Roma Roma, La Citta Bella...

As promised, here's the meat to the teaser in the previous post. Rome is a city of ruins; the litany of modern life exists within the ancient walls of antiquity. It is amazing how ruins dot the entire landscape and we see the world just passing by, as if they have been there forever. Oh wait. They have. Hmm...and by the way, all photos that are here are completely original...=)

But before I carry with the exposition on Rome, I have to dispense a small vitriolic on the f****ed up ness of budget travel. And do heed the following advice; its free. As Caeser once said (I think it's him, but as shome of you know, I can be wrong. like Marvell.), that while others learn from their mistakes, he learns from the mistakes of others. So here goes. We are poor students, so we try to find all ways and means to cut back on expenses. Our flight to Rome was in the morning at 930, but we had to be at the airport by 7...Mmm...so being the el cheapo that I am, I suggested to sleep at the airport overnight. It is an hour and a half out of Paris centre and it costs 13euros for the bus ride there; not exactly easy to make the 7am timing if we were to leave the next morning. Thus we set out for the airport the night before and squeezed on board overcrowded buses in the incessant rain. A miserable start. Great. But the best is yet to be. (like ACS' motto, though as we know, the "best" in that case will never be...notice the use of the conditional clause "yet to", thus the unfortunate implication that the best is not, and may never, be.)
On reaching the airport (which is called Beauvais[BVA] by the way; loosely translated, it means something like "beautiful going/ beautiful place to go". so not true.) we find that it closes at 2300 and we can't stay there. So we're stuck between a rock and a hard place; to go back to Paris (and we have nowhere to stay for the night there either), to sleep outside the airport (temperatures are sub zero, and the ba chang that i am cannot stand That cold a temperature), or to find our way to a hotel and spend inordinate amounts of money which is not in our budget. Devil and deep blue sea; not the best of choices. Deep blue sea it is (at least there's still hope of salvation and not eternal damnation. and given how "guai" i've been, i'd be burning for a very long time). The nearest hotel was 2km (alleged) away and it costs 70euros for the night. Thus we walked our way therein the freezing rain at 9pm at night. Mind you it might sound early, but the sun sets here at 1745 now, not like back home. There are no pavements, road signs and civilisation around the airport; we walked on with blind faith. 2km never seemed so far nor so miserable. In the army I've walked for whole nights and days and not felt this miserable. On the up side, the hotel was fantastic, given the price. Oh and there was wireless...wow. Anyways, we stayed the night and than hiked back to the airport at 630 the next morning. Sore shoulders and feet all round. bleah.

That's us along the cold, dark road...trying to look happy. The girl in the centre's Charissa and on the left Kelly. And that's me. Can see the rain dripping off my hood....


Caught in the act of eating a tomato at the airport...haha...think i look a little bit thinner..just a little...

The flight to Rome was alright; Ryanair was ok. Not the most comfortable flight, but hey, budget air travel, you get what you pay for. Okay, question and answer time; how do you know that you've left france and arrived in italy? (clue: The vatican is here; and god loves italians..he might be one) The sun shines on this land. While Paris was cold, wet and miserable, the minute we stepped off the plane (felt like movie star by the way, since it was off a gangway and not a port), the sun was blazing hot. Its cold here too in Rome, but at least the sun shines. (Geographically and not religiously speaking, it's cause Rome lies further South, thus closer to the equator. And Jesus was Jew, not Italian. Just in case you didn't know.)

Am staying in this hostel called the Yellow hostel...haha...i know, sounds wrong...but its relatively cheap, 20euros a night, and its located in a fantastic neighbourhood, close to the terminus and city centre. Breakfast is included in the price and there's free internet; if you have wireless, you can tap into the network here as well. So hey, if you're on a budget, it comes highly recommended. if you trust my judgement of course. Here's the street where the hotel is at; lovely architecture of the buildings, and they are old, largely around the 18th to 19th century.


Have done several of the touristy areas already:

The Coloseum; If you watched Ben Hur or Gladiator, you'd remember this place. And as the etymology of the name suggests, it is really big. How big? Well...about this big...


=)

Keeping in line with my current love for big, ruinous things...

started a love affair with a roman pillar at the Pantheon. As we all know (i'm assuming a substantial breadth of general knowlege here), the Pantheon used to house the Roman gods in days long past. Today it has been appropriated by the Catholic church and is now, well, a catholic church. On a small aside, almost all chruches in Europe are monuments. They are old, massive and extremely grand. Most of them have gold leaf on their walls and ceilings and beautiful frescos coloured with deep lapis lazuli and rich magentas. Some are so beautiful that it is almost vulgar. One can almost understand the frustrations that had arisen at the opulance of the catholic church which formed the foundations of the split by Calvin and Martin-Luther. There is so much gold and gilt, almost too much. You have to see it for yourself. But these churches in Europe have something magical about them that we lack in our local ones; they bear the gravity and richness of their age and there is a lovely sense of awe, nostalgia and calm when you enter them. One can just sit, pray and find that inner peace that eludes us in the hectic everyday which we live in.



This is the Fontana di Trevi, it is an extremely beautiful fountain, and it would have been romantic except for the huge crowd and touts. Beware of them and just reject their goods if you're not interested; they are mostly north africans or pakistanis and are trying to make a living here, but they can get on your nerves. And the crowds. Oh god, I have to speak out against the most obnoxious of all travellers, the specie Obnoxiono Americano. Americans act as if they own the world and the world owes them a debt of gratitude. They are rude and tend to dominate entire areas, showing scant courtesy to fellow tourists. The young adults are the worst; smug little know it alls. And they look down on us Asians, like we are still shackled with the chains of colonialism; the condescendence is just so blithe and blatant. For God's sake, I can speak better English than you, you little American twats, get a life.


Okies, for the last and not least of the presentation today, we go to the Piazza di Spagna! Like this photo best of all...haha..."kiam pah bin". The dome in the background is the Sistine Chapel; will be heading out to the Vatican tomorrow, hopefully will be able to catch the pope as well, maybe not an audience but at least a glimpse of his Holiness. Hopefully we won't have to try and play "Long Live the Pope" any time soon. Those of you who know what i'm talking about... =) The P.Spagna is another really old monument, it's a huge flight of stairs leading up to a church. Unfortunately it's undergoing restoration now, so no photos of that to show. But I do have this:

Technically speaking, this is how it's supposed to look like...in the 18th century...haha...

Okies, that's all for today from the land of pizza and pasta (the former is inexpensive relatively, the latter isn't). Will tell you how the visit to the Vatican goes tomorrow. Un fait bon, c'est tout maintentant; si tu es toujours interesse par mes aventures, n'oubliez pas reviendre de cette page, oui?
Ciao.