Kelsey's Oscar Picks

It's that time of year. The time when people gather to talk about movies they didn't get a chance to see, but "heard they were pretty good. I saw 'Dinner for Schmucks' instead." In this family (the Kelsey and Nathan family) we try to see it all. I'm basing my opinions on what I've actually seen. Like for instance, I never really had an interest to see 'Black Swan', though everyone seems to have gone Lady Gaga over it. I will not be voting for it nor it's lead actress, although they may have been spiffy. I just didn't see it. I'd love to hear other people's opinions on stuff I haven't seen or if you just disagree with me. Not a lot of people comment on here, so hopefully this will make you. :)

FILM & Supporting Actress: True Grit & Hailee Steinfeld
I was actually really surprised how obsessed I am with this movie. I wasn't familiar with the original, so I went into this movie with no nostalgia or comparison to cloud my view. It was so well acted, so beautiful, and the script was so interesting. The speech was almost Shakespearian with how elevated it was. It didn't feel out of place though, I'm not sure how else to describe it. And the girl that played Maddie Ross just blew me away. What exactly are the requirements of being a lead actress? She had just as much screen time as Rooster. Hailee should win for leading. And supporting. She was just that good. This has been the only time Nathan and I looked at each other and said "wow" during a film. Anyway, I'm not sure it'll win because The Social Network and Black Swan seem to be the ones everyone is talking about, but True Grit as a whole movie was incredible. Did I mention how amazing the cowboy costumes were? So detailed. Anyway, loved it.

ACTOR: Colin Firth
I have been in love with Colin Firth as an actor for a long time. He's so versatile, and it really shows in "The King's Speech". He plays such a complicated character. He, as a royal (and an English royal, no less) has this pressure to have this Pricely persona and can't show any flaws, which is unfortunate because of his stuttering problem. Colin does a great job of showing his inner frustration under his stiff upper lip. You really feel for him and want him to succeed so badly. It's also so amazing to me how subtly funny he is. Oh yeah, and he did really well at the accent (super posh) and the stuttering. No big deal. If you didn't see the movie because you thought it'd be boring, give it a shot and I think it'll suprise you. I wouldn't be surprised if it got art direction as well.

ANIMATED MOVIE: Toy Story 3
Dur. I did love "How to Train Your Dragon" and I think everyone should give it the time of day it deserves, but TS3 is just above and beyond (should I say to infinity and beyond?) any animated movie. Ever. I'm not just being biased because of my close relationship with Buzz. Any child and adult that's seen the movie was touched by it (anyone who says otherwise is lying).

COSTUME DESIGN: Alice and Wonderland
This is why. (Although I did love the costumes in "True Grit", I figured they couldn't win it all in my book.)

MAKE-UP DESIGN: The Way Back
Bravo to "Barney's Version" for age make-up. They did do a really good job, but "The Way Back" did such an amazing job with sunburns, tattoos, cuts and scars, and other wounds and weathered effects. And to be honest, I was really disappointed with "The Wolfman"'s effects. The CGI effects were cool, buuuuut we're talking about mak-up here. When it was CGI-free, I wasn't convinced it was a wolf-man. Maybe my classes have jaded me, but I knew I was looking at an actor in lots of crepe/real hair and padded shoulders.

SONG: I See the Light
I REALLY want this song to win. You. Have. No. Idea.

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED): Day and Night
This was the one in front of "Toy Story 3". Pixar has this magical gift of storytelling. I always wonder how they come up with such brilliant ideas. However they do it, I'm glad I'm able to enjoy it. A+ Pixar.

I have no opinion on actresses and if you want to talk about directing and editing, talk to Nathan. I mean, you can talk to me and I might have interesting things to say... but really... talk to Nathan. Hopefully we'll actually get to watch it, what with not having TV and all...

My Cool Friends

I have cool friends. I happen to really like this song from my buddy Adam's band Rodeo Church. Not just because we're friends. Judge for yourself.


I know Courtney from BYU theater classes and such. She's the beatboxer with the short hair. It's funny because we used to sing Sara Bareilles's "Many the Miles" backstage before a show we worked on together. Now she's singing WITH her.



