El Rio Tajo

Just before going to England for a week (today!) I thought I'd do a little post about what I've been doing since I got back from Italy a week and a half ago. Basically, nothing. I've been doing some paperwork for my legal status here, some apartment searching for next year (no success there yet, but fingers crossed) and packing up my things. 

I also sang at open mic night at Triskel's Tavern with Steve, two songs that I wrote the lyrics to (and one of those I came up with the tune for, the other Steve did), and that went pretty well. 

Then this last weekend Joaquín and I, both feeling very broke but needing some time alone away from the city, decided to go crash in Molina de Aragón. His friend Lucía lives there but wasn't using her apartment at the time, so we could stay there and save our poor wallets while still having a couple of days to ourselves. Molina de Aragón is truly a beautiful area. Lots of sunflower fields surrounding it, the Tajo river just a short drive away, and mountains, mountains, mountains. We got there Friday night and just chilled, bought groceries for the next few days, made some delicious risotto, curtosy of chef Joaquín, and watched some of the new tv show Fargo. Saturday, we went to the Puente de San Pedro over the Rio Tajo and swam and sunbathed and took pictures. 

The river is more like a little mountain creek at this part, very shallow and not too big, the water as clear as if it just fell from the sky. 

After we had been there for a while, we went to a view point and looked out at the river from high above, watching hawks dive through the air below us. 

We visited another little town in the area for some coffee, and then went back to Molina. Had burgers and walked around a little fair that was unexpectedly set up for some holiday or other. 

Sunday, we had meant to go spelunking in a nearby cave, but we were tired and I had started feeling a little sick, so we slept in and then just headed back to Madrid, stopping in Lucía's hometown to give her back her keys first and have some coffee and tea with her. 

Since the weekend, I've been resting while dealing with this cold (so tired of getting sick!) and packing some more. I can't wait to see my old friends in England this week! After that, I'll be in Madrid for a few more days, and then it's home to America for a month! 

All Roads Lead To Rome

Day 12: July 7th

We decided at some point in the days previous to stop in Bologna for a night before going back to Rome. We both were flying out on the 10th, and we'd already done most of what we wanted to do in Rome, so we figured a little detour wouldn't hurt. We got a ride from a traveling dad of two highschoolers who was SUCH a dad (really nice, concerned about making sure we got where we needed to go, etc) and he both picked us up from our apartment in Venice and dropped us off at the place in Bologna. There, we stayed with a couple in they're spare room. We really just dropped our things off before heading into the city center. The only things I wanted to do in Bologna were: go to the University of Bologna, which is the oldest university in Europe, and see this room where they dissected bodies for study, and walk the longest arcade in the world, that had 666 arches and led to St Luca's Church. 

So we did those things! From the anatomy room: 

Some wicked wooden sculptures of men without skin holding up that... thing? Did professors have thrones here? 

And the longest arcade in the world. 

Of course, by the time we got to the top, the church was closed and we couldn't reach the 666th arch. So upsetting! 

654! So close! 

We also saw the church in the main plaza, which was very strange in terms of churches because... it hadn't been finished in marble. Only the bottom half had marble, the rest was just brick. I assume this is because they ran out of money during construction? But I can't be sure. 

That night was laid back. 

Day 13: July 8th

The next morning, we met with our rides from Bologna to Rome, two Italian college students on their way to a concert of the Black Keys. We drove through some gorgeous mountains!

They dropped us off at Termini, the main train station of Rome, went to Trastevere, where we would be staying, and got some groceries and gelato before dropping our things off at the apartment. We really didn't do anything for a few hours, but that night we decided to try walking along the river to another area where there were supposed to be some cool bars. We didn't actually get that far, because on the river, there was a big summer festival with lots of restaurants, bars, shops, and live music.

It was really awesome, so we just walked around there drinking (a little too much) beer and getting kebab and watching music/the football game. I drank the first dark beer I have ever enjoyed there: a beer called Rossa that was so smooth and wonderful, and the only dark beer I've ever liked. 

Day 14: July 9th

With one day left, we decided to go to the Catacombs. The problem is, the main catacombs are apparently closed on Wednsedays. The other problem: the bus that goes to the catacombs only comes once every 40 minutes (supposedly, it was more like once an hour). Well, after walking to the bus station and seeing this awesome building grafitti...

we waited and waited for the bus, and finally made it to the San Sebastion catacombs. You can't take pictures inside, but it was really cool. We had a guided tour who told us about how the volcanic rock is easily carved until it hits air, how most of the graves had been robbed (even though they were mostly graves of poor Christians) and what the symbols on the walls meant. Most were symbols like the fish or the anchor, but one mossoleum was decorated with the swastika, which, remember, means life and death, because this was 2000 to 1500 years ago. There was also a ton of grafitti carved into the walls by ancient romans, and apparently these were all prayers. 

