Now that I'm finally home for a period of longer than 36 hours and have finished unpacking, I can procrastinate on the long list of other-shit-that-needs-to-get-done by regaling you all with the fascinating tales of what I got up to while traversing the western Mediterranean with my family. :D I know you've all been so looking forward to it.



After the long train ride home from college (damn there not being a direct route) I unpacked, threw everything in the laundry, hugged my cats and slept. Woke up the next morning at some ungodly hour due to my father's theory that if we worked to adjust to the time zone in Rome while still in this time zone, we wouldn't be jetlagged (it didn't work). I dashed out to get a haircut, which I desperately needed, and did a fruitless loop of the mall (I've been looking for a nice sundress since last summer. No luck yet) before heading back home to re-pack for the trip. Not only did I manage to fit two weeks worth of clothes and shoes into two carry-on bags, I also fit all the toiletries and makeup I needed in a 1 quart plastic baggie. Be awed at the sight of my packing prowess~

The next morning we drove out to catch our flight to Philadelphia Odd, I was just here... from which we went on to Rome. The flight was delayed, of course, due to the need for an oil change or something equally silly, but eventually we got on the plane and settled and I could start exploring the provided entertainment system. They had Sherlock Holmes as one of the movie options, and since I hadn't caught the beginning last time I watched it, that was first (Yegods, the gay, it is wonderful - does anyone have fic for this? I don't even know where to start looking). Afterwords, since nothing else looked remotely interesting, I watched night at the museum 2. Which...also had a surprising amount of gay. I'm 90% certain that the guy who played the main villain was also Roger in the producers, and it showed. It was kind of an o.O moment, and to top it off the two little miniature guys? I was sitting there not wanting to ship them and they kept throwing it at me. When the cowboy got captured? The roman stands in the window and says all dramatically "I will find you!" before running off to get help (Last of the Mohicans, anyone? "Stay alive - just stay alive! I will find you!") and this is mainstream USA. I was next to my sleeping dad trying not to laugh my head off.

After an attempted nap curled up in fetal position with my knees pressed against the seatback in front of me (it was actually fairly comfortable), we finally landed. We managed to make it to the main train station with little fuss, afterwhich we had to find my brother who'd been living in France the past year and was supposed to meet us there. A few adventures later, including bathrooms, tickets, and far more stairs than strictly necessary, we made it to our B&B. It was a lovely little place, very picturesque. My mom immediately crashed, and me and my dad futzed with the electronics for a bit (he'd downloaded a bunch of audio tours, now we just had to get everyone a copy and make sure they worked. Harder then it sounds). Once mom woke up, she and my brother ducked around the corner to a pizza place and brought some back because we were all starving. It was probably the Roman equivalent of papa johns, but it was still a far cry from anything in the states.

Finally, at like 5PM, we headed out to do one of the walking tours and explore the city a bit. We got rained on some, and there was a ton of construction, but it was still pretty cool. I've always thought it was awesome that in Europe, you can just be walking around and all of a sudden it's "oh, some major ancient historical event happened like five feet that way," or "this has been here since the beginning of time" whereas in the states, except for like a few places, we really don't have that. We saw a couple piazas, and the Spanish steps, and the Trevi Fountain (I threw a coin in, which means I'll be back - here's hoping it works) before we talked my dad in to stopping somewhere for dinner. This of course meant another half hour of wandering around, but finally he found somewhere he was satisfied with, and I had my first real italian pasta :D it was amazing. We were lumped in a small room with other tourists (the rest of the restaurant was locals, I was rather amused) and ordering took a while cause noone in my family speaks italian, but it was really good.

This was also where I ran into a slight problem with the whole language barrier thing. Normally, when my family travels, we go places where someone speaks some of the language or the people speak English, so I've always either been able to get by with English or have my family translate. Not so much, here. So, I would be doing the usual thing of trying to communicate with bits of english and hand signals (which worked surprisingly well), and of course would get treated to a round of rambling italian and more hand signals which I usually understood. So I would nod my head, smile and say "Hai!", immediately afterwords realizing "Wait, no, that doesn't help, they don't understand that. Shit!" by which point the Italian would have moved on, probably confused. It got to the point where I was afraid to even try and substitute "gracias" for thank you, half convinced "arigatou" would come out instead. Bloody not-english-equals-japanese-tiems training.

After dinner, we opted to head back to the B&B instead of continuing on our walk, to keep from missing the last metro. On the way, though, we stopped for gelato. Fantastic stuff I'm sure somewhere it's a moral insult to call it ice cream. I got Chocolate orange (which I hadn't meant to end up with but was good anyway), tirimasu, and chocolate with some kind of liqueur in it. It was delicous. My brother got pistacio, among other things, which I liked, and found a bit surprising. I hadn't thought it would translate very well to ice cream. This unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean I'll like it stateside, especially considering last time I liked something I thought I didn't in Europe (salmon), when I came home it was completely different.

We briefly stopped at the Pantheon on the way back as well, long enough to notice the construction and the McDonalds across the way, before hopping on the metro, heading back, and collectively collapsing into bed.

The following day, we woke to a wonderful little breakfast of pastry-things, nutella, and strong italian coffee. After breakfast it was time for me and dad vs. the electronics round 2 (we were victorious. ish.) and then a mass of planning, because this was our only day to sightsee in rome. Rome in one day? Not so easy. Especially when you don't get started till past 11. After several discussions and an adventure on the bus system, we headed for the forum. By the time we got there it was nearly 1, so we opted to walk round the outside down to the collosseum and try and go in there. Turned out there was a 45 minute wait, unless we wanted to turn over 20 euro per person, so we did a loop of that too, listening to our audio guides. Then we hopped the metro to St. Peter's. Still fun and interesting, but it would have been nice to have time to go in.

St. Peter's was incredible. The amount of detail, the planning that went into making such an enormous space seem cosy, how nothing was repeated - I don't understand why people don't make stuff like this anymore, I think it's wonderful. There was also a lot of paparazzi, especially around the Pieta, and the dead pope on display was a little bit creepy for me, but overall I was very impressed. I have pictures, but they're still uploading to photobucket, so it may be a while for those. They'll be added in later.

Mom and I wanted to see the Sistine chapel, but it was closed by the time we were done, so we headed to Piazza Navona instead, which was absolutely beautiful, and then found a small place a little ways off for dinner. My dad found someone on the street who spoke some French, and he pointed us to his favorite and did it ever live up to its recommendation. I had pasta again (we unfortunately never did get around to finding a proper pizza place) and we got Gelato on the way back to the metro like the previous night. I have to say I love the way they do fruit in europe, it's actually fruit not some fake chemical concoction like it is in the states.

The following morning we packed our things and after dad and my brother futzed with the electronics again (us vs. technology round 3) headed to the station. We had some difficulty with tickets and had to run to catch the train to Civitavecchia to get on our ship. After that things went more smoothly. Since this post has reached something of a ridiculous length, and I kind of need to sleep, I'll put the rest of the trip on hold for now. To close, I give you this:



For pergamond, of course. I didn't manage to get you a picture of any real cows over the course of the trip, so this will have to suffice.