I also wasw in a show (Parade) with a guy that had a small part on Law & Order SVU. We're not really friends, per se, but we're Facebook friends. It's still cool. Except one of his few lines was "she voted me biggest penis!", which is pretty funny.

Sorry if I'm posting too many videos. I'm finding it more interesting to blog about other people than myself. I wish I had a baby or pet to write about. I guess Nathan counts as both (jokes!) He's the only thing keeping me from bouncing off the walls and out the door. Dramatic much? I think I am.

Nappies

Adam got the cute hat I sent! :) Some English baby terms: diapers are nappies and pacifiers are dummies.

It's still pretty boring for me around here. My manager asked me if I'd be interested in working more hours a week starting in April (which I answered with a big old YES) since there are a few full-timers leaving then to go travelling. Apparently British kids do that a lot; they work and save up money then travel around Europe or Asia. Pretty sweet. Anyway, so until then I sit around the house all day. It's not that I'm lazy, there's just NOTHING TO DO. Like today I did laundry, washed the dishes, tidied up here and there, re-decorated the living room, and still spent 80% of the day on my butt. It's too gloomy outside to go for a walk, so if I leave the apartment it's usually to spend some sort of money. Which we don't like to do. I kind of wish I'd held out for a better job like Yuki's (front desk at the Mariott). Oh well, discounts on H&M clothes is good, right? (Except for the fact that I never buy clothes).

This is turning out to be one of those "sad blogs" as Nathan calls them. I'm not sad. I'm just bored. So here are some of the bazillion videos I found on stumbleupon.com.

This one is neato:



These will make you laugh:





This one will make you lol, but has some language. Just a warning for sensitive ears.



This will make you cry:



And this is where I live:

Cool Beans, c-cool beans

So has anyone seen the tv show "Skins"? I probably shouldn't suggest it because it's about a group of really bad kids, but whatevs. For some reason it doesn't look as bad when they're British. Anyway, it's filmed here in Jolly ol' Bristol. I just started watching the first season (they're filming the... 8th season now? Something like that). One of my managers actually babysat one of the girls from the first two seasons, Jal. She's the black girl in the picture wearing orange. Cool beans. It's cool to see them hanging out at places I go to all the time. That's mainly why I watch it. Nathan and I are always like, hey we were there today! Or hey we can see that from our flat! Anyway, if you want to see where I live, watch the show. But remember, not all Bristolians are like that. If they are, God help the UK. Oh and the kid from About a Boy and Dev Patel from Slumdog Milionaire are in the first two seasons.



sorry I haven't really been keeping up with the blog, but honestly... there's really been not much to write about. I'm back to working once a week. The other days of the week are pretty boring. Valentine's day was a good time. Nathan had the sweetest card and present for me: Matt Smith's sonic screwdriver! For those of you not familiar with Doctor Who, it's a nerdy toy that I just love. The sonic screwdriver is to Doctor Who toys as the lightsaber is to Star Wars toys. Don't say it's not romantic, because it totally is! It means that my hubby knows me and knows how to make me smile. He had class most of the day, so I spent that time cooking a nice dinner: stroganoff. Mmm. We actually just had leftovers and it was better the second time. We were going to see True Grit, but I wasn't feeling 100%, so we decided to go on Thursday (tomorrow) when we both had time and the cinemas weren't quite so busy. Valentine's day will reconvene tomorrow around noon.

I actually got Nathan to watch Glee with me today (it's usually impossible) and we both enjoyed a little Beiber fever. Nathan says he only watches because he loves Sue, which is fine with me. We love watching other things together: Community, Modern Family, Raising Hope, Big Bang Theory (which has yet to make me lol this season), and Wipeout, so I guess it's ok that I can't get him to Gleek out with me.

So, pre-natal vitamins make your hair grow, right? My hair's been pretty much the same since high school. Every once in a while I'd chop it, but then it just goes back to being long with fringe (they don't say bangs here, it's fringe, I think bangs means something bad... or it's sausage). I figure if I just get it to grow all out quickly, I can decide to cut it some new way. I'm just super bored mith my hair as of now. And we're thinking baby thoughts soon anyway, so pre-natal vitamins would be good anyway.

