Brits eat WHAT??

Marmite: Wikipidia describes it simply as "a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, powerful flavour, which is extremely salty and savoury." I have little more to add except... "gross." 

Oh, and also, this: Marmite developed a massive ad campaign centered around the idea that you either "love it or hate it."

Check out the Marmite "Love it or Hate it" fan page

OR, better yet, one of many Marmite commercials.

Branston Brand "Pickle": If you ask for pickle on your sandwich here, you're going to get this. It is "sweet and spicy with a chutney-like consistency, containing small chunks of vegetables in a thick brown sticky sauce" (thanks again, wiki).  The "sauce" is made from vinegar, tomato, apple, and dates... Ok, to be fair, I could see myself eating this one if, say, nothing else was available... and I also hadn't eaten anything else in the past 24 hours. It is traditionally eaten in a "Ploughman's Sandwich"-- just cheese and pickle.

**Interesting fact: "Pickles" are called "gurkens," hence "The Gurken" building in London. 

Gurken?

The Gurken.

Dandelion and Burdock Soda: Who sees these two plants and thinks "I'm going to drink that"?? The Brits. And since the first bloke did it in 1265 AD, they have liked it SO much, that the drink is now around 750 years old.

 The generic brand that I had tasted pretty much like carbonated high-fructose corn syrup, with an odd after taste and terrible smell. Not phenomenal, but definitely not bad. If only to say I DRANK a dandelion, I'd definitely try one of the better brands though.

LOUD.

A brief explanation of why I often can't sleep or can't work in my room:

Ah yes, the bottle dumping. This happens at LEAST three to four times a night on the weekend, usually just past 2am. This, of course, is not quite as loud though as the garbage truck that comes around 5:30am to dump the whole lot again and then CRUSH everything, beeping as it both arrives and pulls away.

The drunks/dogs barking always add some color to the night life too (you can hear this guy hollering off and on at a dog barking in the distance). Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to capture the club music we get to listen to as well.

And if the night weren't enough... how about some soundtracks for the day time?? THANK YOU church bells, really, thank you. Every time there's a wedding or if it's time for mass (at any one of the three churches located in a 5minute vicinity), we know it. It is not uncommon that this will go on for up to/over an hour.

ALSO: fire alarm. They must test it every Wednesday. EVERY Wednesday. If there is ever a fire on a Wednesday, everyone in the building will die, because no matter how well the alarm works, we've all been trained to ignore it.

London: Museums and glorious food!!!

After a high stress week, Tracy and I decided it was time to hit up London. For the low, low price of £5 and two hours on the British version of megabus, it was ours for one Sunday and Monday. Tracy had organized the whole thing like a pro while I had panicked over finishing some last minute readings, so we navigated the tube almost as well as the natives.

We hit up the National History Museum right off the bat, and even though we only had about an hour to explore, the place was still a dream to see again after four years (the last time I went to London)-- today there was a massive dinosaur exhibit going on.

Recognize the bridge? If I'm not mistaken, that's the one the Death Eaters blew up in the Harry Potter movie (fact courtesy of Tracy Cheung). 

Entrance to the Tate Modern! Anybody from the London trip of Early Bird '06 should recognize this ramp??
(nobody was rolling coins down the ramp this time, but still pretty easy to recognize!)

Brilliant modern art doesn't just exist, it thrives. There is plenty of it, and it pushes thought and culture forward in the challenging, intensively creative ways of artistic genius, etc. The Tate Modern houses a lot of it too, and it is SO surreal to stand in front of a Dali, a Picasso, and know the paint is just a breath away:

I stood in front of this!!!

However... all that brilliance does not mean that occasionally some hilarious "what the heck is that, you have GOT to be kidding me" art does not slip through. Take for example:

Picture three of them. Enormous. Hung each per one wall. Concept description was something about "violence and ecstasy intertwined" as inspired by the tales of Bacchus' festivals which ended with participants tearing each other to pieces. So the concept? Fully worthy of exploration. The painting? Not accomplishing that. AT ALL. At least not in my book. 

