Día Dos en Londres

(A view of Piccadilly Circus in London, England)

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Today I woke up nice and early and stumbled to the bathroom to take a shower. Unfortunately, the hostel didn't have any towels to rent (as they had run out the day before) so I decided that a shower was rather unnecessary, especially because I was by myself and who would even know?

So I got changed and went downstairs for breakfast. I was still unsure of what time it was, as my watch and cell phone now displayed two different times and I wasn't sure which was correct. But breakfast was there (just cereal and toast) and I sat down at a table with three girls - two Brazilians and one Australian. We were chatting for a while and the Australian, stereotypically enough, started looking around for some Vegemite. Surprisingly, she found some and started making herself toast. I was curious and she suggested that I should try some, too. She said that it was important to have an Australian make you toast with Vegemite, because foreigners put too much on and then don't like the taste. So I had my toast with Vegemite and actually liked it quite a bit - I even had another slice.

So I headed out for my fun-filled day with my plastic bag purse in hand. I walked to the Underground Station and bought an Oyster Card (the as-you-go metro pass) and then hopped on the train heading to Embankment. I left the station, and was shivering within seconds - London is just freezing (and no one else seemed to be noticing this)! Apparently, the weather in Madrid has spoiled me. I made my way towards the Thames and through the Victoria Tower Garden, which is right next to the Houses of Parliament. After taking pictures of the Emancipation Monument, which is displayed in the Garden, I then crossed the Lambeth Road bridge to the East side of the Thames. There are nice walkways along this side of the Thames, so I looped back around and started down the other side. There were plenty of oppotunities for great pictures of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben and also the garbage cans which say neither "Garbage" nor "Trash," but "Litter." Even the British garbage cans speak with an accent. I crossed the Thames again on the Westminster Bridge and made my way North to Trafalgar Square, (which is one of the main plazas in London). I walked past the National Portrait Museum and an art display - the Ice Bear. This display is a bear's skeleton that had been covered by ice, essentially making a huge ice sculpture. Parts of the ice had melted, creating a really bizzare piece of art.

I had planned to go to the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace that morning, (which takes place at 11:30 am on odd numbered days) and wanted to be there by about 10:30 (I heard the crowds can start building up early). I had some time to kill before I needed to be there and I didn't want to wait around in the freezing cold weather for more time than necessary, so I kept walking North towards Oxford Street. I passed Piccadilly Circus on the way, which is kind of like London's Times Square (and gave some people directions - they asked me, I didn't suggest my services. . .). After that, I just wandered through some of the neighborhoods in London. There were lots of old winding streets (very Diagon Alley-esque) and I ended up walking all the way to Oxford Street (which is the big shopping street in London) and stopped in a big department store to warm up. I wandered through the Christmas decoration area and then made my way to the kitchen gadgets department before heading back outside. It was now time to start walking back towards Buckingham Palace, so I headed down North Audley Street and passed lots of old buildings (which looked as if they were right out of Oliver). The neighborhoods must have been London's old factory districts.

I had almost reached Buckingham Palace when I realized that I needed to cross Piccadilly Street. This is one of the huge highways in London and there were many cars (driving in the wrong directions) that were standing between me and the other side of the street. I walked up and down the street for quite a ways before I found a cross-walk and passed this one group of construction workers several times before I managed to cross the street. Right on the other side of Piccadilly Street was Green Park, a huge park that leads right up to Buckingham Palace. Different from most other city parks I've been to, there wasn't a lot of landscaping or benches. This park was pretty much just a rolling plot of grass with a sprinkling of trees. I walked to the other side of the park and stopped at a coffee stand for hot chocolate before heading over to the Buckingham gates. After only a few minutes my hot chocolate was iced chocolate and I considered going back for another, but I didn't want to loose my place near the gates, as there were already quite a few people waiting. So I waited for an hour, oddly enough, with a group of Spaniards - I was quite proud of myself for understanding their conversation. But it was freezing. Absolutely frigid. My gloves were doing nothing (and neither was my coat for that matter) and that hour just crawled by.

At 11:30, the Changing of the Guard started with a calvary parade that circled the plaza. Then the official guards came out and started their marching procession. At one point during the procession, the head guard went around and tugged on all of the other guards' hats, testing to see if they were on correctly. Some of them weren't, and those guards had to embarrassingly fix their hats in front of the hundreds of people watching. The guards also did this weird shuffling move as part of the procession that was one of my favorite parts - it was like a sideways moon-walk. Then the marching band came out and gave a short performance, surprising everyone with a medley of ABBA songs.

After everything was finished, I was so cold that I was legitimately having trouble walking, (I think my knees had frozen). I walked over to the Queen Victoria Monument (which faces the Palace) and after taking some pictures, decided that my next stop would be the Saint James' Palace, which a tourbook at the hostel had said was open for tours. So I wandered over towards the Palace and looped around the building that looked the most promising (again, I was using my map which only labeled what it felt like labeling). I walked all the way around the building (which was tricky because this involved crossing several roads) and didn't see anything that looked like a door. I did another loop and this time noticed a door that was blocked by Royal Guards, who seemed to be keeping people out, not letting people in. So I figured that maybe I had the wrong building. I wandered a little bit further away, yet none of the other buildings seemed to resemble a Palace. I asked one woman (and she was legit - she had a British accent and everything) where Saint James' Palace was, but she seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. I passed this tiny little alleyway, where I stopped inside a cafe just to reheat my fingers, and then again faced the cold, giving the neighborhood one more loop before giving up.

Still no door, and after having wandered around in the freezing cold for an hour after having stood in the freezing cold for two hours, I was getting pretty cranky. I had wanted to fit in one more thing before lunch, but now all my plans were messed up, because it was not quite lunch time, but there was nothing I could finish before I was starving. I decided to head back to Westminster Abbey, (which I had originally planned on skipping) and walked along Horse Guards' Road, passing the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms (and a sign which informed me that Saint James' Palace was closed to the public - that explained that). As I was walking along the border of Green Park, I also saw a nice view of the gardens and Buckingham Palace in the background. As I was stopped to take pictures, I saw a weird bird swimming around in the pond. I'm pretty sure it was a pelican, but I didn't think that pelicans liked sitting in freezing water all day, so I took a picture to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating from heat deprivation. As I was walking, I also noticed a remarkable number of joggers, who were out for their afternoon runs in shorts and t-shirts. Ridiculous. I could barely walk because I was so cold, and there they were, wearing next to nothing and exercising. Runners.

