The start of a whirlwind experience

Hey all you faithful readers (and non-faithful ones as well), you're about to enter another incredible reading (incredible because of where I went and how long it's going to be...). It's been a busy day so far and I'm just now getting to sit down and fill you in even more. I just finished playing a 3 hour session of Guitar Hero's II and III, so forgive me if my fingers are not all here. Right then, ready to embark?

Strap on your hiking boots, grab your litre of Evian, a good stick and a snack and get ready for another adventure.

I wonder where I went this time :-)


2 December 2007: Forums, fountains, food, and friends

So, I hope you remember from the last Europe post that I am in Rome at the moment, saw the Colosseum (almost cried, twice), and had a wonderful relaxing evening. Today is no different. Let us begin!

We woke up late (for us at least - 9:30) because we didnt have to be out of the hostel until 11. Praise the Lord we can sleep! Anyway, got ready (that was a nice ordeal...*ahem*) and left. Walked towards the Colosseum (because everything is that way), which takes about 15 or 20 minutes. But a nice walk all the same. Went through the park there right in front of the Colosseum and continued on our way. As we were walking towards our next destination, we got stopped by a Roman Gladiator. Well, Jordan did. Apparently, the Italian guy thought it would be funny to tell Jordan that he was Jesus. How anyone can mistake Jordan for Jesus completely bewilders me. Jordan has red hair and does not look in the least bit Middle Eastern. But whatever he said made us laugh (though it probably shouldn't have) and we ignored him because that's what you do in Europe - ignore anyone who comes up to you. After our laugh, we passed the Arc that is right in front of the Colosseum and headed to the Roman Forum. I didn't know anything about it (and, I must be honest, I don't know much more now) but it was interesting and filled with all kinds of old stone remains, etc. Sanctuaries were the most common things that had been put there. But we also explored an ENORMOUS house on the hilltop, which our Colosseum ticket got us into. We didn't have much time to look around since the audio guide was due back in two hours, but what we did see was pretty cool. I finally saw a Roman Bath (since I missed the ones in Bath, England) and what looked like an arena. Other than that, one can only guess what had been there. When something Roman decides it doesn't want to stand anymore, it takes a big fall, so it's hard to really be able to look at something and guess what it was for unless one had documented evidence, which I was very short on. But I had fun exploring the gardens and walking around the ruins and trying to guess what they had been in centuries past. It was awesome.

Since we only had the audio guide for a short time, we decided that it would be a good idea to use it. We had to pick and choose what we wanted to see, but I think we picked some good ones. Not that I'm an expert in ANYTHING we saw, but it was interesting at the time. I have never seen more stone ruins in one place than I saw here. Most things only had maybe a pillar or two standing, some had a foundation left and that was it, some things were still intact pretty well. If I remember correctly, the buildings in the forum spanned several hundred years, and many emperors, including Nero. I walked down a HUGE stone walkway that was put in place by Nero (and when I say huge, I mean, the stones were as big as I am). I think it used to be blue, but you really couldn't tell very well, unless you were an expert and I am VERY far from that.

See how it's falling apart? I thought it was cool that the brick was still standing


A bridge and a tree right in the middle of this house on the hill thing


These bronze doors are older than the birth of Jesus. Wow - and they are the ORIGINAL doors. Talk about sturdy


This was a cool santuary thing that I don't remember anything about except that invaders tried to tear down the pillars. Well, they didn't succeed but you can still see where they put the chains at the top to try and bring it down.


See? Besides the previous picture, this was just about the only other thing that was still intact...sort of.


Yeah, that was the Roman Forum. After that, we left and found a Scottish pub to eat at. It was really good. Then we explored some of the stores before continuing to our next location. I KNOW you will recognize it as soon as I put a picture of it up here. You ready?

Guess away!



