back from paris

just got back from paris this afternoon. it was impossible to find any place to access the internet which was why we didn't update the blog.

paris was fantastic. our first day and a half in paris was very mellow. we were exhausted from italy. in 3 days we covered musee d'orsay, musee orangerie, arc de triomphe, the louvre and versailles. we stayed across the street from the eiffel tower and had a view of it from our room. since we saw it everyday we didn't feel the need to go up. i wish we had spent more time there since there is so much to do. we wished we could have also seen notre dame, st. michele, napoleon's tomb, sacre couer, fontainebleu and many others.

a few thoughts on paris and the French:
we thought the French were very nice, much nicer than the Italians in fact. we never got the French attitude that everyone speaks of. a little bit of french and a smile goes a long way. props to Mauricio for his broken French, Spanish, Italian and English way of communicating. you would have thought that he created his own language.

French food was absolutely delicious. we liked the food in Paris more than Italy. don't get me wrong, Italian food is soooo good. we didn't anticipate that we would like the food in Paris as much as we did. the croissants in paris are the best. the food prices were comparable to that of California.

shocking, i know, but the French have such great style. although some of the women looked like trannys.

i've gotten your emails about not posting pictures. i know, i know. it takes forever to load them and the internet cafes aren't cheap. i promise i will post pics later.

goodbye rome, hello florence

florence is a nice much needed break from rome. rome was really hectic, hard to navigate and sometimes stressful. florence doesn't have the constant buzz that rome has. the touristy part of florence is really small, it takes about 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other.

we haven't really had a bad meal since we've been in italy, but the food in florence is much better. we went to the central food market today, kind of by the train station. we ate at some little cafe that reheated their food in the microwave, but still delicious. couldn't go wrong for 15 euros.

we went to the accademia today to check out david. it's huge! it's in a small museum and costs almost 10 euros if you make a reservation. the reservation is worth the 3 extra euros, or you'll stay in line waiting 2 hours to spend at most a half hour in the museum.

we also went to the medici chapels to see more michelangelo stuff. very impressive although i was disappointed that the laurentian library was closed.

there's tons of restoration going on at every site, including half of the duomo. not very nice to look at with scaffolding all over the place.

i would post more pictures, but it's a pain in the ass to post on blogger. plus i'm being timed at internet cafes.

Not really a soccer fan....

I had never really been a soccer fan...my dad had attempted to get us to watch it when we were younger to no avail perhaps the lack of points in scoring that i believe to be the sports main drawback. After the world cup and Ching's infatuation with Cristiano Ronaldo i began to watch a lot of matches at my wife's behest. I found it to be a bit entertaining but have to admit that i found the 'diving' to run time of the clock a bit boring and still wouldn't have called myself a fan.
When were planning our trip to italy Ching told me that there would be a chance that we would be able to make a match of almost super bowl proportions with Manchester United taking on the Roma team in what was to be a much anticipated game.
Oh my god...is really the first thing that comes to mind. I have been to many a Raider game and tho't i knew a little about extreme fans but oh no, not like soccer fans. The stadium, that seats about 80k was half full a full two hours prior to the intial kick off. The pride of the team is expressed thru their fans in their colors and songs. The entire stadium explodes in a flurry of team color and flag waving that must be seen to believed. They shout curse words at the opposing teams sections and taunt them as they were insulting their honor. But the Manchester Fans were no slouches themselves...altho' warned at impending violence against them a section of about 4k rocked their section as if they were in their home stadium. And as soon as a goal was scored against them the Italians rushed the barricade that was put up between them ( a plastic wall and line of military style police in riot gear) tossing bottles and verbal assaults that was unbelievable. The English fans fought back with their projectiles causing the police to rush and begin head bashing. I saw at least two fans go down and down hard, having to be carried out. To my amazement no fans were ejected only billy clubbed and once the mob was beaten back the even returned to their original seats to begin their own team chants. All this mind you as a woman's voice announced every 20 minutes or so that it was illegal to shout or incite violence to the opposing side and reminding the crowd of the new rule that the ref could pause the game (please note i said pause not stop) if he felt his life or the life of the other refs was in jeopardy.
The game ended with Roma victorious at 2 - 1 and the pleasant sounding women reminding Manchester fans to please wait until everyone had left for the military police, that had beaten them earlier would escort them out...for their safety.
In all, i think reports had 18 Englishmen injured in what i have to say was one of the greatest sports spectacles i have every seen in my life.
Not really a soccer fan?
Watch a game live...and i am sure you will become one as i did last night.