I got to Westminster Abbey and almost didn't go in, as it was 12 pounds ($25) admission. But I was so cold by this point that I couldn't walk another step, so I paid and went in. I got an audio guide with my admission which had about 25 stops around the cathedral and abbey. The tour was probably meant to be about 1.5 - 2 hours, but I was there for almost 3 hours and enjoyed it quite a bit. I first just sat and listened to the organist practicing all the Christmas music and then looped around looking at some of the chapels where all the famous monarchs are buried. Westminster Abbey is also where all the coronations occur and on display in the museum were the Coronation Chair (in which most of the English monarchs have sat) and the huge diamond sceptor used during the ceremonies. In addition to the actual cathedral, you can tour parts of the abbey where the monks still live. One of the stops included the gardens which are some of the oldest cultivated gardens in London. Also wandering around the abbey was a crazy woman who liked to demonstrate her singing skills. She actually had quite a nice voice, but after a while, the security guards escorted her away. I then walked back to the cathedral where the boys choir had started practicing, so I sat and listened to them for a while. These boys are selected from all over London and even attend a special school together. They are one of the most recognized choirs in the world. I then headed to the gift store, which was really nice. They had all sorts of souvenirs, from pencils to tea to lemon cheese (don't ask me what that is) and awesome umbrellas (with the lyrics from Singing in the Rain - how clever) which I would have bought had they not been almost $40.

I still had not eaten by this point and it was almost dinner time, but there didn't seem to be any restaurants nearby, so I headed back towards the Thames and strolled North to Covent Garden. Covent Garden ended up being my favorite neighborhood in London. It is a neighborhood of all these interconnected winding streets and while it is the theatre district, it is also filled with restaurants, cafes, and shopping. As I was searching for a restaurant, I passed the theatre for the Lion King, and decided to stop in and ask how much tickets were. For that night they were pretty expensive - about 40 pounds but for the next day, the cheapest tickets were only 20 pounds. So I whipped my wallet out of my plastic bag and bought tickets for the next night. I was excited - theatre in London! The best part was that the theatre would be heated.

So I headed back outside and continued the search for dinner. I saw a sign for a cafe that seemed to be a chain in London, but as I walked in, I realized I had entered the door to the sketchy cafe next-door that was completely empty except for the owner. Well, I couldn't very well leave now! I warily wandred over to the counter and ordered what looked like a decent tuna fish sandwich on a bagel. While the owner was heating up my dinner, I asked if he had a bathroom. He pointed me downstairs and I found one of the most sketchy bathrooms I have ever seen (outside of Morocco, that is). The place could have been out of a horror movie, but everything was functional (including this sink which had a temperature dial on the wall instead of faucets). I went back upstairs, got my food, and sat down at one of the tables. The owner was sitting right there and I felt awkward pulling out my book, but before I could decide what to do, the owner started a conversation. Turns out he is from Morocco (coincidental, I know) so we talked about that for a while and after a bit, another guy named Danny walked in and sat down (he was from Spain - this was quite the coincidental restaurant). We chatted for about an hour and by the time I left, the owner was offering me a job in his restaurant. I've always pictured myself working at a larger and somewhat less-sketchy job, but I told him if I ever found myself in London again, I would come visit. Being friendly never hurt anyone.

I spent the next couple hours shopping in Covent Garden. Lots of the stores are familiar (the Gap and H&M) but there were lots of new places to look at, too. I loved the fashions in London - very classy, and I would have dropped a lot of money if I had had a lot of money to drop. But seeing as I am a poor college student, I only bought myself a hat (which served the dual purpose of keeping my head warm and making me look famous). Yay! I passed the Royal Opera House along the way and ended up walking back to Oxford Street and scouting out some of the stores near there and looking at all of the big Christmas light displays. I found a kind of shopping mall that I spent a good deal of time at and visited the store, Accesories, which I now love, and a bookstore, (where one of the first books I picked up quoted a BC professor - go figure). I walked back towards Piccadilly Circus through some really nice neighborhoods and headed in and out of some souvenir shops, (at one point they were playing the version of "winter Wonderland" that was in The Holiday. I felt like Kate Winslet - especially in my new celebrity hat. I passed another Christmas festival that was set up in a square near Piccadilly Circus and after checking that out, walked back to the Piccadilly Circus Underground station and took the train back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel, I spent some quality time with the computer planning the next day and checking my e-mails. I also found out that I had been accepted into Alpha Sigma Nu, the national honor society for Jesuit universities, so I was pretty excited about that. I then went upstairs to bed and after I asked these two German girls what time it was, (they had no idea what I was saying) I fell fast asleep, happy to be warm in my bed.

Día Uno en Londres

(The Natural History Museum in London, England)

Well, I have gotten a bit behind on my blogging - about four weeks. Oops. So I'll start with London!

Monday, December 14, 2009

After I had gotten through Madrid's airport security with about an hour to spare, I wandered over to my gate and grabbed a seat. I pulled out my book to occupy some time, but the next thing I remember is one of the airline workers shaking me and saying, "Are you planning on going to London? The plane is about to leave." I tripped over my bag getting up so fast and hobbled to the plane, as my leg was still asleep. Morning Gigi strikes again!

As the plane was taking off, I saw that it was starting to snow outside - the first snow I had seen this winter. I must not have been that impressed because I fell asleep almost immediately and didn't wake up until the plane landed at Stansted Airport. As I had forgotten to check whether the was a time difference between Madrid and London, I wasn't sure whether or not I was late for the shuttle to London, so I ran through all the security lines, got my passport stamped (by a woman who was my first sample of a British accent - I had no idea what she was saying), and flew over the where the buses pick travelers up. On my way, I stopped to withdraw pounds, (which are really expensive) and then bought myself breakfast - orange juice and a wonderful sort of granola bar as well as a treacle tart for later. How British.

