At this point in the trip, I kind of stopped taking notes.  I have things written in my journal, but it's all notes about sites to see or places to eat in the areas we planned to be in that day.  Not a lot of stories or entries about the day or the fun or interesting things we did and saw.  But I have to say, even though I didn't write much, Florence was my absolute favorite place out of the six cities we saw during our two week trip and I will remember it forever.




From the art to the food to the shopping to the landscape...I could have spent a week soaking up Florence.  But I only had a little over a day.  Which means, I had NO TIME FOR SHOPPING.  At least, not the kind of shopping I was hoping for. But, oh well, so I saved some moola.

There were three main places we visited in Florence (at least that I'm remembering).  The first was the Galleria dell'Accademia where the statue of Michelangelo's David is on display.  First of all, I apologize to anyone that I told this story to and I refered to the museum as The Uffizi...completely different museum from the Galleria.  Oh well.  Again, with the remembering without proper notes - this is why I write everything down at work, otherwise I would have been fired ages ago for incompetence.

Second of all - HELLO! HUGE STATUE!!  I don't mean big, I mean GINORMOUS.  I was NOT expecting the David statue to be so overwhelmingly massive, and yet, completely perfect in every detail.  I wish I could have taken photos in the Galleria, but it was prohibited.  Boom and I walked right into the museum thinking we'd have to wait in line to get into the room where the David is on display, but as we were having that conversation we turned the first corner into the museum and, BAM, there it was.  I still can't believe how accessible this masterpiece was to see.  I icould have stood there all day. I wished I'd had a sketch book. I'm a CRUMMY artist, but looking at something so iconic and beautiful made me want to take something from that room home with me.

Next we went to the Pitti - a collection of museums housed in the massive residence of the Medici Family, who lived there in the 16th Century.  It really is a treasure-trove of art and artifacts, antiques and costumes. I particularly liked walking through what's called, the Royal Apartments; all the rooms are designed and decorated in the style of when the Medici Family lived there.  Hard to describe, and again, no photography was allowed, but this is the type of place that you want to take time exploring all the rooms and getting lost between the stairways and hallways and quarters.  Unfortunately, we only allowed ourselves two hours and due to the time we entered, the museum was closing and I was unable to view the Boboli Gardens.  Definitely putting that on my list for "next time."

What was interesting when we arrived, because of the cultural week and an Italian National Holiday being celebrated in Florence, we got to see a grand procession and production inside the Pitti Courtyard.

  

There were flag twirlers, drummers and knights that put on mock duals.  It was fantastic and so entertaining.

Boom and I fell in love with a particular knight.  We'll call him Lancelot.  Because I can make it up...it's my story.



Look, he's so cute and charming that Lancelot.



He was up against this dude. Weird, feather hat, looks like he's wearing a diaper, man.  He doesn't get a name.

     
 
Go Lance, Go!  Beat Diaper Man!



Oh, that's too bad.  We still think you're cute though!



After the museum, we took a stroll. Well, a long stroll. Ok, kinda a hike.  Up to Michelangelo Piazza.  This is where one of the two David replicas is.  They aren't the same in size or color as the original in the Galleria, but they are still beautiful to look at and I had fun playing with the sun's shadows.

  


This is the perfect place to be for a view of Florence, and it's especially beautiful at sunset.



Breathtaking.  Absolutely gorgeous.  Peaceful.  Awesome.  Just a big, fat WOW.

 

I'm so glad I got to see this view in my lifetime.  I think I seriously would have been missing something without ever having seen it.




P.S.  I FORGOT ABOUT THE DUOMO!  The Wha?



Oh yeah, that thing.  That was cool too.  Lots of stairs though...

More photos on my FLICKR SITE

Flickr Link to more photos HERE

After a long Day 3 of trekking through Rome's ruins, we got a good night's sleep and woke up bright and early to face our last day in Rome.  We were also moving hotels due to a tennis conference, so it was my official first backpacking day.



 Boom and Erik woke up in different hotel rooms, got dressed without ever speaking or seeing each other and walked out into the hotel lobby to discover they were wearing the exact same outfit.  All day it looked like Stef and I were being accompanied by medics.  I love how this photo gives you the idea of not just how short Boom is but how tall Erik is.



