http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128111544

Gogol Bordello is currently one of my favorite bands on my iPod and gypsy punk is quickly becoming my favorite genre. I haven’t checked out their new album yet, but I hear it’s pretty good. This morning I was perusing NPR’s web site and found their Tiny Desk Concert. You have to watch this if you like Gogol Bordello.

Damn! Those Ghanaians – Ghana-ites – Ghanareans…. Whatever…

Damn those dudes can run fast and score goals! We made two – count them – TWO – mistakes and they scored on both of them to win in the Round of 16. Good on them! They were faster to the ball, they played quicker and more precisely, and basically just beat us up. We lost to the better team on the day. I give the USA a lot of credit for making it TO the Round Of 16, but we weren’t ready for the fight.

I’m looking forward to the Brazilians and the Argentines to go into the latest rounds at this point.

We’ll see what happens though…

After the USA clinced top spot in Group C. (from imgur.com)

This picture cracks me up bad!

So the World Cup is about 10 days in and it’s getting really interesting as the last games come to a close… So far nearly every team has played two of their three games in the first round, and the giants of the game are looking pretty fallible. Italy tied New Zealand. Germany lost to Switzerland. England has tied twice. France is falling apart! They sent one of their best strikers, Nicolas Anelka, home after their second game for arguing with the coach, then other coaches quit the team, then the team didn’t even go to training! On the other hand North Korea looked pretty good – better than expected against Brazil – not so well against Portugal (there’s a lot of history between those two teams), New Zealand played well against Italy and tied them! That’s one of the biggest deals in World Cup history! New Zealand doesn’t even have a soccer league! It just seems that the small teams are playing far better and the big teams are playing far worse than expected!

Now let’s see if the USA can beat Algeria in their last game and advance to the Round Of 16!

The final matches of Groups A, B, C and D have been played. The rest start tomorrow.

I wondered why they scheduled the last match for all four teams in each group are played at the same time, and the reason is traced back to the 60′s. Apparently the games were not played simultaneously, so when the first game ended the other teams knew how their game had to end for them both to advance… They already had a result that would put both teams through so they kicked the ball around for 45 minutes or more and pissed off the crowd something fierce! Therefore they changed the rule.

So in the round of 16 we have our first four matches already line up:

Uruguay vs South Korea: Uruguay should win this, but don’t underestimate the Koreans. They have a tremendous work ethic.

USA vs Ghana: The USA should win this game, but again, at this level don’t underestimate the “underdog.”

Argentina vs Mexico: Argentina has been raining goals onto opponents’ nets except for their last game. Still, they are on fire and Mexico will have their hands full. On the other hand, Mexico is organized, intelligent, well trained and they never stop. This will be an awesome game!

Germany vs England: So far this is the game of the round. Who will go home in round 2? I predict a German win.

We flew home… Why is it nine hours in the air from Atlanta to Rome, and 10 hours from Rome to Atlanta? I don’t get it. Customs was painfully long, but basically easy. We had to get our luggage and recheck it, clear customs with our passports and then wait like 5 hours for our plane to Tulsa.

They kicked a guy off the plane too. He wouldn’t turn off his iPod when we were ready to taxi, and I think he smarted off to the stewardess, but I don’t know what he said. He was quiet, and wasn’t causing obvious trouble, but they didn’t like something about him so security came on board and escorted him off the plane…

We finally arrived at home around 11:30 pm. Whew. What a long day, but because we were gaining hours on the clock the return trip gave us almost no jet lag. That made me smile. Two times.

Observations and Tips

If you only have a week for vacation and you can walk several miles a day (or you don’t mind walking several miles a day), then pick a place and stay there. A couple of years ago we went to Hawaii and stayed on Maui for 2 days, then flew to Oahu for another 3 days. Both places were nice, but we didn’t stay in either one long enough to enjoy the full potential of the place. In Rome we accomplished nearly everything we set out to do in a week. There were a few things we’ll have to do the next time we go, but overall I feel like we got it right.

