sorry for the delay of this post, I sometimes use this email posting system to post from my phone and for some reason didn't go through last night. Glad I checked the front page before I left Rome. In the airport now, see the twitter for a funny little side story!
original post:
I know many thought I was a bit harsh on the french the first time
around, so I figured why not give them a second shot? I am going to
Nice on my pilgrimage that Villanova encourages us to take as part of
our experience over here. I will be taking lots of pictures as
always, and will blog if possible while there. Of course I will give
a full report when I get back on Monday. until then, enjoy the snow
on the east coast!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
DMB in Roma
So if some of you saw the picture I tweeted yesterday, you could guess who I saw. I am a bit disappointed nobody took a guess at it in the comments though.
So yesterday I went to see Dave Matthews Band play in Rome. What an experience.
I have been to a few DMB shows in the past, so this wasn't my first time with Dave, and I know what to expect from his performance: A 3 hour set of jamming, dancing, and lots of solos. Really incredible stuff. This is though the first time I've seen him out of the states, and it is what made it so special.
Dave Matthews Band hasn't played in Rome for 12 years, so this was a big deal to have him back in Rome. For his European tour he is playing in 4 different Italian cities: pretty cool.
The Venue:
The Venue for the show was the 1960 Olympic Basketball Stadium, which is now called the Palalottomatica, which is a new name after the sponsors of a modern renovation. It is an indoor stadium which seats 9,800 for a basketball game. For comparison, The Pavillion at Villanova seats 6,500 and the Wachovia Center seats 21,600 for a basketball game. So this stadium is relatively small.
Actually, it was very small considering what I'm used to seeing big bands like DMB play in. We walked in and I was overwhelmed with how close we already were to the stage. We had general admission standing-room seats on the floor, so we quickly pushed forward as far as we could go. We got to about 15 rows of people back from the stage, the closest I've been for a DMB show. The stadium was not crowded at all, maybe 3,000 people. I was very surprised by this, mostly because I'm used to all DMB shows being sold out and in much larger venues. The small venue and small crowd was really nice though, it made it feel really intimate, even though it was still with a couple thousand people I felt much more connected.
The Crowd:
Speaking of the crowd, I decided they don't know how to go to a concert. The Italians I mean. There were a lot of American students there, which is no surprise, but just by looking in the crowd you could tell the Italians from the Americans. DMB shows are one big jam-fest, with the crowd dancing and singing along, constantly cheering for all sorts of reasons. The Italians don't get this. I think they look at it as some American Rock Star, and they've heard his studio albums and like his music. His studio albums are good, but the band is known for their live performances, and they tend to have much more energy than any studio album could ever get across. The Italians stood there awkwardly and just listened. They sang every once and a while, the choruses of Dave's most popular songs, but otherwise they were relatively silent. We once got shushed (is that the proper spelling?) inbetween songs when the stage was dark and the band wasn't playing. I'm still not sure why.
The Music:
Dave has never failed to impress me. The band for that matter, because it is a large band, has never failed to impress me. From Dave's crazy dancing and skat-like rapping to Carter's Drum Solos to Tim and Jeff's guitar/sax battles, they keep the music coming hard and never even leave a second for you to become bored with the song. They played 17 songs over 3 hours, many of them lasting for much longer than their studio versions, but you never get that sense that you are ready for the song to end. They are so dynamic and improv so well that you can't help but wonder what solo is coming next rather than wonder what song is coming next. By the end of the show it is a whirlwind of incredible music skillfully crafted and planned out specifically for that night.
The Setlist (if you don't know the music, feel free to skip this, there's also the setlist here:
17 songs over 3 hours, yes that is a lot of jamming out. They started off with 3 songs of their newest album, "Big Whiskey and the Gru Grux King". "Lying in the Hands of God" as their opener, followed by fan favorites "Shake me Like a Monkey" "Funny the Way it Is". He then went back to some popular older songs, including "Seven" and "Warehouse", then he threw "Alligator pie" in there. "You Might Die Trying" was followed by a great rendition of "The Maker" A cover of Daniel Lanois, which I have heard in recordings before but never personally. Next Came my personal favorite, "Don't Drink the Water" which is so well written and takes you through a wide variety of emotions and energy, from mellow to the point of complete chaos. Then came "Why I Am" my favorite off the new album. Dave Finished strong (when does he not) with "Crash Into Me", "Crush", "Spaceman", "Grey Street" and "Two Step". Each song had longer and longer solos and he ended on such an energy. Dave then came out for the encore and played "Baby Blue" solo, then rocked out "Jimi Thing" with the band for what seemed to be at least fifteen minutes. Overall an incredible setlist, there isn't a song I felt didn't fit or I would have left out.
Enjoy some videos/pictures I took with my phone at the show. They're not the best quality, but I enjoy looking back on them and you may like seeing what I saw. If you've never been to a DMB show, please take a look if only for a second (I will keep posting more, getting them from the phone to the internet is not a fast process) And if you hear a beautiful voice singing along, disregard that (also, yes lots of side notes, I apologize for the jittery video, I wasn't focused on taking it):
http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/DMBInRome#
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Question Time!
I'm going to keep today's post short, mostly because I have a lot to do before I head out for dinner and a concert tonight (more about the concert tomorrow). So I decided I would answer some questions I've received the past couple days.
The first one pertains to my work at the Vatican. I received an email asking me with all I have going on traveling wise when could I possibly have time to work at my internship and what am I up to?
Well let me go over a Monday to Thursday workday for the past couple weeks. Wake up early for Italian tutoring at 8am with our favorite Italian tutor (how many times can I say this, she really is awesome) Carlotta, which runs until 10am. From there I jump on the number 23 bus, or take a taxi depending on my mood, to St. Paul's Outside the Walls. I meet up with Father Nerino, who is as best as I can describe it the Manager of Operations at St. Paul's Basilica. He knows everything there is to know about the Basilica, and is very passionate about it. He has been writing the scripts for the video project I am doing. Problem is, the only english he knows is Hello and Goodbye. This is a good test for my Italian, but for a lot of it we use the one person in the office that can translate for us. Once we've talked about the progress, I am sent off to photograph the Basilica. It is awesome to be able to get close to all of the different pieces of art and other interesting architecture and take literally hundreds of pictures which will be later put together with the text and voice-overs Father Nerino is writing.
I leave around 1pm, sometimes later depending on my class schedule for the given day. It's always a productive couple hours and I'm really enjoying every shoot.
Another couple of questions I had were about skiing, and seeing how I loved it so much I want to touch on them.
The mountain wasn't crowded at all. There were a decent amount of people there, but since it was so open and spread out, it wasn't like everyone was skiing on top of each-other like in Poconos (again, my only point of reference).
Something I meant to touch on in my original post was the ski lifts. The lines were not long at all, maybe 5 minutes max, and I really mean that. They were a bit different though than lifts I've seen. You walk up to a turnstile which is electronic, and there are large scanners on both sides that are like metal detectors. You can have your ski pass anywhere on you, in your coat pocket, wherever and it will pick up the signal and then let you through the turnstile. From here you move up to the lift and stand behind gates like those for roller coaster boarding platforms. When the gates open you get on a conveyor belt which moves in perfect harmony with the chairs swinging around, meaning that you get on and are moved forward and then literally just sit down when the chair reaches you. It all works in perfect succession, and was really cool. I wish I had video of this whole sequence of events, I hope you can understand what I'm describing.
As for snowboarding, it is very much alive here. Mostly the younger generations just like the US. There wasn't nearly as much of it as in the states, but it was there. Three of the people I went with snowboarded, and you could rent a snowboard just the same as skis, but the price was slightly more, like 5 euro. Not that big of a deal. There was a small park on the mountain, mostly for the snowboarders I suppose, so that culture is starting to creep in as well, though as we saw in the Olympics, we dominate the Snowboard "stunt" culture.
Well I hope that covers what you were interested in, if anyone has any other questions leave them in the comments and I'll be sure to answer.
Also bonus points to whoever can guess who I am going to see tonight (I really hope I didn't give this away in a past post, but I think I might have. And if I've told you specifically outside of this blog where I'm going, don't ruin the surprise for everyone! Well you can if you want to, it doesn't really matter to me I'll enjoy the show nonetheless")
The first one pertains to my work at the Vatican. I received an email asking me with all I have going on traveling wise when could I possibly have time to work at my internship and what am I up to?
Well let me go over a Monday to Thursday workday for the past couple weeks. Wake up early for Italian tutoring at 8am with our favorite Italian tutor (how many times can I say this, she really is awesome) Carlotta, which runs until 10am. From there I jump on the number 23 bus, or take a taxi depending on my mood, to St. Paul's Outside the Walls. I meet up with Father Nerino, who is as best as I can describe it the Manager of Operations at St. Paul's Basilica. He knows everything there is to know about the Basilica, and is very passionate about it. He has been writing the scripts for the video project I am doing. Problem is, the only english he knows is Hello and Goodbye. This is a good test for my Italian, but for a lot of it we use the one person in the office that can translate for us. Once we've talked about the progress, I am sent off to photograph the Basilica. It is awesome to be able to get close to all of the different pieces of art and other interesting architecture and take literally hundreds of pictures which will be later put together with the text and voice-overs Father Nerino is writing.
I leave around 1pm, sometimes later depending on my class schedule for the given day. It's always a productive couple hours and I'm really enjoying every shoot.
Another couple of questions I had were about skiing, and seeing how I loved it so much I want to touch on them.
The mountain wasn't crowded at all. There were a decent amount of people there, but since it was so open and spread out, it wasn't like everyone was skiing on top of each-other like in Poconos (again, my only point of reference).
Something I meant to touch on in my original post was the ski lifts. The lines were not long at all, maybe 5 minutes max, and I really mean that. They were a bit different though than lifts I've seen. You walk up to a turnstile which is electronic, and there are large scanners on both sides that are like metal detectors. You can have your ski pass anywhere on you, in your coat pocket, wherever and it will pick up the signal and then let you through the turnstile. From here you move up to the lift and stand behind gates like those for roller coaster boarding platforms. When the gates open you get on a conveyor belt which moves in perfect harmony with the chairs swinging around, meaning that you get on and are moved forward and then literally just sit down when the chair reaches you. It all works in perfect succession, and was really cool. I wish I had video of this whole sequence of events, I hope you can understand what I'm describing.
As for snowboarding, it is very much alive here. Mostly the younger generations just like the US. There wasn't nearly as much of it as in the states, but it was there. Three of the people I went with snowboarded, and you could rent a snowboard just the same as skis, but the price was slightly more, like 5 euro. Not that big of a deal. There was a small park on the mountain, mostly for the snowboarders I suppose, so that culture is starting to creep in as well, though as we saw in the Olympics, we dominate the Snowboard "stunt" culture.
Well I hope that covers what you were interested in, if anyone has any other questions leave them in the comments and I'll be sure to answer.
Also bonus points to whoever can guess who I am going to see tonight (I really hope I didn't give this away in a past post, but I think I might have. And if I've told you specifically outside of this blog where I'm going, don't ruin the surprise for everyone! Well you can if you want to, it doesn't really matter to me I'll enjoy the show nonetheless")
Florence Pictures
I've got some long promised eye-candy for you all of our Trip to Florence. I have both my photos (my artsy ones) and my family's pictures. Feel free to browse through one or the other, or both if you're feeling adventurous. I won't keep you any longer:
Family photos(click on link):
Family Photos
My Photos:
Family photos(click on link):
Family Photos
My Photos:
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Winter Wonderland
With all sorts of warm weather here, (by warm I mean 50’s, but still) It’s easy to forget sometimes that we are still in the middle of a pretty harsh winter. By harsh I mean the U.S is getting pounded, and Europe isn’t doing so well either. Rome saw its first snow for the first time in 25 years a couple weeks ago, and generally there’s been lots of precipitation.
Only 10 hours after arriving back in Rome after our 5 day trip to Northern Italy, I found myself once again leaving the city for a more scenic countryside. It was decided yesterday(Saturday) that a few of us would like to go skiing today (Sunday). The trip had been planned out/attempted before(without me, I was in florence)but fell apart when people didn’t exactly wake up in time to make the necessary transportation. Regardless, those who had planned to go originally were ready to make another attempt at it, so we set our alarms for 6 am and got ready for what would turn out to be a very interesting day.
I never planned on going skiing over here. I skied once before I left for Italy to “get it out of my system”, but anyone who skis knows that’s not possible. Having said that, I was by no means prepared with my limited luggage for winter weather. Enter, my crazy get-up of an outfit.
The Outfit:
Take a minute to picture this. Jeans under sweatpants, 2 pairs of thick(er) dress socks, A long sleeve shirt, a thin hoodie, a northface fleece, and a peacoat, a scarf, a beanie, sunglasses, and thin 99cent wool gloves under leather gloves. Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is what I skied in. I didn’t walk out the door in that outfit, I brought a backpack with half of it packed away so I looked normal during transportation, but I can only imagine how ridiculous I looked on the mountain. Actually, there are pictures of how ridiculous I looked, so I’ll try and get my hands on those and post one here so you can all stop laughing out loud to the thought of what I must have looked like, and instead laugh even harder at the actual sight of what I looked like. I have to tell you though, when I was on the mountain, I didn’t realize I wasn’t dressed properly. It was 56 in Rome today, and still pretty warm at the mountain except for the tippy top, more on that later. But I was actually warm/sweating the entire trip. Who says you need a big expensive snow suit to go skiing? Well the sweatpants were pretty wet by the end of the day, but so be it, they have to just dry out.
The Ride:
So anyway, how did we get there you might ask? Well, we took a bus, to a subway, to a bus, to another bus. Yes, lots of changing transportation. This mountain was recommended to us by Carlotta, our Italian tutor, who said it was the closest to Rome, and it probably is, but when you take all those different modes of transportation, nothing is short. 3 hours was our total travel time, one way. Any normal person could have driven there, which would have taken about an hour or so, maybe less the way Italians drive (which is the complete opposite of their walking) but we made it there and the traveling really wasn’t that bad.
The Goods:
So we were there, dressed to the 9’s, without any equipment. Off to the rental shop. Oh how I miss my own skis. I really can’t complain, it was extremely cheap to rent, less than half of what it would be in the US. I think the guy sizing me up for skis looked at Nate by accident instead of myself when he was picking out the skis (Nate is 6’2”, I am 5’6.) and he gave me massive skis. I didn’t realize how massive they were until we got to the lift, and I wasn’t about to walk back (It wasn’t that far, I could have easily done it) to get shorter ones. 172 cm skis, which are as tall as/taller than me. That’s not how skis work, their supposed to be around your chin or so. So yes, massive skis, the boots fit ( I told him what side I needed), but I was skiing so I didn’t really care. They were pretty tricky to control sometimes, that and that I am used to my own equipment forced me to think a bit more while thinking, but not a big deal. On the upside, the longer skis allowed for much more speed.
