. A little annoyed and knowing that our bus would not be stopping anywhere near the Colosium, we had to walk all the way back to our guesthouse for the next hour. We had been planning to go to some party in the gardens by the Colosseo that Dan had mentioned, which was going to be an opening for some new disco, but by the time we made it back to the guesthouse we were too exhausted and decided to stay in for the night. Rome may not have been built in a day, but we definitely saw most of it in one!
Breakfast was just as amazing this morning, and we packed up and checked out so we could go catch one of the first hop-on, hop-off buses, thanks to the extended 24 hours the parade gave us. The bus stop was super hard to find though, so we finally got on around 10:00. The entire route takes about 2 hours and runs backwards on Sundays, so we decided to kill time by riding it all the way around the city, taking more pictures, and then getting off at Termini so we didn't have to walk there. It was a pretty ingenious plan, and worked pretty well, minus the fact that every time the bus stopped, we would sit and melt in the sun from the upper deck. I definitely have sunburn, which has been a great thing to deal with when carrying my backpack. We saw pretty much everything we'd already seen, plus the Piazza del Popolo, where the chapel that held the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa was, the fire marker from Angels and Demons. In real life, the Ecstasy is in the chapel Santa Maria della Vittoria, which is not in the Piazza del Popolo, but oh well. So all we missed is the Chigi Chapel; I would have liked to see Habakkuk and the Angel and the Ecstasy, instead of just a bunch of obelisks. Next time!
At Termini we were able to figure out the self service ticket machine and get on a train straight to Fiumicino airport, which was awesome and air-conditioned. We are basically hoping that since Venice is on the water, it will be much cooler and not quite as ridiculous as Rome has been. I much prefer the rain that I'd brought to London, Paris and everywhere else. I guess we'll see.
Our flight was delayed, as usual, so we got to sit on the floor at the front of the line and wait for an extra half hour. We were all set to get great seats when they let us out to the airport, but instead we had to get on a bus and drive out to the middle of the tarmac to get on the plane where it was receiving fuel. Cheap flights are a joy. When we land we get to attempt to locate our "impossible to find" hotel, and potentially see Walter if he locates it too. There is much less to see in Venezia, so I guess we'll ride a few boats and do souvenir shopping. We shall see!
This flight is only 50 minutes, so we should land soon. I'm super excited for the water bus. More tomorrow!
Love,
Sam
Yesterday morning we were woken with the best thing ever: breakfast, delivered to our room and set up on the table on our balcony. It was fantastic; ResLife should look into installing balconies, and BCDS should starting delivering room service. We were served tea with lemon, some cheese, ham and salami, two types of yogurt, bread fresh out of the oven with butter and jam, wrapped pieces of toast-like crackers, some cookies and pound cake, plus orange juice and two hard-boiled eggs. It was pretty much heaven, and definitely made our first full day in Rome start beautifully.
Well-fed, we walked back to the Colosseo where we would catch our hop-on, hop-off bus. Headphones were provided, so we could listen to happy Italian music and hear fun facts about things like the Jesuit church we passed on our way to the Vatican, or the rose gardens that hold a competition for new varieties of roses every year. The way the route went, we only passed a few stops before we were pulling up in front of San Pietro's square and the Basilica in Vatican City!
Using a scarf to help adhere to the dress code, we wandered into the Basilica, where there are tons of paintings, statues and even bodies of past Popes. It was slightly creepy and only vaguely relevant to someone who is not Catholic, simply because I do not know the entire history of the Vatican or who all of the Popes were slash what they did. It was definitely interesting and awe-inspiring though!
From the Basilica we wandered in the Poste Vaticane, where you can send postcards straight from Vatican City. I have now technically been in 5 countries in the past week! The gift shop was similarly fun to poke around in, though obviously nothing humorous with the Pope on it would be found within the walls of the Vatican. While unfortunate, this was expected.
