"He's just fulfilling every man's fantasy - to sleep with a younger woman"
"Every man's fantasy?" I arched my eyebrows.
Mike and I slept on separate beds that night.
Or words to that effect.
L'origine de Bert
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
July trip: 8/7 - Rome-Naples (Part 2)
July trip
8/7 - Rome-Naples (Part 2)
I had some spare time before we were due to take the train to Naples, so I went to the Etruscan museum. Very irritatingly, it was all the way in, at the end of the Villa Borghese. Though this meant that I could take the tram back.
Busto - Ritratto virile
As you can tell, most of the item labels were in Italian.
Antefissa A. Testa femminile, 530-20 BC
Urna Cineraria a forna di kline, Necropolis di monte abatone
I was trying to take the Sposi sarcophagus, but a woman told me that photography was not allowed, pointing at the CCTV camera above me. This was very weird. For one, the museum charged adults €4 and EU students €2 - in my previous experience, photography was only banned in expensive (so that they could reap even more supernormal profit) museums that were well-traficked (there's a reason why this was at the end of the park). Also, no one was going to buy Etruscan postcards. Most pertinently, nowhere in the museum did I see signs anywhere in the museum, nor at the entrance, saying that photography was not permitted. As such, I was very indignant. Crazy Italians. Maybe she had some superstition about the CCTV camera, believing that if I took a photograph, it would stop working.
There was a floor with discourses on Etruscan linguistics - grammar, word borrowing from Greek and such. Heavy stuff.
More than half the museum was closed for refurbishment. Gah.
Helmet in Italian is "Elmo".
Mosaic on the floor - the museum is housed in a converted villa.
Specchio-s, 5th century AD
High relief of Temple A, Pyrgi
Amusingly, there were Etruscan fakes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, due to new museums and collector interest, fakes were made - mostly hybrid pastiches. They did have a real fake though, and it was even artifically tempered so it'd look old/weathered.
Terracotta sarcophagus, 175-50 BC, Tuscany
The pottery was almost all either Greek or Greek-style; even the Archaic and Geometric styled pottery looked Greek.
Faliscan red-figure kylike (Drinking cup). The saying translates as: "Today I will drink wine, tomorrow I will do without"
Bronze Strigil from Palestrina hill. The largest I've ever seen.
Palestrina hill, Lastrine di Rivestimento d'avorio con guerrieri
Cista ficoroni opera dell'artista novios plautins, 350-30 BC
Palestrina hill, Lastrine di rivestimento d'avorio con figura femminile con tirso, armato, Hermes ed armato
There were a lot of grave goods. I wanted to see grave frescos, but I guess I'll have to visit either the actual graves or the museums in Tuscany for them.
Cartiere necropolis, Cratere a calice etrusco a figure russe. Produzione vulcente. 360 BC.
Apollo di Veia
There was a guard here, so I cunningly positioned myself such that the doorway concealed myself from him and snapped.
Luckily, the trams from the Etruscan museum were working. This sort of strike is okay, since the trams and buses were still working - the strike was major enough to be annoying and for the workers' grievances to be noticed, but not bad enough to shut the whole city down (also being on a Saturday and not for the entire day).
Even if the ticket machines on buses/trams are spoilt you still need a valid ticket. Wth?! Yet, on the tram down I noticed that almost no one validated their tickets. Was this due to the European tradition of not paying for transport, or did they have monthly tickets? But then there were too many of them for it to be totally due to monthly tickets.
Another Cock Bus
I realised I'd forgotten to take the cliched Colosseum shot, and so went back for it:
I was amused that half the people in Roman costume around the Colosseum and similar places (though I didn't see Popes around the Vatican) preying on tourists for photo-taking purposes have visible tattoos.
Maybe Italian rail has the trains late on purpose, so people will have to pay fees to change their ticket reservations. Maybe this is how they keep fares low.
Amazingly, we arrived in Naples only 3 minutes late. We wanted to buy tickets to our hostel, but the damn ticket machines both swallowed our money (€1 and €0,40), so we just walked through the open gates - no one would catch us at this hour anyway.
The receptionist at our hostel looked young and was very blur (a short while after we entered our room, she ran in and asked for our passports), and as such reminded us of Screwed Up Girl.
The first entry of my July secret diaries is out. If you can't access it, contact me.
