The Adventures of Team H

We woke up too late to take advantage of the hotel's breakfast offerings, so we stopped at a cafe around the corner called "Cafe de Paris." Walking by the morning of Day 2, the impressive pastry cases had made a lasting impression. Knowing it was probably a mistake, I tried to order quiche. I don't know the rules, but everything Americans eat for breakfast seems to be a no-no before noon in Europe -- the quiche had "not arrived yet." Eric and I both settled on a ham and cheese sandwich, criossants, cappucino, and canoli to finish! I say breakfast here is like "eating in a vacuum." If it's not ceral or eggs, what's the difference between pizza and a sandwich?

All roads lead to Rome (but who knows where they go once you get there?)

Next, we attempted what we thought was a straight shot to the Borghese Villa, but no "straight shots" exist in Rome (even if a street continues in a straight line for some time, the name changes at least twice before you reach your turnoff). Getting there was tricky -- signs for major attractions in Rome often get you going in the general direction, but leave you hanging a few blocks later. Eventually we decided to hang a left and follow the wall we surmised surrounded the considerable grounds. Bingo! The villa was one of the only things we opted not to reserve in advance. The museum was sold out for the day, so we made reservations for tomorrow and decided to walk the grounds. They were unlike anything we had ever seen before, and proved to be a peaceful, spacious respite from the bustling city outside, which we would soon find was more crowded than the previous two days.

We happened upon the Spanish Steps again, and stood still for too long. A man selling roses approached us and proceeded to "give" me three roses. I really didn't want them, but he insisted, saying they were a gift because he was so enchanted with my beauty (my own words, but you get the idea) as he placed them in my arm. Finally I gave up and we started to walk away when he demanded "just a little money." Eric fished coins out of his pocket and gave the man two euros. He asked for more, and after Eric stopped with five euros, the man took back two of the roses!

The Pantheon had been closed the day before (We realized later that this was most likley due to rain, given the fact that the famed opening in the dome is not covered by glass, and marble floors plus water equal liability). We got overconfident and stopped consulting the map, which meant it took us longer to locate the Pantheon today than the day before. While navigating streets increasingly crowded with people and cars was annoying, we got some great shopping in. OK, I got some great shopping in; I've been waiting months to go to Zara!. Finally, we turned a corner and suddenly saw the behemoth building -- these moments of surprise being one of my favorite things about Europe. What can I say about the Pantheon that would do it justice? Personally, I prefer the exterior.

Was it something I said?

We left and had pizza a taglio, which you pay for by weight! After greeting me with "Ciao," the girl behind the counter did a double-take and corrected with, "Hi." As Eric and I ate our pizza (truly an upgrade from the stuff back home; wiah I had ordered more), we wondered what it was about our appearance that instantly gave us away as Americans. We narrowed it down to our hair, the cut of our pants, and our facial expressions before setting out to see the Trevi Fountain. We wrestled our way to the front of the fountain, threw in our coins, and took some proper photos. all with shopping bags in one hand and gelatto in the other. A note about gelatto: Eric would never eat it at home because it looked "too wet," but now he's hooked like me.

Tomorrow is our last day in Rome, and we will be making the most of it with a Vatican tour and a much-anticipated return to the Borghese Villa. Buonasera!

Finally, an internet cafe! We almost gave up hope...

First glimpse of Rome

We touched down in Rome a bit before 8:00 am on Christmas day, pretty well wiped out after the 9 hour leg from Atlanta. Our first job, after recovering our bags, was to find a taxi to the hotel. Immediately we were approached by Mr. Charisma, a guy who offered to take us there by van. Within moments we surmised he was probably unlicensed, saw the error in this and slipped away toward the licensed taxi area, a line of various beat-up white cars inching forward. Our taxi driver, an older white-haired gentleman, pulled up to the front and soon we were on the road.

We sped down the Autostrata, catching our first baffling glimpse of Italy from the back seat. We were realizing at this point how lacking we were in our knowledge of the outskirts of Rome. For several minutes the scenery was rural, looking like any number of areas you find in the US. Then we entered the city - a shock! For the next several minutes, our driver, who had still not said a word to us, careened down the vacant, twisty streets, through run-down graffiti-marked residential neighborhoods. The area looked like some of the guidebook pictures of Mussolini-era construction, but that was as familiar as it got; ancient Rome this was not.

Venturing conversation, I tried asking the driver what district this was. He grunted something like 'despachio'. (Later we learned this meant 'sorry'). It had become apparent by the end of the ride that our driver, in his years of experience shuttling tourists, had already learned all the English he cared to. After struggling to settle the fare, we realized we had a little Italian to teach ourselves in the coming days...

We finally made it to our hotel, a nondescript building on the North end of town, and settled in, pleased how clean and nice the room was. It was now time to catch a few hour nap and head out for a bite to eat.

