Michael Jackson

I have been feeling, as I'm sure many have in the past few days, that I've only realized how much I appreciated Michael Jackson since he died last Friday. This doesn't cause me guilt, as my opinion of Michael Jackson had no effect on the man whatsoever, but it does cause me to question how it is that we view artists/celebrities. If you'd mentioned Michael Jackson last Thursday, I would have instantly thought of the deformed nose, child molestation allegations, and bizarre lifestyle. But within hours of his death, his legacy transformed into that of a musical prodigy who changed the face of popular music and dance forever.

I can't claim this idea is original, but I can't quite get it out of my head: Michael Jackson is the Elvis Presley of his generation. Both men bridged the gap between "black music" and "white music," defining new musical styles all their own. Both men suffered massive falls from grace, turning into recluses with rumours swirling about what sort of debauchery went on inside their respective mansions. Both died relatively young, and I'm convinced that there will be many who believe that Jackson's death, like Elvis', has been faked. I'm also sure that within a few years Neverland will become a major tourist attraction on the scale of Graceland.

Every time I watch any musical talent shows (American Idol, Britain's Got Talent, etc.) I see a Michael Jackson impersonator. I can't think of any other music stars who are impersonated as much as Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. Part of that is because there are few musicians with as distinctive styles as those two, and certainly none with as distinctive of dance moves. You can immediately tell when someone is dressed and dancing like one of those two, something that can't be said for other popular musicians of the past century, with the possible exception of the Beatles.

The golden ages of both Elvis and MJ were fairly brief. I think that my experiences with Michael Jackson are probably similar to those of the Baby Boomer generation with Elvis. Michael Jackson was ever-present. I can never remember not knowing who he was, or not associating the moonwalk with him. I do remember the first time I saw a Michael Jackson music video: Free Willy around 1993. Already by that point, he was becoming a disgraced star, and I remember being aware of rumours about him being transgendered. I would imagine that for a lot of Boomers, they were also aware of Elvis for their entire lives, but anything he did in their lifetime was already well past his peak: some movies, and then the famous Vegas concerts and the jumpsuits that he wore for them.

So many of Michael Jackson's songs are deeply engrained in my cultural consciousness. Billie Jean, Beat It, Black or White, and Thriller all seem to be default dance numbers at weddings, talent shows, etc. Free Willy is one of the most memorable films of my childhood, and Will You Be There was stuck in my head for years.

It's sad that a person has to die before we appreciate them. I realize that it was impossible to look past the circus that surrounded Michael Jackson over the last decade or so, and he didn't do anything artistically to distract from that. Even as I was becoming a big fan of the Thriller album, there was a disconnect in my mind between the man who lived in an amusement park and the man who sang those songs I love so much. It has only been after he has died that I've been able to bridge that gap and realize that they were one and the same person, and that his musical and dance achievements are far more important than how he looked, what he bought, or what he did with his children.

The death of Michael Jackson is a very sad one. He was a man who never had a childhood, and who perpetually tried to regain those lost years. He suffered from several severe illnesses, most notably vitiligo, which changed his skin colour rapidly. He faced a lot of pressures, and collapsed under them. His death is not a sad one for the loss to the musical community, necessarily, as I don't think he was going to ever put out new music that would come close to his older work, but it is a sad one for the man himself. He suffered a lot in his pursuit of happiness, something that it never really seemed like he achieved.

Photographic Proof

Technically none of these pictures show me crossing the finish line, so you'll have to take my word for that.


The start: I'm the guy in the black wetsuit and blue swimcap.

Actually, I'm the guy in the very middle of the photograph whose hands are splayed out oddly.

All I could think about getting out of the water here was how happy I was to be done, and that I needed to be very careful not to trip or stub my toe on the large blocks of concrete.

There's probably a gap of 10 minutes between that last picture and this one, since my wetsuit is finally off.

Starting out on the bike, just before that old guy in front of me stopped suddenly and completely blocked the way out.

Coming back in on the bike. I was really pleased with my performance on the bike, and I passed a lot of people. I was 63rd coming out of the water, then had a terrible transition, but even with that transition I had the 37th best bike time.

I look like I'm sprinting out of transition here. Obviously I did not maintain this sort of pace for very long.

Like I said, none of these pictures show me crossing the finish line, but this is about 3 paces before the finish line. It was such a good feeling to finish that race.

My First Triathlon

Yesterday I accomplished the goal I set on New Year's Eve of completing a triathlon! I raced in the Sprint division of the Lake Summerside Triathlon yesterday in south Edmonton. As you may recall, it was Leif who inspired me to participate in triathlons. Last year he started racing, and when I began swimming in the fall, I secretly decided that I might surprise him by showing up at a race in the summer. But at New Year's, when we were all writing out our goals for the year, I decided to go public with that goal, hoping that doing so would make it happen. Yesterday, along with Leif and my friend Joel Houston, I reached the culmination of all the training from that point on. It was an amazing feel to cross that finish line, and I'm incredibly proud of accomplishing this goal.

As for the race itself, here's how it went: the day before, Leif and I met up at the lake to go for a practice swim. This was the first time I'd ever tried to really swim in a lake, and also the first time using my wetsuit, and it didn't really go very well. The water was too cold for me to be able to keep my face in the water properly, and so I found myself completely unable to swim anything more than a breaststroke. Furthermore, the arms of my wetsuit filled up with water, and I didn't have the upper-body strength to lift them out of the water. It was a little bit frightening, and certainly didn't build up my confidence for the next day.

However, that night I focused my mind on swimming slowly and easily, flipping onto my back whenever necessary, and just making sure that I completed the swim, no matter how long it took me.

The next morning I was up bright and early, and Leif and I met Joel at the race site around 7:30. I checked in, got body-marked, picked up my timing chip, set up my bike and gear, and began the long wait. My wave (all the Sprint racers) didn't start until 10:00, so there was plenty of time to wait. It was good, though, because I could think through everything, make sure nothing was missed, and get mentally prepared for the race ahead.

Joel and I stood on the beach watching the Olympic racers go before us, and I was encouraged to see a lot of people going very slowly. In fact, we watched a number of people drop out of the race because they couldn't handle the swim, and I was very glad that I had done the practice swim on Saturday. I think that if I hadn't, I probably would have panicked and quit. Instead, I knew I wasn't going to be able to just do a quick, normal swim, and as a result I finished comfortably.

The time came for our race to begin. The horn sounded, and I slowly jogged into the water, letting most people go in front of me. There was some congestion initially, which is impossible to avoid with 91 people starting at once, but nothing too bad, just some bumping. Pretty quickly I found some space, and almost immediately flipped over onto my back. The cold combined with the wetsuit just made me feel too constricted, and I couldn't hold my breath long enough, so I didn't really try. I probably completed about three-quarters of the swim on my back, and a lot of it just chugging along with my legs. Whenever I did flip onto my front I could go a lot faster, but I just couldn't keep it up for long enough. But my emphasis was on finishing the swim, and that's what I did. In the final 250 metres, I picked one guy who I would try to beat, and I did, by about 20 metres. Final swim time: 21:40, 63rd (these places are out of the 80 people who finished the Sprint race).

My transition was horrible. Absolutely horrific. I knew going in that I would have troubles getting my wetsuit over my heels, but hadn't realized how tired my arms would be. It must have taken me 5 minutes to get it off. I'd estimate my transition time at around 7 minutes, which is unacceptable. There is a lot of room for improvement here. Unfortunately this race didn't do separate times for transitions, so I don't know how much of my bike time was taken up in this transition.

I felt really good on the bike. I kept up a good speed the whole time, and passed a lot of people. The bike course was not very well planned, as much of it was on nearly gravel roads, and a lot of people suffered flat tires due to the poor conditions of the roads. There were also some very strong headwinds, which made the ride difficult, but I like to think that my leg strength is my strongest point, and I was able to push past quite a few people. The bike was pretty uneventful, even though it was the longest part of the race. I couldn't feel my feet the whole time, which was weird, as they were still numb from the swim. Leif passed me with about 7 km to go, and it was nice to see him and call out some encouragement. Final bike time (22.4 km, including swim-to-bike transition): 55:40, 37th.

My second transition (T2) was amazing. Because I don't have cycling shoes, all I had to do was rack my bike, pull off my helmet and start running. I think I was probably in and out of the whole transition zone in less than 30 seconds. The announcer called out my name as I started off on the run, which was a pretty cool feeling.