Meet the locals. I can’t stress this enough. Don’t go to a city like Rome and seek out McDonald’s! That will be here in the States for you when you return. Eat the local food, talk to the local people and enjoy the local culture as much as possible. It will make the trip all the better and you will remember it more fondly. Unless you feel threatened by the locals don’t be too afraid to get off the beaten path. Rome was not a threatening place. Be smart though. You can always find trouble if you’re looking for it, or not paying attention.

If you’re going to Europe from the USA try to fly through a city in the North East like NYC or similar. It might save several hours in the flight across the pond. We flew through Atlanta and our journey to Rome was 9 hours to get there and 10 hours to return. Those are long damn flights…

Look at maps before you go – all of them you can find. Go on Google Street View and check out the neighborhood around your hotel. Go to the book store and see if they have a Moleskine City Notebook for the city you’re visiting. It will have very current maps spread across multiple pages and will be in a small, portable size. It’s great for keeping notes about where you went and what you did too.

Our last day in Rome started out with us sleeping in a little bit, then going to Via del Corso for some shopping. We spent the better part of the afternoon wandering up and down the street. I bought four shirts!

For dinner we wanted to back over near Piazza Navona, to find a little sidewalk “risto.” We wandered basically aimlessly and found “Cucina Romana.” There were a large number of tables in a very small area and almost all of them were occupied so we figured it must be a good place. We sat at one of the two empty tables off to one side and I got a beer, a big beer. There were two guys sitting at one of the tables near us who were obviously locals, and one of them looked over at Vivian and explained in English that he and his friend were discussing wine, and that he had his own vineyard north of Rome, and they were drinking a bottle of his organic wine. He asked if we would like to try some and poured a little in our water glasses. It was good!

He had bottled it in large, pint-sized beer bottles and he gave us the last of the bottle. He said not to worry and walked around the corner to his car and got another bottle. We sipped that bottle and talked about all sorts of things, then he got three more bottles! He said that was all he had brought with him so we enjoyed those and spent several hours sitting and chatting.

He had been in the Italian Special Forces, then he joined a special branch of the police that dealt with the mafia and organized crime. He was a truly interesting man. His name is Francesco, but his nickname is “Ciccio.” We exchanged emails to stay in touch. A group of three people later came and joined us as well in the crowded little risto, and they were from Romania. Fulga was a 30-ish doctor who started her own company selling medical supplies, and she invited us to Romania where she would take us to see Dracula’s Castle! I’m in!

It was the perfect way to end our trip, sitting with locals and tourists from other lands, chatting and enjoying the company of each other. I want an apartment in Rome.

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On Sunday afternoon we had jumped on the Metro and gone to Termini Station to scope out tickets and all in preparation for our day trip to Pompei on Monday. We were up early and we grabbed a taxi for the ride to Termini Station. No problems in getting there, or finding and boarding the train, so by about 11 we were in Naples. We hopped a local “train” to Pompei. It was more like an above-ground subway, but we’ll go with “train.” By noon we were at the entrance which sort of looked like something outside Silver Dollar City, or Six Flags.

Pompei is interesting for two reasons. First, it was a city of 20,000 that ceased to exist within a 24 hour window. It happened fast. Secondly, the excavations that are open to the public are massive! This is amazing because it’s block after block of this in an ancient city.

The size is bad though because after about 12 destroyed buildings you look down the long street you’re on and you see literally hundreds and hundreds of them. There are side streets with more! We were starting to lose interest in it pretty quickly because, well, they all look basically the same… After about 20-30 minutes though Vivian suddenly remembered what our friend, Allyn, had told us. “Listen to Pink Floyd’s Live In Pompei album while you’re there.” We got our iPods out and synchronized them to play the album, and kept walking. It actually changed my perception of the whole place.

I saw Pompei with new eyes. As we continued to walk I listened to the music and my mind started wandering, thinking about what life was like for the person who lived in the house I was standing in. I know one thing, they had a great view! It truly was beautiful there.