The Mountain:
So I’m dressed, I’ve got my skis, and were at the mountain. So how was the mountain? Well we were told by our Italian tutor that it is one of the smaller mountains in Italy, but since it is close it would work well. Now a bit of a disclaimer. I have only skied the Poconos. I have skied a lot over the past few years, but I’ve never made it past PA. I don’t know what skiing in Vermont, Colorado, Canada, etc is like at all, so all of my comments and comparisons are made to the Poconos, like Blue Mountain, Shawnee, even Mountain Creek in New Jersey. That said:
THIS WAS NOT A TINY MOUNTAIN! If tiny means multiple peaks, long trails, backcountry and some completely untouched areas, then I must be skiing down glorified hills in PA (actually, that’s probably true). I didn’t realize the enormity of it until I was halfway up the lift. The view was incredible. We could look down to the right and see an entire town/small city, really spectacular. To our left was the highest peak, which looked like a mountain people get dropped from helicopters to ski down. It was an incredible view, until we were so high up we were literally in the clouds. Yes, we were at the second highest peak and were in a cloud. I didn’t know what to think. Should I be scared I was skiing in a fog in a cloud? No, I was more amazed, and open to taking the experience in. From there there was only one way to go: down.
Now from my experience, you get to the top of the lift, and then you pick a trail down the mountain based on difficulty (green circles, blue squares, black diamond, that kind of thing). Their all clearly mapped out, and pretty distinctly outlined by trees and fences. This was not the case. There were no signs for more difficult or less difficult. There were no distinct trails even. It was just open mountain. Go to the edge, look at which way you think is your difficulty, ski down, reach the bottom near a lift, repeat. Towards the bottom they funneled into “trails” which were more like wide open spaces between patches of trees that led strategically to the lifts. If you wanted to ski the whole width of the mountain though while going down, you could do that, nobody or anything was there to stop you. It was pretty incredible.
The Snow:
I realized quickly that there were no snowmakers on this mountain. At all. Yet the entire mountain was completely covered with snow. I mean covered, every inch, and really deep, awesome snow. The entire time we saw (or for that matter heard) ice. If you ski you know the sound, that terrible scraping sound as you try and carve of ski meeting ice. The mountain was silent, it was perfectly packed snow with just enough fresh powder on top. Sometimes too much fresh powder for me using such long/heavy skis, but I’d rather that than ice any day.
The Skiing:
Was the best skiing I’ve ever experienced. I was completely mis-dressed. The ride there was long. I was using skis that were way too long, boots and poles that I’m not familiar with, on a mountain I’ve never skied before, yet it was the best day of skiing. To ski natural snow, on such an awesome mountain was such a treat. I know now I’ll have to make a trip to Vermont or somewhere with some comparable skiing in the U.S.
Here are some videos complete with commentary, taken on my phone. The pictures are from my phone too, so don’t judge the quality.
Oh and of course, in case you were wondering, the mountain was called Terminillo, and it was in Lazio still (the Region Rome is in).
Only 10 hours after arriving back in Rome after our 5 day trip to Northern Italy, I found myself once again leaving the city for a more scenic countryside. It was decided yesterday(Saturday) that a few of us would like to go skiing today (Sunday). The trip had been planned out/attempted before(without me, I was in florence)but fell apart when people didn’t exactly wake up in time to make the necessary transportation. Regardless, those who had planned to go originally were ready to make another attempt at it, so we set our alarms for 6 am and got ready for what would turn out to be a very interesting day.
I never planned on going skiing over here. I skied once before I left for Italy to “get it out of my system”, but anyone who skis knows that’s not possible. Having said that, I was by no means prepared with my limited luggage for winter weather. Enter, my crazy get-up of an outfit.
The Outfit:
Take a minute to picture this. Jeans under sweatpants, 2 pairs of thick(er) dress socks, A long sleeve shirt, a thin hoodie, a northface fleece, and a peacoat, a scarf, a beanie, sunglasses, and thin 99cent wool gloves under leather gloves. Yes, ladies and gentleman, this is what I skied in. I didn’t walk out the door in that outfit, I brought a backpack with half of it packed away so I looked normal during transportation, but I can only imagine how ridiculous I looked on the mountain. Actually, there are pictures of how ridiculous I looked, so I’ll try and get my hands on those and post one here so you can all stop laughing out loud to the thought of what I must have looked like, and instead laugh even harder at the actual sight of what I looked like. I have to tell you though, when I was on the mountain, I didn’t realize I wasn’t dressed properly. It was 56 in Rome today, and still pretty warm at the mountain except for the tippy top, more on that later. But I was actually warm/sweating the entire trip. Who says you need a big expensive snow suit to go skiing? Well the sweatpants were pretty wet by the end of the day, but so be it, they have to just dry out.
The Ride:
So anyway, how did we get there you might ask? Well, we took a bus, to a subway, to a bus, to another bus. Yes, lots of changing transportation. This mountain was recommended to us by Carlotta, our Italian tutor, who said it was the closest to Rome, and it probably is, but when you take all those different modes of transportation, nothing is short. 3 hours was our total travel time, one way. Any normal person could have driven there, which would have taken about an hour or so, maybe less the way Italians drive (which is the complete opposite of their walking) but we made it there and the traveling really wasn’t that bad.
The Goods:
So we were there, dressed to the 9’s, without any equipment. Off to the rental shop. Oh how I miss my own skis. I really can’t complain, it was extremely cheap to rent, less than half of what it would be in the US. I think the guy sizing me up for skis looked at Nate by accident instead of myself when he was picking out the skis (Nate is 6’2”, I am 5’6.) and he gave me massive skis. I didn’t realize how massive they were until we got to the lift, and I wasn’t about to walk back (It wasn’t that far, I could have easily done it) to get shorter ones. 172 cm skis, which are as tall as/taller than me. That’s not how skis work, their supposed to be around your chin or so. So yes, massive skis, the boots fit ( I told him what side I needed), but I was skiing so I didn’t really care. They were pretty tricky to control sometimes, that and that I am used to my own equipment forced me to think a bit more while thinking, but not a big deal. On the upside, the longer skis allowed for much more speed.
The Mountain:
So I’m dressed, I’ve got my skis, and were at the mountain. So how was the mountain? Well we were told by our Italian tutor that it is one of the smaller mountains in Italy, but since it is close it would work well. Now a bit of a disclaimer. I have only skied the Poconos. I have skied a lot over the past few years, but I’ve never made it past PA. I don’t know what skiing in Vermont, Colorado, Canada, etc is like at all, so all of my comments and comparisons are made to the Poconos, like Blue Mountain, Shawnee, even Mountain Creek in New Jersey. That said:
THIS WAS NOT A TINY MOUNTAIN! If tiny means multiple peaks, long trails, backcountry and some completely untouched areas, then I must be skiing down glorified hills in PA (actually, that’s probably true). I didn’t realize the enormity of it until I was halfway up the lift. The view was incredible. We could look down to the right and see an entire town/small city, really spectacular. To our left was the highest peak, which looked like a mountain people get dropped from helicopters to ski down. It was an incredible view, until we were so high up we were literally in the clouds. Yes, we were at the second highest peak and were in a cloud. I didn’t know what to think. Should I be scared I was skiing in a fog in a cloud? No, I was more amazed, and open to taking the experience in. From there there was only one way to go: down.
Now from my experience, you get to the top of the lift, and then you pick a trail down the mountain based on difficulty (green circles, blue squares, black diamond, that kind of thing). Their all clearly mapped out, and pretty distinctly outlined by trees and fences. This was not the case. There were no signs for more difficult or less difficult. There were no distinct trails even. It was just open mountain. Go to the edge, look at which way you think is your difficulty, ski down, reach the bottom near a lift, repeat. Towards the bottom they funneled into “trails” which were more like wide open spaces between patches of trees that led strategically to the lifts. If you wanted to ski the whole width of the mountain though while going down, you could do that, nobody or anything was there to stop you. It was pretty incredible.
The Snow:
I realized quickly that there were no snowmakers on this mountain. At all. Yet the entire mountain was completely covered with snow. I mean covered, every inch, and really deep, awesome snow. The entire time we saw (or for that matter heard) ice. If you ski you know the sound, that terrible scraping sound as you try and carve of ski meeting ice. The mountain was silent, it was perfectly packed snow with just enough fresh powder on top. Sometimes too much fresh powder for me using such long/heavy skis, but I’d rather that than ice any day.
The Skiing:
Was the best skiing I’ve ever experienced. I was completely mis-dressed. The ride there was long. I was using skis that were way too long, boots and poles that I’m not familiar with, on a mountain I’ve never skied before, yet it was the best day of skiing. To ski natural snow, on such an awesome mountain was such a treat. I know now I’ll have to make a trip to Vermont or somewhere with some comparable skiing in the U.S.
Here are some videos complete with commentary, taken on my phone. The pictures are from my phone too, so don’t judge the quality.
Oh and of course, in case you were wondering, the mountain was called Terminillo, and it was in Lazio still (the Region Rome is in).
A visit to Italy (guest bloggers: Bob and LuAnne Mahoney)
We were scheduled to fly to Rome in the evening of Wed. Feb. 11 and arrive in Rome on Feb. 12th. A big snow storm was expected to hit our area Tues. night and continue throughout the day on Wed. We knew there was a good chance that our flight, and possibly our trip, would be canceled.
Tues. morning Nancy got on the phone with ABC tours and by noon on Tues. they were able to get us on a flight out at 6:10 pm. We all scurried to get out of work and school and to finish packing. We needed to get to the airport by 3:00 pm so it was a very frenzied couple of hours in order to make our flight. We did manage to catch the flight and get out of NJ ahead of the storm.
We were all pretty tired when we arrived. Ryan met us at our hotel (it was great to see him) and we went out for a quick dinner – quick in Roman terms because you are never rushed while eating in Italy.
Because we arrived in Rome a day early, we were able to attend the Papal Mass with Ryan in St. Peter’s Basilica on Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was incredible that the first time we set foot into St. Peter’s, it was for a Papal Mass. For everyone who has seen it in person, you know that St. Peter’s is breathtaking. It is huge, and every inch of it is both an incredible work of art and a religious experience. After Mass, we walked over to see Ryan’s hotel and had lunch at Forno in Campo de’ Fiore. Ryan promised it was the best pizza we would ever taste, and he was right. (In fact, the next week after Ryan left on his trip to Northern Italy, we walked over to Campo in the pouring rain – while getting a little lost without our tour guide Ryan – just to have some more of the amazing pizza.)
We visited the Colosseum while Ryan went to class. We used the audio tour as our guide and Matt took some incredible pictures. We also visited the Basilica of St. Ambrose and St. Charles (which houses the relic of St. Charles Borremeo– his heart – on display for all to see), the Spanish Steps, the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) which houses the chains used to hold St. Peter in his prisons in Jerusalem and Rome. It is amazing how many churches there are in Rome. We would go inside and couldn’t get over how large and beautiful they all were. Many house precious relics or art pieces. One church we popped into was an Augustinian church which had a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Villanova – coincidence? We also had time to walk around the Via del Corso and see the quaint shops. Ryan took us to a great place for dinner (it took us a couple of days to get used to eating dinner after 7:30) and then dessert (tartufo) at Trescalini’s. It was a full first day but very exciting.
Friday – Feb. 12th - 15th We woke up early and headed to the train station for our side trip to Florence for the weekend. We were fortunate that Ryan didn’t have any school commitments and was able to join us. Unbelievably, it was snowing very heavily in Rome. We were told that it was the first time it had snowed in Rome in 50 years. Probably not true, but it makes for a good story anyway.
In Florence, we had a short walk to our little family-run hotel – the Hotel Casci (which we would highly recommend to anyone). As we were walking to our hotel, we rounded the corner to see this tremendous church in front of us, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral church of Florence, also known as the Duomo. It is an incredibly ornate church on the outside with a much simpler decor on the inside. We climbed the 414 steps of the Bell Tower (Giotto’s Camanile) to see the most beautiful 360 degree view of Florence. This made for some spectacular pictures! We walked the Piazza della Signoria (an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio) The Piazza has a copy of Michelangelo's David as well the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi.
The rest of the weekend was spent exploring Florence and its quaint streets and shops along with the churches of San Lorenzo and the Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross). Santa Croce is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce and is the burial place of some of the most famous Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, and Marconi. We had museum tours of the Opera of del Duomo to see Michelangelo’s statue of David. Ryan did a great job on his blog about our weekend so we won’t repeat what he already wrote about. Florence is absolutely beautiful – even in February.
We headed back to Rome on Sunday after mass at St. Maria del Fiore. One thing about these beautiful churches is that they are very cold inside. I guess because of the enormous size they are hard to heat so it was actually warmer outside than in. When we arrived back in Rome we visited the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (Basilica of Saint Mary Major) which is one of the five great ancient basilicas of Rome and one of the churches for which the Villanova students created a virtual tour. In the evening Ryan was our tour guide again as we visited the Pantheon and Trevi fountain. We did as our tour guide suggested and threw in coins over our left shoulder. We also had a wonderful dinner at Mickey’s with Ryan’s friends (the other three Villanova students). Nate, Jackie and Joey filled our dinner conversation with wonderful stories of their time in Rome. It was so nice to finally meet them and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. After dinner the nine of us went for gelato at Nancy’s favorite place, St. Crispino’s.
On Monday morning, (Feb. 15) we met Ryan at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls which Ryan is photographing as one of his internship projects. It is hard to describe how big and beautiful the Basilica is. Ryan can point you to the virtual reality tour previous Villanova students prepared for the Vatican website.
We then rushed back to the Vatican for what would be the highlight of our trip – a tour of the excavations beneath St. Peter’s. Tickets for the tour are extremely hard to come by, but Ryan was able to get us some. An American seminarian from Ohio who is studying in Rome was our tour guide. He led our group of 15 down into the excavations for what was an hour and a half history lesson and a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s tomb. This guest post is already a little too long but we could go on and on about this experience. In summary, Emperor Constantine’s first basilica in the 4th century and then the present basilica in the 16th century were built over a pagan burial ground. Christian tradition had always held that St. Peter had been buried in a pauper’s grave in the burial ground in 64 A.D. All of the ornate mausoleums were filled in when the first basilica was built. It wasn’t until 1939 that the excavations discovered the long-buried mausoleums. The excavations continued toward the area under the great altar in the Basilica until the 1960’s when first the tomb and then St. Peter’s bones were found right where tradition had held they were supposed to be – directly under Michelangelo’s dome, under Bernini’s Baldachino, and under the great altar in the Basilica. The tour led us to a place where we could peer into a niche in the excavation to see St. Peter’s bones. We all stood in silence as our tour guide read from St. Matthew’s gospel when Jesus told Peter: “You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”
It would be hard to top that – that is, until LuAnne started holding hands with the Pope in the video Ryan has already posted. Ryan gave us a tour of St. Peter’s, showing us where the Villanova team went throughout the basilica to take their panoramic photographs. We had a terrific dinner at a small restaurant in Trastevere, and then had to say goodbye to Ryan since he was heading out early Tuesday for his trip to northern Italy. We would have to get by for the next two days without our tour guide and translator.