Before we could completely melt into Saint Peter's Square, we decided to walk to the Vatican Museum, where the Sistine Chapel is located. I was excited to find the bas relief of the West Wind that is the air marker from Angels and Demons, centrally located around the obelisk in the center of the square. Clearly all of my knowledge of the Eternal City comes from the movie, which I saw less than a month ago. On the way to the museum who did we find but Walter and Dan and the rest of the group from the Venice summer program, Practicing Mortality! This was incredibly exciting for Maureen and I, since we had been trying to figure out how exactly to meet up with Walter in Venice, and so we made a few potential plans, gave him the address of our hotel, and continued our journey to the museum.
I had forgotten my BC ID for the discounted rate, so I had to use Maureen's card while she used her ID from Sciences-Po. It worked rather well, considering they do not check at all. Inside were thousands of statues, tapestries, paintings, pieces of furniture, pottery, sculptures...and people trying to reach the Chapel. After about an hour of winding along the hallways and climbing up and down stairs, we finally reached it. It was a huge room, covered in paintings, and the ceiling was absolutely gorgeous. I hurt my neck staring at it for so long, so I can only imagine how Michaelangelo must have felt painting the entire thing. The floor was just a sea of people slowly being pulled from one side of the room to the other, and finally we made it out, only to have to walk through another mile of hallways before reaching, as usual, a gift shop. Not even the Vatican is above trying to sell you postcards of the art you just saw.
After a slice of pizza at the Vatican cafeteria, we slowly walked back to the square so we could buy postcards, write messages on them, and mail them from the Vatican Post Office. Consider yourself special if you receive one. From there it was a walk to Castel San Angelo, the fortress that also features in Angels and Demons, before we would hop back on our bus. As were were about to cross the street to the castle, we once again bumped into Walter, who had broken off from the group! This time we commemorated the event with a photo, then talked about various things to do in Venice before he decided to walk with us to our bus stop. Such are the ways of Boston College; you can always find the people that go there!
I had a great time taking pictures of every single one of Bernini's angels on the bridge to Castel San Angelo, of which there are many. The bus took about fifteen minutes to arrive, so we stood across the street taking more pictures and discussing life back in Boston. When the bus finally did come, Walter headed back to his original destination, and Maureen and I got back on the bus, this time opting for a lower level seat to get out of the sun. We had been expecting to get off at the stop closest to the Trevi Fountain, but due to a Gay Pride parade about ten of the bus stops were closed. This was good news for us, because it meant our tickets remained valid for an extra 24 hours, but also not so good because it meant we were let off at a stop we were not expecting. C'est la vie.
Using the beautiful map of Roma that was given to us when we arrived at Ciampino, we made our way to the Fontana di Trevi, which is a pretty fantastic site. There were a ton of people around, but we still managed to throw our coins, make our wishes, and take pictures from every angle. Our route then led us past the Tempio Adriano, a rather amusing-looking fake statue who ended up being pretty lame when someone gave him money, and straight to the Pantheon. The crowd by the door informed us that it was closed for the 17:30 mass, so we wandered to Piazza Navona instead, where the Fontana dei Quattro Fuimi is. Being the water marker in Angels and Demons, it was pretty exciting to see, but didn't take up a lot of time. We decided to get dinner at a little place by the Pantheon as we waited to go in, and I ended up eating about 7/8 of a pizza. Italian food is by far the best of all the food in all the countries I've been to. You cannot go wrong with pizza and pasta.
Around 19:00 we tried to wait to get into the Pantheon again, but apparently the mass at 17:30 was private and the Pantheon would be closing when it was over. A little annoyed and knowing that our bus would not be stopping anywhere near the Colosium, we had to walk all the way back to our guesthouse for the next hour. We had been planning to go to some party in the gardens by the Colosseo that Dan had mentioned, which was going to be an opening for some new disco, but by the time we made it back to the guesthouse we were too exhausted and decided to stay in for the night. Rome may not have been built in a day, but we definitely saw most of it in one!
