Eurotrip Day 12: A different kind of Christmas

Waking up this morning, it didn't feel like Christmas at all. I'd actually slept so badly because i kept waking up in coughing fits. I'm not feeling unwell at all, but I have a dry and very irritating cough. I guess that's something you don't think about regarding public transportation (coming from a country where we don't use it much). It's so easy to pass germs around and pick them up.

It wasn't until Nicole surprised me with a necklace that she'd brought along from South Africa that I remembered that it was in fact Christmas morning. Fate had a Christmas gift for me too in the form of working wifi! I used it to upload a few more photographs and to make a few Skype calls to wish everyone I'd left at home a Merry Christmas.

There were lots of hugs and well wishes between all of us about the hotel this morning, and Joey had surprised us by decorating the coach with tinsel and Christmas stockings. Jen gave us each little goodie bags filled with chocolates, little perfume vials from Nice and little Pinocchio keychains from Rome, which was a really nice surprise.

We also exchanged out Secret Santa gifts on the bus. I've been given a pot coaster (can't remember what they're called but you put them between your table and a hot pot to protect the table) in the shape of the Eiffel Tower, which was great because I never had the time to buy myself anything Paris. I still don't know who gave it to me, but I love it! Nicole, very amusingly, was given the CD of the Italian singer that had been all over her that night in Florence. Well, I found it far more funny than she did. She'll always have a piece of him with her now!

For the remainder of the morning, we got to watch a movie called Step Brothers with Will Ferrel in it, which was quite funny. There is a short bit in the middle that takes place over Christmas time, and that's about as festive as the film got. Jen says she tried to download a Christmas movie, but her computer is being "grinchy."

The service station we stopped at was also being grinchy because it didn't have any wifi for me. #SadFace. It did have a Burger King, though, so Nicole and I got to try that for the first time ever in the form of a very unconventional Christmas lunch. There were little christmasy cardboard crowns about with the Burger King logo on it, so I donned one during lunch to give it an air of festivity.

On the bus ride after lunch, we played a game called Gondola of Love to get into the mood for Venice. Basically, two people on the bus were secretly chosen as the the bachelor and bachelorette that would be competed for. They would write down questions that the three people Jen had picked would creatively answer, then winners from both genders would be chosen for the Gondola of Love!

Letters to Juliet was the next movie that we watched, whileI spent the time catching up my blogging. Jen said we'd had a "fart movie" for the boys, so we'd have a romantic movie for the girls. Before reaching Venice, we had another stop at an old Italian village that is still surrounded by Medieval walls. It was very misty there, so there wasn't much view over the lake, but they had festively decorated it with lights and a pretty Christmas tree.

Since it was Christmas Day, there wasn't much open, but we did find a busy little restaurant selling gelato at the heart of the town. I spent a good 10 minutes there queuing for a toilet because the establishment only had one for men and women to share. After that, I hunted Nicole and Kaylee down, who were busy checking out the lake. Kaylee threw some of her ice cream cone to the ducks to get them into the photograph after she'd chased them away when she'd felt the temperature of the water.

Nicole wasn't really in much mood to look around. She'd seen a shop selling shoes that was open and really wanted to go check it out, to the point where it seemed that she might get moody if she didn't. We headed over there and she found a cute pair of heels at half price to replace the pair that she'd damaged that night in Nice. She was in a pretty good mood again after that!

After that, we headed straight to the hotel. There was only one elevator that could only take two people and their bags at a time, so we spent a lot of time queuing for it. Our bags are far too bulky and heavy to easily carry up the stairs the way that people with rucksack bags are so easily able to do.

Our rooms were a big disappointment. Besides being dusty, causing me to sneeze constantly while I was in them, the bathroom is stupidly organised. It turns out that our toilet was actually inside our shower for some random reason. It is really the dumbest arrangement that I've ever seen.

The worst thing about the hotel, however, has been that the wifi had to be paid for and wasn't free. That set me back R95 just for my iPad. I'd have to pay again if I wanted to connect my cellphone as well. Then, my iPad threatened not to connect at all. After an hour of me struggling with it, I gave up and threatened to cry myself to sleep. Just as someone offered to buy my unique password from me, it finally connected and I was able to spend the rest of the evening uploading blogs and photos.

Due to the unreasonably high expense of the wifi, I intended to use as much of the data up as I could. I ran all of my application updates, loaded all of my photographs onto dropbox, and intended to make a skype call - with video, if I could manage it! I'm not sure why the crappiest hotels we have stayed at are the ones that also charge you for wifi. Our hotel in Germany will also be charging us for wifi, so that has me kinda worried...