On Tuesday Feb. 16th we toured the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. It was very rainy and cold, but we had some souvenir shopping to do, so we endured the rain. We got to see the Pantheon – this time with rain falling through the oculus in the dome. We had a great dinner (which goes without saying) off the Via Veneto and then to bed to rest up for our last day in Rome.
Wednesday was the day we spent with the Pope. We attended the Papal audience in the Vatican auditorium. The Pope was greeted wildly by the 6000 in attendance. After the Pope read his Lenten message (since it was Ash Wednesday) he then greeted the various groups who were in attendance, many of which returned the favor by singing a hymn. We did some more souvenir shopping in and around the Vatican. Matt bought a miraculous medal – which will have some significance later that evening.
On Ash Wednesday, the Pope says Mass at Santa Sabina, an ancient and small church on Aventine Hill in the southern part of Rome. Somehow, Nancy had obtained tickets for us to attend the Mass. Santa Sabina is a rather small church- maybe holding about 1000 people. We were unlucky and didn’t get a seat but it turned out to be a lucky thing that we didn’t. We were able to stand along the rail on the center aisle and were right up front when the Pope walked in. Matt took video and we tried to take some pictures which turned out a little blurry. The distribution of ashes was different from what we are used to. Instead of making the sign of the cross on our foreheads with the ashes, the ashes were sprinkled on top of our heads by the priest. As it was nearing the end of Mass, LuAnne decided to take out the miraculous medal that Matt had bought and held it in her hand along with the rosary beads that Bob had given her when she was expecting with Ryan. She hoped that the Pope would bless them as he processed out of church. However, as he was walking out, he paused to listen to the man standing next to her. When he did, he held her hand with the miraculous medal and the rosary beads for a few seconds. The video Ryan posted shows the Pope stopping to speak with the man, which is when he held LuAnne’s hand. It was an end to an amazing day and a fantastic trip.
In all, we received the Pope’s Apostolic Blessing three times on this trip. As it was explained, the blessing is for us and our families and for all of our intentions. Our family and friends were always on our minds and in our prayers every time we visited a church, lit a candle, and each time we received the Pope’s blessing.
Thanks, Ryan for giving us the chance to make this trip.
Tues. morning Nancy got on the phone with ABC tours and by noon on Tues. they were able to get us on a flight out at 6:10 pm. We all scurried to get out of work and school and to finish packing. We needed to get to the airport by 3:00 pm so it was a very frenzied couple of hours in order to make our flight. We did manage to catch the flight and get out of NJ ahead of the storm.
We were all pretty tired when we arrived. Ryan met us at our hotel (it was great to see him) and we went out for a quick dinner – quick in Roman terms because you are never rushed while eating in Italy.
Because we arrived in Rome a day early, we were able to attend the Papal Mass with Ryan in St. Peter’s Basilica on Feb. 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was incredible that the first time we set foot into St. Peter’s, it was for a Papal Mass. For everyone who has seen it in person, you know that St. Peter’s is breathtaking. It is huge, and every inch of it is both an incredible work of art and a religious experience. After Mass, we walked over to see Ryan’s hotel and had lunch at Forno in Campo de’ Fiore. Ryan promised it was the best pizza we would ever taste, and he was right. (In fact, the next week after Ryan left on his trip to Northern Italy, we walked over to Campo in the pouring rain – while getting a little lost without our tour guide Ryan – just to have some more of the amazing pizza.)
We visited the Colosseum while Ryan went to class. We used the audio tour as our guide and Matt took some incredible pictures. We also visited the Basilica of St. Ambrose and St. Charles (which houses the relic of St. Charles Borremeo– his heart – on display for all to see), the Spanish Steps, the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Chains) which houses the chains used to hold St. Peter in his prisons in Jerusalem and Rome. It is amazing how many churches there are in Rome. We would go inside and couldn’t get over how large and beautiful they all were. Many house precious relics or art pieces. One church we popped into was an Augustinian church which had a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas of Villanova – coincidence? We also had time to walk around the Via del Corso and see the quaint shops. Ryan took us to a great place for dinner (it took us a couple of days to get used to eating dinner after 7:30) and then dessert (tartufo) at Trescalini’s. It was a full first day but very exciting.
Friday – Feb. 12th - 15th We woke up early and headed to the train station for our side trip to Florence for the weekend. We were fortunate that Ryan didn’t have any school commitments and was able to join us. Unbelievably, it was snowing very heavily in Rome. We were told that it was the first time it had snowed in Rome in 50 years. Probably not true, but it makes for a good story anyway.
In Florence, we had a short walk to our little family-run hotel – the Hotel Casci (which we would highly recommend to anyone). As we were walking to our hotel, we rounded the corner to see this tremendous church in front of us, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral church of Florence, also known as the Duomo. It is an incredibly ornate church on the outside with a much simpler decor on the inside. We climbed the 414 steps of the Bell Tower (Giotto’s Camanile) to see the most beautiful 360 degree view of Florence. This made for some spectacular pictures! We walked the Piazza della Signoria (an L-shaped square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio) The Piazza has a copy of Michelangelo's David as well the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi.
The rest of the weekend was spent exploring Florence and its quaint streets and shops along with the churches of San Lorenzo and the Basilica di Santa Croce (Basilica of the Holy Cross). Santa Croce is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce and is the burial place of some of the most famous Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Rossini, and Marconi. We had museum tours of the Opera of del Duomo to see Michelangelo’s statue of David. Ryan did a great job on his blog about our weekend so we won’t repeat what he already wrote about. Florence is absolutely beautiful – even in February.
We headed back to Rome on Sunday after mass at St. Maria del Fiore. One thing about these beautiful churches is that they are very cold inside. I guess because of the enormous size they are hard to heat so it was actually warmer outside than in. When we arrived back in Rome we visited the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore (Basilica of Saint Mary Major) which is one of the five great ancient basilicas of Rome and one of the churches for which the Villanova students created a virtual tour. In the evening Ryan was our tour guide again as we visited the Pantheon and Trevi fountain. We did as our tour guide suggested and threw in coins over our left shoulder. We also had a wonderful dinner at Mickey’s with Ryan’s friends (the other three Villanova students). Nate, Jackie and Joey filled our dinner conversation with wonderful stories of their time in Rome. It was so nice to finally meet them and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. After dinner the nine of us went for gelato at Nancy’s favorite place, St. Crispino’s.
On Monday morning, (Feb. 15) we met Ryan at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls which Ryan is photographing as one of his internship projects. It is hard to describe how big and beautiful the Basilica is. Ryan can point you to the virtual reality tour previous Villanova students prepared for the Vatican website.
We then rushed back to the Vatican for what would be the highlight of our trip – a tour of the excavations beneath St. Peter’s. Tickets for the tour are extremely hard to come by, but Ryan was able to get us some. An American seminarian from Ohio who is studying in Rome was our tour guide. He led our group of 15 down into the excavations for what was an hour and a half history lesson and a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s tomb. This guest post is already a little too long but we could go on and on about this experience. In summary, Emperor Constantine’s first basilica in the 4th century and then the present basilica in the 16th century were built over a pagan burial ground. Christian tradition had always held that St. Peter had been buried in a pauper’s grave in the burial ground in 64 A.D. All of the ornate mausoleums were filled in when the first basilica was built. It wasn’t until 1939 that the excavations discovered the long-buried mausoleums. The excavations continued toward the area under the great altar in the Basilica until the 1960’s when first the tomb and then St. Peter’s bones were found right where tradition had held they were supposed to be – directly under Michelangelo’s dome, under Bernini’s Baldachino, and under the great altar in the Basilica. The tour led us to a place where we could peer into a niche in the excavation to see St. Peter’s bones. We all stood in silence as our tour guide read from St. Matthew’s gospel when Jesus told Peter: “You are Rock, and on this rock I will build my church.”
It would be hard to top that – that is, until LuAnne started holding hands with the Pope in the video Ryan has already posted. Ryan gave us a tour of St. Peter’s, showing us where the Villanova team went throughout the basilica to take their panoramic photographs. We had a terrific dinner at a small restaurant in Trastevere, and then had to say goodbye to Ryan since he was heading out early Tuesday for his trip to northern Italy. We would have to get by for the next two days without our tour guide and translator.
On Tuesday Feb. 16th we toured the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. It was very rainy and cold, but we had some souvenir shopping to do, so we endured the rain. We got to see the Pantheon – this time with rain falling through the oculus in the dome. We had a great dinner (which goes without saying) off the Via Veneto and then to bed to rest up for our last day in Rome.
Wednesday was the day we spent with the Pope. We attended the Papal audience in the Vatican auditorium. The Pope was greeted wildly by the 6000 in attendance. After the Pope read his Lenten message (since it was Ash Wednesday) he then greeted the various groups who were in attendance, many of which returned the favor by singing a hymn. We did some more souvenir shopping in and around the Vatican. Matt bought a miraculous medal – which will have some significance later that evening.
On Ash Wednesday, the Pope says Mass at Santa Sabina, an ancient and small church on Aventine Hill in the southern part of Rome. Somehow, Nancy had obtained tickets for us to attend the Mass. Santa Sabina is a rather small church- maybe holding about 1000 people. We were unlucky and didn’t get a seat but it turned out to be a lucky thing that we didn’t. We were able to stand along the rail on the center aisle and were right up front when the Pope walked in. Matt took video and we tried to take some pictures which turned out a little blurry. The distribution of ashes was different from what we are used to. Instead of making the sign of the cross on our foreheads with the ashes, the ashes were sprinkled on top of our heads by the priest. As it was nearing the end of Mass, LuAnne decided to take out the miraculous medal that Matt had bought and held it in her hand along with the rosary beads that Bob had given her when she was expecting with Ryan. She hoped that the Pope would bless them as he processed out of church. However, as he was walking out, he paused to listen to the man standing next to her. When he did, he held her hand with the miraculous medal and the rosary beads for a few seconds. The video Ryan posted shows the Pope stopping to speak with the man, which is when he held LuAnne’s hand. It was an end to an amazing day and a fantastic trip.
In all, we received the Pope’s Apostolic Blessing three times on this trip. As it was explained, the blessing is for us and our families and for all of our intentions. Our family and friends were always on our minds and in our prayers every time we visited a church, lit a candle, and each time we received the Pope’s blessing.
Thanks, Ryan for giving us the chance to make this trip.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Pope videos
Here's what you've all been waiting for, the videos of the pope on Ash Wednesday, where he at one point holds hands with my mom. I believe it is in the second video, when he stops in front of Matt and stands there to talk for a second, though I'm not certain, so if someone who was there could clear that up in the comments I'll post an update to this post. Pretty incredible stuff, blog post from the family coming soon (I've been promised).
Update from my Mom: You are correct. The pope held my hand in the second video when he was walking out of church. I was standing next to an Italian man (you can see the back of the man's head - dark hair) and Matt was taking the video over my head so you can't see the pope actually holding my hand but at around 25 seconds into the video when the man is talking to the pope you can see the pope's right arm stretch out and he was holding my hand at this point while listening to the man. The man handed a picture which security took from him and the pope let go of my hand and went to the other side of the aisle.
Update from my Mom: You are correct. The pope held my hand in the second video when he was walking out of church. I was standing next to an Italian man (you can see the back of the man's head - dark hair) and Matt was taking the video over my head so you can't see the pope actually holding my hand but at around 25 seconds into the video when the man is talking to the pope you can see the pope's right arm stretch out and he was holding my hand at this point while listening to the man. The man handed a picture which security took from him and the pope let go of my hand and went to the other side of the aisle.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Catch up!
I can't make any promises on new posts until saturday night, so now
would be the perfect time to catch up on past posts. If you missed a
few, or are new to the blog, you can go through all the different
posts. There is a chronological list on the right hand side, just
below the twitter feed.
would be the perfect time to catch up on past posts. If you missed a
few, or are new to the blog, you can go through all the different
posts. There is a chronological list on the right hand side, just
below the twitter feed.
have a favorite past post? Tell everyone in the comments of this post
so they know which ones are worthwhile. maybe i'll even post a
favorite or two of my own.
Firenze part 3
So shame on me, the posts have been very thin, but it is only because i have been traveling this past week and my internet access is at a minimum.
so an update on me right now, we are currently in northern italy, staying in ferrara and doing day trips to surrounding towns. It has been very cold, but otherwise an interesting trip. a couple of us made our own side trip to venice for fat tuesday. Very cool, i'll post about that in a later post.
my family is on their way back to the states after a couple days by themselves. they went to mass on ash wednesday and the pope in passing reached and held hands with my mom. i wasn't present for this incredible experience, so hopefully i will have a guest blogger talk about that and their overall experience in italy...
so florence, shall we?
unlike the mona lisa, going to see david in florence was a more fulfilling experience. with the david, it is clear why this is the selling point of the museum, and is itself worth the price of admission. the rest of the museum is also impressive.
small town feel:
i think my family will agree with me that the small town feel and atmosphere of florence really makes it special. the cobblestone roads with no cars, small side streets and colorful buildings make it welcoming and fun. as my brother matt put it "this is what i imagined when i thought of what italy would be like". He was obviously referring to the comparison of florence to rome, and rightfully so. though rome does has quaint, quiet areas, the popular neighborhoods and tourist areas are much more commercialized and developed to put it simply.
the food in florence was fantastic, as it is in all other areas of italy i have experienced so far. The outdoor markets, mostly of leather products are fun to walk through and use your haggling skills. at night florence basically closes up shop pretty early, but that doesn't mean you can't just walk around and enjoy the sites. the ponte veccio, a bridge with all jewelry stores on it was equally as cool at night, all closed up, as it was during the day, but then again, i wasn't looking to buy any jewelry.
i will post my pictures as soon as i get back to my computer in rome on saturday, and if i can get a link to matt's pictures i will put that up here asap.
i promise starting saturday i will resume my daily posting. Consider this my "spring break"
so an update on me right now, we are currently in northern italy, staying in ferrara and doing day trips to surrounding towns. It has been very cold, but otherwise an interesting trip. a couple of us made our own side trip to venice for fat tuesday. Very cool, i'll post about that in a later post.
my family is on their way back to the states after a couple days by themselves. they went to mass on ash wednesday and the pope in passing reached and held hands with my mom. i wasn't present for this incredible experience, so hopefully i will have a guest blogger talk about that and their overall experience in italy...
so florence, shall we?
unlike the mona lisa, going to see david in florence was a more fulfilling experience. with the david, it is clear why this is the selling point of the museum, and is itself worth the price of admission. the rest of the museum is also impressive.
small town feel:
i think my family will agree with me that the small town feel and atmosphere of florence really makes it special. the cobblestone roads with no cars, small side streets and colorful buildings make it welcoming and fun. as my brother matt put it "this is what i imagined when i thought of what italy would be like". He was obviously referring to the comparison of florence to rome, and rightfully so. though rome does has quaint, quiet areas, the popular neighborhoods and tourist areas are much more commercialized and developed to put it simply.
the food in florence was fantastic, as it is in all other areas of italy i have experienced so far. The outdoor markets, mostly of leather products are fun to walk through and use your haggling skills. at night florence basically closes up shop pretty early, but that doesn't mean you can't just walk around and enjoy the sites. the ponte veccio, a bridge with all jewelry stores on it was equally as cool at night, all closed up, as it was during the day, but then again, i wasn't looking to buy any jewelry.
i will post my pictures as soon as i get back to my computer in rome on saturday, and if i can get a link to matt's pictures i will put that up here asap.
i promise starting saturday i will resume my daily posting. Consider this my "spring break"
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Firenze (part 2)
So this is my first mobile blog! Im currently five hours into a six hour bus ride to ferrara in northern Italy. I slept the first three, but have been pretty awake the rest of the time, so i figured what better time than now to write in the blog.
