Bella Notte

When we last left our intrepid adventurers, before the aforementioned barfapalooza, we had just come back from a long day of sight-seeing. We took to our beds for a rest, and then for dinner at our hotel's roof terrace overlooking the city. It was stunning. Rome doesn't have any super tall buildings, so you can see for miles and miles (or kilometers and kilometers) and we drank delightful cocktails and ate these light fancy ham sammiches, and watched the sun setting.

At one point, a seagull landed on the roof with us, by our table, and walked over to where it had stashed an ash tray, which it started picking up and banging down. This idiot woman next to us thought it would be a good idea to reward that behaivor with food, and suddenly our seagull let out this ear splitting squawking. Not to brag or anything, but I have seen many a seagull in my time, and I have never in my life heard anything like the noise coming out of one. Have you seen the Little Mermaid? You know that part when Scuttle the seagull start serenading Ariel and Eric in the boat in an attempt to start up some sweet sweet love? That was the noise coming out of this bird (note--Lizzie pointed out that there was a mermaid weathervane by the birds--it probably was Scuttle.) This piercing ululating was a call to its friends, who showed up, mafia like, looking for their cut of our dinner. A waiter came out to swat at them, but they just took a step back, waiting...it was seriously creepy. When no more food was forthcoming, they banged the ashtray a few more times in a threatening manner, and then took off. Probably to poop in our water at the restaurant the next day.

Vomitus Maximus

Today started off like the set-up of the most traumatizing porno ever. We had to be ready to leave by 8:30, and I was not feeling well. I thought perhaps I had drank too much red wine last night, and there was much self-admonishment as Lizzie went down to get breakfast (and to alert the front desk that we had no toilet paper) and I stumbled into the shower. Once I was out, I heard a knock on the door, and, figuring it was Lizzie, ran towel-wrapped to let her in. CUE THE CHEESY PORN MUSIC. Upon opening the door, I discovered that it was a handsome hotel clerk, holding two rolls of toilet paper. Neither of us say anything as I stick out an arm (the one not holding my towel in place) take said toilet paper, immediately turn, run into the bathroom and vomit violently. Sexy, no? Lizzie comes back, and at this point she's feeling okay, so I foolishly chalk my illness up to a hangover, and drag my sweaty self onto the bus to Sorrento. I don't remember the hour and a half ride (but I do remember that Gary wouldn't stop talking about food, which was making me feel worse). When we get to Sorrento, Lizzie and I sit in a cafe, me groaning the whole time, unable to even drink the gingerale I had ordered. We decided then to skip out on the optional excursion down the Amalfi coast as I felt so awful, and waited in that cafe until it was time to grab the bus back home two hours later.

Fun Fact: If you feel like you are going to be sick on a bus, it is important to think ahead and bring the paper "for soiled lady products" bag with you.

The bus ride back to our hotel was a decidely horrific experience. The Amalfi coast road (which I will get to in a subsequent post) is windy and deadly with a precipitous drop on one side, and formiddable rock on the other. It's so curvy that drivers have to honk while going around corners so as not to ram into one another. I alternately felt feverish and freezing, and suddenly Lizzie started to look as bad as I felt, and I realized (duh) that I didn't have a hang over, we both had food poisoning. Yay. Gary of course yakked about food the whole ride, and then told this story about a person on his tour who hit his head, split it open, didn't realize it and crawled into bed subsequently bleeding for half the night (he was okay after 17 stitches) but I am already a squeamish mofo, and I thought I was going to die. The only thing Lizzie and I consumed in common was some water at a beautiful little restaurant in Ravello, which we now realize was probably tap water. There must've been some unfamiliar bacteria in it, and so, we have spent the past seven hours cycling between being passed out in bed, or crawling to the bathroom to dry heave. This is depressing, as it is beautiful out, and our room has its own patio. I really hope this bastard works its way out of our systems by tomorrow, because, as you know, it's my birthday, not my barfday, and I prefer not to spend it jockeying with my buddy for primo toilet position. I haven't eaten in nearly 12 hours, and there has not been even the slightest nod from my stomach that, perhaps some dry crackers would be okay. This is not encouraging. Time to dwell on our previous adventures.

