I am at a personal record for consecutive sneezes. Like a sneeze train. I'm at 9. They weren't rapid fire though, more like, *SNEEZE* some breaths, then *SNEEZE* walk 2 steps, *SNEEZE* breath a little, look around, *SNEEZE* and so on. But 9 times. I think it's stabilized now. A part of me wanted to keep going just to see my body's potential. But... 9 it is.
HI. So..
I just got back from a trip to Rome, Italy. It was great. And immediately got hit with I think it's the flu? I'm assuming. I got a mild fever on Thursday when I woke up. But aside the congestion, I'm feeling a lot better today. Funny thing I've not been this sick in a loooooong time. It's not often that my body succumbs to illness. I'll feel a cold try to come on, but in a day, the symptoms are gone.
ALAS, WOE, WOE. FOR MY IMMUNE SYSTEM HAS FALLEN TO ILLNESS' CRUEL BEHESTS OF SNOT AND ACHEY WAKIES. I'd forgotten how absolutely shitty it is to be this ill.
I also feel less left out in this because my housemate is also sick with the flu, and so is boyfriend. They're recovering though. I think I'm a day or two behind, but I'm feeling way better than I did on Thursday and Friday.
Ooof.
REGARDLESS, THE SHOW MUST GO ON. Also like, there are going to be massive amounts of photos, so I'm still deciding on whether or not to make this post incremental or not. We'll see how it goes. It's almost 5 now. I'll give myself a few hours to write.
So our trip consisted of a few stops. One was in the bay area. We left SoCal and stayed the night, and the day at Chicken's fams' fams' house. Does that make sense?
Oh, also.. like. I love airplane food. LOVE it. Is that... a piece of tiny baby bread? with a shitty little stick of buttER?? YUM?!!? 8 ounces of WATER? YES PLEASE, DELICIOUS. And then when they bring out the meals in those crappy tiny microwaved trays I'M IN HEAVEN. Lets GO get in MY FACE. I love it idc
For our flight up to the Bay Area, we got peanuts. Which was fine. Frankly, I don't even really remember what time we arrived. I think it was later on in the day? But we had pizza for dinner, courtesy of Chickens' fam. Which was super nice of them. They were so hospitable!
Breakfast the next morning was amazing. I've never had home made french toast. He prepared a lot for us that morning, I scarfed it all up.
They have two puppers. I love them. And their story is pretty awesome.
So Mochi is the black pupper, and Friday is his beige sister. They're both rescues! But not just any rescues. They were street dogs in Taiwan!
So wifey and hubby were wanting to adopt a pupper, and went to a rescue website that specialized in particular kinds of rescues. In this case, street puppers. They first had thought about Mochi, but he had a queue for his adoption. So the fam ended up adopting Friday, and Mochi went to someone else.
Funny part; the adoptees of this group of street dogs had a get-together meet and greet kinda thing at a park, and the fam went to it to meet the other owners and puppers.
Well, turns out, Mochi's owner had actually only attended to offer Mochi up to someone else, as he was unable to keep him. (I know... me too. I was like wtf theN WHY DID YOU EVEN SIG
So wifey immediately took him and... now they live happily ever after!
These are the most skiddish puppers ever though. They seem to always be in a state of alertness and will not approach strangers until they get used to you. Even then, it's best to act like you don't notice them coming near you, or they'll just run away. Which breaks my heart because I can only imagine the life they lived before they were brought to the states. But, what matters is they're super happy and healthy now. Yay rescues!
Anywho, the next day, we were taken out to this cute coffee place; Blue Bottle.
Their espresso was incredibly yummy. I'm not a massive coffee drinker, but having worked at a coffee place for like, a decade basically, has developed my palette for this shit- and good espresso is hard to deliver lol. But this was tasty!
I also had to teach someone very important lessons about Pokemon. Ghost pokemon in particular. Because you see, Ghost types are unbearably cute. Like, everything about them is adorable. They're fucking dead, but still exist. And just wanna exist in peace. With their cute spooky selves. All cute and spooky like.