But once I got outside, I froze to the spot. It is rather chilly in London. I had expected it to be cold but Madrid had spoiled me weather-wise. It was that type of cold where your knees get stiff and your eyes get squinty and the wind goes right up the sleeves of your coat. I shuffled over to where I was to meet the bus, and luckily, it showed up right away, before my orange juice turned into an orange flavored ice cube. The bus ride was quite nice, as it was heated and they had a Christmas station playing on the radio. And even though everything was in English, I had no idea what the advertisements were actually advertising (they seemed like random sentences threaded together). But all the announcers had accents, which always brightens my mood. Then they announced the weather - London: 40 degrees. ¡Qué! Madrid must have really spoiled me, because I thought it was at least -5 degrees!

After about an hour and a half, the bus got to central London and I asked the bus driver where the Metro was. He replied that the Metro was in Paris, but that the Underground was around the corner. Those Brits. I walked to the Victoria Street Station and got in line for a one-way ticket. It cost me 4 pounds, (which is about 7 dollars)! I decided then that I would be doing an awful lot of walking. I took the Underground to Gloucester Road, which was where my hostel was (without getting lost, I might add) and managed to walk to my hostel, only having to turn around once as I had walked too far down the street. Unfortunately on this walk, the strap of my purse broke, rendering the whole bag unusable. So for the rest of my London trip, I carried by belongings around in a plastic bag. This made me feel a little bit homeless and museum security looked at me oddly, but the plastic bag method seemed to suffice.

After dropping my backpack in the luggage room and asking the person at the front desk for tourist suggestions, I was off. I wandered the neighborhood (Kensington) a bit first, and passed the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Academy of Music before making my way to the Natural History Museum. I had planned to spend only a couple of hours at the Museum, but I ended up staying for almost 5 hours. It was a very cool museum and had displays on everything from the human body and perception, to earthquakes and oceans (and it was all in English). I had lunch at the Museum's cafe (an egg and cress sandwich with grapes) and also visited the new Darwin center. After watching a documentary about David Attenborough in the new Attenborough Studio and taking pictures of the museum's library (in which a file exists for every plant or animal ever discovered), I headed to Hyde Park.

It was already dark, so I stayed along the outer rims of the park and eventually found the Winter Wonderland - one of London's annual Christmas fairs. Although I was damp and freezing, the fair was still fun to walk around, especially because everyone had a British accent, even the little kids! England is fun that way.

Then, at Julia's suggestion, I was off to find Harrods - London's big department store. Unfortunately, the map given to me by the hostel wasn't very good and didn't include all the streets. Therefore, I had to wander around until I found a street that was important enough to be on my map - this is a very inefficient way of traveling around, especially when it's so dark you can hardly see the map anyway. Furthermore, cars in London drive on the wrong side of the street. I knew this when I got to London, but I didn't make the connection that when I was crossing the street, I would have to look the other way. Also, it seems to me that cars in London have the right of way, not pedestrians. This led to a few terrifyingly near-death experiences on my part, and even after I remembered to stop and look in the right direction, there were too many cars coming from too many directions for my frozen brain to sort out. The method I developed included prayer and running across streets with my eyes closed. Anyway, as I was walking I saw a store which looked really warm and well-lit, and since my joints were freezing over by this point, I stopped in to get warm. It turned out to be a grocery store - I had not even planned that. I suppose I am just drawn to them - it must be fate.

So after touring the aisles of the supermarket, I again faced the cold, and this time, actually found Harrods. Their Christmas decorations included advertisements for theater's Wicked, so the first thing I saw were the two giant feet of the Wicked Witch of the East sticking out from under the building. I entered the store and it was packed. I felt a little out of place because Harrods turns out to be a luxury items store (I should have figured - Julia told me about it) and I was walking around with my belongings in a plastic bag. The store can be compared to Macy's in NYC. There were seven floors filled with everything from pots and pans to riding equipment, but the most exciting part were the cafes. It is officially a supermarket, but the sections are all separate and have their own counters. It was very busy and very expensive so after a few minutes, I headed back out into the rainy freezing-ness to walk back to the hostel.

It was a longer walk than I had anticipated, but I saw a lot of London's shopping district. I stopped for dinner at a Thai restaurant near my hostel, which was quite good. I got a chicken and vegetable stir fry with rice and lemonade and they also gave me these Asian rice-crackers, which were probably my favorite part. I asked what they were, but they have a Thai name, and I therefore had no idea what the waitress said, but I will be looking for them if I ever see a Thai supermarket. I decided that I do not like eating alone, but fortunately for me, there was no one in the restaurant to judge me except for the waitress - who was having her dinner at the next table over. No worries.

I stopped at the supermarket next door to the hostel to look for an umbrella (unsuccessfully) and then headed back to the hostel, where I checked in and brought my stuff up to my room. The room was big and had 10 beds and two bathrooms down the hall. Not all the spaces were taken up so there was plenty of room to spread out. I then went back downstairs to the lounge to plan out the next day. I circled everything on my map that I wanted to do (which was pretty much everything) and must have looked like a wreck (my neck was barely supporting my head by this point) because the boy sitting next to me asked if I needed advice. So we started talking (he was from Holland) and then the two kids on the other couch joined in, too (one from Chicago and one from LA). They all were talking about what they had already done and still wanted to do, so from their advice, I made myself a plan for the next day. I was practically asleep by this point, but I dragged myself up to bed and passed out.

¡Más fotografías!

I've finally finished uploading all the pictures from Rome! I sorted through both mine and Lizzie's pictures and put them all in one album on the Shutterfly site. I also uploaded a few more to the most recent Gigi in Madrid album.

Here's the link: http://gigiinmadrid.shutterfly.com

Enjoy!

