London Calling

London is famous for many things: Big Ben, the Parliament building, Tower Bridge, etc. But among MUDEC students, London has one chief attraction that cannot be missed: CHIPOTLE. The only Chipotle in all of Europe is located at 116 Charing Cross Road, in downtown London. So of course, we had to go...twice. I traveled with Pat and Greg, and we were going primarily to meet Pat's Grandmother, who was putting us up in a hotel for the weekend.

Getting to London on Friday
I had my first experience with Ryanair, the cheap low-budget airline that flies all over Europe. It does not however, fly to Luxembourg, so we had to get to the nearest airport where they fly: Frankfurt-Hahn. To get there, one must take a two-hour bus ride from the Luxembourg train station. This service, provided by Flibco buses, is not bad. It was like 17 euros one way and the buses themselves are really comfortable. So we arrived at Frankfurt Hahn at about 5:45, for our 7:30 flight. Check in went really fast, but I had some issues at security. You are only allowed to bring a Quart-sized ziploc bag for your liquids. So if you have your liquids in a gallon size bag, you're screwed, and they'll make you get out of line and go buy a smaller bag at the store. Luckily, Pat had an extra bag for me, so it wasn't a big issue.

The boarding system is  most aptly described as a giant cluster - there are no assigned seats on these Ryanair flights, so everyone jockeys for position to get in line. Then you run out to the plane and board via the tarmac. The seats are pretty cramped, as are the overhead bins, since pretty much everyone is just rolling with carry-ons. Anyways, it was pretty easy getting to London-Stansted, the airport Ryanair flies into. But from there, we still had to get to the actual city of London.

So we took Easybus, a service that runs from London-Stansted to the city of London. It was a quick hour and ten minute bus ride to Baker Street, where our bus dropped us off. Then, we made it our mission to try to get to Chipotle. We arrived at Baker Street at about 10:15 pm or so, local time (Luxembourg is an hour ahead of London). We then went to the tube (subway) station, to try to figure out how to get there. At the tube station, we bought our Oyster Cards. The Oyster card is a budget traveler's bargain deal for use on London's public transportation. Basically, they require a deposit of 3 pounds (oh, the UK uses pounds, not euros, so the exchange rate for dollars is even worse), and then a deposit for a daypass or however much you wanna put on the card. But when you're done with your Oyster Card, you just take it back to the station, and they give you your 3 pounds PLUS whatever money you didn't use. It's awesome, and ended up only costing us like 10 pounds for all the tube and bus travel we did all weekend.

So we got off at the stop near Chipotle, got lost, went in the wrong direction three times, but eventually found our way to the promise land, and what's more - they were still open: Chipotle London stays open until 11:00 pm on weekdays and Saturday, thank goodness. So we rolled in, exhausted, starving, and I was actually crying a little bit because I was so happy that it was still open. Went up to order the food, and they were out of steak - said it would be a couple of minutes. I had waited over 80 days for my perfect burrito, I could wait another ten minutes while they made fresh steak. So I ordered my chips and guac, got my burrito all together, went up to the counter and asked if they had tap water - the girl at the register said, "Yeah, it's one pound," and as I started to ask if it was cheaper to just buy bottled water, she interrupted me, "I'm just kidding! It's free." Amazing. You do not know how rare it is to just find free tap water in Europe. Then, as I went to get my wallet out, she stopped me again, and said, "Because you were so patient with us, tonight, your meal is on us." WHAAAAAAAT?!? Not only did I get Chipotle, I got FREE CHIPOTLE. I didn't know what to say, so I just said, "God I love this country."
Here is a picture of the carnage:

Easily one of the most beautiful sights I've seen in Europe.

So after that, we headed to our hotel to meet Pat's grandma. It was a really nice hotel, and we sat down in the bar and had a drink with Pat's grandma. She's really cool, and was in London on business, as she is a corporate lawyer handling some international trademark cases. She is also a MUDEC alum who studied in Luxembourg for a full year. We went to sleep, in our wonderfully comfortable beds. It was majestic.

Doing London the Right Way
Saturday, we got up. We had a huge breakfast provided for us at the hotel, including real toast, jams, coffee, muffins, and juice. Then, we headed out, and our first stop was the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We stood in like the center, around the statue of Victoria, to watch the changing of the guard. It was a huge demonstration of British pomp - lots of fancy clothes and such. There were british guys with their big bearskin hats, horse guys, and a band. All in all, pretty much exactly as I expected it would be. The band started playing a little extra concert though, and at that point we rolled out.

