Zut Alors

Bonsoir! Ah Paris, je t'aime. This city is incredible. I can't believe I'm finally here, after eight long years of oral exams, the dreaded subjunctive, and a dependence on freetranslation.com, French class has finally paid off. I've wanted to come here ever since that fateful day in Madame Beyer's sixth grade class when I conjugated my very first verb.

I bet you're all dying to know how I've been faring in the City of Light, but unfortunately I learned the hard way never to trust a Radio Shack employee and have a dead and currently unchargable laptop. The voltage adapter recommended to me for European outlets does not support the wattage of my MacBook charger, and what with all the extreme blogging I have been engaging in the battery well has run quite dry.

One of my first memories in Paris has been asking the guy behind the counter at the local Office Depot (makes sense they have those here, "depot" sounds so French) who spoke zero English if they had laptop voltage adapters. Now that was an experience. Madame Beyer taught me how to conjugate the verb chercher so I could communicate that I was looking for something, but "voltage adapter" never came up in our vocabulary lessons. Nevertheless I struggled through and was actually directed to some kind of adapter, but not exactly what I needed. So for the time being, let your imaginations run wild with visions of the shenanigans I have gotten involved in thus far, and I will debrief everyone on my happenings once I figure out the charging situation.

All I'll say for now is Vive la France. Vivent les Nutella crepes. And vivent--for lack of a better term--les voltage adapters.

Ciao Roma!

This post is bittersweet. While visions of Nutella crepes are dancing in my head aboard my flight to Paris, I can’t help but think that the last four days went by too fast. We saw practically everything on the map, but I could see those monuments a thousand times over and still never cease to be amazed. But I tossed that coin into Trevi Fountain, so with or without Neptune’s blessing, I’ll be back.

Some final thoughts on Rome:

1) Gelato just trumped froyo in my book. Sorry Red Mango, you’re going to have to do better than that. There’s nothing more perfect in the ice cream genre. It’s creamier, lighter, it doesn’t melt as easily, the spoons are neon… need I say more?

          

      2) What’s up with the cat obsession? Every street vendor and souvenir shop carries a large 12-month calendar of cats posed on various Roman architectural structures. 

I don't understand.

I've been to the Colosseum so I can safely say this vantage point is not real.

    I mean, I have two cats, but that doesn’t equate to wanting to see Whiskers lounging at the Colosseum for the entire month of November or Oswald playing in St. Peter’s Square all of July. Out of curiosity though I put together my own calendar using the CatPaint app, just to see how it feels.

Fat cat on the Spanish Steps.

Black cat at the Roman Forum.

Laser cats at the Trevi.

       It feels creepy.

    3) Lack of drinking water. Water fountains don’t exist, except for the occasional janky pipe coming out of the ground in some of the piazzas. They should put all those bathtubs on display in the Vatican Museum to better use. Water isn’t free at restaurants either. So there is no advantage frugally to order water at a restaurant. Oh except for the fact that a Coke costs almost $9 US. Which leads me to my next point,

    

     4) Everyone in Europe is skinny. Or rather, no one in Europe is overweight. At first we were shocked, but now I kind of understand. Soda consumption is severely curbed by its uneconomic cost, for one. We saw one Burger King and one McDonald’s the entire trip (and none in the airport), suggesting that fast food is not a celebrated concept over here. Convenience stores don’t have endless aisles of chips and candy, though interestingly enough they are big on Pringles. Still, candy is packaged in what we would consider “fun size,” and cookies are more like biscuits than giant sugar bombs. They are also masters of portion control. A novel concept I realize. But how is it that I could consume an entire three-course meal in one sitting in Rome when at home I can’t even finish an appetizer as my entrée? Calorie count aside, I’ll take the three courses.

      5) Everything here is smaller. Not just the people. Cars, streets, buildings, shopping carts, etc. Yet everything functions just as well, if not better. America’s obsession with largeness is becoming increasingly evident to me as I spend more time in Europe. We’ll see if Paris is the same. One thing I know for sure is that my first automobile will be a Smart Car.  I don’t care if it’s barely bigger than the Fisher Price my dad used to push me down the street in. It’s so small that it’s length is about the same width as a regular car. I’ll never have to learn to parallel park. I can just pull in perpendicular to the space. Win win.

