Editor, Writer,

Finally in Rome!

Prague was my favorite so far. Well actually, if I could combine the architecture of Paris with the inexpensiveness, great weather, and wonderful company of Prague, that would be my favorite. And the food in Spain could be tacked onto that as well. We had a lot of fun meeting up with Sean and Jenny…it was great to see some familiar faces and have a change of conversation. Jeremy and I managed to beat them 5 games to 2 in Spades, so that was fun too. We had some wonderful Czech food, walked around the beautiful Charles Bridge and Prague Palace/cathedral, and just relaxed.

Our train trip from Prague to Florence took around 30 hours, and as usual we arrived at our destination hungry, tired, and in need of showers. Our night train to Venice consisted of 6 of us packed into a single car, with a sort of triple-decker bunk bed situation. I was a little weirded out about the prospect of sleeping so close to strangers, but our bunkmates were actually some really nice backpackers from Mexico and while I’ve had more comfortable nights of sleep, it was fine.

And well, we survived Florence. If anyone’s interested, Jeremy and I composed a photojournalistic tour of our craptacular “four-star” hotel there. The place was pretty much just in a general state of disrepair, and Jeremy and I had fun playing a new game called “count the mosquito bites on my face” each morning. We did locate the cause for the mosquitos…a festering pool of still water (non-functioning fountain) beneath the windows. Or maybe the mosquitos came from the cracks in our walls, the leaky windows, or the mysterious pipes sticking out into our cracker-box shower.

The city itself was really nice; the first full day we walked to Il Duomo and climbed the 481 steps to the top of the adjacent tower. Amazing sights! We went into the church connected to Il Duomo and I had to wear some sort of modesty shawl…more akin to a hospital gown but with a little more coverage in back. I’m not sure what the offense was, my shoulders were covered and my shorts were longer than the shawl. I had my suspicions that the guards were handing coverings out at random, or maybe if you looked like an American. In any case, no doods had to wear them, but I definitely wasn’t the only one who had to.

After the Il Duomo area, we headed to the Accademia to see Michaelangelo’s David. The line was long and it was blazing hot and humid outside, but it was all worth it. David is magnificent! He’s elevated on a pedestal and stands an additional 15 or so feet just by himself. Incredible…I couldn’t stop staring. You weren’t allowed to take pictures, but there was a duplicate David outside the Uffizi, so I took a picture of that one and called it good.

The second full day we braved the lines to go into the Uffizi, which had some really famous portraits I recognized. Unfortunately, many of the galleries and sculpture areas were closed. The rest of the day we wandered around, crossed the big bridge, had some great gelato, and wandered the 2 miles or so back to our hotel.

And now Rome! Our hotel here is about 3 million times cleaner and more comfortable than in Florence, with a spa, garden terrace with some “welcome drinks,” internet, and a hydromassage shower. Happiness.

We miss you all…seems like we’ve been gone a long time and we’re excited to come back. Happy 4th of July!!

-Jillangill

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.