Día Quatro en Roma

(The Fontana di Trevi in Roma, Italia)

Sunday, December 13th

So after only three hours of sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. Once I was ready, I woke up Lizzie, packed all of my stuff, and then crawled back into bed for a nap until Lizzie was finished. We went downstairs to check-out and after they made me run back upstairs to bring down our sheets, we headed over to the hostel restaurant to get breakfast. Today, we shared the egg and bacon sandwiches and a bowl of granola, yogurt, and fruit, and after we finished, walked back to the open-air market we found on the first day to do some souvenir shopping. Because our flight wasn't until later in the day, we had time to kill and had planned to explore the Trastevere neighborhood all morning. We asked a shop owner for directions, and she told us we needed to walk to a bus stop, take a bus, and then take a tram - all of which sounded awfully confusing. So Lizzie and I decided just to hang around central Rome for the morning and see what other things we could find. As we were walking, it started to rain, and we were still trying to think of something to do when we passed a church that was advertising Korean services. The sign was in Korean and Lizzie was excited because she is also half Korean. So we went in and listened to a group singing Christmas carols in English. Then we stuck around for most of the rest of the service. Lizzie was happy because she got to sit down and I was happy because I got to sing, (even if it was only my desperate attempt at Italian).

We then walked back to the Trevi Fountain again, because I still needed to throw in a coin. One coin means you'll come back to Rome, two says you'll come back to Rome and fall in love, and three says you'll come back to Rome, fall in love, and get married. As my worst nightmare is to accidentally marry into the mafia, I only threw in one. While we were there, we saw a terribly attractive and well-dressed group of teenagers in front of the fountain and then saw that they were being professionally photographed. Turns out they were models on a photo shoot, which explains their attractiveness and well-dressed-ness.

We then strolled back to our hostel a different way and headed back towards the hostel, where we had planned on going to lunch at a restaurant for which we had a coupon. Unfortunately, it was closed (we tried here several other times, as well, and it was closed each time). So we went back to the restaurant we ate the first day. I got rotini in broccoli sauce and then we both got tartufo for dessert. This waiter was not as friendly as the first had been and we were also sitting right next to the drink fridge. Every time someone shut the door to the fridge, a puff of air would shoot at me. I am like a cat in the fact that I do not like when air/wind blows on me, so every time this happened, I would cringe.

When we finished, we walked back across the street to the hostel to pick up our bags from the luggage room. Sidenote: yesterday, Lizzie had bought a poster at one of the open-air markets, but this morning, had refused to put it in the luggage room because she didn't want anyone to take it. Therefore, she had been carrying this poster around for two days. It now had a smudge of Nutella in the corner and rain-tattered edges. But it is still a very nice picture.

So after we grabbed our stuff, we headed back to the train station and bought tickets back to the airport. This time we asked about verifying our tickets, and we we were told that was unnecessary. We got on the train when it came and slept for the half hour ride to the airport. We got through security with no problems and with plenty of time to spare. We went to one of the airport restaurants for dinner (again we were the only ones there) and I got pasta with shrimp (risky, I know). After we had spent about an hour at the restaurant we moved to our gate, but unfortunately, the airport had re-routed another flight to our terminal. Therefore, our flight back to Madrid got delayed for about an hour. In the meantime, Lizzie and I fell asleep at the gate and when I woke up, there was nobody in the waiting-area. It was still a half-hour until our flight as scheduled to leave, so I woke up Lizzie and she went to check to other gates while I stayed and watched our stuff. After she had left, a security man appeared at our gate and I asked him what had happened to our flight. He said it was moved to a different gate, so I grabbed all of our stuff, found Lizzie, and we got in line at the other gate.

Once we were on the plane, we again fell asleep and woke an hour and a half later, thinking we were already in Madrid. Nope. We hadn't even left Rome yet. Apparently there was some problem with the mechanics and the guy that had been working on fixing it broke something else, so they had to call in an engineer to fix that mistake. So we were delayed for another hour before we took off. We were supposed to arrive in Madrid at 10:30 pm and didn't get back until 1 am. I wouldn't have been worried, but my flight to London was that morning at 6:30 am and I needed to go back to Julia's, pack clean clothes, and grab my boarding pass to London. I had been planning on taking the metro to Julia's and back to the airport, but with the delay, the metro was already shut down for the night.

The only way for me to get home was to pay for a taxi both ways, which would be over 40 euro. I asked the man at the information desk if I could just show the airline my passport without a boarding pass, and he said that would cost 40 euro extra. So I asked if he could print it off for me and he said the only printers at the airport were at the currency exchange desks. When Lizzie and I found a currency exchange desk, they wasn't anyone there. So I decided to pay for the taxi, but the next problem was that I did not have any euros on me. So I found a public computer and transferred money into my account and then went to the ATM to withdraw money. Unfortunately, none of the ATMs would take my card and I panicked, thinking that Bank of America had shut my card down again. This worried me, because if I had no money, I couldn't very well go to London for three days.

So Lizzie lent me money to take the taxi home and thankfully, I was able to withdraw money from the ATM near Julia's apartment. I was also able to get in Julia's door (I had been remembering the time when she locked it and I ended up spending the night at Lizzie's) and pack a new set of clean clothes. Things were looking up.

Día Tres en Roma

(The Basilica del San Pietro in Città del Vaticano, Italia)

Saturday, December 12th

We got to sleep in a bit today as we weren't planning on being at the Vatican until 10. We ate breakfast in the hostel bar and both had egg and bacon sandwiches with ketchup (the ketchup packets were really hard to open so we resorted to sharing just one instead of exerting the energy to open two). We then got on the metro to the Vatican and after Lizzie stopped to buy some leggings at a vendor, we started to look for an entrance. We got called after by one Australian guy who was advertising a Vatican tour, and we tried to cross the street to get away from him, but he managed to follow us and we were met on the other side of the street by one of his Canadian coworkers. They explained to us their whole deal and then invited us out for beers, (which really didn't add to the legitimacy of their offer). We managed to turn them down, despite their persistence, and kept walking towards the Vatican, but when we saw the line that stretched around the whole of the Piazza, we followed a different guy who was also advertising a tour (that was also cheaper than the first).

