Day 4: Another Country

After sleeping for about 13 hours, I awoke to shove some breakfast down my throat at the B&B which consisted mainly of a croissant and some Nutella (they love Nutella over here and so do I so I mean something is destined to happen). So then we rushed off to the metro to take a trip to Vatican City, or the country of the Holy See. Until the beginning of this trip I had never been in Canada or Italy, so this will be the 3rd country that I've entered on this trip, and the smallest in the world! (Unless you count Sealand)

First we went through the Vatican Museum, which is not much more than an art gallery with a bunch of pictures of "Madonna and baby." Though, we did find this one painting (shown on the right) to be quite interesting. It depicts many people looking towards the heavens, but one person in particular is fixated on what we call the "holy belt." Plus there are a ton of flying babies, and if that doesn't grab your attention you are a lost cause.










We also found several rooms which were lined with art (actually painted onto the walls) by Raphael. This one in particular (shown to the left) I remember seeing in AP World History in the book. Mrs. Nabuda pointed it out to the class and for some reason I remembered it and did eventually find the original. It's called the "School of Athens" and it is a gorgeous painting. One of the few I'm actually impressed with.

I'm sorry I suck at orienting these pictures. This blog is probably hideous. After the museum you get dumped into the Sistine Chapel. No pictures unfortunately, but Michelangelo's ceiling is completely fantastic, and going from seeing the fake Michelangelo painting the fake ceiling in Spaceship Earth to actually seeing the real thing was my favorite part of the museum.

Though I'm not religious, the architecture and art that organized religion manages to fund is absolutely amazing. St. Peter's Cathedral was the next step. It's massive. Absolutely massive. I saw Angels and Demons not too long ago and I didn't know until I got there that where the pastor (or whatever his position was - the Pope's assistant) burnt himself was right there! The steps down to where some Pope's are buried was right in front of you. Of course you couldn't go down into it, but you could see where it was filmed. Molto cool. (ITALIAN KINDA)

The ceiling is perhaps the most amazing part of the whole building. It's incredibly high up but it's also huge - an engineering feat in itself.  Beautiful.

We eventually left and went up (551 steps) to the top of St. Peters and got a magnificent view of St. Peter's square and the rest of Rome. Not as beautiful as Florence (where I am currently), but still, beautiful. (Shown below)

That's all we did on Day 4, but I have some more pictures I'd love to share, so here they are:

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Day 3: Roman Naptime

Now let me clarify - Day 3 was still running off of the same sleep from the morning of Day 2. We slept in the Buffalo hotel then went to Niagara Falls, went to the airport, flew on a plane for 8 hours, and then arrived at around 8 AM the next morning. So we were pulling a band trip experience. Two days with no sleep!

My panorama of the Colosseum from the inside

Always time to take an "artistic" photo.

But still, after placing our bags in our dodgy Bread and Breakfasts' lobby, we took the (not so clean) metro to the Colosseum. Rome in general isn't very pretty. It wasn't awful, but it certainly doesn't have the perfect city charm you expect from all the hype. Of course if you are in the right part of town, everything is quite nice, but the farther you walk the more dirty and grafittied everything gets. I guess it comes from being a city. The Colosseum isn't as impressive as my pictures make it look, it's amazing at the size, but after you take that in, you do get kinda bored. There is nothing really to see there other than the ruins, and those are easily captured in photos.

My best picture of the Trevi fountain

We (meaning me) were too tired to keep going after that, so we went back to the B&B to sleep for a few hours before going back out to see the Spanish steps and the Trevi fountain. We walked. It is a long walk from the B&B but nothing that compares to the other walks I was forced to take later on in the trip. The Trevi fountain was gorgeous, but it was packed. The picture I took was lucky to just crop out all of the obnoxious heads. Though it was a busy day, I believe, I'd probably not go to the fountain again. One time only.


It seems like everyone at every tourist attraction is out to make a buck from you. People at Piazza di Popolo handed people roses and as they walked away they asked for a small tip. I don't know how you make a living from that - if you can - and it does seem quite depressing. (And obnoxious and you should probably stop trying to cheat tourists out of money for guilt.) Rome is just a city of two things, old neat things, and the people trying to exploit them.

After the walk back to the hotel, and some gelato from a rude man who talked to his friend about us being American right in front of us. (Yes, we do speak some Italian, and we aren't that funny) we promptly passed out at the B&B, and I slept for a solid 13 hours. I kid you not.

Trip Day 1 and 2: Flight and Falls

So, it's June 2013 and my parents decided that this year would be another trip to Europe. Quite luckily for me, my parents like to travel and so I've seen France, Germany, Belgium, England, and Ireland. So this year, we're going to Italy. I decided to just make short blog posts about each section of the trip and so here you are reading about me going to a foreign country.

Day One

We saved money on this trip by driving up to Buffalo, NY then sleeping at a hotel, then driving up to Toronto then taking a direct flight to Rome. So Day One basically consisted of absolutely nothing. Then sleeping.

[This saves a lot more money than it seems, trust in the calculations]

Day Two

Since we woke up in Buffalo at like 9 AM and had a flight at 4:30 PM, we decided to go to Niagara Falls before going to Toronto.

So yes, this is quite beautiful. Rainbow and all.

 We stayed on the American side of the falls, but the American side does include the Cave of the Winds, which is a walk down below the falls on a platform where you can get quite heavily sprayed but you also get some lovely shots. 

The plane ride was another story. Though the picture does make it seem a bit more lovely than the trip really was. Flying from Toronto to Rome takes about 8 hours and flying back is even longer, about 9 hours. (You don't have the wind with you - vectors in math actually make sense for once.) But dinner was lovely - some lasagna (quite appropriate for a trip to Rome) and some awful potato salad. So I guess the meal was half lovely. Actually, I also had their only non-carbonated drink: orange juice. Which turned out to be red. No clue how. Anyway - I got no sleep and because - "Hey! I'm a plane and I'm not going to be quiet or comfortable!" Because the plane ride takes 8 hours, and going to Rome crosses 6 time zones... We left at 4:30 and arrived at 7:30. AM. Time travel baby.