Today I explore Rome until it was time for me to go to the Vatican for the museum at night tour. That will be "Second Day in Rome-Vatican". But here's a few pics. When I get back stateside I will have full galleries of all the places I've been if you've noticed the other pages dedicated to cities but there aren't any pics up yet. I had access to a computer but the internet was so slow that I was only able to load like 9 pic of Venice and I gave up in that.( But two more weeks. I promise Mac. I'll get you more. )
The Vatican museum at night where they charge you to see the stuff they've "acquisitioned" over the centuries from other places and cultures. So much for worldly possessions. There was a lot and you know they have even more not on display. Sorry I didn't get a chance to edit/crop the pictures. I usually get all the "people out of them but time constraints and such. Well I'm on my way to the Colisuem. Today I didn't really have any plans. The vatican is tommorow and coliseum on Saturday. So I ended up renting a bike. Yeah for the fourth time and roamed around a bit mostly in this huge park here. Thank you dead lifts for my powerful a leg muscle last that helped me go up and down the hills. The worse part of going downhil is knowing you had to go back up. This scene looked like a mating call. The one behind (Male?) followed the one in front (female) around bobbing his head and doing what looked like a dance? I had my earphone on so I didn't heard anything. And these wasn't the only set doing these. I wish I would've thought to record it. Maybe I'll head back tomorrow to see if I see it again. It might just be that time of year. Oh... Get over it. YES!! I'm taking picture if flowers and birds. These are flowers and birds in EUROPE. So today marks the official 2 week mark where I am at the halfway point in my adventure. I have access to a computer here in Rome which is a bit easier than using my ipad thought the keyboard is a little different. Why do things have to be different. Why must there be different plugs for everything, even the keyboard, It's still the alphabet as we know it but hte commas, apostrophes and @ are located in different places, so must for me typing without looking at the keyboard. At least a little bit. When I finally made it to hopped straight into the "L" as those in Chicago calls it bypassing the cities toward the ruin town of Oplontis and then Pompeii. Did you know that there was more than one town that was covered and in a sense perserved during the volcano. Oplontis is a small portion but big wbought to have what would considered an Olympic sized pooled in the "backyard". Nice paintings as well. After that the next stop was pompeii. One can get list in this city. Reading in history books can not convey the size of this thing. You get a map that divided the town into regions and the blocks. Luckily they have marking such as Regio IV and whatever the section you were in so you didn't get lost. Well kinda. Maybe I should have broke out the compass to make sure I was the going the right direction. Sure you could have figure out were you were based on the intersection but as far as direction. Well that was just trial and error. I found the sight that I was looking for. The cast of the people who were buried in the ash and the outline of their bodies preserved. And since when excited the archaeologusy inserted liquid plaster to have an outline of the bodies. Here's what the books doesn't tell you there are 14 bodies and about have of then are children. It was a little sad to see the little bodies. There were distinct females as well. But you will see the pictures. Made it back to the train station earlier than planned and had to wait for my train since I had to have a reservation. Decided to grab something to eat. Apparently Napoli is home of the pizza. I went out the train station trying to find a good restaurant to sit and eat since I havebt done so in Italy yet. No such luck and frankly I didn't really feel comfortable walking around. Who would have thought I would feel safer in Chicago. One thing I can say is that here in Italy they actively try to sell you stuff. Not just people on the streets but in well established stores. Umm no. Why do I need to go into a suit store. Got back to the train station and bought a little snack to eat. Was able to connect to the McDonald's wifi since I was sitting close to it and yay after some finagling I got my dugeons and uppers tour for the collesium. Which means I had to push back my train ticket to bari. the original plan was to not maybe not spend the night un in bari and take to ferry that night but with this train in missing that ferry. So then in not gonna make my reservation for Sunday night. And now I can. Cancel it. I had to 14 days In advance or be charged the first night. Damn. I rennet another had done this and I promptly canceled then but apparently this slipped my attention. Oh well. It will be worth it to see that dugeons of the collesium. So I met another friendly stranger and thus one did not speak English. He ended up resorted to drawing pictures in my. Journal as a way to attempt conversation. He even gave me his number and asked for mine. How would we even communicate when the only speaks Italian. Oh yea he's 53. I know. But hey. I entertained him. Gave me something to do for 1 1/2 hours. Frankly I think he franked and smoked a little too much in his younger years and that interfered with his mental capacity. I had an interesting story to tell, a picture conversation as well as two other pictures. Lesson of the day: do not write in public. There must be something about me intently writing in my journal that had to draw two men to want talk to me. One called me beautiful and the other said Bella (beautiful/sweat heart)many times. Ummm yea, no more writing in public. I'll just stick to people watching with my headphones one. Just a little taste of Oplontis. And then pompeii My second friendly stranger. Goodbye Venice, hello Florence. This is not a vacation. Far from it. The thought occurred to me after talking to my little sister last night. Vacations are relaxing and stress free. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying myself but I'm an tired. Yea I know I've reached the halfway point and I still have Mt Olympus to climb. I think it's Italy that's stressing me out. What with the trains reservations even though I have a rail pass. Ireland didn't require them though I knew the train I wanted to take I knew that if I missed it I could just hop in the next one. I am tired Carbs makes one tired. I love bread but I love vegetables and meat as well. Can I find a salad to go? I'm also dehydrated. Not in the literal sense but I'm not drinking my usual amount of water. Not that's its hard to find. Why?? Two reasons. First public restroom are not readily available. Second when you do find one here in Italy as well as France. You have to pay to use it. Talk about inconvinent. So right now I'm at my hostel with a liter of water drinking away trying to catch up with what I did not drink earlier. On to stupidity..., I no longer have my iphone 4. Someone else has the privilege of having it although it's in lost mode right now. So hopefully they won't be able to use it at all especially since Apple added a new security feature that requires your appleid to reset or restore it. So I guess they can use it for scrape parts. Maybe. I'm not really concerned. I did by myself a big waffle cone of gelato to make myself feel better. For a second I thought about using old fashion maps bug then I changed my mind and decide to use my "real" phone and egg a international data plan. As long as I put it in airplane mode and turn off all the automatic updates the plan I bought should last me two weeks. I hope. Oh yeah the stupidity part. I set my phone on a bridge to take a picture. Then walked farther down to get another angle and I kept walking. It took me about a min to realize I never picked my phone back up. Went back and Nope it wasn't there. So yeah that was stupid of me. I rented another bike today and roamed around the city for a few hours. Took some pics of statues. These lions are gonna be the death of me. Before I'm done I'm gonna dedicate a whole blog to then. Until then..... Europe is trying to kill me.... Been meaning to write this for a while. Every since I landed in France I am going to die of second hand smoke. Dog owners are allowed to take their dogs everywhere. In all stores even on the trains. Are you freaking serious? No major asthma attacks yet. Only had to use my inhaler twice since Friday. Anyway in in Venice. The city whose streets is water with water buses. Got here last night. And with water comes mosquitoes. Still have bites from Kilarney national park when I forgot to use insect repellen before entering. Damage was already done before I got it out my bag. So much for me not scratching. Did not take pics last night. Carrying too much baggage. But I will tonight. Didn't have a plan in particular. Just roamed the streets. Met a few dead ends but I didn't get lost since I wasn't trying to go anywhere in particular. Had gelato and pizza for lunch. In that order. Then finally went back to the hostel. Since I can! I am tired. But I have some catching up to do with these post and my journal plus planning my next few days. Ireland was a breeze because I planned everything whole still in the states and there was an abundant supply of internet while on the trains to my next destination. Italy is not so convinent. Luckily the wifi here at the generator is awesome. Did I mention how much the wifi in Nice sucked. Any way. Pics below. And yes. I did buy a mask. The things I go through to get some vegetable. No I'm not vegetarian. Yes it okay that the lasagna has meat in it. I'm not vegetarian. I just wanted some veggies. Whew..... Sunday May 25, 2014 My hostel was up a hill. Much easier walking down it than walking up especially since the bus I figured out that ran that path and how I got to the city center Friday and Saturday after checking in, does not run on Sundays. Luckily there was one that did and it left at 6:20am. It will be close to make my 6:55 train but I did. Can't wait to review that hostel cause I will not recommend it at all!! Stood 5pm checkin and not being allowed into you room between 10-5. No key to the room and did I tell you that when I got back to the room at 6 something Saturday night the door was wide open. Are you kidding me? At least I take all my important stuff with me in my small bag. Nice to ventimiglia and the on to milan. Unfortunately there was no border check so I don't gave a Italy stamp only passport. Hmmm. I'm tempted to go to the airport and see if they will stamp it for me. A pit stop to milan along the way to Venice. Interesting. Went to a electronic ticket station to get a pass for a few hours to go where I wanted to. And there's a helpful lady whose help wasn't necessarily wanted since the machine could be used in English. She started pushing buttons for me and I told her I didn't need her help. No is universal. But anyway. 4.50 for a day pass even through I was only staying for a few hours it the way to go for unlimited rides(just incase one gets lost-not me-but who knows). I start to use coins since 1 & 2 euro are coins here ( I hate it. Too much noise jiggling in my pocket) she proceeds to tell me no I must use paper bills. Point to the machine and she had the neve to cancel on me. Take my coin out of the machine and give it back to me. I took it and walked away to another machine across the hall. I get to push the buttons all by myself but again as I try to put coins in the machine another girls comes over to me. Now I'm a little pissed. I damn near screamed at her "No" with my hand like get out the way. I finally got my ticket. I do feel a bit sorry for them because I know that is probay the only way they can make money probably by someone putting a bill in the machine and because they help they get the change. Sorry I'm on a budget. Plus the first rule of survival. Self preservation. My first stop was the piazza de duomo to see the Milan Cathedral. As I research online to figure out where I wanted to go plus any reviews or tips about it. I was interested. Especially since there are supposed to be guys there with strings that they supposedly start to tied to your hand unsuspectly and demand payment for these friendship bracelets. I saw the guys but not one tried to put anything on my hand. Maybe I didn't look like a unsuspecting victim. Tough I was itching to try out the self defense method I learned if someone grabbed your wrist. Maybe it's just as well. There are lots of pigeons. I even took a few pictures. And I guy try to sell me bird seed to feed then "for good luck" oh mind. In just smiling and walking away wondering who actually falls for this type of stuff. I bought my first taste of gelato (yum) and headed over to sforza Castello (castle). Not like Ireland's castle but just as well. I paid to view the museums inside, outside was free . No pic allowed and at first I followed that rule especially since there seemed to be guards standing in the rooms until I saw other people taking pictures and the guards said nothing. So I took a few as well. Finally back to the train. There was supposed to be internet. There wasn't. Uncomfortable seating arrangements. Between ventimiglia and milan it was Harry potter train style seats in little room. Assigned and I was in the middle. Ugh!!! From milan to Venice, the seats faced each other in sets of four. Maybe it's the American in me but I rather look at the back of a seat then some stranger. Yea yea I'm supposed to be friend but they don't speak English and I don't ds peak their language. Not Italian, not French, among others. Now for the pics. On to Sforza's castle.... |