Birthday Weekend 2012

Lauren and her friend Liz were here in Firenze on September 7-9 and I hung out with them Friday and Saturday and then they left for Venice on Sunday. We took in the sights, had dinner, watched a lantern festival parade and on Saturday we took the train to a neighboring city

to go to the Prada outlet. It was a fun day and the girls got their shop on and had a good time. 

 These are the golden doors to the Baptistry of the Duomo which took twenty seven years to finish. They were destroyed by possibly the flood but I'm not certain although if anyone is really interested I could look it up. 

 This whole area is enormously popular with the tourists who are swarming around it day and night.  If you go into the Duomo there is a staircase of over 400 steps that leads to the tower and you can see the whole of Florence and the surrounding area.  Lauren and Liz went up just as I was walking over to meet them so I missed going up with them but I really didn't miss it. I haven't been in the Duomo yet but I probably will not go up those stairs. There is a reason there are 5-6 ambulances parked outside all day every day and I don't care to take a ride with them. 

 The doors are really quite beautiful but twenty seven years??

 We left for Rome on Wednesday the 12th which happens to be my birthday. I met them at the train station after I took my mid term early in Italian language class so I wouldn't miss it. When I got there they hadn't eaten yet so we got Yes!! McDonalds in Italy. I had a cheeseburger, fries and a coke and here is the coke cup.  Notice that it is in Italian. The McDonalds has blasting music, it is impossibly crowded but strangely the clerks are nice which isn't normal for Florence. Anyway, it was good to have fries and a taste of home. 

This is the Trevi Fountain in Rome.  After we got to our hotel and checked in with a very weird and creepy but funny manager/host/owner or whatever he was, we were on our way to the Trevi Fountain. We didn't spend much time there because it was getting dark and we had other things to get done that evening.

 But look at the photos and imagine what went into them. 

 It is absolutely amazing what these people did.

 It is massive and some of it is below ground level so it doesn't look so big at first glance.

 But you can see here how grand it truly is.  What is amazing about Rome is all these historical ancient places are just there with the city around them. You are walking around and all of a sudden here is this ancient historical monument that you have heard about all your life and it is just there with shops and restaurants around it like it was just part of the city which it is but it just doesn't seem like it should be.

 I have no idea what it says but I felt it was important to photograph it. 

 Here you can see the actual water because it is a fountain after all. 

 I could have stayed longer and I forgot to toss a coin in but I may go back before I leave. You could actually stay for a week and not see everything.

 This is just to prove I was actually there. I wish somebody would have airbrushed the photo. It would make me feel so much better. 

This is all I have for this post. I still have the rest of day one in Rome, day two in Rome and the time in Anguillara to post so stay tuned. Film at 11. 
Buononotte!! a domani tutti!!