Post Blizzard...Way Behind...

I just realized I still haven't finished recounting my trip to Italy...yikes. I definitely will need to finish that up, just need all of my photos uploaded. In the meantime, a lot has happened since my last blog entry. Christmas just passed, which was fun. We went to my parents' house, and as usual, there was tons of food. On Christmas Day (we celebrate on Christmas Eve), Marcus and I had a movie marathon at home. First I cooked us some breakfast: scrambled eggs, pancakes (from scratch, of course), and ricotta with fruits and honey. It was pretty good. Then we started the movies. We watched all three "Lord of the Rings" movies...it was an all day, all night event, but well worth it! And Marcus is a Lord of the Rings guru, so any questions were promptly addressed. The next morning we headed to the University Club for brunch. Marcus was recently accepted for membership there. At first it was so nice because we were literally the only ones there. Unfortunately some other diners crept in during our meal...oh, well. I had a very good omelet. Then the blizzard hit, and I didn't make it to work (darn). I got to watch "The Unforgiven" with Clint Eastwood. What a great movie! I never had interest in Westerns, but this didn't seem to be your typical Western. Today Marcus took the day off and we checked out MoMA. We finally got to see the "Counter Space" exhibit, and of course the permanent collection (gotta get my dose of Matisse). We then ate lunch at Pret a Manger, then we ended up back home in our neck of the woods. We decided to try supposedly "Manhattan's Best Coffee" at Kaffe 1668. I always hesitated because of the attitude I got from the staff, but I was intrigued. We ordered (overpriced) drinks, and were met with hipster-ish attitude. When I commented on this to Marcus, he said "you can't have hipster attitude in Tribeca...you're in the wrong place for that." And it's true. Go back to LES or Williamsburg for that sh#t! You in Tribeca now, b#tch!

Intermezzo

Yesterday and today I've been slightly under the weather, so I wanted to take a brief break from recounting my trip, since I don't think I can appropriately give it the attention it needs to fully describe it just yet...so I'm going to digress and talk about a really good movie I finally watched: "Inception". Marcus and I ordered it On Demand yesterday. And we really liked it! I actually just watched it again this afternoon. Good stuff. Highly recommended. (Although I do think that Ellen Page was miscast in this movie...but loved her in "Hard Candy".) Yesterday Marcus and I hung out with Terry-a, Steve, and the crew. It was good seeing them. But what a yucky, rainy day!

Day Three

After our long second day, we slept in and decided to take it easy. We grabbed some breakfast at our hotel (breakfast isn't big in Italy...bummer)and wandered over to the Colosseum. Now, as I said, I detest tours. But the line was long, so in order to cut the line we agreed to a 45 minute tour. It was again, led by an archeologist, and it was pretty interesting. It was unfortunately raining a little. But the real bummer was that none of the cats of the Colosseum were out and about! There's a colony of about 200 cats that live in the Colosseum...the last time I was there, I vividly remember all the cats around me. I was really looking forward to seeing them and feeding them! I had even brought some cat food in my luggage. I was also looking forward to seeing the "basement" where the slaves and animals were kept, but it had been closed off a week before we arrived. Oh well. We also checked out the Pantheon that day. It was under renovation of some sort from the outside. In spite of the fact some horrific things took place at the Colosseum, like the killing of animals and slaves, it's an amazing structure. And the tour guide reminded us that in reality, we are just seeing the skeleton of the Colosseum, and way back when it looked a lot different, and had marble and statues all over. So weird.

More On Rome

Christina and I were on vacation for 6 days...so it's hard for me to stay true to the daily events, but I'm gonna try my best. There was so much walking, food, and coffee it tends to blur at times. But day two started with a pretty huge undertaking: The Vatican. Now if you go to Rome, you gotta go to the Vatican. But needless to say, it's huge, overwhelming, and a tourist trap extraordinaire. Prior to deciding to take the trip together, we talked about our opinions on sight-seeing...I am very much against the whole bus tour and running around all day trying to see as many sights as possible. I would rather see a couple of important sights and spend the majority of my time discovering the place I'm visiting. Christina was more evenly minded about it...she wasn't against organized tours, just in moderation. So I agreed to doing one guided tour that was a few hours in length (not on a bus!)...at the Vatican, which of all the guided tours, is the wisest, in my opinion since the Vatican is so vast. We went with Viator. And it was worth it. Our tour guide was an archeologist, and knew so much about the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica. Plus we skipped the lines. There's no way you can see everything in the Vatican in a couple of hours or even days, but I was absolutely done by the end. It was fascinating and beautiful, but it was too much and it needed to just end! Having said that, I'm glad Christina convinced me to do that tour, because with so much to see, it's good to have someone showing you selected parts of the museum and giving you interesting factoids. Speaking of factoids, as you probably know, Vatican City is literally its own country, with its own citizens, currency, and ATM machines that function only in Latin! So after we headed over to Via Ottaviano, which is nearby. Back in the day (aka when I last went to Rome in college) it was a hot spot for me to go shopping for affordable clothing. We ended up checking out some shoe stores. At some point we made our way back home to the hotel and were zonked out. I think by the end of that day Christina may have secretly wanted to lose me somewhere...I can get a lil' cranky when I do four hour tours in the Vatican with annoying know-it-all tourists who keep interrupting the tour guide and when there are seemingly thousands of tourists in every room you go to! God bless Christina for her patience...and thank God for her map reading abilities! We made a great team...I served as the Italian translator and communicator, and she was our navigator.

Back Stateside...Roma: The Recap

I just returned from Rome yesterday. What a fun trip! As I mentioned previously, I went with my good friend, Christina. So from the beginning: We arrived in the early A.M. and settled into our temporary home away from home, Hotel Columbia. The hotel is located just blocks away from Stazione Termini, the largest station in Rome. I'd highly recommend staying there if you're looking for a clean, simple, inexpensive, conveniently located hotel. Breakfast is included, which was a plus. Having said that, breakfast isn't a big meal for Italians (what a shame!), so it is a simple meal they serve. But again, it's included, so it's all good. Since I'm highly paranoid of vermin of many kind...I can verify that I did do extensive research on bed bug sightings in hotels around Rome, and did a thorough investigation of my own (you can ask Christina...I did actually rip off all the sheets and checked under our mattresses) and felt confident we were going to be safe. After acclimating, we cleaned up and headed out. We ate at a restaurant right by Termini first. Pretty good food (I had gnocchi)...and I was reminded about one of the Italy-isms over there. You pay for bottles of water in restaurants...not like here, where your glasses are perpetually overflowing. And you are offered plain water or carbonated. After we hopped on the metro and headed to the Fountain of Trevi. How beautiful. One of, if not my favorite monument in Rome. But it's so hard to pick because the architecture is stunning everywhere. Not to mention all the twisting, narrow cobblestone streets. Anyway, we ate some great pizza, had some caffe latte and cappuccino, and hung out at the fountain. Christina had some Nutella gelato (as you can see in one of the photos), which would turn out to be her dessert of choice during the trip. After we walked all over, we stumbled upon the Coccinelle store, a utopia of leather handbags. Steve, Terry-a's husband, reminded me of this gem before we left, so I was definitely planning on getting myself something! I got a gorgeous grey leather and suede bag, and a blue clutch. Christina got herself a bag, too. At some point during the day we stumbled upon a church that was undergoing some renovations. The contrast between the construction and the old, intricate church decor was pretty dramatic. We then headed home after a long first day out. Phew.