COLLOSEUM

what in rome

It’s been too long, friends.

You see, we have had an unfortunate lack of reliable Internet connection since arriving in Italy (and yes, it’s been painful and horrible and child of the 21^st century am, because I think I would rather not eat than not have internet – and I really like food.)(OK – I exaggerated. I would rather eat. But I would go down to two meals per day for Internet.), and so you have suffered. I did try, to be fair, but posting to Blogger on your phone doesn’t quite work and the post didn’t go where it is supposed to. So is life.

ANYWAY

Rome.

 FOOD

 VATICAN CITY

 TREVI FOUNTAIN

 PANTHEON

 

 BEACH

Yeah, Rome’s pretty. Incredibly, wildly, gorgeous. The streets are all very distinctly Roman (or Italian – I wouldn’t know), and that’s not a bad thing at all. Also, if I was impressed by the old castles and such in Ireland, I am awestruck by the ancient buildings/ruins/streets/walls that are all over the place here. In Arizona, the 50 year-old houses are old – here, the 100 AD churches are, sure, pretty and big but whatevs. More where that came from.

Meanwhile, my brain is going: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Know what else is fabulous about Rome?

€1 McDonald’s milkshakes!

More on Roman adventures to come. 

pickpocked in Paris, and other adventures

Why, yes, actually, we have been pickpocketed. Specifically, Miles was pickpocketed at the Eifell Tower on our first afternoon in the city. Get this: They snatched his iPod while he was wearing his headphones. It most definitely put a damper on things, and has sort of tainted our perception of Paris. I mean, it's been great and all, but pickpockets. At the icon of the city. We were in London when the Olympics started and the metaphorical anthill spilled open, and managed just fine. Once afternoon in Paris, and...

Anyway!

Let's look at pictures and places, yeah yeah?

 Notre Dame Cathedral

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 Pretty Parisean building

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Eifell Tower 

(pre and post pickpocketing - can you tell by Miles' face?)

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Arc de Triomphe  

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Balancing

 on a chain near the Champ Élyseés

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Outside the Louvre 

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OH MY GOSH IT'S THE MONA LISA

It was not actually all that exciting at all. But it certainly drew a crowd. 

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We've been here about 30 hours, and we've hit all those sites. As is ever the case, our poor feet have been taking quite the beating. Pedometers are almost as unreliable as my brain, so I won't give you a specific distance, but suffice it to say that we've walking more than you have .Unless you're training for a marathon or something equally unlikely and confounding. 

In order to make sure that it is clear that we are enjoying ourselves and not moping about how sucky it was to get robbed at the Eifell Tower and moaning about how much we miss London (LONDON!), here are some of the highlights of our stay:

1. BEING A EU CITIZEN! Yay for red passports! Why? Because they made the Louvre free. Saved €30, right there. It is awesome.

2. The pain au chocolat I bought at one of the only grocery stores we've seen. It was very delicious.

3. The chocolate icecream Jonathan bought at that same grocery store and that we all ate on a bench across the street. It was store brand, but it tasted like Håagen Dazs. Yum. 

4. Paris streets. They are pretty pretty.

5. The receptionist at the first place we stayed at responding to my very broken, very hesitent, most assuredly horribly American-accented query of "Parlez vou engles?" with a "Yes! But your French is very good!" AHAHAHAHA. You are too nice, good sir, but I speak only that one phrase. 

Aaaaaaand tomorrow, we're off to Rome! It's one night on a train away. Yay!

London on the Cheap

(Ok, no. It's not almost free. But is more free than it would be if you stayed in hotels and ate every mealtime and didn't occasionally walk until your feet bled, ok? It is free-ish. )

At this point in my life, I consider myself a fairly proficient traveler. I know that some of you are laughing at me for this belief, but my passport has enough stamps to make me all warm and proud when I flip through it, and that's good enough for me. 

I also consider myself a pretty dang good cheap-o. 

By the time you read this, I will be getting ready to depart the city I have now spent over six collective weeks in over the course of my short but still grey-hair producing life (I FOUND ANOTHER ONE THIS WEEK). And so I know a trick or two about surviving the abhorrent dollar to pound conversion rate. 

Please note that these are strategies that work for me, and that I was raised in such a way that I was seven or something equally ridiculous before I realized that the clearance items were not, in fact, the only items that one could actually purchase from a store. Also, if you're reading this and at any point think, fool, that's not the cheap way, this (_______) is, well. You jerk. Thanks for sharing beforehand.

On with the show!

OLYMPICS IN LONDON

.... Well, we watched the opening ceremony on the TV at the place we're staying.

Does that count?

We tried to watch the events on the bigscreen at a park. It looked like this:

And cost £65. Which was not what the Internet said was going down, but whatever.

ALSO: Today is Miles' birthday. YAY! Congrats! He's a big boy now, and I am even more decrepit.

We ate good food. Look!

Then we ate cake.

I couldn't wait long enough to devour the chocolatey goodness to take a picture, so you get to see my licked-clean plate instead.

We are leaving tomorrow. Eden is hopping back across the pond, bound for the land of sun and cacti. Miles, Clare, Jonathan and I are going to Paris. Qui qui.

This is exciting, yes.

But.

But.

London, my love, I shall miss you dearly.

Brighton!

BRIGHTON

SUN AND SEA AND BOOKS AND GELATO AND SUNBURNS

Today was (as my days are so often) fairly fabulous. 

Thanks to my incredible friend Jessica, I was able to hope a train to Brighton, the beach city about an hour out of London.

Friends. It was fantastic. 

Here's the story the above photo-montage tells:

- Nero's coffe: I do love you. Woke me up on the train ride over.

- Went from train station to a stupidly scrumptious and reasonably priced lunch: Brie, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and cranberry sandwich. Um. YUM. I'm drooling.

- Meandered down the pretty, busy streets to the beach. Looked at the pier. 

- Made faces at the sun. That squinty expression is actually what my face does when I am reacquainted with one of my BFFs - which the sun is. 

- Picked out my spot on the beach. At first, the lack of sand and abundance of rocks made me question the quality of said beach. But, then, two hours later and totally free of sand-filled clothing and crevices, I reversed my opinion. Pebbly beaches: I approve of you. 

- Read my book and stuck my feet in the water and basked in the fact that, oh hey, this is my life and it is actually breathtakingly wonderful.

- Ate gelato. Ate a lot of gelato. It was this banana chocolate crunch delicious nonsense that was like Chunky Money but better. Yet, that's a thing. I know, I know, hard to believe, but I am a master of all things carbohydrate-y, and I know my business.

- Why, yes, that's a sunburn. You may be asking yourself, "Why, how is it even possible to get a sunburn in England? Isn't that a contradiction of terms?" Well, it ought to be. But my name's Marie and my skin never got the memo that it was raised in the land of 350 days of sunshine. Alas.

Moral of the story: I am –––––––– this –––––––––––– happy.

Also: Burned.

London Week Two: A Review

This was a very exciting week here in the UK! As you should now know, Marie hung out in Bristol for awhile and did fun things, but the excitement didn't wait for her. 

This is a picture-heavy post chronicling the week through the eyes of Miles, Clare and Eden . Fun happenings include Stonehenge, Bath, top-like chairs, and the European The Dark Knight Rises premier. No big deal, or anything.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT IT A BIG DEAL?

The sun, friends. The sun, which is out and about today, shining all pretty and bright and I love you so much, blue sky. So. Much. The universe is in on our plan to ask strangers to take surveys in the park today.

Anyway.

Pictures.