The run was two laps of a loop through the Summerside neighbourhood, including running along a gravel path and over 3 wood bridges. It was overall a very pleasant run, and there were lots of places to pass by runners going in the opposite direction so I could know exactly how my friends were doing. I had, as a bit of a joke, set a goal of finishing my Sprint distance race before Leif finished his Olympic distance race (all distances doubled). Leif had a 30 minute head start, and it turns out that this was actually not a guarantee, given his super-human speed. I passed him going in the other direction as I started out on my 2nd lap and he was finishing his 2nd, so I realized that I just needed to finish my lap before he could do two, which I did, finishing about 5 minutes before Leif did. The first lap of the run was tough, because my legs were very tired. The swimming on my back had been a lot harder on my legs than I had anticipated, so they were starting to cramp up. Also, running after a long bike is a major switch in muscles and doesn't feel very natural at all. I'm certain that my second loop was a lot faster than my first one. I turned on the speed in the final 300 metres, and passed 2 or 3 people so that I could have the finish line all to myself. I came around the corner, heard Jana and our other friends that had come out to watch cheering me on, and sprinted across the finish. I felt so great!! Final run time: 28:08, 38th.
At various points in the buildup to this race, I had set different goals for myself. At one point, I wanted to finish in 1:30. However, I abandoned that goal early on, realizing that it was both way too fast for my abilities and also didn't factor in any flexibility for a longer bike (such as in this race) or race-specific factors (like the headwinds and road conditions on the bike). Later I set a goal of finishing without walking. I abandoned that goal after a heavy workout in the river valley in which I realized that some hills are just too large to run up. But after seeing the racecourse, I re-adopted that goal, and yesterday I achieved it. That is probably what I am the most proud of out of the whole day: I finished the whole triathlon without walking, and pushed as hard as I possibly could.

My final time was 1:44:53, good for 40th overall out of 80 finishers. I am extremely pleased with that result. I was mentally prepared to finish in last place, as long as I finished. To finish in the top half (91 started) is much better than I had expected. There is a lot of room for improvement (especially on my swim and T1), so I find myself in the position where I am now hooked to the sport, and must do more. I've registered for the Lacombe Triathlon in September, and am planning to register for the Coral Springs Triathlon in Calgary in July (in addition to Leif and Joel, I also know that both Laura and my Mom are planning to run their first triathlons that day). I can't wait to get out there and do another one!

By the way, I know that pictures exist of this day, I just don't have them yet. As soon as I have them, I'll post them.

Europe Trip - Part 7 - Rome

Exams are looming over me, but it’s lunch hour and I’ve only got a few minutes before class starts, so I may as well write a bit of this. I enjoy writing these blogs so much, and from the Florence one I see that other people besides myself actually do read them and enjoy them as well, so it’s not difficult to get motivated to write them. This post will concern Rome, the final Italian city on our trip, and what ended up being the longest we spent in any one city. (Note: it is, of course, several weeks since exams ended, as once again this post took me over a month to write. I should forewarn you: we took less pictures in Rome than anywhere else, for some reason, so there will be a lot more text than photos in this post, sorry. And the photos I do include may be of lower quality, since I have less to choose from.)

I had a hard drive crash a couple of weeks ago, which wiped out all of the pictures on my computer. Fortunately, Jana had the Europe pictures saved on her laptop (and we’ve printed quite a few of them), so none of those were lost. And my law school notes were backed up online, so I only lost a few days worth of those. But it was a good reminder to start backing up regularly.

Anyway, I’m off topic already and on my third paragraph and haven’t talked about Rome at all.

We left Florence bright and early on the 7:52 train which took us directly to the Stazione Termini in Rome, arriving at 9:30. That was a really great bit of planning on our part, because it meant that we didn’t have a travel day between those two cities. Between Venice and Florence we had still done stuff on the travel day, but the whole afternoon was taken up on the train. This was great, because we had the whole day in Rome.

Our hotel was right by the station, so we went there immediately and put our luggage into storage for the day. The hotel was pretty nice, and well air-conditioned, which was very much appreciated. Our stay in Rome was very, very hot. The highs were in the high-30s every day that we were there, and the sun was always beating down. It was definitely too hot at times, and we didn’t always enjoy things as much as we could have because it was so uncomfortable, which is too bad. But that’s what you get in mid-August.

The best part of the hotel, though, was its location. Rome has a pretty terrible transit system, but it’s all focused around one hub: the Stazione Termini. That’s part of why it’s so bad, in fact. The subway consists of two lines, and they make a giant “X” over the city, converging only at the Termini. This was also the hub for nearly every bus line. It must be very frustrating to get from one side of the city to the other using transit, as you would have to make your way to Termini first in order to get anywhere. However, for us, this was great, because our hotel was one block away from every transit line.

We learned, as the week went on, that central Rome is actually a lot smaller than we thought, and had it not been so hot, we would have done more walking. We also learned that taking the bus was always quicker than crowding onto the train, especially since we usually only wanted to go a few stops.

This first day in Rome was our second wedding anniversary. I’m not sure why I’m mentioning that now, but it’s good to remember everything that we did on our anniversary, even if most of it we would have done anyway.

The first thing we did that day was ride the train over to the Piazza del Popolo. This is a beautiful square, famous for the two matching churches flanking the street leading out of the square, and for the Egyptian obelisk in the centre. I’ve seen it in the previews for Angels and Demons, so I imagine it figures prominently in that movie. We then walked up the Via del Corso, past the two churches, and up this high-class shopping street until we turned and reached the famous Spanish Steps. We could not understand the hype about these steps. After all, they were just steps. The sunken ship fountain is interesting, but that’s about it.

Then we decided to head out on a walking tour, so we got back on the train, and headed to the nearest train stop to Trastevere. This was poorly planned, as we could have gotten there much quicker by a bus and then tram (a route we used several times later in the week), but I was never able to find a good transit map of Rome, so in these early days we were rather reliant on the metro. In this case, it meant about a 45 minute walk to get to where we would start our walking tour, down a street with no trees, in 38 degree heat.

Fortunately, we loved Trastevere. This neighbourhood became our default place to go, and we came back here 3 or 4 times while we were there. One of the main reasons was an early stop on our walking tour: the Sora Mirella grattachecca stand along the Tiber River. The picture of it here is not my own, as bizarrely we did not take any pictures of this place that we would plan the rest of our days around coming back to. A grattachecca is a drink made from fresh shaved ice, fresh fruit, syrup, and some dried fruit on top. It is absolutely delicious. We started planning our days around getting back to this little stand, because the heat was so unbearable otherwise.

The rest of the walking tour took us through the tiny, twisting streets of Trastevere and to the beautiful little Church of St. Cecilia. Then we went back to the hotel and got dressed for dinner. We had not planned a place for dinner, but we started looking for a place nice and early so we never really felt rushed. Italians eat nice and late, probably due to the high heat during the day.

While we looked for a restaurant, we explored a lot of central Rome. We made our first visit to the Trevi Fountain with its vast crowds and the Piazza Colonna. Quite unexpectedly, we came around a corner and were face-to-face with the Pantheon, which is a very, very impressive building. It was just a block or two beyond the Pantheon, on a tiny street that was little more than an alley (in fact, there was no vehicular traffic on the street) that we found the amazing restaurant that we ate our anniversary dinner at. We sat out on the patio, as the night began to cool off, and had one of the best dinners of our entire trip, which was a great treat for our anniversary. For our first course, the pasta course, I had Spaghetti alla Carbonara, my all-time favourite pasta dish, and Jana had pasta with fresh Porcini mushrooms. For the main course, Jana had salmon with a tomato sauce, while I had a beef tenderloin encrusted with pink peppercorns. It was delicious, served with fantastic fresh-baked bread, and all washed down with a great Chianti and sparkling water. I can’t remember exactly what dessert was, but it was some sort of chocolate, and I know I had an espresso (I’d check with Jana on the dessert, but of course she’s away in England right now). It was a beautiful warm night, the patio was full of locals enjoying a beautiful evening at a restaurant that they clearly knew was superior, and we had amazing service. I think we’ll be hard-pressed to ever have a better anniversary. We walked back through the Pantheon, wandering through the huge columns in the dark, and back up the Via del Tritone to the train station.

The next morning we started with a visit to the Galleria Borghese, for which we had a 9:00 am reservation. This Renaissance villa is filled with the private art collection of the Borghese family. By and large, it was a bit of a disappointment, as the Borghese’s taste was rather tacky. However, a few works were among the very best we saw on the entire trip, most notably Bernini’s “Apollo and Daphne” and Canova’s “Pauline Bonaparte”. It was really nice to be up and about in the morning, though, while it was still cool, especially as the villa is located in a very large park, which we were able to walk through for a while.