So, we went over a bunch of Ghost types, and she gathered that Gastly is my favorite because of the icon from a photo I have on my laptop. Which I use as an avatar for like, everything.
Which btw, if you're wondering who did it, @tenaciousbee was doing a bunch of Pokemon commissions a while back. And I hit her up. idk if she's done any since, but yeah. It's like, the cutest shit ever.
Ghost Pokemon is serious business. Teach your kids about the sweetest deadest babies. They deserve love too.
Our last night in the Bay Area, they prepared a yummy dinner for us.
The next morning, a 12 hour flight waited for us at San Francisco international airport.
So... I kinda slept for most of the flight, and only woke up for food. Am I a Snorlax?
Probably. But when it came around, I could smell it, and my body was rEADY
And then I was out, until breakfast time! :D
GOSH WHAT A SHORT FLIGHT THAT WAS
And then, I napped during the ride to our air bnb. Which when we got there looked awesome on the inside.
Like, the stairs to get to our apartment were like 76934875928792836928 years old.
Mine and Chickens' room had the alley view of the plaza,
but our living room window had a full blown front and center view of the Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevere. Which is like, a plaza with a pre-medieval church.
We also had a terrace, which was just the fattest cherry on top.
little homie
ah, I love silhouettes.
On our first outing, we quickly discovered that traffic in Rome has no rhyme or reason to it. You just kinda walk along side the cars, like friends. And they just kinda go and do whatever. There's an order to the chaos, which felt very much like Peru.
The streets are narrow, paved entirely in endless cobblestone. The buildings massive and ornate with statues and relics of the past.
Also graffiti. There was a lot of that, too.
It seemed like these arcs were everywhere.
So, we had no car which was completely fine. We quickly found out that all of the landmarks we wanted to see were relatively within walking distance. Like 30-45 minute treks across the city.
To me, this was totally fine. Sightseeing is dope.
For context, here's kind of the path we took on our ventures. I could be totally wrong, because it was Chicken who navigated for us, but from all the landmarks we stopped at, this is basically it.
We crossed the Tiber River almost daily. As we were staying south of the city, where the star is marked on the map.
The shots I took do it no justice whatsoever, but this was the bridge crossing over to Castel Sant Angelo. The bridge had guardian saints all along the sides. And, since the week we were there was Culture week, government run museums were free. As much as we wanted to see the inside, the line for horrendous. So, we simply admired the Castle from the outside.
A ways left (west) of the castle, we ventured towards St. Peter's Square. Vatican territory!
HELLO FRIEND. There were a lot of friends in Rome. As much as I wanted to hold them and snuggle them and kiss them and feed them, I couldn't :(
By this point I started freaking out and constantly kept telling myself I can't believe we're here outside the fucking Vatican and wanted to punch myself .
That's Chicken's noona. She watches a lot of k-dramas.
As we entered the square, I got asthma.
It's the only way to describe the magnitude of awe I felt. Like.... just... I can't
breathe
just
w o w
how are we
her e
We did not go INSIDE the Vatican, as much as we had wanted to. Again, Culture Week meant massive lines, and we're not about that. We were just lucky and happy to have been there. That was enough. I'm still insanely grateful for it
On our way out, we passed the castle again, heading East.
Department of Justice lookin all kinds of extra.
From there, we make our way to the Spanish Steps
STORY TIME
This was one of those places where you had to be careful with your belongings. Total tourtist trap kinda thing. I didn't carry a bag on me, just kept my things in the inner pockets of my jacket. BUT, this street dude with a bunch of roses approaches us, and tells Chicken he did a good job finding me. That I was beautiful. GOOD JOB CATCHING THIS ONE. Like I was some stray cow he found one day - its fine. I know he was trying to compliment us as a unit. Whatever. He then tries to sell us a rose. We say no thank you, but he hands it to me anyway, again complimenting me. Offers to take a picture of us with our phones, we say no thank you. He then asks Chicken if he had any tip or change to give him, anything at all. We both continue, "no, sorry." The dude is talking to us in English, btw. Approached us talking in English. He looks sketch, there are a ton like him in the area, and we're just... no. He pushes the question again, for tips. No. Then he reaches for the rose he gave me, I hand it back and he waves us away lol.