I'm going to write until my fingers get tired from typing on my phone, and I ask that you also ignore my lack of capitalization if it occurs, I will come back on my computer sometime in the future and fix that.
so, florence, part 2... We found our hotel which wasn't far from the train station at all. It was the third story of an apartment building, a family run business with really nice staff, good size rooms, and soft boiled eggs for breakfast!(oh eggs, how i miss thee. and milk...i don't even want to talk about milk right now, thats a rant for another time). So we got settled in the hotel and went exploring.
my timeline of events might be very wrong, i can never remember when and what order we did things, but i'll try my best.
the duomo:
is my spelling correct on that? I'm not really sure but i'm going to roll with it. we did duomo related activities on both friday and sunday, but i am going to talk about both now. the duomo is an incredible piece of art, on the outside. (pictures soon) on friday we climbed the belltower for a spectacular view of florence. the stairs up were a little rough, but we managed. We also went inside on friday, which is pretty bare compared to the complex facade outside. on sunday we went to mass inside and sat under the duomo which was really cool. we also went into the duomo museum which explained the history of the duomo, which has changed appearance many times. The most interesting thing is just walking around the outside and taking a look at it all.
we are almost at ferrara now, so i figure it is a good time to stop. i'll continue soon!
I'm going to write until my fingers get tired from typing on my phone, and I ask that you also ignore my lack of capitalization if it occurs, I will come back on my computer sometime in the future and fix that.
so, florence, part 2... We found our hotel which wasn't far from the train station at all. It was the third story of an apartment building, a family run business with really nice staff, good size rooms, and soft boiled eggs for breakfast!(oh eggs, how i miss thee. and milk...i don't even want to talk about milk right now, thats a rant for another time). So we got settled in the hotel and went exploring.
my timeline of events might be very wrong, i can never remember when and what order we did things, but i'll try my best.
the duomo:
is my spelling correct on that? I'm not really sure but i'm going to roll with it. we did duomo related activities on both friday and sunday, but i am going to talk about both now. the duomo is an incredible piece of art, on the outside. (pictures soon) on friday we climbed the belltower for a spectacular view of florence. the stairs up were a little rough, but we managed. We also went inside on friday, which is pretty bare compared to the complex facade outside. on sunday we went to mass inside and sat under the duomo which was really cool. we also went into the duomo museum which explained the history of the duomo, which has changed appearance many times. The most interesting thing is just walking around the outside and taking a look at it all.
we are almost at ferrara now, so i figure it is a good time to stop. i'll continue soon!
Firenze (part 1)
So, I confess, I’ve been slacking. Well, not really slacking as so far as not getting a post up as quickly as I could have, but with my family here I haven’t had many free minutes to take the time to type something up. I was actually counting on having some guest bloggers, but they haven’t exactly any free time either. I would like to hear their insight as a newcomer to all of this, especially after having read most of my posts (In person, I tend to repeat to them the exact same things that I write about in the blog. I am still hoping that one of them will step forward and at least give a little first hand account from a tourist coming to visit Rome and Italy for a week.
So as I told you, we went to Florence this weekend, so like all weekend recaps, I’m going to do a big post about Florence. I am actually getting on a bus in two hours to head back to northern Italy for a St. Mary’s sponsored trip, so I’m going to keep it relatively short for now, with the intention of updating on my way up there (6 hour bus ride, I will have plenty of free time to type.)
So, we took a train from Rome Termini to Florence. We opted in for the high-speed train, which takes about an hour and a half to make it there. Not a bad train ride at all. Before we boarded the train, we witnessed something that Rome hasn’t seen for about 25 years: Snow. It seems like wherever my family goes, the snow follows. It was entertaining to watch the Romans, young and old, react to such an event. They all acted like little kids, and couldn’t get over the spectacle. They struggled with the concept of traveling in snow, in their smart cars and scooters and even taxis.
Our high-speed train got us to Florence a bit early even, and we made our way onto the streets to find our Hotel. I think this is really where the realization of my next tangent set in.
I’ve been here five weeks, with no prior experience with the Italian language or culture, besides the bit of Italian cuisine and culture I’ve learned from my Italian side of the family over the years. Seeing my parents come over here for the first time, a new world to them, was an interesting experience. Here I am, a student studying here, and I am teaching them about the culture and language. I was, as they referred to me, their tour guide for the week. They did extremely well getting around, especially in Florence, and still very well in Rome, but the language barrier is something that I’ve quickly forgotten.
I’m not saying I speak fluent Italian. I don’t even speak Italian. I understand phrases and recognize words, and then use fragmented sentences and key words to communicate. But even this is a major difference from when I first got here, and from the standpoint of my family visiting. Hearing my mom try and say Grazie was always fun, but it occurred to me how far I’ve come in just the 5 weeks I’ve been here. A true testimant to Carlotta, my Italian tutor.
I have to stop now, my eyes are getting heavy and I would like some sleep before I head to Florence. Expect an update very soon, from the bus to Ferrara.
So as I told you, we went to Florence this weekend, so like all weekend recaps, I’m going to do a big post about Florence. I am actually getting on a bus in two hours to head back to northern Italy for a St. Mary’s sponsored trip, so I’m going to keep it relatively short for now, with the intention of updating on my way up there (6 hour bus ride, I will have plenty of free time to type.)
So, we took a train from Rome Termini to Florence. We opted in for the high-speed train, which takes about an hour and a half to make it there. Not a bad train ride at all. Before we boarded the train, we witnessed something that Rome hasn’t seen for about 25 years: Snow. It seems like wherever my family goes, the snow follows. It was entertaining to watch the Romans, young and old, react to such an event. They all acted like little kids, and couldn’t get over the spectacle. They struggled with the concept of traveling in snow, in their smart cars and scooters and even taxis.
Our high-speed train got us to Florence a bit early even, and we made our way onto the streets to find our Hotel. I think this is really where the realization of my next tangent set in.
I’ve been here five weeks, with no prior experience with the Italian language or culture, besides the bit of Italian cuisine and culture I’ve learned from my Italian side of the family over the years. Seeing my parents come over here for the first time, a new world to them, was an interesting experience. Here I am, a student studying here, and I am teaching them about the culture and language. I was, as they referred to me, their tour guide for the week. They did extremely well getting around, especially in Florence, and still very well in Rome, but the language barrier is something that I’ve quickly forgotten.
I’m not saying I speak fluent Italian. I don’t even speak Italian. I understand phrases and recognize words, and then use fragmented sentences and key words to communicate. But even this is a major difference from when I first got here, and from the standpoint of my family visiting. Hearing my mom try and say Grazie was always fun, but it occurred to me how far I’ve come in just the 5 weeks I’ve been here. A true testimant to Carlotta, my Italian tutor.
I have to stop now, my eyes are getting heavy and I would like some sleep before I head to Florence. Expect an update very soon, from the bus to Ferrara.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Florence with the Fam...
Two trips in two weeks? Am I crazy? No, the family is here as you all know, and we are making a trip up to Florence for the weekend.
Taking a train tomorrow morning, I will be in Italy still so I can update the twitter feed and maybe even blog up there.
Today we went to mass at St. Peter's for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was an incredible experience, and my first mass at St. Peter's with the Pope. Mom, Dad, and Matt joined me and I think they were equally moved by it all. I have invited them to guest-write for the week on the blog, hopefully they will agree and can share their experiences with you all.
Dinner tonight was fantastic, great recommendation through Aunt Nancy, and some great dessert too (Tartufo).
Keep checking back, I'll update as much as possible!
Taking a train tomorrow morning, I will be in Italy still so I can update the twitter feed and maybe even blog up there.
Today we went to mass at St. Peter's for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. It was an incredible experience, and my first mass at St. Peter's with the Pope. Mom, Dad, and Matt joined me and I think they were equally moved by it all. I have invited them to guest-write for the week on the blog, hopefully they will agree and can share their experiences with you all.
Dinner tonight was fantastic, great recommendation through Aunt Nancy, and some great dessert too (Tartufo).
Keep checking back, I'll update as much as possible!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Lets talk about all of you for a change
So I've been doing a lot of talking about myself. Well actually, I've talked mostly about myself considering it is a blog about my experiences. But this wouldn't be nearly as fun and interesting if it wasn't an interaction of sorts. I'm not one to keep a private diary or journal. I do this blog to share with all of you, and I love hearing back from everyone in the comments. It is what fuels me to keep writing and bringing you stuff I think you will find interesting.
So since I know not every visitor comments every time on the blog, I began to track the visits to my website through Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a really neat google project that lets you see all sorts of information about your website, and who is visiting it. I am always curious to find out where the people visiting the blog are from, what they are looking at, how many show up each day etc... Google Analytics lets me do just that.
A month ago, about a week into the blog, I installed Google Analytics on my site. It was just a tiny piece of code in the website that tracks every visit. It is pretty impressive/scary what google can gather about each and every one of you from a small little piece of code.
I decided to write this post today, because I am celebrating my 1,000th visit to the blog. Technically right now the count is at 1,092 as I speak, but seeing as Italy has 71 visits to date, most of them probably me, my 1,000th visit came sometime yesterday. Also, I didn't have the tracking enabled the first week of the blog, so I missed counting all those visits as well, but we'll just say 1,000 for simplicity.
So 1,000 visits in about a month eh? Lets take a look at where you are from, and what you are up to on my blog!
Quick math (or Google Analyitics for that matter) says that I average 35 visits a day. The most visits in a single day came this past Monday, when I posted Paris Parts 1 and 2, which had 68 visits. A visit doesn't mean a different individual, but a count of how many times someone comes to the site. So if you type in ryan-mahoney.blogspot.com and browse a couple different posts, that counts as one visit. If you come back later in the day and check thet site again, depending on how long ago you were last on, that may also count as another visit.
I average about 20 Unique Visitors a day. That means that in any given day around 20 people make up that average of 35 visits. So almost everyone is coming back for more in the same day. This does vary greatly on different days though. Weekends that I say I am not going to be blogging tend to show less visits and visitors because people know not to check it until I am back.
What I find really cool is that I get to know my audience through these analytic reports. What do I know about you, you might ask, well I'll tell you!
I have had 150 different people visit my blog over the past month. That means that 150 different computers (probably tracked by IP address or MAC address if that means anything to you) have seen my site at one time or another. This obviously doesn't account for multiple people using the same computer to read it or who read it together.
I have had visitors from 5 different countries visit the site. The bulk of it is the US, but also Italy (of course), Spain, the UK and yesterday saw my first hit from Canada!
In the good old U.S. of A, I have had visitors from 11 different states. Here is a visual representation of them (the darker the state, the more visits from that state overall):
If that map is too small for you, or you don't know your geography, here is a list of the 11 states, with the number of visits to date:
New Jersey (608)
Pennsylvania (128)
New York (113)
Maryland (48)
California (37)
Illinois (5)
Massachusetts (2)
District of Columbia (2)
Virginia (2)
Connecticut (1)
New Hampshire (1)
So as you can see, New Jersey controls just over half the hits to the blog. Rightfully so I suppose, seeing as that is where I am from and where most of my family lives. Pennsylvania is close behind, again logical because I go to school there.
A cool little fact is that within these 11 states, 60 different cities are represented overall. 27 of which are in New Jersey.
My Hometown of Bridgewater is responsible for 110 of the visits, but is trumped by Liberty Corner in NJ, which has 247 visits. Villanova comes in at a close 3rd with 102 visits. On average, 12% of visitors every day are new visitors, meaning it is their first time on the blog.
I find this statistic to be one of the most rewarding of all: 88% of all visits are from returning users, meaning that only 12% of visitors have only visited the blog once. That must mean I am doing something right, because people keep coming back for more.
So now some nerdy statistics that I enjoy looking at. If you don't want to/don't understand the following, just skip to the next paragraph, I won't be offended. I am proud to say that the majority of my visitors use Mozilla Firefox to visit the site, not Internet Explorer. In fact, Safari comes in a close third, only 2% off of IE in 2nd. Most of you are using Windows, but 35% of visits came from Mac OS X. I even had a couple of hits through iphones, android phones, and linux. You're a tech savy bunch aren't you? Most of you are using a Cable internet connection, though some visits are even coming from a Dialup connection. I hope my pictures and long text loads okay on that connection, I'll keep you in mind dialup visitors when I post lengthy blogs and large pictures.
Okay, you can stop skipping now, the techy part is over. So now I have a bit of a challenge for you, my readers. Ready? From what I can see I have some pretty loyal readers, and for that I am very greatful. Knowing you are checking the blog day in and day out motivates me to make sure I post every day and to bring you something interesting to read about, so I try and come up with cool topics for the posts. What I would like from you, is your help in promoting this blog. I have sent out the link to most people in my email contacts list, and have posted it on facebook and the like. So if you have a minute, and know of even just one person who you feel would be interested in reading the blog, whether it be one specific post you think they would find interesting, or the entire thing, please send them the link or tell them about it. Maybe its a family member or friend who is into traveling, or someone who is interested in the Italian/Roman culture, or even someone from your church (or your entire church, dare I say it?) seeing as I am participating in an internship at the Vatican. Lets see what kind of buzz we can stir up on the internet. Maybe we can get at least one view from all 50 states? Might be a hard task to find that person in Alaska, but I think that could be a really cool goal. Maybe I'm being greedy, after all, I should be more than happy with the fact that even one person comes to the site every day, but I think if we can grow the community of readers, and get people to start commenting, and have some conversations, some interactions through the blog posts and comments (I'll start responding to comments directly both in the posts and in the comments sections) I think we could all come away with something new every day. The last thing I want is for this to become a day-by-day list of my day-to-day activities.
