Today was a blah kind of day. It was raining and cold outside, so I decided to skip my last seminar of the day to curl up in bed and take a nap. The gods must be on my side because I had an email waiting for me, letting me know that class had been cancelled anyway. I didn't go anywhere exciting this weekend. I planned on it, but it didn't happen. The result? A post about nothing, folks. Seriously, it's just a bunch of video of me talking, because I'm too tired to write. Have at it. To introduce the first video, you should know that it comes off the heel of another that I won't post. That video was interrupted by a certain Spaniard and ends with me shouting, "You know what...?" And goes to black.
Because I wasn't finished hanging out with the Spaniards, I have another video. We were supposed to be doing homework... yeah, we got a bit distracted.
Back to the blah day...
I feel horrible that this is the post I'm leaving you with. But like I said....
I know, I know! A whole week has gone by without an adventure. Not true, my friends. It's only been four days, and I've returned with a shiny new one.
Friday
My original plans were to go to the library on Friday, do all my homework, and then play on Saturday. Very rarely do things go according to plan; it's like the universe's joke on me that that particular proverbial saying is—who'da guessed—true.
It was raining and I did go to the library. It wasn't very productive and the WiFi connection was slow. Did Vicky get any work done? Of course she did. Was it enough? Hardly.
I went back to the flat around noon, and by then the weather was starting to clear up a bit. Lorena, being the lovely Spaniard that she is, woke up around one that afternoon and asked if I wanted to go to the Wallace Monument since it looked nice out.
Now originally we were going to go to the monument on Saturday, but here in Scotland you learn not to take good weather for granted.
I feel the need to warn you that this post will be very video heavy and worse—I seem to have forgotten what it was like to see The Blair Witch Project in the theater. If you get queasy at sucky camera work, I apologize ahead of time.
Where was I? Okay, Lorena and I decided to go to the monument a day sooner.
To understand the little bit of reluctance I had at going you should know that...
one does not simply go up to the Wallace Monument. You go up to the top of it.
Like the castles here, the Wallace Monument is on a steep hill. Blast you military strategists who've realized the importance of a high vantage point!
So we bought our tickets and walked up the footpath to the base of the monument.
A tired yet relieved Vicky.
I'm glad that I wasn't aware of how many steps it was to the top. There are rooms sectioned off on the way up, and you bet your knickers that we stopped in those rooms.
Me and the Wallace Sword
It's funny, I paid £6 to go up, and I was only able to stay up there for a few minutes. It was windy and chilly, and the crazy Spaniard next to me said that when it snowed in the winter, she wanted to come back. Back up the insane flight of stairs while the ground was slippery. Riiight. (Lorena, I love you, but you're nuts!) I do have video of it. My warning stands, and on looking back at it I've realized that all the places I've pointed out are a good notch to the right of where I claim.
At least I can say that I've climbed the 246 steps of the Wallace Monument. Oh, did I not mention a specific number? How do I know? The gift shop was selling a bunch of merchandise that proudly claimed said number. Lorena and I even have certificates with an official stamp and everything. Sure, I think the certificates are for kiddies, but dammit, I climbed it and I want recognition.
That night after I had worked on more homework and was watching YouTube videos, Lorena came to my room. She told me about a YouTuber I had never seen before, and I was introduced to the hilarity that is "My Drunk Kitchen." If you've never seen an episode, I urge you to do so because she's quite funny.
One of the episodes was of her making quesadillas. And, well, it inspired us to plan Midnight Quesadillas the next night.
Saturday
Before I can get to the antics that happened during Midnight Quesadillas, I must first show you how silly things can get in our flat. The next two videos happened nowhere near midnight.
That was around eight.
If you're wondering if Elise will be making an appearance in the videos in this post, she will not. She was invited to Midnight Quesadillas, but she already had plans or some such nonsense. And Dan... well, Dan was pointedly not invited. (Actually, I told him that unless he grew lady parts he couldn't be there.) Midnight Quesadillas was for flatmates only. The silliness you are about to witness wouldn't have happened if a guy was there, and, truthfully, there are more videos of this night that I've agreed not to post.
Remarkably, we never did get drunk. It was just good times and shenanigans with a handful of silly girls.
"Vicky, what the heck was that?"
Well, I won't try to explain the barking Spaniard, but I will try to explain what was going on. It was revealed to us that Dan and Elise had returned from their night out and were a bit sloshed, and someone got the brilliant idea to go bark at Dan's door. I don't know why. Even then, I don't think it made sense, but there you have it.