Custard in the Sky

So I forgot I took these pictures from the plane when we flew out of Rome. The sky looked super cool (as you can see). We flew over Elba too! But of course, my camera pooped out before I could get the picture.





We made our first custard today! So. Good. I want it every day now, but my belly is saying no. I try to tell myself I'm not lactose intolerant. My tummy says otherwise. So anyway, we ate it with kiwi because they were buy one bunch get one bunch free at Sainsbury's. Buy one kiwi, get one free-wee! Heh.

Final Chapter

Day four of our trip, I think we all agree, was the best and longest day of our trip. It started early on Sunday. It was free Sunday at the Vatican (that last Sunday of ever month you can get in free) and we wanted to be there when the museum opened. Little did we know, so did everyone in Rome. At 8 0'clock in the morning there was a line a mile long to get in. Since they closed the doors at 12:20, we were worried we'd even get in. There were guys walking up and down the line advertising an English speaking tour for 25 Euros a pop. We dind't really want to spend the money, especially if it was some sort of scam, like if it was a terrible guide or if they just took the money and ran. After some group deliberation, we decided to go for it. The best part, we found out, was that the guide didn't make us pay until after the tour was over. So we only ended up waiting about 20 minutes to get in with our group.

Mike, our guide, was an American smart-alec that had been doing this for a long time and you could tell he's probably secretly sick of it. He was, however, really funny and really knowledgable about the art and the history. We all got our cool little radios and headphones so we could hear him even from far away. I'm really glad we sprung for the tour. Not only did we get in faster, but I learned a lot of random things I wouldn't have without our guide. He was an art history major (if I remember correctly) and he showed us things that he said most guides skip over. Like in the hall of tapestries, he pointed out these really cool optical illusions/perspective effects on some of the tapestries. And he pointed out a statue that looked just like Bill Clinton. We got to see some Raphael paintings, something I wasn't expecting. The most exciting of which was School of Athens. It's always fun to see something you recognize from art books. The best part of the tour was the end when you walk into the Sistine Chapel. Before we went in, Mike pointed out some things to look out for. Most people focus on the ceiling and front wall, but there's really interesting stuff going on on all the other walls, like scenes from the lives of Moses and Jesus. I may or may not have taken a video of the ceiling (you're not supposed to take any photos or videos)... heh heh. I told myself not to, but... I mean come on, can you really blame me?

Anyway, so our tour guide took us out a special way after the tour so that we can go right into St. Peter's Basilica without waiting in another line. Then he says, oh I think you guys will get to see the Pope! And I'm like what?? We pay him and I run off out into the square to go see the Pope. There were THOUSANDS of people there waiting to see him. There was even a stage with a Christian band playing and getting the crowd pumped (which I thought was kind of funny). So right at noon he popped out of hi window and said a bunch of stuff in Italian. It wasn't a while Mass, but he said the Ave Maria and there was some call and response. My favorite part was after all that (since I had no idea what he was saying) when he gave a nice little message in Italian, English, German, French, Polish, and Spanish. His English wasn't too good, but we could make out that he wished us blessing of peace and joy. What a sweetie. Even though I'm not Catholic, I think he's a good role model for people. Like Ghandi or Mother Teresa. Or Pooh Bear.

So because of my over-eagerness to see his Holiness, we had to wait in a long line to see St. Peter's Basilica (I was upset for a little bit because I thought it closed at 12:20 like the Vatican Museum and I had messed up our chances to see it, but we found out that wasn't the case). We saw the tombs of the Popes first, which was actually really interesting. Pope John Paul's grave was there and it was sweet because there was a roped off area where people were kneeling and praying for him. He was a cool dude. And there was an area where St. Peter was (part of him anyway). Peter. Like friends-with-Jesus Peter. Walked-on-water Peter. PE-TER. I was almost more star struck by that than seeing the Pope. Then we went into The Basilica which. was. huge. I've been inside impressive old churches before, but this one beats them all. And Michealanglo designed it when he was 80 and blind. Genius. The Pieta was there, which brought me to tears. It wasn't just from being in awe of the beauty or the craftsmanship. It was the message conveyed by the sculpture. Mary was Jesus's mother. Not just BABY Jesus's mother. She raised him and loved him like all good mothers do. The Pieta shows her cradling her dead son, and the look on her face is what touched me. Love, grief, hope, etc. Yeah, cool stuff.