   Well I'm in Paris now so it is time to move on. Ciao Roma, it's been real. Bienvenue à Paris!

Why Do All Good Things Come to an End?

Good question, Nelly Furtado. Today unfortunately marked the end of 1) my time in Rome and 2) the beautiful weather we've been having all week. Thankfully the rain held off just long enough for us to make our final stop in the Eternal City: the Colosseum.

Whoa.

Holy cow. This might just be the coolest darn thing I have ever seen. The Romans were extremely advanced for their time, building this enormous arena over 2000 years ago. Funny enough, despite how ancient it is, it doesn't look much different from modern day stadiums like Soldier Field. The whole thing used to be covered in marble too. Fancy.

A primeval Rose Bowl. 

Apparently it had nearly 80 entrances, so after the matches they could have everyone cleared out in about 15 minutes. Certainly not the case anymore. Though I don't think they had to deal with as much parking lot traffic. Inside the stadium man would fight man, man would fight animal, or animal would fight animal. Animal fights were to the death, and they fought so often that species almost became extinct. Guess PETA didn't exist back then. Michael Vick would have fit right in. 

Next door to Il Colosseo is the Roman Forum, a plaza filled with ruins from ancient Rome. Now about two years ago, I visited the historical site of Jamestown in Virginia only to find, much to my disappointment, that all that was left was a few one-brick high foundations. At the Forum, there were giant arches, halves of temples, and other well-intact government buildings of downtown ancient Rome. These guys were amazing. 

McDonald's can't compete with those arches.

Or these.

I'm just a bill yes I'm only a bill, and I'm sitting here on Capitoline Hill.

They must've used rubber cement instead of Elmer's on this side of  Julius Caesar's Temple.

Imperial Rome was not a bad way to end my trip here. Our tour guide also looked like a cross between Hugh Laurie and Steve McQueen which made for an entertaining time, despite the fact that my walkie talkie thing died halfway through and I had no idea what he was telling us. I can see why the people of Rome were p.o.'ed at Victor Emanuele for knocking some of this down to build a giant white marble monument for himself. The true beauty of Rome is how advanced these people's thinking was at the time and how it shows up in architecture all over the city. No need for skyscrapers here.

My last supper consisted of traditional Italian fare: bruschetta, insalate, fettucine, and pizze. The food here is amazing because it's restaurant fare tastes like a home-cooked meal made with love rather than something heated up from a freezer. I shed a tear as I spooned my last gelato in Rome into my mouth. But least my food baby will last me another 24 hours.

Mama mia!

I'll wrap up Rome tomorrow on my way to France. Buona notte!

Vatican City, Vatican City

On our third day we decided to drop by the Vatican and see what all the fuss was about. This time we took a tour because it would be a lot easier to get in, the only catch was we were going to be picked up at 6:45am. That is not optimal Schaller time. I think the only reason we had a chance is because breakfast opens at 6:30 and I was not about to miss my daily morning Nutella croissant. So we made it.

Ta da!

Super cool headsets so we could hear our tour guide inside. 

Not gonna lie, the Vatican museum was kind of a bust.  Literally. About half the artwork was just stone heads. Or bodies. I seriously wonder if they just cut off the heads of every statue to double the collection in size. 

They call this one "the torso." Creative.

They put his foot over here.

Still, it was cool to know we were inside one of the most famous places in the world. Then we hit up the Sistine Chapel, which was pretty legit. It was very dimly lit and cool inside, I assume to preserve the paintings. The ceiling was a lot bigger than I had imagined because in all the history books they only show one scene of Michelangelo's paintings, when really it is a whole series plus a giant wall mural. Apparently he completed the ceiling when he was about 30 years old. I hope I am that successful ten years from now. You're not allowed to take pictures in there, but of course that didn't stop me, so I snapped a few on the reverse camera while pretending to text on my iPhone. Clever eh? Hopefully the ceiling doesn't start peeling as a result of my illicit photography.

Contraband photo.. Don't say I never did anything for you guys.