NICE.
It was one of those things where... we didn't feel unsafe, but kinda like.... insulted in a way? Er... maybe not insulted but more like really!? You think we're stupid? I mean I can't blame the guy, I'm sure he's gotten a lot of like, sorry but naieve white tourists to fall for that aggressive approach. But like... idk. Was just weird. Especially the rose thing. Because he said here, have it. I didn't want it, but took it because he was pushy.
Either way, yeah. That was the only time we had any kind of interaction of that sort.
Ahhhhh, so pretty.
Oh, so basically everywhere looked like this.
Our next stop was the Trevi Fountain. I had no idea we were going there at the time. We were just aimlessly following Chickens' navigation, which coincidentally led us to a boutique that sold Venetian masks!
One thing about me is that masks and masked characters are so beautiful and fascinating and captivating and enchanting and and and.... yeah. to me. It's not that deep but IT IS THOUGH. It IS that deep lol. Masks, especially beautiful masks, are poetic in that they enhance and magnify everything else about someone, completely nullifying the most seemingly essential physicality of a person- the face. An amazing example of this is V, from V for Vendetta. He is one of the most beautiful characters ever; I fucking LOVE that character. And Erik, from Phantom of the Opera. Like, these men are gorgeous people.
Moral compass seldom sways my affection for masked peeps, but generally, if they're strange or profound, I'm melting. And that's exactly what happened here.
The Trevi fountain was astounding. Also, incredibly crowded. Not short of sketchy street merchant dudes trying to sell cheap selfie sticks. But we remained vigilant.
Heyo tourist shot!
Gelato at a Roman land mark? Don't mind if I do!
As the it got darker, we continued on our trek to.... somewhere. I thought we were finally making our way back home.
But we turned a corner and
oh my god
it's the ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
P A N T H E O N
THE TEMPLE OF THE GODS
OF ANCIENT ROME
I.....
omg.
And we went inside and it's the most beautiful... just... I ... there are no words you guys
The whole thing seemed kinda funny but sad that they had to pre-record a message telling people to stfu in like 20 languages. Oof.
Night time fell on us, and the streets were absolutely beautiful.
That was the end of our day. We hit like, almost all of the major landmarks in one day, on foot. Was pretty impressed with ourselves. We had originally only planned to see the Vatican, buuuuuuut adventure! And it was a nice day out.
The next day, we woke up super early and went and picked up some stuff for breakfast.
We were off again!
This time, we walked a shortish distance to Largo di Torre Argentina.
Soooo, this square holds the ruins of Pompey's theatre, where historians believed to be the death site of Julius Caesar. I read that it was made of 4 temples total, of which can be seen from here but... just kinda look like giant churros. Which isn't even a bad thing I love churros.
ALSO! Fun fact, this site has been made into a kitty sanctuary ^_^
And specialist volunteers come in to take care of the kitties that live there. They are immunized and sterilized, fed, and well taken care of.
Our trek continues...
By the way, it's 9:34 PM. I started this at 5 PM. Remember? YEAH.
Now this next place is Altar of the Fatherland, orrrrrrr Altare della Patria
It's a memorial monument honoring the first World War and I think Italy's first sovereign? Lotta statues. Beautiful monument.Um, those things in the photo above were just random lanterns on some building on our way to the monument. Yop.
The inside was just.... gorgeous marble. Everywhere.
We went upstairs onto the terrace? I guess? Massive overlooking balcony thing? Idk the word, but this was up there.
eeeeewwwww
And this was the view:
So the giant orangish situation kinda on the leftish is the Roman Forum. Was kinda like... the downtown marketplace area. And on the rightish, way off in the distance, there's a dumb looking squareish shape that barely sticks out above the horizon. That's the Colosseum.
I hope my descriptors help
Colosseum? YESSSSSS
And the Arch of Constantine.
That day, entering the Colosseum was a hard pass. Free entry on a late afternoon was a nah. But we did get to see it from the outside and it was incredible.