We then made our way over to the Vatican. We had been warned of very, very long lines to get into the Vatican Museums, so we wanted to get there around lunchtime so that we could still get in even if we had to stand in line for 3 or 4 hours. As it turned out, there was no line at all; we just walked right in. The Vatican Museums were fascinating, a huge collection of art spread throughout the Papal Palaces. We started with the famous spiral staircase, and then made our way through art history starting with Ancient Egypt and ending in the Renaissance. My favourite part of the museums were the Papal apartments painted by Raphael. This is right near the end of the museum, and these rooms, combined with the final exhibit in the museum, are probably the pinnacle of Renaissance art. The most famous of the many frescoes in these rooms is certainly “The School of Athens”. The final exhibit, which I just mentioned, is of course the Sistine Chapel. Jana found the Chapel slightly disappointing, as it was not what she had expected. Personally, I found it overwhelming. There is so much art in that room, and so much of it is so far away, that it is impossible to really take in what you’re seeing. We sat in that room for quite some time and soaked it in. Some of the segments are of course very famous, such as “Creation of Adam” and “God Creates the Sun and the Planets.” The most impressive part, however, for me at least, was “The Last Judgment”, which takes up the entire wall behind the altar. Thanks once again to Rick Steve’s audio guides, we were given a detailed description of this work of art, and pointed towards many of the fascinating details found in it that we might very well have missed otherwise.

Following the Sistine Chapel, we made our final stop in the Vatican: St. Peter’s Basilica. Once again we had an audio guide that we were both listening to on our iPods, starting with the exterior. As a result, we walked in through the front doors on command and gazed up into the most breathtaking sight of the entire trip. This cathedral, the largest in the world, is stunning. The sun was beaming down onto the altar. As I stood there, and tears came to my eyes from the incredible size and beauty of the place, I heard a choir sing a heavenly chord. I turned to Jana in amazement, and said something to the effect of, “My mind is playing tricks on me: it was so beautiful, I swear I heard an angel chorus.” Jana laughed, and informed me that I had indeed heard that chord, in fact she had as well, as it was recorded on our audio guides! It was a little embarrassing, to say the least. But it was perfect timing, because I honestly thought it was real.

We spent the next hour or so slowly walking through the cathedral in silent awe. Everything in St. Peter’s is larger than life, and designed to fool the eye: for example, the writing you can see in the picture, which snakes all the way around the entire church, is made up of letters that range from 6 to 8 feet tall. This completely changes the scale of the church, because one assumes that they are maybe one-third that height, and so your brain is tricked into thinking the space is smaller than it actually is. Furthermore, the letters get larger the farther away they are from the entrance, so that they all appear to be the same size when you are standing in the nave. You can’t really comprehend how large it is until you take the time to walk all the way up to the altar, which is fully 200 metres away. And of course, the Basilica is filled with incredible artwork, most notably Michelangelo’s “Pieta”. This marble sculpture, with the folds in the robe and Christ’s twisted body, is yet another example of Michelangelo’s mastery. Looking back, it is quite astonishing how much art we saw by both him and Leonardo da Vinci, and how all of it was so extraordinary. I learned quite a lot about art on this trip, and have developed a very deep appreciation for the Renaissance in particular.

We made our way back to our hotel, through the famous Piazza di San Pietro in front of the Basilica, but we didn’t pause for long because it was so overwhelmingly hot outside. After some relaxation in our air conditioned hotel room (and watching the Olympics, of course), we headed back out for supper. Again we stumbled across a great restaurant in the back streets of Rome, and enjoyed another relaxing evening as the sun disappeared and the temperature became bearable again. This time we ate in the Trastevere neighbourhood, where we had spent our first afternoon the day before. The restaurant we ate in was a packed, lively place, again filled with locals, which is always a good sign. I went way out on a limb and had gnocchi with clams, something I’d never had before. It was delicious. Afterwards we explored more of that neighbourhood, including the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere and walked through the very lively nightlife scene in that area of the city.

The next day, looking back, was probably my favourite of our days in Rome, and the evening was one of the best of our entire trip. We started off the day by heading to the Palatine Hill, the site of the Roman Emperor’s Palace. The Palace is in ruins now, but there is enough still there to get a sense of the size and grandeur of the place. Behind the Palace is the Circus Maximus, famous for its chariot races, such as in “Ben-Hur”. It was a pretty weird feeling to stand on the spot where the Emperor’s throne stood, knowing that a couple thousand years earlier Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Constantine, and Nero had all stood in the same spot. There was also a museum containing several pieces of Classical art. One thing that stood out in my mind a lot on the trip was the huge gap in time between the Classical period and the medieval period, when art began to flourish again, and the Renaissance, when it finally regained the glory that it had in the last centuries BC. It’s really a strange thing that the Romans and Greeks lived before the Dark Ages, because their societies were so similar to ours in so many ways, and yet for centuries after that humanity seemed to descend into ignorance. It’s quite a strange phenomenon.

Another interesting thing about Rome that you can see in these pictures is how the city has been built up around the ruins. All throughout the city you see little pieces of ruins, either on its own or with a modern building built around it. This city embraces its history and has integrated the old with the new in a very unique way. These sites are not separated from the rest of the city.

The biggest problem with this day was that we were outdoors at midday, something we did a pretty good job of avoiding on the other days. That did put a damper on things somewhat, but I think that what we were seeing was so wonderful that it all balanced out. From the Palatine Hill we made our way over to the Colosseum. I don’t know what to say about the Colosseum that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll just say that it is a brilliant example of classical architecture and that its ability to endure for so long is amazing. It was quite fascinating to see the underground workings of the Colosseum, such as the dozens of elevator shafts for bringing up props and wild animals in order to keep the masses entertained during the gladiator games. Outside the Colosseum is the magnificent Arch of Constantine, erected by Constantine to commemorate his conversion to Christianity after his victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in AD 312. This huge arch is the inspiration for many other such arches around the world, including the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

We then crossed the street and made our way through the Forum, the heart of ancient Rome. It was very interesting to visit all three of these sites in a single day and to get a sense of their proximity to one another. The first two pictures below were taken from the Palatine Hill, so you can get a sense of how close these sites actually are. Located in the Forum are the immense Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine with its huge barrel vaults, the Temple of Saturn with its famous columns, and the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, among many others.

After the Forum it was time for another grattechecca, and then back to the hotel to cool down. For supper we made our way down to the area around the Trevi Fountain again and had yet another very enjoyable dinner. Oh, but first we slipped into the Pantheon just before it closed to be awed by the massive dome. After dinner we set out to do what is in my mind the most memorable walking tour of the whole trip: Rick Steve’s Night Walk Across Rome. We began by making our way towards the Camp de’ Fiori, the starting point for Rick’s tour. On our way, we passed by the Largo di Torre Argentina, the ruins of the ancient Theatre of Pompey, where Julius Caesar was assassinated. While looking at the ruins, we noticed a cat wandering amongst the columns. Soon we realized that the ruins were absolutely overrun with cats, and I think we counted somewhere around 30. Having researched it more fully since coming home, I’ve discovered that the Torre Argentina has a permanent cat shelter set up, due to the immense number of feral cats living in the area. In fact, it is estimated that there are 300,000 feral cats in Rome, and the city has declared the ones living in the Torre Argentina, the Colosseum, and the Forum, to be protected as part of the city’s bio-heritage.

The walking tour took us through the Campo de’ Fiori, with its statue of Giordano Bruno, through the streets of Rome to the Piazza Navona, with its famous Four Rivers Fountain. Unfortunately for us, the Fountain was undergoing major restoration, and so only parts of it were visible, and there was no water flowing. However, the square itself was alive. There were artists, street musicians, street performers, and tons of people. I loved how Rome was more vibrant at 10:00 pm than at 2:00 pm. It is a lifestyle I could get used to quite easily.

We departed from Rick’s walking tour at this point, because I realized, in looking at the map, that we were not very far from the Castel Sant’Angelo, which we had not yet seen. So we walked, in large crowds, through the streets from the Piazza Navona to the Tiber River. Once at the Tiber, the crowds disappeared. We descended the steps onto the walkway, where we were all alone. It was a beautiful night, the lights were reflecting on the water, and there was nobody else around. We walked down the river for quite a while, enjoying the romantic moment. By the time we returned to ground level, we were nearly at the Vatican. We crossed the river, and made our way back on the other side. We passed by the Castel Sant’Angelo, which was hosting a festival of some sort. Out front was a huge market, and we strolled through all the booths, which were open at 11:00 pm. Finally we crossed back over the river and returned to the Piazza Navona, where we sat for a while longer watching a street performer make jokes we couldn’t understand. From the Piazza Navona we walked through an area we had become quite familiar with, past the Pantheon and the Piazza Colonna and to the Trevi Fountain. This was the first time we’d seen the Trevi Fountain at night, and it was magnificent. The roaring water, the huge crowds, and the lively sculptures made it a really fun place to be. We took a few pictures, and then tried to get the courage up to ask someone else to take a picture of us (something neither of us is very good at). Then suddenly, at midnight, the police arrived and started blowing their whistles and herding everyone out very quickly. In a panic I grabbed the nearest guy and asked him to take our picture, which he did while the police shouted at him to get moving. The picture, as you can see, is of very poor quality, but there was no time to take another one as the police were quite insistent that we get out of there.

The walking tour continued through the emptying streets of Rome to the Piazza di Spagna, home of the Spanish Steps that we had visited a couple of days earlier. This time there was nobody there, and even less to see than the first time.

