Rome, the eternal[ly hot] city

Of course, this doesn't even begin to cover it all:

Rome: the eternal city

First, the semantics. You see, when traveling from place to place, it becomes necessary to find accommodations, and that can be a tricky process. There are HI affiliated hostels, which are more expensive and require a membership, there is hoselworld.com which provides bookings for a fee that [may or may not have availability or honor the request] and there is cold calling the places in the lets go or lonely planet book [many others do this] and then there are recommendations. You take what you can get, but realizing that relocating takes time and money is also a factor it becomes a struggle as time rolls on. Ideally, you plan months or weeks ahead and roll in to each place as you would like to, but that is simply impossible to do when your plans are dependent on factors out of your control and most of all, you simply are unaware of what specifically you are going to see and how long one would like to stay in a specific city.

Thus, Brandon and myself took the best and most highly rated hostel of the website, and this landed us on a 2 hour excursion to locate this nice hostel that was not so nicely located a heck of a long way from the city itself. It was on the beach, which was nice and had the free internet. However, it wasn’t the cheapest and was unreasonable for the long term. That coupled with building laundry issues and an overall lack of proximity for planning’s sake caused us to again have to relocate to ANOTHER hostel this time located just next to the train station. We stayed there for 2 more nights for a total of 4 in Rome. The third joint was not the best, but it was home to some fun people to talk to, a grocery store close by, and most importantly for Brandon, close to the internet and phone shops because at this point he really really really wanted to go home. I’m not entirely sure if this is because he missed his girlfriend or if he was running out of money but that is what happened. So what did I see in Rome and how is this completely unrelated to the above discussion? Oh yeah we did check out the beach. It was a sign of better things to come…

A lot, and a whole lot. Most of it I had to cover by myself because bless little ‘ol Brandon, but he is just not cut out for extended travel and sight-seeing. I was growing a bit tired of it myself but that is the way it goes.

In no particular order:

-The Colloseum: gotta see it. I think a child would know about this

-Circus maximus: Not much left, but it was the site of a chariot ring for racing and what not. We took some good photos there.

-Palantine hill: Home to roman houses and rich people

-Some Palaces which I am not sure of the name: I believe used for state affairs. We weren’t allowed on the premises but it was incredible from the outside. This country has the best sights and architecture in my opinion. Sorry Paris!

-St Peters Basillica and the Vatican museum [a whole new country? Sort of]- can’t say enough about this. Hands down, the BEST thing in Europe, or the world. The statues are plentiful and spectacular. Carravagio, Michelangelo, everything. Mummies they jacked from Egypt. Laocoon and his 2 sons [famous sculpture from antiquity] Closed off archives. Rafael stanzas. You name it, it is here, and its better than the Lou VRA. I returned to this place thrice. That’s right, on 3 different occasions. I am going to use these paintings and designs from a local art print shop to decorate my new premises when, not if I get the chance. It’s the best art I have ever seen and I doubt I will ever be as impressed again in my life. The letters lining the walls of St Peters are 2 meters tall and made of solid gold. It’s the biggest church in the world, and its free. I saw mike’s pieta, the famous one and simply stared at it for about 15 minutes, behind bullet proof glass from 35 meters away. In fact, the interpretation I heard from a guide was amongst the best I have heard:

“to quiet the critics saying that Jesus is too small and Mary too young, its simple to explain this sculpture- it’s a young Mary holding the baby Christ, she is holding her infant and receiving a vision of the tragedy of burying her own”

Unfortunately, this visit was accompanied by the longest wait of the trip, and the only on in which an early rise was a bad strategy. Would have been better to show up at noon as I discovered [no line, huh?] but Greg had to go home that day so it was that or nothing. Its blistering hot now in Italy and that was an issue. Also, contrary to popular literature and my Father, you did not need to wear pants or shoes, but I did anyways. Chicas did need to cover up them straps though. Turns out there is another famous fresco by Michelangelo, but it is inaccessible and is located in the elusive Pauline chapel, of course for papal purposes. The nice thing was, that Greg is well versed in these things and is an excellent travel partner. So we covered it all and when he left, I hit it one more time due to separation that occurs in those ridiculous crowds. Hey, though, the hype isn’t for once overrated. I skipped guides and tours because at this point, the museum expenses were starting to add up. Plus, they were more expesive there than in France.

-Yes I have been lazy about this, but it is imperative that I finish this account so my stupid brain doesn’t forget it forever.