The kitchen table might have been pushed back at one point to make an impromptu dance floor. And the ladies of flat 2H might have danced with a silliness that only the comfort of privacy can offer. And a new dance move might have been created by Carissa. (It's called "The Penguin.")
Unfortunately, somebody was not pleased with our happiness. No. There is a tattletale in our midst. Our very own Mr. Heckles.
We don't know who it was that called the porter. I talked to Hector, one of Dan's flatmates, and he said that the noise didn't bother him. He'd figured, "Hey, it's a Saturday night."
We think it was the people downstairs. What really irks us is that we're the good girls, we do our homework, we're not rowdy or throw wild parties during the week, and we have one of the cleanest flats on Union Street. And the one time we let our hair down, somebody has to complain about it. It's a travesty, folks.
Hope this was somewhat entertaining. Until next time!
So, when we last left our heroes they were in Rome. They had spent the day at the Vatican and had been fortunate enough to have clear weather their first full day in the city. You with me? Good. Well, we decided we were going to try for pasta again... I honestly can't remember what I ordered and if I liked it. It must have been alright because I don't have a complaint, but it must have not been very memorable. Sadness. Anyway, that's not the part of dinner I wanted to tell you about. One: I saw a napkin dispenser that reminded me of my sister, Alicia. She collects Coca-Cola memorabilia. When she saw the picture, she said I should have taken it and left some money for it. 'Cause that would have gone over well with the Romans. Two: Dan got taken by a vendor again. While we were eating dinner a man selling roses came up to our table. Dan, the romantic that he is, asked how much for a rose. The man told him one euro and laid three roses in front of Elise and three in front of me. Now I'm sure you can see the awkwardness of Dan buying a woman who is not his girlfriend roses while in Rome. Because of the weirdness of the situation, I handed my three back to the vendor and told him that Dan wasn't buying me roses. He wasn't happy about it and said that both the women needed roses. At the same time, Dan was trying to tell him that he only wanted one. What did the guy do? He laid one in front of Elise and one in front of Vicky. I shrugged and put my flower with Elise's because it wasn't for me. Dan handed the guy a bill. Now we come to the lesson, folks. Don't be surprised if a street vendor, who's been haggling with you, doesn't give you the correct change. Oh! And Dan was upset that both roses were pink instead of the red ones that we had earlier.
The next day, after sleeping in our much larger and better suited room, we needed to make up for lost time. We had a lot on our agenda and the first was seeing the Trevi Fountain.
I was told that if you throw three coins over your right shoulder with your right hand and return to Rome, whatever love wish you made will come true. I just went online to see if it's true, and there happens to be different variations of this. Some say right hand over left shoulder, and some say that it just insures you a trip back to Rome. Another says that it's one coin for luck, two for love, and three for marriage. Let's see what the outcome for Vicky will be, shall we? While at the fountain, I finally found a bag that I liked. It has Audrey Hepburn on it. A bag with Audrey Hepburn at the Trevi Fountain. It's Roman Holiday, folks! It was fate. So after the fountain we went to the Colosseum. I got pictures and video.
Me at the Arch of Constantine near the Colosseum.
Since we were so close and our Roma Passes allowed us entry into another museum or historical site, we chose the Ruins. I didn't think I would like the Roman Forum as much as I did. It was more than broken structures and rocks and rubble. I could feel the history beneath my feet. There's no real way to describe feeling the aura, the presence, of a place so old and pivotal to mankind.
Temple of Saturn
Inside the Forum, there were some sculptures like this, and some of the original paintings that hung there.
I feel lucky that I was able to see and experience it, and it's something I hope to do again one day.