Breakfast was just as amazing this morning, and we packed up and checked out so we could go catch one of the first hop-on, hop-off buses, thanks to the extended 24 hours the parade gave us. The bus stop was super hard to find though, so we finally got on around 10:00. The entire route takes about 2 hours and runs backwards on Sundays, so we decided to kill time by riding it all the way around the city, taking more pictures, and then getting off at Termini so we didn't have to walk there. It was a pretty ingenious plan, and worked pretty well, minus the fact that every time the bus stopped, we would sit and melt in the sun from the upper deck. I definitely have sunburn, which has been a great thing to deal with when carrying my backpack. We saw pretty much everything we'd already seen, plus the Piazza del Popolo, where the chapel that held the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa was, the fire marker from Angels and Demons. In real life, the Ecstasy is in the chapel Santa Maria della Vittoria, which is not in the Piazza del Popolo, but oh well. So all we missed is the Chigi Chapel; I would have liked to see Habakkuk and the Angel and the Ecstasy, instead of just a bunch of obelisks. Next time!
At Termini we were able to figure out the self service ticket machine and get on a train straight to Fiumicino airport, which was awesome and air-conditioned. We are basically hoping that since Venice is on the water, it will be much cooler and not quite as ridiculous as Rome has been. I much prefer the rain that I'd brought to London, Paris and everywhere else. I guess we'll see.
Our flight was delayed, as usual, so we got to sit on the floor at the front of the line and wait for an extra half hour. We were all set to get great seats when they let us out to the airport, but instead we had to get on a bus and drive out to the middle of the tarmac to get on the plane where it was receiving fuel. Cheap flights are a joy. When we land we get to attempt to locate our "impossible to find" hotel, and potentially see Walter if he locates it too. There is much less to see in Venezia, so I guess we'll ride a few boats and do souvenir shopping. We shall see!
This flight is only 50 minutes, so we should land soon. I'm super excited for the water bus. More tomorrow!
Love,
Sam
Friday, June 12, 2009
Roma: Part I
Buon giorno! Maureen and I have finally arrived in Italia, and so far our first half a day has been great. But of course, I have to finish up with what happened yesterday, as the first half of my Paris adventure concluded! I can't believe it's already been a week since I left.
Maureen and I woke up early to head to a café to get hot drinks with her European Judicial System class. We both had chocolate chaud and spoke with two of the boys in her class, a Canadian named Nick and an Austrian whose name I never caught. The topic once again turned to the differences in the way French citizens and American citizens view their nationality; any citizen in France is French, their family is French and they have always been French. Yet any citizen in America does not have direct ties to the country, unless they are Native American. Therefore, Americans must assert their heritage, by stating whether they are 20% Irish or 50% Italian, or a complete European mutt, like I am (British, Irish, Dutch, French, German). Nick has apparently found it convenient to sometimes be American and sometimes be Canadian, since his accent does not give away his location. I'll have to remember to try that in the future.
We went straight from the café to Sciences-Po for the actual class on the European Justice System, where I zoned out and worked on the UGBC Communication department budget for the 2009-2010 academic year. When that ended at 12:30 we had to go to a different Sciences-Po building for her French class, which was a language class so I could understand it. Grades were handed out, and then 3 students still have to give exposés to the class. The first was on l'alphabet Coreén (the Korean alphabet), and even though the entire point of the class was to enjoy French food, since every student had brought in cheese or crackers or fruit or a baguette or wine (yes, wine), the presenter decided it would be rude if people were eating while he was presenting. He had a good presentation though, and I learned my name in Hangul: ㅅㅏㅁ. He did not seem to have a problem eating and drinking while the next two exposés were given, on baseball and universal allocation.
After a stop to the computer lab to print information for our trip to Italy, we headed back to Maureen's apartment. She wrote out a postcard, and we headed to the post office to mail her one and my four! If you requested a postcard, it is on its way. If you have not requested a postcard yet and would like one, please donate $1 or 0.85€ to my Paypal account (link is on the right) and comment with your address ;)
I still had to pack for Italy, so after filling the other half of Maureen's suitcase, taking a shower, and eating a delicious dinner cooked by Mo (<3) we headed back into the city for another happy hour with Kim. We stopped at a place called Student Bar on Rue Mouffetard and had a great time with Sex on the Beach, a marguerita, a Pink Lady, something with banana and a B52 which was lit on fire. Before getting a table some random guy invited us to the downstairs, but we played it safe and got our own place to sit. The only things missing were glow sticks.