We met up with the group led by a British guy named Antony, who turned out to be kind of bizarre (he kept making dirty, inappropriate jokes that no one was laughing at). Three more American men joined the group and just seemed as though they were from Boston. One of them introduced himself as Tim Flaherty, which seemed familiar to both Lizzie and I, and for the whole tour, we wondering if he was some big-wig at BC (we never did figure out how to ask that without sounding like creepers, though). The group stopped at a bar to grab drinks and pay Antony and then we headed to the Vatican Museums, where the tour started. We looked at a bunch of paintings and what Lizzie decided were "handsome sculptures." We also saw a huge marble bathtub that had belonged to Nero, which I thought was pretty cool. The thing was the size of a swimming pool and made out of a slab of rare purple marble. The museum itself was also very cool and there were lots of mosaic floors and frescoed ceilings. One ceiling was even painted to make it look like it was sculpted. The tour finished off in the Sistine Chapel, which was different than I had imagined it to be. It was much bigger than I had expected and much more elaborate. Every inch was covered with painting and Antony explained some of the story behind its creation. Michelangelo did not like the Pope's Master of Ceremonies, and made him Charon the demon in the huge fresco of the Last Judgement, which is positioned over the altar. Also, he had painted everyone in the Last Judgement nude, which horrified the church, and the Church hired a different painter to come cover everybody up.

After the tour finished, Lizzie and I walked through the crypt under Saint Peter's Basilica, where all the popes and even Saint Peter himself are buried. Then we headed upstairs to see Saint Peter's Basilica itself. The place is gigantic! Everything was huge and really elaborate. We did one and a half loops to get all the pictures we wanted and I stopped in the prayer room for a little while, as well. By this point, my memory card was completely full and Lizzie had to take over as prime photographer.

We left the basilica after a while and after taking a picture with the uniformed Swiss guard we took more pictures from the main piazza. The Vatican's staff is currently setting up for the Christmas masses, so there were a ton of people putting out chairs and programs, setting up huge Christmas trees, and putting together the big outdoor screens. As we were leaving, we passed the fountains that Antony had mentioned on our tour. He said that Rome and the Vatican have some of the best water in the world and that people still drink from these ancient fountains. So I wanted to try. Lizzie took pictures of me while I essentially doused my head in a fountain - they aren't really built for convenient drinking. The water was fine - cold, but good.

We then stopped for lunch at a cafe right outside the ancient Vatican walls. There were a bunch of monks having lunch right outside, so we knew it must be good. We both got potato and thyme pizza, which was really tasty, and after we paid, I was put on map duty to get us back to the Tiber. I was successful in this endeavor and we wandered along, stopping for pictures of the Castel Sant'Angelo and then further along at the Palazzo Di Giustizia. As we were walking along the river we passed an ice-skating rink and another open-air market, where I got this wonderful marzipan, shortbread, ricotta, fruit dessert. Perhaps the best dessert I've had in Europe yet. We also passed what looked to be a giant groundhog chilling in the river and a bird swarm sitting in a tree, making the tree completely black. The tree hung over the path we walking along, and we didn't think anything of it until we heard thudding sounds close to the tree. This was the birds relieving themselves on the sidewalk and on the car parked under the tree. That will be a mess later. Lizzie and I decided to walk around the tree instead of under it. We stopped for another photo shoot near the Palazzo, because there was a nice background of a bridge and good lighting, and reminisced on our time in Europe for a while before heading on.

We then crossed the bridge and headed over to Piazza Popolo, which is another big Piazza with a obelisk and, during this time of year, a big Christmas tree. When we got there, there was a street performer doing Michael Jackson impressions, which was pretty spiffy, and then we walked through another of the big shopping districts back to the Spanish steps. We were chilling for a while at the Steps and watched this parade for heart health go by followed by a marching band with an all-female drum core and all-male flag twirlers.

We then stopped at a McDonalds to use the bathroom but our jaws dropped when we walked in. The place was gigantic and really cool. There were all these side rooms decorated in various styles and it was all really impressive. So we decided we may as well stop for a while. Lizzie got dinner and I got a McFlurry and while we were eating, the woman at the next table turned around and gave us a flyer for another pub crawl. That's something interesting about Rome - they have people advertising everything from tours to pub crawls on the streets and Lizzie and I ran into quite a few of them. We took her flyer and then finished eating. I had been watching the garbage cans in the corner because they were automated and people had been having some problems with them. The one I was watching was so full that it had started spitting trash back out at people. I did not want that to happen to us, hence my careful study of the trash collection area. Two workers eventually came to fix the malfunctioning machine and I told Lizzie that I thought we were safe. We managed to dump our trash without too much trouble and headed back to the hostel. We had decided to go on one of these pub crawls (the one advertised by Tac) and we needed to prepare ourselves.

When we got back to the room, Michelle and Scott were there studying for their last final and we swapped stories about our days, (apparently they had seen us from their tour bus while we were wandering the streets). Lizzie and I got ready and were both a mess. I was trying to put on this sparkly eye stuff but it kept getting all over the bathroom and pretty soon, Lizzie and I were standing in a cloud of sparkles. My hair was also not cooperating and ended up in a ponytail. Very saucy.

We then got back on the metro and headed to the Colosseum, where we were supposed to meet the group. Tac met us in the metro (good thing he recognized us, because I never would have noticed him there) and then we walked to the first bar with two Italians. One proclaimed himself to be a model and the other was a computer science major at one of Rome's universities. They were goofs and I think they had already started their tour of the pubs. So the deal: for 20 euros, we would go to 4 different bars, get free drinks, free pizza, and a free t-shirt. The free t-shirt is what swayed Lizzie and I. At the first bar I made Lizzie order me a Coke every time she went up for a drink and we just chatted with the other kids in the group. Lots of them were just traveling around on their own. It seems that a lot of non-Americans take a year off of school before university and just travel the world for a few months/years (and going to pub crawls, from what I can surmise).

Unfortunately, there weren't very many cuties on this pub crawl - only the bartender and one other Australian guy, but before you know it, we were off to the second bar of the evening. By this time, the two Italians, Margarito and Very Very Awesome, (when Lizzie asked him what his name was, that's what he said - we could get no more information out of him) were completely plastered and needed to be practically carried to the next bar, a process that involved bus transportation, which did not help the situation. I liked the second bar better because there was dancing, and although it was really only kids from the pub crawl, it was still a lot of fun. Afterwards, we moved to the third bar, which also had dancing, although people were becoming more drunk and more annoying.