8/7 - Rome-Naples (Part 2)
I had some spare time before we were due to take the train to Naples, so I went to the Etruscan museum. Very irritatingly, it was all the way in, at the end of the Villa Borghese. Though this meant that I could take the tram back.
Busto - Ritratto virile
As you can tell, most of the item labels were in Italian.
Antefissa A. Testa femminile, 530-20 BC
Urna Cineraria a forna di kline, Necropolis di monte abatone
I was trying to take the Sposi sarcophagus, but a woman told me that photography was not allowed, pointing at the CCTV camera above me. This was very weird. For one, the museum charged adults €4 and EU students €2 - in my previous experience, photography was only banned in expensive (so that they could reap even more supernormal profit) museums that were well-traficked (there's a reason why this was at the end of the park). Also, no one was going to buy Etruscan postcards. Most pertinently, nowhere in the museum did I see signs anywhere in the museum, nor at the entrance, saying that photography was not permitted. As such, I was very indignant. Crazy Italians. Maybe she had some superstition about the CCTV camera, believing that if I took a photograph, it would stop working.
There was a floor with discourses on Etruscan linguistics - grammar, word borrowing from Greek and such. Heavy stuff.
More than half the museum was closed for refurbishment. Gah.
Helmet in Italian is "Elmo".
Mosaic on the floor - the museum is housed in a converted villa.
Specchio-s, 5th century AD
High relief of Temple A, Pyrgi
Amusingly, there were Etruscan fakes. In the 18th and 19th centuries, due to new museums and collector interest, fakes were made - mostly hybrid pastiches. They did have a real fake though, and it was even artifically tempered so it'd look old/weathered.
Terracotta sarcophagus, 175-50 BC, Tuscany
The pottery was almost all either Greek or Greek-style; even the Archaic and Geometric styled pottery looked Greek.
Faliscan red-figure kylike (Drinking cup). The saying translates as: "Today I will drink wine, tomorrow I will do without"
Bronze Strigil from Palestrina hill. The largest I've ever seen.
Palestrina hill, Lastrine di Rivestimento d'avorio con guerrieri
Cista ficoroni opera dell'artista novios plautins, 350-30 BC
Palestrina hill, Lastrine di rivestimento d'avorio con figura femminile con tirso, armato, Hermes ed armato
There were a lot of grave goods. I wanted to see grave frescos, but I guess I'll have to visit either the actual graves or the museums in Tuscany for them.
Cartiere necropolis, Cratere a calice etrusco a figure russe. Produzione vulcente. 360 BC.
Apollo di Veia
There was a guard here, so I cunningly positioned myself such that the doorway concealed myself from him and snapped.
Luckily, the trams from the Etruscan museum were working. This sort of strike is okay, since the trams and buses were still working - the strike was major enough to be annoying and for the workers' grievances to be noticed, but not bad enough to shut the whole city down (also being on a Saturday and not for the entire day).
Even if the ticket machines on buses/trams are spoilt you still need a valid ticket. Wth?! Yet, on the tram down I noticed that almost no one validated their tickets. Was this due to the European tradition of not paying for transport, or did they have monthly tickets? But then there were too many of them for it to be totally due to monthly tickets.
Another Cock Bus
I realised I'd forgotten to take the cliched Colosseum shot, and so went back for it:
I was amused that half the people in Roman costume around the Colosseum and similar places (though I didn't see Popes around the Vatican) preying on tourists for photo-taking purposes have visible tattoos.
Maybe Italian rail has the trains late on purpose, so people will have to pay fees to change their ticket reservations. Maybe this is how they keep fares low.
Amazingly, we arrived in Naples only 3 minutes late. We wanted to buy tickets to our hostel, but the damn ticket machines both swallowed our money (€1 and €0,40), so we just walked through the open gates - no one would catch us at this hour anyway.
The receptionist at our hostel looked young and was very blur (a short while after we entered our room, she ran in and asked for our passports), and as such reminded us of Screwed Up Girl.
The first entry of my July secret diaries is out. If you can't access it, contact me.
Post ID: 115618025873808368
July trip: 8/7 - Rome-Naples (Part 1)
July trip
8/7 - Rome-Naples (Part 1)
One good thing about traveling with the Cock is that he takes ownership of his cockitude. He knows and does not deny it, and doesn't mind being exposed.
Some people complained that Florence was very touristed/touristy. I said that was a good thing, since it meant they'd speak English.