To all of my past and present readers, I thank you. I started talking, and you, for one reason or another, listened. I hope that you continue to check back as often as you see fit, and are getting something from all of my posts.
To any new readers who might be a result of this post, thank you for visiting. I hope that if the site has been recommended to you by someone, and you enjoy it, you will do the same and continue the cycle.
And as always, the comment section is open!
My family will be arriving very soon, they are currently in Frankfurt, waiting for their connection to leave from there to Rome, which as been delayed by 2 hours at this point. I will update twitter (on the right, as always) when they arrive.
So since I know not every visitor comments every time on the blog, I began to track the visits to my website through Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a really neat google project that lets you see all sorts of information about your website, and who is visiting it. I am always curious to find out where the people visiting the blog are from, what they are looking at, how many show up each day etc... Google Analytics lets me do just that.
A month ago, about a week into the blog, I installed Google Analytics on my site. It was just a tiny piece of code in the website that tracks every visit. It is pretty impressive/scary what google can gather about each and every one of you from a small little piece of code.
I decided to write this post today, because I am celebrating my 1,000th visit to the blog. Technically right now the count is at 1,092 as I speak, but seeing as Italy has 71 visits to date, most of them probably me, my 1,000th visit came sometime yesterday. Also, I didn't have the tracking enabled the first week of the blog, so I missed counting all those visits as well, but we'll just say 1,000 for simplicity.
So 1,000 visits in about a month eh? Lets take a look at where you are from, and what you are up to on my blog!
Quick math (or Google Analyitics for that matter) says that I average 35 visits a day. The most visits in a single day came this past Monday, when I posted Paris Parts 1 and 2, which had 68 visits. A visit doesn't mean a different individual, but a count of how many times someone comes to the site. So if you type in ryan-mahoney.blogspot.com and browse a couple different posts, that counts as one visit. If you come back later in the day and check thet site again, depending on how long ago you were last on, that may also count as another visit.
I average about 20 Unique Visitors a day. That means that in any given day around 20 people make up that average of 35 visits. So almost everyone is coming back for more in the same day. This does vary greatly on different days though. Weekends that I say I am not going to be blogging tend to show less visits and visitors because people know not to check it until I am back.
What I find really cool is that I get to know my audience through these analytic reports. What do I know about you, you might ask, well I'll tell you!
I have had 150 different people visit my blog over the past month. That means that 150 different computers (probably tracked by IP address or MAC address if that means anything to you) have seen my site at one time or another. This obviously doesn't account for multiple people using the same computer to read it or who read it together.
I have had visitors from 5 different countries visit the site. The bulk of it is the US, but also Italy (of course), Spain, the UK and yesterday saw my first hit from Canada!
In the good old U.S. of A, I have had visitors from 11 different states. Here is a visual representation of them (the darker the state, the more visits from that state overall):
If that map is too small for you, or you don't know your geography, here is a list of the 11 states, with the number of visits to date:
New Jersey (608)
Pennsylvania (128)
New York (113)
Maryland (48)
California (37)
Illinois (5)
Massachusetts (2)
District of Columbia (2)
Virginia (2)
Connecticut (1)
New Hampshire (1)
So as you can see, New Jersey controls just over half the hits to the blog. Rightfully so I suppose, seeing as that is where I am from and where most of my family lives. Pennsylvania is close behind, again logical because I go to school there.
A cool little fact is that within these 11 states, 60 different cities are represented overall. 27 of which are in New Jersey.
My Hometown of Bridgewater is responsible for 110 of the visits, but is trumped by Liberty Corner in NJ, which has 247 visits. Villanova comes in at a close 3rd with 102 visits. On average, 12% of visitors every day are new visitors, meaning it is their first time on the blog.
I find this statistic to be one of the most rewarding of all: 88% of all visits are from returning users, meaning that only 12% of visitors have only visited the blog once. That must mean I am doing something right, because people keep coming back for more.
So now some nerdy statistics that I enjoy looking at. If you don't want to/don't understand the following, just skip to the next paragraph, I won't be offended. I am proud to say that the majority of my visitors use Mozilla Firefox to visit the site, not Internet Explorer. In fact, Safari comes in a close third, only 2% off of IE in 2nd. Most of you are using Windows, but 35% of visits came from Mac OS X. I even had a couple of hits through iphones, android phones, and linux. You're a tech savy bunch aren't you? Most of you are using a Cable internet connection, though some visits are even coming from a Dialup connection. I hope my pictures and long text loads okay on that connection, I'll keep you in mind dialup visitors when I post lengthy blogs and large pictures.
Okay, you can stop skipping now, the techy part is over. So now I have a bit of a challenge for you, my readers. Ready? From what I can see I have some pretty loyal readers, and for that I am very greatful. Knowing you are checking the blog day in and day out motivates me to make sure I post every day and to bring you something interesting to read about, so I try and come up with cool topics for the posts. What I would like from you, is your help in promoting this blog. I have sent out the link to most people in my email contacts list, and have posted it on facebook and the like. So if you have a minute, and know of even just one person who you feel would be interested in reading the blog, whether it be one specific post you think they would find interesting, or the entire thing, please send them the link or tell them about it. Maybe its a family member or friend who is into traveling, or someone who is interested in the Italian/Roman culture, or even someone from your church (or your entire church, dare I say it?) seeing as I am participating in an internship at the Vatican. Lets see what kind of buzz we can stir up on the internet. Maybe we can get at least one view from all 50 states? Might be a hard task to find that person in Alaska, but I think that could be a really cool goal. Maybe I'm being greedy, after all, I should be more than happy with the fact that even one person comes to the site every day, but I think if we can grow the community of readers, and get people to start commenting, and have some conversations, some interactions through the blog posts and comments (I'll start responding to comments directly both in the posts and in the comments sections) I think we could all come away with something new every day. The last thing I want is for this to become a day-by-day list of my day-to-day activities.
To all of my past and present readers, I thank you. I started talking, and you, for one reason or another, listened. I hope that you continue to check back as often as you see fit, and are getting something from all of my posts.
To any new readers who might be a result of this post, thank you for visiting. I hope that if the site has been recommended to you by someone, and you enjoy it, you will do the same and continue the cycle.
And as always, the comment section is open!
My family will be arriving very soon, they are currently in Frankfurt, waiting for their connection to leave from there to Rome, which as been delayed by 2 hours at this point. I will update twitter (on the right, as always) when they arrive.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Paris! (Part 3, The Finale)
This is Part 3, the final part of a 3 part series on my trip to Paris. To see Parts 1 and 2, click on the links below:
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
A quick side note before I begin part 3:
So I want to respond to something that was brought to my attention about Part 2 of the Paris post. A reader emailed me saying I didn't sound like I really liked Paris that much. When I went back and read my post, I saw where they could get that from. It seemed like I was criticizing all of the different things I saw, and several times said I was "underwhelmed". I think I was more critical of the Paris attractions because I have learned about them for a good portion of my life. Since 6th grade I have been taking French classes. Not only do you learn the language in these classes, but you learn about the culture and the different locations in France and other French speaking countries. We have studied pretty exhaustively the region of Paris, including the different monuments and places in Paris. So unlike Barcelona, or Rome even, I knew what I wanted to see and what I would be seeing in Paris. I also knew the background of these places. I think this was what made Paris different. It was experiencing the places that I had seen in textbooks for so long that made it really cool. Yes, I was a bit critical of some places, but I think it's because I have come to have expectations for the sites. Nothing though, can trump the real life experience of seeing these places first hand. Everything we went to was exciting and memorable.
Part 3:
So Saturday...
We woke up early to have breakfast at the hostel (or hotel we decided on yesterday didn't we?). A french baguette and chocolate pastry, with coffee and orange juice. Not bad for a free breakfast. We then headed out to the sights for the day. It was a bit cloudy and a little rainy during the day, but that didn't stop us or slow us down.
Musee D'Orsay:
I didn't take pictures in this museum, mostly because I was more interested in just taking in the art as opposed to capturing it in pictures, and I think that says something for the exhibits at the Museum. I was really impressed by the exhibits. I got to see some really cool sculptures and paintings from artists such as Monet, including some really famous pieces. We spent a good couple hours in here and it was really cool.
Catacombs:
This is something I hadn't studied in French classes before, and it was really incredible. The catacombs are old mines that were used to mine stone and rock for building. Once the mines were all used up, they were turned into a burial place. Walking down into the catacombs was creepy, but that was only the beginning. We suddenly walked into a hallway of bones. Skulls and bones, piled up, actually stacked meticulously forming floor to ceiling walls. The amount of bones was incredible. They were lined with morbid sayings in french such as "The Empire of the Dead". Walking out of the Catacombs we were asked to open our bags, to show we had not stolen any bones. Pretty chilling.
Crepes:
Coming out of the Catacombs, we were all pretty hungry. So we made our way to a Crepe place that was recommended in a tour book of Paris. Great recommendation. In France, Crepes are used not only as a a dessert, but as a sandwich/pita like bread for breakfast/lunch. I got a crepe with Eggs, Ham, and Cheese. Incredible. One of the best tasting combinations of Egg, ham and cheese (One of my favorite breakfast sandwich combos) I have had in a long time. I didn't stop there. Next was a Crepe with Nutella and Banana. A classic dessert crepe, which was just as good. Everyone was really happy with their crepes, full and re-energized, we were ready to hit the sites again.
Luxembourg Gardens:
The weather was getting a bit better, just slightly overcast, so we headed to the Luxembourg Gardens. We walked by the fountains and sat around the water for a bit. The park was really big, so we walked around the South-East area of it, and then headed back in to the Metro (our favorite place in the world) to head to do a little shopping!!!
Galeries Lafayette:
Saying this is a large mall is an understatement. At Villanova, I live near the second Largest Mall in the U.S. and I still was overwhelmed by this mall. It was basically a huge department store, with small storefronts of all different name brand designers. The mall spanned over two blocks, and had an overpass to get from the two. The amount of people in it rivaled Macy's on December 23rd this year, which is really saying something. I didn't plan on buying anything, but it was cool to see a basically one-stop-shop for everything name-brand.
Tour D'Eiffel
By now you must have been thinking we forgot about that huge structure in Paris. The one that everyone always goes to see? Well we didn't forget about it, but planned all along to go see it at night. For one, it's much prettier at night (yes I said prettier, deal with it). The second being we thought the lines might not be as bad to go up it. Okay, I made that second reason up, it was only because it's prettier at night. The line wasn't long though so there! We opted in for the elevator, not the stairs, because we had done more than enough walking and climbing of stairs over the past two days. Good decision. The elevator took us to the second level of the Eiffel tower, which is I'd guess about halfway up heightwise. The elevator to the top was closed, but you could climb the stairs to it. We opted out for that. The view from the second level was incredible. You could see the entire city lit up on what turned out to be a pretty clear night. It was pretty windy up there, and therefore cold, but we stuck it out to take pictures and just take it all in. While we were up there it did it's little light show where it sparkles for about 5 or 10 minutes. It was really cool to see that happening right in front of us. Back down the elevator we went, satisfied with the pictures we had taken and the experience in general.
Dinner:
We went from the Eiffel tower to a local Cafe a friend of Erin's had recommended. It was a good choice. Really cool atmosphere and some good food, especially dessert. I had pasta for dinner. I know, I just couldn't help myself. I wanted to try the pasta in a different country. It was still very good, and the tiramisu came in a huge ice cream dish. Very good. We sat at the cafe for a couple hours just enjoying the atmosphere and hanging out.
Sunday:
The girls of Syracuse had an early train, 10am, on Sunday to go back to London, so we got breakfast and then parted ways. Meaning they left and I went back to bed for a couple hours. I then checked out of the hotel. While checking out, I wanted to ask about a local church to go to mass. I quickly realized that the man at the counter spoke little if no english. Good thing I had finally gotten into the habit of using French. Pause for Tangent.
Speaking Francais:
Yes, I've taken French for half of my educated life. Yes I should know french very well by now. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience.
Just as is familiar to me, I am going to grade myself on different aspects of French:
French Comprehension: A-
I was able to understand a lot of the French. Most of the normal talk I understood actually, or picked up on enough verbs or key words to make out what the person was saying or asking. It came pretty easily to me, sometimes I had to think about it for a second or two, but if I had learned it in the past it came to me quickly. This made interacting with the city pretty easy, such as getting places or ordering food.
Speaking French: C
Yes I understood the French, but speaking it was a whole other problem. You see, for the past month I've been living in Italy (in case you hadn't picked up on that already) and have been learning how to speak Italian. In French classes, its much easier to learn to comprehend the language than it is to speak it. So yes we do do speaking exercises, but it is not the same as actually using the language in real conversation situations. With Italian, most of my learning comes from real conversation situations because I'm forced into using it whether I like it or not. I have to speak it to survive here. So in Paris, when someone said something to me in French, my brain would comprehend it and begin to form a response. Trouble is, the Italian is quicker in responding than the french is. So I would hear a french question, and respond to the person in Italian. I understood what they were saying, and responded correctly, just in the wrong language. If I actually thought about what I needed to say, or if I was the one initiating the conversation, I had more time to deliberately think out the french, and I did well when it was this type of situation. But in a knee-jerk reaction situation, the Italian came out. Many times it was me saying si instead of oui.
So back to asking about church. I realized this guy didn't speak any english. Fortunately I was able to remember the word for church: l'eglise. I was able to form a sentence to tell him I was looking for a church, and he was able to show me on a map. I was not expecting what I found when I got there. It was a pretty big church for being in a small side street. I walked in just as mass was starting. Mass was quite an experience. All of the mass was in French, except for the readings which they did in both French and English for the first reading, and then French and Spanish for the second reading. There was a choir of nuns who sang, and there were organ interludes inbetween everything. It lasted an hour and a half, but was a really nice mass.
After this I walked around the cobblestone streets around the hotel and found this awesome bakery. The pastries were expensive,but looked really cool (see pic). I got a chocolate Baguette which was great and a coffee. From there it was back to the train station to go to the airport for my 4:40pm flight.
Flight home to Rome:
Have I talked about the Charles De Gaulle Airport yet? It is a spectacle in itself. It is a massive airport with Three Terminals. It's not just a big eyesore though. Besides the really nice shopping and restaurants the gates are really incredible. The gate I was in looked like the Louvre, a gigantic glass pyramid over top of the gates. One of the more impressive airports I've seen (though I haven't seen many).