After we left the Vatican, we took a short walk to check out a castle nearby. It's in the movie Roman Holiday and on top is a statue that was important in "Angles and Demons" (which I want to read/see after this trip). We also accidently found the most confusing labrynth park encircling the castle. We were afraid we'd run into a minotaur or something. Our next plan was to head back to the forum, since our colosseum tickets were good for two days and included the forum and palatine hill. Unfortunately, when we got there it was already closed, but I wasn't too disappointed. We'd already seen a lot of amazing things and our feet were starting to be angry with us.

The last thing on our big list of things to do was to see the Pantheon! We found it pretty easily (we were experts of the city by then!) but I had to pee sooooooo bad. I hopped into a nearby cafe to use the loo. They seemed a little annoyed that people kept using the bagno, so I bought some gelato. Any excuse, right? :) Pistachio this time. There was an amazing opera singer performing right outside the Pantheon, so we sat and shared the gelato while listening to the music. He was great, but I'm scared that he's going to blow out his poor voice. It was cold and he was singing non-stop in full voice. Anyway, the Pantheon was cool because it was originally used as a temple for the gods, but was later turned into a Catholic church. The middle of the domed ceiling was a cut-out circle! And it had rained earlier that day, so the floor was wet, but there were little drains for the water to go down. Raphael was buried there, so we stopped by to tell him how much we enjoyed his work earlier :). I'm not sure why he was buried in a church though, apparently he died from being "over amorous". Woohoo.

Our last stop on our long journey was not on our list of things to do originally, but was suggested by our tour guide. It was, what we lovingly call "The Bone Church". For one Euro each, you can see 6 rooms of human bones arranged decoratively. Yeah. They were bones of Capuchin Monks and other parishoners of the church. The nice thought they left you with was "What you are now, we once were. Wht we are now, you will be." Happy thought. Despite being creepy, I thought it was kind of cool. I think I was the only one in the group, though. With that happy thought on our minds, we made our way back to the hotel for the last time.


Although we weren't really that hungry (we stopped for McDonalds before going to the forum, mmmm), we decided to eat one last Italian meal while we still could. The hotel had a restaurant, so Nathan and I went to try it out. It was pretty good! Not as good as the restaurant before and a bit pricier, but good. I had spaghetti ala carbonara (aka with white sauce and BACON) and Nathan had fettucini alfredo. I couldn't finish mine, since I wasn't that hungry to begin with, but I got to take it back to the room wiht me. BUT, duh, I forgot a fork. The saddest thing I ever did was leave the left overs behind the next morning... wah.

And thus ended our Roman Holiday. Everything went perfectly on our way back to Bristol. Nothing exciting.

I should mention, though, that I am very up-to-date with the goings-on in Egypt. The bruhaha started when we were in Italia and the only English channel in our hotel was CNN. I 'm glad of that, actually. I need to be more aware of world news. Mubarek needs to retire and go far far away.

THE END

Day 3 Gladiators!

We met up with the Scotts in the morning and showed them the way to the hotel before making our way to the, dum dum dum, COLOSSEUM! My mother-in-law, Shirla, made a good point while talking to her the other day. It's right there next to a big road. I always expected it to be surrounded by lots of space, but nope. It's all in the middle of the hustle and bustle. Doesn't make it any less cool, just not where I expected it. So we waited in a relatively short line (like Space Mountain Fast Pass) and Nathan and I shared an audio guide. It was like meeting a celebrity. It's probably better than meeting a celebrity, since I'm pretty sure more people in the world know what the colosseum is than care about Justin Beiber. (Why is he the first celebrity that came to mind?...) It was cool to imagine the extravagant events went on there, beyond just grizzly fights of death. There was a cool story about like 50 bears coming out of a whale's mouth... I'm telling it wrong, but something cool like that happened there (I don't pretend to be an expert after a day haha). Oh and the people important enough to have their own seat (senators, etc) hadd their names carved into their spots. I could just imagine:

"Excuse me sir, but you're in my seat"

"Does it have your NAME on it?"