The previous day, Andrew and I had been very pissed off because San Giovanni metro had been closed at 10:08pm. A talk with out room mates the previous night had revealed that there would be a metro strike this day, which probably accounted for the early closure the night before. I thus resolved to walk to the Galleria Borghese; I could've taken the bus, but I wasn't sure of arrival and traveling times, which would mean I'd have to pad my travel time such that it'd probably be faster to walk - it took me 1 hr 45 mins in the end.
The Galleria Borghese is a famous Roman art museum situated, together with many others, in a huge public part in the northern part of Rome. This also means that traveling to the individual museums inside is a bitch, and there was a train and people renting 2 person pedal carts (where people sat side by side under a canopy and pedalled).
There was a map in the Villa Borghese showing where wireless hotspots in the park were. Wah.
Galleria Borghese
The stupid Galleria Borghese had a 2 hour time limit, and a supposed 30 min limit for the picture gallery. This on top of a high admission fee (€12,50 including a €2 reservation fee which you have to pay since it's de facto reservatie verplicht), and the threat that tickets not collected 30 mins before your slot can be cancelled. Further, you're not allowed to bring in anything - even cameras and handphones are supposed to be checked in at the cloakroom; I think I saw a woman's small handbag being rejected at the entrance - I saw one or two men surreptitiously snapping away though. Heh heh. Unfortunately, I hadn't been pissed off sufficiently by greedy and contemptible Italian museums at this point yet, so I didn't try playing any games, nor taking any pictures with my phone.
One translator of an information sheet was called "Laura Carbonara". Heh.
There were no labels on or below the items. Instead, there were information sheets but it was hard to tell what was what because it wasn't clear which walls were being referred to (the information sheets talked about Wall I, Wall II etc), and though pictorial representations of the outlines of paintings, sculptures and other artefacts were drawn on the information sheets, the walls did not always conform to their representations (maybe items had been moved), and many walls were hard to tell apart, at least on first glance. The order of item descriptions also wasn't specified, and wasn't always consistent, contributing to the amount of time spent hunting for items. The items had Roman numerals on them to indicate the catalogue numbers, but it was still frustrating hunting, not least since some were blurry or smudged and others were small.
After a while I gave up matching items with information sheet descriptions because I was getting confused and a headache to boot from spinning around looking at walls; I suspect it was a devious ploy to make people come back again, since even though I didn't buy the audioguide, take a tour, read all the information sheets (which included information on the history of the rooms/museum) or match all items to their descriptions, I still barely finished the whole place in 2 hours (and that by not giving every item the attention it deserved).
The paintings were labelled, but not in English! Luckily I saw some of them in Amsterdam during the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition. At least the light was stronger here.
I gave most of the sculpture only a cursory look, since sculpture could be seen everywhere. All of it was extremely restored or reconstructed, unless the place had the only intact Classical sculpture in the world (I think not), but not all the item descriptions said they had been restored. The same held for the mosaics, all of which were labelled 'frammento di mosaico' despite apparently being in excellent condition. Looking closely at some of the sculptures, I could see seams where new marble had been added - much more restoration than the information sheets let on. Restoration is usually good, but there's such a thing as too much, especially if you don't admit it, its extent or where it was undertaken.
There was a very intriguing small statue of a man with a Phrygian cap, with his left hand across his waist, his right elbow resting on his left hand and his right wrist inclined so his palm faced his face. I would've imagined this to be a modern pose. Maybe it was the damn Renaissance restorers.
There was a Raphael exhibition where some of his paintings were displayed. His portraits look very medieval in style. The exhibition was annoying though - a sign on the first floor said the exhibition continued on the upper floor, but the staircase on that storey was shut; I had to go to the basement to access the upper floor - the staircase was assessible only from the basement or the rear exterior of the building (probably another devious plot so people won't find the Pinacoteca, which is housed on the upper floor).
Canova's Paolina Borghese in the guise of Venus Victrix was a wonder to behold. The marble was carved so skilfully (the folds and the all) that it looked like a real sofa mattress.
In the Pinacoteca, they'd reassembled the original altarpiece of Raphael's Entombment/Deposition (which'd been stolen by Cardinal Borghese, tsk). For their sake, I hope they took a picture of this reassembly and displayed it in the individual museums after the end of the exhibition.
At 10:53am (my slot was the first: 9-11am) they started closing the doors and chasing people out of the place. What a horrible museum.
