Well, its 12:44am, and I arrived back in Melbourne a few hours ago, so here are the last few memorable moments of my trip.
If there are two churches you should visit in Rome, the first would be St. Peter's of the Vatican, for sheer *wow* factor. I'm not a Catholic and never will be (unless I truly decide to move to Rome in which case I'd have to become a nun to avoid the male harrassment), but it has *wow* factor by the barrel, especially if you are a big fan of Bernini's work, like myself. Actually, all of the Vatican is pretty spectacular. I'd like to give a shout out to the Sistine Chapel which is not quite like it looks in books. For one, books tend to only look at Michelangelo and ignore the Botticelli, Perugino and others on the walls. Its wall to wall frescoes, but I was especially impressed with the painted curtains - looks so real! Also, it is chockers full of tourists and the occasional guard who yells out *No Photos!* to said tourists.
That said, for people who might visit the Vatican/Uffizi Museums (in Florence) one day, I recommend you get there very early, say at least 30 minutes before it opens. The Uffizi opens at 8:15am, I got there at 7:45, and didnt get in until 9am. The Vatican Museums opens at 8:45, I got there at 8:30 where I saw the queue stretched outside the City wall for at least 200 metres. It didnt take me as long to get in, but thats mainly because the guards at the Vatican arent as tight as they are at the Uffizi. Also, in the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel is one way direction, so plan your visit carefully!
The second church is St. Ignazio, which has a ceiling painting to knock socks off. There's a little yellow disk on the floor which tells you where the view the painting, and from this spot, it looks like the architecture continues up up up, into the sky/heavens, whereupon you see some Jesuit propaganda. But thats not the point! It looks really real! And the church was also supposed to have a dome but they ran out of money, so they got the same artist to paint the underside of a dome onto the ceiling! And its only when you get closer does the illusion stop working. I spent about 20 minutes looking like I was doing the limbo just staring at the ceiling. It is that good.
I obviously did not meet a guy in europe worth making me stay there with him. However, if people want to know about the hottest guy I saw in Europe, that will require specific emails because I told someone on msn and she was a bit shocked.
I began my trip back to Melb by catching a taxi from the nuns' place at 9am. The nuns are so sweet, one even came up at 8:30 to make sure I was awake and then they did the Italian double kiss when the taxi arrived. Anyway, there are 2 airports in Rome, Ciampino and the main one, Leonardo Da Vinci, where I caught my flight. Problem is L.D.V is known to locals as Fiumicino for the town thats close to it, so there was a bit of a scary moment when I thought the driver was taking me to the wrong place. But we got there within time and I navigated the whole check in, duty-free thingy, train to the terminal ok.
But the flight!!! OMG!!!! I had myself steeled for the 10 hours it takes to get from Rome to KL, but I did not expect all the turbulence!! When I got on the place, it was half empty (I'm guessing after the tsunami ppl dont want to go to SE asia), and I thought *great, I can stretch out and sleep*, but no! For pretty much the whole ride, the seatbelt light was on and my head was banging on the arm rest *sigh*. I ended up dragging myself off the plane at KL and sleeping like a vagrant outside of the transit lounge for my connecting flight.
After being in transit for 3 hours, I thought *ok, I can sleep on this plane*, but no! A couple had brought along their babies for the ride. 2 of them! one was about 3 years, the other about 18 months. Who brings 2 babies onto a 7 1/2 hour flight?! They didnt stop crying for the whole flight! I did manage to catch a few zzzs before doing the painful countdown to when I'd land. I was unbelievably glad to hit solid ground, only to be hit with some more bad news. While the suitcase with my shoes, and burberry and LV bags made it off the plane quick-snap, somehow my backpack with ALL MY CLOTHES didnt make it onto the plane, so they're somewhere in KL. I am most displeased. The woman at Melb airport assured me it should arrive tomorrow and they will deliver it to me, but the time at which it arrives may vary. Most displeased.
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