P.S. The above picture shows the poisonous water. As Lizzie could probably tell you, that pizza may look delicious going down, but not so much coming up. Mine had anchovies on it. Yeah.

If it's not Baroque, then it's not the Trevi Fountain

Legend has it that if you toss a coin in here, you'll come back to Rome. I am going to start a new legend that says if you give me five dollars, you will also come back to Rome. (Five dollars poorer.) Also, damn, the citizens of Rome must be sick of all us tourists everywhere. Sure, the money is nice, but you can't even enjoy the fountain because there are too many damn people. They should change the legend to say "if you throw a coin in the Trevi fountain, your ear will fall off." Related, we have these "whisper" headsets we have to wear while on tour, and they are super annoying. I am left eared, and there's only one ear piece, fitted specifically for the right ear. I call bullshit.

My job? Fighting to the death. What's yours?

On the top you'll see a picture of a bunch of tourists (THERE ARE SO MANY OF US) in front of Constantine's arch. Constantine was the Emperor who legalized Christianity in the 4th century. On the right, you'll see the Colosseum, where, pre legalization, the Christians were fed to lions. After the great fire in AD 64, Nero expanded the area (adding a nice statue of himself, of course), and in 80 AD, Titus (famous for his sacking of Jerusalem) celebrated the completion of the top floor by killing 9,000 animals (and Gabriella said 3,000 people as well) to the delight of the crowds in some inaugural games. I know it's a different mind set, but I can't imagine crowding in through the gates (labeled with Roman numerals so you could find your seat) to see a bunch of people being forced to murder each other, or to be eaten by animals, or to see animals getting killed.

You had to climb this killer set of super steep death-stairs to get to the top, from where I took the picture on the bottom, which, LOOKS LIKE A VAGINA! WOOT! This area was originally underneath a wooden floor which was covered in sand (arena being the Latin word for sand). These corridors or rooms would've held the gladiators or animals waiting to compete. They've found no evidence of latrines in the Colosseum (they think they were outside of it somewhere) but that's okay, because if I were a Gladiator, I just would've peed my skirt in fear. I would've been the saddest Gladiator ever, not brave, like the Gladiators of today.

When in Rome...Spout Stupid Cliches About Rome!

Lizzie and I have been keeping track of the cliches. Thus far we have heard

All Roads Lead to Rome

When In Rome...

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

We will add to this as we go along, should any others be introduced...

(These are some temple ruins outside the Colosseum...looking good, Venus!)

Because you Vatican can can!

Went to the Vatican this morning! Above is a cupola designed by Michelangelo, an also a marble crocodile, because it is awesome. We met with a new guide Gabriella, who was a super adorable lady of a certain age who told us excellent jokes, my favorite being:

Q. How does the Pope fly to his summer residence?

A. In a holy-copter.

Mua ha ha! Excellent.

We got to the Vactican around 8:20, and took a tour of the museum which has a huge collection of marble statues and tapestries. Rome, as we all know, was a very stabby place, and there is a super creepy series of tapestries showing Herod killing the boy babies back in the day. Fun! Past there some of us took a bathroom break (or, as Gabriella would say, the Holy Pee) and the rest of us filed in for an early look at the Sistene chapel. One is not allowed to take photos in the Chapel, which is gorgeous, obviously, but people are dumb, and do it anyway, so I counted the number of times the guards had to yell "NO PHOTOS" in a 25 minute span, and it topped 29 by the time I left. When they weren't yelling NO PHOTOS, they were yelling "SSSSSSHHHH," which, ironically, was louder than the talking. After the Sistene Chapel, we went to St. Peter's Basilica (Gabriella: "Where is Saint Peter? You are standing on him! Ha ha!") and saw the Pieta, which is a gorgeous sculpture of Mary holding Jesus's body post crucifixion, by Michelangelo, of course. It's such a beautiful piece, but because of the crowds I couldn't get a decent picture. Here, check it out!