If you don't recognize this, you better study up on your Roman tourist sites. Now, exactly WHY this fountain is so significant, I haven't the slightest idea. But it's pretty, isn't it? Oh, and it's even better at night when it's all lit up. Ok, if you don't recognize it, I shall enlighten you - Trevi Fountain. I will never understand the significance of a "famous fountain" unless it was somewhere Jesus was baptized at, but that was in the Jordan River. No fountains... So, like I said, I don't know why this fountain is signficant, except for the fact that the Romans built it, but it is. And it's pretty. We spent a bit of time here,

Throwing coins over our shoulders and making wishes...


Taking pictures (look how excited Kaity is to see Trevi Fountain!)...


Running our fingers in the water...


And studying the intricate stone carvings of this magnificent waterhole.


I can't tell you how many times workers came up and asked to take my picture. CLEARLY they didn't see that I had my own camera and was taking pictures for myself... *sigh* anything to make a Euro I suppose. After exploring and taking pictures to our hearts content, we went back up the little street we had come down and got Gelati. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically Italian ice cream - gooey, and MUCH sweeter than American Ice Cream, but AH-Mazing!

My gelati, a little on the bright side


Me and Kaity sharing gelati, a little on the blurry side


And don't forget the 35 Euro jar of Nutella - I wonder how long that would have fed us....


Yeah...I never want to eat that much Nutella...EVER! I got pretty sick of it after a whole week of eating just that, crackers, and bread. Thank goodness we were saved! But more on that later...

Yes, gelati was amazing but as we ate, we continued to our next destination. Someplace I had never heard of, but had seen it in movies. Anyone recognize these?


Something called the Spanish Steps perhaps? Yeah. Cool, huh? My pictures are being stupid at the moment, so this is one off the internet, but it's by far better than any one that I have. Like them? Me too. But there were lots of people there - found two couples making out on the steps. They were really funny to watch - but that didn't happen for very long.

So the fountain at the Steps

was pretty awesome.

I drank out of it. Don't believe me? Check it out...



See? And for those of you who think the water in Rome is bad - you would be terribly wrong. It's better (MUCH better) than Searcy water and almost as good as Memphis water. Best water I had had to drink since before I left for Europe. It was delightful - just rolled over your tongue like a soft cloth. Oh it was heaven...for about 5 seconds because there were other people waiting. The two pictures are two different incidences, so yeah. I drank TWICE. Wahoo!

After that, we climbed back up the steps (because we had come out on the top) and went back to the hostel. It took 30 minutes to get back, but we made it in time for dinner that night (remember the free dinner? Mmmm, pasta!) which was awesome. I also met Ruth who was on a 6 month travel and was finishing up in Rome. She was 9 days away from being home in Belgium (but she's an American) and she was so excited. She had a 13 year old daughter that she hadn't seen for 6 months, so I know she was ready to get home. But we talked all through dinner. I told her where we were going the next day and she asked if she could come along. Of course it was ok. She had been tagging along with people since she started her journey and the three of us were more than happy to have her accompany us on our next excursion. Where is that?

You will have to find out next time.

Until then,

Ciao!

Aimee

A very special Christmas

This post has nothing to do with Europe, but I thought I would share it.

About a year ago, a family placed membership at our church. I knew nothing about them, only that they had a son named Cole who was 3 at the time. After a few weeks, I noticed him and his dad together. Both had shaved heads. I thought this was a pretty cool father/son thing...until my dad told me that Cole had leukemia. His dad had shaved his head so Cole wouldn't feel bad about not having any hair. I kept up with Cole's chemo progress for the next year through my mom who read Mrs. Casper's blog about Cole's medical progress. Just before I left for England, I received news that Cole was not doing very well. At the time, his dad had gone back to their hometown (since Cole was in Memphis at St. Jude Children's Hospital) for work. Cole's buddy was missing when he was needed the most. I wanted to cry for him. I left for England and didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks. Then, I heard that Cole was in isolation. How terrifying for a child so young to have no contact with the outside world - barely even his parents. I prayed for him everytime I thought about him. He had been so strong. Everytime I saw him, he always had a smile on his face. I never would have guessed Cole had been fighting cancer because he was so strong. That was the last I heard until this morning at church. I was blessed to get to sit a couple of rows behind Cole and his parents (Cole is about 4 now, I believe) and noticed that he was not as bald as I had remembered. I wondered if that meant he was getting better... The answer came just a couple of moments later when it was announced (and it was news to me) that Cole had been cured of his two year battle with cancer. I lost it inside. Tears welled in my eyes as I thought of the brave little child in front of me. He was so happy. Every time I've seen him, he has given me hope. Cole never gave up, neither did his parents, even when things got bad.