Our first planned stop after checking into our new hotel was to take a walk through the Borghese Gardens to reach Galleria Borghese.  Along the way we stopped for a snack at one of the vendor carts in the park and we finally experienced the joy that is Paprika Pringles.  Don't let anyone tell you that these are the equivalent to the American BBQ Pringles, because THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.  Sadly, the Pringles Website said they have no plans to bring these delicious chips to America.  Phooey.



Borghese was beautiful inside and out.  So many pretty things to see...but you couldn't take photos inside, so I was left with just my memories and whatever I could photograph along the grounds.



OK, so not EVERYTHING was pretty.  I apologize, but I just had to.  He was begging me to take his photo.  How does one sit on a cool concrete step and not realize that his ass is hanging out?


  

After the Galleria we took a stroll through Rome and I had a great time taking photos of all the wonderfully colored buildings and residences.  I love how warm everything is and how quaint the windows and doors are.

     

I also tried to get a little artsy.  I think I'll frame and hang these in my entry way when I grow up and have my own place.

We followed Rick Steves' walking tour from the guidebook Boom and Erik had to see the Spanish Steps, then Trevi Fountain and then the Pantheon.

        

More ominous clouds as the storms closed in, but I think they actual made the pictures look better.



We did something a little fun with this photo.  Click on it for a larger view, and then try to find Boom, Stef and me in the shot.  Kind of our little version of "Where's Waldo?" Italy style.

 

Trevi Fountain was crazy with people, but it's understandable considering how magnificent it is to see.  Every little detail is just beautiful and we couldn't help but throw in a couple of coins and make some wishes.

 

  

This place was pretty dang cool.  It was once a pagen temple that is now a Catholic church. But the main draw about this site is the massive dome with its 18 foot perfect, open circle.  It lets in light and and rain and thus there are holes in the temple's floor for draining any water. Seems odd and yet really cool to me.  So what do they do when Sunday mass falls on a rainy day??  No one could tell me.

We decided to take a small break, have some gelato (oh yeah, be jealous of all the gelato I got to have on this trip) and then we were going to retrace all our steps from our walking tour during the day so we could see all the same sites again at night.  In theory, we were excited. In execution, we felt a little crazy.

I took some time around the piazza we got ice cream in to take in some of the sights for your viewing pleasure.

     

    

We had a lovely dinner at an outdoor cafe.  A carafe of wine, a little pasta, great panna cotta for dessert and a lot of laughing.

     

I gave Stef and Erik my Italian phrase book opened to the Nightlife and Getting to Know You sections. AKA - The dirty section. Not that we had any plans to use some of the phrases in those sections, but it was pretty funny to imagine ever having to use those lines.  I think Erik's expression says it all.

We were all ready for a good night's rest after dinner and walking back through all the sites, but there was a small snag.  Our new hotel location meant we had to take the metro to a train and we must have misread the timetables because we missed the last train and we really had no idea how far we needed to go and we didn't  want to wander around in the dark.  I could see a sign for a bar up the block from the metro and decided that we should just go in, order a beer and ask the bartender to call a taxi for us.  Believe me, this was the best idea we had the whole trip. 



This was our bartender. I never got his name, but I say we call him Marcello.  Name that movie.

 

It was like the bartenders thought we were the royal family with the awesome service we received.  They brought us a huge platter of bar snacks (that we didn't order and we weren't charged for) and they kept the drinks coming (which of course, we were charged for).

We didn't know how to order shots in Italian, so we went with the colors we knew.  Pink shots came first and then we dared Marcello to make us a viola shot (purple).  Everyone in Italy wears purple.  We never figured out why, but almost every retail shop window had mannequin after mannequin shrouded in purple clothes.  Marcello was game for this little dare, but unfortunately he couldn't get the shot to turn purple...instead we got a verdi (green) shot.  Boom, a beer and a shot in, pointed at Marcello and shouted, "FAIL!" We all giggled at the joke, but he didn't understand what "fail" meant.  I had no idea what the Italian translation was, but figured out the translation for "to lose," which is Pertere.  Upon my shaky conjugation to "Pertato!" Marcello took a moment to think and then sadly said, "Si...YES, I LOSE!" 

