Back From Across The Pond: family

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LAST DAY!

June 03, 2012

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cultural experience

Venice

May 30, 2012

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cultural experience

6 AM kinda actually happened. We ate breakfast at the hotel - it was light and excellent. They had delicious bread, coffee and cereal. Then we embarked on our way to the Colosseum. Interestingly, that is not its real name. While Colosseum actually means roughly "big building," the landmark's actual name is Flavian Ampitheater, named after the Flavian dynasty that made it in 80 AD. We decided to get a guided tour of the Colesseum, Palantine Hill and The Roman Forum. The tour was really informative and worthwhile. Some other stuff I learned - the word arena means sand, not stage. They call the stage "arena" because they used to cover it with sand every few hours to remove all the dirt, blood and sweat (and other things) that resulted from the happenings. Also, the gladiators were not criminals, but good honest men who were trained to fight. There was a whole host of other interesting things we learned from our tour guide.

Then we went on to the Palantine Hill and The Roman Forum. Our tour guide was British, so I got to hear the accent again after a while. The stories about the different emperors were quite fascinating, as was the concept of the 6 Vestial Virgins. We climbed all the way to the top of the hill and got a great panoramic view of the city at the top.

By this time we were all pretty tired. We made our way back to the area near the hotel and found a nice little ristorante to eat lunch at. We had some lasagna, pizza and pesto linguine. We roamed like nomads along a few roads looking at the stalls then headed back. I don't know what happened then, but I do remember waking up approximately 2 hours later to everybody being sound asleep. We planned to go to the Spanish Steps, but decided to keep it for another day when we would already be in that area. Instead we planned for the Vatican (tomorrow) and had dinner at a cute little place. We had two vegetarian pasta dishes and tried some tiramisu that the lady actually made on the spot. It was quite different from the kind we are used to, but delicious all the same.

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cultural experience

Jet Setting Again

May 25, 2012

Now I'm thinking maybe I will designate this blog to talk about my travels... Mom says she would like to take two trips a year, so hopefully there will be lots to post on here; if not, I'll find something else to talk about ;)

Today we packed all day and headed out in the evening to cross the pond. I was not looking forward to another overseas trip, but I was pleasantly surprised with the flight. Lufthansa is certainly our favorite new airline. The staff was extremely friendly, polite and hospitable. The food was pretty good and so was the entertainment selection (although I could not get through 10 minutes of the new Sherlock Holmes before falling asleep). What's more, they were giving out free alchohol. Who has ever heard of that? Not me... On the way to London last August, they were charging for everything... But yes, spirits, wine etc. were complementary and the air hostesses were eager to keep giving out more. Wow!

We had a layover in Frankfurt that went by with some more reading of The Wall Street Journal and some discussion of the Euro and the impending elections in Greece. Finally we got to Rome, took the bus and got to our hotel. The hotel was nice, with a friendly staff. We then headed to the Trevi Fountain. Radhika was quick to keep reminding everybody that this was the "pick-pocket capital of the world" so we prepared accordingly. The Fountain is even more beautiful at night and very crowded. This time there were not guys singing Hindi love songs and trying to get ladies to accept their roses as "gifts" though, instead they startled people with flying light up toys. :)

Then we looked for the ristorante that my London babies and I went to when we were in Rome after our cruise. I really wanted Radhika to try the meatballs. Eventually we found it and sat down to eat. We got the meatballs and some pizza. The meatballs were good, but sadly the experience was not as awesome as the first time. We got home and conked out, with the plan to wake up at 6 AM to start our adventure...