After about half the album had played we had reached the ampthitheater where they recorded the album. It was at the very end of a long street in the corner of the city. We walked in and sat down in the small amount of shade in the middle of one wall. As we sat watching the tourists come and go, we listened to the rest of the album. A storm was blowing in from the ocean and we could hear thunder and see lightning a short distance from us. Pink Floyd was singing at that precise moment about thunder and lightning. It was trippy! After the album finished we left and walked around for a couple more hours, then left. We were there for about four hours and felt like we needed to head back toward Rome.

TIP: There are three or four types of train in Italy. I don’t know if it’s the same throughout the rest of Europe, but there are the cheapo tickets, but it will take a while to get where you’re going. There’s the second rank where it’s a bit more expensive but you don’t make as many stops. And finally the expensive tickets that are basically straight through to your destination, but they don’t stop in every town and city. We took the second tier train back from Pompei and it cut about 30 minutes off the return trip.

We went to a restaurant up the street from the hotel called Vito’s for dinner and ran into a couple from Florida who were on their honeymoon. It was good to talk to Americans because of the language thing, but it was also a bit of a downer because well, they talked a LOT about the Florida Keys, drank an entire bottle of Limoncello, and wouldn’t shut up. We finally had to just pay our tab and leave.

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After our tour of the Vatican Museums on Friday morning Vivian was determined to walk back to St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday to see the Pope after Sunday Mass. We slept in a bit and relaxed, but around 11 or so we headed toward the Vatican. There was a large crowd in the piazza and Mass was already well under way. A couple of very large TV screens in the piazza showed the masses outside what was happening inside St. Peter’s, and large speakers broadcast every word.

At a few minutes after noon Pope Benedict finished Mass and came to the window in his personal chamber and spoke briefly to the crowd. He made a short speech in Italian and then blessed us all in like 6 different languages. Vivian was ecstatic. It was pretty cool I guess.

We went to Trastavere in the afternoon. This is the district that isn’t so touristy, and many locals live and shop here. We walked through many streets and passed many stalls where imitation purses, jewelry and other stuff was sold. We found a little place down a side street that we stopped in for a drink and a snack. It was called Long Island Night Cafe. We didn’t really know that until we left though… I decided around this point that I really loved the city of Rome. I liked these little cafe/bars, I liked the buildings, the charm… I liked pretty much all of it that I had seen so far.

One thing about Rome that has influenced the construction of buildings since the 1500′s is that the dome of St. Peter’s basilica is the highest point in the city. For centuries there has been a law that declared no building can be taller than St. Peter’s dome. Therefore there will never be a skyscraper in Rome. I like it. I like how it has influenced all the other architecture too.

As the afternoon wore on we headed back northward toward the hotel through the Jewish Ghetto. The first thing to know is that “ghetto” does not mean slum. It’s just a district in the city. At the south edge of this district we found the shell of a building that had been bombed out and burned during World War II. It was a synagogue now, and it was still in use. The facade was left alone after the war, but the rest of the building behind it had been rebuilt.

We walked past this bit of history to a sidewalk cafe and checked the menu. There was another restaurant across the street, and we also checked its menu, but decided we’d walk a few blocks into the ghetto to see if there were other places. Our reasoning was that these might be pricier or more touristy because they were at the edge of the district. Therefore we headed further into the ghetto to see if we could find something “better.”

We walked only a short distance it seemed before we were on a major street that was obviously a border of sorts between the Jewish Ghetto and other parts of Rome. We walked along this street trying to find another side street to take us back into the Ghetto. As we walked though we quickly got back to a spot where we could see parts of Ancient Rome and decided we’d just go back to the restaurants we had passed earlier.

The problem with this though was that the streets and alleys are so narrow I didn’t know which direction I was walking most of the time. When I looked at the tops of the buildings to determine which direction the sun was shining from, I always seemed to get it wrong. We weren’t lost really. I could find on the map exactly where we were most of the time, but when I thought we should go a particular direction we’d end up going the opposite!

