When in Rome..

Sorry about the delay. Won't happen again. (blatant lie, obviously) But I'll work on it, I promise.

SO, after London the next stop was Rome, the controlled chaos including way too many churches, vespas and pizza. At the airport, which turned out to be over 100 km's outside Rome (thanks again, Ryanair), everything went surprisingly well. People spoke either English or Spanish, they knew where the buses departed from, and no luggage was lost. Obviously that seemed too good to be true...and it was.

But then again, that is exactly what makes all this so much fun: NOTHING is going to turn out like you plan it, no matter how much you try, so what you need to do is just adjust your attitude a little bit, laugh at yourself and enjoy the ride. (For more advice on how to live your life, please do read the Mary Scmich column from '97 that Baz Luhrman later made into a relatively famous song.)

And back to Rome..
While the Americans had booked their hostel in time, Katja and I went for the more adventurous "book as late as you can-style" and ended up in this hole that called itself a hostel. Let me give you some visual aids to paint a more vivid picture:

The breakfast. (from left to right) Pear juice, that had lumps and tasted a bit like rancid milk; Chocolate cake-thingy, that had more unnatural substances than Austrian Gatorade; "Peach" muffin-cake-bread contraption, which, I'm sure, had no such fruit in them, or any other fruit for that matter; Apple, that was almost normal; and my personal favorite, the Easter egg!! The wrapping had a Christmas theme and the chocolate was from 1998. De-friggin'-licious!

Bunk beds! YEY! Army-flashbacks.. And the cherry on the cake: a fan/lamp from from the movie Boogie Nights. We were even told that our room had a view of the Colosseum, but apparently it was blocked by some buildings, so it wasn't really a VIEW of the Colosseum, per se.

The corridor just outside our room. One of those "picture speaks more than a 1000 words" moments isn't it? There was also a hole in the floor.

The first night Katja and I went out for dinner and, once again, met a legendary random dude. The waiter, who bore a striking resemblance of Luigi, Mario's co-plumber from countless Nintendo games. He would call us his friends, congratulate me on amazing choices from the menu, and most importantly, sing bits of classic Broadway tunes. I swear, this guy was the long lost brother of the man in the van of the London story. The pizza was fantastic, too, so we went back there a couple of days later, only to find all of what I just described, plus Supper Mario, the chef. Priceless. The night got a fittingly nostalgic end when we saw:

Notice Kataya's infinitely cool 80's hang with the bended knee. (Perfected by Matthew McConaughey in Fast times at Ridgemont High, and later by Brian the dog in Family Guy, together with the legendary quote: "That's what I like about high school girls, I get older, they stay the same age..")

Next day: POPE STORE!!! It's true, I found it, I'm awesome.


My question to you is: How do they stay in business? Is there a minority of people in Rome who go around blessing people just for giggles, or is the "Papa" too holy for wearing the same piece of clothing twice?

The colosseum was..well, colossal, gargantuan, gigantic. Consult Mr. Felin for 14 more synonyms, of which at least 4 only used in the Bible. Not even my frantically flexed tricep could block it.

The Colosseum was also rather remarkable.

We managed to get ourselves on a tour with a guide who had as much sarcasm as she had information and cool details. Rarely has learning been so much fun. For instance, did you know that when regular gladiator battles started getting boring, the Romans built this huge complicated system that directed water from the aqueducts and filled the arena, making it possible to arrange naval battles! I also re-enacted Russell Crowe's entrance to the arena, because it's awesome. (Sadly Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Felix legions, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, never really existed, but the film is still one of my all-time favorites.)

Apart from the Colosseum, we also saw EVERYTHING else in Rome, as we walked around for several days, but I'm not going to bore you with random sights and their history.

Instead, I'm going to tell you about three interesting personalities. The first one is not human. She was the canine version of Ronaldinho, or Totti since we were in Italy. No one really knew where her owner was, or if she actually had one, but no one seemed to care. Even the cops who were patrolling (i.e. standing around, adjusting their berets, smoking, stroking their lover-beards, and hitting on passers-by) the square followed the dog's every move. The dog was so uncanny that everyone just stared and laughed in disbelief for several minutes. I bet one could have stolen at least 15 wallets without anyone noticing anything. It's just too bad that dogs aren't allowed in national teams, she would have made an excellent addition to the Finnish roster, and maybe we'd WIN a game every once in a while.

The second person is the Scotsman. He was also a tour guide, a hilarious man in his late twenties, who educated us on the quite colorful history of the Palatine Hill, where there once stood a luxurious palace, until it was stolen, cut up to pieces and shipped to the Vatican. This was a part of his hysterical rant against the Catholic church with all its numerous screw-ups, that I wish I had caught on tape. Also, the word "purple" comes from "purpura", which is Latin for a specific type of coloured marble, that no longer exists. (Also where the Finnish word "purppura" comes from, incidentally.) The ladies, of course, didn't hear any of this because they were concentrating more on undressing him with their eyes. And call me crazy, but I think I heard Kataya purr a little when he said the word "unfortunately" in his Scottish accent. Something for everyone, I guess.

Thirdly, there was Jerry. He was a teacher from England who we bumped into at a bar. We were waiting for the final of the NCAA Final Four to begin and we got to talking. He turned out to be one of the more fascinating people that I've met in a long time. He was thirty-something, smart and civilized, but still one of the craziest dudes in Europe, in a good way. For example, he was going to a small village outside Milan to stay with his cousins fiancée's friend's place. He had no clue how long he was going to be there, or what he would do after it. He had not reserved a hotel room for himself in Rome. He was going to talk to some people, have som drinks, and then either he'd crash at the apartment of some friendly stranger, or he'd walk the streets and check out the sunrise. I mean who does that at 35? He might have also had commitment issues, a pending jail sentence or the Mafia after him, but still. He was one of those people who open your eyes and remind that it's never too late. I'm not saying 35 is old, but you know what I mean.

And there's a pyramid in Rome, in case you didn't know.

Next up, Barcelona.
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