Flying back to Rome, we passed over the Swiss Alps. At first through the clouds you could only see the peaks of a couple mountains peeking through (get it, peaks peeking through?!). Ten minutes later the clouds opened up and I could see the entire landscape of the mountains. It was a pretty moving experience and I couldn't help but stare out the window the rest of the flight.
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So that just about wraps up my trip to Paris. It was a really great weekend, it was nice to see Becky and all of the Syracuse girls there, and I'm ready for my next trip out of the country. But that will have to wait, seeing as my family is currently on their way over here, a quick change in plans with the impending storm that is headed towards the east coast. Florence this weekend with them, I'll keep everyone posted on when they arrive, check the twitter feed to the right!
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 2
A quick side note before I begin part 3:
So I want to respond to something that was brought to my attention about Part 2 of the Paris post. A reader emailed me saying I didn't sound like I really liked Paris that much. When I went back and read my post, I saw where they could get that from. It seemed like I was criticizing all of the different things I saw, and several times said I was "underwhelmed". I think I was more critical of the Paris attractions because I have learned about them for a good portion of my life. Since 6th grade I have been taking French classes. Not only do you learn the language in these classes, but you learn about the culture and the different locations in France and other French speaking countries. We have studied pretty exhaustively the region of Paris, including the different monuments and places in Paris. So unlike Barcelona, or Rome even, I knew what I wanted to see and what I would be seeing in Paris. I also knew the background of these places. I think this was what made Paris different. It was experiencing the places that I had seen in textbooks for so long that made it really cool. Yes, I was a bit critical of some places, but I think it's because I have come to have expectations for the sites. Nothing though, can trump the real life experience of seeing these places first hand. Everything we went to was exciting and memorable.
Part 3:
So Saturday...
We woke up early to have breakfast at the hostel (or hotel we decided on yesterday didn't we?). A french baguette and chocolate pastry, with coffee and orange juice. Not bad for a free breakfast. We then headed out to the sights for the day. It was a bit cloudy and a little rainy during the day, but that didn't stop us or slow us down.
Musee D'Orsay:
I didn't take pictures in this museum, mostly because I was more interested in just taking in the art as opposed to capturing it in pictures, and I think that says something for the exhibits at the Museum. I was really impressed by the exhibits. I got to see some really cool sculptures and paintings from artists such as Monet, including some really famous pieces. We spent a good couple hours in here and it was really cool.
Catacombs:
This is something I hadn't studied in French classes before, and it was really incredible. The catacombs are old mines that were used to mine stone and rock for building. Once the mines were all used up, they were turned into a burial place. Walking down into the catacombs was creepy, but that was only the beginning. We suddenly walked into a hallway of bones. Skulls and bones, piled up, actually stacked meticulously forming floor to ceiling walls. The amount of bones was incredible. They were lined with morbid sayings in french such as "The Empire of the Dead". Walking out of the Catacombs we were asked to open our bags, to show we had not stolen any bones. Pretty chilling.
Crepes:
Coming out of the Catacombs, we were all pretty hungry. So we made our way to a Crepe place that was recommended in a tour book of Paris. Great recommendation. In France, Crepes are used not only as a a dessert, but as a sandwich/pita like bread for breakfast/lunch. I got a crepe with Eggs, Ham, and Cheese. Incredible. One of the best tasting combinations of Egg, ham and cheese (One of my favorite breakfast sandwich combos) I have had in a long time. I didn't stop there. Next was a Crepe with Nutella and Banana. A classic dessert crepe, which was just as good. Everyone was really happy with their crepes, full and re-energized, we were ready to hit the sites again.
Luxembourg Gardens:
The weather was getting a bit better, just slightly overcast, so we headed to the Luxembourg Gardens. We walked by the fountains and sat around the water for a bit. The park was really big, so we walked around the South-East area of it, and then headed back in to the Metro (our favorite place in the world) to head to do a little shopping!!!
Galeries Lafayette:
Saying this is a large mall is an understatement. At Villanova, I live near the second Largest Mall in the U.S. and I still was overwhelmed by this mall. It was basically a huge department store, with small storefronts of all different name brand designers. The mall spanned over two blocks, and had an overpass to get from the two. The amount of people in it rivaled Macy's on December 23rd this year, which is really saying something. I didn't plan on buying anything, but it was cool to see a basically one-stop-shop for everything name-brand.
Tour D'Eiffel
By now you must have been thinking we forgot about that huge structure in Paris. The one that everyone always goes to see? Well we didn't forget about it, but planned all along to go see it at night. For one, it's much prettier at night (yes I said prettier, deal with it). The second being we thought the lines might not be as bad to go up it. Okay, I made that second reason up, it was only because it's prettier at night. The line wasn't long though so there! We opted in for the elevator, not the stairs, because we had done more than enough walking and climbing of stairs over the past two days. Good decision. The elevator took us to the second level of the Eiffel tower, which is I'd guess about halfway up heightwise. The elevator to the top was closed, but you could climb the stairs to it. We opted out for that. The view from the second level was incredible. You could see the entire city lit up on what turned out to be a pretty clear night. It was pretty windy up there, and therefore cold, but we stuck it out to take pictures and just take it all in. While we were up there it did it's little light show where it sparkles for about 5 or 10 minutes. It was really cool to see that happening right in front of us. Back down the elevator we went, satisfied with the pictures we had taken and the experience in general.
Dinner:
We went from the Eiffel tower to a local Cafe a friend of Erin's had recommended. It was a good choice. Really cool atmosphere and some good food, especially dessert. I had pasta for dinner. I know, I just couldn't help myself. I wanted to try the pasta in a different country. It was still very good, and the tiramisu came in a huge ice cream dish. Very good. We sat at the cafe for a couple hours just enjoying the atmosphere and hanging out.
Sunday:
The girls of Syracuse had an early train, 10am, on Sunday to go back to London, so we got breakfast and then parted ways. Meaning they left and I went back to bed for a couple hours. I then checked out of the hotel. While checking out, I wanted to ask about a local church to go to mass. I quickly realized that the man at the counter spoke little if no english. Good thing I had finally gotten into the habit of using French. Pause for Tangent.
Speaking Francais:
Yes, I've taken French for half of my educated life. Yes I should know french very well by now. It was, to say the least, an interesting experience.
Just as is familiar to me, I am going to grade myself on different aspects of French:
French Comprehension: A-
I was able to understand a lot of the French. Most of the normal talk I understood actually, or picked up on enough verbs or key words to make out what the person was saying or asking. It came pretty easily to me, sometimes I had to think about it for a second or two, but if I had learned it in the past it came to me quickly. This made interacting with the city pretty easy, such as getting places or ordering food.
Speaking French: C
Yes I understood the French, but speaking it was a whole other problem. You see, for the past month I've been living in Italy (in case you hadn't picked up on that already) and have been learning how to speak Italian. In French classes, its much easier to learn to comprehend the language than it is to speak it. So yes we do do speaking exercises, but it is not the same as actually using the language in real conversation situations. With Italian, most of my learning comes from real conversation situations because I'm forced into using it whether I like it or not. I have to speak it to survive here. So in Paris, when someone said something to me in French, my brain would comprehend it and begin to form a response. Trouble is, the Italian is quicker in responding than the french is. So I would hear a french question, and respond to the person in Italian. I understood what they were saying, and responded correctly, just in the wrong language. If I actually thought about what I needed to say, or if I was the one initiating the conversation, I had more time to deliberately think out the french, and I did well when it was this type of situation. But in a knee-jerk reaction situation, the Italian came out. Many times it was me saying si instead of oui.
So back to asking about church. I realized this guy didn't speak any english. Fortunately I was able to remember the word for church: l'eglise. I was able to form a sentence to tell him I was looking for a church, and he was able to show me on a map. I was not expecting what I found when I got there. It was a pretty big church for being in a small side street. I walked in just as mass was starting. Mass was quite an experience. All of the mass was in French, except for the readings which they did in both French and English for the first reading, and then French and Spanish for the second reading. There was a choir of nuns who sang, and there were organ interludes inbetween everything. It lasted an hour and a half, but was a really nice mass.
After this I walked around the cobblestone streets around the hotel and found this awesome bakery. The pastries were expensive,but looked really cool (see pic). I got a chocolate Baguette which was great and a coffee. From there it was back to the train station to go to the airport for my 4:40pm flight.
Flight home to Rome:
Have I talked about the Charles De Gaulle Airport yet? It is a spectacle in itself. It is a massive airport with Three Terminals. It's not just a big eyesore though. Besides the really nice shopping and restaurants the gates are really incredible. The gate I was in looked like the Louvre, a gigantic glass pyramid over top of the gates. One of the more impressive airports I've seen (though I haven't seen many).
Flying back to Rome, we passed over the Swiss Alps. At first through the clouds you could only see the peaks of a couple mountains peeking through (get it, peaks peeking through?!). Ten minutes later the clouds opened up and I could see the entire landscape of the mountains. It was a pretty moving experience and I couldn't help but stare out the window the rest of the flight.
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So that just about wraps up my trip to Paris. It was a really great weekend, it was nice to see Becky and all of the Syracuse girls there, and I'm ready for my next trip out of the country. But that will have to wait, seeing as my family is currently on their way over here, a quick change in plans with the impending storm that is headed towards the east coast. Florence this weekend with them, I'll keep everyone posted on when they arrive, check the twitter feed to the right!
Paris! (Part 2 of more than I thought)
This is part two of what looks like will be a 3 part series on my trip to Rome. If you didn't read part 1 yet, click on the link below!
Link to Part 1
So to recap, I figured out the metro, and got to the metro stop near our hostel/hotel we would be staying at. I turned down the street to be greeted by Becky and her entourage standing outside the hostel. Becky’s entourage, let me introduce them. All of them are interior design majors at Syracuse University, studying abroad in London with Becky. They are: Maggie, Erin, Stacey, Becca, and Lindsay. And what an awesome group of girls to travel with.
So I quickly dropped my bags at the hotel and we were on our way to sightseeing.
I keep changing back between hostel and hotel when talking about where we were staying, so let me try and explain that now.
MIJE Fourcy:
We stayed in a hotel/hostel this weekend for Paris. It was called the Hotel Fourcy, yet was described as a hostel online and other sites. So lets try and figure out which it is, shall we? It was an older building in pretty much center city Paris, which was a great location. The rooms had private bathrooms, point for hotel. The toilettes though were not in the private bathroom, but in the hallway, point hostel. We did not pay for sheets, point hotel. We were given breakfast, point hostel (In Europe in general, breakfast is served at hostels and not in hotels). There were lots of young students there, point hostel. There were also lots of older people there, where normally hostels have only under 35 allowed, so point hotel. Late checkout, point hotel. I think that puts it in favor of Hotel, which is a good thing. It was priced more like a lower hotel than a hostel as well.
Notre Dame:
Our first tourist attraction, Notre Dame. I knew the cathedral was big, but I didn’t know what else to expect. It was a pretty impressive sight. The church is really impressive from the outside and even more impressive from the inside. Maybe I’m just spoiled though, but I didn’t get that same overwhelming feeling I got when going into St. Peter’s or St. Paul’s here. Maybe I’m just getting used to incredibly large churches. Nevertheless, it was an awesome church to see.
The Louvre:
If you want to talk about an overwhelming sensation, try walking into the Louvre. There’s a reason this was featured in that google superbowl ad (yep I saw it! Online of course). It’s obviously very well known for at least two things: its glass pyramid entranceway, and the Mona Lisa. Both are cool in their own regard, the first I found to be cooler than the latter, but I think the real spectacle is the sheer size of the building. We spent about 2 or 3 hours in the Louvre, and only got to see one wing of one floor of it completely through. That is probably about a tenth of the entire museum. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa, and I took my obligatory picture of it, but as most people are these days, I was underwhelmed by it. Maybe if they would let me get closer than 30 feet from it to really examine it, or took off that horrible glared glass case from around it I could appreciate it more, but I guess the experience is more about saying you saw it than anything. There were plenty of paintings that had more of an effect on me because I could get up close and see the detail and texture in the artists work.
Saint Chapelle:
Next on our list was Saint Chappelle, which is known to have some of the nicest and probably tallest stain glass windows. Bottom line is this had some awesome stain glass windows, but it was small and a bit underwhelming as well. They sell it really well in pictures, making out to be a gigantic hall filled with stain glass windows, when it’s really a relatively small place. Considering we got into the Louvre for free through some fast talking (European Union resident students get free entrance to all museums, we’re students but not EU residents, but we’re very convincing sometimes) I felt like the price of admission was a bit high for Saint Chapelle. Maybe it was because they are doing restorations on the windows, which means they have part of it covered up, which takes away from the experiences. The restorations are definitely helping though, the difference between the finished side and the unfinished side is like night and day. As much as I may complain, it really was a cool place to sit and look at the simple beauty of it all for a while.
Afterwards we got lunch, which was a sandwich in a French baguette with fries and a drink all for 5 euro. When I say French baguette, I mean an entire loaf basically. They don’t skimp on their sandwiches and bread, something I was happy to find in Paris.
(I feel like I’m forgetting a sight that we saw in-between here. To be honest, the weekend is a whirlwind of sightseeing, eating, walking, and having a good time. If I remember I’ll be sure to update. If anyone on the trip is reading this and remembers what I’m missing, please tell me? Okay thanks!)
Champs-Elysees & Arc de Triumph:
You might think we are nearing the end of our day but we were just getting started. Up the Champs-Elysees towards the Arc de Triumph. It was as much further walk than we originally anticipated. The arc looked so close! Yet it was so far away. We got there, and it was well worth the walk. This is one of those monuments you learn about every semester of French class you take, and it really is a cool monument, right in the center of it all, at the intersection of what seems to be all of the roads of Paris. We opted in to climb to the top, and the view from there was incredible. Right as we were about to go back down, the Eiffel tower lit up a golden orange. It was the first time we (or I at least) saw it lit up, and I couldn’t help but stand and stare for another 15 minutes at it and the streets surrounding us. Afterwards we walked around and found a local caffe to eat at. The French onion soup was awesome. I didn’t order it, but I stole some of Beckys and we both really enjoyed it.
River Tour:
We ended our night with a riverboat tour of Paris. The boat left at 9pm and took us on an hour ride up and down the Siene river. We got to see a lot of familiar sites from the river at night, and more that we didn’t know anything about. The highlight is definitely seeing the Eiffel tower from the river though. I can’t even tell you how many pictures I took of it from the river, always thinking that “now” I’ll have a better shot/it looks cooler from here, or maybe it’s just closer? It was a beautiful night, and was a perfect end to my first, yet very busy (jam-packed with fun?) day in Paris.
So it looks like this is going to be 3 parts. Wahoo! Tomorrow I’ll tackle our trip on Saturday and Sunday, along with some tangents I want to go off on for a while. See you then….