As we walking to the fourth bar, the cute bartender from the first bar (who is also one of the pub crawl leaders - how's that for a job title?) was walking and talking with Lizzie and I. When we got to the last bar, he told Lizzie and I to wait at the bar because he would buy us a drink. He gave us Long Island Iced Teas, which were really strong, (I ended up hiding mine in a corner of the bar) and then we just talked for a while. His name is Musa and he is half German and half Nigerian. Both of his parents are ambassadors, he speaks 7 languages, and he recently graduated from university with a computer science major, (again - pub crawl leader?). He also mentioned that his parents own a semi-mansion, he played basketball and swam in school, and was moving to a new apartment the next day. We chatted for quite a while.

So I got to dance with Musa all night while poor Lizzie was stuck dancing with Very Very Awesome, who by this point couldn't even keep his eyes open. Musa kept buying me drinks, which I kept hiding in random places and by 3:30, I decided that we needed to go. Musa decided we should go to another bar and so we grabbed Lizzie, (Very Very Awesome followed) and headed down the street. Apparently, Musa knows everyone in Rome, because not only did we get to skip the entire line for this bar because Musa knew the bouncer and owner, we also walked in and about half the bar cheered when they saw him. I felt cool just standing next to him. He also managed to get rid Very Very Awesome, who stormed off down the street. So then he got us all beers, (nasty, plain nasty) and we chilled at that bar until it closed.

He then took the bus with Lizzie and I back to our hostel, saying he wanted to make sure we got home okay (although I believe he had other intentions). He was nice though. If I had actually drank all those drinks he bought for me, I probably would have needed help getting home. But as it so happens, I was the only sober one there, and was actually the one making sure we all weren't plowed down by any Italian drivers. Lizzie and I crashed, seeing as it was about 4:30. Too bad we had to wake up by 8 the next morning.

Día Dos en Roma

(The Colosseum in Roma, Italia)

Friday, December 11th

We got very little sleep because it turns out that Scott is quite the snorer. The worst I have ever heard, actually. Even I was woken up by the racket he was making and I am a really heavy sleeper. Then Michelle and Scott woke up late and were still using the the shower (separately, of course) when Lizzie and I woke up. While Lizzie finally got her turn in the shower, I met one of the other guys in our room, an Italian who is in acting school in Rome. Then when Lizzie came out, the last person in our room woke up and started talking to us. He was Australian and asked us all sorts of questions about what time things opened in Rome. Then when he actually adjusted to the light, he apologized because he had thought that we were someone else. Lizzie and I then headed downstairs to the hostel's restaurant/bar for breakfast, where I had french toast with bananas and Lizzie, egg and bacon sandwiches. Then we headed for the metro, with me bouncing up and down, because today was Roman Ruins Day! I was quite excited, to say the least. On the schedule were the Colosseum, Palantine Hill, and the Roman Forum. Yay!

The metro was packed, as there are only two lines in Rome. We missed the first train because we weren't standing far enough down the track and the train completely passed us, (we wondered why all the Italians were standing on the other side of the station). We then pushed our way onto the second train, me only getting squished by the doors once.

We got to the Colosseum, but it took us quite a while to find the entrance and then the audio guide booth. We walked around for a good half an hour before we were settled. Even after we had the audio guides we were lost because the audio guide's map didn't seem to correspond to the actual building. We ended up going around the Colosseum backwards and spent more time mimicking the British voices on the audio guides and taking pictures than actually listening to the guides. Two cool things that I remember were that the senators had their own assigned seats with their names actually carved into them and that the floor of the Colosseum had trapdoors so that the gladiators could rise out of the ground. Those Romans were tricky. When we were done with our tour, we again got lost trying to find the exit, and ended up meeting two German boys, who we had passed several times in our search for the door. With our combined four brains, we eventually figured it out.

Next, Lizzie and I were off to Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum, both sites of more Roman ruins. The entrance to Palantine Hill was also tricky to find and we passed these two guys dressed up as gladiators (for touristy photo ops) twice before finding the gate. Here were some of the lines we heard:

"Hey Shakira!"

"Look at those legs!"

"Where are you from? Paradise?"

The last one is my favorite. So after stopping at a stand to buy a Kinder Bar, we got to Palantine Hill, where all the Roman emperors had their palaces. The buildings were roped off though, so you can't go pretend to be an empress, as was my original plan. After a lot of pictures, we walked over to the Roman Forum, which was downtown Rome back in the day. There were so many Roman ruins, I didn't even know were to point the camera first. There were columns, stairs, buildings, arches, and amphitheaters galore, not to mention the supposed tomb of Caesar.

After the Roman Forum, we wandered through Rome a bit more, passing lots of pretty buildings and museums and then found a restaurant for lunch. It had huge windows and high ceilings and as we sat down, two very cute Italian boys were seated next to us. They seemed to know the owner of the place - the owner kept coming over to talk to them (a sign of the mafia, I know). I spent a good five minutes trying to get Lizzie to look at them, but my subtle cues were too subtle. I had pasta carbonara for lunch and Lizzie had lasagna and once we finished, we decided to find dessert elsewhere, and so started the search for tartufo.

Tartufo is an Italian ice-cream dessert, which I had heard about before even coming to Rome. But apparently it is rather tricky to find and for nearly an hour, we searched for a restaurant with tartufo on the menu (once passing the cute Italian boys by chance on the street - Lizzie missed them again). We passed several tourist shops and another open-air market and decided we needed to ask someone about this ice-cream delicacy. We stopped at a shop and Lizzie asked the cashier in English where we could find tartufo. The man said you have to go outside of Rome to find a tartufo place as it isn't very popular in the city. We must have looked confused because he then pointed at his tattooed arm and said, "Tattoos?" We responded that we were looking for tartufo, the ice-cream dessert, not tatuaggio, the painful inking process, and he said he didn't know where to find that. So we stopped at another shop and Lizzie again asked where we could find tartufo. The man didn't understand what she was saying, and when she turned to me for help, I said, "Tartufo!" (in my best Italian accent, complete with Italian hand movements - about as stereotypical as you can get). The man's face lit up and he said, "Oh - tartufo!" although he still didn't know where we could find it. Those Italians - can't speak without their hands.