Cole will never know how he has touched my life. I doubt he will ever know how many people he has encouraged by just being strong. What a terrible thing to have to go through at so young an age, but how wonderful it is that he conquered with flying colors!

I know that Cole's parents could not have asked for a better gift for Christmas - their son, alive and whole and back in the game.

Sometimes, the biggest blessings come in the smallest packages.

God bless you, Cole, as you have blessed everyone around you.

Merry Christmas!

Aimee

Let's start traveling free!

Hello to all my faithful followers! You are about to embark on a journey around Europe - covering 9 cities, 5 countries and only in two and a half weeks. Think it's a bit much in just 18 days? Nah. It was an adventure everyday. You ready to take off on the fastest 18 days ever? Wonderful. Make sure your seat belt is buckled low and tight across your waist, your tray table is folded in the upright position and your seat is completely forward - now we're ready for take off!!


1 December 2007: A journey begins...with no sleep

So, Kaity, Jordan, and I left our flat for the last time at 10:00 PM and headed to Gatwick Airport. This involved taking the Tube several stops and tube station run-throughs to Victoria station in order to catch the Southern train lines to Gatwick. We didn't have tickets at the time and the automatic "do-it-yourself" machines wouldn't take our cards so Kaity stood in the slowest que and the only que to get tickets. The guy gave her a whole lot of trouble and for no real reason. Both Kaity and I got upset but suspected that it was because it was late and that we were Americans that he had the right to be rude. Oh well. It happens. But we got the tickets and borded the 11:30 train to the station. By this point, we were all tired but ready to take on an adventure, the likes of which none of us had ever gone on. It was exciting, to be sure, but first we had to get out of London.

We got to the train station and there is no one in any kiosk to let us check our bags, so we lug them all upstairs to the food section of the airport and look for a comfortable spot to rest until our 6:50 AM flight. We found a bench at Cafe Nero, which was open 24 hours a day and for which Kaity was eternally grateful (since she loves coffee, almost more than anything else) and set our stuff down just to wait. Apparently, there had been a strike at the airport into which we were flying and spent about 2 hours freaking out that our flight had been canceled, but for no reason. We flew out at 6:50 - the canceled flight left at 7:05. Thank goodness Kaity booked the ONLY non-canceled flight. I bet you're wondering where we were going, aren't you? Yeah, you are. :-)

Kaity and I watched Troy a bit before she decided to try and get some shut eye. I don't actually know if either Jordan or Kaity slept, but they said they didn't. I didn't sleep at all. I kept watch over the bags - mostly because I was paranoid that someone would take something since it is Europe and pickpockets are everywhere. But I busied myself with Snake, Bubble Breaker and Solitare - for 4 hours. Yay... There would be time to sleep later, when we got to our hostle in .... oh, I forgot. I'm not telling you yet.

Well, I "woke" up my two comrades in arms at 4 am and we went and got our luggage checked, went through security, and hung out in the shopping area until our platform number was announced. When we found that out, we walked to it - forever away, but still. Waited some more until we could board, hopped on the plane and settled in for a 4 hour flight to a totally different country. The only thing we were not excited about was the fact that there was NO leg room on the plane at all. My knees were bumping into the seat in front of me, and I have short legs. I felt bad for any tall person who was riding on the plane. We fly for a while and I get a bit of sleep, but not much since I have a hard time sleeping on planes. But I did wake up one time and see the tops of the Swiss Alps. Isn't that cool! Does that give you a hint as to where we were headed? South. What's south? you may ask.