The night ended pretty much right after happy hour, since we had to leave the apartment by 5:30 this morning. It was hell. However, we made the 5:39 Métro, enjoyed endured the singing of drunken girls from clubs on the Champs Elysses, and were safe on our shuttle to Beauvais at 6:00. Everything was going according to plan until we actually got to BVA and our flight was delayed half an hour. What was even better was waiting in line behind a group of 5 or 6 people arguing with the girl at the desk, only to be told during our turn that we had to go to the Visa Check line. Eventually our bag was checked and we'd made it through security (the razor has still not been confiscated!), leaving us an hour to sit around in the terminal and wait for our gate to be announced. Maureen and I wandered through the duty free store, enjoyed the Calvin Klein summer fragrance, discussed the merits of Swatch watches, ate a muffin, played games, etc etc etc.
It was a long hour, but eventually our plane arrived and we moved outside to climb the stairs to our seats. I pretty much slept through the entire flight, missing the Alps that we apparently flew over, and landed in Rome Ciampino to weather that was about 10 degrees warmer. It was gorgeous. They packed everyone on the plane onto two shuttles buses, let us grab our bags from baggage claim, and then released us to the city without even checking our passports. It was super lame; I wanted a pretty stamp to prove I'd been to Rome!
We were luckily able to catch the 12:40 bus to the citta centro at Rome Termini (a bus station in the city center), and sat in traffic for about half an hour before we could head to our hotel. After a half hour walk wearing jeans and long sleeved shirts, we melted our way to Domus Caracalla. Maureen had us buzzed in, where we had to walk through the building, across the courtyard, and take the elevator in the second building to the top floor. The room is adorable, and we have both decided we will never come to Rome without staying here. There's a double bed, marble-esque floors, a cute bathroom with a shower head that rains down vertically, free WiFi, a TV, a wardrobe and a balcony with a table and two chairs for when they bring us breakfast in the door! It could not be better if we tried. Venice will be a step down, but at least we can take a few amazing showers in Rome before we have to share a common bathroom on Monday.
After a quick change and a call to Bank of America, we went off in search of a Deutsche Bank so I could withdraw money. Unfortunately, my debit card number has been compromised, so there's a hold on my account until I return to the States. Since I'm still in Europe, they gave me a number to call every time I want to use an ATM, and I had done so to give the instruction that I would be at an ATM in 20 minutes and the hold should be lifted momentarily then. When we finally found the Deutsche Bank, however, the ATM was "instructed" to return my card to me and tell me to call my bank. We had no idea what to do. We tried to use a pay phone at a Métro station to call Bank of America back, but the collect operator kept saying that all of the numbers we provided could not be reached. This is despite the fact that every time I call the number, an automated voice says twice that collect calls are accepted. We were both annoyed and upset, so we decided we had to head back to the hotel and call Bank of America again. Luckily, we decided to check the ATM one more time before we made the trek, and lo and behold Bank of America had just been ridiculously slow. Crisis averted.
We had the rest of the afternoon to wander and find a place for dinner, so we headed to the Coliseum and the Arco di Costantino. The Coliseum was fantastic, but it was too expensive to go inside. The Palatino, an archaeological site, is nearby, so we walked around the perimeter of that to see the forum before walking back to the hotel the long way in search of a good restaurant. We were back at Domus Caracalla before we found one, so we continued to walk back the way we'd come in from Termini earlier to stop at any good place we found. We ended up at Hostaria del Buongustaio, or the house of the connoisseur. We shared fried calamari and shrimp, and I got spaghetti with clams while Maureen got veal and potatoes. Thank god for carbs! With the bread and the wine, Italy definitely has the best food so far. We were even given some dessert wine that tasted delicious, but our real dessert was of course gelato. I may not be Italian, but I sure enjoy the food.