So we again walked past the Trevi Fountain and managed to find a restaurant with tartufo on the menu. By now, it was about 3 and in between meals, so we were the only ones at the restaurant, except for all the waiters and cooks, who were all smoking at the next table over (another sign of the mafia, yes, I know, but they had tartufo). We ordered (you can guess what) and the waiter brought Lizzie a chocolate tartufo and me and vanilla. They were excellent and worth the time we spent looking for them. We ended up chilling at this restaurant for quite a while, just eating and talking, and an hour and half later we decided we should go be productive. So we left (after paying with handfuls of coins, miscounting by 10 cents, of which the mafia waiter quickly reminded us) and headed in the direction of the Pantheon. We stopped to take pictures of some more Roman columns at my insistence, and ended up talking to this Italian man, who told us that he's lived in Rome his whole life and loves it. After chatting for a bit, we continued on our way, only to be stared at by a creepy, definitely in the mafia man ("Ciao," he said, while staring me down - I ran away) and stopped by another guy, Tac, who was advertising a different pub crawl from the one yesterday. After we listened to his speech, we finally made it to the Pantheon. By this time it was dark, so we didn't see the light shining through the ceiling, but it was pretty spiffy, anyway. We took pictures of all the cool things and then left, deciding to just wander and see what we could find.

The first thing we saw was a Danish store, which had all sorts of Danish Christmas stuff on display. Lizzie (who is a Danish citizen herself) explained some of the stuff to me before we continued on. In Denmark, families hold hands in a circle around the Christmas tree and sing carols. I can't picture my family doing that, so I guess it's a good thing we're not Danish. We then stopped at a high end modern interior design store, where we felt really out of place, and continued north until we hit the Tiber River. We stopped at various churches and passed a weird modern art display set up along the street. We then walked through one of the expensive shopping districts where we saw some street performers (I said: "They would be perfect if they were in Italy. Oh wait. . .") and a book signing for some Italian author neither of us had heard of (he must have been famous though, there was a line around the block).

We then decided that since we hadn't stopped eating all day, why stop now? We started looking for a restaurant for dinner, which was surprisingly hard to do, (I assumed every other building in Italy was a restaurant) and after about a half an hour, finally unearthed one. We were the only ones there, but we ordered calzones, which were gigantic and really good and then we chilled while the owner of the restaurant watched the Italian Who Wants to be a Millionaire on TV. We headed out after paying and suddenly found ourselves at the Trevi Fountain again. We stopped to get crepes (I'm not kidding when I say that we didn't stop eating all day) and I got a lemon and sugar crepe, which was delectable. Lizzie got a banana and Nutella crepe and was a mess before she was halfway through. Those crepes are very leaky and I would have had Nutella all over me if I had ordered Lizze's crepe (I had Nutella all over my arm anyway, which I still haven't figured out. . .)

As we eating by the fountain, four Italians guys appeared out of nowhere and struck up a conversation with the little English they knew, (one comment directed at Lizzie was, "Your eyes are very. . . oriental." They also couldn't keep the words bedroom and bathroom straight, neither of which were acceptable under the circumstances). Their names were Guiseppe, Carlo, Fedele, and Miguel and they were all quite friendly and, I think, a little drunk. Fedele managed to get my phone number out of my phone and soon after, Lizzie and I managed to make an escape to the nearby McDonalds, claiming the need for a bathroom, (even though they offered us the use of both the bedroom/bathroom at their houses).

After hiding in McDonalds for a few minutes and checking out the rooftop terrace (McDonalds in Europe are much nicer than in the US) we slowly snuck back to Trevi, hoping the Italians had gone, (they had interrupted our planned photo shoot). We didn't see them anywhere, so we headed down to the benches near the fountain, which I was creeped out about. Another story Tad had told us on our tour was about a man who had been pushed out the window above the fountain and died. He was the nephew of the Pope at the time, and although the fall had obviously been a murder, the Pope declared it a suicide (as the guy was a bit of a loose cannon, and the Church didn't want anything to do with him). Afterwards, people reported seeing the man's ghost in the window from which he fell and also around the fountain, so the government actually closed off the room and walled up the window, painting the wall to keep the symmetry above the fountain. We had positioned ourselves right in this general location.

We had a nice long photo shoot, in which I used up most of what was left on my memory card and then we walked back to the hostel. In this amount of time, I had already received one phone call and one text from Fedele and since then I have received about 10 more calls and another text which said, "You think me?" I have not answered any of these. Geez, those Italians are persistent.

Día Uno en Roma

(An open-air market in Roma, Italia)

Well, hello there. As you may have noticed, I am behind on my blogging. Because I didn't have internet access and/or time in Rome and London, I have over a week of fun-filled activities to catch you up on. This may take a while.

Thursday, December 10th

I set my alarm for 3 am because I needed to walk to Lizzie's residencia by 4:45. Unfortunately, I woke up at about 3:45, as I think Morning Gigi has begun to take revenge on the alarm clock. I woke up thinking it was already 4:45 and that the alarm was Lizzie calling me to ask where I was. I was calling Lizzie to apologize when I realized that in fact, I still had an hour before I needed to meet her. I still needed to hurry, though, and had to skip breakfast to make it to Lizzie's on time (which did not improve Morning Gigi's mood). I headed down Paseo de Castellana, passing only one person along the way and turning off only one street lamp (for those of you who don't know - street lamps have a mysterious habit of turning off when I walk under them - it happens a few times each week. Unnerving, I know). I only got lost once and after waiting outside the wrong house for a few minutes, Lizzie appeared out of another door and we hopped in the waiting taxi to the airport.

By the time we got to the airport, the security check-in was open and we got in line. I got through with no problem, but Lizzie's boots kept setting off the alarms. She had to take them off and got back in the end of the line (we were too tired to realize that she could have just walked through the metal detectors again, and not go all the way back to the end of the line - but no worries - we had time to kill). After touring the duty-free stores for a few minutes, we sat down at one of the restaurants for breakfast (a cheese baguette and milk) and a planning session. Then we ran over to the gate and got in the passport/ticket line, with me still clutching my half-eaten baguette. As we were waiting, Lizzie nearly fell over. She had on her huge travel backpack and leaned against an open door which she thought was a wall. She nearly fell through and would have landed on her backpack with her feet in the air - turtle style.