Then, we walked over to Westminster Abbey (we didn't go in because the line was too long). But, we did walk over to look at Big Ben and the Parliament building. All of these sights were really neat. We walked through the gardens by Westminster Abbey, and they were celebrating Remembrance Day (something like our Veteran's Day). There were tiny crosses all around the garden with the names of fallen soldiers on them. After that, we went to our first legit English Pub - The Albert. It was superb, we had some awesome ale called London Pride and some excellent fish and chips.

After that, we went to the sight of Winston Churchill's War Room and bunker, where he lived during the bombing raids on London. It was an awesome museum. There was a whole system of tunnels and room underground where Churchill pretty much ran the war for Great Britain. I loved a couple of things about the museum that really showed Churchill's badass-ness (pardon my french). First, there was a quote - "I am prepared to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared to meet me is an entirely different matter," said by Churchill on his 75th birthday. Secondly, he had 8-10 cigars every single day. Third, near the end of the war, he limited rations in his bunker to two large gins and two large whiskeys every day. That was just how he rolled. Total B.A. I was so much inspired by Churchill's personality that I bought a book on Churchill's wit at the gift shop. Oh, here's a picture of Churchill's actual "War Room" (I'm gonna have my own someday):

Next, we went out to dinner at Sherlock Holmes' restaurant. It had a ton of memorabilia and was decorated in the style of old school England. It was a disaster in terms of service though. Apparently, it was the new chef's first day, and the waitresses were understaffed and panicky. But once we ordered and got food it was delicious. But we had to eat fast, because our show started at 7:30!

That's right, we went and saw a musical, Oliver!, based on Charles Dickens' work Oliver Twist. It was in a really cool theatre, and the entire theatre culture itself was cool. We had really legit seats, and you were allowed to like bring in food or drink into the theatre, so there were people with cups of beer and whatnot in the theatre. Anyhow, the musical itself was amazing - it was both hilarious (including several bouts of rather raunchy humor) and had excellent singers (including some famous and really popular singer who was like the UK's winner of whatever their equivalent of American Idol in 2008, but whose name I do not know).

After that, we headed back to our hotel, which was not an easy task. We had decided to take a double-decker bus, because that's pretty much what you do in London. But, we got stuck in really bad traffic, and our ten minute bus ride turned into an hour long bus ride. Also, I was stuck sitting next to the couple who were drunk and just going at it in the seat next to me (why does this keep happening to me?). But after we got home, we said goodnight to Pat's grandma, and then decided to rally and go to the Goat Tavern, near our hotel.

Unfortunately, the Goat Tavern was closed, but the club next to it was open. So we headed in, grabbed some beers, and went to the back of the bar. Turns out we walked into some private party area, which had been reserved for some girl named Kristin. Anyways, we may or may not have been the odd people out, but there was nowhere else to chill, so we just sat down on a couch and hung out at Kristin's party. After a few hours and a few drinks, we walked back to our hotel and crashed for the night.

Rainy Day in London
When we got up on Sunday, we had breakfast and headed out. Unfortunately, it was already raining. We had decided to walk to the infamous "Speaker's Corner," a small section of Hyde Park where the city lets people just speak freely and rant about whatever they want. Apparently, it used to be the only place in London where one could speak out against the government, but now it's just a gathering point for crazy people on Sunday.

So, at Speaker's Corner, we listened to a Muslim guy rant about how he could prove God exists, a 53 year old man talk about his sex life, a really loud Protestant talk about how non-believers were doomed, and a Jewish guy who was just singing, in what I presume to be Hebrew, to himself. All in all, it was awesome. It was more fun to hear people from the crowds heckling these guys, because they were all somewhat...how do I put this - crazy? That sounds about right. But yeah, I would recommend checking it out if you're in London on a weekend.

Next, we walked to Harrod's, the giant department store in London. This place was insane. It had 7 floors and about a million shops. Too many shops. I mean, there was pretty much anything you could ever want in a store - they had tea, chocolate, perfumes, watches, jeans, clothes of all kinds, wine, cigars, and every other manner of purchasable item known to man. And, that was only on the first two floors! Most expensive things we found - a bathrobe for 1,659 pounds (about $2,700), and a bottle of some whiskey for 13,000 pounds (almost $21,000). Madness!