And just beside the Colosseum, we also could enter this place which led us to the heart of the Forum. Tons of temples and things.
We kind of did. We went the round about way, up a hill that led us to a church on Palatine Hill.
San Bonaventura al Palatino.
From the outside, it looked straight up like Peru.
But inside....
While religion is not something I choose to practice or keep to, the lengths that man has gone to in honor of it is undeniably astounding and also in my humble opinion, respectable. The art that religion has inspired are some of the most beautiful creations in the world, that we have worked so hard to preserve over the ages. There are mysteries we still debate over, and in spite of all the blood shed, religion continues to give people hope. It's incredible. This institution of wanting to believe in something has molded history, in every part of the world. Pretty amazing if you ask me.
Note: Please don't bash religion in front of me- you look dumb. Extremists come in all flavors so that argument gets old real quick with me.
On our stroll to who knows where, we happened byyyyyy...
Circo Massimo! Or Circus Maximus. Where they used to race chariots. It was huge, and flat, but pretty cool to walk around on.
I just... need to take a moment to stress how much jealousy I hold onto right now towards my housemate. Her coughs are so.... like progressive. She's coughing up mucus and phelgm. And mine are just dry and awful and scratchy and painful. And all my mucus is still in my fuckING SINUSES
moving along... it was lunch time.
we found a little hole in the wall place
Was cute. I like gnocci
We found ourselves back at the Trevi Fountain
There was a shop with nothing but wooden toys and thingamabobs. Lots of Pinocchio. Sometimes I forget his story takes place in Italy!
Pantheon was pretty underwhelming during the day tbh. But hi again.
CHEEEEEESE
Ahhhhhh, cheese. This shop had cheese and meat, and it smelled incredible. I've never seen such a beautiful display of cheese in my life lol. We definitely got some to enjoy later. Note; my favorite type of cheese is Fontina. Bf surprised me with it once to pair with sweet red wine. Deeeelicious!
I thought about editing this photo to make it look cool, but whatever. Here it is, raw in all its goofy geometric glory.
YUM.
The next morning, the plan was... Colosseum! We got there before it opened at 9 AM. There was a line, but it moved quickly and before we knew it we were inside. I was an ecstatic mess.
Within one of the corridors on like, the second level was something like a small scale museum pertaining to the architecture and statues within the Colosseum.
Those dang Christians and their weinerless virtues! Chicken confirmed to me that most of the statues' weiners were chopped off when Christianity moved into the Roman Empire. I looked it up and the Christians apparently really hated weiners.
There is a HUGE window for a joke in that last sentence. Do you see it? I'm not gonna type it out, but it's in there. It's awful. And horrible and should not be the butt... of a small...... joke.
I DIDN'T
Look I'm tired okay it's been 7 HOURS SINCE I STARTED WRITING THIS
So, the archways all basically lead out tooooo......
Can you believe that this was where countless lives were lost for the sake of entertainment? We're so gross as a species lol, ugh.
We didn't go down into the bottom level beneath the, I guess "pit", but we were able to explore the ground level and walk around the corridors and stuff.
From there, we made our way to the Roman Forum. Which was massive. To put it lightly.
Like, insanely massive. Fatigue is probably the cutest adjective for us in there.
Arch of Titus at the base of Palatine Hill, just before the Forum.
If the Shire had square townhouses, it'd maybe kinda look like this?
These guys were near the Temple of Romulus, and it was exciting to me to believe that maybe they were reincarnations of Romulus and Remus. Because
I am
a
dumbass.
So the Forum like I mentioned earlier is just kinda like, their Downtown LA ruins. Housing in one part, temples here and there, a bazaar area... just... huge grounds where people did all of the things
AHA. HA HA
This is dumb, but... someone was like, hey look at this view. There's like, a thing. You should take a picture of it. And I was like, okay! So... I do. Here's the picture of the thing;
Little did I know that Chicken's cousin then took a picture of me, taking a picture of the thing;
But... all the while, Chicken had taken a picture of his cousin taking a picture of me taking a picture of the thing;
MEANWHILE, AT CHICKENS' SISTERS' CAMERA;
I had no knowledge of this. Nor did they. It's my favorite thing ever.
