Ciao bella...
So, it's a little late, but as promised, my amazing trip to Italy
First off, I apparently can't travel to continental Europe without some sort of physical drama. The Sunday before I left for Spain I passed out in the bathroom and was taken to the emergency room. This time around, I waited till I was on the plane and almost there before passing out in the aisle by the bathroom. This is what happens when your flight attendant doesn't bring you water. Add that to my list of why US Air sucks. They also don't give you sleep masks, make you pay for the crappy head sets ($5 or 5 euro, which is not a fair deal at all), and then take those headsets up at the end of the flight. So anyway, after I assured half the plane I was ok, and got some water, we landed and went through the easiest customs ever.
We couldn't check into our hotel yet, which sucked cause I desperately wanted a shower and quick nap. Instead we wandered around in a jet -lagged haze for some food until we had to leave for the Vatican. We discovered that they don't know what pepperoni is and got a salami pizza. We left to walk to the Vatican where we had a guided tour by some Catholic seminarians (priests-in-training I called them) which was cool. It was interesting to get that perspective instead of the touristy perspective. We walked through the museum and the Sistine Chapel, which was amazing. I wish I could have taken pictures. Then we walked through the crypt, which was kinda cool to see where Peter is buried. We walked through St. Peter's Basilica where I think our priest-in-training got in trouble for talking to much. But it was really pretty inside and the Pieta is my favorite sculpture ever. Then our amazing priests-in-training got us tickets to some big thing that the pope was going to be at. So we got to see the pope! Which was cool, even though he was very far away and tiny. After that we had a big group dinner and then I passed out.
The next day we had a guided walking tour of Rome with a crazy Italian dude named Antonini. It was kinda cool especially because we talked about a lot of this stuff in my history class last semester. We saw the Piazza Navona where they used have fake naval battles, the Pantheon but we couldn't go in because they were about to start mass (in what used to be a pagan temple, yes), some government buildings, the Trevi Fountain (I threw in two coins so I will one day return to Rome married), the Monumento a Vittorio, the forums, and of course the Colosseum. It's really cool to just walk around all this stuff that's 2,000 years old. After we walked through the Colosseum we went up on Palantine Hill which was were Rome first began. So the ruins up there are even older. And we could see Circus Maximus from up there which is where they had chariot races. After that we had free time so we went to the Spanish Steps, had dinner, walked around and looked at some of the places at night when they're lit up. I noticed a Temple Adriano on the map and wanted to see it (I have my own temple!), but when we finally found it, it was being renovated (so is a lot of other stuff in the off season). We had a few drinks near our hotel then hit the hay.
The next day we left for Florence, or Firenze as they call it (much cooler in my opinion) and we stopped in Orvieto on the way. It was a cool little town, built on a hill made of volcanic debris. There was a pretty cathedral and the ancient people that lived there built caves. They also built a freakin deep well to get the water, which we walked down...and back up. It was a lot of stairs. In the caves they had pigeon coops because they used to raise them as a food source for when they were under siege. Some restaurants still serve pigeon, I chickened out and didn't order it because our guide said she didn't like it, but I tried someone else's and it was really good. After wandering around a bit more, we left for Florence. We stayed at a really nice hotel there, we had a balcony that looked out at the Duomo and everything. That night was free. One guy on our trip spent the summer in Florence so a group of us followed him around so we didn't get lost. We split up to eat and it took our group like 10 minutes to figure out how to pay our check because the ATMs only give out big bills and it's hard to divide a check that way. After that we walked by the Duomo, up a big hill where you can see the whole city, and around the river before heading back because we had a 12:30 curfew with a sign in sheet and everything (more on that later).
The next day we went to the Accademia in the morning to see the David, which was really cool. Again, you couldn't take pictures. There was some other cool art in there as well, it's a school for people to come study art. Then we had a lunch at a Tuscan castle/winery (fancy I know). We toured the winery first and then had a 4 or 5 course meal complete with wine tasting. And by wine tasting I mean they gave us 3 bottles of wine plus a glass of two more. And I like wine a lot. And we had less people at our table. So it was a fun lunch. Then we could by the wine we tasted, which I did. Probably not a good idea to buy wine immediately after consuming quite a bit of it. But it was good. The bus ride back was a lot of fun since pretty much everyone was tipsy. When we got back we went shopping in the outdoor market where you can get some pretty good deals on stuff. After dinner we spent an hour trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our evening since we had to be back so frickin early. We went to a bar, but after one drink we had to head back (this is not the end of the curfew situation, it gets better)
The next day we toured to Ufizzi in the morning, which was amazing. I needed about 5 more hours. But we had a lunch planned, so that wasn't an option. After lunch, some people took a train to Pisa, which I considered but decided I'd rather see Florence. So we went to the Natural Science Museum and saw Galileo's telescope and a really cool display on optics from that time period. They also had Galileo's middle finger. We then went to St. Croce where Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and a bunch of other people are buried. Then we went back to the market for more shopping, ate dinner, and returned to the hotel to plan our night. We decided that giving college students in Italy on spring break a curfew was ridiculous (which it is) so were going to have one night out and they could deal with it. We signed the sheet before we left and actually had enough time out to enjoy ourselves, and got back around 1:30. No one was loud, no one was wasted, but the hotel desk dude told us to wait and called our "chaperon" who came downstairs and tried to scare the crap out of us by saying we signed a judicial agreement (the only think I signed was a medical form) and he was going to find out what kind of judicial action he could take against us and then tried to make us feel all guilty for disappointing him. For being out until 1:30...in Italy. This pissed me off. I think I spent an hour expressing my anger to my roommate. Plus, I knew he was full of crap, there's nothing he could really do about it and if they wanted to kick me out of Scholars now, I really could care less. I'm not 12, I don't have a curfew.