We finally got on the plane and I got a much-needed hour of sleep. We circled the Italian coast, which was really pretty, and landed in Rome. We were wandering through the airport, looking for an exit, when we saw what looked like a promising passport check gate. We got in line, and when we got to the desk and showed the woman our passports, the woman asked us where we were going. We replied that we were going to Rome, and she said, "You're already in Rome. That's the door over there." Oh. So we walked through that door and eventually found the train that would take us to the center of the city. We bought our tickets, which said in about 17 different places that we needed to validate the ticket before use. I suggested to Lizzie that maybe we should investigate this validation process, which seemed to have something to do with the yellow machines that were everywhere. But the ticket was smaller than the machine's slot, and Lizzie didn't want to stick our tickets in and lose them, so she decided we could just get on the train. I did not like this idea, but didn't want to lose my ticket either. The train left and we saw the ticket-man coming up our aisle, checking everyone's tickets. I was terrified - one of my fears in life is the mafia, and my general avoidance strategy has always been to never make an Italian angry. That was about to come to an end. He took our tickets, looked at them, looked at us, and waved them around while saying something in Italian. He then walked away, mumbling in Italian, while my stomach continued to flip.

We got off the train and walked for about five minutes to our hostel. We checked in and went up to our room. It wasn't anything exciting, but the window looked out onto an authentic Italian courtyard, which was nice. We were starved by this point, and walked back out onto the street, looking for a restaurant. We found one and sat down and started perusing the menu. So many pastas, so little time! I decided on gnocchi with meat sauce and Lizzie got a pizza with eggplant. Other items I was choosing between were rigatoni with cheese and chestnuts and a strawberry risotto (which seemed curious enough to be good). We shared a strawberry parfait for dessert and realized we had been at the restaurant for over two hours. The waiter was really friendly and funny and the restaurant was authentic - we were the only ones speaking English. We then walked back to the hostel to have the front desk people look over our plans and help us decide what we should do that day. The woman at the hostel eliminated almost everything on our schedule, saying things were too far, closed, or boring. But she did help us create a new plan, and sent us on our way. We also signed up for the night tour of Rome, which we would do later that night.

So we headed towards central Rome to get ourselves oriented. We passed some old Roman ruins, about which I was pretty excited, (Lizzie tells me I have an obsession with Roman ruins, which I feel is completely understandable) and found an open air market. We looked through all the stands and had a nice long conversation with these two guys who were selling ties. We also asked them how to say all the important phrases in Italian, so they were quite helpful. We kept walking, stopping at a church and some fountains. We eventually found the Spanish Steps, and chilled there for a while. Apparently, for about a month in Rome, there are these bird swarms reminiscent of Hitchcock's Birds, but less violent. It has something to do with the weather, but thousands of birds meet up in Rome and fly in swarms around the city. So from the Spanish Steps, we had this great overview of the city, complete with the clouds of birds. We were approached by an Australian who was trying to get Lizzie and I to come to a pub crawl that night and then by a boy from Louisiana who had been trailing us for a while, (who I think was just lonely and heard some English-speakers). We looped back around towards Piazza Repubblica (the main square in Rome) and stopped for dinner on Via Nazionale. I got a pasta carbonara and Lizzie got a pizza with Italian ham (that was bigger than the plate on which it was served). Yay for Italian food!

We then waited in front of the church, Santa Maria degli Angeli, (which used to be a Roman bath-house/recreation center) for the night tour to start. The tour guide was already there, and introduced himself as Tad, who is also from the US. A few more people showed up, (two Australian guys and another American) and off we went. I really liked the tour (we saw the Fontana del Tritone, Fontana del Trevi, Spanish Steps, some obelisks - there are more in Rome than in all of Egypt, and the Hotel Bernini from The DaVinci Code, among other things), because Tad didn't just talk about the history, he talked about all sorts of interesting stuff, too. For example, at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, there is a statue of a ship, which was created because the French and Spanish embassies (both nearby), couldn't decide whether a French or Spanish monument should be built there, so they eventually agreed upon a ship, as the area flooded frequently (this was only one of the many arguments held between the French and Spanish embassies, who weren't the best of friends). At the top of the Spanish steps is a large obelisk, which was put in place using huge cranes. It was one man's job to make sure the whole thing was centered, and when he gave the command to drop the obelisk, he sneezed and grabbed the base of the obelisk to hold his balance. Unfortunately, the obelisk then dropped on his hand, which the workers had to cut off, and which is still stuck in the obelisk under a whole lot of plaster and detail work. Another story is at the Piazza Navona, where the famous 17th century sculptor/architect Bernini and his arch-nemesis Borromini were both given building contracts. Bernini was mad that Borromini got a contract for an entire church when all Bernini got was a contract for a fountain in the piazza. So the figures on his fountain are shielding their eyes so that they don't have to look at the atrocious church and also have their hands out as if to protect themselves from the church's fall. The only figure on the church is also built so that she doesn't need to look at the ugly fountain.

Our tour ended in the Piazza Navona, and Lizzie and I stopped in a bar for the bathroom, where it turns out that the bartender was Canadian - so we talked for a while. Then we headed back out to Piazza Navona and looked through all the stalls that were set up for a Christmas festival. Then we decided we wanted hot chocolate and actually found a place right on the man street. We sat down and ordered hot chocolate with limoncello (I was disappointed to find out that this establishment had ruined all of their hot chocolates by putting liquors in them). We got one right away, but after 10 minutes, they still hadn't given us the second drink. I went up to the counter and got the waitress' attention, but when she came over, I realized that I didn't know any of the relevant words in Italian. I stared at her and said, "No. . ." and she then said that she spoke English. But then I couldn't remember any of my English words, either, so that was a problem. Eventually I got the message across and she brought us our other hot chocolate. I don't know how you mess up hot chocolate, but these drinks were nasty. The chocolate tasted burnt and the limoncello didn't help anything. We paid and left without finishing.

We caught a bus back to the hostel, which was terrifying. Italian drivers are not inhibited by the fact that they are driving full-sized buses, so Lizzie and I were holding on for dear life. When we got back to our room at the hostel, we met two of the other kids in our room, Scott and Michelle, two American students that Lizzie knew from one of her classes at Carlos III. Go figure. By this point, we were exhausted and pretty much passed out right away.