Dog in fountain
A Umberto I - statue in Villa Borghese
The building looks too good to be a modern art museum
8/7 - Rome-Naples (Part 1)
One good thing about traveling with the Cock is that he takes ownership of his cockitude. He knows and does not deny it, and doesn't mind being exposed.
Some people complained that Florence was very touristed/touristy. I said that was a good thing, since it meant they'd speak English.
The previous day, Andrew and I had been very pissed off because San Giovanni metro had been closed at 10:08pm. A talk with out room mates the previous night had revealed that there would be a metro strike this day, which probably accounted for the early closure the night before. I thus resolved to walk to the Galleria Borghese; I could've taken the bus, but I wasn't sure of arrival and traveling times, which would mean I'd have to pad my travel time such that it'd probably be faster to walk - it took me 1 hr 45 mins in the end.
The Galleria Borghese is a famous Roman art museum situated, together with many others, in a huge public part in the northern part of Rome. This also means that traveling to the individual museums inside is a bitch, and there was a train and people renting 2 person pedal carts (where people sat side by side under a canopy and pedalled).
There was a map in the Villa Borghese showing where wireless hotspots in the park were. Wah.
Galleria Borghese
The stupid Galleria Borghese had a 2 hour time limit, and a supposed 30 min limit for the picture gallery. This on top of a high admission fee (€12,50 including a €2 reservation fee which you have to pay since it's de facto reservatie verplicht), and the threat that tickets not collected 30 mins before your slot can be cancelled. Further, you're not allowed to bring in anything - even cameras and handphones are supposed to be checked in at the cloakroom; I think I saw a woman's small handbag being rejected at the entrance - I saw one or two men surreptitiously snapping away though. Heh heh. Unfortunately, I hadn't been pissed off sufficiently by greedy and contemptible Italian museums at this point yet, so I didn't try playing any games, nor taking any pictures with my phone.
One translator of an information sheet was called "Laura Carbonara". Heh.
There were no labels on or below the items. Instead, there were information sheets but it was hard to tell what was what because it wasn't clear which walls were being referred to (the information sheets talked about Wall I, Wall II etc), and though pictorial representations of the outlines of paintings, sculptures and other artefacts were drawn on the information sheets, the walls did not always conform to their representations (maybe items had been moved), and many walls were hard to tell apart, at least on first glance. The order of item descriptions also wasn't specified, and wasn't always consistent, contributing to the amount of time spent hunting for items. The items had Roman numerals on them to indicate the catalogue numbers, but it was still frustrating hunting, not least since some were blurry or smudged and others were small.
After a while I gave up matching items with information sheet descriptions because I was getting confused and a headache to boot from spinning around looking at walls; I suspect it was a devious ploy to make people come back again, since even though I didn't buy the audioguide, take a tour, read all the information sheets (which included information on the history of the rooms/museum) or match all items to their descriptions, I still barely finished the whole place in 2 hours (and that by not giving every item the attention it deserved).
The paintings were labelled, but not in English! Luckily I saw some of them in Amsterdam during the Rembrandt-Caravaggio exhibition. At least the light was stronger here.
I gave most of the sculpture only a cursory look, since sculpture could be seen everywhere. All of it was extremely restored or reconstructed, unless the place had the only intact Classical sculpture in the world (I think not), but not all the item descriptions said they had been restored. The same held for the mosaics, all of which were labelled 'frammento di mosaico' despite apparently being in excellent condition. Looking closely at some of the sculptures, I could see seams where new marble had been added - much more restoration than the information sheets let on. Restoration is usually good, but there's such a thing as too much, especially if you don't admit it, its extent or where it was undertaken.
There was a very intriguing small statue of a man with a Phrygian cap, with his left hand across his waist, his right elbow resting on his left hand and his right wrist inclined so his palm faced his face. I would've imagined this to be a modern pose. Maybe it was the damn Renaissance restorers.
There was a Raphael exhibition where some of his paintings were displayed. His portraits look very medieval in style. The exhibition was annoying though - a sign on the first floor said the exhibition continued on the upper floor, but the staircase on that storey was shut; I had to go to the basement to access the upper floor - the staircase was assessible only from the basement or the rear exterior of the building (probably another devious plot so people won't find the Pinacoteca, which is housed on the upper floor).
Canova's Paolina Borghese in the guise of Venus Victrix was a wonder to behold. The marble was carved so skilfully (the folds and the all) that it looked like a real sofa mattress.