football craziness!

i will have to post more later. but here are some of the shenanigans that happened at the game.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6528049.stm

where was i now?

it's so damn hard to find a place to get to the internet here. i finally found some ghetto place by our apartment that charges next to nothing.

we took a 4 hour tour of palatine hill, the forum and the colosseum. palatine hill was very impressive. it was more or less like the beverly hills back in its heyday. it's hard to imagine how big those palaces were. we walked around the forum but really couldn't spend too much time there due to the crowds and the colosseum was about to close. the colosseum was really cool. i will have to post pictures later.

note to self and others. do not come to rome during holy week. it is one of the most popular times to come here. the crowds can be unbearable and can make it difficult to walk through all the small alley streets.

another question is, why do americans have to wear white sneakers, fanny packs, and usa shirts when they're abroad? it's so ridiculous. we went to some drink stand near the colosseum to buy a bottle of water. the guy charged jane american ahead of us 5€ for a bottle of water, charged us 1€ (maybe because of mauricio's fine italian speaking), charged joe american behind us 5€ for a bottle of fanta. funny thing is, the stupid americans actually paid those prices. no wonder americans think it's SOOO expensive here.

i haven't seen the gangs of pickpocket kids that i heard so much about in the states. i felt pretty safe on the buses and trains. i noticed at least one pickpocket each time i took the main tourist busline. the pickpockets i did see on the bus were very well dressed and you wouldn't be able to tell they were cons just by looking at them.

fashion - in regards to fashion, i wouldn't necessarily say that the romans/italians are much more fashionable than LA, SF or NY. if anything it's just different. we noticed a lot of women rocking cowboy boots. puffy jackets with fake fur collars. thick eyeliner. lots of perfume/cologne. men wear lots of hair product. i thought a lot of italians dressed similar to us. jeans, track jacket, and adidas/pumas/or nike trainers.

yesterday we took a five hour tour of the vatican museum and st. peter's basilica. the line to get into the vatican museum must of been about 1/2 a mile long. luckily our tour guide got there early and squatted in line before the tour. so we really only had to wait about 10 minutes. i highly recommend a small tour. there were only 5 of us on the tour. our tour was led by some academic guy that had a ph.d in art history and it felt very much like a seminar in college. the small group setting enabled me to ask as many questions as i wanted. i really enjoyed it. most of the tours had about 20-30 ppl in them with the leader holding some cheesy flag in the front to lead them. it seemed much less personal.

all i can say is crowded, crowded, crowded. i would not suggest for those that are extremely claustrophobic or anxiety in crowds. i started to freak out at the beginning of the tour, but i made it out ok. the key for me was to not stare at the crowds, but look above the crowds or at the ceiling. my favorites were the room of maps, school of athens by raphael and of course the sistine chapel. from there we went to st. peter's basilica, huge! saw michelangelo's pietà behind the bullet glass window. i really can't describe my experience here. i have to post pictures.

Day 2 in Rome

What up all today was full with fun of different sort.

We headed over to the vatican to watch his excellency the pope give a mass for palm sunday and although he didnt grant us a private audience it was impressvie nonetheless - - jumbo-tron, chicks fainting and all, however no pope mobile to be seen but i guess he was chillen at home with no place to go.

After that we headed over to a musem..not sure which but here in rome they are all about the same..broken marble statues of half naked roman chicks sans arms, legs but plenty of boob

if you havent guessed this is mauricio posting and not ching....

later for now!

Heeeeyyy Macarena!!!

we just arrived to rome yesterday. with sleep deprivation and all we still wanted to venture the city. we went to campo di fiore, piazza navona, spanish steps, and piazza de poppolo to name a few things. mauricios broken italian and spanish has been getting us around pretty well.


piazza de spagna. spanish steps on the left.

here is the spanish steps at nights. it seemed like there was some spanish soccer rally going on. all spanish kids were chanting ole, ole, ole as well as hey macarena, very random.

this was an amazing view of st. peters from the tiber.