I know that I mentioned in my last post about everything falling apart in Rome. With the exception of the first night, everything looked and was wonderful... And then the walls came tumbling down. We had a morning flight. The scheduled time didn't matter. What did matter was that we were a little late leaving, had to walk back to the hotel, got lost on the way to the bus stop, waited for a bus that was 20 minutes late, and was forced to take a taxi that could have passed an Indy 500 contestant. Oh, and it was raining. We did make it to the airport on time. The only problem was the gate and the ticket desk were on opposite sides of the airport and we had to huff it to our gate. Not hoof, huff. And when I say "huff," I mean literally. I had an asthma attack making it to the gate. We were there on time. The plane was there, but they had shut the door and refused to let us board. I'm sure you can see where this is going. They told us we had to make new reservations, so we went all the way back to the ticket counter. They told us the next flight wouldn't leave until the next day and that it would cost €100 for a flight to London and another €100 from London to Glasgow. Then they told us we should try another airline. Three and a half hours we spent in lines trying to find a way back home. Since it was the end of our trip, it's not like we had bookoos of money to throw around. The woman at the British Air counter told us it would be over €600 just to fly into London that day. €600! It broke me, ladies and gentlemen. I sat against a vacant ticket counter and cried. I cried like a little baby and called my mom. Felt bad about waking her at two-something in the morning, but because she's awesome and loves me, she talked me down. She told me everything would be fine and to go to the restroom to wash my pretty face. I love my parents. And she was right! Dan found an airline that sold us tickets for €144 for that afternoon. But the hassle from missing our flight doesn't end there. It only took us to London. From there we had to find a way back to Stirling. We took a sleeper train. I didn't think we'd even get on that. First ticket counter told us to go to another station. We took the metro then walked there in the rain. (Sidenote: Our original plans were to spend the day in London. Notice the drastic difference.) The second counter at a new station told us it was too late to buy tickets from him and that they needed to be reserved. We ended up walking down to the platform and begging the conductor to let us on. He eventually caved and we were on our way back to Stirling. We arrived at 5 a.m. Monday morning. If you think I went to class that day, you're hilarious. So that was Rome. It's almost midnight, which means MIDNIGHT QUESADILLAS!!! Don't worry you'll hear all about it in my next post. Until then, mwauh!
"Why, Vicky, it's so good to hear from you again! It's been far too long." Thank you, guys. You are too kind. I do apologize for not updating sooner like I had planned. The trip was exhausting (three countries in nine days was extreme) and even if I wasn't tired by the end of the day, the hotel in Rome charged for WiFi. But I will talk more about Hotel Blah-blah-blah later. All you need to know is that I'm back and ready to tell you all about Italy. Or at least what my dull memory can recall. So gather around and listen to my tale.
Venice
We arrived in Venice in the afternoon. We had to take a water taxi to our hotel away from the main island of Venice to Lido. The hotel was very nice and after spending the previous couple of nights in a hostel we were happy. The bathroom... Well, what can I say without over-using the adjective "nice?" Oh, there was something that none of us had ever seen. It looked like a cross between a toilet and a sink. At first I thought it was a bidet, but having never seen one, I questioned myself then convinced myself it was something else. Elise asked what a bidet was to which Dan told her it was for women to clean their woman parts. I told him that men use it too, and then I told Elise that at least between the two sexes they should. We made our way downstairs and after the concierge told us that all the restaurants would be closed until dinner, we decided to go to the beach. Little did I know that I was playing in the Mediterranean Sea. Of course there's a video.
I was told that I laughed too much in this video and for no apparent reason. Of course there was a reason. The first reason was that I was at the beach! The second reason was that I noticed a rather large woman in a swimsuit and it caught me by surprise. I was laughing because I didn't want her to think I was a weird perv that liked to record large, swimsuit-clad women. So there! We collected some sea shells and wiped the sand from our feet before returning to the hotel. Now I'm going to admit something that is better left forgotten. I used the weird low sink thing to wash my feet. (I recently looked it up and discovered that it was in fact a bidet, and my feet have been thoroughly scrubbed clean since.) We went in search of a restaurant, and to be honest, I was a little disappointed with the lasagna I had. It wasn't fresh and Vicky wept on the inside. To make up for the disappointment of dinner we walked around until we found a gelato stand. Soooo delicious. I must have had gelato every day I was in Italy. All in all, Venice was beautiful but we had to leave the next morning to go to Florence.
Florence
Being that we were in Florence for such a short period of time, we had a list of things we wanted to see. Danial wanted to see the Duomo and I wanted to see some art. I really wanted to see Michelangelo's "David" but we didn't have enough time to stand in line. As it turns out I didn't need to because every street vendor sold refrigerator magnets of the famous "piece."
So in Florence we learned how persistent some of the vendors are. Poor Elise was nearly intimidated into buying a shirt that she knew her brother wouldn't like and Dan got taken for a couple of euros. What happened was we came across a man selling things. He placed in each of our hands a wooden animal. I shook my head and told him that I wasn't interested. He said, "No vendi. Gratis." I still wasn't feeling it, so I shook my head and tried to hand it back. The man would not take it back. Instead he told me it was for me and then tried to show me other things I might like to buy. I held out the tiny animal and said I couldn't take it because I wasn't going to buy anything. He told me again to keep it.
Readers, can you guess what I did? Of course you can. I shrugged and walked away with my free animal. Elise followed me, but Danial wasn't so lucky. The guy stopped him and said, "Three euro." And Dan paid him! So the lesson is, you need to walk away quickly when somebody gives you something for free. We went into a museum... let me go look for the brochure... Palazzo Medici-Riccardi or Medici Riccardi Palace. It had many wonderful paintings and I wish we could have spent a little longer there. Oh! It also had this guy...
