Hi Everyone.
Wow, I can't believe how much has happened already and it's only the beginning. First of all, If any of you would like to know our itinerary or any random info such as Olya and Alex's cell phones and our hotel numbers they are all on wiki.jenya.ws/Israel. Ok so let's start at the very beginning. The Shafrans and I made it to the airport at about 1:30pm. The line for Alitalia was huge. We were sure that Ilyusha would have already gone through it and was worried about us but he showed up about 15 minutes later (covered in mango juice which we found hilarious due to his mango adventures in South America) we all went to check in together and were told that there is a 5 kilo limit (10lbs) on our carry on suitcases. The lady told us we could try out luck at the gate,but that it was impossible to have more than 10 kilos and make it. We were all at about 15 kilos. We took out 1 fold-able duffel bag and threw in our heaviest and least favorite possessions in there to check in, taking the rest of our stuff with us. The flight was about 8 hours to Milan and then about 1 hour to Rome. We made it on time. changed and ate. Ralph's plane was delayed by about 2 hours so we sat in that airport for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOng time. When he finally got to Rome we checked his stuff in with him and then hauled some major ass to the Vatican City.
We basically RAN through the Vatican museum. Thankfully Ralph and Sereja took art history in Rome and they managed to narrate the whole adventure for us. The only two places we slowed down were the Raphael room and the Sistine Chapel. They blew me away. The Chapel was completely restored so no scaffolding or covered walls. It was incredible. Since we were already in the area, we decided to make a short, yet powerful visit to St. Peter's basilica. We got a great view of the plaza, but the line into the basilica was INSANE so we unanimously voted against it.
Our next move was to cab it across town to the coliseum. The cab actually dropped us off quite a distance away but we didn't mind. We walked by the coliseum, and went in to an outdoors cafe with a nice view of it where we devoured some pizza and drank a bit of wine. (I was gone for the next 30 minutes) After paying, we walked around the ruins by the coliseum for a little bit and saw the arc that the Romans built to commemorate their victory after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (synchronicity? i think not). We continued to make a slow paced walk around and hiked up to see the she wolf and Remus and Romulus statue. It was actually pretty small in comparison to every other statue and fountain in Rome.
Our next course of action was to walk towards the Panthenon and maybe get some gelate. We stopped off at a statue of an elephant ant took some fun pictures. Everyone also stopped off at a small cafe for some risotto balls (risotto deep fried with melted mozzerella in the middle - I was not interested) Here is an interesting fact many of you may not have known. 3 years ago when I was going to travel through Europe Rome was originally on my agenda. The shaffies were going to Rome before me and we thought it would be really cool if they hid clues around Rome for me and then made a map so that I could find the clues while seeing all the really worthy sites. Kind of like a tourist treasure hunt. Well, my plans changed and I didn't make it to rome after all, but the clues and the map remained. Olya remembered this on our way and told me that even though the map was forgotten at home she remembers that they hid one clue in a gelate/candy store right by the panetheum. I looked for it but could not find it. However, it was still really cool to be able to stand in the same place where they were 3 years prior leaving me a message. We got our unbelievable, out of this world ice cream and sat on the Pantheum steps for a while people watching. (By this time Olya and my feet were on fire) After we rested for a little bit we decided to go to a large fountain the name of which escapes me at the moment.
Here is where we had our first experience with the street flower vendors. A guy came up to me handing me some flowers. I said i wasn't interested, but he insisted telling me they were free. Finally to get rid of him i took them. Then he started asking Sereja for money. I quickly gave the flowers back and we walked off from the fountain. Sereja wanted to buy some cheese and wine and sit on the Spanish steps. We made it to the grocery store and the wine store just fine but then got a little bit lost. This was quite unfortunate since olya and I could barely walk by this time. Poor olya got blisters on her feet that were just killing her. I was just sore from the standing and the walking. We ended up making a pretty large circle before finding the steps. We pretty much fell on them and the skies opened and the angels sang. We were so tired that we just sat in silence for about 15 minutes. Drinking our wine and eating our cheese. The streets were not really crowded since the World cup match of Italy vs. the US was on. We were slightly nervous about the outcome. Olya needed to do something about her feet so we performed a mcGyver type of medical procedure. She used the wetnaps from the airplane to disinfect her feet. I took one of her pins and held the tip over a lit lighter. then she did her thing with the blisters and covered then with a band aid. The operation was a success. This is also the place where the same flower vendor came up to us every five minutes trying to sell us flowers AGAIN. he got so annoying that we developed an immunity to vendors of all types in a half an hour. Some of the people on the steps had guitars so they TRIED playing gypsy kings songs and hotel California. They were not very good but the people around sang along anyway. After a little while of relaxing on the steps we went to a nearby cafe for dinner. The kitchen was closing at 11 so we had 10 minutes to order. We all had incredibly delicious food. and a lot of fun talking and relaxing. We basically closed out the cafe.