In the Pinacoteca, they'd reassembled the original altarpiece of Raphael's Entombment/Deposition (which'd been stolen by Cardinal Borghese, tsk). For their sake, I hope they took a picture of this reassembly and displayed it in the individual museums after the end of the exhibition.
At 10:53am (my slot was the first: 9-11am) they started closing the doors and chasing people out of the place. What a horrible museum.
Dog in fountain
A Umberto I - statue in Villa Borghese
The building looks too good to be a modern art museum
Post ID: 115607933087741647
Monday, August 21, 2006
"Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty." - Leo Rosten
***
Males express affection for same-sex friends by putting them down. Females express affection for same-sex friends by exalting them.
Someone: u mean males are honest and females are superficial and pretentious?
Someone else: yep, it all boils down to the theory that men are more childish, and women, good actors
Someone (2): hmm... makes sense
although this would need more rigorous testing before this hypothesis can be proven
sample group of 50 guys & 50 girls
observation
haha
then give up halfway, fake results and do a report showing how your fake data supports the hypothesis. :D
the typical nus way.
Someone else (2): well the statement's only true to maybe a 40% extent
[Ed: My estimate is about 60%]
***
Me: anyway the tactic to pass if you're a girl is to wear a short skirt/low neckline top
Someone: i tried that before !!!
it didn;t work la..
i wore off shoulder top and jeans..n i failed ! today jus t shirt nad jeans..
Me:off shoulder is not revealing enough
oh I know
you need the short skirt
so he will look down
for the top he can still see how you drive
Someone: my fren's who;s pretty and popular wiht guys also wore one of her shortest skirts and ..she failed..
hmmm..
but i dun have nice thighs leh..
=(
Me: nevermind
they're deprived old men
Someone: haha..my instructor said to treat em like father figures
haiya,,ok la, next time i will try a low cut top...didn;t spend so much tinkin bout my outfit this time..
Me: tell me if it works ;)
Someone: so how did you pass your test? wore a lowcut top as well ? =)
Someone else: my brother is buying a macbook
i.... speechless....
i have failed as a sister...
Me: are you going to ask the question that everyone who has me on IM asks at one point or another?
Someone: what question?
are you gay?
***
Males express affection for same-sex friends by putting them down. Females express affection for same-sex friends by exalting them.
Someone: u mean males are honest and females are superficial and pretentious?
Someone else: yep, it all boils down to the theory that men are more childish, and women, good actors
Someone (2): hmm... makes sense
although this would need more rigorous testing before this hypothesis can be proven
sample group of 50 guys & 50 girls
observation
haha
then give up halfway, fake results and do a report showing how your fake data supports the hypothesis. :D
the typical nus way.
Someone else (2): well the statement's only true to maybe a 40% extent
[Ed: My estimate is about 60%]
***
Me: anyway the tactic to pass if you're a girl is to wear a short skirt/low neckline top
Someone: i tried that before !!!
it didn;t work la..
i wore off shoulder top and jeans..n i failed ! today jus t shirt nad jeans..
Me:off shoulder is not revealing enough
oh I know
you need the short skirt
so he will look down
for the top he can still see how you drive
Someone: my fren's who;s pretty and popular wiht guys also wore one of her shortest skirts and ..she failed..
hmmm..
but i dun have nice thighs leh..
=(
Me: nevermind
they're deprived old men
Someone: haha..my instructor said to treat em like father figures
haiya,,ok la, next time i will try a low cut top...didn;t spend so much tinkin bout my outfit this time..
Me: tell me if it works ;)
Someone: so how did you pass your test? wore a lowcut top as well ? =)
Someone else: my brother is buying a macbook
i.... speechless....
i have failed as a sister...
Me: are you going to ask the question that everyone who has me on IM asks at one point or another?
Someone: what question?
are you gay?
Post ID: 115617359257260929
With the addition of Utrecht quotes, I've passed the 10,000 mark on Improve Your English!
Post ID: 115609852974460455
Sunday, August 20, 2006
July trip: 7/7 - Rome (Part 2)
July trip
7/7 - Rome (Part 2)
I was tired and so decided to do some data collection on the proportion of air-conditioned trains on Line A of the Rome Metro. Starting at 3pm: No aircon, aircon, no aircon, no aircon, aircon, no aircon, no aircon. How depressing.
