Planning

So, without jinxing anything, I am going to write about how we are currently in the throws of planning a little getaway in October. Like I said, I don't want to jinx anything, so I will not disclose any potential locations but I will say that the one requirement that they all have in common is "warm."

This potential vacation came about thanks to Grandma's timeshare points, so that a) narrows down potential destinations and b) saves us some money, which is the reason we can afford to go anywhere at all. Booking a hotel is the slightly easier component of planning -- the tricky bit is that we'll have to book a hotel before we can book plane tickets and the plane tickets are the part of the equation that will make all of us want to smash our faces with bricks.

AIRPLANES, my favorite subject! Not only are airplanes terrifying, they are also expensive (please note, I'm still paying my parents back for my airfare to Europe). $$$ obviously plays a big role in deciding where to go except we have frequent flyer miles! Sounds like that will save the day, right?! WRONG! Because frequent flyer miles come with strings attached, mainly when you can leave and when you can return. So, while my dad, Whitney and I have plenty of miles to go around, that doesn't mean that we can actually use them!! Crossing my fingers over here...

And guess what?! To make it all more complex, we won't all be flying out of Logan Airport here in beautiful Boston because Whitney goes to school in North Carolina! (For the record, this trip will be during her fall break -- yes, her school has one of those -- so don't worry, her studies will not suffer from our adventure). My dad and I will be flying together and Whitney will just have to fend for herself, I guess.

Finally, I haven't even started to think about how I am going to ask for time off from the jobs that I haven't even started yet (I do, in fact, have actual jobs that will be beginning soon)...

Long story short, people probably spend more time planning their vacations than actually going on them.

And the saga of the untitled October trip is to be continued... #Cliffhanger

"This is where Jesus lives, right?"

We went to the church of all churches today -- the Vatican. My main concern about going to the Vatican was not about being a half-Jewish/not even close to Catholic girl but was simply hoping that the other tourists in the Vatican weren't jerks when we were all so close to God...

I don't think people really cared where they were in relation to God because they were just as obnoxious as always and no one seemed to appreciate when I stated that I shouldn't have to wait in line because I am, after all, one of God's chosen people whether the Catholic church admits it or not. I think I will have to come back to Europe just so I can teach everyone the concept of personal space and how to apologize after you elbow someone (me) in the head.

It was actually really hard to find our way around the Vatican when we first got there because they had really poor signage; when my mom commented on this, I said that it was done on purpose because God works in mysterious ways... [this is where my mom rolled her eyes -- a maneuver she repeated frequently as I continued to make unfortunate, yet entirely harmless, religion-based jokes]

If you ever find yourself at the Vatican, I highly suggest booking your tour of the museum/Sistine Chapel online like we did because it meant we could sleep in this morning and happily pass everyone else who was stuck in line. Booking online didn't spare us all of the drama though -- we were big nerdburgers and also pre-booked the audio tour, which would have been great if they'd given us the right tickets when we first got there, instead we had to run up and down a whole bunch of stairs and argue with a lot of people who were convinced that they knew what we were trying to say before we'd even started talking until we could finally get our guides and start our tour. During this fiasco, my mom made a joke worthy of me and said "If I die in the Vatican, do I go to Heaven faster?" Thankfully, we did not find that out.

All of the art in the Vatican is incredible, but people are still awkward, so it was often crowded and uncomfortable. After you've gotten through/survived the Vatican museum, you get to the reason why 99% of the people are there -- the Sistine Chapel.

Ceiling to floor of Michelangelo/Renaissance perfection, the Sistine Chapel is glorious. With the audio guide, I got to hear all sorts of things about Michelangelo's Last Judgment and although the facts were rather dry and it felt like it would never end, I learned a lot and really got to appreciate what I was seeing.

We also visited St. Peter's Basilica. And I had thought I was churched-out... This place was unlike any of the other churches I've visited in the past three weeks or ever and while I still haven't decided what my favorite church is, this one is a contender. While each church I've visited has been spectacular in its own way, I felt like I could stay in St. Peter's for days and still not see everything.

Also after hunting through literally all of Rome for postage stamps and coming up empty, I was able to buy them at the Vatican so my mail is now Pope approved!

