Flight (2/9/2010 - 2/10/2010)
Today, I left school early after 3 periods and went straight to the airport in Providence. A huge snowstorm was expected for the Providence and Philly area, so we decided to leave one day early. Since the storm was already arriving in Philly, our flight to there from Providence was delayed an hour. In Philly, we had dinner at a Chinese fast food place before stepping on to the plane bound for Rome. The flight, which left on time was the most sickening of my life. There was incessant turbulence, malfunctioning TVs, and bad food. I was extremely lucky to find empty seats in the back to lie down and sleep. sort of. When we landed in Rome, I could tell, because of the clapping, which you usually don't hear when a plane has landed. We stepped off the plane and realized our worst fear of the trip, rain. We went into passport control, and found out a very useful fact about Italy. People at "work" just talk to their friends and pay no attention to what they're doing. We found that out when passport control didn't even look at our faces, and blindly stamped our passports, while chatting with other passport controllers inside his booth. We left the airport in a private taxi, and learned another thing about Italy. The drivers are absolutely insane. The highways have no speed limit (that is abided by), a red light means nothing to drivers, and crossing a street as a pedestrian is a perilous adventure. We saw a motorcycle that literally drove down the streets of Rome in a blur, going at least 100 mph. We were relieved when we reached our hotel, paying the driver who was very calm in the whole ordeal his €60.
Day 1 (2/10/2010)
We were at the hotel at 9:00 AM, and I decided to take a short nap. Short turned into 4 hours and I woke up at 1:00PM, ready to experience Rome. We had a lunch at a local pizzeria, which is pretty much fastfood for Italy, and took a bus to a Leonardo da Vinci museum, getting lost several times on the way. The museum was quite interesting, displaying some of da Vinci's inventions that we take for granted today. We also saw his visions lived, such as his tank (yes, leonardo da vinci invented the armored tank. He also invented the bicycle, the music box, winch, crane, and water skis, not to mention countless other things.) After the museum, we took another bus to the Vatican, to see the St. Peter's Basilica, there was no line, since it was around 5:30. The basilica was huge and amazing. Just one of the small areas of the church (1/15) was bigger than my local church. We left, tired from the long day, and got lost in the conufsing bus/tram system. If we knew about the subway, our life would be so much easier. We went to bed early, to catch up on the sleep we missed over the last few days. It was a long day, which felt even longer because there was no adequate sleep for 2 days.
Day 2 (2/11/2010)
Waking up was difficult, even after 12 hours of sleep. After struggling, we ate a hotel breakfast and made our way to the bus stop. We took a bus to the Vittorio Emanuelle. We arrived at what looked like a capitol building, but it was actually a gigantic monument to the unknown soldier, and when I say gigantic, it is the largest building in Rome, at least double the size of the Colloseum. After a while, we went to the Rome capital museum. I have never been overwhelmed by so many sculptures from ancient times. This museum had literally thousands of statues each with their own history, and it took us hours to get through the museum. The museum was also the site of the great temple of Jupiter, which was the center of Ancient Rome. The ruins that still exist today are 1/5 of the foundation, and for that, they were huge. We left the museum to go to the Foro Romano, which was the roman forum, the political seat of ancient Rome, and made our way to the Collosseum, where we spent several hours. The collosseum is quite massive, and was quite impressive. A guided tour told us the history of the arena (the word "arena" comes from sandy area, and the collosseum stage floor was always sanded.) and what it was like before it was destroyed to build churches. We also saw the ruins of the underground/backstage area, which was where elevators were invented and where the animals were kept. After that, we took a bus to the Pantheon. We got lost, but a McDonalds sign saying (McDonalds Pantheon, 50 mt.) led the way. We've noticed that every famous place in Rome has a McDonalds next to or in front of it. It was as if McDonalds was invading. The Pantheon was interesting, especially since it rained, making a huge puddle on the floor (the Pantheon is a temple with a hole in the roof, giving it natural light). From the Pantheon, we took a short walk to the impressive Trevi fountain, then we took our first subway train back to our hotel, getting slightly lost on our walk back to the hotel. By the way, subways in Rome are extremely deep. I guess they had to go under the ruins so they don't destroy them. After a short break at the hotel, we ate at a nearby traditional Italian restaurant. I had some ravioli. After returning to the hotel, we almost immediately went to bed, as the day was very tiring.