A nice accident about being lost in the Jewish Ghetto though was that we found tons of hidden, beautiful places! Small piazzas would suddenly appear where a small cafe might be with locals sipping wine or coffee. No restaurants though… In these piazzas we might find a fresco on the side of a building that dated back hundreds of years, or a column from two thousand years ago that still stood and apartments built around it. It was incredible.

Finally though we made it back to the original restaurant and we sat down for a meal at “Ba ‘Ghetto.” I got the Jewish Goulash and I think in retrospect it was BY FAR the best meal I had in Rome. It was simply meat and potatoes on a plate, but whatever seasonings they used when it was cooked were unbelievable. Viv got a whole fish that our waiter, Peter, prepared for her. She said it was awesome, but not much could beat that goulash in my opinion. Some American college aged kids sat at a table near us and ordered things like spaghetti with a side of french fries… They also asked to have the tab split three ways. These types of things irritated the wait staff to no end. But I’ll give them some credit. They saved their pennies and they took a trip to Rome. They were seeing the world and they’ll learn lessons from it. Good for them.

We were serenaded by these two over dinner as well. (The file is about 17 megabytes, so be patient. It will open in a new window.)

After dinner we walked back to the Colosseum to see it lit up at night. It was very cool! There is so much atmosphere in Rome you could cut it with a knife. Finally we caught a bus home to our hotel to finish another awesome day.

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We caught a bus for our Colosseum & Forum tour. Our legs were so tired from the Vatican tour that we decided to take the easy way to the Colosseum. Our tour guide’s name was Damiano, and he was an art historian and archeologist. He had a real passion for the things he would show us and a great personality that got everyone caught up in his passion.

We started in the Colosseum and then went to the Roman Forum. The Colosseum is immediately impressive because of the scale! It regularly held 50,000 people, and according to Damiano it serves as the model for all other stadia around the world. It was constructed over 8 or 10 years starting around 70 AD and was completed around 80 AD by the Emporers Vespasian and Titus. 10 years! That’s an incredible accomplishment when you see this thing up close.

When you go inside you see the skeleton of the building mostly. Much of it has been either damaged by earthquakes or picked apart over the centuries by people taking stone and marble from it. It sits in a valley between the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine hills where the great fire in 64 AD destroyed much of the city. Incidentally, there is speculation that the great fire of Rome was started by Nero himself in order to grab that land for his own possession… In the end though he had the Colosseum created for the people because they were angry over his land grab attempt. There is only one small section of the original marble seating still intact near the main entry into the arena. The rest of the marble stones have been removed (stolen) over the years.

About one quarter of the floor has been reconstructed to show what it would have looked like to spectators in the olden days. The area underneath the floor shows the intricate halls and passages used to stage the animals and gladiators during the events. According to Damiano the movie Gladiator, with Russell Crowe, was very accurate in depicting the trap doors and elevators used to put animals and men into the arena from underneath.

From the Colosseum we went past Hadrian’s arch to the Palatine Hill where the Emporers lived. Augustus started the palace complex during his reign and it was expanded upon by later Emporers. Walking around these ruins is impressive, but only later did I really understand the full scale of the place… At one point we stood at a crumbled wall looking westward at the Circus Maximus, where chariot races were held. The crumbled walls of the palace were on our left and right, and behind us were the remains of the various rooms used by the Emporers. Most of these rooms were now either sidewalks or grassy areas and most walls of the interior were long gone. Some lower level rooms were visible from above, and were either baths or pools for relaxation. I was not terribly impressed with the palace of the Emporers – yet…

We left the palace and walked around to another part of the hill where we were shown a strange, simple, small set of “huts” which were actually stone dwellings of very modest size. There may have been a half dozen of them, and they had been covered by a simple shelter to keep erosion at bay. These were the original dwellings, the original town of Rome dating to 750 BC. I was impressed by the humble beginnings of such a large and historically important city. We didn’t stay long at this site because there was so much left to see.