St. Peter's Basilica. Now that schniz is ornate. There's a million different facades, shining lights, towering mosaics, embalmed bodies of popes (a little creepy...), statues of giant babies, and lots and lots of gold. Looked more like a palace than a place of worship. Nonetheless, I must give them credit it was magnificent. Also, if you're wondering why it was built, the Basilica rests over the grave site of St. Peter, the first pope, in his memory. Hence the name.

Some might call it a little over the top. But it was pretty amazing to look at.

In front of the altar. It was so bright you almost needed sunglasses.

Then we peaced out on that joint to look out on St. Peter's Square with all of our newfound Vatican knowledge. You can see the Basilica on the left, the building that Pope famously leans out of on the right, and in the center is the obelisk that signifies where Peter was supposedly killed. What a cool visual.

It was only 11am and the place was already packed. And we overachievers had already seen the whole thing.

Our tour ended in the Vatican gift shop, naturally, so from that point on we were on our own. We had passed a huge castle on the way in, and Bob being the war enthusiast that he is, insisted that we check out all its turrets and artillery. Castel Sant'Angelo was actually a fortress for the Pope during wartime before it was eventually made into a museum, as everything eventually is it seems. The cannons and giant moats were really cool, but the absolute best part was the breathtaking views of the entire city from the upper terrace.

A picture's worth a thousand words.

I'm ginormous!

I can forever say that I've been to the Vatican now. And even though I'm not Catholic it is still incredible. Yesterday the Vatican, today Il Colosseo. The most quintessential site in Rome: the Colosseum. And not that dumb replica USC built. 

Failblog Day 2

Because I had only blogged for one day before I missed a day. To my defense, we had an incredible day of walking after only 5 hours of sleep the night before; so, when we got back to the hotel for a pre-dinner nap, I ended up falling asleep through the night until this morning. Anyone who knows me, however, wouldn't be surprised since I am fully capable of falling asleep anywhere at anytime. I like to think of it as selective narcolepsy.

Anywho, let me tell you a little bit about why I was so tired. We left our hotel after breakfast al fresco on the roof heading toward our first stop of the day, Trevi Fountain. As it happens we were sort of haphazardly wandering in the right direction because as we neared the end of a narrow alleyway, the rush of water became audible and all of the sudden there it was:

I tried to get a better shot but that brown-haired thing was in the way.

No matter how many times I've seen The Lizzie McGuire Movie, no film or photograph can truly do this magnificent monument justice. The thing is massive, first of all. You can hear the water from a block away, and it literally forms the base of the building. Rather than being free-standing, it is very much connected to it's backdrop with concrete "water" rushing out of the bottom windows to form the sea in which the sculptured tritons on horses are swimming. Rumor has it that if you throw a coin backwards over your left shoulder into the fountain, you will to return to Rome. Unfortunately I did not read this juicy nugget of information until after I threw the coin backwards over my right shoulder (I'm right handed, it makes sense). Hopefully that doesn't backfire on me and result in my death (by gelato) next time I'm in Italy. 

After staring in awe at the Fountain for at least an hour, we carried onward, passing fabulous building after building, obelisk after obelisk, trattoria after trattoria. Wasn't long however before we hit the Pantheon. All I can say is WTF. How is it possible that people two thousand years ago could build this:

I would have made an awesome obelisk. But if I was a Roman statue they'd have made me naked with no head.

The Pantheon is enormous. My Rome book says that its walls are 20 feet thick and now I definitely believe it. Probably the coolest part about it however is that it's squished in between two rows of buildings, an obelisk, and a fountain. And life just goes by around it like it's not even there. I had a Mugatu moment where I wanted to tap someone on the shoulder and shout at them, "doesn't anyone notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" It looks so out of place with the commerce carrying on around it, yet it is so fitting with the rest of the city. Everywhere you turn there's another unbelievable work of architecture.

Rotunda inside the Pantheon. What happens when it rains?

I'm really into photography now.

Since we had such fantastic luck seeing everything I had wanted to by early afternoon, we took off in search of another monument we had seen in the distance from the top of our hotel. Not much to go on, but since Rome is pretty small we had no trouble finding it. 

Kinda looks like it belongs in Washington, D.C., right?

