My Italian Summer - Rome, wondrously chaotic

If you are a fan of the classic black and white movie, the Roman Holiday, like I am, you would know how it feels like to have Rome always on your mind.

If you think Vienna airport is unorganized, then Rome's is absolutely crazy. It took me 3 hours to find my luggage in Rome international airport. The train platform was packed with people with puzzled look. I hopped on a train praying it would take me to the main terminal in the city, and I was lucky that day.

When i was dragging my little suit case through streets on my way to the hotel, I was tired, thirty, semi-lost and happy. I was surrounded by strange places filled with strange people speaking strange languages, and for the first time I didn't feel like a stranger. Rome was big, dirty and noisy. Streets were packed with homicidal and suicidal drivers and pedestrians. People were rude and loud. All of these kind of made me smile to myself and think, 'this is just like home'.

I am not a huge natural beauty appreciator. I mean I think they are beautiful, the mountains, the ocean, the trees and the beaches. Honestly I almost hate beaches. It relaxes me, and it bores me to death at the same time. I love cities, cultures, civilizations, people and their lives, languages, history, humanity.... I need to learn something I don't already know all the time to stay awake. Italy is the perfect place for me. Did I forget food? Oh yeah, food is very important to me. As a Chinese I am a natural food snob. The reason I never was temped enough to go to England is I haven't seen/heard one dish there that makes me droll. I mean who the heck eat Yorkshire pudding? the salty, deep fried nothingness! I didn't go to any fancy restaurants in Italy. I stayed alive with all the street food or things from the small shops. I believe I could be a vegetarian and still be happy in there. I find Italian food almost as comforting as Chinese food to me.

I had bought a pair of flat walking shoes before I took off for Europe. Somehow I still underestimated the walking part. I planned the trip so hellishly, so that I didn't need to take a taxi at all. For the 3 days I was in Rome, I walked more than all the walk together I had done in my entire life. At the end of the each day, I could not even stand on my feet. I had to soak them in the cold water to get the burning pain off. Most of the time I didn't really have a destination. I wandered through streets, sitting down on stone steps watching the fountains and people passing by. Rome unlike other famous tourist cities in Italy, like Florence or Vinnece, it has a life of its own. Too bad I didn't get to see much of it for staying so short.

I have to admit there was disappointment. I was kind of hoping to see more of the Roman's Rome, the Rome through Julius Caesar's eyes, the Rome that belonged to the Jupiter and Venus worshiping people, the civilization that had a strong Greek root, the pre-Christianity time. Most of it was gone. Anything beautiful has been turned into a church. When I heard that the the bronze that was used to built the gigantic altar in St. Peter's was 'borrowed' from the The Pantheon, 'the temple of all gods', I was almost angry, although now the Pantheon itself is a church. People have built all sorts of monuments with hope to reach eternity, but who has touched more souls and who would be remembered by most people for the longest time? Do people come here from all over the world year after year to see St. Peter's? the Pope? or Michelangelo?!

The high light of my days in Rome would be the time I spent licking my chocolate gelato sitting on top of the Spanish Steps wondering if I would spot a lost Princess in the warm sunset in this beautiful, romantic, ancient city.

Rome is so chaotically wondrous, and I wish it would never change a bit.



I am not going to show you any picture of any thing that is in any post cards...

My hotel key

My hotel washroom. When I was washing my hair, my elbows were actually outside the shower.

Resting in front of the Pantheon

Some random forgotten courtyard I accidentally walked in

Guess when Italian want to exit, they really mean it!



Before...

...After...

My Italian Summer - Vienna, the city of kings and queens

Due to some big changes in my life, I am going to try to finish the European posts ASAP! Just in case you are curious, yes, if everything goes well I will be a mom in July :P


When I arrived in Vienna, it was raining pretty hard. My friends met me at the airport. It was just the greatest to see them.

To be close to my friends, I stayed in a small B&B in the 10th district, which happened to be in the middle of a Turkish neighborhood. The B&B was located on a busy pedestrian street. Suffering from the jetlag I woke up everyday around 5am. I picked a different café every morning for some pastries and a cup of cappuccino (I wasn't ready for the espresso shot yet at that point :P). Venetians love their pastries. There are usually more than 50 different kind including more than 10 different type of croissants. The cappuccino cup is a bit bigger than the cup for coffee, but it is still miniature comparing to the coffee cups used in North America. This reminds me of a Chinese saying. Chinese tea cups are usually small, kind of like the Italian espresso size. For Chinese tea lovers, drinking one cup is for enjoyment, 2 cups is for thirst, and drinking 3 cups is called watering the donkey. The whole time I was in Europe I didn't see once, not even once, that someone was drinking coffee out of a paper cup and walking around. They somehow always manage to find the 5 minutes to enjoy a small cup of good coffee.

One morning I was sitting in a patio of a café across the street from a very modest looking community church. I saw people coming and going, lighting up candles and having their little chat with their God. I stepped in for a second. No matter how 'community' and modest it looked, like all old churches in Europe, it still gave me the feeling of well aged beauty, the heaviness of history or just time. According to the old folks sitting on the bench outside (another interesting thing is all the benches are always occupied in Vienna and in Italy. People enjoy sitting down in the sun and relax.), the church was more than 200 years old. See, this is the thing about Europe. They can casually kick some dirt off their shoes and tell you it is more than couple hundred years old. It isn't unlike China.

I didn't do much tourist things in Vienna because I wanted to spent as much time as possible with my friends. Vienna would not even be on my list if not for that. We still went to the 1st district though. That's where most of the historical sites are. I had to admit that I was severely over dosed on European churches on this trip, but if I had to make a pick, it would be the Gothic ones. They certainly captures the soul of religion. It definitely evoke the emotion of fear, respect and passion that sits heavily on your chest and takes your breath away no matter you are religious or not.

I managed to find couple of hours to go to a concert by the Mozart Orchestra in the Great Hall. I accidentally walked in the a Sand in the City party, drinking spritzer in the sunset. I heard beautiful music. I had great food. My eyes were getting blind for seeing so many splendid things. Still, something was missing. Don't get me wrong. Vienna is breathtakingly beautiful, elegant, and grandeur. I couldn't figure it out until I was in Italy. It went, 'ah, this is home...'.