The Forum is where it’s all at. As we descended from the Palatine Hill into the Forum area we saw basilicas that were hundreds, if not thousands of years old, still being used. We saw partially destroyed buildings, mostly intact structures and more. On one side was a large complex of rooms that climbed from the bottom of the valley up the hill side to the very top. This was the temple of the Vestal Virgins. They were very important and influential in the ancient world. Their complex was partially intact, but what was most impressive was the scale of it.

As we continued walking we entered the lowest area and from there we could look in literally all directions and see the layers of history all around us. We were standing on early Roman streets looking at buildings and monuments dating from Julius Ceasar’s death in 44 BC and later. One temple had a series of large columns in front of it that had strange grooves carved around them near the top. I asked what the grooves were caused from and Damiano explained that during the middle ages or so the columns were about half buried so only a portion stood above the soil. The people of the middle ages considered the ruins pagan, ungodly or something and destroyed many sites. This particular one they tried to destroy by carving grooves in the columns, tieing ropes around them (using the grooves to keep the ropes from slipping downward), and hitching oxen and horses to the other end of the ropes. They tried to pull the columns down and destroy the site, but since 20 feet of column was still buried they didn’t succeed…

The Colosseum was visible to one side, there were partial walls, columns from various buildings – some standing, some fallen – there were roads, there were monuments, there were so many things in such a small area it was hard to take it all in. And it was all surrounded by the modern city of Rome with its apartments, restaurants, bars, cafes and traffic. Damiano at one point said, “They built the subway UNDER the Colosseum! Isn’t that crazy!?” The layers of history were overwhelming…

When our tour was over wanted something to eat. We walked northeast from the Colosseum and ended up on a major street with many restaurants. Viv craved pizza so we stopped at a place with tables on the sidewalk where we watched the city go by for a little while. Inside, the place was surprisingly very American in the decor. I shot a few pics of the interior, we had our pizza then walked back the way we had come. I had found a place online that I wanted to take Vivian as a surprise on the other side of the Circus Maximus. It was the Rose Gardens of Rome, and I wanted to sit there with Viv for a while. I knew she’d enjoy it but it was a bit of a walk to get around the Palatine Hill and the Circus Maximus. By the time we got there I was exhausted and my legs were achy.

It was beautiful there and we rested our legs for an hour or two. We had a great vantage point to see much of the city from where we sat, but the coolest part was looking back toward the direction of the Emporer’s palace. It was massive! We couldn’t really get a sense of the scale of it as we walked around the grassy ruins of it. From the outside though we were blown away.

After we sat for a while in the Rose Garden we decided to go have a drink at the Piazza Navona and sit for a while there. We enjoyed it at night, so we thought we’d check it out during the day. We took a cab to get there and sat at a sidewalk ristorante and had some bruschetta and I drank a beer. Viv had a Sprite. We watched the tourists come and go and the locals peddling their wares or performing for the tourists. It was expensive to sit there and drink though. Beer was 9 Euro a glass which translates to about 11.25 in American currency. We decided against dinner at this place. We wanted to try a restaurant we had seen mentioned in the Rome Guide we had bought before we came to Italy.

The wind was also picking up and rain was rolling in so we paid our tab and walked across the piazza and down an alley to the west. We walked around for about 15 or 20 minutes looking for the restaurant and finally decided the one mentioned in the book had changed names. It was now called Serafini rather than Bramante. The best thing about these sidewalk ristorantes is the atmosphere. There were about 5 of them within sight of each other, and lots of people sitting and chatting and enjoying the evening. The wind didn’t really affect the twisty, windy alleys and the rain had passed as mere sprinkles. So we sat and people watched and ate.

Another good day.

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We walked to the Vatican Friday morning for our “Skip The Lines” tour by a company called “Dark Rome” tours. If you go to Rome, book a tour or two through this company. They are outstanding and do several tours around Rome. Our guide was Michelle. She was born in Rome, went to college in South Africa, and lived in Australia for a while. She spoke perfect English with a nice South African accent, although I would have said it was Australian until she told me otherwise.