It is important at this point to recount an overarching theme throughout this entire walk: I had to use the bathroom rather desperately from the point we first reached the Piazza Navona. So if you’ve been following the times at all, you’ll notice that it had been about two hours at this point. Public washrooms are very difficult to find when you need them, I discovered all over Europe, and especially late at night. Instances such as this, with me anxiously keeping an eye out for a washroom while we explored a city, repeated themselves over and over again throughout Europe, because I insisted on keeping myself well-hydrated. This night was the worst, though.

Having now reached the end of the walking tour, we went around the corner to the metro station to head home. As we entered the station, we noticed a barred door and it struck us as odd. Also odd was how empty the station felt. When we reached the top of the escalator to descend to the platform, it became very clear that the Metro was closed for the night. Apparently, the Metro in Rome, one of the world’s major cities, stops running at 11:00 pm. Unbelievable! We wandered through the station, eventually coming out at the other end, in the Borghese gardens of all places. By this point it was getting close to 1:00 am, and the sight of plant life was enough to make me risk a public urination ticket. It was a very relaxing experience.

We found a bus stop, and figured out that a night bus would be coming by on its way to the Stazione Termini. We caught the bus, and rode it 5 minutes to the Termini. I think this was the point that we realized just how close everything was. I think, after having walked for 3 or 4 hours already that night, that we could probably have handled walking the equivalent of a 5 minute drive, but we just didn’t realize how close we were to home. We felt foolish, though, that’s for sure.

The next day was an odd one. The night before had been our final night in Rome, but our train didn’t leave Rome until about 8:00 that night. So we check out of our hotel, but still had the whole day in Rome. Fortunately, the hotel was very accommodating, letting us leave our luggage there while we went out, and even encouraging us to sit in the air-conditioned lobby in the heat of the day.

We basically took this whole day off, just lounging around all day. We walked a couple of blocks over to the Sana Maria degli Angeli church, which Michelangelo designed. The church was originally the ancient Roman Baths of Diocletian, and Michelangelo converted them into the church. From there we proceeded past the Art Nouveau fountain in the Piazza Repubblica down the Via Nazionale. It was my turn to go shopping, and I took about 15 minutes to get both of the items I had wanted to get on the trip: an AS Roma jersey, and brown Italian leather shoes. I found the shoes on sale, on the clearance rack, with only two sizes left, one of which was mine. I’ve never loved any article of clothing more, and at this point I can’t imagine ever owning a more beautiful pair of shoes. I really love them.

We continued on down to Trastevere for one last visit to the grattachecca stand, and our last real meal in Italy. We picked what may have been the best restaurant yet, and Jana had her favourite Italian dish, the Caprese salad, while I had delicious tortellini in a meat sauce. After lunch we returned to our hotel and spent a couple of hours cooling off in the aforementioned lobby, playing checkers and reading.

Once the heat of the day was over, we made a foolish attempt to visit the catacombs. I knew they were a ways away, because my map of Rome didn’t extend far enough south to where they were. Not having them on the map, though, meant that I didn’t know exactly where they were, and it turns out they were a lot farther south than I’d realized. Fortunately, we figured that out at the metro station just before we got on the bus to go all the way south. In fact, I feel like we were even on the bus and then jumped off when we realized that there was no way that we had time to go that far and make it back in time to catch our train. So instead, we wandered around the area of the Porta San Giovanni, a Renaissance gate in the ancient Roman wall (the Aurelian wall). We found a park that ran along the wall, and spent the next couple of hours sitting in the park, just enjoying the evening sun on our last day in Italy, looking through the pictures of our trip for the first time, and watching people enjoy the park.

Eventually we got back on the train and returned to the hotel, picked up our luggage, and returned to the train station. I will tell the tale of our night train in the next blog, due out sometime in 2012 if I keep up this pace.

At the time, Rome mostly consisted in our minds of searing heat. Looking back, though, we did a lot of things that we really enjoyed, had spectacular luck with restaurants, and had, overall, a really relaxing visit. We had our second anniversary there, and some of our favourite moments of the whole trip (the anniversary dinner, seeing the Pantheon for the first time, the night walk through Rome, stepping into St. Peter’s). Our memories of Rome have definitely become more positive over time, and we both want to return there, just not in August ever again.

Summertime

On Sunday I ran my first organized race since I was in Grade 6. I ran the 10k race in the Mother's Day Run and Walk in Calgary. My official time was 50:17, which was good enough for 90/222 in the Male 20-29 division, and 398/2329 overall. Which I happen to think is really good considering that the first time I ever ran 10k was last Wednesday. It was a beautiful day, and a lot of fun. My Dad and I ran the 10k together (until about the 5k mark), my Mom ran the 5k, and my sisters walked the 5k.

I have started my new job, and I'm really enjoying it. I'm getting very valuable hands-on experience, which is rare for a first-year law student to get. I've already got 11 trials scheduled, so it's going to be a very busy summer. The days just fly by, which is a welcome change. I've never had a job before where I consistently have more work to do than time to do it in.

I'm working on my Rome travelogue, so hopefully that will be posted in the next couple of weeks.

Goal update: I did not accomplish goal #1 (make the Dean's List), because I fell short of the minimum GPA threshold by 0.1. That still leaves me in the top 20% of my class, though, so I'm still feeling good.

Done

I feel like I've been beaten up. In the last few weeks, I've developed a coffee addiction (seriously), and am sleep deprived. But I have finished all 5 of my law school exams, ending with today's, the one I was most dreading: the closed-book Constitutional Law final. I think it went pretty well.

Now it's just the waiting game to get my marks back.

Jana leaves for England next Friday, and then I'll be on my own here for three weeks. Hopefully I'll find a few things to blog about.

Europe Trip - Part 6 - Florence & Tuscany

I’m very busy these days with school, but I really want to try to have completed my series of blogs on last summer’s trip to Europe before it has been a year since I left. So I’m going to get started on writing the next segment, and will use this for breaks in my reading when I need them.

As stated in the last post, we left Venice in the early afternoon. The train from Venice to Florence only took about 3 hours, and we arrived in Florence in the late afternoon. Our hotel was only a few blocks away from the train station, and we walked there fairly quickly.

One thing that we immediately noticed as different about Florence was the large immigrant population. In Canada, you generally find large immigrant populations in the major cities, and less so in rural areas. In Europe, though, it seemed a lot more random. London and Paris both had a lot of immigrants, but Rome seemed almost completely Italian. Munich and Vienna were other places where we did not encounter many immigrants, and Venice certainly had none. But Florence, which is really not a very large city (366,000 people) was full of a very vibrant immigrant community, largely north African. I suppose it could have just been the area of town we were staying in, but it seemed unique in Italy.

Our hotel in Florence was the one we had been dreading. Florence has no transit to speak of (there were a few buses), and the historic centre is very walkable, so we selected our hotel based primarily on location, and less so on amenities as in other cities. So we had booked a room on the top floor with no elevator and a shared bathroom down the hall. However, when the desk clerk showed us to our room, it was a nice, large, first floor room with a private bathroom. I was certain that a mistake was made, and I brought it to his attention, since even the room we had booked was rather pricy and I didn’t want to be overcharged. But he assured us that they had overbooked the cheap rooms so we were getting one of the best rooms in the hotel for the same price we would have paid. So that was a great start to Florence!

Unfortunately, our great start to Florence didn’t last. After getting unpacked and watching some Olympics, we went out for supper to a restaurant that had been recommended by one of our guidebooks, “Vecchia Firenze.” The only promise it lived up to was that it was cheap. We had terrible service and the worst food of our entire trip. We both ordered the three course fixed price menu, and the dessert (a plate of fruit) was the only thing we ate more than a few bites of. The rest was quite awful. I can’t even really remember what we had, so I’ll just move on.

Florence is a beautiful city, and we took full advantage of the warm evening to explore it that night. We walked through many of the main squares, over the Ponte Vecchio, and along the river. There is a street that runs parallel to the river on the south side that is full of these tall buildings with huge wooden doors. That night was the first of three times that we walked all the way down it in the two days we were in Florence. At the end were the remains of a massive city gate on the old medieval wall of Florence. I’ve included a few pictures from when we went back in the daylight the next day, but unfortunately I have no pictures of the gate.

As we were out walking, we were looking over our itinerary for Florence, and trying to figure out just what we wanted to do while we were here. As with every city, I had researched it so much that I sometimes had a difficult time judging what was actually worth seeing, since everything seems really interesting when you’ve read all about it. There were a couple of obvious things we had to do, like the Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery, both of which we had set up reserved times for months in advance, but Jana wasn’t terribly excited about the rest. What she wanted to do was go out to the Chianti district and visit a winery. We had briefly discussed that at one point in the planning stage of the trip, but not seriously, and had definitely not planned to do anything like that. If so, it would have been pre-booked, and well-researched.