Day 3 (2/12/2010)
Today was a day that made history in Rome. I woke up slowly, and saw snow outside. It was really a spectacular sight, seeing as Rome hasn't had snow in 25 years. These were just small snowflakes, and it seemed like nothing major though. We went to the subway and tried to buy tickets from malfunctioning machines and finally managed to get onto a train towards the Vatican. We would be visiting the Vatican Museum, a sort of Louvre for Rome. When we got off the station, after 10 minutes of travel, the snow was spectacular. There was almost an inch of accumulation, and seeing palm trees covered with snow was quite a sight. We waited in a 30 minute line to get into the museum, and experienced for the second time, Italians who don't pay attention when they work. We were putting our things through the x-ray machine at the Vatican security. The security officer, instead of looking at the screen to see what we were taking in, he was sitting opposite to it, chatting with other slacking workers. I could've snuck in a tiger and they wouldn't notice. The museum was very overwhelming, and we decided to just go towards the Sistine chapel. It's too bad that the signs to the Sistine chapel lead you throughout the entire museum, concluding at the chapel. It was quite interesting though. We saw Egyptian and Etruscan artifacts, more statues, and a hall of maps. It felt like the Google Maps of the 15th century, since every square mile of Italy was covered in the seemingly infinitely long hall. The Sistine chapel was the last stop, and probably the most impressive. After this long and overwhelming trek, we took a subway to the Colloseum, so we could visit Pallatino, the hill which held ruins of ancient Rome. It turns out that is was closed due to snow. All of that time of travel for nothing. We decided to visit the Spanish Steps. Before spending time there, we visited the world's fanciest McDonalds (it was quite impressive), and then we climbed the spanish steps. The sun arrived just in time as the rainclouds cleared up. After some time there, we walked down Rome's expensive street (comparable to 5th Avenue, Champs-Ulysses, Banhofstrasse, etc.). Compared to those streets, it was quite cheap (only €2,500 for a handbag, others charged as much as €30,000), but it was an interesting walk. To end the day we went to a museum with seasonal exhibitions. Their current exhibition was an interesting astronomy and particles one. We left for our hotel and stayed there until about 8:00PM, when we took a stroll and went to a famous pasta place for dinner. I've never had so many ravioli in one sitting, The meal was huge, and brought us quickly to sleep back at the hotel.
Day 4 (2/13/2010)
Today was the first day of no rain, and real sun. We went to Pallatino, and they let us in with our previous ticket, since it was closed the day before due to snow. The ruins were spectacular, and it ended with some spectacular views of the Roman Forum and collosseum. After that, we decided to revisit the giant building, Vittorio Emmanuele, and take an elevator to the top, where we got an amazing view of the city, with free telescopes. From there, we walked to Piazza Navona, where a Chinese New Years parade was in progress, and where painters from all over the city converged. From there, we walked to the Tiber river, and took a scenic stroll to St. Peter's Basilica seeing the Castel St Angelo on the way. We were planning to go the cupola of the basilica, until we saw the line simply INTO the basilica. It was at least 1-2 hours long, and went through the entire plaza. We realized how lucky we were the first day to not have to wait in line to see the basilica. We took the subway back to the Collosseum to take some good pictures in the sun. After this, we visited what was supposed to be a nice plaza, but was crowded because of a concert for the last day of Carnevale. We walked from here to a church with one of the strangest crypts in the world, the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini. The crypt was decorated with the bones of over 4,000 Italian monks, and was very strange to walk through. We left after quickly browsing through, and went to a small Italian fast food place where I had a sandwich before heading back to the hotel. For dinner, I ate at the same local pizzeria as the first day and finally came back to relax, and to recall everything we did to write this entry.
Edit: I understand that there are some format problems with this entry, just try to deal with it, there's nothing I can do to fix it.
What's to come
We're leaving Rome tomorrow for the Naples area, where we will see Mt. Vesuvius, and from there,
we will visit Sicily and see Mt. Etna and Palermo, and our trip will conclude when we return to
Rome for two days and then fly home. Stay tuned for more entries, they will come.
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