Also, Pictures are up from the trip. Not all (internet is crawling) but many. Check them out here: Paris Pictures
And if you haven't already... Say happy birthday to Becky in the Comments!!
Link to Part 1
So to recap, I figured out the metro, and got to the metro stop near our hostel/hotel we would be staying at. I turned down the street to be greeted by Becky and her entourage standing outside the hostel. Becky’s entourage, let me introduce them. All of them are interior design majors at Syracuse University, studying abroad in London with Becky. They are: Maggie, Erin, Stacey, Becca, and Lindsay. And what an awesome group of girls to travel with.
So I quickly dropped my bags at the hotel and we were on our way to sightseeing.
I keep changing back between hostel and hotel when talking about where we were staying, so let me try and explain that now.
MIJE Fourcy:
We stayed in a hotel/hostel this weekend for Paris. It was called the Hotel Fourcy, yet was described as a hostel online and other sites. So lets try and figure out which it is, shall we? It was an older building in pretty much center city Paris, which was a great location. The rooms had private bathrooms, point for hotel. The toilettes though were not in the private bathroom, but in the hallway, point hostel. We did not pay for sheets, point hotel. We were given breakfast, point hostel (In Europe in general, breakfast is served at hostels and not in hotels). There were lots of young students there, point hostel. There were also lots of older people there, where normally hostels have only under 35 allowed, so point hotel. Late checkout, point hotel. I think that puts it in favor of Hotel, which is a good thing. It was priced more like a lower hotel than a hostel as well.
Notre Dame:
Our first tourist attraction, Notre Dame. I knew the cathedral was big, but I didn’t know what else to expect. It was a pretty impressive sight. The church is really impressive from the outside and even more impressive from the inside. Maybe I’m just spoiled though, but I didn’t get that same overwhelming feeling I got when going into St. Peter’s or St. Paul’s here. Maybe I’m just getting used to incredibly large churches. Nevertheless, it was an awesome church to see.
The Louvre:
If you want to talk about an overwhelming sensation, try walking into the Louvre. There’s a reason this was featured in that google superbowl ad (yep I saw it! Online of course). It’s obviously very well known for at least two things: its glass pyramid entranceway, and the Mona Lisa. Both are cool in their own regard, the first I found to be cooler than the latter, but I think the real spectacle is the sheer size of the building. We spent about 2 or 3 hours in the Louvre, and only got to see one wing of one floor of it completely through. That is probably about a tenth of the entire museum. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa, and I took my obligatory picture of it, but as most people are these days, I was underwhelmed by it. Maybe if they would let me get closer than 30 feet from it to really examine it, or took off that horrible glared glass case from around it I could appreciate it more, but I guess the experience is more about saying you saw it than anything. There were plenty of paintings that had more of an effect on me because I could get up close and see the detail and texture in the artists work.
Saint Chapelle:
Next on our list was Saint Chappelle, which is known to have some of the nicest and probably tallest stain glass windows. Bottom line is this had some awesome stain glass windows, but it was small and a bit underwhelming as well. They sell it really well in pictures, making out to be a gigantic hall filled with stain glass windows, when it’s really a relatively small place. Considering we got into the Louvre for free through some fast talking (European Union resident students get free entrance to all museums, we’re students but not EU residents, but we’re very convincing sometimes) I felt like the price of admission was a bit high for Saint Chapelle. Maybe it was because they are doing restorations on the windows, which means they have part of it covered up, which takes away from the experiences. The restorations are definitely helping though, the difference between the finished side and the unfinished side is like night and day. As much as I may complain, it really was a cool place to sit and look at the simple beauty of it all for a while.
Afterwards we got lunch, which was a sandwich in a French baguette with fries and a drink all for 5 euro. When I say French baguette, I mean an entire loaf basically. They don’t skimp on their sandwiches and bread, something I was happy to find in Paris.
(I feel like I’m forgetting a sight that we saw in-between here. To be honest, the weekend is a whirlwind of sightseeing, eating, walking, and having a good time. If I remember I’ll be sure to update. If anyone on the trip is reading this and remembers what I’m missing, please tell me? Okay thanks!)
Champs-Elysees & Arc de Triumph:
You might think we are nearing the end of our day but we were just getting started. Up the Champs-Elysees towards the Arc de Triumph. It was as much further walk than we originally anticipated. The arc looked so close! Yet it was so far away. We got there, and it was well worth the walk. This is one of those monuments you learn about every semester of French class you take, and it really is a cool monument, right in the center of it all, at the intersection of what seems to be all of the roads of Paris. We opted in to climb to the top, and the view from there was incredible. Right as we were about to go back down, the Eiffel tower lit up a golden orange. It was the first time we (or I at least) saw it lit up, and I couldn’t help but stand and stare for another 15 minutes at it and the streets surrounding us. Afterwards we walked around and found a local caffe to eat at. The French onion soup was awesome. I didn’t order it, but I stole some of Beckys and we both really enjoyed it.
River Tour:
We ended our night with a riverboat tour of Paris. The boat left at 9pm and took us on an hour ride up and down the Siene river. We got to see a lot of familiar sites from the river at night, and more that we didn’t know anything about. The highlight is definitely seeing the Eiffel tower from the river though. I can’t even tell you how many pictures I took of it from the river, always thinking that “now” I’ll have a better shot/it looks cooler from here, or maybe it’s just closer? It was a beautiful night, and was a perfect end to my first, yet very busy (jam-packed with fun?) day in Paris.
So it looks like this is going to be 3 parts. Wahoo! Tomorrow I’ll tackle our trip on Saturday and Sunday, along with some tangents I want to go off on for a while. See you then….
Also, Pictures are up from the trip. Not all (internet is crawling) but many. Check them out here: Paris Pictures
And if you haven't already... Say happy birthday to Becky in the Comments!!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Paris! (Part 1 of a few)
(This is part 1 of a multiple part series. To get to the other parts quickly and easily, click the links below)
Link to Part 2
Journey number two outside of Italy was, as has been alluded to, Paris. Oh Paris, Home of the Crepe, Eiffel Tower, and stuffy French people. But more on those topics later. Lets take this chronologically again shall we? I’m sure I’ll go off on tangents when I come across a topic I want to talk about. Clear your schedule for the immediate future, this is going to be a long one (I might break it up into different parts to give you a break from the reading, and my fingers a break from the typing, but this is bound to be my longest blog post to date, I’ve got a lot to say).
Friday:
This was a special trip because I met Becky (my wonderful girlfriend for those of you who do not know her) in Paris with a bunch of her friends to celebrate her 21st birthday, which happens to be today, so everyone wish Becky a Happy Birthday in the comments below. Okay, enough embarrassing Becky, I couldn’t help it.
So, as I was saying, the plan was to meet her and her friends in Paris for the weekend. Since they are all studying abroad in London, they had the opportunity to get to Paris on Thursday afternoon. So I decided to fly in as early as possible Friday morning. 7am flight from Rome FCO to Charles De Gaul airport. As it turns out, public transportation doesn’t run at 4:30 in the morning. So I bit the bullet and got a cab by myself to the airport. Since I got a cab, it took much less time than public transportation, So I got to the airport especially early. Lucky me. I think I may have been the first person through security that morning, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing except for the wait at the gate in the other end.
AirFrance:
I am now going to write a small testimony for Air France. Air France PR people, feel free to use this all over your website, so long as you link back to this wonderful blog. I decided to fly Air France from Rome to Paris instead of one of the normal budget airlines that us college students normally use. The main two being RyanAir (coincidence?) and EasyJet, but there are many more that fly specifically between different countries. Okay so reasons to fly AirFrance, well first off, it wasn’t that expensive. Actually it was comparable to the prices of EasyJet, which also flies into Charles De Gaul airport. RyanAir I ruled out because though it was much cheaper, it flies into an airport that is about two hours away from Paris itself. I was not looking to take a bus ride from the airport to the city that is shorter than my flight from Rome to Paris.
I cannot tell you how nice it was to fly AirFrance. I flew from one real airport to another, sat in a real gate, had the ability to check a bag if I wanted to, didn’t get hassled about my carry-on being too big, didn’t have to walk to and from my plane, had a nice comfortable seat with a generous amount of legroom, was given food and drink, and was not woken up by in-flight audio commercials. I could turn this into an entire blog post, but just know that everything listed there, the opposite is what RyanAir does. “Flying AirFrance was like flying First Class compared to RyanAir”-Ryan Mahoney (hint: AirFrance, use that line!). I need to stop getting distracted like that, this post will be long enough without it.
So the flight to Paris involved a lot of sleeping, which was nice, since I haven’t really ever been able to sleep at all on flights, must be a psychological thing or something. I landed in Paris around 9am, exited the plane and found my way towards the exit. Lucky for me public transportation was running in Paris at this point. Break for Metro tangent:
Paris Metro:
The Metro in Paris lives up to the stereotypes of French people: It tries to make itself out to being more sophisticated than any other European country, while really that complexity makes it fall on its face and look bad. Yes, the Paris metro is extensive and exhaustive in its amount of lines and stops that can get you basically anywhere. I cannot take that away from it. But many things about it just didn’t feel, right. First, I go to the ticket machine to buy a ticket. I had to take an RER (certain line in the metro) subway from the airport to get to the inner city. So I bought a Metro/RER ticket, for the standard metro ticket price. Problem is, you need a special RER ticket to go to and from airports. Why? Because they want to take my money, that’s why. So after failing multiple times at going through the gate with my regular ticket, I went back and figured out that I needed the other ticket. Oh well. This would not be the last problem with tickets though. One money saver tip is to buy a carnet or book of tickets, which is 10 tickets that can be used whenever. You pay 11.60 and get 10 tickets, where a single ride is 1.60. Quick math says you pay for 7.25 tickets and get 2.75 free. Cool I guess. So when we were using the metro in the city, there being 7 of us, we would buy a book of tickets and share and keep the extras toward the next ride, so it was more economical, see? Well it turns out when you want to ride the metro you should probably buy a couple extra tickets, because they are very temperamental. Everytime we got on the metro, someone’s ticket, which was just purchased, wouldn’t work. The machine would continuously reject it. So we would pass them one of the extras and that would work. We later tried passing back tickets that had just gone through the machine 1 minute before, and you know what? Yep, sometimes those worked even though they had already been used. The other quirky thing about the Paris metro, which I’m told is similar to D.C., is that you have to put your ticket through in order to exit the metro as well. See where this and our ticket fiasco might cause a problem? Yep you guessed it, tickets that had let us on the metro just 10 minutes before would not let us exit the metro. Really, I have no explanation for why this happened. I experimented with lots of different ways of putting the ticket in, walking through the turnstile, amount of time waiting for the other person to go through, where I stood etc…. and I really couldn’t figure it out. Maybe there’s a trick to it and we were just doing it wrong, a lot. I personally think its an evil scheme to confuse, frustrate tourists while gaining entertainment and profit from the locals. Apart from this, I found the signs to be confusing and not helpful. They tell you the direction of the train just like any other metro in the world, by telling you what the last stop in that direction is. Two problems with that. Many of the lines branch off into multiple directions towards the end of the line. The B RER train, which runs to and from the airports, has 4 “ends” to it. I know many of them have even more than this, but I used that line so I figured I would talk about what I know (or don’t know for that matter). The other problem is that many of the end stations have multiple names. It’ll be firstname-nextname-nameprobablyusedonasign. See how that can be confusing? The last name on the map is the one that is posted on signs. I’m sure it’s a more recognizable street or monument or direction to locals, but again, not so easy when you aren’t from around here.
Okay, this seems like a good spot for a break. Mostly because I have class now and want to post something before I head off for that. I’ll post part 2 as soon as I type it! Rest your eyes for a little bit, we've got a long way to go.
Link to Part 2
Journey number two outside of Italy was, as has been alluded to, Paris. Oh Paris, Home of the Crepe, Eiffel Tower, and stuffy French people. But more on those topics later. Lets take this chronologically again shall we? I’m sure I’ll go off on tangents when I come across a topic I want to talk about. Clear your schedule for the immediate future, this is going to be a long one (I might break it up into different parts to give you a break from the reading, and my fingers a break from the typing, but this is bound to be my longest blog post to date, I’ve got a lot to say).
Friday:
This was a special trip because I met Becky (my wonderful girlfriend for those of you who do not know her) in Paris with a bunch of her friends to celebrate her 21st birthday, which happens to be today, so everyone wish Becky a Happy Birthday in the comments below. Okay, enough embarrassing Becky, I couldn’t help it.
So, as I was saying, the plan was to meet her and her friends in Paris for the weekend. Since they are all studying abroad in London, they had the opportunity to get to Paris on Thursday afternoon. So I decided to fly in as early as possible Friday morning. 7am flight from Rome FCO to Charles De Gaul airport. As it turns out, public transportation doesn’t run at 4:30 in the morning. So I bit the bullet and got a cab by myself to the airport. Since I got a cab, it took much less time than public transportation, So I got to the airport especially early. Lucky me. I think I may have been the first person through security that morning, which wasn’t exactly a bad thing except for the wait at the gate in the other end.
AirFrance:
I am now going to write a small testimony for Air France. Air France PR people, feel free to use this all over your website, so long as you link back to this wonderful blog. I decided to fly Air France from Rome to Paris instead of one of the normal budget airlines that us college students normally use. The main two being RyanAir (coincidence?) and EasyJet, but there are many more that fly specifically between different countries. Okay so reasons to fly AirFrance, well first off, it wasn’t that expensive. Actually it was comparable to the prices of EasyJet, which also flies into Charles De Gaul airport. RyanAir I ruled out because though it was much cheaper, it flies into an airport that is about two hours away from Paris itself. I was not looking to take a bus ride from the airport to the city that is shorter than my flight from Rome to Paris.
I cannot tell you how nice it was to fly AirFrance. I flew from one real airport to another, sat in a real gate, had the ability to check a bag if I wanted to, didn’t get hassled about my carry-on being too big, didn’t have to walk to and from my plane, had a nice comfortable seat with a generous amount of legroom, was given food and drink, and was not woken up by in-flight audio commercials. I could turn this into an entire blog post, but just know that everything listed there, the opposite is what RyanAir does. “Flying AirFrance was like flying First Class compared to RyanAir”-Ryan Mahoney (hint: AirFrance, use that line!). I need to stop getting distracted like that, this post will be long enough without it.
