9:08 PM >> EURO2007 >> Monday, April 2
Day 2, or "I'm falling apart already."
Rome, IT
|  Our first full day in Europe. HURRAH, the Kloths have landed. Unfortunately, Corp. Kloth had bought all new, tiny-little, below-the-ankle socks from Old Navy before the trip. So of course this very first day, we had barely made it to the Trevi Fountain (that's it to the right) before I had blisters forming on both of my Achilles tendons. How poetic. I mean other than the fact that Achilles was Greek, not Roman. So began my quest to find moleskin in Europe. |  There were birds all over Rome. This is a seagull because they even have palm trees there. Rome was so crowded that today a pigeon flew into my face. But he recovered and sped off to Vatican City. This was after we had returned from The Vatican ourselves, where we had gone to see the Sistine Chapel. On the way there I accidentally broke into The Vatican. I turned down a street that went through a gate that I thought would take me to the Sistine Chapel. 30 feet later I was stopped by a member of the Swiss Guard.
"May I help you?"
"I'm going to the Sistine Chapel."
"No--go back out, turn left, and get in the line." |  So it turned out you have to go through the entire Vatican Museum before you get to see the SC. That kind of ruins the experience because by the time you get to the SC, you've seen so many f-ing biblical paintings that the wonder of seeing a painting of Christian God is lost. (It also doesn't help if you're an Atheist to begin with.) There were some cool paintings of Jesus that were done totally Nine Inch Nails style, which I just now realized is super-ironic. |  I had an actual, for-real phobia of dogs until we got our puppy three years ago. But Meredith is never scared of any animals. |  The SC is pretty cool. It would be much more breathtaking if there weren't 350 other people in there talking (it is quite echoey in there) and taking photos of the ceiling even though you're not allowed. But it still was really neat to see the brain as well as the kidney, and I even think I saw some lungs up there. But the coolest part was that from a distance, you couldn't tell where the ceiling ended and the walls began.
|  Almost as soon as we left the SC, I was run down from behind by a dude on a bike. Seriously--we were on a super-crowded sidewalk, of course (it was even spilling into the street), and I had the International "Bike Approaching!" Warning (a jingle of a bell), but before I had time to make another move, I felt like a giant slug was trying to crawl up my leg but was too heavy so instead just pushed me down. I turned around to see a wild-eyed old man with a nice Doc-style haircut running me over. I managed to escape, but I had to walk around the rest of Europe with a stain on my jeans.
|  After my run-down we stopped at an Irish pub for beers and a plate of meat and cheeses (How I love Europe!!), so we were full early, but we got reservations at some "American style" restaurant because M already missed American food. They served cheeseburgers, which M got, and let me just say, a cheeseburger in Italy pretty much sucks. I had lamb, which rocked. (We still didn't know how to order.) Then we went down to a bar area and felt like we were back home and in college, which was weird. |  The coolest thing I saw all day were these ancient maps on display in the Vatican Museum that were so old there was nothing drawn for the Western side of North America, and even Africa wasn't drawn quite right. Just looking at them and seeing concrete proof that there was a time when people didn't know exactly what the world looked like was amazing. Mind Melt 93.4% |
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