failing hard in italy

I've been meaning to write down what I did for the second part of my trip to Italy but I was sidetracked by my laziness. Going to school for one day a week for only 4 hours leaves you with a lot of free time. When you then have a week off from school due to Easter it becomes a challenge to even get out of bed. Going from having little responsibilities to absolutely none is tough to bounce back from. Tomorrow I have to go to class again and at some point I have to start writing my final papers. There is a good chance that I won't start for another month.

So back to my awesome journey of self-discovery while I backpacked through Italia (you see this is how the locals call it so I'm better than you for using it). After Missy and I left Bologna we decided to take a day trip through Florence. Normally this would be awesome because Florence is a not that big of a place so we can see all the awesome shit in one day. Except on Mondays, because the Uffize is closed that day and the botanical garden is also closed on the first Monday of every month. Guess which day we went?

While the two places we most wanted to go were closed, there were still a lot of other cool things to check out. The Basilica di Santa Croce was pretty rad and the weather was nice for the first half of the day. After awhile though the weather took a turn for the worse and walking around became much less enjoyable.

Towards the end of our stay there we sat outside the Basilica on the steps listening to music, waiting for the time to come to leave for the train station, when all the sudden a police van came out of nowhere. Off in the distance we heard shouting and chanting and decided to take a look. It turns out it was a protest (non-violent and therefore lame) about foreign workers rights. Not as cool as I would have hoped for and unfortunately nowhere close to being a riot. My dream to partake in a riot will have to wait for another day.

Once that settled down we decided to book it to Siena. We took an earlier train and hoped that we would be able to find Missy's friend without having her number or an address. While we were on the train one of the people sitting not too far from us received a ticket for something, probably not having a ticket. I couldn't understand what she was saying but she was pretty pissed about it and the meter maid had to get backup. Sadly for the second time in the day the riot I wished for was not meant to be.

Eventually we were able to meet up with Missy's friend and settle down. The next 2 1/2 days were spent mostly relaxing. Who knew that going on vacation could be so tiring? Thankfully Siena is not that big of a city if you stay inside the walls so I was able to do some exploring while Missy stayed in bed trying to overcome her cold.

That night, sadly, did not end well for me. I came to Denmark with the goal of not making an red shirted ass of myself. That lasted maybe a week at best. In Italy? Day 6. We decided to go to a club that night and before hand had a small pre-party at the apartment. This led to drinking games in which I re-learned a valuable lesson: do not play drinking games with half a bottle of Jamison.

I should have known it was a bad sign for me when my reflexes were so slow that a car slowly ran over my heel as we waited outside the entrance but I persevered for some odd, idiotic reason. Within what seemed like 5 minutes I had ruined someone's jacket with my weak stomach and left. Covered in my own filth and unable to locate anyone that I came with, I decided to leave and find my way back to the apartment. I had no idea where I was, no idea how I was going to get inside, and no way of knowing when anyone would come and let me in. I drunkenly stumbled until I found the Piazza del Campo and used that as my navigational point to orientate myself. Due to some sort of miracle I also was able to run into Theresa's roommate who was also heading home from the club.

I threw my clothes in the washing machine, cleaned up and passed out on the couch. So much for dignity and self-respect.

The rest of the trip in Siena was less eventful and less embarrassing save for my poor navigational abilities. I can find an apartment that I've only been to twice in the dark while drunk yet I can't find a giant park with a map and directions. Siena is a city that exists only to pinpoint all my failings as a person.

Rome was much better. At first I was worried because everything on the way to our hostel was dirty and covered in shitty graffiti but once we settled in and got out of the bad parts of the city it was great. The Colosseum was quite the spectacle. The best part might have been the guys standing around outside dressed up in crappy Halloween costumes to look like Roman soldiers. They stood around chain smoking and asking, nay, yelling at all the tourists to take a picture with them for money. I declined.


Once again my terrible luck came into play when the weather decided to piss all over my travels by raining. We made it back to the hostel and took it somewhat easy because we wanted to get up early and go to the Vatican before there was a super long line to get in.

Except for the part where I was molested and the Pope covered it up, everything about Vatican City was amazing. Also I lied, the molestation wasn't too bad either (low hanging fruit is my favorite). St. Peter's Basilica was easily the most impressive of the churches we went to. I have no idea how something like that could have been built without today's technology. I'm going to assume slave labor and human rights abuses made it a lot easier.

The Vatican Museum was overwhelming with regards to how much impressive art work is jammed in there. I could have spent an hour just looking at the ceilings of the first hallway and walked away awestruck. However since I'm not an art history major or a sentimental loser, that situation did not occur. Out of everything that we saw in there my favorite was easily the School of Athens. That painting has been in so many different textbooks that I've had to read that seeing it in person was kind of cool.


The Sistine Chapel on the other hand was a tad disappointing. It isn't a lot of fun craning your neck to look at the ceiling while the guards yell 'No photo!' 5 times a minute. Since I am the original bad ass though I went ahead and took really crappy photos all stealth like. They turned out horrible but that's besides the point.

To continue a familiar theme, it began to rain again. At this point Missy and I went our separate ways because she was getting sick of me. I can't say I blame her either. While she went off exploring one part of the city I did my own thing. We eventually met back up at the hostel, ate dinner and went around exploring some more with some people we met.

The next day the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and I was on an airplane back to Copenhagen to meet up with my friend from back home. If you believe the saying that people make there own luck then I am the worst luck maker in the world. I couldn't fabricate a good time to save my life.