"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."
- Alexander Pope
I have a slight problem, it's called expectations. Actually in my case it is pretty much a case of over researching and over planning. For example this last week I went to Italy. I had an itinerary planned, I had a guidebook and I had pre-booked all the tickets we needed. Ok, so I am slightly OCD, but good thing I did some of the planning because the two boys that I went on the trip did absolutely no preparation. Anyway back to me going to Italy last week! The trip actually had a super exciting beginning of me running around the entire city of Copenhagen. I have yet to receive my Danish Resident Permit Card so I was slightly worried about being let back into Denmark once I left. So I had the joy of going to Borgerservice, calling immigration and going to two police departments. In the end this is what I ended up with a very official looking hand-written re-entry permit:
And then we finally got to Rome!
We arrived in Rome at about 3:00 so we went to our hostel, got food and then went out to see part of the city. This was Matt's first real Italian pizza.
Our first stop was Piazza del Popolo. It basically had a fountain and a church, which pretty much describes every piazza in Rome.
And here is a photo of Matt taking a photo of me taking a photo of Chris taking a photo, confusing I know. Also both of them had super fancy cameras, so they felt the need to be artsy in their photos. Which basically just meant that they contorted their bodies in weird positions.
The Spanish Steps:
The people who took our photos gave me a rose! I love getting flowers even if it is from a complete stranger.
The Trevi Fountain:
The weird part about the Trevi fountain is that it is just hanging off the side of a building.
And one of these buildings is the presidential palace, I am just not sure which one.
Our first pasta in Rome, unfortunately it was 3 euro pasta from the kebab shop across the street from our hostel. Therefore not the best pasta in the world.
My favorite part of the trip the Colosseum. Also I apologize but there are probably 50 pictures of the Colosseum starting here (although you should be thankful because I took 500 photos on this trip and 300 are of the Colosseum and I am only showing 50)
I just thought that it was super awesome that steep stairs in Italian is scale riptide.
The Colosseum was built in 80 AD. I walked through a building that is over 1900, that pretty much blows my mind. The Colosseum could hold 50,000 people, this also blows my mind. How in the world did they build this before bulldozers, cranes, and backhoes?
Let there be sun! While it is currently about 40 degrees, raining, and windy in Denmark; Rome however was about 75 degrees and sunny.
Originally there was a wooden floor covering the bottom of the Colosseum. Underneath that floor was the hypogeum which is where the gladiators and animals were kept.
These are original cobblestones. You basically need to jump from one stone to the next, they are that big. Yet somehow the Italian women can walk on these effortlessly in heels, carrying a baby.
The traveling group: Me, Chris a Californian, and Matt a Canadian.
Next we saw the Roman Forums. The Roman Forum was were Rome originated. It was the town square where politics, business, and justice took place. Now the place is just ruins but some of the ruins date to 800 BC. Also just to add to the amazingness of this place, I walked on streets that Julius Cesar walked on.
So Europe needs to realize the beauty of labeling things and signs. In this particular case it would have been really nice if there were signs telling me what the pile of stones that I was looking at used to be.
This is the Basilica of Maxentius which was built in 312 AD.
Also if you notice there is a head, or elbow, or hand in the corner of a lot of my photos. Matt and Chris are really bad about not paying attention and walking right into my photo.
I don't know if you have seen the movie Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn, then you will recognize the Mouth of Truth Statue. Apparently if you tell a lie while your hand is in the mouth it will bite it off.
This is Circus Maximus, a chariot racing stadium. I know it doesn't look like much now but back when it was built, at it's peak the stadium could hold 150,000 people! Now to put that in perspective Camp Randall, the Wisconsin Badger's Stadium, only holds 80,000.
Our second attempt at real Italian food, 4 cheese gnocchi. It was ok, but I have to say Olive Garden does better (I know blasphemy, but Olive Garden sets some pretty high expectations).
For anyone who has seen the Da Vinci Code or read the book, these are some of the lovely lay lines that somehow lead to buried treasure or something like that.
The ceiling painting in this basilica was amazing. None of that ceiling is carved it is entirely flat and painted! I thought for sure the white parts were sculptures.
Matt and my first attempt getting gelato. It was good but again not up to my expectations
Basically our days went like this: get up, go see things, go back to the hostel, and then go back to whatever we saw that day to take pictures of it at night.
Also points for my cheap camera. I was actually able to take nice night photos, while the guys super duper expensive nice cameras failed.
Until Chris bought a tripod off of a guy selling it on the side of the street, then his photos became slightly better.
See what I mean about them getting in my photos?
On Thursday we spent the morning at the Vatican hanging out with the Pope. Really the only parts of the Vatican that you can see are the Vatican Museums, St. Peter's Basilica, and the gardens. We went into the Vatican Museums, which are massive collections of art and sculptures.
Every single ceiling and wall in the museum is covered with murals.
Also the Vatican is the only place in Rome where statues were decent enough to cover themselves with leaves.
I would be terrified, however, if I woke up in the middle of the night, looked up, and saw these people staring back at me!
Then there was this picture of creepily muscular children.
So after all of the crazy beautiful ceilings, the Sistine Chapel was just another painted ceiling. Again not really up to my expectations, but still pretty. Also these photos were totally taken illegally, it was against the rules to take photos here. Do you think I will be smited (past tense of smite) because I took illegal photos in the Vatican?
The original Popemobile.
The current popemobile.
Actually this was the original popemoblile, You know before the pope could walk he needed to be carried everywhere.
St. Peter's Basilica:
This is La Pieta, one of Michelangelo's sculptures, apparently they thought it would be a good idea to put it behind bulletproof glass. Because anyone who wanted to do harm to the statue would automatically go for shooting it.
I wanted to follow this nun around the whole church. She was just taking photos with her itty bitty cell phone.
And then the second highlight of my trip the Swiss Guard. The outfit just kept getting better the more of it that you saw.
Just look at the beautiful boot covers:
And then you add a cape with blue tassels, and nothing can beat this outfit.
Also the since the Vatican is it's own country they have their own post office.
And we finally found some good Italian! I ordered pumpkin risotto.
Chris had some sort of veal and ham deliciousness,
And Matt had actual good gnocchi.
The restaurant was also in a really nice non-sketchy part of the city.
and was super adorable.
Second try on gelato, this time it surpassed all expectations!
Then we moved on to Piazza Navona, more churches, and fountains.
Then on to the Pantheon, it was built in 126 AD. Almost 2,000 years after it was built the dome is still the largest unreinforced dome built.
In the center of the dome there is actually a hole, or an oculus.
On our way back to the hostel that night Matt had his wallet stolen, but a lady with a baby. Thankfully she just took the cash and then dropped the rest of the wallet on the ground.
Matt is not grumpy here because of his wallet being stolen but because of the extremely boring three hour train ride to Milan.
Unfortunately the train may have been the highlight of Milan. Milan is Italy's center for business and trade not for culture. So basically Milan is full of businesses not of tourist things. The one cool thing of Milan was the beautiful Gothic cathedral called the Duomo.
Milan is also Italy's fashion capital. We walked down the street of designer shops, I took photos of the outsides, and then we went back to the hostel. Designer stores are kind of lost on me and two guys.
So in the end Italy may not have met my expectations, but I still had a blast and loved the trip. And now I have two days before I leave again. This time I am going to the middle of the woods, 2 hours north of the Arctic Circle to Akaslompolo, Finland. Yes it is in the middle of nowhere. I am super excited though to just go on a trip and not sight see. I think I have now seen enough churches to last me a lifetime. So hopefully I will not die of hypothermia, frost bite, or get eaten by wolves.
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