Visiting Emperor Nasi Goreng

Saturday 13 September 2008

“All roads lead to Rome where our included sightseeing tour is the perfect introduction to the Eternal City. Do as the Romans do and stroll past the Trevi Fountain, the amazing Pantheon, and Piazza Navona.” Contiki Itinerary.

Sleeping on the bus is no way advised ever. It was uncomfortable and suprisingly noisy, mostly due to the fact that Kristy and a bunch of other people who had their tent flooded went to the Disco so they had to come in late and just sort of crash all over the place waking me up a few different times.

Not pleasant.

But there was nothing I was awake and we were ready to move onto ROME.

But first we were heading up to this place where they were taking the souvenir group photo. We hadn’t done it last night because it had been raining, so we were doing it now when it was only drizzling.

It is quite funny really last night we were all dressed up to the nines and now we were all in our comfy, dodgy haven’t been washed since Spain clothes.

It was drizzling and we had to hurry so they all chucked us in and took the photo, I love Florence.

Then just as we were moving Chucky stopped us. He wanted to do a video a la Where the hell is Matt? So the lady who was taking the photo took his video camera and there we were, with this beautiful backdrop, all of us doing a stupid little dance. It was a lot of fun.

About two minutes after that it started pouring down rain.

We scrambled back on the bus as it just got worse as we headed on our way to ROME! I was so excitied, this was one of those must see’s. I actually managed to know a lot about Rome and what I wanted to see. Not by actually doing any real research just by what I already knew.

It strikes me as ironic now that I am studying to be a Travel Agent, so now I have to and do know everything about the popular cities. Because of that most of the time I kick myself because I missed out on going to a lot of good places because I didn’t know about them. But if I sat here and listed them all I would have to start a new blog pretty much labelled all the things I didn’t do, and that I think would take way too much time.

Anyway my travel diary is a bit sketchy on what happened when and the memories are solely snatches of walls and alleyways which no sense so bare with me. But I think the first thing we did with going into Rome was the included sightseeing tour.

Which again was us in the bus driving around the city though we did get out as Bridget lead us around a few places.

First we went up to the Spanish Steps.

Like most of Rome all these monuments and must see’s sort of just sneak up on you when we aren’t really expecting it. Being a Saturday it was crowded but we sort of forced ourselves to get to the top while Bridget gave us about twenty minutes to explore.

That was the view from the very top and just because I was curious I looked up why the Spanish Steps are a tourist attraction when I got back. Never before I went though, that would make much too much sense.

The Spanish Steps were built to link the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinita dei Monti and is the longest and widest staircase in Europe. It has 138 steps.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. I mean it doesn’t seem that long or that wide but either way, it was a really good place to tick off the list.

As we regrouped Bridget led us on to the next sight. What it was she wouldn’t tell us, I think to keep the element of suprise going. As we walked we passed through the main shopping way. It was pretty funny every so often there would be a car trying to slink through all the people. There was half a million people so those cars weren’t getting anywhere fast.

Bridget may have been trying to hide where we were going but she was doing a fairly bad job of it.

 I knew where we were going. Mum had already been to Rome before I had and she had told me all about The Trevi Fountain, mostly telling me about how all of a sudden it just appeared in the middle of all these buildings.

It’s a pretty bad picture I know, but that is where Bridget stopped us to tell us all about the Trevi Fountain, several times I thought about walking off, I knew that the Fountain was just at the end. But I waited as Bridget got the guys to cover the girl’s eyes until they walked up to the fountain, so they could really have the wow factor.

I just kept my eyes to the ground as I walked it was fairly easy to do as it was still so crowded everywhere.

WOW.

It was everything I really wanted it to be, next to me I’m pretty sure Bec started tearing up, it was her number one thing to see on the trip. Me, I was just excitied, it was so grand and just there.

It was odd to there was at least seven different roads that all lead into this one square all of them winding and leading off into the distance and not to mention the fact that the photos do this beautiful piece of art no justice. The photo I have is only a small section of the Fountain it was just to big to fit in any photo and the detail that must have gone into this one thing.