However, I did something rather uncharacteristic and agreed that we should consider tossing out our plans for the second day in Florence and try to find a way to get out to the countryside. I desperately wanted to see the Tuscan countryside, and had been disappointed not to see more of it on the train ride into Florence, so maybe that’s why I acted so rashly. So when we got to the hotel we asked the desk clerk if he had any advice, and he told us that the lady working in the morning would be able to help us.

The next morning, we went and talked to the new desk clerk, who gave us several brochures with different trips to choose from. We took the brochures with us as we walked out to find some breakfast. Very quickly one of the trips stood out to us: it was the cheapest and covered the most ground, included lunch, all on an air-conditioned bus. The other options focused mainly on wineries, including winery tours, etc., whereas this trip toured the whole region of Tuscany in addition to a winery visit. So we rushed back to the hotel and booked a trip for the next day. Again, we were able to do this because we still had a significant surplus in our budget.

After booking the trip, we set out to spend our one full day in Florence, and to make sure that we hit all of the most important sites in that one day. We began the day by walking down to the Duomo. This is the main cathedral in Florence, and is an incredible work of architecture. The dome was the largest in the world at the time, and its innovative design influenced many other domes in the future, notably St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome and St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The building itself is constructed of multi-coloured marble, giving it a very unique and distinctive look. It is a very notable example of what is known as the Florentine Romanesque style. Beside the Duomo is its baptistery, which has incredibly beautiful bronze doors by Ghiberti, called the “Gates of Paradise” by Michelangelo. These doors are considered to be the work of art that kicked off the Renaissance, as they contained many of the themes (such as classical architecture and depth) that would define Renaissance art. The crowds around the doors were unbelievably large (it was the Sunday of a long weekend), and we weren’t able to get too much more than a quick look at the art before we were moved on, but they were stunning.

We then continued on, following our Rick Steves audio tour, to the Church of Orsan Michele, which has about dozen statues by Ghiberti and most notably Donatello (whose sculpture is incredible – we saw works of his in Siena and Rome as well as here) in niches around the outside of the church. From there we continued on to the Piazza Della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, which is filled with sculptures (mostly replicas) and fountains by many Renaissance artists. Most notable were “Judith and Holofernes” by Donatello and “Perseus With the Head of Medusa” by Cellini. This is also where the most famous replica of Michelangelo’s “David” is found, for the people who didn’t plan ahead and reserve an entrance time to the Accademia. We ended our walking tour by passing by the Uffizi Gallery, which is decorated with statues of famous Florentine citizens (Dante, Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo [Raphael being the only Ninja Turtle not from Florence, although we saw quite a bit of his work in Florence and Rome to round out the TMNT art], Machiavelli, Galileo, etc.), which placed us at the river with a great view of the Ponte Vecchio. I mentioned before that we had walked over this bridge the night before, but in the day it was even more interesting. This medieval bridge, the only bridge in Florence to survive World War II (thanks to an art-loving Nazi commander), is covered with shops, and a passageway connecting the two main palaces in Florence, the Pitti and the Vecchio. We crossed over the bridge again, and spent a bit of time exploring the less-touristy side of the river.

After a quick lunch, it was time to head to the Accademia for our appointment. The Accademia is a surprisingly small museum, but it contains one of the most famous works of art in the world: Michelangelo’s “David”. As with the “Mona Lisa” later in the trip, this was one of those works of art that I was afraid would not live up to the hype, especially since I’d seen it in so many pictures already. But it was spectacular. When you finally see it in person, you are able to notice details that you don’t see in the pictures, and walk around the sculpture, viewing it from all angles. “David” was probably my favourite work of art on the whole trip, especially as I tend to prefer sculptures over paintings anyway. We did see some more amazing sculpture in Rome and in Paris, but nothing could quite compare with “David”.

The rest of the Accademia was unspectacular by comparison, and it only took a few minutes more to see everything. So once we were done we headed back towards the Uffizi, grabbing some gelato along the way. At the Accademia, it didn’t seem to have mattered that we had a reservation, but at the Uffizi it saved us hours. The lineup to get in was huge, and I almost felt guilty breezing by everybody, but not too guilty. After all, I’d phoned Italy at 6 in the morning several months before and paid the reservation fee, so skipping the line was well-deserved.

The history of Florence centres around the Medici family, which controlled Florence more or less from 1360 to 1737. The Uffizi gallery is located in one of the Medici’s palaces, and essentially contains their personal art collection. The most famous Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, actually adopted Michelangelo and gave him his start in the art world. He was the ruler of Florence at the time that the Renaissance reached its pinnacle, and besides Michelangelo, he also aided the careers of Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli, among others. It is generally considered that the Renaissance and so many of its critical figures came from Florence because of the cultural conditions created largely by the Medicis.

The Uffizi gallery is a huge museum, containing works of art from ancient Rome and Greece, medieval Europe, and especially the Renaissance. We did not have the time or the energy to examine every single work of art in the museum, so we used our downloaded Rick Steves audio tours to give us a guided tour of the museum. His tour of this museum was my favourite of all the guided tours of his we used on this trip (a quick count shows that we used 12 of his audio tours and 32 of his walking tours – he was a great tour guide!). We were able to follow, by looking at one key painting in each room, the progression of art through its different stages of development leading up to the High Renaissance, where we were stunned by such beautiful masterpieces as Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus”. I loved the pace with which Rick moved us through the museum (we saw the whole thing in about an hour and a half), and I felt like I really got the most out of the museum that I possibly could by following his tour.

We had used the Rick Steves tour of the Accademia as well, and while we were there we noticed a family listening to iPods, and looking intently at the same paintings and sculptures that we just had, and spending about the same amount of time at each one as we had. We quickly concluded that they had been listening to the same tour as us. When we were checking in at the Uffizi, I noticed them coming in behind us, and sure enough, every time we stepped away from a painting to move on to the next room, they’d come up behind us and take our places. Finally we had to say something, and it was fun to point out (they had of course noticed as well) that we were essentially on the same guided tour of the museum, and they also expressed how much they were appreciating the audio tours.

We took the rest of the day off, watched some Olympics, had a nap, and then we walked up a hill to the Piazzale Michelangelo, and spent the evening listening to buskers while sitting on the stairs taking in the incredible view. The Duomo was particularly impressive, and all of Florence, surrounded by hills, was beautiful. We capped off the day with a great dinner at a restaurant we found ourselves (after the fiasco of the guidebook-recommended one the night before).

I should probably have split this blog post into two, because we saw so much the next day that this post is going to be huge, even though it’s really only covering two days of our trip. Again, this is more for my own sake than anybody else’s, so who cares?

We got up early, nervous because we weren’t entirely sure that the trip was going to actually be as good as it claimed, especially since it was so reasonably priced. But once we got to the buses, which were nice, new, air-conditioned coaches, we knew we were going to have a great day. The air-conditioning was especially nice, because ever since the second day in Venice we had been experiencing highs in the low-30s, and were finding it rather hot (of course, in Rome the temperatures were in the high-30s, but I’m getting ahead of myself).

The tour started off by driving out of Florence, which was cool. We didn’t always get to see the parts of the cities were people actually live, so it was neat to see non-central Florence. Our tour guide was from England, and had been living in Florence for some time, a couple of years if I’m not mistaken. It was about an hour’s drive to Siena, our first stop, and as we drove she explained to us some of the history of Siena, and its long rivalry with Florence (which flared into war several times). Siena is the home of the oldest continuously-operating bank in the world, the Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (founded in 1472), and a lot of the city’s history is defined by its bank. The existence of that bank also answered a nagging question of mine, namely how such a small city (50,000 population) could maintain a team (A.C. Siena) in the top flight of Italian football. But with the backing of one of the world’s major banks, it makes sense.
Once in Siena we met up with a local tour guide, who took us for a tour of the whole central city of Siena over the next hour or so, the first of three UNESCO World Heritage Sites we would visit that day. Siena is very famous for its Palio, a twice-annual horse race run around the central city piazza. If you have seen the latest Bond movie, “Quantum of Solace”, then you’ve seen the Palio. It’s the horse race at the beginning of the movie. The day we were there, which was a Monday, we were two days after the running of the race. In fact, when we arrived, the sand track was still largely in place around the perimeter of the piazza.

The city of Siena is divided into 17 districts, each of which has an animal or symbol and a set of colours. These “contrada” are very important to the social structure of Siena, and our tour guide was very proud of the fact that her city has maintained that tradition despite growing relatively large. We always knew that we were passing into a new district, because the new contrade’s animal would be painted on the wall. Your contrade is determined by where you are born, not inherited. So it is common for a tortoise to be the child of a goose and a panther (although some contrada are sworn enemies and do not mix). Each contrade has a church, and in front of each church is a fountain. Every child in Siena is baptized twice: first into the Christian faith, and then into their contrade in the fountain in front of their district’s church. Even if you move into a different district, you retain membership in your contrade for life.