So the flight to Paris involved a lot of sleeping, which was nice, since I haven’t really ever been able to sleep at all on flights, must be a psychological thing or something. I landed in Paris around 9am, exited the plane and found my way towards the exit. Lucky for me public transportation was running in Paris at this point. Break for Metro tangent:
Paris Metro:
The Metro in Paris lives up to the stereotypes of French people: It tries to make itself out to being more sophisticated than any other European country, while really that complexity makes it fall on its face and look bad. Yes, the Paris metro is extensive and exhaustive in its amount of lines and stops that can get you basically anywhere. I cannot take that away from it. But many things about it just didn’t feel, right. First, I go to the ticket machine to buy a ticket. I had to take an RER (certain line in the metro) subway from the airport to get to the inner city. So I bought a Metro/RER ticket, for the standard metro ticket price. Problem is, you need a special RER ticket to go to and from airports. Why? Because they want to take my money, that’s why. So after failing multiple times at going through the gate with my regular ticket, I went back and figured out that I needed the other ticket. Oh well. This would not be the last problem with tickets though. One money saver tip is to buy a carnet or book of tickets, which is 10 tickets that can be used whenever. You pay 11.60 and get 10 tickets, where a single ride is 1.60. Quick math says you pay for 7.25 tickets and get 2.75 free. Cool I guess. So when we were using the metro in the city, there being 7 of us, we would buy a book of tickets and share and keep the extras toward the next ride, so it was more economical, see? Well it turns out when you want to ride the metro you should probably buy a couple extra tickets, because they are very temperamental. Everytime we got on the metro, someone’s ticket, which was just purchased, wouldn’t work. The machine would continuously reject it. So we would pass them one of the extras and that would work. We later tried passing back tickets that had just gone through the machine 1 minute before, and you know what? Yep, sometimes those worked even though they had already been used. The other quirky thing about the Paris metro, which I’m told is similar to D.C., is that you have to put your ticket through in order to exit the metro as well. See where this and our ticket fiasco might cause a problem? Yep you guessed it, tickets that had let us on the metro just 10 minutes before would not let us exit the metro. Really, I have no explanation for why this happened. I experimented with lots of different ways of putting the ticket in, walking through the turnstile, amount of time waiting for the other person to go through, where I stood etc…. and I really couldn’t figure it out. Maybe there’s a trick to it and we were just doing it wrong, a lot. I personally think its an evil scheme to confuse, frustrate tourists while gaining entertainment and profit from the locals. Apart from this, I found the signs to be confusing and not helpful. They tell you the direction of the train just like any other metro in the world, by telling you what the last stop in that direction is. Two problems with that. Many of the lines branch off into multiple directions towards the end of the line. The B RER train, which runs to and from the airports, has 4 “ends” to it. I know many of them have even more than this, but I used that line so I figured I would talk about what I know (or don’t know for that matter). The other problem is that many of the end stations have multiple names. It’ll be firstname-nextname-nameprobablyusedonasign. See how that can be confusing? The last name on the map is the one that is posted on signs. I’m sure it’s a more recognizable street or monument or direction to locals, but again, not so easy when you aren’t from around here.
Okay, this seems like a good spot for a break. Mostly because I have class now and want to post something before I head off for that. I’ll post part 2 as soon as I type it! Rest your eyes for a little bit, we've got a long way to go.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Trip number two...
In a few short hours, (and I really do mean short) I will be heading to the airport for my second trip outside of Italy.
This weekend I'll be in Paris, and I'll be meeting Becky there to celebrate her 21st birthday. I'm looking forward to seeing her for the first time since I got on a plane over a month ago, and also to visit France, the country with the foreign language I took classes in for so many years of my life.
I'm just about sure this trip will completely screw up all progress I have made with Italian. Just when I am getting in the groove of Italian, I'm going to be thrown into another language I somewhat understand (I'm going to have to shake the rust off, but I'm pretty confident I'll understand a lot of it).
I am going to keep this short tonight. I have a flight at 7am, which means Airport much earlier, and a taxi even earlier than that. Unfortunately public transportation doesn't run that early in the morning, so I'm stuck with a taxi, though that means a little extra sleep. I cannot promise any posts this weekend, but I will promise an extensive post on Monday, just like my post on Barcelona.
Is it bad I typed aeroport twice before changing it to airport?
Also, isn't there that little event called the Super Bowl going on this weekend? Yeah completely didn't realize that.
This weekend I'll be in Paris, and I'll be meeting Becky there to celebrate her 21st birthday. I'm looking forward to seeing her for the first time since I got on a plane over a month ago, and also to visit France, the country with the foreign language I took classes in for so many years of my life.
I'm just about sure this trip will completely screw up all progress I have made with Italian. Just when I am getting in the groove of Italian, I'm going to be thrown into another language I somewhat understand (I'm going to have to shake the rust off, but I'm pretty confident I'll understand a lot of it).
I am going to keep this short tonight. I have a flight at 7am, which means Airport much earlier, and a taxi even earlier than that. Unfortunately public transportation doesn't run that early in the morning, so I'm stuck with a taxi, though that means a little extra sleep. I cannot promise any posts this weekend, but I will promise an extensive post on Monday, just like my post on Barcelona.
Is it bad I typed aeroport twice before changing it to airport?
Also, isn't there that little event called the Super Bowl going on this weekend? Yeah completely didn't realize that.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Spin Cycle
Being here for a month so far, you can see how I could have run out of clothes by now. Well this week I hit that milestone, and had the pleasure of doing laundry in Rome for the first time.
This isn't exactly the first time. I did a few items in the sink in the hotel, which ended with taking over two days to dry, so I have opted in for a more practical solution. We had heard there was a laundromat around town nearby, so we ventured out to find it.
What we found is was a small hole in the wall storefront that doubled as laundromat and internet access point. Surf the web while your clothes get clean? Sounds like a sales pitch to me.
So in we went, with clothes in hand. I won't describe the process, it's the same as in America, except instead of picking warm, cold, hot, you pick the actual temperature. 30 minutes in a washer and 30 in a dryer, about 10 euro later and we were on our way back to the hotel with clean clothes. The washing machines were tiny, while the dryers were enormous. 3 or 4 loads of wash would fit in one dryer.
The bottom line is, I was able to make it a month without having to do laundry. Lets give credit to good packing for that. By that calculation I should only have to do laundry once more. Pretty good if you ask me (I know you didn't but I get to decide what you ask and what you don't ask).
I had a really good day at St. Paul's today, more on that soon, once I have something to show for my work.
Edit: We've been a little short on questions lately, anyone want to pick it up and start asking? Ask them in the comments! or shoot me an email, ramlax13(at)gmail.com (replace the (at) with @. Never post your email on a website fully, there are computer programs that search through websites for email addresses to send spam to. That's a whole other topic though...)
This isn't exactly the first time. I did a few items in the sink in the hotel, which ended with taking over two days to dry, so I have opted in for a more practical solution. We had heard there was a laundromat around town nearby, so we ventured out to find it.
What we found is was a small hole in the wall storefront that doubled as laundromat and internet access point. Surf the web while your clothes get clean? Sounds like a sales pitch to me.
So in we went, with clothes in hand. I won't describe the process, it's the same as in America, except instead of picking warm, cold, hot, you pick the actual temperature. 30 minutes in a washer and 30 in a dryer, about 10 euro later and we were on our way back to the hotel with clean clothes. The washing machines were tiny, while the dryers were enormous. 3 or 4 loads of wash would fit in one dryer.
The bottom line is, I was able to make it a month without having to do laundry. Lets give credit to good packing for that. By that calculation I should only have to do laundry once more. Pretty good if you ask me (I know you didn't but I get to decide what you ask and what you don't ask).
I had a really good day at St. Paul's today, more on that soon, once I have something to show for my work.
Edit: We've been a little short on questions lately, anyone want to pick it up and start asking? Ask them in the comments! or shoot me an email, ramlax13(at)gmail.com (replace the (at) with @. Never post your email on a website fully, there are computer programs that search through websites for email addresses to send spam to. That's a whole other topic though...)
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
A month ago...
I was trying to come up with an interesting topic for my post tonight, but with being in full swing at the Vatican and with classes and traveling, I was only able to really focus on one topic tonight. I've been here exactly a month now. 30 days ago I landed in Rome, my first time in a foreign country, surrounded by a language I had no comprehension of, and not sure what to expect for the next three months.
A month later it is hard to put myself back in that position. The time has been flying by, and yet with my comfort level it feels as though I've been here for a year (I would hope however that my Italian would be better had I actually been here a year already).
So lets look back at the last 30 days...shall we? (You know you don't have a choice, like it or not I'm going to do this):
For the first time I took an international flight, by myself nonetheless. I used my passport for the first time in a Foreign Country. I've begun to learn another foreign language. I am enrolled in an all girls school. I am living in a hotel in the center of historic Rome. I experienced the Italian Christmas season. I am interning at the Vatican. I had exclusive access to private areas of St. Peter's Basilica. I've had my first real gelato, and have tried lots of new foods. I've acquired a taste for espresso and cappuccino. I take daily walks, just because. I wear a suit every day. I've been to my first real soccer game. I've seen more smart cars and mopeds than I ever thought existed. I learned how to haggle in Italian. I've toured most of Rome's famous monuments and attractions. I've written 28 blog posts. I've survived without internet and TV. I've traveled for a weekend to Barcelona. I've stayed in my first hostel and I've made a lot of new friends along the way.
So that's one third of my trip, my experience. So what's to come?
How about a trip to Paris this weekend, multiple visits from family and friends (4 separate visits and counting...), a weekend in Florence, a 5 day trip to northern Italy, a pilgrimage, a day trip to siena, a weekend in southern Italy, a video project for St. Paul Outside-The-Walls, learning more Italian, a Dave Matthews Band concert in Rome, at least one more soccer match, a couple final exams, and to wrap it up, a trip to London, with short trips to Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, Ireland,(maybe more?), a State Radio concert, and by my estimation, about another 60 of these blog posts, all before heading back home on April 10th.
Are you up for the challenge? You keep reading and commenting and I'll keep posting. Hold on tight, I'm just warming up...
A month later it is hard to put myself back in that position. The time has been flying by, and yet with my comfort level it feels as though I've been here for a year (I would hope however that my Italian would be better had I actually been here a year already).
So lets look back at the last 30 days...shall we? (You know you don't have a choice, like it or not I'm going to do this):
For the first time I took an international flight, by myself nonetheless. I used my passport for the first time in a Foreign Country. I've begun to learn another foreign language. I am enrolled in an all girls school. I am living in a hotel in the center of historic Rome. I experienced the Italian Christmas season. I am interning at the Vatican. I had exclusive access to private areas of St. Peter's Basilica. I've had my first real gelato, and have tried lots of new foods. I've acquired a taste for espresso and cappuccino. I take daily walks, just because. I wear a suit every day. I've been to my first real soccer game. I've seen more smart cars and mopeds than I ever thought existed. I learned how to haggle in Italian. I've toured most of Rome's famous monuments and attractions. I've written 28 blog posts. I've survived without internet and TV. I've traveled for a weekend to Barcelona. I've stayed in my first hostel and I've made a lot of new friends along the way.
So that's one third of my trip, my experience. So what's to come?
How about a trip to Paris this weekend, multiple visits from family and friends (4 separate visits and counting...), a weekend in Florence, a 5 day trip to northern Italy, a pilgrimage, a day trip to siena, a weekend in southern Italy, a video project for St. Paul Outside-The-Walls, learning more Italian, a Dave Matthews Band concert in Rome, at least one more soccer match, a couple final exams, and to wrap it up, a trip to London, with short trips to Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, Ireland,(maybe more?), a State Radio concert, and by my estimation, about another 60 of these blog posts, all before heading back home on April 10th.
Are you up for the challenge? You keep reading and commenting and I'll keep posting. Hold on tight, I'm just warming up...
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Blast from the past
Today we had some unexpected visitors to the office. Two Villanova graduates, who had participated in the Vatican internship program in the fall of 2006, Gloria and Chris, stopped by because they were in Rome. We had a really nice conversation with them at work and decided we should get together tonight to talk about our experiences.
When Gloria and Chris were here, they were not part of the Saint Mary’s Program. The program was very new at that point and many of the kinks were still being worked out. Regardless, they still found their experiences in Rome to be so influential that they have both come back to Rome multiple times since their study abroad program 4 years ago.
It was awesome to hear their stories and see the love they have for the Vatican program and for Rome. When they came into the office they were welcomed as if they were long lost relatives, with hugs and kisses, everyone happy to see them.
We decided to go to dinner tonight and we invited our Italian teacher who had also been their teacher, Carlotta, to join us. We went to dinner on Roman time, so 9pm, and Carlotta recommended a restaurant to us in Trastevere, a very nice neighborhood full of restaurants and shops. It was by no means a tourist restaurant, and it helped that we had Gloria and Carlotta with us, Gloria who speaks fluent Italian, and Carlotta being a Roman native, who not only understands the language but the culture behind it all.
Our food was fantastic. Home made pastas and pizza at a great price. The tiramisu though was the highlight of the night. Though it did not look anything like your normal tiramisu, it was probably the best I’ve ever had (Chris agreed, he has refused to eat tiramisu since the last time he had been at the restaurant).
It was a special night for all of us, and one that will forever be in my most prized memories of my time here. The experiences that Gloria and Chris shared and their connection with Rome formed while they were studying here makes me certain I will be back to visit many times throughout my life. Their friendship with Carlotta is still strong after all these years. I can only hope I can come back and have dinner with future Villanova Vatian internship students, share my experiences with them, and have the same impact that Gloria and Chris had on me tonight.
When Gloria and Chris were here, they were not part of the Saint Mary’s Program. The program was very new at that point and many of the kinks were still being worked out. Regardless, they still found their experiences in Rome to be so influential that they have both come back to Rome multiple times since their study abroad program 4 years ago.
It was awesome to hear their stories and see the love they have for the Vatican program and for Rome. When they came into the office they were welcomed as if they were long lost relatives, with hugs and kisses, everyone happy to see them.
We decided to go to dinner tonight and we invited our Italian teacher who had also been their teacher, Carlotta, to join us. We went to dinner on Roman time, so 9pm, and Carlotta recommended a restaurant to us in Trastevere, a very nice neighborhood full of restaurants and shops. It was by no means a tourist restaurant, and it helped that we had Gloria and Carlotta with us, Gloria who speaks fluent Italian, and Carlotta being a Roman native, who not only understands the language but the culture behind it all.
Our food was fantastic. Home made pastas and pizza at a great price. The tiramisu though was the highlight of the night. Though it did not look anything like your normal tiramisu, it was probably the best I’ve ever had (Chris agreed, he has refused to eat tiramisu since the last time he had been at the restaurant).
It was a special night for all of us, and one that will forever be in my most prized memories of my time here. The experiences that Gloria and Chris shared and their connection with Rome formed while they were studying here makes me certain I will be back to visit many times throughout my life. Their friendship with Carlotta is still strong after all these years. I can only hope I can come back and have dinner with future Villanova Vatian internship students, share my experiences with them, and have the same impact that Gloria and Chris had on me tonight.
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