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I should have known.
It's been a while since I've had to experience the pleasure of a Ryan Air flight and all that goes with it.
First of all 4:15 comes early in the am. I think everyone did a pretty good job of getting it together and getting out on time. As a matter of fact, Mauro was early and apparently a little miffed we weren't ready to leave at 4:34. Though I can empathize with his desire to get back to bed, he can blow me. We agreed on 4:45 and we were all out and in the car by 4:44.
The ride there was relatively uneventful except for the one time he zoned out and seemed to miss a curve in the road. No harm, no foul.
We arrived at Rome's Ciampino airport with more than enough time to do what we needed to. Well, we did, I'm not sure Ryan air was prepared or ever is for that matter.
Low Fares, Low Class
The beauty of travel in Europe is that everything is close together and you can get pretty good deals on flights if you're willing to travel at odd times and to airports that are a little out of the way. Apparently this airport and the ones they and a few other lines fly in and out of were old military airports. These companies bought and now use them. Because of this and other cuts in services they're able to keep costs down.
This is also the downside of travel in Europe. Every cheap bastard and dirty European is on these flights and acts like animals when going to and from the gate.
And at the gate for that matter too.
We get inside and try to figure out which line we need to be on. After an announcement, we realize we need to be on the really long one. We hop on and begin to condense all the extra shit we have. You're only allowed to have one carry on on these cheap flights, chalk up another for the downside.
When I say extra shit, I mean all the extra food Jess and Chris didn't eat, along with two rolls of toilet paper. Don't get me wrong, the other two rolls in the four pack came in quite handy, however, we didn't need to smuggle two rolls with us to Paris. They may smell here but I am pretty sure the majority of them wipe their asses.
I walk up to the garbage can with Chris who announces that, "It's such a shame to waste this perfectly good can" of whatever vegetable crap was in it. The line was moving a little so I pried the can out of her hand and tossed it for her. It's a can of vegetable crap, not the Ring of Power.
The line is brutal. I know I have mentioned the knocking in to you and cutting the line and the general stupidity of the people in the lines but I am glad other people have gotten to witness it now. One douche who tried to get in front of us with his mother and I think his brother, or it was his old ass wife and son, looked like the gay guy who is clearly the girl on the show Jess watches, Million Dollar Listing. Before you say which gay guy who thinks he is the girl, let me clarify, the tall one who is really bitchy.
As we get up to near where the mob has to squeeze in to the clearly defined rows of the stands and belts, at least three groups of people try to cut in front of the Asian family in front of us. To one I just gave them a Brooklyn "ooooo" and thumb to the back of the line, they complied. But these two dirty Italian assholes slipped in front of the Asians and they were surprised. Jess informed them that it was their fault that they left too much room and that's what happens.
We move through the line and there aren't too many cutters, though they do announce for people flying to Paris to come to the front to check in and it's fucking mayhem. People are cutting in and put of the lines, knocking fucking stands over, so, when in Rome...
With our adopted Asian family in tow, we head up to the front and take over a line. The staff kick some black guy off of his line and tell him to come to ours, which of course, he does but doesn't even say anything to us, just cuts. Jess says something and he comes back with some stupid comment like, "do you think I just flew here from nowhere?". I don't know where the hell you came from nor do I give a shit. He goes through and gets his stuff and we get ours and join our Asian relatives on line for security.
Random other people are flying through the security line, under the belts and shit to get to their flight. They announce for everyone on our flight to go to the front of the security line, which they do, only we get stopped by one of the safety guys, like their TSA. He starts yelling at us in italian and makes us go back into the line. Jess goes to another guy and tells him and they guy says ok, go, but the other asshole is saying no again and we're starting to have words. We go to get back in to the line and he's pushing me on my shoulder, to which I had to tell him, as politely as I could of course, not to push me.
Most of us get through the line, but Glenn is carrying some canned vegetable pate shit that smells like cat food. Really, do we care if this gets taken? We get through and race with the Asians to the gate. They're already boarding and the line is long. We paid for priority boarding and walked towards the front of the line. Jess went to ask and I stood a little further back to wait for word. Some woman starts telling me that the line is back there, I tell her I know, relax. Jess waves her priority boarding at the attendant and then waves to us and we're in. The front of the line is up here, bitch!
We get through and then move off to the side to repack our bags with whatever came out, and for Glenn to reorganize his picnic of pate and crackers. While we waited on the tarmac, some Italian skanks in front of us, who passed us while we were repacking. When we got in line behind them they started saying something about "priority". Yeah, you may be back in front of us but we don't care because we didn't wait on that huge line or fight our way to the front of it like animals as you did.
Besides, didn't I eat part of one of your fat asses while in Tuscany?
It gets better, check these out:
http://reputation-guardian.com/2010/10/ryanair-wins-the-battle-but-loses-the-war/.html
http://www.ihateryanair.org/
I assure you, none of these chicks were our stewardesses.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Second day -
Woke up and took a fairly lazy breakfast. Headed over to the Vatican to take the tour of the catacombs. When they were preparing the burial monument for I think Pius XII, they were digging and mistakenly uncovered a ton of the old necropolis that was at the site of the hill there. Because this was the site where they think Peter was buried, it became a holy place.
