Man Versus Food

I missed yesterday's entry but it's really nothing too exciting. We woke up relatively early and got ready to head out. We had plans to go from Venice to Rome. We showered and signed out of our hostel before we ate. We were able to leave our luggage at the desk as we ate (we had done some groceries the day before) and once we were done breakfast we went out shopping and explored the streets once last time. I picked up some more gorgeous earrings (I now have a few very lovely glass earrings) and we did some more grocery shopping before we decided to go back to the hostel to collect our bags. We picked up some more lunch meats and Cory got more salami (this time it was spicy). We also bought more fresh fruit and some veggies. Once we packed our bags we left for the train station. 

The train ride was pretty uneventful. I fell asleep. Again. Cory read. We did however make sandwiches on this ride with some chicken we picked up and the salami. Some other tourists were looking at us like we were crazy but those sandwiches turned out to be pretty darn tasty. We had also bought these meringue things that we kept seeing everywhere. We would have been better off without them. They did not taste good at all. That was disappointing. But they did form a cave so that was kind of neat. And mine made my tongue turn green so that's always fun. 

Once we arrived in Rome we ventured towards a laundry place that I had gone to last year but they were closed. Instead we went to the hostel, settled in, and then found another laundry place that the hostel recommended. We left our clothes behind to be cleaned and went off in search of dinner. My cousin, Cheryl, had recommended this restaurant so Cory and I went to try it out. It was a little far and out of the way from where we were staying but it was relatively easy to reach. We showed up at 6.30 but they didn't open until 7.30. That was a little disappointing but we figured okay, we'll go kill some time. So we did. We found this little dollar store place and I found my Napoletane cards to play Scorpa! so that was fun. We managed to kill almost 30 minutes there as we pretty much stared at everything in the store. It was a neat store. Now, when we returned the restaurant was open. We weren't sure what we wanted, luckily, the waiter spoke English and explained what everything was on the menu and asked if we wanted an appetizer. He listed what there was and we had no clue what we wanted so he gave us a sampling of everything. We each had our own plate for that and it was delicious. There was some bruschetta, mozzarella balls, and some other things that I don't remember the name but it was good. I ordered some ravioli and I can't remember what Cory ate but it was delicious. It was some kind of meat and salad. He said that the food was possibility some of the best food he's had in his life. When we asked for our bills the waiter (and I think owner) asked if we wanted desert we said no thank-you because we had to rush to get our laundry (the place closed at 10pm and it was already past 8.30) so he gave us a sampling of something that was simply divine. It was some kind of mousse-y custard. It was light and fluffy and not overly sweet. It was just perfect. Absolutely perfect. As we ate the waiter also chatted with us and asked where we were from, what we planned on doing. He grabbed a map and gave us a small, simply itinerary of things to do while in Rome. He then let us keep the map. It was an amazingly good detailed map. All the street names were listed. It has been very, very useful. After dinner we picked up our laundry and basically went to bed shortly after. 

On Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early to be able to head out by 8 am so we could make it to the Vatican before 9 am. There was a little line but it didn't take long. We were able to go through the Vatican museum and see the Sistine Chapel by 11am. I feel the need to mention at this point that it is very, very cold in Rome right now. Obviously not as cold as back home but it's still very cold. 

Anyway, so after we saw the Vatican we went to this little restaurant for lunch because they had a great price for their menu. We went there in part to try and escape from the cold but that failed miserably since the doors to the place was open the entire time. When we left it almost felt warmer outside because it was so cold inside. That gave me a new perspective to what life might have been like in the past when it was a little more difficult to warm up buildings. 

Once we left the restaurant we saw St. Peter's Basilica from the outside. We didn't want to pay 14 euros each to go inside so we made our way to Sant'Angelo's Castle, which was turned into a national museum. We glanced at it from the outside before making our way towards the Pantheon. We did go inside there for a few minutes before we made our way to the Piazza Di Popolo. We were semi-harassed by those guys giving flowers ( I believe I wrote about that on my last trip) and made our way through the plaza to get to the metro station. 

We decided to do the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain tomorrow since our meeting point for one of the tours is at the Trevi fountain and instead took the metro to Piramide to see the random pyramid. It's under repair (as most things seem to be right now) but Cory was able to see the restored top) and the random gate from a castle or fortified wall. We then carried on and went to San Paolo's Basilica. This was the one that glowed when the sun set. We were able to go inside and it was absolutely gorgeous. 