And now, a moment of silence as this is the last day of the trip and I must start my big girl life when I get home tomorrow. Or I could just run away in the middle of the night and assume a new identity and stay in Europe forever which is a serious possibility.

Back to the Beach

Today we escaped the heat and crowds in Rome for the coastline (I know, it's shocking since we clearly hate the beach). Whitney's school was "organizing" a field trip there, so we were able to tag along with her and her friends instead of having to navigate independently.

I used quotation marks for the word "organizing" because getting there was an absolute mess. The group was probably 40 or 50 people (plus two trip leaders and two Jaffe stowaways) so when the first bus came to take everyone to the train station, only half of the group could get on and we were left to wait for the next bus. When that bus came, we still couldn't fit all of the remaining people on and since there was only one remaining "leader" we couldn't take the bus. The leader wanted us to stay and wait for another bus to come by but we suggested that we just walk there since it was only about 15-20 min away. Brilliant. At the train station, we had to buy tickets -- the students didn't know this, mostly because no one ever seems to pay for public transportation in Rome but also because they'd been told that this was a free trip. The train itself was death and we had to ride it all the way to the very last stop. When we got to said stop and disembarked the trip leaders basically said, well, be free -- what they neglected to say was that the free beach that the students had been promised was actually two kilometers away and that you needed to pay to go to the beach that we'd been dropped off at. Everyone is not hoping that these will not be the people responsible for handling the weekend trips to Tuscany and Capri that Whitney will be taking with the school.

This beach was very different from those in Capri -- first off, it was cheaper. But it was an actual sand beach! Susan collected some sand, obviously, but this was black sand and as far as we can remember Susan doesn't have any black sand (for those of you who are wondering, my mother has sand from the coasts of Cohasset, California, Sydney, Australia; Perth, Australia; the Cape of Good Hope and probably more). I'm not sure that this sand was any more conducive to walking than the rocks in Capri were though because it was burning hot.

The water here was probably warmer than in Capri, but not nearly as clear. I could still see my feet, but it was murky. Another major difference were the waves! This beach had them while Capri had none and floating on your back over waves -- the amount of buoyancy was the same in both place -- is a lot of fun.

While my mom succeeded in finding sand, I was also able to find more shells! When we first got there, I was a little disappointed because my first search yielded very few results and what I did find looked very similar to what I'd found at Capri so there would be no way of telling them apart. This all changed when Whitney's friend, Mustache Will (named for his very distinctive handlebar mustache... although it isn't as good of a nickname as my Woodchuck Will) came out of the water with all sorts of shiny things. He said that you needed to walk out a little further and just feel around with your feet... easily enough done and I found all sorts of exciting things. These things are quite different from my shells from Capri as well -- my shells from Capri are mostly an assortment of colorful curly-q gastropod shells while the shells I found today were monstrous, metallic oyster shells. I found wayyy too many to take with me so after careful examination, I chose my favorites and let Whitney's friends fight over the rest.  Bringing these home is about as practical as bringing home the rocks from Capri, but I'm doing it and paperweights for everyone!

Also, despite my use of SPF 70, I am really dark now... So dark, in fact, that while I'm sitting in the lobby of our hotel to get a legitimate WIFI signal, I just had two different people come over to me and ask me if I speak English because they thought I was Italian and worked here.

What Dreams Are Made Of

If you think I've already made too many Lizzie McGuire references in this blog, you're probably right, but I'm not the least bit sorry for it.

Ya know that thing we've been doing so well, where we get up at dawn to beat the crowds at whatever sight we're going to see? That didn't work out for us today because we overslept. Luckily, however, the Coliseum is a big place so we didn't have a problem getting in.

When I say big, I mean it. (Although, because we nerded out and got the incredibly long and detailed audio guide, we did learn that the Coliseum's name is not a reference to it's colossal size). There was one major flaw in our visit and that was that I forgot to say "Sing to me, Paolo" and do the move until we'd already exited the Flavian Amphitheater, but better late than never, I guess.