Not being one to be swayed by finding the truth, the church decided to excavate because surely the burial site of St. Peter would bring even more pilgrims and more pilgrims brings more money. This was 1939.
They built and built and at the time of Constantine, they had to fill in a ton of the old necropolis with dirt so that they could level out the area and build something larger on top of it, as a result, from like 300something until 1939 all of the sites were untouched and totally preserved from a lack of light and oxygen.
The necropolis served basically as the name translates, city of the dead and people would come and bring their family things to keep them in the afterlife. There was no distinction among religions. Romans had thousands of gods because they used to adopt the gods of the people they conquered and never forced them to accept the dominant religion of the empire at the time of conquest. People were buried with their families despite different religions and no one messed with other people's graves because the Romans feared death. Obviously, the families with the most money were able to have the most elaborate sites. Most people at the time were cremated and so there were little niches for their ashes. Some were buried in tombs and those were seen in the arches at the bottom of the rooms.
We were able to see some of the earliest Christian iconography which basically mirrored regular iconography of the time. This had to be taken in context and so the sun by the man and the fisherman and something else led the archaeologists to believe that this was in fact Christian iconography.
We saw the spot where they think Peter was buried, as matter of fact, based on the graffiti and what they know of the monuments of the dead back then, they are quite positive that it is his grave. But what did not match was that the bones were found in a spot that would have dated to 250 years after Jesus' death, not like 30 and so that brought the bones into question. They have since placed them back in the spot where they found them. What surprises me to some extent is their in ability to say that they are his bones. I know that they often moved remains and especially if it was a time of Christian persecution it would make sense that they would have moved his bones and then returned them at a later time. In addition, they should be able to DNA test to at least determine if these were a genetic match for someone from where Peter was rumored to be from. That being said, perhaps they did and they didn't like the truth, or at least the truth would not have been profitable for them.
This leads me to one of my biggest beefs with the church. If it is supposed to be sacred here and we aren't allowed to take pics, why are they allowed to charge money to see them? Fucking hypocrites. I can deal with the no pictures or at least the no flash when you're taking pics but there seems to be no real rules about when you can and can't take pictures.
There was a woman from ootside Buffalo who I would have liked to have left down there along with her father. Everywhere we looked it was, "Oooo, wow" with that stupid accent along with a number of other asinine questions. Her father was worse. Two total NY guineas and the accents just made everything ten times worse.
We were able to go directly into St. Peter's Basilica and walk around.
A Bunch of stuff seemed to have limited access but we touched the sculpture of St. Peter's foot which now looks like a club foot after millions of people touching it.It's only supposed to express reverence not good luck or anything like that. The rumor is the sculpture might really be some roman senator, Glenn says it's Maximus Dominus Exumus, who they just added a key to and that is why every icon of St. Peter has him with a beard, key and something else. We saw the Pieta and some other stuff as well. The basilica is just massive and in truth was supposed to be smaller. Michelangelo was the head architect and he wanted to stop it at one spot but when he died, it was not complete so they extended it at least another one hundred feet.
For lunch we headed to the market Andrea Doria, the oldest continual market in Europe or at least Rome. This is the place that was near our apartment the first time we came here. Had a good lunch, prosciutto and mozzarella sandwich and found a good spot on some stairs with shade, no graffiti. It was the best lunch I had there and I can say that with some credibility. Chris on the other hand cannot. Every lunch or dinner is the best. The most delicious and the most fabulous except for the one that had no taste. Otherwise, meals are described in absolutes, or only 1 or 10. Yesterday, she found the best ever vegan vegetable soup that was creamy. We've all had a good time busting her chops every time we complete a meal here. Then headed in to the Vatican museum.
I don't remember being herded through here like fucking cattle but apparently that's the deal. We saw a shitload of sculptures and the rest of the stuff in there where every room has murals and the ceilings are all done up.
My favorite of course is still Rafael's The School of Athens. I love that mural. I don't know why.
It could be the symmetry, it could be the number of actual people who are in it, including Michelangelo who is depicted as he saw himself, a sculptor (he may have used Lorenzo di Medici as the model though), there's Socrates and Aristotle (I think) right smack in the middle.
There's Pythagoras, another math guy that I have to remember,
the scribe who was on the Guns n Roses album
and even Rafael himself, sneaking out on the bottom right in a self portrait.
We saw some other shit too but I don't really care once I have gotten to see that. Actually, I lie, so maybe I do not have credibility anymore either. The map rooms are pretty cool as well. The walls are lines with all different painted maps. You can see a lot of stuff there but what I really would like to see is all the stuff that they have that you can't see. I know there is a ton of stuff there and I can't even imagine what they posses that is not known to the public.
Oh yeah, and the Sistine Chapel.