 

We gladly took the green shots and then some appropriately named BOOM-BOOM shots.  Then Marcello came out with a tray of new shots and said proudly, "Si, I no LOOOOOSE!"

    

Voila, Viola!

    

It ended up being an unexpected, perfect evening and closed our last night in Rome in such a memorable way.  I think it may have been my most favorite out of all of the experiences we had.

Florence is next!

Ok, so when we last left off, my travelmates and I had roamed around the Colosseum at night after a long day of exploring the Vatican and getting our barrings in Rome.  Our third day in Europe was even longer than the second.  We started at the Colosseum and moved from there to the ruins, to the Forum, to San Giovanni to the Scala Santa and then dinner in Trastevere.  And of course, along the way, I took dozens and dozens of photos.

It was a great day for a little ruins exploring...sunny and warm and we'd all slept so well and were ready for the day.



Lucky for us, we happened to be in Italy during their national culture week, which meant, every museum, every church, every tourist site was free to the public.  Tours or audio guides were extra of course, but entrance was completely free.  SWEET.

There's no way to explain the Colosseum . It's huge.  The floor of the arena is, well, in complete ruins, but you can see how magnificent it must have been under the arena floor in that huge maze or watching the action from atop the second level.



   

What's really spectacular about the Colosseum is that it looks like as columns fell and the place started to corrode from time and an earthquake, that anything that fell stayed where it fell.  So, you're walking around this massive place and pieces of the walls and architecture are all around for you to touch, sit on, walk around and of course, take dozens of photos of.

        

We left il Colosseo for a trek through Palatine Hill to Capitoline Hill...it all kinda looks the same to me, but it was still really cool to wander through it all.
  

And then we hit the Forum.  Everything is so close together - it put it in perspective for me that we weren't just looking at pieces of old buildings, but we were looking at an actual town that people lived in and worked in.  From the Capital to Caesar's house to all the temples...whew, are YOU tired yet from all the walking??



  

  



Eric brought along his Iphone where he had downloaded some of Rick Steves' tours of Italy.  We sat around a listened at various sites to figure out what we were looking at - it was super helpful and didn't make us look like tourists AT ALL. 

    
This is at Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano...I think.  Wherever it is, these big green doors don't open and they won't open until the new Catholic Jubilee celebration in 2025.  Those Catholics are serious about their doors.  Still, it didn't stop us from trying to open them (click on photos for a larger view).


     

While San Giovanni was gorgeous inside, the real reason we trekked to that part of Rome was to see the Santuario della Scala Santa, or the Palace of the Holy Steps.  Story has it that the steps here were originally in Pontius Pilate's villa in Jerusalem and that Jesus Christ climbed them.  It's a major attraction, but it's also really hard to find, so look for San Giovanni and then the steps are in the non-descript building across the street.  So people come to the steps to worship and pray.  You're allowed to kneel on the steps, but you can't stand on them or walk on them. So people climb UP 28 steps on their knees.  I passed up the steps and just walked up the adjacent stairway so I could see the top.

We sat outside for a little while to rest and reevaluate what we wanted to do and see and when we wanted to do it.  I don't remember how it came about in conversation, but Boom used a bad word. A bad one. One that seemed just a bit loud and really inappropriate for sitting in front of Scala Santa and all the worshipers.
Boom:  "Opps, I probably shouldn't swear here."
Me: "YEAH, don't swear in front of the JESUS STEPS!"
Boom: "Jesus Christ!"

Then I pulled out my journal and wrote that down word for word.  So don't tell me I got any part of that wrong, because I totally have it in writing!

We finished Day 3 with a small and rainy adventure through the small, new "IT" town in Italy called, Trastevere (we originally called it "Tra-sta-var-A," but the metro pronounces is "Tras-tev-er-A" with the enunciation on the TEV part...so much prettier than our American butchering of the word).  We wanted to see what all the buzz was about and have dinner.  We eventually wandered through a piazza and chose a really fantastic setting for our meal at Ristorante La Canonica.  We also had an awesome waiter named Ruben.