We got on a tube, went to Westminster, tried to get on a boat, didn't, got back on the tube, went to Tower Hill, and got off. From there, we took a short stroll on the Tower Bridge, and then decided to go and visit the Tower of London. The Tower of London is not actually a tower, but more of a prison slash "city." It's been used as a prison, armoury, and most importantly - a holding place for the crown jewels. Though we had to rush through it (they close at 16:30 on Sundays), it was awesome. We got to see the actual crown jewels (which are amazing). I mean, some of the diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and rubies are huge. I'm pretty sure if you had just one of the sceptres or something, you could pay off the entire US budget deficit. We also saw a bunch of really cool suits of armor, and some guns decorated with diamonds (how American is that?). Oh, here's a picture of Tower Bridge as seen from the Tower of London:

From there, we headed back to Leicester Square, where we found a cool pub, The Cambridge, and had some pints. I had a Dark Island ale, which tasted a lot like Guinness, with a little hint of chocolate and a rich flavor. It was quite refreshing. Then, since we are true American college students, we went to Chipotle. Again. What's more, the guy recognized us from Friday night. I did have to pay for my food this time, but it was still totally worth it.

After dinner, we packed it in, since we knew we'd have an early morning the next day.

Disaster Strikes?
So, our flight from London Stansted to Frankfurt-Hahn left at 7:05 am. This meant we had to get to the airport around 5:00 am. This meant we had to get on the Easybus at 4:00 am. This meant we had to get a cab from our hotel to the bus station at 3:30 am. This meant Jimmy had to get up at 2:30 am to pack and get ready to roll.

So we get to the airport, get through security without any problems, get some legit breakfast, and get on the plane without any trouble. Then, it hits the fan (if you know what I mean). Our plane needed to be de-iced again, so we sat on the tarmac for an hour. So we were late rolling into Frankfurt-Hahn. Then, coming back into the Schengen area from outside (the UK is a member of the EU but has not signed the Schengen Agreement, so you have to get your passport and stuff checked again), we had to wait in a really long line to get our passports checked out. Unfortunately, our Flibco bus back to Luxembourg was leaving at 10:15 am. Our plane landed at 10:03 am. We got through passport check at 10:14 am. And here is what then transpired:

So while we were in the passport line, I had been saying quite loudly how we needed to get on this bus (in hopes that somebody would maybe have the decency to let us go in front of them in the interest of time). This was to no avail, but apparently people were listening. I say this because as we were sprinting from the passport checkpoint to the bus stop (a few minutes walk from the airport terminal), this lady who was in front of us in line stops me (I was in front), and says, "Forget it - you just missed it. I tried to get on and the driver shut the door on me." I was devastated. To think that we had done all that and were going to miss our bus by a few seconds just crushed me. I fell to my knees out of a combination of exhaustion and bereavement. I rolled over, and let my body fall to the ground completely. Pat and Greg caught up, heard the tragic news, and paused. About 15 seconds passed, and then Greg walked on further towards the bus stop. He then noticed that a bus marked, "Flibco" was still there. He watched as the door closed. We realized that the lady who stopped us thought we were on a different bus with her, so she told us that our bus left when really it was right there! We ran out in front of the bus and waved violently at the bus driver. He had no sympathy for us. As we moved to the side, I looked up and saw the other MUDEC students who had been in front of us at the passport line, on the bus. I waved, and they could do naught but shrug their shoulders and give a sympathetic expression.

Devastation, wrought upon us a second time in mere minutes. I had no method of handling such pain, so I shouted several profane words into the air, and smacked the bus sign repeatedly. Greg, Pat, and I were silent for a minute or two after that. Then, Greg got real angry, and blamed me for stopping when we could have gotten on the bus if we just kept running. I understood his anger, since I pretty much was the only person who could have been held responsible, if anyone could. But it was short-lived, because we realized that there was another Flibco bus going to Luxembourg 50 minutes later, and that we would still make it to Econ class on time (which was critical, since Pat and I had to give a presentation in class).