The Palio is held on July 2 and August 16 every year, and for the remainder of the year, the two contrada that won the races are permitted to display their flags on their houses (everyone decorates at Christmas). Every building had little nooks for flags to be placed in, and on the houses of the winners (the most recent winners were the Caterpillars, with their green and yellow flags, and the winners in July had been the Porcupines, with their red, white, blue, and black flags) the flags were flying proudly. In fact, because the Caterpillars’ win had been so recent, members of the contrade were wearing their flags over their shoulders as scarves, even the bankers in their business suits. Only 10 of the 17 districts are drawn to compete in each race, and then your horse, jockey, and starting position are also assigned by lottery, so there is a lot of luck involved. Before the race, each of the 10 horses are taken to their contrade’s church to be blessed by the priest. The race is very important, and a district will only win once every few years, so there is a lot of celebration.

The city of Siena is also very beautiful, with lots of incredible churches and narrow streets.

While in Siena we also saw the Duomo di Siena, which is a very unique cathedral with a lot of Moorish influence, especially in the black and white marble stripes throughout the cathedral. It contains intricate marble inlaid floors, which are only uncovered for a few weeks each year, and we were fortunate enough to be there during those weeks. These floors, laid out in panels, cover the entire cathedral, and are very incredible and unique works of art. The highlight of the cathedral, though, was the Piccolomini Library with its perfectly preserved frescoes that are astonishingly bright and colourful.

When we met back up with our tour group we received a great compliment: our tour guide said that we blended in so well with the locals that she hadn't recognized us! From Siena we drove through the Tuscan countryside into the Chianti district. This was the typical Tuscany that I had envisioned: cypress trees, sunflowers, olive groves, vineyards, rolling hills, sunlight, and villas. It was gorgeous. We stopped at the Il Vecchio Maneggio, which is an organic winery and farm just outside of San Gimignano. Apparently it is also a hotel, and if you ever want to send Jana and I on a romantic getaway, book us a room there. This is where we had lunch, all made from homegrown organic ingredients, including most notably the wine. We recently recreated this meal (somewhat) with our friends David and Boyda, serving the Il Toscana Bianco we purchased at this winery, plus a Chianti Classico Riserva, and Vin Santo for dessert. We ate our fill of prosciutto, cheese, bread, olive oil, pasta, and tomatoes, all homemade, as I said before. It was one of the best meals of our trip, and it was a lot of fun because we were sitting around large tables with the rest of the tour group (largely Australian), and had as much food as we wanted.

We spent some time wandering around the farm, taking in the view, and looking at the medieval towers of San Gimignano in the distance. San Gimignano, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, was our next stop. We were on our own to explore this medieval town, and we covered most of it. The main street and square were packed with tourists, but one street over everything was empty. We did venture into the crowds, though, to have the best gelato of our trip, meaning the best gelato/ice cream I’ve ever had. This place has won the last two Gelato World Championships, and it is well-deserved. The lemon was perfect and the cinnamon was incredible.

We tried to find this one lookout point, because San Gimignano was on top of a hill and had great views of the Tuscan countryside. We made a wrong turn somewhere, though, and found ourselves at the bottom of the hill, which led us to the unexpected discovery of some medieval fountains. Unfortunately we had to climb back up the hill in order to make it to our bus, and we only had a few minutes to make it back. So we ran all the way back up the hill, only to discover that we were in excellent shape, and had some time to spare. We also were not out of breath. We had been in Europe for about 2 weeks by this point, and had been walking constantly for those 2 weeks, and this had done wonders for our fitness. By the end of the trip, I had lost 20 pounds of the weight I had gained the year before working at Marketwire.

We caught the bus, and departed for the last destination of the tour: Pisa. When planning our trip, I had thought of all the landmarks of Europe that I was familiar with as a kid: Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, Stonehenge, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, the Tower Bridge. We saw all of those landmarks on this trip. But one of the most prominent ones was the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which we were going to be near, but never see. So I was quite excited that we were getting this unexpected chance to see it. As we drove through the outskirts of Pisa, we caught our first glimpse of it. Everyone in the bus turned to each other and said, “Was that really it? It seemed so small.” It actually was quite a bit taller than it looked from a distance, because it is set into the ground a fair ways. But it certainly was no Eiffel Tower.

To get to the Leaning Tower, we had to walk through dozens of crass tourist shops selling worthless trinkets and t-shirts. It was the worst example of a “tourist trap” that we encountered in Europe. But then we finally turned a corner and walked into the Piazza dei Miracoli. At the centre of this square is the Duomo di Pisa, the cathedral. Just as in Florence, across from the Duomo is the Baptistery, and beside it is its bell tower. The bell tower of the Duomo di Pisa is, of course, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Most notably to us, these buildings were surrounded by green grass. Huge patches of green grass, some of which we were even allowed to walk on. It felt so nice.

The stereotypical picture of a tourist in Pisa consists of the tourist standing with their legs spread and their arms out in front of them, turned to the side, so that they look like they are exerting a great deal of effort in supporting the tower. As this photograph has been taken millions of times before, I found it more interesting to watch the people pose in these bizarre stances, and think that they were being original. I took a couple of pictures of these people, without the Tower in the background, to show how ridiculous they looked. The Tower itself was very cool, though, and we spent a while walking around it to see all the different angles.

We had a bit of time to visit the Cathedral, so we went and bought our tickets at the proper building (which took a bit of figuring out) and then went inside the cathedral. This was one of the oldest churches that we visited: construction started on it in 1063. As in Siena, there was a Muslim influence on the architecture, as evidenced in the pointed arches and black striped pillars, and, unique to Pisa, a Byzantine influence, as shown in the huge mosaic over the altar. The ceiling is what we first noticed, though. The ceiling consists coffers gilded with gold, and it is quite bright. We liked this cathedral even more than the one in Siena, because this was just so impressive. The ceiling, the painting on the dome, the mosaic, and the beautiful altar were quite unique to this church.

Finally our day was done, and we got back on the bus for the drive (about an hour and a half) back to Florence. On the way back we past some mountains, several marble quarries, and the Nottolini Aqueduct in Lucca. We had a quick dinner of donairs in our hotel lobby, sweated out a blog post in a stifling internet cafe, and went to bed in anticipation of our early morning (7:52) train ride to Rome.

This was around the midpoint of the trip, and we were really enjoying ourselves now. I was not feeling sick anymore (aside from a bit of ongoing congestion), and the weather was hot and sunny. We did a great job in Florence of just seeing the things we really wanted to see, and going on the day trip was the best decision we made on the whole trip. It was an amazing tour of some very beautiful country. Florence was peaceful and relaxing (especially sitting up on the Piazzale Michelangelo), and we loved the art, the huge doors, the river and Ponte Vecchio, and the architecture. In fact, I think Jana might consider Florence her favourite city from the trip. Mine was Venice, but Florence was right up there.

Whew, that post is huge, and took me about a month. I used a different formatting for the pictures this time, and hopefully it works a little better.

Champions League - Round of 16 - Live Blog

In a few minutes, AS Roma will be taking the field of Stadio Olimpico to take on Arsenal in the Champions League. I had a very lousy sleep last night in anticipation of this match, and after about 6 am I couldn’t sleep any more at all. My mind was racing with different scenarios that could play out in the match.

This is the Round of 16, the first knock-out stage of the tournament. This stage is a two-leg match, one leg at each team’s stadium, with the scores of both matches added together. In case of a draw, whichever team scores more away goals will go through to the quarterfinals.

In the first leg, at Emirates Stadium in London, Arsenal won 1-0. This puts Roma at a distinct disadvantage, as we did not score any away goals. So if Arsenal scores a goal today, then we have to score 3 in order to beat them. That’s a tall order. If Roma wins today’s match 1-0, then there will be 30 minutes of extra time, and if nobody scores in that extra time (if Arsenal scores their goals will count double because they are away goals), then there will be penalty kicks to decide who goes through.

Roma is missing almost all of their lineup. Daniele De Rossi was suspended for this match after picking up his third yellow card of the tournament in the last Champions League match. Christian Panucci can’t play because he and the coach had a falling out right at the time when Roma had to submit their Champions League squad. It looked as though he was going to leave the team, so he was left out of the squad. Now he’s still here, but can’t play. Philippe Mexes came down with a fever of 102 yesterday, and won’t be playing. Instead, Diamoutene, who has never started a game for Roma, will be playing at the back.

We are also missing Perrotta, Cicinho, Aquilani, and Cassetti to injuries, while 6 of the players expected to start are not at 100% health: Doni, Juan, Totti, Vucinic, Pizarro, and Baptista are all ill or mildly injured. In fact, it is still unclear if some of those players are going to be able to start. We’re out of replacements, though. It looks as though only 5 healthy players will be starting for Roma: Motta, Diamoutene, Taddei, Riise, and Brighi. But the match hasn’t started yet, so there’s still time for more of them to get injured (most of our injuries seem to come in training).