The Basilica is massive, and has tons of gorgeous art, and (guess who was raised in a Protestant religion?) all I could imagine was Jesus coming down to visit and being like "dude, seriously?" Jesus, being perfect and all, probably would've been more eloquent, but as Lizzie and I discussed, though we can totally understand the desire to praise your God with ostentatious buildings, Jesus was a humble guy, an probably would've been squicked out by the excess (and have given it all to the poor). Anyway, you all know how I like to write songs, so I sang this one to Lizzie the whole time we were walking around, which I'm sure she enjoyed: "Jesus Jesus, Jesus Jesus! Jesus Jesus, Jesus Jesus! Jesus!" It's pretty catchy, and I'll be sure to make a recording for you all when I get back.

Okay, time for a pause. Our hotel room is really pretty, but it smells like sewer gas. I was typing this entry and I was like "Damn it smells like shit again" and I thought I'd let you know. Our bathroom, for all its sewer gas smell, has a bidet. FANCY.

After the Basilica, we had lunch, and then headed out to the Colosseum. Rarr!

Rome If You Want to...

Sooo...tired...

Hello friends! It's been one heckuva long day. We flew out of Boston at 10:55 pm, and our hosts on Air France were clearly into torture via sleep deprivation, because they kept waking us up every 15 minutes:

*poke* Please put down your window shade
*poke* Did you put down your window shade?
*poke* Do you want this creepy plastic cup full of airplane risotto?
*poke* Please put up your window shade
*poke* Do you want this blueberry muffin? It has exactly one blueberry in it, etc.

This torture by sleep deprivation was paired with an even more insidious torture, so horrifying it grieves me to share it with you, but it's a burden Lizzie and I just cannot bear alone. Those of you who are squeamish may wish to look away. While our eyeballs, dry from dehydration, were forced to remain open by the aforementioned prodding, the Air France flight crew cruelly put on the worst possible movie, a movie so terrible it has been added to the Geneva Convention as an inhumane treatment of prisoners of war, that movie being "Never Say Never," starring Justin Bieber.

What the fuck? Who thought that would be the best movie to show on a crowded airplane which had very few tweens on it? Had I the strength, I would've thrown myself out a window, but I was too tired to crack the glass. The plane itself was a double decker, a la the plane in "Snakes on a Plane," which is clearly a far superior movie to "Never Say Never." Yes, middle class Canadian boy, your life has surely been plauged with challenges. You're so brave. Ugh.

We got to Paris around 11:30am (5:30am Boston time) and ran through Charles De Gaulle Airport, making it to our gate for our 2:05pm flight to Rome. We finally landed here about 5:10pm (in a hay field, oddly) and sat in traffic, finally making it to our hotel by 6:10. There we met Gary, our tour guide, who hails from Providence. He told us that we'd have to get back down for dinner by 6:30 (my kingdom for a shower) and then handed us our key. Turns out they gave us the wrong room number, and we tried to break into someone else's room. When the occupant opened, we awkwardly had to explain that we had to kill her because we'd been programmed by Justin Bieber to do so. That being settled, Lizzie went back downstairs, got our real room number, and we quickly changed and ran downstairs to meet our group.

We've made friends already with a family from Providence (WTF Rhode Island?) and a lady who's on her own from Mississippi. We were talking to our Mississippi friend about our rush to get here, and this other crabby woman was like "OH YOU WERE THE ONES WHO WERE LATE? GLAD I STOOD MY GROUND." Foolishly, we thought that meant she had insisted that our tour group remain until we had landed and joined them before taking off for dinner, but she went on to say that she had bullied Gary into promising to leave by 6:30 whether Lizzie and I had made it in or not. Consider yourself our Italy trip Nemesis, Evil!Anne. Before we made it to the restaurnt, we saw the Spainsh Square and the Spanish Steps. At the restaurant we ate a huge meal of food, me having a pile of meat wrapped in more meat, with bread and pasta to boot. The best part about our table was that we were with two teenagers who couldn't drink, so I had to have their share of wine. Lizzie was difficult, and wanted VEGETABLES, and was led away by this delightful octogenrian to the veggie buffet, which I thought was Italian slang for "I'm going to murder you." Luckily she came through the eperience unharmed, and avec vegetables. Tomorrow is the Vatican, et al. I will try to be more coherent then. Buona Serra!

(And I was like baby baby baby OHHH, like baby baby baby Nooooo!)