Rest of the story can be summed up in 10 words: Rode bus. Made train. Rocked Econ presentation. No big deal.

And that's the story of London - a couple of cultural things I noticed - first, when everyone is speaking your language (English), you notice a lot more when people are speaking foreign languages. I felt like I was not so much of a tourist anymore, and that these people were. But, I also felt that innate desire to help them, since I had often found myself in similar situations elsewhere in Europe. Also, London was a very happening and cool city. It was definitely among my favorites, and somewhere I for sure plan on going back and visiting again. So that's that.

Epilogue
I have three more days of class this week, and then we travel to Prague, Auschwitz, and Krakow for our study tour for my history class. After that, I plan on heading to Budapest, Vienna and Salzburg for the second half of next week. I don't know if we'll have internet access or not, but I don't plan on bringing my laptop. I'll be sure to take lots of notes though - so look forward to hearing about yet another full week off school for me! So now, as they say in London - CHEERS MATES!

Oh Italia...

So we got an entire week of school for Toussaint's (all Saint's) break. With the time, I had prearranged to meet my parents for a weeklong vacation in Italy. So, here is how it all went down:

Getting from Luxembourg to Florence 

So, I had to get from Luxembourg to Florence. Ryanair doesn't fly there, at least not from Frankfurt-Hahn, so I decided to take an overnight train, no matter how long, and even if I had to do it alone. No one else was going on the exact same route as me, so I knew I would likely have to travel the long journey sans company. Now, you have to make reservations, so I went to the international tickets desk at the train station in Esch, which is serviced by the Luxembourgish national train company, the Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeouis (sp?) also known as the CFL.

So here's my tirade against the CFL lady who "booked" me my reservations. First of all, on my way down to Florence, I had quite a long route, capped by the overnight train from Munich to Florence. I left the Differdange train station at 12:30 on Friday afternoon, and so when I got to Munich at 8:30 that Friday night, I was already very tired from having run to several train connections, as I had already had 4 stops where I had had to change trains. Madness, I tell you. So, the train was late getting into Munich, but that was ok, because I ran into some fellow MUDECers who would be on the same train, but not in any car near mine, so when we boarded the train, I bid them adieu and went to find my assigned bed. Yeah, you don't really have a seat, so much as a bed in like a small room where there are two stacks of beds, bunked three high. So it's necessary to cram six people into a very small space.

As it turns out, the CFL tried to take me down for the first time by double-booking the bed that I supposedly had reserved. Here's how it went down: I walked into the cabin where my bed was (bed number 81), and I noticed that a family of six German people were already getting set up there. I then said to the father of the family, "Ich habe einundachtzig" which means "I have 81." He then just said to me, "Nein, ich habe einundachtzig." At this point, I did not panic, but I did know that I was in trouble (Das ist nicht so gut). Myself and the father of this family walked down the narrow aisle to the train conductor, and they spoke in german to each other, explaining the situation. Turns out, the CFL had just made a mistake, so I didn't have a place to sleep. They got a conductor guy who spoke english to come chat with me, and he told me, "Looks like the train is booked full, but someone might miss it, so just hang tight here, and I'll come find you if we have a bed for you." I was not looking forward to standing on the train or sleeping on the aisle floor for the next 8 hours. Luckily, about an hour and a half later, he came back and foundme. Turns out some lady missed the train, so I got to sleep in the bed that she reserved. Interesting cultural note: I was really nice and friendly to the train conductor, and he really appreciated that, even saying that "I can tell you're not German, because the Germans would bitch if they were in your place." Now, I've found the German people to be among the friendliest in Europe, but apparently, he had a different opinion. All the other people on the train were having a big time though - even the crowd of older Germans were just partying in their couchette, drinking straight out of bottles of wine, and having the time of their lives.

I slept in the "couchette" on a bed which was actually quite comfortable, and long enough for me to actually lie flat. I was only woken up a couple of times from the noises of the train, and managed to get about 5 hours of sleep before the conductor woke me up at 6:00 am. Oh, important note, on these overnight trains, the conductors will collect your passport and train tickets before you go to sleep (to handle all the border crossings and such), and they give them back to you in the morning - so don't worry about handing yours over. 