I love churros
We took this underground passageway that smelled like stale air and dirt and... like ... it smelled like Diablo. Is that it smelled like ok. It led us across the street. I love it and wanted to live in there, but... I'd probably get deported.
At this point, we reached a dead end and had to turn around and make our way back to the beginning, Palatine Hill. There, we went to visit House of Augustus!
Admittedly, by this point I was fatigued, and hangry as we had been up at 7 AM that morning, and it was well past noon. But Chicken and his sister were troopers and kept the morale up.
I'm glad we kept going because it was absolutely beautiful.
We walked a lot on our trip.
One thing that's cool is that because the history is so abundant everywhere you go, museums, albeit fucking awesome, are really not like, a priority during our trip. The two visited were cool though.
We visited two crypts, basically. Two crypts-turned-museum.
The first, photos above, was the Museum and Crypt of the Capuchin Friars. This place I hate to preface with but... they didn't allow photos inside. It killed me, but I respect rules.
Basically, it was a museum that entailed the timeline of the Capuchin Friars, with various relics and pieces of history on display. Was pretty cool. And then, towards the end, we enter the crypts. Or rather, the ossuary.
I wanted to cry. And I hate so so so much that pictures were forbidden. But it was the most .... beautiful fucking sight.
Lemme just borrow a photo from the googles
So... yeah. This is one of the crypts of maybe I think 5? If I remember correctly.
So, an ossuary is basically somewhere where bones of the deceased are kept. But in most cases, its implied that they're arranged in decorative motifs at sacred sites. One of the most famous ossuaries is the Kutna Hora ossuary within Sedlec in Czech Republic. Big ol bone church.
Anywho, so this crypt holds like, almost 4 thousand bodies. 3600 3700? Of friars from the Cappuchin Order. Some pope guy oversaw the arrangement of everything. Once a friar died, they'd burry him for like 30 years in special soil from another country, I forget where. But then his remains would be exhumed, and he'd get snuggled up in there. If there wasn't room, they'd remove the oldest bones to make room for the new.
And the most awesome thing about it is that these arrangements are intended to be a reminder of life and mortality. Kind of like paying homage to our mortality. And the most beautiful thing of all is that it's from ... friars. Right? They saw life as something completely different than the everyday person. Everything has value and meaning, even death. Pretty cool.
The second museum also had a crypt, but we see it differently! Crypta Balbi is a museum at the site of the ruins of an ancient theatre. I fucking love the theatre. And crypts.
As we walked through the museum, we were able to see some of the still standing architecture, and what it may have looked like... with braces.
Had a lot of props, tools, every day accessories and day to day life things that the people back then used.
And bones
The best part was that it was just across the street from the Churros of Death.
also known as Julius Caesar death site / cat sanctuary.
SWEET BABY
Kitttiiiiieeessss evvverrryywhaaar
That sign basically says
chill, we look after them
Food stuff!
These little stuffed ball things were my favorite. Supli. I could eat them forever probably. They come in varieties of ingredients, which is nice because there's only so much tomato sauce I can take in a weeks time lol.
Our final day in Rome, we relaxed
That is Chickens' other noona. The spawner of the little homie.
At several of the landmarks, we saw armed guards.
Personally, was nice to see them there. I like to make the comparison that guards or government control peeps are like Dobermans. Watch doggos. Ya just... ya don't fuck with them. Yanno? Ya don't want them to bite you, so you don't give them a reason to bite you. Just you look at them from far away and go.... awwwww, good doggo would fuck someone up who was stupid enough to try something ^_^ .. and then you move on. Right? At least, that's how I see them. That's how I see cops too. They're all the same to me. Don't give them a reason to bite you.