I may not have gotten to see David, but I saw his cousin! By this time we had stopped in some shops and we already had bags from the other cities we visited, so I thought it best to look for another bag so I wouldn't be juggling so many. It's just a hassle when traveling. We got on our train and were über excited about Rome.
Rome
Rome. Yeah. Most of the problems on our trip happened in Rome. We arrived in Rome at about eleven at night. When we booked our hotel, we somehow thought it was right next to the Vatican. It was not. But it was a 10 minute walk to the metro that could take us to the Vatican. When we got into our room... I'm really trying to come up with a way that doesn't make me sound like a spoiled American. There is no way. Hotel Blah-blah-blah was a huge let down. We booked a triple room and it looked like they dug up an extra twin bed and stuck it with the two that were already in there. There wasn't any easy access to an outlet. (The one I did find didn't work and my phone died overnight.) Also, the restroom was a shower with a toilet in it. I was tired, hungry, and none to pleased with the accommodations. I decided it would be best for all involved if I had dinner before talking to the concierge about my concerns. He seemed like a nice enough man. When I asked about their WiFi, he told me that it would cost €5 for two hours and I would need to be in the lobby to use it. (Strike one.) When I asked about a nearby place to eat, he tried to give me directions. I explained to him that we were all tired and would most likely get mixed up and asked if he could write them down. Instead he walked me to the glass doors and repeated the same directions while pointing. (Strike two.) Determined to get something in my belly before I snapped, we headed out. And like I predicted, we got a little mixed up and had to re-trace our steps. It didn't help that he didn't mention any street names only something about a "main road." This so-called main road took us along a huge building surrounded by barbed-wire-topped brick walls. (Strike three!) I was thinking, "I know that man did not send me to walk alongside a prison at midnight." Fear not for our heroes, it was merely a military base. Still not too comforting, but it beat the alternative. The neighborhood was still pretty shady-looking. As you can guess, Vicky was not too happy. When we returned, the concierge saw us coming and made a hasty retreat, leaving his replacement to hear what he probably knew what was coming. I told Dan and Elise that I didn't want them at the counter with me. I couldn't stay calm with them there, and it would seem too confrontational with all three of us in his face. Plus those two have a tendency to talk over each other. Dan decided I needed physical support and that he would stay in the lobby where he could still glare at the poor guy I was talking to. In a calm voice I told him that I wasn't happy with my accommodations. I told him that I was expecting a four-star hotel— "Three-star," he interrupted. I forced a smile on my face but it reeked of "haughty derision." He knew what was coming. I told him everything I told you. I told him that I wasn't happy. I told him that if I wanted to stay in a hostel, I would have picked one out that would have made me happier in both price and accommodations. And finally I told him that not only was I disappointed, but I was disappointed that I would have to stay there for three nights. I didn't shout or raise my voice or swear at him, but he still had a hard time looking me in the eyes. The next morning we received a call from the front desk, asking if we wanted another room. I was taking my toilet shower and, on hearing Dan on the phone, I shouted yes. So it was a late start and we had a lot on our agenda. First was the Vatican. It took us five hours to tour the Vatican and museum. Well, this is what I experienced...
Elise, trying to photobomb, but she's too slow.
St. Peter's Basilica in the background.
Long hall full of statues and busts.
Found my muse in Rome.
Statue of Laocoön and His Sons was easily my favorite piece in the Vatican Museum.
Dalí
Bacon— didn't expect to see it there.
Me and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo's Last Judgment
Looking at The Hand of God.
They kept the Sistine Chapel at the very end of the tour, and it was well worth the wait. My neck is still a little sore from staring at the ceiling for so long, but it was awe-inspiring. If you're wondering why the pictures are so dark, it's because there was a guard saying that photography was not allowed. But it's not true if there's no proof, and I was truly there.
After that we made our way outside to St. Peter's Square...
I never did go to mass. Rome just tuckered me out.
I did go inside St. Peter's Basilica though, and boy was I lucky. Looky at what I found...
I studied this piece in my art history class. Never did I think I'd see it one day. Michelangelo's The Pieta is really magnificent. In my humble opinion, I think Michelangelo's sculptures are better than his paintings.
"What? Vicky, how can you say that? You just went on and on about the Sistine Chapel's ceiling!"
What can I say? I dig his sculptures more.
Right, so I'm tired, and this post already feels extremely long. I'll try to finish Italy tomorrow... or I just might talk about my visit to the Wallace Monument instead. Bwahahaha! Just kidding. Tomorrow, the conclusion of Italy!