"Why yes. Yes it does."

"Oh... So sorry."

So after the colosseum we were hungry, so we ventured off to find food. We found a cute little place with Mel Gibson's picture on the outside. I mean, if Mel likes it, it MUST be good, right? But seriously, it was really good! I had spaghetti bolognese and Nathan had Ravioli. There's a distinct difference between what I'm used to and what Italian food is SUPPOSED to taste like. This is what it's SUPPOSED to taste like. Hand-made pasta, fresh cheese (in the ravioli), sauce that' not from a can, molto buono. I wish I knew how to make my spaghetti that good.

After the meal we decided to hunt down the Trevi Fountain again (The Scotts hadn't been yet). We stumbled upon teh Spanish steps on accident! It was a beautiful view of the city from the top (we found the steps from the top, so we didn't have to climb the stairs, luckily) and around the obelisk there were artists selling their wares. It seemed very French. In Italy, the Spanish steps looked French. Anyway, we popped into the church and it was another wonder. You can just walk by all these churches in Rome and never know the beauty in the inside. There are so many, you stop noticing them, but once you go inside, you think... why is this not being advertised?? No one told me this was here!! So yeah, another gorgeous church, no big deal :)

So we walked down the steps and tried to orient ourselves to try to find the Fontana di Trevi from there. Be careful standing still for too long on the streets of Rome. People start trying to sell you stuff. They're like flies. You shoo them away, but stop for a second and they land on your food again. So this guy comes up to Yuki and I and physically PUTS roses in mine and Yuki's hands. He then proceeded to tell us how they're good luck blah blah blah. Now, normally, one would see this as a kind gesture. A GIFT, if you will. One shouldn't be so naiive. He just stood there until we coughed up some dough. Oy. I wasn't that upset because what girl doesn't want a purty flower.

So we finally found the Trevi Fountain, and it was just as magical as the first time. This time Nathan and I did the actual "toss the coin over your shoulder" thing.
I actually forgot to make a wish. I was too caught up in the moment. It's probably a good thing I didn't make a wish, because it could have been stolen and I would wake up one day void of hope and dreams. Let me 'splain. As we were marvelling at the fountain's beauty, we noticed a less than inconspicuous shady guy looming over the water. Mr. Shifty Eyes then proceeded to extract a long metal magnet grabby thing and go for the coins in the fountain. Not cool. So Chris casually goes up next to our friend and joins him in peering into the water. Yuki and I just watch and laugh while Chris talks to him. Chris, in Italian, had just asked him what was in the water and he had replied, "Little things. Coins. Wishes." And thus the Wish Theif was born. This character gave us many a laugh for the rest of the trip.

So we then got gelato (finally!) at a place right next to the fountain. Nathan got limone and I got straciatella (vanilla with little bitsies of chocolate). Mmmmmm. We strolled back to the closest metro and made our way back to the hotel. No real dinner again, but we were pretty stuffed from lunch still.

Day 2 in Naples

Nathan and I started our day early on Friday with a train ride: my first! I was expecting a little more "Hogwarts Express", but since we got cheap tickets it was more like a really long subway ride outside. The views from the train were beatiful though! Lots of mountains, fields, vineyards, and olive trees. We could even see the sea for a bit! We knew we were getting close to Napoli when we could see *dun dun duuuuun* VESUVIUS!

We met up with the Scotts at the train station and roamed around the cool galleria while Chris and Yuki took off briefly to give some gifts they had brought for family members. I drug Nathan into Sephora to look at the make-up (I left my purse at home, but one of the cards I DID bring was my Sephora beauty card lol). I didn't get anything more than a sample of perfume, but it's cool to see stores I love from America are the same everywhere. And it's cool when the sales staff recognizes that you don't speak their language because they don't bother you. Anyway, so we bought some Baci candy (chocolates with hazelnuts in them that I got all the time in EPCOT), which was one of the things I was MOST looking forward to on this trip, believe it or not!