It's called Il Vittoriano, and apparently everyone hates it, calling it nicknames like "the wedding cake." That's because it was built to honor the first king of unified Italy, Victor Emanuele II, but they had to destroy some of imperial Rome on Capitoline Hill in order to do so. On the taxpayers dime. No buono. But it looks pretty cool and sports some gnarly views of the Eternal City. 

We went back to Trevi because it was so legit and took an obligatory dad-daughter picture.

Photoshop Mom and Beth in here and we've got ourselves a Christmas card.

Gotta go grab a bite to eat before I write about today's funtivities. Pizza, pasta, insalate? I like my options.

When in Rome,

eat at every gelato place you can find. Or at least that was our philosophy on our first day.

One gelato.

Two gelato.

Three gelato.

Floor.

We got a late start because somebody decided to take a nap... But seeing as we arrived at our hotel at 9am, it really didn't put us that far behind schedule. We strolled down the Via at about noon and within 5 minutes we had reached our first landmark--Triton Fountain in Piazza Barberini. Apparently (way) back in the day, if you had a crapload of money the hip thing to do was erect some kind of fountain, statue, or obelisk in a Square bearing your name. Pretty baller if you ask me. I think I'd put my obelisk by the Westwood Taco Bell.

Chillaxing with a merman.

Lunch consisted of gelato from a place around the corner. Bob then decided to disregard all the plans I had made in favor of aimlessly walking around Rome. Doing as the roam-mans do. Funny enough we stumbled upon these babies:

The Spanish Steps leading up to the Trinità dei Monti. Note the obelisk... I wasn't kidding.

I'd say luck found us here, but Bob's convinced it was a combination of intuition and the iPhone compass. Probably the most breathtaking sight I've seen in Italy thus far (not bad for the first day, eh?). We descended them first in awe, but enjoyed them a little bit less on the trek back up. Thousands of people were gathered in the Piazza di Spagna to witness the view from below; we spilled into the cobblestone square so much so that cars didn't even bother to use the surrounding streets because it would take forever to pass through the sea of tourists. At the bottom of the steps the road forked into three separate blocks of high-end shopping with stores like Louis Vitton, Gucci, Bulgari, and more. We chose to head down the shadiest Via, slipping in and out of shops to avoid the crowd and the heat. Then luck really did strike. We turned the corner onto another wide shopping block, look to my right and I see the... ORIGINAL BRANDY MELVILLE. 

From Italy with love. Ain't that the truth.

I died, went to heaven, and was reincarnated all in the same second. Notice the big SALDI, which I've learned by experience means SALE. Hallelujah. For those who have never heard of the brand, it's an affordable and extremely comfortable line whose signature style is clothes that don't fit exactly right to the point that it becomes fashionable: cropped, off-shoulder, cutout, fringed... whatever gets you to show a little skin. There are only four stores in the U.S. (lucky for me two are in Los Angeles) and they're about the size of my garage. This Brandy store had three levels, five or six separate rooms on every floor, and better yet unique merchandise that I hadn't already perused in Santa Monica. I freaking love Rome and its epic Brandy Melvilles. That's right, there are multiple stores in this city and I am on a mission from God to find them. 

We walked back, had gelato for dinner. Took a three hour nap. I made it till 7pm without sleeping, but once I hit that pillow I was out like Greg Focker from Robert De Niro's circle of trust. Woke up at about 10pm and headed out again, for a dessert gelato. The cool thing about Rome is that dinner often isn't until about 9 o' clock for most people (since they eat lunch from like 1-3), so there was a cool nightlife ambiance to absorb as we ate at an outdoor cafe. Almost like being back at college...

I currently have 3am insomnia, as I think it's only about 7 or 8pm home time. But I'm gonna try to catch some zz's so I don't faceplant into my pizza by tomorrow night's dinner. Day 1 complete.

I’m on a plane, yo…

…I’m going fast, yo… Nine more hours to go pass me that neck pill-oh…

Actually, I just finished (wolfed down, rather) my first Italian meal—a five-course feast opening with a lightly salty antipasti and concluding with a satisfyingly rich cup of espresso. If European airlines are this cool, I cannot even fathom how mind-blowing Europe itself will be. Even their plane food is legit! Drinks too—our choices were blood orange juice, sparkling water, or red wine. What kind of crazy awesome country is this that its airline is serving fancy orange juice and drink-coupon-free alcohol?? Southwest, you just got served. Despite the 3-year-old child incessantly slamming her tray table up and down behind me, I am reveling in pre-Italy jitters.