We still had about 8 hours before we had to be back at the airport so we went to the Piazza Novana in hopes of finding a bar that was open late. There were a bunch of street vendors and artists. We were just deciding where to sit down when we heard a guy playing electric guitar. He was amazing. There are no other words to describe him. Olya and I went over and the boys followed. We could have stood there and listened to him all night. He had a recordings of himself on an acoustic guitar prerecorded and he would just play them and play lead electric guitar over them. We heard The Wall and Stairway to heaven. Also a Hotel California. It was now after 1 in the morning so I guess it was not a big surprise that the cops came and gave him a ticket for being loud. He stayed and plyed more after abut 15 minutes of being quiet. We sat at a cafe and could still hear him. The cops came again around two and made him leave. It was pretty unfortunate.
It was quiet on the piazza for about 10 minutes and then we heard LOUD drumming and whistle blowing. It was in the style of marching band meets carnivale. There were some Brazilian kids playing and dancing although it was not capoera it was still cool to watch. They were so energetic (on crack) that they pumped us back up. WE watched them for a little while and then decided to walk to the Camp del furi. It was after 2 in the morning so all the bars were closing. When we got there and saw a lot of cops just standing there ready to contain whatever drunken brawl they saw and a bunch of kids/college drinking and hanging out. The boys spent the last of their cash on some beers and stood around drinking for a little bit. The crowd was a bit rowdy and Olya and I would have probably been scared if the boys were not there. We made our way back to the Piazza Novana and sat at a closed cafe for a bit more. The streets were slowly becoming empty and we figured that we needed to find a cab before they disappeared all together. It took us a while to track one down and we only made it to the airport by 4 am. Sleeping was our only real option at that point so we slept on our bags for about 2/3 hours. Then we were woken up by the noise of the airport.
We slowly got out stuff out of storage, changed, ate breakfast and got on the plane. We were so tired that we slept right through everything - even the food :-). The flight was a little over 3 hours to Israel so we actually got energized by our nap. The airport has really been fixed up since the last time we were here. We didn't even need a shuttle from the plane anymore. It was pretty nice to see. At customs we stood in line and right before it was our turn we were told that the line is closed and were moved to a different line. Sereja was a little nervous about customs so we alll just waited. The couple in font of me were Russian who didn't speak any Hebrew or English. The customs officer asked if anyone could translate and I quickly volunteered. I interrogated the crap out of the couple - well she did and I translated but they made it through just fine. We were up next and we all went together. The customs officer was so happy that she could interrogate the couple easily that she almost didn't ask us any questions and Sereja came in to Israel on his US Passport with no problems. We all breathed a sigh of relief, found our shuttle driver and waited for Antonov, whose flight was only delayed by 4 minutes - damn Swiss. His pilot's name was Captain Schnitzel of Swiss Air so it's no wonder the plane landed on time. Antonov got interrogated hard core so we had to wait for him for a while but he finally came out and we could start our trip.
Our driver was very knowledgeable and helpful. He stopped and bough us some fresh dates from a highway vendor and told us some interesting touristy stuff about Jerusalem/ein gedi/etc. When we were driving though the desert we saw a Bedouin riding a donkey and texting. We all thought that it was really cool. Also we passed by the mountain that was entirely made of salt (Lot's wife from the story of Lot). The trip was really hard on us since the elevation kept changing and the road was a mountain road. I thought that I would not make it, but then we all passed out and slept a lot. We made it to Eilat a little after 9, changed and walked around the board walk. We had a great time talking and drinking. Our waitress spoke Russian so we had no problem talking with her. At 2 in the morning we decided that it was time to sleep and that we would meet up for breakfast at 10 am downstairs. I can tell you that at least my whole room did not wake up until an angry Shafran phone call at 11:30. Now we will go to snorkel with the dolphins. Stay tuned for more fun news from me and the gang.
I miss you all!!!
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