The key to this match is going to be the home-field advantage. There is an expected crowd of 75,000, and Roma fans are very loud. The atmosphere in the Stadio Olimpico is going to be electric. I wish I could be there.

In order for us to go through to the next round, several things need to happen today:

- Vucinic needs to step up and play a big game. He has a tendency to play his best in the most important matches, and we need that from him again. He scored 2 goals against Chelsea earlier in the Champions League, and that kind of performance would be most welcome today. He’s had some back troubles, lately, though, so we’ll have to see.

- Brighi needs to fill in for De Rossi as the anchor in midfield. I believe that he can do this, as he has been one of our most consistent players all season.

- Diamoutene, or “Diamond”, needs to rise to the occasion and show us what he can do. We cannot concede a goal today, so he needs to be ready to shut down Van Persie and Walcott.

- Every other player needs to play better than they have been the last few matches.

My prediction is that both teams will finish this match with 10 men. I’m also predicting a 2-0 Roma win, with goals from Vucinic and Totti. We’ll go through, but the fans will be holding their breath until the final whistle goes.

9th minute update: We scored!!!!!!!!!!! Juan in the 9th minute!!!!

15th minute update: Arsenal has had more of the possession, but we're holding very strong in defence, and of course, we've got a goal. What a start!

22nd minute update: So close!! Taddei had a great shot just saved. The crowd is deafening!!

26th minute update: Pizarro got a yellow card. Baptista set to come on, but not clear who for. Is Totti hurt?

28th minute update: No, Juan is coming off! He's a defender, and Baptista is a striker. That's bizarre! I'm guessing Tonetto's going to shift back to defence and Baptista will play midfield. Juan, although he scored, was looking rather hurt.

30th minute: Our back line is now Motta, Diamoutene, Tonetto, and Riise. Riise's the only one who's been a regular starter all year, and he was injured until just a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty nervous.

36th minute: Arsenal had their first shot on goal, easy save for Doni. And then a great pass (which is rare) from Baptista to Vucinic, who can't handle it.

44th minute: WHAT!!!!???? Arsenal's one goal last match came from a penalty kick. And now, Motta is dragged down on a breakaway with a blatant tackle from behind, and no penalty is given. I can't believe it. Halftime now.

Halftime: Okay, now they've shown us a replay, and it wasn't quite as blatant as it first looked, but I still think there was clear contact. Should've been a penalty. Oh well, shake it off. Right at halftime, that'll give Spaletti something to motivate the team with.

50th minute: 2 shots on goal already this half for Roma. We need to get one more right now. 2 more, really.

60th minute: What an end-to-end match! Both teams with great chances. I'm having a heart attack every minute or so.

62nd minute: Riise is single-handedly holding off the Arsenal attack. That's frightening, one man can't do it all.

64th minute: Pizarro is injured. I hope Aquilani is fit enough to come in for him. As it stands now, there's the spectre of extra time, which is a lot to ask of injury-prone Aqui.

69th minute: I'm terrified.

74th minute: Roma look tired. Really tired. Arsenal just brought on Walcott.

79th minute: Baptista is terrible. He has no first touch, can't pass, can't head it, can't shoot. Why do we have him?

86th minute: After Baptista misses several more clear chances, the score remains 1-0, 1-1 on aggregate. We're just a few minutes away from extra time, which sucks. Roma doesn't have much energy left.

90th+2 minute: Arsenal is pressing very hard in stoppage time.

90th+3 minute: Pizarro is still in, but limping heavily, but now it looks like Taddei can't go on any more and will be subbed out. Totti's also limping, Vucinic isn't 100%, Baptista is playing like crap. We only have 2 subs. Looks like Aquilani is coming in for Taddei.

90th+4 minute: Regular time is over, extra time will start soon. Taddei has been carried out of the stadium on a stretcher, Aquilani is in. Both teams have one sub left. Motta and Pizarro are on yellows for Roma, Diaby for Arsenal. Right now it's really looking like Arsenal have all of the momentum. I can't see us winning this. I can't stand it!!!!

94th minute: More of the same. Aquilani will be the key to any possible victory.

96th minute: Aquilani is breathing some much-needed life into Roma's attack. But Arsenal is constanly pushing back on the counter-attack.

99th minute: Roma controlling possession, Aquilani and Totti working together, giving me (false?) hope.

102nd minute: A bit of pressure from Arsenal, but Roma withstands it well.

105th minute: Aquilani has good ideas, but he's putting way too much pace on his passes. The other players don't have that kind of energy!!

Halftime: Only 15 minutes until penalty kicks. Roma don't do well in penalty kicks.

112th minute: Both teams looking tired. Arsenal applying the pressure.

114th minute: Totti hasn't given up. He can barely walk, but he's trying to win this single-handedly.

115th minute: The Curva Sud remains as loud as ever. I love Roma!

117th minute: I can't believe Pizarro is still playing. What a great man. He loves that shirt.

119th minute: Looks like we're going to penalties. Baptista better not take one. I'd pick Totti, Vucinic, Aquilani, Riise, and Motta.

120th minute: Oh, Spaletti's going to bring Montella on. Obviously so he can take a spot kick. I'd replace Motta with Montella.

120th+2 minute: We're going to penalties. Well done to a mish-mash back line for keeping Arsenal from scoring.

Forza Roma!!!

Coin toss: I can't take this pressure. Every player on both teams is exhausted and getting massages from the training staff. I need a massage from the training staff! Arsenal will shoot first.

First shooter: Eduardo - SAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Second shooter: Pizarro - GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Third shooter: Van Persie - Goal.

Fourth shooter: Vucinic - Save. What a lame shot. 1-1.

Fifth shooter: Walcott - Goal.

Sixth shooter: Baptista - GOAL!!!!!!!!!!! With force!!!!!!!!!! 2-2.

Seventh shooter: Nasri - Goal.

Eigth shooter: Montella - GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!! With style! 3-3. TOO TIGHT!!!!!!!!

Ninth shooter: Denilson - Goal. The pressure is on. If we miss, we're out.

Tenth shooter: Totti - GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4-4. Extra shooters required.

Eleventh shooter: Toure - Goal. The pressure remains.

Twelfth shooter: Aquilani - GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5-5. This is unbelievable. I can't take it. Please, please, please, Arsenal screw this one up.

Thirteenth shooter: Sagna - Goal. Sick.

Fourteenth shooter: Riise - GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!! That was close. The keeper went the right way.

Fifteenth shooter: Diabi - Goal. Will this never end?

Sixteenth shooter: Tonetto - Miss. We are out.

I hate losing. It's all Baptista's fault. I could have scored that chance at the 79th minute. This sucks.

Sorry, it's not all Baptista's fault. Vucinic's penalty kick was pathetic. A little dribbler right down the middle. A pylon would have stopped it.

The Champions League is over for Roma, and with it our chances of the final at our home stadium. Well, the final will still be there, but we won't be playing. How depressing.

Now we have to drag ourselves up from 6th into at least 4th so that we can take another run next year.

I hate penalties. What a way to lose.

However, the team played amazingly well considering the situation they were in. So many injuries, half the players on the pitch limping around, Juan and Taddei leaving the field injured. Riise has won himself a place in my heart for life after that performance. He put in a stellar performance, and without him we wouldn't have even made it to penalty kicks.

Forza Roma!

Player ratings:

Riise has won a place in my heart forever today. Incredible performance, especially being forced to switch into the central defender role in mid-game.

Diamond should get more chances to play, he was solid. He stepped up like we needed him to.

Motta will be one of the all-time Roma greats. He's effective at both ends of the pitch.

Juan's performance, as short as it was, was perfect.

Brighi gave everything he had, and filled DDR's shoes well.

Totti ran as hard as he could, and had several amazing passes wasted because they went to Baptista.

Vucinic tried at times, but was mostly invisible, and that spot kick was horrendous.

Aquilani brought some life to the team, gave us some possession in midfield, but his final passes just weren't quite on. Overestimated the energy levels of his teammates. And he's barely played at all these last few years.

Pizarro could barely walk, but he was still one of our most consistent players. What a man!

Tonetto did his best. He played a few different positions as best he could, which was quite competently. And he is not a striker. He cannot be blamed for missing that kick.

Taddei was regular Taddei. Everywhere, but a little disappointing in the end.

Doni was alright. He stopped everything in regular time, although there were no particularly difficult saves. A few good punches at crosses. It would have been nice if he'd saved another penalty, but what can you do? He should have had the one he got his hand on, though.

Baptista was horrific. Every time he touched the ball (with the exception of that thunderous spot kick) he flubbed it. It was painful to watch. And it's been like that for a while now. I think we need to ship him off somewhere else next summer.

As for my match keys, the home field advantage was definitely there, Diamoutene played great, and Brighi did what he needed to do. Baptista and Vucinic let us down today, and that's why we're out.