There were two armed guards patrolling the square with huge rifles. Coolest thing ever. I wanted to hug them but they'd probably shoot me :\
On our last outing, we wanted to try to find a cute little shop to buy coffee at and like, tiramisu. We find a place, and I thought they were open already. But they still had another 3 minutes. The door was open, so I walk in and look around to see a girl sweeping, and another behind the counter. The chick behind the counter dryly conveys to the girl sweeping that we walked in.
I start to feel bad because they're not acknowledging us, and wanna leave. Chicken tells me they're not open yet, but will be in like a minute so we should wait. I say no that sucks lets leave, so we walk out of the shop and they slam the door behind us. They SLAM it. Like, pissed at us or something. I don't look behind me and keep moving.
That morning, I had become flustered over our navigation. Chicken was doing great navigating, but I felt lost and confused about where we were going, so that ordeal was the final straw for me, and I started crying LOOOOOOOL
It was a combination of guilt, and not knowing where I was, being hungry, and feeling lost
We weren't lost, he was guiding us, he just wasn't telling me what was happening lol. But yeah, I felt like I came off as a dumb, rude American who barges into places and demands service. I felt like I insulted them somehow and pissed them off and it was the worst feeling lol, because rude people are disgusting. Idk, it really got to me.
So, Chicken pulls me aside and tries to console me. He says...
"There's a ramen shop behind you."
That worked.
We had ramen in Rome
It was pretty good! And the people there were super sweet. Our waitress asked me, in Japanese, if I spoke Japanese. I forget why, I think I said thank you in Japanese, but like pronounced it well enough. idk. I lol'd and nodded my head no. No clue what she said, just guessed. She laughed sweetly.
IT'S MY FAVORITE SEND OFF FROM ITALY.
They had green tea tiramasu.
Delicioouuuus
One last pit stop... but first...
Just when you think you're far away enough from the disgusting culture that is this shit.... it shows itself a few feet in front of you.
Piazza Navona
the biggest square in Rome
Fountains and statues a plenty
That was it. Our last pit stop.
That evening for dinner I had a few suplis, and gelato. The last few things I'd eat in Italy.
The next morning, EVERYTHING GOT ALL KINDS OF MESSED UP.
It started off fine. We got to the airport, went through security, got to our gate on time. It was fine.
However, our flight from Italy to Munich was really really really late. Which, normally is whatever. Except our connecting flight from Munich to San Francisco was schedule to board 30 minutes after we arrive to Munich. BUT UM, WHERE'S OUR PLANE.
So.
Our plane showed up. We boarded almost an hour late. Which meant that there was no way we'd make the connecting flight.
Once we landed in Munich, we walked like 9867498752875 miles to the service counter, where we found a line of people who also missed their flight. Lufthansa handled it pretty well, imo.
While there were no more flights out that evening, we asked for a direct flight from Munich to LAX, and they granted it. We also got a hotel for the night, with free dinner and breakfast vouchers. There was no reason for us to go back to San Francisco- that was mostly because of his sister and her fam. Their flight was also rebooked, but they got stuck with layovers.
Either way, I was glad I took Tuesday off.
We went out and waited for our shuttle to the hotel.
We enjoyed our dinner and breakfast buffets in peace.
Our flight didn't leave until like 11:30 that morning. We were able to take our time, and just chill. It was only a 12 minute drive to the airport. We were there by 9:15 AM.
Peru has these lolipops!
SHARKS HAVE HALF OF
:D
I didn't sleep at all during the flight back.
With work the next day, jetlag was not an option lol.
Instead, I watched AI, cried, La vie en Rose, cried, The Girl in the Spider's Web, kinda enjoyed it
Can relate.
And enjoyed the meals to the fullest.
We arrived on schedule, and the drive home was a long one. But Chicken got me home safe and sound. I threw my clothes in laundry asap and passed out.
WOKE UP ON WEDNESDAY WITH A SORE THROAT :D
AND HERE WE ARE.
Saturday... now 1 AM on Sunday.... I'm eating apple pie and drinking barley tea trying to control my snot flow.
God this post took up my entire evening lol.
Hope it was a fun read, sorry about the pope joke looooollolollollo
No comments:
Post a Comment
*aragorn voice* WHAT SAY YOU