Dinner wasn't too bad at least, consisting of penne Napolitano, chicken and chips, and creme caramel. It just wasn't very Christmasy, if that makes sense? It's funny, ever since we have been in Europe, it has felt so much like the festive season, but on Christmas Day itself, it has felt like any other day we've had here.

After dinner, I was happy to head straight to my bedroom to use up my wifi, while everyone else went off to play Battle of the Sexes with another Contiki group that was staying at our hotel. Nicole and I watched David Copperfield on tv for a while, which had been dubbed into Italian. Before long, though, Nicole opted to go to sleep instead. I stayed up to max out my expensive wifi, sneezing and still coughing all the way, but eventually gave up and went to bed as well. We had a big day in Venice ahead of us.

Eurotrip Day 11: One seriously jam-packed day in Rome

We got to sleep in a bit the next morning and enjoyed a really great breakfast spread. The fabulous coffee machine was waiting there for us along with the juice machine that dispensed grapefruit juice rather than orange juice, which I don't think anyone other than me enjoyed. At breakfast, I finally experienced the joyous moment where my wifi connected, so I took the opportunity to upload a few more photographs.

We'd be using public transportation for the day, and Jen issued us day passes for Rome's public transportation system. We walked a short way together to a bus stop down the street that took us to the Metro station. We took one subway train to the Termini station, where we were to change lines and take Rome's other line (there are only two in the city).

The platform was super crowded when our train arrived, but we all jammed into it when it arrived anyway. Jen even almost lost one of her shoes in the squeeze for the train. I was pushed right up against some guy I didn't even know. We were crammed in so hard that, when the train stopped, you didn't even need to hold onto anything to avoid falling over because there was nowhere to fall!

Coming from a country where we are so used to enjoying a lot of personal space, it was incredibly awkward to be squashed in so tightly. Jen had told us to be wary of anyone who gets inappropriately close to us because they may be trying to pickpocket us. In the train, Nicole jokingly asked how we could distinguish inappropriately close pickpocketers in that situation!

Luckily, the train emptied a little bit more at each station, so we weren't too crowded for too long. However, when we finally arrived at the Vatican, it became evident that we'd have more crowds to contend with, if the queue of people along the wall of the country that forms the boundary between Italy and the Vatican was anything to go by.

Luckily, because we had a guide and pre-booked tickets, we got to skip the crowds. We were each given radios and an earphone (only for one ear) so that we'd be able to hear our guide without him having to shout over the crowds. He had a little yellow rag on a stick so we'd be able to spot him from a distance if we got distracted while taking photos and whatnot.

There were LOTS of things to take photos of. The Vatican is gorgeous. Everywhere you look, there are stunning statues and pictures and columns and things that look super pretty in photographs. Goodness, but it was crowded in there. It was hard to maneuver beyond the other groups that were there. The staircase leading down to the Sixtine Chapel was especially crowded. To ensure that we kept following him, our guide kept saying to us, "Contiki! Follow the right guide! Not the left guide!"

The Sixtine Chapel is phenomenal, despite being smaller than I remember. Our guide explained to us that the size of the figures in the painting grow from one end of the fresco to the other so that if you are standing at the entrance, the figures at the end appear to be the same size as those closest to you, "and that is the genius of Michelangelo." At one place, one of the figures has a missing face where some of the paint dropped off during an earthquake, smashing into dust.

It seems that if nature isn't destroying great works of art, crazy people are. The statue of David was moved indoors because he had been vandalised. Similarly, in St Peter's, Michelangelo's statue of Mary cradling the body of Jesus is now behind glass because someone had attacked it with a hammer. The church is the largest Christian church in the world. It's so big that you can't even comprehend its size even when you are in it. Everything in Rome is larger than life, and that clearly includes the crowds.

I was somewhat relieved when we finally made our way to the colonnade, where we finally had room to breath. On the way, we saw the Swiss guards that protect the Pope. He'd be presenting a church service the next day in celebration of Christmas, which is what the crowds were in town for. I bought and posted a souvenir postcard with special Vatican stamps before we left to commemorate my visit.

It was about lunch time by the time we were finally finished, so Jen took us to a place where we could get takeaway pizza, which was the best fast food pizza I've ever had. The base was super crispy, just the way I like it. It was really cheap, too, which was even better. We sat on the steps outside the shop to enjoy it and give our feet a much needed break while we planned the rest of our day.

We decided to check out the Spanish Stairs, which were quite easy to find after a much less crowded Metro ride. The steps look amazing in the Roman postcard I'd bought saying "Kisses from Rome," but they are far less impressive in real life. We walked up them, anyway, and headed to find the bones of the Capuchin Monks that have apparently been decorated in a more interesting manner than those in the catacombs of France.