Gourmet.

Bob’s already asleep, which is a relief because 1) his “Inflight Bankruptcy Tidbits” have been put on hold, and 2) there’s a chance he won’t need to nap when we arrive in Rome at 7:30am local time. Everyone warns that staying awake is necessary to avoid jetlag, but apparently he’s not convinced. But for me, a college student skilled in the art of pulling all-nighters and a 26-hour dance marathon survivor, staying awake is the name of my game. We shall see which lifestyle prevails.

Bob mid-snooze.

Diane Kruger just drove Liam Neeson into a river on the inflight movie. Looks like an interesting way to kill two hours. Although listening to the Glee Christmas soundtrack as I have been is quite entertaining... Ciao!

**Update. This flight is amazing. I’m currently on a pastry sugar high from the breakfast they just served us. The coolest part is that they basically tricked our circadian rhythms into thinking we had a full night’s rest and that it’s now morning. After dinner they simulated nighttime, drawing curtains over the windows and shutting off all the lights, so my body responded by slipping into a sleep coma. We were barely through Maine according to the flight map when I shut my eyes, and I woke up over France! They just turned on the lights and served us breakfast (more red OJ and coffee!), so now I’m totally ready for the day. Disregarding the fact that my laptop clock says 12:08am…

Breakfast. Veni, vidi, vici.

The Day After Tomorrow

Rather than talk about the things I inevitably failed to accomplish today (packing.. it was a pipe dream), I'd like to highlight some fun progress I've made:

1) My first success was in booking roundtrip air to Bristol, UK to spend my first free weekend of the Travel Study program in England. Turns out having au pairs all your childhood comes in handy when you're looking for cheap housing arrangements abroad. The woman who used to change my diapers is now my London tour guide 20 years later. Who would've guessed?

2) I've researched and pinpointed on my map of Rome just about every gelato place in the city. No matter where we are, I can have us with tiny clear plastic spoons in our mouths within 30 seconds flat. As I see it, it's the only way to truly be prepared to deal with the 90 degree heat. I've also got the low-down on the best restaurants and cafes in town. Thanks tripadvisor and random lady blogging about Italy's dining scene. Now all we have to do is get used to the whole eating dinner at 9pm thing... A major adjustment from the 5pm nursing home mealtime at the ADPi house.

3) It just occurred to me today to research what women wear in Europe so I could do my best to blend. (See, I was trying to pack.) Turns out they aren't wearing cutoff jean shorts and Rainbows. So, my latest struggle has been locating all the neutral skirts/dresses I can find in my wardrobe, which would've been a needle in a haystack pre-sorawrity life. Not to mention a brief J.Crew obsession in high school will be saving my butt as well. Also in the process of learning the distinction between fashion scarves and winter scarves...

Despite this minor wardrobe malfunction, everything is starting to come together. Could it be possible that I remember everything I need to bring and finish packing.. wait for it.. early??

No, definitely not.

T-3 Days

Packing or planning are the only two things I should be doing now, so naturally I've selected this as the perfect moment to create my blog. Putting the "pro" in procrastinate, per usual. Bob's in the back office highlighting the crap out of a map of Paris while I'm wallpapering the Rome guidebook with personalized post-it notes. That's a lot of P's.

My father and I have one week together and two cities to explore, so we decided to divide and conquer. I am responsible for Italy, he for France. May the best plan win. I have creativity and two prearranged tours on my side, but he's armed with previous experience abroad, 50-year-old wisdom, and four editions of Frommer's books. This should be interesting. Won't tell you what we're up to just yet, all will be revealed as I blog along. 

Tomorrow is taking care of business day: doing several loads of laundry, acquiring Euros, purchasing a low-wattage hair straightener that won't blow a European fuse--things of that nature--culminating (hopefully) in a first attempt at filling one reasonably sized suitcase with five weeks worth of my life. Wish me luck.