But anyway, the next day he acted as if nothing had happened although someone said they were discussing how disappointed they were at lunch. We went to Siena for the first part of the day, which was really cold and windy. We stood around in huddles like penguins warming eggs. They have a really crazy horse race here in the big town square with a crazy tight corner. They showed a video on the bus and horses were wiping out. There was another really nice cathedral there as well. And another church where they have St. Catherine's head...her actual head. It was a little creepy. We were supposed to get back in time to go in the Duomo, which is basically the icon of Florence. But we missed it by five minutes. I was a little upset, because if I had known I would have gone the day before. So we walked back up the hill to see Florence while there was still daylight before we met for our farewell dinner (PS the food everywhere was amazing). We had to be up the next day at 4AM to leave for Rome by 5. So a bunch of decided to just stay up all night. We played cards, listened to music, got an angry phone call from the same chaperon for waking him up (don't chose a career that requires looking after college kids if you don't want to be woken up), and took a shower before heading downstairs with all our crap. The rest of the disastrous end to the trip you already know.
So it was amazing, but there's so much I didn't get to do, which means I have to go back. When I don't have a curfew and other stupid rules.
And for your enjoyment, phrases from Cute Scottish Grad Student in the lab I work in:
"How much bloody buffer do we need"
"What happened to my wee little timer"
"Just bunk it in the incubator"
"It'll be the blind leading the partially sighted"
I will add to this list. The last one is in reference to when he totally screwed up the protein assay we were doing by not reading the protocol and asked me why I didn't use my protocol. I said I thought he knew what he was doing. Clearly not. It was amusing.
My future husband Nadal is about to lose, which makes me sad. He hasn't been playing well this year.
First off, I apparently can't travel to continental Europe without some sort of physical drama. The Sunday before I left for Spain I passed out in the bathroom and was taken to the emergency room. This time around, I waited till I was on the plane and almost there before passing out in the aisle by the bathroom. This is what happens when your flight attendant doesn't bring you water. Add that to my list of why US Air sucks. They also don't give you sleep masks, make you pay for the crappy head sets ($5 or 5 euro, which is not a fair deal at all), and then take those headsets up at the end of the flight. So anyway, after I assured half the plane I was ok, and got some water, we landed and went through the easiest customs ever.
We couldn't check into our hotel yet, which sucked cause I desperately wanted a shower and quick nap. Instead we wandered around in a jet -lagged haze for some food until we had to leave for the Vatican. We discovered that they don't know what pepperoni is and got a salami pizza. We left to walk to the Vatican where we had a guided tour by some Catholic seminarians (priests-in-training I called them) which was cool. It was interesting to get that perspective instead of the touristy perspective. We walked through the museum and the Sistine Chapel, which was amazing. I wish I could have taken pictures. Then we walked through the crypt, which was kinda cool to see where Peter is buried. We walked through St. Peter's Basilica where I think our priest-in-training got in trouble for talking to much. But it was really pretty inside and the Pieta is my favorite sculpture ever. Then our amazing priests-in-training got us tickets to some big thing that the pope was going to be at. So we got to see the pope! Which was cool, even though he was very far away and tiny. After that we had a big group dinner and then I passed out.
The next day we had a guided walking tour of Rome with a crazy Italian dude named Antonini. It was kinda cool especially because we talked about a lot of this stuff in my history class last semester. We saw the Piazza Navona where they used have fake naval battles, the Pantheon but we couldn't go in because they were about to start mass (in what used to be a pagan temple, yes), some government buildings, the Trevi Fountain (I threw in two coins so I will one day return to Rome married), the Monumento a Vittorio, the forums, and of course the Colosseum. It's really cool to just walk around all this stuff that's 2,000 years old. After we walked through the Colosseum we went up on Palantine Hill which was were Rome first began. So the ruins up there are even older. And we could see Circus Maximus from up there which is where they had chariot races. After that we had free time so we went to the Spanish Steps, had dinner, walked around and looked at some of the places at night when they're lit up. I noticed a Temple Adriano on the map and wanted to see it (I have my own temple!), but when we finally found it, it was being renovated (so is a lot of other stuff in the off season). We had a few drinks near our hotel then hit the hay.