Afterwards, we headed to Castle Sant Angelo, Jess and Chris slept on the benches in the park while Glenn and I went in. Used by popes in times of civil unrest, named so because someone saw the archangel Michael on top of it during one of the plagues and then it ended the next day. There is a secret tunnel from Vatican to the place, which we didn't see as well as a lot of a lot of other areas because we hurried. On top you could see the entire city and that was pretty cool.
We then hoofed it over to the Spanish steps again to get Mitch gloves. Found the AS Roma store and they did not have the magnet that I wanted. WTF! They wouldn't sell me the one in the display the fucking assholes.
I'm not positive what we did afterwards, probably just relaxed and then I think we went and got dinner.
The next day we got up to go to the colosseum underground tour. I've been waiting for this since I saw the show where they talked about excavating the areas under the arena. We headed up to the area of the bus and waited for the 271 along with an African woman. We saw a lot of short 116 busses and waited for bus. We asked the woman about the schedule and she did not know but thought it might be a bus holiday. She said the taxis won't just pick you up off the street. She tried calling someone to find out more info, then after a while she tried tried to call us a cab because it was 9:15 and we needed to be there at 9:20, twenty minutes before our 9:40 tour. Jess asked another bus driver where we could get a taxi and we ran up to the area and while crossing the street to get to the cab i may have run in front of people who were also going to it to get there first. We got a cab and though we asked him to make it quick, he was on his own schedule luckily it wasn't too far and we got there in the nick of time. Jess ran out and up to the reservations line to get the tix.
Took the tour, it was difficult to hear a lot of the information because of the people. There were a lot of people trying to push forward, especially the three generation of German bitches. I was at the front near the tour guide and left room so she could speak without having someone on top of her and this bitch pushes through the crowd and she slid in right in front of me. She, her mother and her daughter did it to everyone the entire tour as did some 10 year old kid who's parents didn't monitor him at all. The underground was cool because the stones were still original and you could see some of the holding areas and stuff but there wasn't enough stuff. I thought there would be more as well as more info. You also got to go up to the top level of the colosseum which everyone else cannot. That was cool.
We then went over to the Roman Forum the center of life in ancient times
and Palatine Hill, which was where all the emperors lived. I love the forum because it's where all the OAS is, that's old as shit for all of you not with us. There are columns from a bunch of the old temples, the old senate building and a bunch of other ruins. The same for Palatine Hill. Jess was getting hungry and we decided to head out.
Went a saw a Piazza designed by Michelangelo.
Skipped Trajan's forum, got some lunch.
Headed back to our place to chill out and go on the Internet. When we were done we head out close to our place for some dinner and beers. Glenn had a huge plate of lasagna. We had to sleep and rest up because of the 4am start and trip to the airport for Paris via Ryan Air.
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So we take our time getting moving in the am. We checked the email on the rooms and luckily the place in Rome and the place we were at both had space so we decided to head in to Rome. We had a bunch of time to kill during the day because our guy couldn't pick us up until 4 from the Hertz place.
We could either drive to Assisi or some other town that sounded like booby. Though for obvious reasons, we wanted to go to the booby town, we didn't, we ended up at Assisi instead.
What a friggin' mistake. Not a bad mistake though. Assisi is beautiful and though slightly out of our way i am glad we went, i just wished we knew it was so pretty so we could have spent more time there. You can see it up on the mountain as you are headed in. It gets larger as you get closer (obviously) and it really is just beautiful. Also pretty medieval, many of the buildings are sandstone and lighter in color. That's pretty much all I can tell you about it because we spent like 10 minutes there. If only we had known we could have left much earlier.
Drove in to Rome thanks to my fucking awesome backseat navigation. Got to Hertz, had to pee really bad. Crazy Romanian guy starts talking to Mauro, our guy in Rome. He tells me, "just say something to him in English so he knows you can't talk to him. He's eastern European, like Romanian or something, very dangerous people." So I should talk to him and not you who can speak a language with him? No thanks, and I have to take a leak. Jess is clearing everything up with the Hertz people and I see Glenn walk up an alley. He's gotta pee too. Only no luck because he's right back by me. I've had enough of the heat, crazy Romanians and the lot of busses right in front of me. Ah, big busses parked next to each other, very closely together and no one is on them...I hope you can see where this is going.
We drove to apartment from 1500s. It's very cool. Like really very cool, except for the shitty ac which is like a cross dehumidifier and ac and the two bedrooms really being one, like a giant bunk bed. Just because the owner, who apparently makes stained glass, found some cool old doors and closed in the bottom of the bunk area does not make a two bedroom apartment. The area of Rome we are in is pretty cool. We are right near Piazza del Fiore. We walked around to Piazza Novanna,
walked, picked up our Roma passes, went back, went and got food at buffet for buying drinks, walked around in rain, stumbled upon an antimafia demonstration at the Pantheon,
walked,
Went to the Trevi Fountain,
they got food,
Saw Castel Sant Angello,
Went to the Vatican,
and walked.
The other shitty thing about the apartment is that the electricity goes out if you have on the two shitty acs, the tv and the washing machine. Fucking 1500s.
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