Got to Florence (Firenze, in Italian) at 6:18 am. I did not have a map, and just had written down the google walking directions from the train station to the hotel my parents and grandparents were staying at. Big mistake. I got real turned around at the station, and ended up taking a nice little hour and half walk around the city in the morning. Eventually, I found the river, and then walked up and down the river until I found the right street. I still couldn't find the hotel, because it wasn't labeled well, and the street numbers were all wrong - like on the north side of the street the numbers went from 2 to 4 to 11 to 44 all in a row. Confusing, to say the least. Luckily for me, as I was walking by, my grandpa just happened to walk out of the hotel and said, "Bout time you got here." 

So I met my parents and grandparents, who seemed to be handling jet lag fine (they had flown in the night before). After my mom told me the story of how she almost left her camera in a cab in Pisa, we went to breakfast at our hotel. It was a real nice hotel, much better than the hostels we usually stay at. Tip for future study-abroad students: get your parents to come visit you, it's awesome to see family and to have a nice shower with hot water. 

First Day in Florence

The first big thing we decided to do was to go see David, the famous sculpture. So we walked to the Academia, past the famous Duomo (cathedral). So we walked in, browsed some of the lesser known works of art, and went straight to the David. So turns out, you're not allowed to take pictures of anything in there. Bump that. I had a small camera, so I think I was discreet enough. Though the image is slightly blurry, I got a good shot of it (I apologize if any of you are offended by the nudity):

They also had a ton of plaster sculptures in the Academia. From there, we walked to San Lorenzo, another of the famous churches in Florence. There, we didn't go into the church, but walked around the large flea market outside the church. It was insane. Apparently, though there are signs everywhere saying how it is "illegal to purchase fake purses or watches" it is not illegal to sell them, since about 4 out of every 5 people on the street were hawking fake crap. But there were also some legit vendors, and Mom and Dad ended up buying this really nice ceramic olive oil holder or something like that.

Then we met my Dad's friend Vince and his new wife Christine at a pizzeria nearby. Let me explain Vince: when my dad was a kid, he and Vince were exchange students together - so Vince came and lived with my dad and his family for a while, and then my dad went and stayed with Vince and his family for a while. Vince and my dad have been friends for almost 40 years now, and all of Vince's kids (and his nephew) have come and stayed with our family for a couple of weeks over the years. Vince is an incredibly kind, generous, and intelligent man - he's like one of the leading heart surgeons in France, where he lives in Marseilles. He lives life to the absolute fullest, and is an excellent example of how to do that right. 

Lunch was pizza - italian pizza - which is legit. All of the pizza we had was so good, I loved Italy already. We also got to have red wine with lunch - which most students won't do (just because of cost effectiveness). From there we walked all the way down to the Ponte Vecchio (which I think literally translates into "old bridge") but is the really famous jewelry shopping part of the city. We then walked to another big church, Sante Croce, which is also apparently where all the best leather is sold in the city (my mother was on a mission to find a purse). 

After chilling (read: napping) back at the hotel, we headed out to meet Vince and Christine again for our 7:30 dinner reservation. We ate at this place called Il Latini - and it was incredible. It was all like family style, no menus, and a lot of fun. We had a ton of wine, food, and fun. Here is a picture of Vince (left) and my Dad (right) with all of the night's beverages:

Needless to say, I slept well that night.

Second Day in Florence

It was raining all day. We went to the Palazzo Pitti, a giant palace and museum in the southern part of the city. They had an exhibit on Caravaggio, which was cool, since I remembered stuff about him from my art history class freshman year. Basically, we saw a ton of paintings, and then a ton of really fancy rooms where the rich people lived. Each room was extremely opulent, and had their own names. They also had a more modern exhibit about this guy Antonio Ligabue, who was really strange (he had been put in mental homes like 3 times throughout his life), and had some sort of obsession with tigers. Anyway, we left to go get lunch, and had our first gelato experience.

Now, I'm not really sure what the technical difference between ice cream and gelato is, but the practical difference is that gelato is much smoother, healthier, and better-tasting than ice cream. Also, gelato is pretty much Italy's thing, so they do a pretty good job with it. Grandpa loved chocolate gelato, and would get it everywhere we went. After we snagged some sweet gelato, we went back to the museum and visited the wine museum section of the palace. It was pretty cool, and had a bunch of egyptian stuff in it (I apologize for the vagueness - it's been over a week, and I've been letting my schooling get in the way of my education, which wears on the mind). 