The next day we left for Florence, or Firenze as they call it (much cooler in my opinion) and we stopped in Orvieto on the way. It was a cool little town, built on a hill made of volcanic debris. There was a pretty cathedral and the ancient people that lived there built caves. They also built a freakin deep well to get the water, which we walked down...and back up. It was a lot of stairs. In the caves they had pigeon coops because they used to raise them as a food source for when they were under siege. Some restaurants still serve pigeon, I chickened out and didn't order it because our guide said she didn't like it, but I tried someone else's and it was really good. After wandering around a bit more, we left for Florence. We stayed at a really nice hotel there, we had a balcony that looked out at the Duomo and everything. That night was free. One guy on our trip spent the summer in Florence so a group of us followed him around so we didn't get lost. We split up to eat and it took our group like 10 minutes to figure out how to pay our check because the ATMs only give out big bills and it's hard to divide a check that way. After that we walked by the Duomo, up a big hill where you can see the whole city, and around the river before heading back because we had a 12:30 curfew with a sign in sheet and everything (more on that later).
The next day we went to the Accademia in the morning to see the David, which was really cool. Again, you couldn't take pictures. There was some other cool art in there as well, it's a school for people to come study art. Then we had a lunch at a Tuscan castle/winery (fancy I know). We toured the winery first and then had a 4 or 5 course meal complete with wine tasting. And by wine tasting I mean they gave us 3 bottles of wine plus a glass of two more. And I like wine a lot. And we had less people at our table. So it was a fun lunch. Then we could by the wine we tasted, which I did. Probably not a good idea to buy wine immediately after consuming quite a bit of it. But it was good. The bus ride back was a lot of fun since pretty much everyone was tipsy. When we got back we went shopping in the outdoor market where you can get some pretty good deals on stuff. After dinner we spent an hour trying to figure out what to do with the rest of our evening since we had to be back so frickin early. We went to a bar, but after one drink we had to head back (this is not the end of the curfew situation, it gets better)
The next day we toured to Ufizzi in the morning, which was amazing. I needed about 5 more hours. But we had a lunch planned, so that wasn't an option. After lunch, some people took a train to Pisa, which I considered but decided I'd rather see Florence. So we went to the Natural Science Museum and saw Galileo's telescope and a really cool display on optics from that time period. They also had Galileo's middle finger. We then went to St. Croce where Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and a bunch of other people are buried. Then we went back to the market for more shopping, ate dinner, and returned to the hotel to plan our night. We decided that giving college students in Italy on spring break a curfew was ridiculous (which it is) so were going to have one night out and they could deal with it. We signed the sheet before we left and actually had enough time out to enjoy ourselves, and got back around 1:30. No one was loud, no one was wasted, but the hotel desk dude told us to wait and called our "chaperon" who came downstairs and tried to scare the crap out of us by saying we signed a judicial agreement (the only think I signed was a medical form) and he was going to find out what kind of judicial action he could take against us and then tried to make us feel all guilty for disappointing him. For being out until 1:30...in Italy. This pissed me off. I think I spent an hour expressing my anger to my roommate. Plus, I knew he was full of crap, there's nothing he could really do about it and if they wanted to kick me out of Scholars now, I really could care less. I'm not 12, I don't have a curfew.
But anyway, the next day he acted as if nothing had happened although someone said they were discussing how disappointed they were at lunch. We went to Siena for the first part of the day, which was really cold and windy. We stood around in huddles like penguins warming eggs. They have a really crazy horse race here in the big town square with a crazy tight corner. They showed a video on the bus and horses were wiping out. There was another really nice cathedral there as well. And another church where they have St. Catherine's head...her actual head. It was a little creepy. We were supposed to get back in time to go in the Duomo, which is basically the icon of Florence. But we missed it by five minutes. I was a little upset, because if I had known I would have gone the day before. So we walked back up the hill to see Florence while there was still daylight before we met for our farewell dinner (PS the food everywhere was amazing). We had to be up the next day at 4AM to leave for Rome by 5. So a bunch of decided to just stay up all night. We played cards, listened to music, got an angry phone call from the same chaperon for waking him up (don't chose a career that requires looking after college kids if you don't want to be woken up), and took a shower before heading downstairs with all our crap. The rest of the disastrous end to the trip you already know.
So it was amazing, but there's so much I didn't get to do, which means I have to go back. When I don't have a curfew and other stupid rules.
And for your enjoyment, phrases from Cute Scottish Grad Student in the lab I work in:
"How much bloody buffer do we need"
"What happened to my wee little timer"
"Just bunk it in the incubator"
"It'll be the blind leading the partially sighted"
I will add to this list. The last one is in reference to when he totally screwed up the protein assay we were doing by not reading the protocol and asked me why I didn't use my protocol. I said I thought he knew what he was doing. Clearly not. It was amusing.
My future husband Nadal is about to lose, which makes me sad. He hasn't been playing well this year.