Rome and Warsaw (again)

Back to Warsaw for me. This is my 4th visit to Poland on this trip so far. I can remember a time when Dzido and I were worried that we wouldn't make it here on this trip! But I do love the city and its strange that I am starting to know it fairly well. Or at least well enough to know where the kebab shop and internet cafes are.

It was sad to leave Rome. I have been on some amazing adventures on this trip, but Rome stands out as the best, partially because of the city but mostly because of the company. Seeing Laura, Louise, Tom and my lovely Mummy made it such a special week. We had a great apartment in Rome. You would think that 6 people in an apartment would be cramped, but this place was huge. Nice big kitchen, 2 bedrooms and beds in the living room for Dzido and I. We even got to make our famous eggs/hashbrown breakfast for everyone. Here is Dzido cooking it up.


Getting to see the Vatican was pretty amazing. It was really busy by my standards, but Louise assures me that when she was there last it was even busier, so I guess we got lucky, despite the hour wait to get in. There were so many cool statues around and of course the main attractions like the Sistine Chapel and stuff. It never ceases to amaze me how artists can work on things like that for so long. My attention span doesn't last long enough to get to the end of some movies, but these guys would work for a decade in a single room painting. It just blows the mind.

New Years Eve in Rome was great too. I think that often New Years gets overhyped and you end up doing something average that seems disappointing. I thought we were in for one of those nights. The group, along with my Mum's friends from Ireland Rosemary and Deckland, set out at about 10pm on New Years Eve. Much to our suprise every restaurant was full. It was as if people had a whole year to plan this and had arranged ahead of time to be in these places. SHOCKED we were!

But we pushed on and on this case, Super Dzido saved the day. We finally found a place and Dzido sweat talked the guy into giving us a table for 8 and cutting the price in half because we got there late. We couldn't have done it without the Polish charmer. The food was...well rushed to say the least. We sat down at 11pm and I guess the staff wanted to party at midnight, so the proceeded to serve us the entire 6 course meal in under 1 hour. We all deserve awards for speed eating, though I think we all skipped at least 1 course. It was a bit insane. But the wine was free and so was the champagne, so you don't hear me complaining.

I think that the highlight of sight-seeing for me had to be Pompeii. The drive down there was a little cramped. Tom was in the front, Dzido was driving and the rest of us were shoved into the back like sardines (as the picture shows). As Dzido threw the car around the corners on the way up to Vessivious, we didn't move and inch because we were stuck so close together. We went as high as we could go on the active volcano, but because of the wind/low season, the top was close to visitors. It did give us some signs to Pompeii, which was good since we didn't have a map or a clue where we were going.

When we finally made it to Pompeii, the long drive just faded away. The city was simply amazing. You just get to walk around this Roman city, as it was in 79AD when the volcano buried it in rock and ash. There is even grafiti and advertisements preserved on some of the walls. You can walk into houses and everything. It sounds bad, but the highlight was the suprisingly well preserved brothel. Of all the things that could have been spared by the destruction, it wasn't the library or the temples or the law courts- it was the brothel. There were some ... interesting.. pictures on the walls and the beds were still in tact. There was even a street of bars that was well preserved. Here are Dzido and I using the skills we learned in England to serve this happy customer.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end and the family is back in Canada. I miss them a lot. For the first time since I started traveling I was homesick when they left. But that is ok, since there are some great adventures still to come and I know that I will see them soon. Dzido and I headed back to Poland, which took a long time given that we needed 2 flights (us in Milan pictured here), a bus, a train and a tram to get there. But we made it at last. Just over a week now until we go to Thailand. The Canadian government did just issue a travel warning after some bombings...but I am sure it will be fine. Although it does place Thailand in a group with the following countries: Chad, Ethiopia, Afganistan, Yemen, Sierre Leone, Isreal (the West Bank and Gaza), Myanmar (Burma) and Sudan, to name a few. But India is on that list too, so maybe things are getting better in all of these places.