(This isn't in the catacombs, but just above it in the church). 

After the tour, we walked around the church, got something to eat from the cafeteria, and walked a little ways up and down the Appia Antica (old road in Latin), seeing some of the ruins there. 

That night, we decided to hang out with the girl staying in the other room of the apartment with us, a German theatre major named Julia who we really got along well with. We walked to this sculpture she had really wanted to see, a giant bamboo structure you can actually walk up in (though it was closed off for some reason).

 After that, we got a last pasta dinner. Jeff tried to order Canoli instead of Cannolini, and we all said "Voltswagon" for a few minutes, laughing about the different pronunciation between English and German. Finally, we walked along that river party again, got some gelato, and took the tram home. 

Day 15: July 10th

This isn't really even a day that counts. Jeff woke up at 4:30am to call a taxi to the airport and catch his flight at 6:55am. I walked him out, and we said goodbye. I went back to sleep until about noon, packed up my stuff, and went to the train station to go to the airport. Everything went smoothly, and Joaquín came to pick me up. 

I can't believe the trip is over! I loved Italy, particularly Florence and Venice, and I want to go back again soon! Thanks for reading! 

Venice, City of Doges.

Day Eight: July 3rd

The day really wasn't that interesting, a traveling day. We went to meet our ride at the Santa Maria Novella train station and wandered the area for a bit, stopping in a second hand shop, admiring the Santa Maria Novella plaza and church facade, and eating our sandwiches. We met up with Alessio, our ride, around 1pm and started talking to him about what all we had done in Florence, and Jeff mentioned that he had tried and failed to get to Fiesole for the view. So guess what? He took us there before we went to Venice! He was really cool. The view from Fiesole is AMAZING. Florence truly is a beautiful city, up close and far away alike. 

In Venice that evening, we brought groceries, FINALLY washed our clothes, and drank some wine over dinner. We honestly needed a break evening as in Florence we had been booking it all over the place. 

Day Nine: July 4th: INDEPENDENCE DAY! 

First day in Venice: We got up, got our tickets to the Venice Islands (um, if anyone hasn't been to Venice, apparently there are two parts to the city: the main land, and then a big island. I was not aware of this (Oblivious American Alert) and thought that it was all mainland and just had canals running into the land. Anyway, we got to the Island and immediately got lost, which really is what should happen because Venice is awesome to get lost in. No matter what, you'll always end up going back in the right direction (remember? It's an island) and sometimes even when you think you're far from your destination, you're actually right around the corner. This happens because a lot of the streets all have the same names! Or have two different names! Or just aren't on the map! We ran into this dead end street that had an awesome little shop with things we wanted to buy, but it was closed. The shop owner had put books and other little articles outside the shop and had padlocked a drop box to the door so if you wanted something, you can put money inside, but we wanted things that were inside the shop. We didn't even know where we were when we found this place, but we vowed to come back to it. 

Well anyway, eventually we made it to Saint Mark's Square.

 We listened to Rick Steve's audio guide of the Piazza, then went to the Doge's Palace. (For my internet friends: yes, there really is  place called Doge's palace. Doge is how you say Duke in Italian. It did not stop being funny the entire time).

 The palace was really beautiful, but my favorite part was the giant room with all the Doge's painted in order on the frieze, except one Doge who had attempted a coup d'état and whose name and portrait was blacked out. Clearly no one else tried that. 

We then went to the big bell tower in the square that was originally built hella long ago but collapsed in 1902, and they rebuilt it exactly the way it had been. We got to be up there when the bells rang for the half hour, which was a really cool experience.

 The view was pretty spectacular, too. 

We decided not to go into the Basilica, mostly just because we have seen a lot of churches already and hadn't heard anything too spectacular about this one. We walked around a garden near the square and then decided to find a place to relax and drink some wine for a while. If that's not the most unpatriotic Independence Day you've ever heard of, I don't know what would be. 

Day Ten: July 5th

We've been slowing down a little bit, because vacationing is tiring! We slept in and then went to the Correr museum in Saint Mark's Square. We've gotten to the point that we run past any Madonna and Childs. We've seen so many we just don't want to see any more! Jeff's favorite thing here was a painting of the battle of the fists, which is a painting of a bunch of guys just punching each other on a bridge. It's pretty funny. But I think my favorite part was the room about 18th century Venetian sunglasses.

 Venice is the area where glass blowing first really kicked off, so of course glasses became a big deal there. Apparently it was all the rage to have bright green sunglasses to protect your eyes (and what's crazy is that they actually filtered out 90% of the UV rays, something that most modern sunglasses still don't do). But I can just imagine Venice being full of men and women in old-time dress with bright green glasses and it cracks me up. 

