You're A Peein' Travel Part 1: Rome

Yeah yeah yeah I know this is long overdue, but what can I say I'm a lazy college student.

Anyway, for our spring break from Cambridge (course really most of the trip felt like a giant break, shhh don't tell anyone) we got to run around Europe for two weeks, well not so much run around as meander semi-leisurely via planes and trains but not automobiles.

Our first destination, Rome the Eternal City, where you can throw a rock in any direction and hit something ancient and important. Like for instance...


That's right the frickin' Colosseum. Ah nothing like a stadium where bloodshed was the primary form of entertainment to remind us we haven't changed that much.
Jabs at society aside, it was pretty awesome being in Rome. Greece may have been the land where Western civilization was born, but Rome was where it was raised, or at least spent its terrible twos.

This is the Fontana De Trivini. The guy posturing in the middle is Neptune, god of the sea. He's supposed to be holding a trident, but it's broken off and looks like a baton.

And speaking of fountains, Adam and I couldn't resist having a bit of fun with some of the smaller ones throughout the city...
Ahhhhhhhh....no we didn't actually do it, relax.

Our big stop for our second day in Rome was the one the only Vatican, a place Dan Brown hates so much he wrote a book where it almost blows up...(cricket, cricket...I hate making pop culture references nobody gets).

Now the Vatican it seems has museums with artifacts from all over the world, including...
...Greece! Awesomeness!!!

By the way, the guy I'm standing in front of is Perseus, slayer of the Gorgon, whose head he's holding. As you can tell he was awfully well endowed, not surprising given that his father was Zeus.

Anyway the place was chock full of statues to as many Greco-Roman gods as you could think of and then some.

Dionysus

Aphrodite and Eros

Hermes

Athena/Minerva
Hercules

ZeusHera/Juno

Afterwards we headed for one of the Vactican's most popular attractions, the Sistine Chapel.
I got a crick in my neck just from looking at it. It was cool though.

These were taken inside St. Peter's Chapel.


Here's St. Peter's Square itself...



This is the church this is the steeple open the doors and there's da freakin' Pope to address the people



Once we were through at the Vatican (did you know that place has its own postal code) we headed to this place...

The Pantheon. Once a temple dedicated to all the gods of Rome, they had to ruin it later by converting it to a church. Oh, well. At least it had a nice dome.
Anyone else feel a draft?

Our next stop was the Spanish Steps, which may or may not have had something to do with the Spanish Inquisition, course I guess most tourists don't expect that. Get it? "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition?" ...Oh you people are hopeless...


Our last stop in Rome was Capitoline Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome and once the site of the temple of Jupiter.

Behind me is Minerva, Jupiter's favorite daughter, even if she did give him the ultimate migraine when she sprang out of his head in full battle armor.

These lads are Romulus and Remus, sons of the war god Mars and the founders of Rome. They were abandoned in the wood as babies but a she-wolf found them and nursed them so they survived. How exactly you milk a wolf I'm not sure but I don't ever plan on being close enough to one to find out.

Okey dokey that takes care of Rome, the city that wasn't built in a day but sure can be seen in one, er two. Well we didn't see everything but you know what I mean. Tune in next time for part 2 of You're A Peein Travel: Das Munich