He liked us.

   

 


  

There's graffiti EVERYWHERE in Italy, but it's different than what you normally see in the United States.  The graffiti in Europe is soooo pretty.  It's all art.  And the picture of Erik on our way back to the hotel on the metro is not staged.  Someone (NOT US!) left an empty bottle of wine just chillin' on the train.  The Italians love their wine.

It was an awesome but super tiring day and Day 4 proved to be even longer and fuller...I'm working on that post now.  If you want to jump ahead and check out the photos - see my flickr page HERE.

Day two in Europe was all about The Vatican.  MY PEOPLE!!  We all know that I'm a good, little Catholic girl.  I am.  Seriously.  Stop laughing. 
Boom and I took the hotel shuttle at 8am and needed to be at the Vatican to pick up our "General Audience" tickets to see the Pope before 10am from the Office of the Longest Name Ever  Prefecture of the Pope.  The shuttle took more than an hour in Rome traffic to get into downtown.  We were trying not to freak out, especially when the shuttle passed the Vatican on the way to the Piazza Cavour and we knew we'd have to backtrack.

We finally made it to St. Peter's Basilica where the mass was being held outside and with the help of a lot of pointing and gesturing and saying "Dove Bronze Door??"  to the Vatican guards, we finally found the office and got our tickets.   By the way Pope Benedict, it's not very intimidating when your palace is guarded by men dressed like this:



I'm just trying to help ya out.

Anyway, we finally get some seats and realize we have about an hour to kill until the actual appearence of His Holiness.  We were amidst all these teenagers in orange caps that said ANSPI.  There were bunches of these groups spread out through the crowd and most had large ANSPI flags that they waved around.  Turns out ANSPI stands for the National Association of St. Paul of Italy.  From my Google search I can determine that it's an organization for Italian Catholic students. They encourage volunteering for your community among other things, but it's hard to tell since the site is in Italian.



Orange Hat right............ there ^.

At first the Italian students were intruiged by us; obviously the only Americans in their little section.  They asked where we were from and we said the United States and then they asked excitedly if we were from New York. We said no, San Francisco, and then they turned around and didn't really want anything to do with us after that.  Oh well.

Soon the Pope made his appearance on his little car (no pope-mobile shield on this one though).  He circled the crowd a couple of times and came right near our aisle twice where I was able to get some great shots.



First time around



Second time around.  Seriously, we could have spit on him.  Not that I would have. I'm not that great at spitting.  But someone more skilled at such a thing, like a world champion watermelon seed spitter, wouldn't have had any problems reaching the Vicar of Christ.

The Mass went on and on and on as each registered group in the crowd was announced and they each had a few seconds to cheer or shout out a greeting to the Pope in their native language.  Some were entertaining, some were interesting, most were just basic whooping and hollering and Boom and I grew tired of this pretty fast.  So we left.

Yes, I KNOW we went all the way to Rome to be a part of a mass led by the Pope.  But dude, we'd been there for a couple of hours and we were STARVING.  We could still hear some of the mass from outside the Basilica area where we found a vendor with great Pollo Panini and acqua fredda and Coca-Cola Lite. 

Did you know that Diet Coke in other countries is called Coca-Cola Lite?  And did you know it's frickin the best tasting soda in the whole wide world???  How can I smuggle some into the East Bay?

Next we headed into the Vatican Museum to get our tickets and wait for our other friends, Eric and Stef to join us.  People watching ensued.  Beware, the next photo is really disturbing.




Yes, that woman is wearing neon green Crocs.  In the VATICAN.  The mecca of my people.  So disrespectful.



You'll have to enlarge this photo (click on it) to see what I'm talking about.  Interesting choice of colored tights, but what was most interesting was the tattoo she appears to have on her calf.  What is that??  I was so jet-lagged and out of it still at this point that at first I thought it was a design on the nylons.

Eventually we started our tour. 



This was our tour guide.  She was British and feisty.  She would wave her little wand with the scarf on it and command us to, "Follow Mama!"  It was pretty entertaining.  She also refered to Michaelangelo simply as "Mike."  I really liked her.

