Tivoli (the City outside Rome not the Apartment Complex in Gainesville or Orlando)

My family and I decided to go to the local commune of Rome called Tivoli. Tivoli (the namesake of a popular apartment complex in Gainesville and Orlando) is a small city about 20 km outside of Rome known for its Villas. We visited the Villa D'Este which is known for its multitude of fountains. The fountain in which my whole family is standing in front of is called the Fountain of Neptune (constructed by Bernini in 1661). My other favorite was this set of fountains called the Hundred Fountains which is a long line of fountains that connects two larger fountains on the end.


My dad and I had a field day with all the naked people fountains. Italians like their naked sculptures. Unfortunately, I realized when we got to Tivoli I forgot my memory card for my digital SLR so our pictures were limited to a digital point and shoot camera (which I can't stand anymore).



One highlight of the trip is how we discovered how much guide books like Frommer's suck. In Frommer's it told us to go to one metro station to catch the bus to Tivoli, but in fact the metro station that you have to stop at is the one before the one Frommer's said (luckily I knew that beforehand!). Frommer's also doesn't tell you where to stop once you are on the bus to Tivoli cause if you stay on the bus till it stops it goes about 2 km too far. Frommer's is now on my crap list, just like Mapquest.

We also experienced how confusing Roman public transport could be. For example, when the bus for us to go home to Rome was full we took the next bus that also said to Rome but by a different route. That route somehow goes one direction first and then turns around and backtracks the same direction (huh?). So there was one point where we saw a sign that said Poli one direction and Roma the other. The bus went in the direction of Poli. I've ended up on the wrong side of Rome once already so I didn't want that to happen again. My sister said I looked like I crapped in my pants. Anyhow, we somehow passed the same sign for Poli/Roma and this time went in the direction of Roma. Wheew.

Messa Della Notte al Vaticano

Since we were in Italy, we decided to attend the Christmas Midnight Mass given by Pope Benedict XVI at St. Peter's Basilica. In order to go, I had to reserve tickets for entrance for my family at the Pontifical North American College (the American Catholic Seminary in Rome) about a month ago. The tickets didn't guarantee admittance but you had to have them to get in. We got in line at St. Peter's Square at about 6:30 p.m. The line quickly filled. In essence, I told my parents that this was nothing compared to the nights waiting in line at the O'dome for Gator Basketball. One nice thing was that a few study abroad students were right in front of me in line and they came prepared. So they shared a glass of Chianti with me! At about 10:15 p.m. officials let people into the Basilica. It was mayhem. Right when the gates opened, people started running and some people even tried to run ahead of other people in line. I thought to myself, this is the worst place to skip and be dishonest :). After getting through security, my family and I sat down in our seats and waited about another hour until the ceremony began. It was a beautiful ceremony that was given primarily in Latin and Italian. Instead of translating everything, each part of the mass was given in different languages, even Tagalog! Given that, my family and I (and I'm sure the masses of tourists) did not understand the majority of the service. My mom actually fell asleep during part of the Pope's homily. The event was covered by CNN and I later found out that the homily focused on loving all children around the world (which would explain why the Pope said bambini a lot and why there were kids in native garb giving the gifts to the pope). The service lasted about 2 hours and we didn't get home until 4 a.m.

Getting Medieval on Your Assisi

This post is backwards because my family, Eugenio, and I actually went to the Medieval city of Assisi before we went to Madrid. Anyhow, we all took a day trip to this beautiful city which is most known for being the home of St. Francis, one of the patron saints of Italy. Many of you may have heard of St. Francis through St. Francis House Soup Kitchens in the States. Assisi is a beautiful city which has architecture which is very different from that of Rome. There are at least 5 different churches, the two main ones being Santa Clara (other patron saint of Italy) and St. Francesco. Everywhere in the city, you see many of the characteristic signs of St. Francis, the dove and the Tau symbol. Both come to represent the love and peace which Christianity stands for. I bought a wood Tau cross, which also comes to resemble the typical Christian cross, with my name inscribed into it. The church of St. Francis also had probably the coolest nativity scene I had ever seen. For Christmas, the figures in the scene (shown below) are replaced by real people. Here are a few more pictures below:

Trip to Madrid

So I wish I had something more interesting to put on this post, but unfortunately the day before my family and I left for Madrid I ate something in Italy that gave me food poisoning (main reason I haven't been posting). So the picture displays how I spent the majority of my family's 4 day trip to Madrid. Anyways, my family did end up having a good time walking through the city and seeing the sights. I did manage to walk around and take a bus tour for one of the days. That day we went through the Royal Palace which had like over 2800 rooms. Usually, eating is one of the highlights of my trips abroad but I hardly ate anything the whole trip and what I did eat was nothing new to most of you, Burger King. When I wasn't sleeping, I did manage to catch up on news (CNN, which I don't have in Italy) and also got to watch the live announcement of the FIFA World Player of the Year Award go to my boy, Italian Captain Fabio Cannavaro.