We met up with the Scotts again and Chris took us to this pizza place recommened to him by his uncle. I wish I'd met his uncle so I could've given him a BIG FAT KISS. The pizza was AAAAmazing! Naples is the capitol of pizza. It was invented there, so they know how to do it right. Perfect crust, perfect sauce, big slabs of fresh mozzerella, basil, and olive oil. So good. I mean, I still love me some Papa John's, but the pizza I had in Naples doesn't even belong in the same category. So yeah, good pizza.

We then took a walk down to the water (it smelled like home! Mix the pine-y smell of the Salisbury park with the salty Ocean City air... I closed my eyes and pretended I was home for a couple of seconds). The view of the Mediterranian Sea and Mount Vesuvius was beautiful! And we walked around the sea-side castle. I don't know anything about the castle, but it did have a cool blast mark from a cannon still visible on the side.

We caught a bus back to the train terminal so we could catch a metro to Pompei. Yuki can attest to this: the bus experience in Naples is not fun. Luckily, we were the first ones on the bus the first time we used it, so we got seats. Actually, the first time was pretty cool because this old guy had an equally old Scottish Terrier with him that sat at my feet and poked his head up between my knees so I could pet him. The second time, however, we were not the first ones, so we were jammed in like sardines. You can only say "Mi scusi" so many times before you just give up and accept the fact that you WILL be touching strangers for long periods of time. I think personal space is a very American thing. Just look at those videos of Japanese trains where they shove people in. Yuki hates them, so I think she was really meant to be American :) Oh! And I had my first Gypsy experience! While buying the metro ticket, this old lady straight out of a fairy tale (think of the beginning of Beauty and the Beast, BEFORE the witch turned beautiful) had a cup she was shoving in our faces for coins. I reached into my pocket and dropped in 20 cents, then she moved on to Chris. Chris gave her something too, then she said to him some thing about "tredici", which is 13 in Italian. She told him to remember the number 13. Spooooky.

So we got off the metro and followed our short and hairy tour guide to Pompei. No, not Danny DeVito, a cute little puppy. One of the many dogs just roaming around the ancient city. Pompei was cool because it's very immersive. You can walk down the ancient streets, into peoples' homes, touch their walls, and almost see what it was like over a thousand years ago. I could see why they'd want to live there. The views of the volcano and sea were great (maybe a little too great). Seeing the bodies was really sad. Since it was so long ago, the tragedy seems more like just a story. To the Italians back then, it was like Katrina or the tsunami or Haiti's earthquake. To be honest, though, it was kind of cool how they were able to pour the plaster into ash and fill the negative space where there bodies had decomposed so we could see the position they were in when they died. Anyway, sad/morbid things aside, this random group of workers wanted to take their pictures with Yuki and me. At first we thought they wanted us to take a picture OF them, but then they had us hop in the picture WITH them. Yuki, if you're reading this, did they ever e-mail you the picture? Haha, random.

So we split from the Scotts because we were heading back to Rome and they were staying in Naples another night. Our train ride back was less than pleasant. We could have spent the extra 30 Euros to get a faster, better train, but I was still sour about the 70 we had lost to the cab driver the night before so I got the 10 Euro-a-piece tickets. It was the same exact train, but for some reason it was an hour longer (more stops I guess). It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't FREEZING. We slept a little at first, but then it was just too cold so we cuddled up and played 20 questions. 3 hours later, we got McDonalds dollar menu dinners (Euro menu, I guess) and scurried back to the hotel to our nice warm beds.

Veni Vidi Vici!

So Nathan and I took a holiday to Italy this past week with our friends, the Scotts! And I took a million pictures that you can see here , here , here , and here , since I can't be bothered to upload them all onto the blog. and it'd be way too long anyway.
So travel day was Wednesday and everything went off without a hitch... until we got to Italy that is. We got off the plane and hopped on a bus to take the metro to our hotel. It was at this point that we separated from the Scotts temporarily, since they were going to Naples to see Chris's family, so we were sans an Italian speaker. Once we got to the metro, it was eeriliy empty. We (the five of us that got off the bus) were stopped at the entrance by Italian army dudes that told the Italian chick with us that the drivers were on strike. She scurried off, but we were left with two British girls without a clue what to do between us. We ended up waiting an hour in the rain for the bus to come back from the airport to take us BACK to the airport. Thank you Stacy and Claire from East London for making the best out of a crappy situation with us. Anyway, so once we got backt o the airport, there was really nothing we could do but get a taxi. Luckily for us (sarcasm) the hotel was SUPER far away and we had only 5 or so Euros on us. The taxi driver stopped by an ATM before dropping us off, so that was ok, but since I don't know how to say "No, I want change, I'm not giving you an 8 Euro tip" in Italian, we gave him 70 Euros that evening. Thanks Italy for the good first impression.