It was quite an uphill walk to get there, and then we got a little lost because the streets aren't marked exceptionally well. They actully carve the street names into the buildings, so they can't just change the names of streets the way we do in our country. Nicole and Bianca, one of the other South Africans (the one who bought an incredibly hot pair of Gucci heels in Florence) had very tired feet.

Her friend, Anandi, and I went ahead to see if we could find the place before sending everyone on a wild goose chase. We actually had to go into a hotel to get directions. It turned out that the church with the bones was right across the street, but it had already closed by the time we got there. Admitting defeat, we went to a coffee shop nearby where would appreciate the facade of the church (mostly, all we could see were steps leading up to it) and take advantage of their wifi.

Although we were close to the Metro, neither of the two lines in Rome head into central Rome, which is where we wanted to head to for dinner. None of us were keen on walking, so we needed to take a bus. The only tricky thing is that the bus stops aren't marked on the map, making it very difficult to tell which bus we would need to take to get there. I stopped a random guy that had just come out of the Metro for help, and he very kindly told me which bus we needed to take and where to get off.

In the bus, it is hard to tell what stop you are at or which one is coming up because it isn't displayed anywhere. Maybe the voice over the loudspeakers tells you, but we didn't understand anything she was saying. In order to ensure that we were headed in the right direction, I followed the bus' route through the streets on my map and actually checked the names of the stops as we passed them.

Eventually, Nicole and the other South Africans spotted the Pantheon, so we got off at the next stop and made our way towards it. There, another kind Italian lady explained to us how we could get back to our hotel later. Meanwhile, we enjoyed some more of the gelato that we'd had the night before with Jen and browsed the Christmas markets a little again as well.

We were getting pretty hungry at that point, though, so we headed towards the square that Jen had marked on our map with a heart and the words"Great Food!" for our Christmas Eve dinner. We pretty much stopped at the first restaurant we saw in the square because it boasted "free wifi" - that's a new selling point for me!

We had a very delicious, albeit unconventional, Christmas Eve dinner of porcini risotto and truffle, speck ham, and Brie pizza. The risotto was fantastic, but Nicole's is still better. The pizza, though, was incomparable. The staff were super friendly, even flirty. As we were leaving, Nicole said, "thank you, the food was lovely and amazing," which the manager interpreted as, "wow, we are lovely and amazing?"

On the way back to the confusing bus system, we picked up some more gelato. Then found a train that would take us to the enormous Termini station so that we could try to find our way home before everything closed down for Christmas. The station seemed deserted compared to the crowds that we'd had to contend with earlier that day. The train ride also seemed to take a lot longer than it had that morning, even though we were only doing half the trip we had to the Vatican.

When we finally arrived at our station, we bumped into some other Contiki people and went with them to try and find the bus stop that would take us to our hotel. We were a little disoriented and figured out where the bus stop was by watching the bus we needed driving away from us. We had to wait half an hour for the next one. As we were waiting, we were offered a chance to contribute to Christmas gifts for Jen and Joey. Nicole offered to design cards for each of them.

Meanwhile, shut down time for public transportation drew closer and closer, making us panic that the bus we'd seen drive away was the last one. Luckily, eventually, the bus we needed came along again. We found the hotel without too much trouble. Jen was in the lobby with wrapping paper, ribbons, and name tags for our Secret Santa gifts. Nicole sourced some paper for the cards she agreed to make, designing a pretty snow globe filled with the Colosseum, Eiffel Tower and Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Meanwhile, I tried battling with the wifi on my iPad again, eventually giving up with much frustration. It was working on my cellphone, though, so I spent time looking up the cost of the major tourist attractions in London so that Nicole and I could decide what to do there and budget accordingly. I told Nicole what the entrance to Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral costs, and she she decided against both.

"The Brits aren't known for their amazing art or architecture. What are they charging us for? We've seen better churches in Italy for free. Besides, everything is just going to be downhill after the Sixtine Chapel. And, to be honest, I'm becoming a little Cathedraled out at this point. We've seen a lot of churches," was her argument.

So we won't be paying to see anymore churches, basically. I think she's made some pretty good points. We left it at that after working out our budget for the remainder of the trip and had another early night. It seems like it doesn't manage how much sleep we get, since we still always wake up tired, but it doesn't hurt to keep trying!

Eurotrip Day 10: When in Rome...

Considering we had another early night, I really struggled again to get up this morning. I hit the snooze button when my alarm went off. A minute or two later, Nicole said to me, "Vicky your alarm went off." Me: "Yes, I know." Nicole: "I think you hit snooze." Me: "Yes, I did." Nicole: "Ok, I'm going to switch the light on now..."

The Aussies had woken me up during the night when they'd arrived home, and I'd really struggled to get back to sleep after that on the super flat pillow that I had that night. Nicole had snagged the bigger pillow, but even she had bunched hers up into a ball.Our room was still not particularly warm, despite having turned the thermostat up the night before. And the wet spot on our carpet still wasn't dry.