After that, we visited the Roman Forum. Nothing funny happened on our way/while we were there unless you count getting hot and sweaty. If this breaks your musical theatre-loving heart, one funny thing to happen today was when we bought our tickets for the Coliseum and my mother told a woman that I was 23... I'm not 23 and I think my mom should know that because I'm under the belief that she was there when I was born. My mom was a bit disappointed by the Forum and I really don't think she appreciated me shouting "Where them Virgins at?" as we looked for the Temple of Vesta and the living quarters of the Vestal Virgins. The whole thing was sort of a bunch of mismatched "buildings" (mostly ruins and the occasional sign that declared where something used to be) and there were a lot of cobblestones to trip over. She did have me take a lot of pictures for her high school Latin teacher though, but I found this particularly strange since she isn't in touch with him and because he's probably dead.

After the Forum and its non-fun, we got lunch and then it was time for one of my favorite tourism activities ever -- the hop on/hop off bus!!! This was Susan's first hop on/hop off experience and I think she did very well (if you think that getting on and off one of these buses isn't hard, then you clearly haven't seen 99% of the people who try to do it).

We took the bus to the Trevi Fountain to make our wishes just like Lizzie McGuire did... except not really because there wasn't any water in the Fountain; there was scaffolding. Apparently the Fountain is under construction (which I'd heard in Venice, but was hoping that would no longer be the case). We could still see a lot of the Fountain though and were super impressed with what we could see. Also, because Rome is smart, they set of a little area of water where you could still throw in a coin and make a wish. I will say that Disney let me down a bit here because my wish for adventure was not immediately granted in the form of an Italian pop star.

We walked a few blocks from the Fountain to the Spanish Steps -- another one of the places visited by Ms. McGuire. I showed some restraint here by not doing a cartwheel as seen in a certain movie that shall remain nameless but has already been referenced like six times in this singular blog post.

After that, we got on our bus and found our way back to our hotel where we now await the arrival of one Ms. Whitney Jaffe who shall be dining with us this evening.

When (Back) In Rome

We spent our last few hours in Capri doing some last minute shopping before returning to the water. Instead of going back to Marina Piccola, we went to Punta Carena and the lighthouse. The lighthouse was a lighthouse and while it was important at some point during the history of Capri, we enjoyed it from afar and didn’t get a closer look. My mom said that Punta Carena was a beach; this is not true, it was a stretch of rocky coastline where you could jump straight into the crystal, clear water.  I would say that this would be a better hideout for mermaids/sirens than Marina Piccola, but I am neither Homer nor a Homer scholar so my opinion on the matter is moot. To get down to the water, you had to walk down the rocks and over the hoards of sunbathers, who all resembled lazy seals on the beach, and then you just dive right in (or take the ladder, which is what I did). Once again, it was impossible to tell how deep the water was and since I couldn’t simply walk in and get even the slightest bearings that way, I don’t think I’ll ever actually know.

After my mother was dragged away from her new dream home, we were on the ferry and off the island, headed back to Rome. Ferry to train, train to taxi and taxi to hotel. The most interesting (and by “interesting” I mean equal parts difficult and mortifying) was when we thought we wouldn’t make it on the train if we walked all of the way back to our compartment, so we got on in the 4^th cart and walked all of the way back to the 11^th.

We’re staying at the same hotel we stayed in the night before we dropped Whitney off – at least, we thought we were. When we got to the hotel, they inexplicably (or maybe it was explicable but we still haven’t mastered the language barrier) had us shuffle down the street to another hotel/apartment building and that is where we are now.

My mom is also making fun of my newfound FIFA addiction and subsequent withdrawal – when we first got back to Rome, we couldn’t find the game (France v. Germany) on our TV and I was distraught. I still think that soccer (or football… is it pretentious if I call it football now?) is a really awful sport, but I need my FIFA!!! I settled by channel surfing until I found Gilmore Girls in Italian, which eased the pain a little but after numerous attempts, we managed to find the right channel (it was #1…) and now I’m happily watching Brazil v. Columbia (Brazil just scored!)

The only way I'm getting my mother to agree to leave here is by promising that someday, I will buy her a house in Anacapri that will be full of the custom-made leather sandals she can't afford and a little Italian lady who will teach her how to speak the language and cook pasta. This is a promise that I fully intend on keeping by the way and I might throw in a motor boat so she won't have to take the ferry when she comes here.

Italy is seriously lacking in their 4th of July spirit. Just saying...