A Spontaneous Walk to The Colloseum

Our first outing was camera-free; we had left in in the room, and didn't bother to retrieve it, because we weren't planning on getting much more done that evening beyond dinner. It was just before dusk and not as cold as expected. Before long we found ourselves at the top of the famous Spanish Steps, its obelisk under renovation (more on this later). We found - as did most other Americans that everning - an appealing little restaurant near the steps. Two pasta dishes and a carafe of red wine later, we were satisfied with our accomplishments.

It was dark as we left, but still not especially cold. We could see throngs of people in the cobblestone streets wandering around, interspersed with street vendors, practically covered in brightly colored LED baubles, occasionally flinging little toy flying saucers skyward. (This saucer toy looked pretty cool, I thought, which did entertain Lauren) We decided to get out there and see what we could find before jet-lag exhaustion would finally take hold of us for good.

Headed about South, armed with a map from the hotel, we strolled and watched the locals (and their dogs), and other tourists go about their evening under a full moon. To our surprise, we checked the map and found we were already well on our way to the city center and the Colloseum!

Every block had some sort of attraction it seemed, and they sort of drew us further along. Around a final corner we went, and there it was in the distance at the end of a long avenue - the Colusseum.

Down the avenue, past more vendors and their flashing lights, as the ruin grows larger... We strolled on, finally passing the last of the trincket guys, who seemed to be keeping a respectful - or perhaps required - distance from the actual site. Joined by only a few clusters of other visitors, we felt unrushed as we took in the sight and meandered around the outer wall and iron-gated archways. Looking straight up the walls from the base, you're struck by how truly massive the structure is. The walls had a haunting look, with the higher arches bathed by orange-tinged lights. We stepped up on some rounded lumps of stone as we walked (originally cut at right angles, you'd have to think). We started walking around the perimeter, past some fenced-in trenches, apparently new archaological digs. The Colosseum revealed new dark passageways as we peeked in from the different viewpoints. There at night, you could try to imagine what must have occured long ago (the deafening cheers and terrifying games of violence). I fell short of being able to picture much of this. Our Colosseum on Christmas eve was a peaceful giant, and delightfully, more than just another tourist attraction.

Our planned Colosseum visit was first thing the next day. We got there this time via a speeding public bus. It was raining since dawn, and now quite glad to encounter a street vendor, we picked up a couple of cheap umbrellas on the way to the bus stop. It was an entertaining and fascinating couple of hours, as we did the popular stuff: got our pictures with the rowdy 'gladiators' (for a mere 20 Euros), and did the self guided tour inside. Quite a place, but probably better shown than explained. We'll get the pictures up, as soon as we get our stuff completely figured out here at the internet cafe...

We're boarding our flight to Rome one week from today!

Over the last six weeks since the previous post (can that be right?), we've been locked in that ongoing rat race, doing some holiday stuff, and sneaking in a moment of trip planning every now and then. All our Italy arrangements are now in order, we have our global GSM phone, our Eurail passes, voltage converter, two 4GB digicam chips, tasteful walking shoes, Target brand warm accessories, and what remains a very rough plan for Austria and Germany (mainly involving castles and dark beer).

Our hope is to get some photos up here every few days, depending on the internet cafe situation and our technical savvy, given we've decided to leave the laptop behind.

Now, if this final week evaporates as fast as the others, the next thing we know we'll be at the airport and on our way!

On October 30 our deliberations ended: "We're going to Europe now -- this December".

It's all too easy to spend years saying you'll go someplace someday. But that day we'd finally realized, after a couple years of trying to squeeze a Europe trip into our busy lives, that it was finally, at this moment, not impossible to just do it. This will be our first (major) European vacation; before we met, Lauren had been to France as a college student, and I had once visited Iceland (Yes they're indeed part of Europe and proud of it!), but that's the most of Europe we've seen to date.

So, here's a rough sketch of the Rapid Planning process, and where we stand so far...

1. Decided on a basic 2-week "Central Europe by Eurail" itinerary: Rome, Florence, Austria, Bavaria/Munich, and Prague. Then we figured we should add an extra few days for good measure, giving us about 2.5 weeks.
2. Bagged some Delta tickets immediately. Then we finally gave the calendar some real scrutiny and noticed our trip was actually a full 3 weeks! Oops! Nobody protested (importantly, nobody on "Team H"), so we went with the new and improved 3-week plan...
3. Did a bit of frantic, unfocused web research. Happily stumbled across Rick Steves' cool site.
4. Hit Barnes & Noble and picked up "Insight" guides on Rome and Austria to start with (very readable!), plus a couple of Italian and German phrasebooks. I devoured the Rome book and now know my Vespasian from my Trajan...
5. Lauren found the site tickitaly.com. Using them we grabbed tickets for the Colosseum tour and Museums in Florence (Uffizi & Academie)

And now, we're borrowing all the Rick Steves DVD's we can scrounge up, aiming to settle on some good hotel options pronto.

Countdown to departure: less than 7 weeks to go!...

* [Over-30 newbie blogger. Mostly Web 2.0- illiterate. You've been warned.]