The wifi was still working, at least, so I took the opportunity to upload more photos. As I was checking the previous photos I'd uploaded, however, I realised that some of the captions I'd written late last night as I was nodding off were actually illegible. One of them read "woo < yay!" and another was something like "three dimensional wall water." So I deleted those and uploaded them again with proper captions. Should it happen again, sorry about that! Lots of late night photoblogging for me! (At least I didn't fall asleep on my iPad again, right?)

Nicole took her last antibiotic and is finally doing much better, but I still nagged her about drinking orange juice at breakfast. We alternate the juice with the outstanding Italian coffee. I want an espresso machine, seriously. I've never been big into coffee before, but the Italians have sold me on it! My in laws have a spare Nespresso machine, so maybe I can sweet talk them into letting me borrow it...

It is going to be a rainy day in Florence, so I'm glad that we are leaving it behind and heading to Rome. The ride so far has been interesting to say the least. Enzo is very much an Italian driver (the kind Joey likes to complain about). I isn't a bad driver by any means, but the ride is not quite as smooth as when Joey is behind the wheel. He's even already hooted at another driver that cut in front of us without signalling. It's been interesting.

On the drive out of Florence, Kaylee decided to join us at the front of the bus. She spent a good deal of time attempting to put one of the puzzle rings together before eventually giving up. Jen, meanwhile has been doing admin, helpfully marking our maps of Rome so that we know where our meeting points are and where some of the major sights and shopping streets are. She's been a real star when it comes to that. She's a great tour operator.

Kaylee shared some vitamin c lozenges with us as well as some carrots so that we can be a bit healthier than we have been. While eating the carrot, though, Nicole's retainer came loose on one side at the bottom of her mouth. It's not really a problem because the retainer should've been removed years ago, and was bound to come loose sooner or later, but it is going to cause Nicole a bit of irritation for the remainder of our tour until she can get to a dentist back home and have it taken out.

We made a quick stop at a service station for lunch, where Nicole had to eat her focaccia with a knife and fork because her broken retainer was irritating her so much. We also had more cappuccinos to follow lunch. While the coffee in Italy is delicious, they don't serve it very hot. You can literally start drinking it from the moment it is served without burning your mouth. You actually have to start drinking it as soon as it is served or it will get unpleasantly cold. It actually gets cold pretty quickly, partly due to the fact that it's winter here but also because they serve you such dainty portions.

After that, we were off to Rome where we seriously hit the ground running. We started off at the Colosseum, where we took some really awesome photographs. After that, Jen took us on a walking tour that included all the main sights of central Rome, such as the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain (where you could throw one coin over your shoulder to return to Rome, two to find or keep love, and three to marry an Italian - guess how manyI threw?), and the Pantheon. We ended off at the Christmas markets where we had some super delicious gelato. It was so yummy.

The Christmas markets in Italy are the most child-centered ones we have seen so far. There are lots of toys as sweets available for sale, as well as carousels and the like. There were also tons of Christmas ornaments for sale, which thrilled Kaylee. I bought some more licorice, which I still don't like here, so that will be the last of my money that I waste on that. Quite a few stalls have also been selling the Christmas witches that deliver toys to good little Italian children. Most of them are really cute, but one guy was selling bunch whose eyes glowed red and would cackle when you clapped your hands. It was pretty creepy.

After that, we had a long, hard walk to the restaurant back near the Colosseum, where we were served salad and then one seriously amazing lasagne, in true Italian style. That was rounded off with pannacotta, which was a great end to a long day. Jessica, the vegan, had an interesting meal of salad, cold vegetables, and then an orange. She has a great sense of humour, though, and took it all very well, even when the orange was basically chucked at her.

It's strange, but it seems as though the service we receive at the meals that are included in our tour is almost resentful, as though they don't actually want to serve us. At the optional dinners or the restaurants we go to ourselves, I haven't experienced this, but it happened in Nice as well where the waitress almost chucked plates of food at people while she was serving them. Nicole thinks its because the whole meal has already been paid for, including the service charge, so they don't need to make an effort.

Enzo was waiting for us after dinner. On the bus, he appealed to our good nature and Christmas Spirit, asking us to donate charity to an organization that builds wells in Africa to support the communities there. Everyone made a small contribution, before getting off at the hotel.

When we finally got back to the hotel, the first thing most of us did after checking in was head back to the lobby to try and get our wifi working. I managed to get it on my cellphone without too much trouble, but my iPad just refused to connect. It was enormously frustrating. Some of our group decided to go drown their iPad sorrows, but Nicole and I headed to bed instead to catch up on some sleep. Hopefully I'd have better wifi luck in the morning!