My other favorite part also had to do with glass: the chandeliers in the museum were gorgeous. They were all really delicate glass and had lots of colorful flowers adorning them. So beautful! 

This day involved a bit of getting lost as well. We'd seen a flyer for a play at an ex-convent and wanted to try to go, so we tried to find it. Only the map said there was a through street when in reality there were walls, so we basically ended up between a giant wall and what seems like it might have been a military base or something. The searching tired us out, too, but we still had one more very important mission for Venice: a gondola ride! We found our way back to civilization and hired a gondola for forty minutes (the shortest time you can ride for, as those rides are not cheap).

 It was probably not as good as it could have been, what with that being a kind of romantic thing and Jeff and I obviously not fitting that category, but it was fun. All the gondoliers talked to each other when they passed us and it was really funny wondering what they were talking about, pondering if they ever had competitions between them. I think maybe half of Jeff and my conversations involved fake conversations we imagine fake people having with each other. 

Guess what we did then? That's right: Gelato. 

Day Eleven: July 6th, Beach Day! 

That's not an official holiday like the July 4th one, but I felt it had to be named. At this point in our journey, we really had no set plans about what to do next, so we decided we would stay another day in Venice, then go to Bologna for a day, then head back to Rome before flying out on the 10th. Since we'd already done most of what we wanted to do on the main Venice island, we decided to take the water bus to Lido island and have a beach day!

I didn't take any pictures with my camera on the island, because generally sand and expensive cameras do not mix. But going to the beach was the perfect thing to do. Lido is beautiful, and even though the beach was really crowded, it was one of the best I've been too because the water was so shallow I could stand 100 meters out. I'm not a huge fan of swimming, but I love floating and wading and standing in shallow water and this was perfect for that. We just went out to where our heads were above the waves, but still far from the crowds, and that was great. That mediterranean sun is HOT though. I got burned on my back, even with using a ton of sunscreen, but it has already turned to a tan. On our way back, we got some of the best gelato we've had yet: and cheapest too! Lido wins! 

The Hero, in Feminine Dress, is Completely Inebriated

Day Four, June 29th

We decided to take the metro/train (the stop was literally right outside of the hostel entrance, and the trains came so close to our rooms that the windows rattled) into Naples for the day. We'd been told that there wasn't much to do there, and even if there would have been normally, it was Sunday, so there REALLY wasn't anything to do. Most attractions were closed or only open until early afternoon. Well, we got into the main station and walked to the sea. We wanted to go into Castel Nuovo, but it was closed (and also did not look "new" at all). We walked along the seaside for a bit, decided to go down and join the Napoleons (I know that's not what they're called, shh) on the rocks, and swim in the mediterranean. It was so beautiful out there, but we were definitely out of place. The area really didn't have many tourists (probably because tourists went further down to a beach area). we stayed for a while, then walked further, making our way along the promenade (which in my opinion was the nicest and possibly only nice part of Naples).

There is a lot of poverty and corruption in the South of Italy, and it was all too apparent in that city. Homeless everywhere, graffiti on literally everything, and all the illegal merchants on the streets barely blinked when the police would pass by. Definitely a strange place. Well, that's really all we did that day. Not go to any attractions, just walk and lay by the seaside. We headed back to Pompeii (after waiting like half an hour for the train, it was WAY late) and ate pizza at a restaurant close to our hostel. 

Day Five, June 30th

We had a ride from Naples to Florence at 3:30pm, so we checked out of the hostel early, and, as much as we wanted to explore more of the ruins, went into Naples. We were meeting the guy at the Archeological Museum of Naples so we decided to just go to the museum (they had baggage checks) and stay there basically until it was time to go. I'm really glad we did that. The museum was awesome! We saw a bunch of statues, but the main attraction were all the relics taken from Pompeii. I saw Cave Canem, in person! Jeff and I were honestly amazed at the Roman paintings and mosaics. I think I never thought about the fact that, since their sculpture was so fantastic, their paintings would also be fantastic. But you never see Roman paintings (potentially because we didn't have any until Pompeii was excavated?) They are awesome! This one, though, is my favorite.

 The description of the painting said it was Hercules and that "The Hero, in feminine dress, is completely inebriated." I've been quoting that line this whole trip, every time I see something funny, basically. I'm sure Jeff is tired of it. 

Then, of course, we got to see the "secret room" of erotic Pompeiian art. What I didn't know is that in Roman times, apparently the male genitalia was a good luck charm. So the reason there was so much erotic art in Pompeii wasn't because the Romans were just sex crazed orgy goers: it was all for luck! They had sex scenes outside of their houses for luck, women wore penis-pendant necklaces for luck, and a lot of the every day objects they used, dinnerware, lamps, wind chimes, were all penis-themed. They even had a "fingers crossed" type of hand motion that I probably should not describe here (and that I'm not even sure how scholars know about?) that was for good luck but that alluded to the whole penis thing again. 