We landed in a state of exhiliaration - we were totally in .... *sigh* When we pulled into the holding bay, we heard the familiar welcome we had become used to...in Italian. Yes we were in Italy. But there are so many places to go in Italy! Well, this happens to be the center of all things Roman.

Yeah, I know - I'm lame, but we were in Rome! I was so excited and so very grateful that our flight had not been canceled. I honestly don't know what we would have done. But no use in worrying about that anymore for we had arrived! It took us a while to get on the bus, since the airport is on the very outskirts of Rome, but we finally made it. What was supposed to take 25 minutes, took an hour and a half because the traffic in Rome is awful! There are too many cars. But since everytime Rome tries to build another line to their existing, but small Metro System they always run into more ancient Romans ruins and have to stop. *sigh* I guess it's the price you pay for living in such an old city. On the way to the hostel, we passed all kinds of old stuff - like palace ruins and aqueducts. As soon as I saw the aqueducts I started crying - ye olde softie am I - because I couldn't believe that these things were still around! They were over 2000 years old and still standing. Not they they were whole or anything, but most of them still stood and it was really cool to see something older than Jesus' birth still around. We finally got to our hostle, which was didn't think was in a good part of town, but over the next few days, it got better. We checked in and went out on the town since we weren't allowed to stay just yet (lock out was from 11 until 4 for cleaning). We just walked and guess what we found?? This:

Yep - we walked through a park and, BAM, there it was in all its Roman splendour. I about cried again (me and my historical pitifulness...oh, I love it) but I didn't. We decided we wanted to conquer the Colosseum, so we did. We got in the long que, went through security, and got our tickets. One thing about Europe - if you are a student, well, that's nice, but you have to be European citizen in order to get discounts most places. It would have helped at the Colosseum, since admission is 11 Euro, but I would have paid more than that to get inside. Just about everything I did during the next 17 days was something I had dreamed all my life of doing. Now, I was standing in the Colosseum - the epitomy of fire exits. We went inside and spent over an hour just meandering through it. It's not as big as the pictures make it out to be - therefore I was very surprised at how small it was. But it was really cool. It's all falling apart and has been patched with concrete to keep it together (which is sad, but who wants it to fall down?) but you can see the labyrinth below where the floor was. It's a bit hard to imagine what it would have looked like, at least for me, since you really can't tell where people are supposed to sit, but there are still the impossibly steep stairways haunting many a dark corner. We walked up one in order to get to the second level and realized why, in all Roman sculpture, every person has amazing gluets - it was because of those steep, tall staircases they had to climb up all the time. It was definitely a workout. After having come from London where there is nothing BUT steps, I thought I was ready for Roman steps - yeah, I was wrong. Not these Roman steps - they were killer. And don't try running down them either because you just might die. The steps themselves are tall and narrow - room for almost 3/4 of one's foot to tread and that's it. But since the Romans were not tall people, we can't harp too much on their lack of spacious stairways.
(stairway in Colosseum - but the picture doesn't give this stair justice)

I called my mom from the Colosseum and both she and my dad were so excited that I was standing there. I almost cried again - third time in a day. That's a bit sad. But who wouldn't when you're standing in the shadow of the great Colosseum. The sun started setting while we were still exploring this wonderful place (the sun starts setting at about 3 pm). I saw most of a sunset in the Colosseum and it was beautiful.
(see? Pretty!)

After that, we decided to head back to the hostel and get some sleep - besides, we had free dinner at 7 and we didn't want to miss that. So we headed back and rested in the hostel for a while, ate a dinner of pasta, met some of the other people staying in the hostel, and went to bed at about 10 since we were all wiped.

What a whirlwind first day, but one worth remembering forever.

I still had 17 days left in Europe and I wondered what they would all bring.


That's all for right now, guys. I still have unpacking to do and my room is a wreck. But I will have some more up about free travel when I can.

Ciao for now!

Aimee