It was almost a perfect trip after that, thank goodness! We laughed it off (what else can you do?) and I just said to myself that if that's the worst thing to happen the whole trip, then I'm ok with it. Our hotel offers free breakfast, and it was SO GOOD every morning! I'm really gonna miss that bacon... I'm a crispy bacon girl, but this bacon was more like hot prosciutto than typical American bacon. So. Good. And they had little squares of what I call pizza without cheese. Whatever it was, I was excited to have pizza for breakfast! Nathan couldn't get enough of the blood orange juice. Seriously. If he could had hooked himself up to an IV and replaced his blood with blood orange juice, I think he would have.

I just wrote a whole paragraph on the breakfast. Yep.

Thursday, Nathan and I had the day to ROAM around ROME (yuk yuk). The metros were up and running (thank goodness, apparently that kind of thing happens all the time) and we just picked a spot to get off. "Barbarini - Fontana di Trevi looks good!" "Sure, we'll start there!" So the fountain isn't right there in front of you when you come out of the station. There's A fountain, but there's a fountain on every street. So we looked at a map, Nathan pointed us in the right direction, but I insisted he was wrong and we went the opposite way. I was wrong. But since we were on no kind of schedule, it was ok and we came accross a beautiful Basilica that we wouldn't have even known it existed otherwise! So yay for mistakes :) We did some more wandering and found the Piazza Venezia, which had the monument Il Vittoriano. GIANT BUILDING! It's a monument for who knows what (that's the thing about going to museums in another country, if you can't speak the language, it's harder to know what they're showing you. Not everything is in English too) and it served as the returning point whenever we didn't know quite where we were going. It has the best view of Rome after you climb A BILLION STAIRS. Seriously. So we finally found the Trevi fountain after that. It took my breath away! It's exciting to see things that are so famous and understand why. The way Nathan put it, it's cool when it's not just hype. It was more beautiful than any picture could make it look!

And it was at this point where I started getting annoyed with all the people trying to separate me from my money. There were guys EVERYWHERE selling scarves, camera tripods, squishy splatty toys, and other doo dads constantly trying to stop you and sell you things. At the Trevi Fountain, there are people trying to take your picture for money. You'll be sitting there trying to take in the beauty and someone just gets in your face and tries to seduce you with how you NEED for them to take your picture. We talked about this with the Scotts. We think these people have a warehouse somewhere full of crappy trinkets that they return to every night. I personally think they have toy/scarf pimps that they have to report back to. And wait til you hear about the Wish Thief. He comes later.

Breakfast got it's own paragraph, lunch should too. We saw people around the fountain with yummy sandwiches, so Nathan went up to someone and asked where they got it. We then proceeded to this little pizza place that had these DELICIOUS sandwich thingies! The bread was more like pizza crust and the insides were pepperoni, basil, and mozzerella. So. Good.

We found a museum behind the Piazza di Venezia (we were looking for something else, but we were having trouble finding it, so why not?). Nathan was drawn in by a giant statue we could see peeking at us from the exit door. Inside, there was a Leonardo Da Vinci painting! No pictures allowed, but it was incredible to see up close! We had a lot of fun seeing all the statues and artwork. It was funny because we'd be in awe by whatever was on the walls, then I'd say "Sweetie, look up" and there would be something more amazing on the ceiling.

We made our way back to the hotel (And I got hit on by an African guy who liked my hair, haha) and were too tired to go back out and get dinner. The hotel had vending machines, so we supped on Cipsters and Fonzies. Dinner of champions.

This is getting really long, so I'll just make each day a different post. More to come!