More later.

Thursday 12 September 2008

“Your day includes a walking tour seeing the Piazza della Signoria, the Duomo and Santa Croce, and a chance to shop for leather, gold and silver. In your free time maybe visit one of the city’s many museums and this everning enjoy the colourful Florentine nightlife.” Contiki Itinerary.

STILL Later that same day.

I swear it was the longest day in the world, in a good way. We went back to the campsite because we all had to get ready to go back out again it was time for our optional excursion.

“Tuscan Dinner. Tonight’s restarant is located right in the heart of Florence. Enjoy a traditional 3 course meal including pasta and a delicious main course - all washed down with some local wine.” Contiki Itinerary.

But with something of a theme going it took a long time for us to get back into Florence. Just so I can properly set the mood here is a picture of our campsite in Florence.

Our tent was the third from the right. You can probably see how wet the tents look. Yeah that’s because sometime during the day it started to rain pretty heavily out here. But it had stopped by the time we got back.

That wasn’t the problem, me and Kristy were just sitting in the tent waiting for everyone to get ready. Neither of us wanted to be social, so we were just laying there staring at the ceiling listening as it started to rain.

So there we were just sitting there as the rain got harder. Then out of the fog we heard.

“Is anybody in there, is anyone alive there?”

Cue Titanic flashback. Me and Kristy looked at each other before poking our heads out the tent.

It was absoutely pissing down rain, and there in front of us was Paula and Kevin dripping wet trying to stay under the umbrella as they stared at us.

We stared back.

Right in front of us was this lake of water coming down at us from the top of the hill. It was like something out of Deep Impact. It had already soaked through Sherri and Gen’s tent and it was coming for us.

Me and Kristy looked at each other again, we hadn’t even noticed.

Kevin and Paula told us to quickly pack up our stuff and go to the bus. Kevin had opened up where all the luggage was going so we quickly abandoned ship and threw ourselves into the bus, already completely wet.

It was about then that it started hailing.

Fantastic.

We were quickly joined by more of our group as they all abanded their own soaked tents. We weren’t having great luck with these tents.

So we just sort of sat there until the rain calmed down enough, we were going to be late getting to dinner. But with out group that was pretty much expected anyway.

We actually were supposed to go out our Sourvenir Group Photo before dinner but the rain pretty much screwed that around, as it was decided that we would do it before we left tomorrow morning.

But nothing could stop our group, as we all somehow managed to get back on the bus after a minor disaster.

It was then decided that for the groups who now had no tent, we were sleeping in the bus. As if we didn’t spend enough time there as it was.

We put that behind us, it was actually kind of funny once we got on our way again. And the really funny thing was that it wasn’t even a Tuesday. I didn’t usually have mum’s paranoid fear of Tuesday’s but so far they weren’t encouraging me not to. I did not want to know what was going to happen on Tuesday.

We eventually got to dinner, and it was fanastic, I got to try different pastas that usually I would never touch, but hey when it Italy, it was actually pretty nice.

Then the evening went crazy as three more people where killed my the Mafia, Kathyrn next to me did those whole fake sezuire next to me, scared the hell out of me.

Still have no clue who the Mafia is, but it makes for good entertainment. After being loud and eating a lot, the resturant which we were in by the way, was so nice it had all these ornate paintings on the walls, we headed back out.

There was another optional extra for the group: “Space Electronic Disco. A chance to dance the night away at Florence’s largest night-spot. Your first drink is included in the price and will get you started for an evening of fun. Enjoy the great music and maybe take the opportunity to show off your karaoke skill.”

I had heard some really bad things about the Disco so I opted out, and from what I heard the next morning it wasn’t that great in the first place. But I wasn’t the only one as a lot of the others headed back to the camp with me.

Marty brought out the whistle as we had a good time shouting and making fools of ourselves and the music was pumped right up. For once we was actually good music instead of the rubbish we usually had on during the day.

Soon we were back and I headed out to get my sleeping bag as I set myself on the backseat of the bus and tried to get some sleep.

This was definately not in the brouchure.