After leaving San Paolo we made our way back to Termini where we did some more grocery shopping. We picked up some more star cookies (they seem to make everything out of this here, cereal, candy bars, cake bars, etc), some more bread, some croissants for breakfast, fruits (strange little red berries, grapes, and bananas), some juice, yogurt, and I found fig jelly. I picked up two containers to bring that home. I love fig jelly and it's so difficult to find. Unless I'm just not looking hard enough. Either way, fig jelly. I'm so excited. Once we accomplished our grocery shopping we went back to the hostel to play some Scorpa and to try and warm up. That worked mildly well. 

After a while of trying to warm up in the hostel we decided to go out for dinner. We went to some shawarma/donair  place since it smelled sooo good. I ordered a large one and really wished I ordered a medium and Cory got a medium. He was nice enough to finish it mine since it was way too big and really spicy. Even he noticed the spice to it. It was quite tasty. After we ate the owner came out with some clementines and offered us one. It was less random than the guy at the ticket booth at the Castle in Naples who offered us a slice of the orange he was eating. Unlike in Naples we accepted the orange this time and it was sooo good. It was just what my mouth needed after eating that spicy food. We were going to attempt the Spanish steps after dinner but since it was too cold we came running back to the hostel instead to try to warm up. That also mildly worked. I'm still frozen but that's life in a hostel. I'm not sure how Cory thought it was too warm to sleep with the blanket when I'm debating on asking for a second blanket to use tonight for when I sleep. I won't because it did eventually warm up last night. I just need to stop being a wimp. 

Tomorrow should be good. We have our tour of the Coloseum planned and the Catacombs of Rome. 

My brother's a bird...

First, I'm going to mention that I won't be uploading photos while in Venice. The internet is simply too slow. It took nearly 20 minutes to upload 50% of one image. That's just too much time. Batch uploads will have to wait until Rome. If I remember correctly they have a slightly quicker internet speed. 

Now if I remember correctly I left off at the train ride... We arrived in Venice pretty early in the afternoon, however seeing as the sun starts to set at around 4 it didn't feel like it. By the time we settled into our new dorm it was starting to get dark but that didn't stop us from venturing forth into the world. 

Our first impression of Venice? This city is absolutely breath-taking and gorgeous. It's just amazing to see the streets as rivers. There are no cars or vehicles of any kind on the streets here. It makes the town very quiet but in a good way. We went from one extreme to the other between Napoli and here. In Napoli cars constantly honked to get by and over here you can hear the water moving in the streets. It's just so.... Wow. We found our hostel with relative ease (after crossing a wrong bridge first and quickly realizing our mistake we turned around and tried again). The hostel is really, really nice. They have real beds instead of bunk beds in the rooms which is a nice treat for a hostel. I'm not too fussy for the pillows but beggars can't be choosers. I put some clothing under it and it works well enough. When we walk out of our hostel there's what looks like a church in front of it and to the right there's one of the water roads. It's really cool. 

After settling in Cory and I went out for food and to familiarizing ourselves with the streets a little first. We walked back down the Main Street and bought some fresh fruit. A bunch of grapes and two oranges. We're saving the oranges for breakfast tomorrow but we devoured the grapes. They were the biggest, juicest, bestest tasting grapes we have ever had. They were so sweet it was like biting into delicious grape juice every time. Those went rather quickly and before we knew it we were searching for a restaurant for dinner. We found this little pizzeria and went there. The pizza was better in Napoli. That is also judging by the two places we went there and the one place we went here. The pizza was more like what we're used to at home fused with what it was like in Napoli. After dinner we got lost while trying to find the Rialto Bridge. We went for dinner in the least touristy area of town so it was filled with tiny winding streets and water roads. We would walk a bit and then have to turn around because of the water road. We did eventually find the bridge. On our way back we stopped for a tiny bit of gelato. I tried a different flavor, as did Cory. I preferred my strawberry one from Napoli.  Once we were done the gelato we decided to head back and crash for the evening. 