We made it back to the hotel for showers and relaxation; one of the owners asked why girls as young as ourselves were back so early! Hopefully tomorrow we'll be out later, since we have so much to see: the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, Palazzo Chigi, Piazzo del Popolo, Piazza Navona, Castel San Angelo, and anything else along the way. We're taking a hop-on, hop-off bus tour all day, which should get us everywhere, and when it ends around 20:00 we'll get dinner and call it a night! Sunday we head to Venice in the afternoon, but we have to check out of the guest house around noon and we don't know what we'll have time for in the morning. We shall have to see! I'm hoping for more gelato.
Something we get to look forward to at the Vatican: strict dress code! No cell phones, no smoking, no hats, no shirts with profanity, no shoulders or cleavage or even knees. In this heat, it might be difficult.
It's time to post pictures and this entry, since we have breakfast coming at 9:30 and our bus to catch!
Arrivederci per il momento,
Sam
Maureen and I woke up early to head to a café to get hot drinks with her European Judicial System class. We both had chocolate chaud and spoke with two of the boys in her class, a Canadian named Nick and an Austrian whose name I never caught. The topic once again turned to the differences in the way French citizens and American citizens view their nationality; any citizen in France is French, their family is French and they have always been French. Yet any citizen in America does not have direct ties to the country, unless they are Native American. Therefore, Americans must assert their heritage, by stating whether they are 20% Irish or 50% Italian, or a complete European mutt, like I am (British, Irish, Dutch, French, German). Nick has apparently found it convenient to sometimes be American and sometimes be Canadian, since his accent does not give away his location. I'll have to remember to try that in the future.
We went straight from the café to Sciences-Po for the actual class on the European Justice System, where I zoned out and worked on the UGBC Communication department budget for the 2009-2010 academic year. When that ended at 12:30 we had to go to a different Sciences-Po building for her French class, which was a language class so I could understand it. Grades were handed out, and then 3 students still have to give exposés to the class. The first was on l'alphabet Coreén (the Korean alphabet), and even though the entire point of the class was to enjoy French food, since every student had brought in cheese or crackers or fruit or a baguette or wine (yes, wine), the presenter decided it would be rude if people were eating while he was presenting. He had a good presentation though, and I learned my name in Hangul: ㅅㅏㅁ. He did not seem to have a problem eating and drinking while the next two exposés were given, on baseball and universal allocation.
After a stop to the computer lab to print information for our trip to Italy, we headed back to Maureen's apartment. She wrote out a postcard, and we headed to the post office to mail her one and my four! If you requested a postcard, it is on its way. If you have not requested a postcard yet and would like one, please donate $1 or 0.85€ to my Paypal account (link is on the right) and comment with your address ;)
I still had to pack for Italy, so after filling the other half of Maureen's suitcase, taking a shower, and eating a delicious dinner cooked by Mo (<3) we headed back into the city for another happy hour with Kim. We stopped at a place called Student Bar on Rue Mouffetard and had a great time with Sex on the Beach, a marguerita, a Pink Lady, something with banana and a B52 which was lit on fire. Before getting a table some random guy invited us to the downstairs, but we played it safe and got our own place to sit. The only things missing were glow sticks.
The night ended pretty much right after happy hour, since we had to leave the apartment by 5:30 this morning. It was hell. However, we made the 5:39 Métro, enjoyed endured the singing of drunken girls from clubs on the Champs Elysses, and were safe on our shuttle to Beauvais at 6:00. Everything was going according to plan until we actually got to BVA and our flight was delayed half an hour. What was even better was waiting in line behind a group of 5 or 6 people arguing with the girl at the desk, only to be told during our turn that we had to go to the Visa Check line. Eventually our bag was checked and we'd made it through security (the razor has still not been confiscated!), leaving us an hour to sit around in the terminal and wait for our gate to be announced. Maureen and I wandered through the duty free store, enjoyed the Calvin Klein summer fragrance, discussed the merits of Swatch watches, ate a muffin, played games, etc etc etc.