So we saw a bunch of statues. Craned our necks to look at dozens of painted ceilings.  We viewed maps, tapestries and tiled floors.  I took picture after picture and I couldn't give you any information about any of it.  But they sure are pretty.

     

 

After the tour and the Sistine Chapel (you're not allowed to take photos inside the Chapel) we wandered over to the bell tower and climbed over 300 steps to get to the top and then checked out the inside of St. Peter's Basilica.  This is where I took some of my favorite photos.  The weather was nice, a little breezy, and there were ominous storm clouds as far as you could see in the sky, but the sun was setting and everything looked golden and magical.

  


    

Later in the evening before we headed back towards our hotel, we decided to take the metro over to the Coliseum to see it lit up at night.  We had plans to go to the Coliseum and see all the other ruins the next day, but we didn't want that first day in Rome to end just yet.

   

Next up - Day 3 - All the Ruins.

More of my photos from Europe HERE.

Day one almost doesn't count since it was mostly spent on a plane, but there are a couple of moments worth mentioning.  We had an almost seven hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany and we ventured out to have a beer and stretch our legs after the 11 hour flight from San Francisco.



How did we know where to go?  Well, that's a funny story. You see, I had the fortune of going out on a date with a very nice man that just so happened to have lived in Germany for a little over a year.  He was very eager to share his knowledge of the area around Frankfurt and he even went so far as to print out a Google Map of a small town called Hattersheim near the airport where he promised we could find beer and possibly a farmer's market.  He was even nice enough to write out how to say "Airport" (Flughafen) and "Please" (Bitte) so we could tell the taxi driver where to take us when we wanted to go back to the airport.  It was sort of an odd date from the beginning, so when he pulled out this map after dinner it kinda felt nice to know I was coming away with something from the evening.  As harsh as that sounds, he wasn't a bad date, it  was just awkward and he wasn't the guy for me.

     

So Boom and I wandered around a fairly empty German town for a couple of hours until a little cafe opened.  Most European towns don't come alive until late in the day, so being there before noon wasn't a great idea, but it's not like we had any say in when we landed. 

So here's your first tip.  When ordering beer in Germany, do not ask for a small.  The waiter thought it was funny and he said, no, there are no small hefeweizens.



My second European tip comes from our first moments in our hotel room in Rome. 



You see that slot thingy.  That's where you put your keycard in order to work the lights.  Pretty much every hotel we had required that you leave your keycard in the slot if you were in the room in order to power any lights and the air conditioner.  We did not know this.  It only took us a few seconds to figure out that if you put the keycard in that the lights would come on, but what we couldn't figure out was why if you took the keycard out the lights would turn off in about 20 seconds.  It never occurred to us to LEAVE THE KEYCARD IN THE SLOT.  We ended up calling the front desk to ask how to keep the lights on.  They thought we were pretty funny.
And an extra tip in reference to the keycard tip - if your best friend is running downstairs to do something in the lobby and leaving you in the room, you should remind her that she shouldn't take the keycard in the slot while you're in the bathroom but instead get the second keycard that's sitting on the desk. 

Next stop...the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. 
More photos located HERE

I apologize for the lack of posting, there's been a lot going on getting ready for my trip to Europe with Boom and a couple of he friends. And there probably won't be a lot of posting over the next two weeks, mainly because Sprint has crappy international coverage options along with their lack of decent crackberries to choose from.
Augh!!!! We're finally going to Europe!! So excited, and anxious, and nervous...these are all basically the same emotion to me right now because all three whip through me so fast about every five minutes or so.
Just because I know some of you will ask and I won't be able to respond, our first stop is Rome, then Florence and then Venice. After that we'll take a short flight into Barcelona and then Madrid. I plan to take LOTS of pictures of old stuff and artsy stuff. We're going to vatican city, riding the gondolas, attending a flamenco show and somewhere along the way I'll try to relax and remember that this is a vacation, not a forced march. Egh, but who am I kidding, if it's there to be seen, I'm seeing it!

Back in a couple of weeks. Ciao!!