We woke up bright and early on Saturday with the intention of going to Murano for the morning but it was raining. A lot. Instead we went to Saint Mark's Square to see the Basilica, the clock tower, and Dodge's Palace. The Basilica was... it was just as Cory put it earlier today "there is no single word in the English language that can describe how beautiful and breath taking this building is" and it's true. The ceiling was covered in mosaic designs. It glowed golden and there were various colors with religious images around. It was a sight to see for sure. Definitely worth the entrance fee. We were also able to go onto the balcony that faces the square and clock tower. We took some nice pictures and asked a Spanish couple to take a picture of the two of us up there. (Now there's proof we were both in Venice together) After simply staring out into the wonders that is the city we decided to go up the clock tower. It's a total of 100 meters and there's an elevator that takes you up 60 meters. It was really, really cold up there and very windy but it was sooo worth it. We were able to see across the entire city from that viewpoint. It was just spectacular. I thought the view from the Empire State Building was nice this was something else with equal, if not, more beauty. 

We did try to go into Dodge's Palace but the price was too much and they had a sign saying that there was a bunch of areas that was closed for maintenance. It didn't seem worth the amount to see a tiny fraction of it. Maybe next time I'm in Venice. The outside of the building is wonderful and quite lovely to see it. 

We were also there in Saint Marks Square during Aqua Alta, otherwise known in English as High Tide. We noticed the high tide first thing in the morning when we left our hostel since the water level had gone up about 2 feet in the road (but there was still dry land to walk on) and as we walked through some of the familiar streets we noticed that the water was higher. When we approached Saint Marks Square we went out for breakfast first (which was amazing. Best pastry. Ever. and it had Nutella. Who knew anything with nutella could taste so wonderfully amazing) Anyway, we saw these dorky boot covers that are popular with tourists and thought "Sure, why not?" so we each bought one, put them on and touristed up. In between the sights we waded through the flooded square with our boot covers which are hit or miss. Cory's kept his feet relatively dry and mine did at first until they stopped working. I had soaking wet feet for the rest of the day (which is a little funny that the person coming down with the cold got the wet feet - it's all good, my shoes are almost dry now). We also decided that those ponchos were just fail so we bought cheap umbrellas. Mine broke with the sheer force of the wind. There goes that. I'm just going to bundle up and hope for the best tomorrow. :) After all, it's just water. It dries up. Right?

So after the fun events of Saint Marks Square and the flooding we ventured forth for lunch. We found this upper class yet still relatively cheap restaurant and had lunch there. This was in part to escape the rain but mostly because we were hungry. I had 4 cheese gnocci and Cory had a seafood spaghetti. He had mussels/oysters and squid for the first time today in this dish and he said he loved it. They even left the shells on for the mussles/oysters so that was an experience for him. We had desert there too. Cory had tiramisu and I had some apple cake. It reminded me of a German apple cake. It was tasty. We also had some bruschetta as an appetizer. It was sooo good. Chunks of garlic were mixed in with the tomatos. Absolutely delicious. After lunch the water was nice enough to point out where we were on the map (we'd walked way further than we thought) and gave us directions on how to get back to Rialto. From there we easily made it back to the hostel where we dried off and I taught Cory how to play Scorpa! (I started to teach him in the restaurant) we played that for a while before decided to venture out once more for food. 

For dinner we had a wide variety of random stuff. We went to a local grocery store and picked up some stuff. We got a loaf of bread, some nutella, sliced chicken, salami, banana yogurt, mixed berries, and some chocolate chip muffin things, a bag of lettuce, Oh, and disposable mini spoons. We saved some of the muffins for breakfast and the nutella is for breakfast too with those oranges. But we did have the yogurt. Best yogurt ever. So creamy and delicious. The sandwiches were decent, considering there was no butter or mayo or anything. Just the bread, meat, and lettuce. Which the bread is so tiny it's adorable, and thin. It's incredibly, wonderfully thing. Just how bread oughta be. Supper was good for what it was. An assortment of random foods brought together by our hunger. 

Tomorrow will we attempt to do Murano. Rain or shine. We also have our Gondola tour booked. I hope it's not raining for that. 

As I'm getting ready to post this I realize that I forgot why the title is named the way it is... I swear it was Cory's idea. We were looking at some shops on the way to dinner on Friday and with one of them we wanted to peer into the shop. The glass was so clean it looked like there was no glass and Cory smacked his head into it. Just like a bird does when it flies into a window. The shop keeper poked her head around and looked at us concerned as Cory worked on cleaning the window. We apologized and everyone laughed about it. I have to admit that had Cory not done that with the glass I might have done that instead. It was freaky clean glass.