Anyway we finished with the museum and went across the street to have (guess what) PIZZA and wait for our ride. So our driver was Alessandro, a young Italian guy from Naples who works in a city a little north of Florence, and our fellow passengers were a French Canadian girl who had been woofing it in the hills for a week and an older Italian guy who didn't speak any English but kept trying to offer us the food he bought. We had some fun conversations on the 5 hour ride up north, and Jeff and I both were a little blown away by the scenery. We got to Florence and, after some drama trying to figure out how to get from where we were to the apartment we're staying in, (the drama being mainly that we couldn't) decided to just take a cab. Boy, was that the fastest driver I've ever experienced. We got to the apartment (we're staying in the second loft bedroom of a nice Italian couple who are lending us bikes for riding around town) and went to bed! 

Day Six, July 1st

Florence! Firenze! My god this city is gorgeous. I seriously could live here, if not for, you know, money. Nestled between the mountains and straddling a river, it is the epitome of Italy, in my opinion. The apartment we're in is pretty far up the river, so when we woke up, we biked to the supermarket to get food for the day, and then about 4km along the river to the center of the city. We stopped along the way to go through a riverside market with cheap clothes and whatnot. We got to the city center and, after sitting on a bench and eating our sandwiches, walked toward Il Duomo. This is probably the most beautiful church on the outside that I've ever seen, because it's colorful!

The stone is painted and it's beautiful and I don't understand why other churches didn't ever do this! I love it! We went inside and it was pretty cool, the ceiling to the dome painted beautifully. Went down to the crypt for a bit, then went outside again to wait in line to go up to the top of the dome. While we were waiting we started talking to this older couple, the guy had been a US diplomat in Spain and Mexico for many years and his wife was Mexican and they live in D.C. now. They were so cute. 

We went up to the cupola, all ~370~ steps, and marveled at the view. I may be crazy, but I liked this view better than the one from the Eiffel Tower of Paris.

Florence just isn't as big and is among so many mountains it seemed more inviting than the vast never ending French city. That's just me, though. One great part about climbing the cupola is that, unlike any other church dome I've been in, you got to go up on the inside and see the great painted ceiling up close. That was really awesome. 

Once done with that, we went into the Baptismal and admired the ceiling there, too.

Then, we got gelato and used some wifi, trying to plan our next leg of the journey, to Venice. I told Jeff every day we didn't have gelato, I would have to punch him. We then wandered over to Ponte Vecchio, the old bridge that has buildings across it, all of which sell jewelry. I can't understand how any of them make money, since literally all their competition is on that one bridge! We walked back to the bikes, then tried to find this garden Jeff wanted to bike through, but it turned out it was closed, so we just bought some snacks and biked back to the first park that would eventually take us home. 

Day Seven: 

Another day in Florence. though this one started very differently. First of all, Jeff wanted to biked up to a mountain village overlooking Florence to catch the sunrise. He left (I guess, I didn't hear him) at 4:30 to do it, and came back around 6:30, but apparently he had gotten lost on the way and didn't make it, so he just biked around the city for a bit and watched the sunrise that way. Finally we woke up around 9:30 and got ready to go to the Uffizi museum, to see Venus and David. Except apparently! David is in another museum in the city. Well, anyway, before we had even hardly started, we had an accident. We were coming up on an intersection and a car was coming the other way: Jeff stopped for it, but I saw that it was stopping for us so I kept going. Except I was right behind Jeff, and didn't realize until too late! I hurt my hip/pelvis and bruised my shin a little, but other than that everything was fine. It made biking and walking the rest of the day a little more painful and slow going, but I managed. 

So we got to the Uffizi museum, and did that for several hours, until we were too hungry to handle it anymore. Saw Venus

and a bunch of other paintings and sculptures, including the Boar. 

We went out and ate our sandwiches and chips and fruit we bought from the supermarket, and frightened a bunch of pigeons several times in the process. 

We walked around for a long time, just enjoying the city, although at one point we had to stop in a tie shop so Jeff could buy the most amazing tie. He's going to tell everyone about how it's his most expensive tie, bought in Florence Italy, yada yada. It really is a great tie. We then walked up to the Piazzalemichelangelo, but we had wanted to see the sunset from there and it was only about 6:30, so we went down again to get dinner and wine. Drank and snacked next to a little decorative fish pond until closer to sunset, then climbed back up again. It was definitely worth it: gorgeous view!

After the sun truly set, we walked back down, got our bikes, and went home.