That night, we went to another restaurant for dinner with Vince and Christine again. It was another blast, and we had some really good pasta and veal. After lots of red wine and food, I had my first experience with the after dinner drink in Italy - limoncello. Note: though it comes in a small amount, you are NOT supposed to take it like a shot, it is meant to be sipped.

Day trip to Siena and San Gimignano

Monday we got up and got in a car to go to Siena and San Gimignano with our guide Rina. It was like an hour drive from Florence to Siena, and it probably would have been really pretty to see the drive through the italian countryside, but it was raining and I was tired, so I fell asleep. In Siena, we first went into this Church of St. Catarina. I don't know why, but for some reason, they decided to preserve St. Catarina's head, so it's still on display in the church, as is her thumb (which they also preserved for some strange reason). Oh, Rina taught me all about the classifications of italian wines: for a wine to be considered a true "Chianti Classico" it has to meet certain standards and consist of a blend with at least 80% sangiovese grapes. A "Brunello" is a wine that is made from 100% sangiovese grapes, and then a "Super Tuscan" is a wine with a blend of less than 80% sangiovese grapes. 

More about Siena: it's made up of 17 contrade which are like neighborhoods. There is still a fierce rivalry between them, and each contrade has its own crest and animal mascot. One of the reasons there is still such a fierce rivalry is that twice a year, there is a famous horse race in Siena called the "Palio." Here is the main square in Siena where they hold this race:

So yeah, they cram 30,000 people into the center (where the red bricks are) and then 10 horses and jockeys race around the outside. It's a bareback horse race, and 10 of the contrade get to enter their horses. Apparently, it's just a crazy party, and people have actually been known to die! Also, I thought it was funny that Rina said it was a legit "horse race" meaning that even if the jockey falls off, the horse can still win the race. 

SIDENOTE: for the first time this travel week, I carried around a little pocketbook to take notes, and I've been drawing most of my memories from it. I would recommend to all travelers to carry some small notebook with them at all times - you have no idea how many little things you'll pick up on and remember when you write them down.

My other notes from Siena are about history, mostly, which I don't really feel like writing about now, so I'm not going to. Interesting though was that the symbol of the city of Siena was a wolf (reminiscent of the she-wolf legend of Rome).

We then drove over to San Gimignano, a truly small town in the Italian countryside. It was raining still, but was beautiful nonetheless. Right when we got there, this was the view looking out away from the city:

Yeah, now that's more like it. We basically just walked around the city for a while, which was just one main shopping street inside the walled exterior of the city. Ok, cool little story about stuff in San Gimignano: there was always this struggle for power between the church and the state. So the official government built this big tower bigger than the church next to it, and declared that no one could build any taller buildings in the city. So, this really wealthy guy decides he wants to build a bigger tower, but knows it's illegal, so what does he do? He builds TWO freakin' towers, each one exactly the same, right next to each other, and each one individually just barely shorter than the government tower. His intention was to imply that his towers were actually meant to be stacked on top of each other, which would have made it clearly the largest in the city. As it turns out, these two towers are actually the models for what the Twin Towers in New York City were based on, design-wise. Here they are:

We then drove back to Florence, and said ciao to Rina. We then went to some really legit, small, and delicious italian trattoria. I had the best food I've had yet - home-made tortellini in a cream sauce. It was majestic. Also, I had grappa for the first time there. Grappa is an after dinner (alcoholic) drink, made from the leftovers of grapes that they use to make wine. They let the grape skins and other things ferment for a lot longer, so grappa is fairly strong, and as Vince described it, "like drinking fire." So I had some. It wasn't half bad, seriously. I don't know if I have weird tastes, but it really didn't taste "bad" to me, just strong and different. 

Day trip to Lucca

The next morning, we got up, walked to the train station in Florence, and rode a train to Lucca. It was an absolutely beautiful town, out in the country, still surrounded by its protective wall. It was also the first really nice day, weather-wise, that we had. We just strolled through the city, and saw probably a thousand (ok, maybe not a thousand) churches. There were some examples of really beautiful architecture throughout. Here are some examples of the churches we saw:

  

We then had a picnic-style lunch in the amphitheater (little open square) in the center of the city. We had some delicious italian cheese, scrumptious italian sausage, crunchy italian bread, and terrible italian beer. All in all, a lovely picnic. We then took a nice leisurely stroll around the wall which encircles the city. This was one of the most lovely, beautiful walks I've taken in Europe. Here are some pictures from that walk:

We got back on a train to Florence, and then chilled (read: slept) for a while. Since we were all exhausted, we decided to just have a nice little chillax dinner on the rooftop patio of our hotel. It was another awesome time, complete with red wine, pasta, antipasto, and grappa. 