Also... the winner of the "why am I going to college instead of being an 'artist'" competition? I'm not kidding... .... .... a mirror. Just... a mirror. You could at least pretend to try guys.

On the other hand, some very new things are just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I present to you the glory of contemporary art in one tiny frame:

"Notice!
I've changed my name to Mr. Titties.
Thank you for your time."

One final display, though, which was one of those mind-boggling sorts of shows, was the sea of porcelain sunflower seeds. Each one apparently hand-made. Had we gotten there a month or so earlier, we could have actually walked on them, but it turns out even the porcelain couldn't take all the visitors. 

Oh well! Still cool to see-- you can forward the significance of this piece for me. At the end of the day though, that is one happy, well-fed face (good grief, the food in London was spectacular).

Highlights: 

OMG. This kid was wearing nothing less than a FULL. DINOSAUR. SUIT. to the dinosaur exhibit. I've never seen such a glorious display of dinosaur fanaticism. Can you envision this kid's room?? His face when mom said they're going to the museum for the dino exhibit??? Totally worth being a creeper to bring you this nostalgic glimpse of just how awesome pure childhood really was (or justification for why most of us just refuse to give it up).

Real quick, a name you need to know: BERNINI

STONE. This... in stone. 

It's a detail from this masterpiece, of Hades taking Persephone away. Bernini's sculptures seem to be in motion-- they're always from the climax of the stories, caught right in action. To say "frozen" seems too cold a description for what he's done with his figures, although I'm at a loss for any other adjectives.

The most unnatural thing about his sculptures is just the fact that they aren't literally in physical motion. It's odd that we can move around them, and they remain captured in time. 

Daphne, fleeing Apollo, is granted her safety by being turned into the laurel tree. Branches are bursting out of her fingertips, roots shooting from her toes, and her skin is seizing into rough patches of bark even as Apollo's fingers dig into the still-soft flesh of her belly.

This one is a special case-- this "Sleeping Hermaphrodite" was actually discovered in the 17th century as a ruin left over from the Roman Empire. After it was dug up (imagine finding THAT buried in the ground!), it was presented to Cardinal Borghese, who paid Bernini to sculpt the mattress. I know it's just a mattress, but look at that. Seems comfier than my own bed.

Fontana dei Quatro Fiumi, featuring a Roman copy of an Egyption Obelisk

Bernini was eeeeeeverywhere we looked in Rome-- I can't believe he didn't get a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle name sake. Fountains, churches, piazzas, St. Peter's.

Fontana dei Quatro Fiumi (close up): Four men/River-gods are on the fountain, each one representing a river. On the left here we've got the Rio de la Plata (reclining on a pile of coins and representing the riches the Americas could offer Europe), and on the right is the Danube (closest to Rome, and so reaching out to the papal crest).

This one is at the front of the Spanish Steps-- apparently Bernini helped his dad with this one. They had some problems with low water pressure, which they cleverly solved by creating the fountain as a sinking boat.

Bernini's bronze casting frames the "chair of St.Peter" -- this enormous display is the front piece of St.Peter's Basilica. 

Again, Bernini dominates St. Peter's with his "baldachin", marking the saint's tomb underneath.

A detail from the baldachin.

St. Longinus, by Bernini in St.Peter's-- this statue protects a sacred relic, namely a fragment of the spear which Longinus (originally a guard at the crucifixion) used to piece Jesus' side.

Bernini's last masterpiece at the age of EIGHTY. The lady with a baby in her arms is "Charity," the lady on the right standing on England is "Truth" (symbolizing how the pope was trying to stop the spread of Anglicanism in Europe)-- Justice and Prudence are in the back. In the front, you can just make out a bronze skeleton under the drapery holding up an hour glass, symbolizing mortality.

Finally, if all that weren't enough, Bernini also designed the square outside of St.Peter's to boot. Yes, of course he had many assistants who did sculptures as well, but overall-- Bernini was the mastermind behind almost all of what you see here:

Fun fact: Bernini designed the colonnade with an optical illusion. From anywhere else you can see the layers of columns, but if you stand on this bronze circle inlaid in the cobblestones in the center, the columns perfectly align and you can only see the first row. Oh, Bernini. 

