Italia Venerdi e Sabato 21/3/25 & 22/3/25 (Pictures)
Yeah, I decided to date these posts with the way a lot of the rest of the world writes their dates. At the very least how they write it in Italy. Looking at the pictures now, I’m gonna admit, there might not be a lot to write about the pictures. There is a lot of history involved with these pictures, and I didn’t always know the history of what I was taking a picture of, a lot of it was just me looking at something and saying “Hey, that’s pretty cool/interesting/strange”. If I know history for a specific pic, I’ll write about it. If not, well… Nobody reads the shit I write anyway, so… This is really just me amusing myself
Shall we begin? This is a random sculpture/art installation/crime against nature that I spent a lot of time near during my layover in DFW (Dallas Fort Worth airport). It was able to be walked through, but nowhere did I find a reason behind this monstrosity. As I said, I spent a lot of time near this, so I decided to take a picture.
Looking out the window as we sat in the plane waiting to head to Italy. Both of my long trips involved seeing the engine taking up a large portion of my view. So this is the engine of a Boeing… 787? 797? I dunno. If you know planes, hit me up and I’ll edit this and give you credit.
Mere minutes after we hit our cruising altitude the flight crew brought us food. The pasta and the cheesecake looking thing weren’t that bad. The salad was a “You better like balsamic vinegar or you’re eating this dry” sort of affair. And oh dear gods, don’t get me started on the bread-colored rock.
Continuing my history of taking pictures of the hotel room, this is part of the bathroom. I thought it looked pretty swanky. If anyone ever wants to visit Italy, this was the Marcella Royal hotel. Located on Via Flavia, and like… a 15 minute walk from the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. It’s actually a pretty good location. My longest walk was the hour long walk to the Vatican. But that is a story for another day… literally.
This is the closest you’ll likely get of a picture of myself in a vacation picture. Yep. That’s right. My elbow did manage to get caught in this one, just look in the mirror. Anyway, this was me showing just how small the shower was. Unless I aligned myself diagonally and stood in a very specific spot, I couldn’t raise both arms. This is the worst part of the hotel in my opinion. The shower is tiny. Fortunately, it is clear on two sides, so not totally claustrophobic.
The hotel bed! The little rack thing at the bottom of the image became my… desk? I used it to hold my Switch, my phone, and my tablet. Also pictured in this image, my travel wallet, which was my way to thwart pick pockets. My messenger bag which went everywhere with me. My compression socks which I use for long flights. 2 maps of the city, because I hadn’t thrown them out yet. Despite my inability to sleep some nights, this bed was actually pretty comfortable.
Porta Pia. This was the closest landmark I could find to the hotel, so I walked there so that I wouldn’t pass out in my room. Seriously, I had been up for like 45 hours at this point, and my brain was kinda pudding-like. This was a gate in the city walls, and was designed by my favorite Ninja Turtle. Commissioned by Pope Pius the 4th, that is also where the gate gets its name Porta Pia, Pia standing for Pius. My Latin is shit, Pia might actually be a possessive version of Pius. Who knows? I think I want a better look at one of those plaques.
Standing in the way of my efforts to translate the Latin? The lack of using the letter U and using V instead. Who am I kidding? The primary roadblock to reading the Latin was the fact that I sucked at Latin. There will be a lot of pictures of the Latin throughout this vacation. As my horror movie experience tells me… Don’t read the Latin!
Have I ever mentioned my “Ooooh! I’ve never seen this before” tendencies? Well, this picture has several different parts of my odd self. On the left, Lewis Hamilton Zero Sugar Monster. It was not good. In the middle is the first shot glass I bought to remember this trip. On the right? The Doctor Monster. Which I tried in Japan, and decided to try it again… not that good.
What’s with the blue? There were lit shelves on the side of the room, and I decided to use that for this picture.
o/`”I'm blue
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di
Da ba dee da ba di”
….er… anyway. Let’s move on.
Dinner from day 1. This was a… braised beef ravioli with pecorino sauce and a Chianti drizzle? The rooftop restaurant at the hotel had some good food, but the price is a little… yeah. I only ate the one meal here, partially because they wanted reservations, and I never knew when I was going to eat, so… yeah. Glad I tried it, but it was definitely a one time experience.
Would you look at that? I had something to say about all the pictures for this day/days worth of pictures. Sure, I only had a small handful, it was nice to see that I remembered my reasoning for all the pictures.