Spanish Steps
Fountain in front of the Steps
Cock Bus
Pillar in Piazza di Spagna
Fontana di Trevi
This time the free software cocked up and I managed to tweak the other one.
If you throw one coin into the fountain, you will return to Rome. If you throw two coins into it, you will fall in love there. I threw three coins inside, so I'm curious what will happen. Maybe it will be like the time I did everything at Suntec City's Fountain of Wealth in reverse, and then got bad luck a few months later.
A shop near the fountain sold soft drinks for €1 a can and €1,30 a bottle. This was probably the cheapest non-supermarket price in Rome, and at a prime spot too.
I saw a police cock car. Maybe the police in Rome are cock.
Temple of Hadrian
Pantheon
Dome
Altar
Dome
The stitching software got confused so the stich is screwed up. I tried attaching control points manually but it was very hard and didn't work.
My stitching software has problems reading EXIF data fromsome of the shots. I wonder if it's the fault of the French idiot again.
An information panel informed me that 22 holes in the floor (2 of which I found) drained rainwater. Which made me wonder why I'd never wondered how the place was drained given that there was a hole in the roof.
I found the request for respecting the sanctity of the place galling, since they showed no respect to the pagans when they took over and reconverted it. This is especially so since everyone knows it as the Pantheon and not Santa Maria ad Martyres. This is the same reason why a request for respect in the Ayasofya mosque (at least before 1935) would've been equally laughable.
Obelisk outside Pantheon
The nicest fountain/water dispenser I saw in Rome, and maybe the whole of Italy (maybe even Europe, though water dispensers were scarce in other parts of it).
Even the drain covers in Rome are stamped "SPQR".
Throughout Rome, I kept seeing a street performer dressed as a golden mummy. I wonder if it was always the same guy. In Piazza Navona there was also Charlie Chaplin and a Grim Reaper (with sickle).
Fountain in Piazza Navona
Fontana dei Fiumi (Fountain of the rivers - 1 per quarter of the world)
2 of the rivers
2 of the rivers
Fountain in Piazza Navona
Really cock car, and the odd controls
Sant'Antonio dei Portghesi
Run down building beside Sant'Antonio dei Portghesi
The guidebook claimed that Italian trains were efficient. Wth - which is exactly how anyone who has ever taken an Italian train would respond. The majority of trains were delayed - I saw one delayed by 2 hrs and one by 4 hrs; hell, there was even a column either for "ritardo" (delay) or "effective [departure/arrival] time" on the signboards displaying train arrival/departure times, instead of this information being under the remarks column.
someone claimed that I should've gotten a rail pass because this would save me countless time in queues, since the ticket machines were only for short distances. Obviously this information was very outdated (1993 or whatever), for when I went to Italy I found that the queues for counters were very long compared to those for machines, which could process ticket orders for all domestic travel. Further, Italian rail is relatively cheap (because it's slow, lousy and always late), and the more expensive trains (most decent ones) require you to queue to reserve a seat anyway, which together conspire to defeat the point of a rail pass (for some reason reservations can't be made with the machine).
For some reason, all Italian train tickets need to be validated, even the dated ones. Maybe this is just a ploy to fine people for nothing. Or perhaps it's because the trains are delayed so often that people miss the trains for which they have reservations all the time and have to change them.
For dinner, Andrew and I went to a place recommended not only be someone, but by our guestbook. We had a plate of antipasti, which we filled ourselves from the bar. It was not bad, though some of the items were obviously better than others. The spaghetti vongole had a very strong taste, having the most garlic and herbs of any vongole I've ever had (too much garlic, in fact, and I think a lot of butter too - it was too rich; we noticed another woman who ordered vongole but wasn't eating it). The lobster linguine was alright, but it couldn't compare to the one in Crete. For our second courses, we had Fried Calamari and Prawns and Roast Pheasant. The calamari was the worst I'd ever had - very very tough - as bad as plastic, the toughest I'd ever eaten. Chewing it was like chewing rubber or chewing gum, and no matter how much I chewed I couldn't break most of the calamari rings down. The pheasant was nice, but it was literally swimming in olive oil. The flesh was also extremely tender, due to its probably being given an olive oil enema. The best bang for our buck that we had in Rome was pizza, followed by Chinese food.
7/7 - Rome (Part 2)
I was tired and so decided to do some data collection on the proportion of air-conditioned trains on Line A of the Rome Metro. Starting at 3pm: No aircon, aircon, no aircon, no aircon, aircon, no aircon, no aircon. How depressing.