It was a long hour, but eventually our plane arrived and we moved outside to climb the stairs to our seats. I pretty much slept through the entire flight, missing the Alps that we apparently flew over, and landed in Rome Ciampino to weather that was about 10 degrees warmer. It was gorgeous. They packed everyone on the plane onto two shuttles buses, let us grab our bags from baggage claim, and then released us to the city without even checking our passports. It was super lame; I wanted a pretty stamp to prove I'd been to Rome!
We were luckily able to catch the 12:40 bus to the citta centro at Rome Termini (a bus station in the city center), and sat in traffic for about half an hour before we could head to our hotel. After a half hour walk wearing jeans and long sleeved shirts, we melted our way to Domus Caracalla. Maureen had us buzzed in, where we had to walk through the building, across the courtyard, and take the elevator in the second building to the top floor. The room is adorable, and we have both decided we will never come to Rome without staying here. There's a double bed, marble-esque floors, a cute bathroom with a shower head that rains down vertically, free WiFi, a TV, a wardrobe and a balcony with a table and two chairs for when they bring us breakfast in the door! It could not be better if we tried. Venice will be a step down, but at least we can take a few amazing showers in Rome before we have to share a common bathroom on Monday.
After a quick change and a call to Bank of America, we went off in search of a Deutsche Bank so I could withdraw money. Unfortunately, my debit card number has been compromised, so there's a hold on my account until I return to the States. Since I'm still in Europe, they gave me a number to call every time I want to use an ATM, and I had done so to give the instruction that I would be at an ATM in 20 minutes and the hold should be lifted momentarily then. When we finally found the Deutsche Bank, however, the ATM was "instructed" to return my card to me and tell me to call my bank. We had no idea what to do. We tried to use a pay phone at a Métro station to call Bank of America back, but the collect operator kept saying that all of the numbers we provided could not be reached. This is despite the fact that every time I call the number, an automated voice says twice that collect calls are accepted. We were both annoyed and upset, so we decided we had to head back to the hotel and call Bank of America again. Luckily, we decided to check the ATM one more time before we made the trek, and lo and behold Bank of America had just been ridiculously slow. Crisis averted.
We had the rest of the afternoon to wander and find a place for dinner, so we headed to the Coliseum and the Arco di Costantino. The Coliseum was fantastic, but it was too expensive to go inside. The Palatino, an archaeological site, is nearby, so we walked around the perimeter of that to see the forum before walking back to the hotel the long way in search of a good restaurant. We were back at Domus Caracalla before we found one, so we continued to walk back the way we'd come in from Termini earlier to stop at any good place we found. We ended up at Hostaria del Buongustaio, or the house of the connoisseur. We shared fried calamari and shrimp, and I got spaghetti with clams while Maureen got veal and potatoes. Thank god for carbs! With the bread and the wine, Italy definitely has the best food so far. We were even given some dessert wine that tasted delicious, but our real dessert was of course gelato. I may not be Italian, but I sure enjoy the food.
We made it back to the hotel for showers and relaxation; one of the owners asked why girls as young as ourselves were back so early! Hopefully tomorrow we'll be out later, since we have so much to see: the Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, Palazzo Chigi, Piazzo del Popolo, Piazza Navona, Castel San Angelo, and anything else along the way. We're taking a hop-on, hop-off bus tour all day, which should get us everywhere, and when it ends around 20:00 we'll get dinner and call it a night! Sunday we head to Venice in the afternoon, but we have to check out of the guest house around noon and we don't know what we'll have time for in the morning. We shall have to see! I'm hoping for more gelato.
Something we get to look forward to at the Vatican: strict dress code! No cell phones, no smoking, no hats, no shirts with profanity, no shoulders or cleavage or even knees. In this heat, it might be difficult.
It's time to post pictures and this entry, since we have breakfast coming at 9:30 and our bus to catch!
Arrivederci per il momento,
Sam
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