Unrelated highlight:

Vatican guards... laaawwwlllll- run for your life?

Rome: Fountains, Temples, and Cemeteries

I will freely admit that I'd never heard of the Spanish Steps before in my life. Literally a set of white marble steps built about 1725, they connect the Piazza de Spagna to that cathedral up there, the Trinità dei Monti. Swarming with tourists even in the off season, it was a bit overwhelming for me, but still worth seeing, especially on such a beautiful sunny day.

Haha, I think I'm holding a rose or two in just about every picture I got here-- the men selling them are very pushy, and they can peg a tourist a mile away. Before you know it, you're holding whatever they're selling, and they have their hands out for money!

The view from the top of the steps was lovely!

After meandering around the area for a few minutes, we stumbled next onto the Trevi Fountain-- toss in a coin and you're ensured a return trip to Rome! Tracy tossed one in, so I figure I'll just come back with her. Apparently something like €3,000 in coins are tossed each day-- the ones that thieves can't sneak out go to Rome's needy.

Next up was the Pantheon! This was one of my favorites. Built about 126AD as a temple to all of the Roman Gods, what makes this place so fascinating isn't so much its age, as how each wave of Roman culture and history has readapted it as its own. 

Even once Christianity came into vogue and pagan-crushing was all the rage, even then, this structure was just too cool for them to destroy; instead, they just tried to claim it as their own. Over 1,880 years old, the Pantheon still has the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world.

While we were in Rome, there was one unique site that I had to see: The Protestant Cemetery where both Shelley and Keats are buried. Shelley drowned in the waters surrounding Italy, and Keats (perhaps even more tragically) died of TB in Rome after having said his final heartbreaking goodbyes to his true love back at home in England.

As we were scrambled desperately to find this Cemetery before it closed, we stumbled onto several other major sites along the way.

Replica of the "Capitoline Wolf": the She-wolf nurses Romulus and Remus, the twins who went on to found opposing cities. Ha! Guess which twin won? (Hint: We are not visiting the city of "Reme.")

Victor Emanuel Monument on Capitoline Hill: built for the first king of united Italy, built late 19th century

Pyramid of Cestius: built about 15BC as a tomb for the Roman magistrate, Cestius.
(Read: holy cow, that thing is literally over 2,000 years old!!!)

Finally though, we found it! Literally just in time too--three minutes later and I doubt they would have let us in. I was only sad we couldn't have gotten there sooner! I could have spent hours there. You'll probably laugh at the English major in me acting up, but I could swear it was a warm kind of silence, or at least a rich one, the kind of silence after something profound has been discussed as opposed to the cold silence usually associated with the finality of death. It was all green and white marble too, with cats stalking around the graves (they were almost definitely the poets reincarnated). All in all, the perfect resting place for the remains of men who loved thinking and writing.

Shelley's grave. Since the sea didn't spit his body back up on shore in very good condition, this grave actually only contains his cremated ashes  (oh, his ashes minus his heart, of course, which was snatched from the funeral pyre by a friend and later buried alongside his son).

A quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest on Shelley's stone

And finally, the grave of Keats, the man whose work and life I hope to humbly study for many years to come.
"Here lies one whose name was writ in water."

That evening, walking back from the cemetery, we stopped by a park where there is a famous view of the city. Everything was very amber, structures, ancient and new, lit up for tourists and city natives alike. On the walk back to find dinner, we passed several bits of graffiti etched into a wall, and the city made me feel just sentimental enough to grab a picture of each one: 

"Serena, I love you."

"Best Wishes" to Francé
(the country or a man? who knows)

"ROME
You will remain eternally inside me."

Rome was a unique experience. Just as much if not more though, I appreciate how suddenly, after this trip, my other visits to different countries are starting to seem all the more colorful. When I look back on traveling, although there were many things I initially couldn't stand about Rome, even thought I would later hate, I have to say ultimately that this was the trip that finally led all my other experiences to "click."

Rome forces your fingers to its texture, and demands reaction. I hope I'll be able to visit Italy again, mainly in an area where the tourism influence isn't quite so strong.