Welcome to Rome!

We took an early train from Florence to Rome, and arrived in the Eternal City around noon. After taking a cab to our hotel, which was also real nice, we hit the streets. Rome is almost overwhelmingly beautiful and historic. Tthe presence of thousands of years of history visually assaults you around every corner. So much beauty, so much splendor, so much gelato. 

We walked around in the sun for a while, before deciding on a place to go for dinner. We went to a small place called Le Grotto, which had excellent pasta. It also had a very cool ceiling, which Grandpa appreciated. In short, we walked back to our hotel, and slept wonderfully.

Touring Day of Rome
Our day started with a trip to the Cripta dei Cappucinni - it was crazy. So these Franciscan monks had to move their church a long time ago, and they also had to move their cemetery where all the dead monks were buried. So they decided to use all of the bones and bodies from the cemetery to make five separate chapels in their new place. So the Cripta dei Cappucinni is a collection of these five small chapels, each one made up fully of human bones. It was crazy. The one chapel was decorated entirely of pelvic bones. Also, I think the creepiest part of the experience was that they had fully robed skeletons placed in the chapels, standing around. They also still had people buried into the floors of each of the chapels, and you could see the rises in the ground level. In total, they used over 4,000 bodies and took 150 years to complete the project. One of the main messages they seemed to be sending was that life is temporal, and to enjoy your (limited) time on earth.

We continued our tour of creepy places with lots of dead people by going to the catacombs of St. Sebastian. There, christians buried over 68,000 people during ancient times. It was all underground, and we walked through some pretty spooky tunnels and passageways. We also saw above the catacombs the supposed original footprints of Jesus (I think that's right, but it might have been Peter) when he was wandering away from the city before he was turned around. I don't know the story very well - you can probably look it up for a better description.

We then went to the Coliseum, and just walked around. I learned that it only took 8 years to build the Coliseum - well, 8 years for 200,000 people working 24 hours a day. I also learned that the word "arena" actually just means sand - as it was in the Coliseum, where they used red sand so that it wouldn't be stained by the blood of the gladiators.

We had lunch at this sweet little restaurant over by the Vatican. There was no menu, they just served us a ton of antipasto and pasta. We got stuffed real fast. From there, we headed over to the Vatican museums. I found it interesting that there wasn't exactly any huge distinction between Rome and Vatican City - I thought there would be some sort of like, wall or checkpoint, but no such barrier existed. There is a big wall around Vatican city, but you could just walk through it, which seemed odd to me.

Our tour of the Vatican museums was awesome. We got to see some of the most famous works by Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Perugino. All in all, it was incredible. I was actually able to appreciate a lot of it, due to my freshman ART 188 class - so much so that I sent my former professor an e-mail thanking him for the quality lessons. [Writer's Note: I'm having a hard time recalling all this, since it occurred over a week before now, so I'm going to just list some of the things I wrote down in my notebook] Here are my notes and explanations for them:

- There have been 265 Popes
- In the Sistine Chapel, there are parallel stories from the Old and New Testaments on the left and right walls, which is cool
- Noah = 1st recorded drunk [apparently some guy painted a picture of Noah (the ark guy), and it was the first painting of a drunk guy]
- Michelangelo says, "F%#& You!" to church [basically, Michelangelo did not like working for the church, and was kind of forced to. So, he did such things as paint hidden signals to the church in his paintings, like the old-school equivalent to the middle finger at the entrance to the Sistine Chapel, or the portrait of some cardinal who called his work bad as a guy stuck in hell.]
- Nike = Greek god of victory [the Nike Swoosh is based off of one of the god's wings]
Basically, the Vatican museums were the best cultural experience I've had so far in Europe. I would highly recommend it. From there, we went to St. Peter's basilica, which was by far the most impressive church I've been in in Europe. It it absolutely massive. There are not so much columns that flank the aisles as there are massive walls. Also, there is the famous baldacchino that Bernini made for the Barberini popes. Behind that is the famous altar made by Bernini. It's all pretty incredible. Also, the sun was coming through the windows, and allowed me to get some very cool pictures of inside, like this one:

It was awesome. St. Peter's square is also a beautiful place, and my mom and dad walked around for a while. We walked back to our hotel, on the way grabbing the best gelato I had all week: at a place called Old Bridge (if you're in Rome, go there, you will not be disappointed; and it's cheap!). After we got back to our hotel, we decided to just have a light dinner - which consisted of just some pizza, always a good bet in Italy. After that though, my dad got my mom and I to rally, and we went to some bar and had some beer from the Czech Republic (???). It was fun, and the bar got to be pretty happening as we stayed there. We walked home, and may or may not have harassed a chestnut salesman on the way home. For some reason unknown to me, there was like a roast chestnut salesman on every street corner in Rome. I don't know why they're so obsessed with chestnuts. It's odd.

Last Day with my Parents and Grandparents
On Friday, we were a little slow getting up (see the comments above about beer from the Czech Republic), and began our day with a nice leisurely stroll to the Trevi Fountain. The fountains are much bigger than I expected, and very pretty. Somebody told us that the whole thing was carved right out of the rock that was in place. We took lots of pictures, like this one:

So from there, we walked over to the Parthenon. Like many things in Rome, it was much bigger than I expected, and it has a rather cavernous interior. Also, like many things in Europe, it was under a ton of reconstruction, so scaffolding was present in full force. We then went to another gellateria - called Della Palma. This was, I believe, my grandpa's favorite place - probably due to the fact that they had 115 different kinds of gelato. We decided that we would come back and sample all of them some day.

From there, we went back to our hotel, and my parents and grandparents got all packed since they were leaving the next morning. After that, we went out to eat for our last supper together. It was yet again, delicious - I had spaghetti carbonara, and as usual, we had plenty of chianti. Then, we went back home to sleep.

Back on my Own
Since my parents and grandparent's flight left at 8:45 am on Saturday, they had to leave really early from our hotel. So, I woke up and said goodbye to them at around 6:00 am, and then went back to sleep. I woke up at 9, showered, had breakfast in our hotel, and left right around 11. I walked myself down to another gellateria called Giolitti's, which is supposedly really good. I had some pistachio gelato there and it was in fact, taste-tacular (as in good). After that, I walked over to the Piazza Navona, because I had heard it's really pretty, but we hadn't made it there yet. So I strolled up and parked myself on this bench. All of a sudden, there was a band there. Turns out the municipal police band was performing a little concert, accompanied by an American band, The Infernos, and some old italian crooner who sang some Frank Sinatra songs. So I just hung out and listened to that for like an hour, it was really awesome - one of those little random experiences - and turned me on to Frank Sinatra.

I then met some friends of mine from MUDEC at the Spanish Steps, and we walked around the city for a while before heading out to their apartment which was in the Roman suburbs. After two metro rides and a suburban train ride, we got back to their place, which was really nice - just far from downtown Rome. We then headed back into the city later, got some pizza, and completed the Rick Steve's walk of Rome at night. It was nice, and cool to see everything lit up at night.

Getting home was little bit of an adventure, since there were train complications, and we ended up taking a nice little stroll late Saturday night.

Getting Home
Sunday was an early morning. I got up at 4:30 to shower, and get ready to roll. We left the apartment at 5:30 am, and walked 45 minutes to get to the subway station (b/c the suburban trains weren't running that early), so that we could make it to the main train station by 7:15 for our train out of Rome. It was a day that consisted of excessive train travel. We took a 3 and a 1/2 hour train to Milan first, and then got on a 4 hour train to Basel (in Switzerland), and then got on a 3 and a 1/2 hour train to Luxembourg. Not an easy day by any means.

Epilogue
Writing a blog about these events over a week after they occurred is a challenge. So much random stuff happens here that you want to remember, it becomes difficult to recall details or feelings about specific things. It is very easy to experience a cultural overdose, so pace yourself. Hence, even I feel like my writing has become repetitive and dull at times - I will try to make it more exciting in the future. Thanks for reading, as always.