Lots of walking

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Hello all-

The title pretty much sums up our day. We hoped on a subway at 8 am this morning in route to the Vatican. Starting at the museum we walked, and walked, and walked until we ended up back at our hostel. I am guessing 7-8 miles is a conservative estimate. Lots of interesting things along the way including a great tour of the vatican. Iàm not into old artsy stuff, but it was pretty dang cool. The best thing I learned was all of the pranks that were played by artists and popes. Michelagelo (not the ninja turtle) painted the entire sistine chapel against his will and to get back at the pope he painted his face in the most important painting right smack dab in the middle of the painting. He also sent a guy that hated the painting to a painted firey hell in what is arguably the most famous painting in the Sistene Chapel. Another artist was pissed that he could not take credit for creating a sculpture of one of the popes. (becasue he was not catholic and there was a rule that anyone comissioned to scuplt a pope must be catholic) The rule is that the sculpture is revealed after the popes death. So, this scuplter was pissed that no one would know of his creation so rather than sculpting the popes face on the statue, he carved his own...and thats the way it sits today. I found it quite humorous. After the Vatican we wandered. Thats it, wandered. It sounds weird but we stumbled on a bunch of cool stuff including some great sights with great pictures (Panthenon) Trevi Fountatin, Jewish Ghetto, the supreme court building, a great gelato stand, a couple of mini marts with cheap wine, etc... Were back at the hostel for the night and I think we are going to take off to Florence tomorrow AM as we are sick of stumbling upon Roman ruins. It sounds bad, but this afternoon all we wanted to do was find a park and people watch from a bench. Every park we stumbled upon was some sort of Roman ruins that is closed to the public. Great to look at, but a little annoying when all you want to do is sit, share a bottle of vino and people watch. We finally stumbled upon something at 6 pm and enjoyed the park which from our observations was some sort of dog park with a Walter replica and everything. Thats all I got for today, sorry again for the punctuation and grammer errors, these key boards are different. Hope all is well. Sorry no pictures tonight, the hostel has locked down the computer ports and I dont have an IT guy with me to override it. (Maybe Italy needs YOU Don)

Jason


Hi all, its Lyndsay. Jason and I have a routine where we each log into a computer and he starts the blog while I check in on general internet realted things. You know, important things like who got booted from Dancing with the Stars, the Star Tribune article about how homes in Otsego and Wright County are gettign foreclosed at higher rates, and sick as it is, I checked my work email. I actually forwarded some stuff from an opposing attorney on to one of my paralegals to follow up on. Can I bill time to my client for my time here in Italy? I bet John Burns would love that!

So, Jason and I decided to stop into what was a local deli-coffee shop for lunch. We figured it woudl be fiarly inexpensive and we were starved. We ordered two cokes, and I had a piece of lasagne and he had a small plate of pasta. I about crapped my pants when the bill came, and it was the equivalent to $45.00. Our cokes alone (all 8 oz each with NO ICE) were $12.00. What a freaking rip off, right? I mean, I knew pop was expensive here, but COME ON!

The Vatican was amazing. Actually this is what we did in our Vatican Tour: (1) Toured the Vatican Museum - which has a lot more than JUST religious items - it has famous works fo art too (2) Toured the Sistene Chapel, whic was AMAZING. It took Michaelangelo 10 years to do all the paingint in there. I did not know, but he was not a trained painter. Before doing the Chapel he had NEVER painted before. The best piece of art I saw was by him, and it is called The Last Judgment. It really was incredible. Look it up on Google to see what it looks like. There is a ton of "secret meaning" behind and in that painting - as Jason has already alluded to. (3) We then did St. Peters Basillica and that too was incredible. The sheer size and scale was breath taking. The Basillica is the thing you see when you see pictures of the Vatican. It is the hugely domed building. The dome is so tall that you could fit 1.5 full statute of Liberty statues inside at the domes tallest point. (4) Finally, we walk out and end at St. Peters Square, which is actually round and is full of fountains, more statutes of all the patron saints crowing the entire circumfrence of the entire square. It was neat to sit and people watch, as we saw a lot more than just tourists. I snapped several photos of active nuns, priests, monsiegnors, etc ... all decked out in full garb walking about with the tourists.

Then, as Jason stated, more wandering. I have no doubt that despite my bread and wine consumption, I have actually lost weight. Jason estimates 7-8 miles, I say, it was a good 9-10. Whatever the amount, after doing this all day walking thing for 5 full days, my feet are tired! Rome really can be seen in 2 days, but you have to be willing to explore by foot as the transportation around here is crazy busy and can lead to tremendous holdups. I am proud of all the ground we covered and all the things we saw that we never woudl have if nto for our random wandering. One of the coolest thing we saw today was the federal supreme courthouse building. Obviously as a lawyer, I thought it was interesting, but the building was massive and covered with detailed adornements and gigantic statues surrouinding the entire thing of famous philosophers, artists, etc ... No joke, the building was about the size and scale equivalent to the Minnesota State capital. I was reprimanded when I tired to enter teh building though, as court was in session. I know that of course, as I can read a little italian-spanish, but I thought I could sneak through the door marked "advocata" which is italian for lawyer. Obviously not!

So, on to the hostel. Tonight we are in teh same on as last night, but unlike last night, we actually have roommatres tonight! I havent seen them yet (so far only 2 - one is clearly a girl) but I am hoping for the best. Last night was just Jason and me, which was a miracle. Though, Jason snored like a boar! With roommates tongiht he will be lucky if we dont get kicked out. I had to use earplus. Last night around 11 pm, Jason went to ask if there woudl be anyone else joining us in our room so that we could feel secure going to be sure that no one else was coming. The front desk clerk took this to mean that we were going to be "loving each other" and promised that he woudl send no one else in. How embarassing!

After our $45 lunch today, we had a surprisingly cheap and awesom dinner. We stopped at a local hole-in-the-wall shop and they had some kebabs which he made into gyro-like wraps. They were absolutley the BEST thing I have eaten on vacation yet, and better still, for two fo them we spent abotu $10.00. Makes up for felling like a "stupid American" today at lunch. Speaking of feeling like a stupid american, we havent yet, except for a brief moment today when an excessively dirty and smelly man walked past us and snorted like a pig. We lauged for a long time abotu that.

On to the nightly Lyndsay Bread Update. I am doing a much better job curtailing the bread. I have determined that it is not teh amount of bread that I have a problem with. I have determined that the issue is the bread to sandwich meat ratio. Here, for lunch they will take 2 slices of thick homemade italian bread and literally place 1 slice of salami in it. I CANNOT have this. I mean, anyone who knows me knows I love meat. I would rather eat the sandwich meant than the bread. So, they end up basically in my opinion, eating bread sanwiches. Why bother?

I am still on my obsene taking photos kick. I mean, why not, its a digital camera, its not like I am wasting film. I want to remember this vacation forever, and I think phots are the best way to do it. I wish there was some way to convey in these photos I am taking for you all to see the reality of what I am actually getting to view every day. The phots will not do justice, but I am doing my best.

Off to Florence tomorrow! We will keep you all posted. I hope you are all enjoying the blog. I am having fun writing it. I think of it as my personal journal. Love you all and hope all is well.

Love Lyndsay

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