Spanish Steps
Fountain in front of the Steps
Cock Bus
Pillar in Piazza di Spagna
Fontana di Trevi
This time the free software cocked up and I managed to tweak the other one.
If you throw one coin into the fountain, you will return to Rome. If you throw two coins into it, you will fall in love there. I threw three coins inside, so I'm curious what will happen. Maybe it will be like the time I did everything at Suntec City's Fountain of Wealth in reverse, and then got bad luck a few months later.
A shop near the fountain sold soft drinks for €1 a can and €1,30 a bottle. This was probably the cheapest non-supermarket price in Rome, and at a prime spot too.
I saw a police cock car. Maybe the police in Rome are cock.
Temple of Hadrian
Pantheon
Dome
Altar
Dome
The stitching software got confused so the stich is screwed up. I tried attaching control points manually but it was very hard and didn't work.
My stitching software has problems reading EXIF data fromsome of the shots. I wonder if it's the fault of the French idiot again.
An information panel informed me that 22 holes in the floor (2 of which I found) drained rainwater. Which made me wonder why I'd never wondered how the place was drained given that there was a hole in the roof.
I found the request for respecting the sanctity of the place galling, since they showed no respect to the pagans when they took over and reconverted it. This is especially so since everyone knows it as the Pantheon and not Santa Maria ad Martyres. This is the same reason why a request for respect in the Ayasofya mosque (at least before 1935) would've been equally laughable.
Obelisk outside Pantheon
The nicest fountain/water dispenser I saw in Rome, and maybe the whole of Italy (maybe even Europe, though water dispensers were scarce in other parts of it).
Even the drain covers in Rome are stamped "SPQR".
Throughout Rome, I kept seeing a street performer dressed as a golden mummy. I wonder if it was always the same guy. In Piazza Navona there was also Charlie Chaplin and a Grim Reaper (with sickle).
Fountain in Piazza Navona
Fontana dei Fiumi (Fountain of the rivers - 1 per quarter of the world)
2 of the rivers
2 of the rivers
Fountain in Piazza Navona
Really cock car, and the odd controls
Sant'Antonio dei Portghesi
Run down building beside Sant'Antonio dei Portghesi
The guidebook claimed that Italian trains were efficient. Wth - which is exactly how anyone who has ever taken an Italian train would respond. The majority of trains were delayed - I saw one delayed by 2 hrs and one by 4 hrs; hell, there was even a column either for "ritardo" (delay) or "effective [departure/arrival] time" on the signboards displaying train arrival/departure times, instead of this information being under the remarks column.
someone claimed that I should've gotten a rail pass because this would save me countless time in queues, since the ticket machines were only for short distances. Obviously this information was very outdated (1993 or whatever), for when I went to Italy I found that the queues for counters were very long compared to those for machines, which could process ticket orders for all domestic travel. Further, Italian rail is relatively cheap (because it's slow, lousy and always late), and the more expensive trains (most decent ones) require you to queue to reserve a seat anyway, which together conspire to defeat the point of a rail pass (for some reason reservations can't be made with the machine).
For some reason, all Italian train tickets need to be validated, even the dated ones. Maybe this is just a ploy to fine people for nothing. Or perhaps it's because the trains are delayed so often that people miss the trains for which they have reservations all the time and have to change them.
For dinner, Andrew and I went to a place recommended not only be someone, but by our guestbook. We had a plate of antipasti, which we filled ourselves from the bar. It was not bad, though some of the items were obviously better than others. The spaghetti vongole had a very strong taste, having the most garlic and herbs of any vongole I've ever had (too much garlic, in fact, and I think a lot of butter too - it was too rich; we noticed another woman who ordered vongole but wasn't eating it). The lobster linguine was alright, but it couldn't compare to the one in Crete. For our second courses, we had Fried Calamari and Prawns and Roast Pheasant. The calamari was the worst I'd ever had - very very tough - as bad as plastic, the toughest I'd ever eaten. Chewing it was like chewing rubber or chewing gum, and no matter how much I chewed I couldn't break most of the calamari rings down. The pheasant was nice, but it was literally swimming in olive oil. The flesh was also extremely tender, due to its probably being given an olive oil enema. The best bang for our buck that we had in Rome was pizza, followed by Chinese food.
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