There are several things about the Vatican museums that are impressive. The first is that it contains the entire history of the Catholic church in one spot rather than scattered in other museums around the country or the world as many collections are. Another thing to remember while walking through the galleries is that the Catholic church is perhaps the most influential organization in the world over the last 1,500 years. The history of the church is seen in layers or eras represented in the styles of the art on display, and the sheer volume of artifacts is overwhelming! Let me also say that the points I just made can also be made about the ancient Romans as well. They ruled the known western world for centuries and it shows everywhere you go in Rome. Combine the two and Rome can be overwhelming if you love history.

As for the Vatican tour, unless you’re a Catholic or an art historian wanting to see the original works you’ve studied in books, this is just a big tourist trap. I didn’t see any Catholics openly weeping in the Sistine Chapel because of it’s beauty and spiritual heaviness, but I’ve heard many do. What I can tell you as an art historian, art lover and heathen is that you’ll be packed so tightly into the rooms of the museums that it’s nearly impossible to actually enjoy the experience. You won’t be able to really spend the time necessary to soak up the historical significance of the art or the place itself. I mean that about each room in the tour, but especially about the Sistine Chapel. Prepare to feel like a sardine in a can.

Michelle had a great sense of humor and knew her history well. She had a wealth of knowledge and not only described the many rooms and the art within them with authority, she could answer questions about it too. Her style was lighthearted and she joked about “those naughty popes” to bring a little levity into the heaviness of what we were looking at.

Saint Peter’s Basilica was the same for me as the Sistine Chapel. It was awesome, beautiful, larger than you expect, and overwhelming in many ways. For me though it was overwhelming in the wrong ways… I hate to say that, but it’s true. I didn’t expect these feelings when we started the tour, but it was very strong by the end. As I walked through the massive church looking at the sculptures and stained glass and other artifacts of worship representing many centuries of history the thought that kept creeping into my brain was “opulence, wealth, opulence, wealth.” I was overwhelmed first by the cost in money and manpower that it must have taken over all those centuries to create this building, this series of buildings, and it was all created with the blood, sweat and tears of the poorest of the poor – to save them of course. The other point I’ll make is that Michelle’s comments about “those naughty popes” happened often enough through the tour I became disgusted with those naughty popes…

I was exhausted by the end. I was tired from fighting the massive crowd of tourists. I was tired of standing up for hours, shuffling from one room to another. I was tired of the Catholic church. I just couldn’t enjoy it any more because in the time we were there I had gone from feeling like an excited little kid in a candy shop knowing I’d get to see not only Michaelangelo’s best works, but also those of hundreds of other great artists through history to an exhausted, hungry, cynical tourist with sore feet and aching legs. For non-Catholics it is a tourist trap on the grandest scale! I wanted to just go buy some souvenirs for my family and friends and get the hell out of there…

At the end of the tour we spoke with Michelle for a while about other tours of Rome. We had intended to visit the Colosseum and the Roman Forums but didn’t think to do it in a tour group. She told us that it might be better than going it alone because of the crowds and getting a true understanding of what we’d be looking at. She called HQ and we set up a tour for the next morning for Rome of the ancients.

After we left Vatican City we walked eastward through the stalls of trinket sellers and food vendors back toward the hotel. We stopped in a cafe and got a panini. Even the sandwiches are good! One awesome thing to keep in mind about Rome is that there are small fountains everywhere fed by springs and you can fill your water bottles in them. The water is clean, pure and refreshing. You’ll see locals doing it all the time. If you keep your eyes peeled you’ll be able to buy one bottle of water and refill it as often as necessary.

Later in the day we ate at a place called Giovanni’s Pizzeria just across the bridge from Castel Sant’Angelo. Again I saw something on a menu that was called “Rocket.” I asked our waiter what it was and he brought us a plate with a few leafy greens. It was arugula! We got a dried meat and arugula with grated Parmesan cheese and a bit of olive oil. Our waiter was Mario, and he was the first person we really connected with in Italy. He had a calm, friendly style about him and chatted at length with us. I ordered pasta and Vivian ordered, well, pasta! Both meals were awesome (we tasted each others meal). If you go to Rome, go see Mario at Giovanni’s!

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