81st Academy Awards Results - 14/24

This is now the third consecutive year that I have predicted the Oscars (see 2008 and 2007), and my results have been surprisingly consistent. At one point tonight, when I had predicted 8 straight correct answers (in the middle of the show), I thought I was going to smash my record of 14/24. But then I failed on the acting categories, and ended up tying my record. More notably, for the first time in the last three years, I did not come out on top of the group with whom I was watching the Oscars. Kelsey beat me, scoring a very strong 15/24.

Short Films - Two years ago I got all three right, and last year I got all three wrong. This year I got only one right, Spielzeugland for Live Action Short, which if I'd known was about the Holocaust would have been a much easier pick.

Best Actor - I think this was the most disappointing part of the night. I really, really wanted Mickey Rourke to win this. He's never (let's be honest) going to have another shot at an Oscar, and his performance was very deserving of the Oscar. However, I forgot that the Academy voters by and large live in California, where the recent passage of Proposition 8 has made Milk a very current and important statement, so I can see why they supported it. And Sean Penn was very good.

Best Actress - I don't know why I didn't see this coming. Anne Hathaway has never been nominated before, and Kate Winslet had two very good performances this year in addition to the obvious fact that this was her 6th nomination. She is probably the best actress of her generation, so the fact that she had never won was such a glaring oversight that it shouldn't surprise me that the Academy recognized her this time.

Best Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz deserved this Oscar, she was very good in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Most of the nominees deserved that Oscar, though, and I just guessed wrong.

Last year, prior to the Oscars, I had seen 46% of all nominated feature-length films, and after the Oscars I had seen 9 of the 17 winning films (including shorts).

This year, I had seen 50% of all nominated feature-length films, and at this point I have already seen 8 of the 13 winning films (including shorts). So while my percentage is up, I have only seen 8 Oscar-winning films from this year, as opposed to 9 last year.

The main reason for that, of course, is the fact that only 13 films won awards last night, as opposed to 17 last year. As I said when I noted the decrease in the number of films nominated this year, this has been a weak year for movies as opposed to last year, which will probably be remembered as one of the strongest ever. So there just weren't as many deserving movies this year.

Slumdog Millionaire cleaned up, something I would not have expected when the nominations were first announced. It's always so hard to tell. It got 10 nominations (in 9 categories) and won 8 awards. Benjamin Button got 13 nominations and won 3.

Slumdog Millionaire was the Best Motion Picture of the year, and yet did not have a single acting performance worthy of any of the 20 nominations. How is that possible? I can understand winning Best Director, but in my books, the Best Picture needs to be the complete package. So while I'm not upset that Slumdog Millionaire won, and I loved how many of the cast and crew they brought along and dragged up onstage during the Best Picture acceptance, I do think that perhaps The Reader would have been more deserving.

One final note: wasn't that an entertaining show? Hugh Jackman was great as the host, and I really enjoyed his musical numbers. And I've read mixed reviews of the method for announcing the nominees of the acting categories, but I thought it was really cool how they singled each one of them out for praise. I don't think that it's necessarily fair that actors get all of the recognition when the very nature of the Oscars is showing that the directors, cinematographers, costume designers, editors, etc. play an integral role in making a movie great, actors are the ones that are famous and who put themselves out there for potential public ridicule, so I think they deserve the special recognition. All in all, I really liked the show, which I didn't think would be possible when I saw the nominees and realized that I didn't actually care about anybody winning.

Okay, I said that was the final note, but it's not: Wall-E only won Best Animated Feature. I think that is a travesty. It was probably my favourite movie of the year, but aside from that, it was objectively better than Milk and Benjamin Button at the very least.

81st Academy Award Predictions - Part 2

As it turns out, I underestimated mine and Jana's ability to cram Oscar nominees into the final weekend once again. So in the last post I said that the only film I was going to see was Milk, when in reality since that post I've watched Milk, Tropic Thunder, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Man on Wire, and In Bruges. Frost/Nixon also reopened this weekend at the cheap theatre, but we just ran out of time to see it. I'd rather have gone to see Waltz with Bashir that also opened this weekend, but again, just not enough time. Oh well.

Best Supporting Actress - Having now seen Penelope Cruz, that brings me up to 5/5 in this category as well. Although she was good, my vote doesn't change, I'm still predicting Viola Davis.

Best Documentary - I voted for Man on Wire, the one film in the category that I've now seen. It was incredible, definitely one of my favourite films of the year. I am incapable of really describing the moving experience that was this film, but it was certainly unlike any documentary I've ever seen. On the other hand, the Academy seems to give this award based on subject matter more than quality filmmaking (see An Inconvenient Truth), but in this new era of Obama, maybe an optimistic film about the capacity of humans to dream and experience is just what the Academy will love.

Best Actor - I've seen 4/5 here, not Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon. From what I've heard, he's one of the frontrunners, along with Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke. Richard Jenkins was great in The Visitor, but that movie came out last spring and nobody really saw it. Brad Pitt was also quite good in Benjamin Button, but it was not a particularly challenging role. Sean Penn as Harvey Milk also did a great job, but nothing phenomenal. The only actor this year in my opinion who really moved me through his acting was Mickey Rourke, who embodied his role so thoroughly that you felt every bruise and insult he received. I think he will win, and that he will deserve it.

Best Supporting Actor - As usual, I find that there's actually more quality in the supporting categories than in the lead role categories. This is a really, really tough one. Josh Brolin as a bigoted anti-gay City Supervisor in Milk was very convincing and gave his character some very real depth. In fact, his character was the only one in the film with any real moral complexity. Robert Downey Jr., in the hilarious Hollywood satire Tropic Thunder, played an Australian method actor playing an African-American role. He is constantly "in character" and this leads to some amusing situations and bits of dialogue. Downey does the role really well, but as much as I did find this film enjoyable, nothing about it is of any significance, and I would be disappointed to see Downey win this award. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of, if not the, greatest actors of his generation, and he will have many other opportunities to win Oscars. His role in Doubt, as a Catholic priest in the Bronx, was quite well-done, but I don't see it quite as award-winning material. For me, this award comes down to Heath Ledger and Michael Shannon. The only parts of Revolutionary Road that I really enjoyed were those two scenes where Michael Shannon was on screen. He was so frank, funny, and uncomfortable, and watching Leonardo Dicaprio squirm in his presence was quite enjoyable. He really pulled off that role well. But I think, as I have from the start that Heath Ledger is going to take this Oscar. He became the Joker more than any of these other actors became their role, and just like Mickey Rourke was the Wrestler. In fact, you have to wonder if playing the Joker is what killed him. He sold the audience so thoroughly on the evilness of the Joker, while also portraying the confusion and motivations of the character. Without him, The Dark Knight would have just been another Iron Man - great comic book movie with great effects, and nothing really more. He made it into a fascinating film, one of the best of the year. That and the fact that he has the sympathy vote on his side means he's a sure-bet to win.

Best Costume Design - I missed two of those movies, Australia and The Duchess. Revolutionary Road was '50s fashion, Milk was '70s fashion, and Benjamin Button was '30s to '70s fashion. Of those three, I probably think Milk did the best job with the costumes. But I am convinced that the Academy strongly favours detailed period work (assuming it's high-quality, which I'm just guessing at, since I haven't seen the film), so I'm predicting The Duchess.

Best Director - I saw 4/5 of these, not Frost/Nixon. This is the very same list of nominees as Best Picture. These are the categories that cause me to not get excited at all about this year's Oscars, because not a single one of these movies was mindblowing to me. I don't want to own any of them. I rated The Reader the highest, but probably as entertainment enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire the most. Slumdog Millionaire is also the one of these five films that is most influenced by its director, Danny Boyle, so I'm going to predict that he wins this award.

Best Film Editing - When I wrote out the predictions back in January, I said that The Dark Knight should win this because in that film the editing told the story. I'm going to change my vote, actually, because I think that the editing in Slumdog Millionaire was actually better and more important to the story than in The Dark Knight.

Best Original Score - I did not see Defiance, so I won't consider it an option here. I'm also writing off Benjamin Button, because it's conventional Hollywood score distracted rather than enhanced the film. Milk used the music well, but it was mostly '70s rock songs, wasn't it? I see that Danny Elfman wrote a score, but I can't think of it at all, so while it didn't distract, I didn't notice it, either, so I'm not going to vote for it. That leaves Slumdog Millionaire and Wall-E. I love M.I.A., so the overabundance of her in Slumdog Millionaire made me happy. But it is more appropriately nominated for original songs, and I don't think it had a score, at least not that I can think of. The only one of these films in which I remember the music really enhancing the whole experience was Wall-E, so it's getting my vote. Slumdog Millionaire came closest, and I won't be surprised if it wins, but it's not getting my vote.

Best Original Screenplay - This is always my favourite category. This is where the Academy tosses the oddball movies that it knows are better than the mainstream stuff it's giving the big awards to (okay, maybe not last year), but doesn't know what else to do with them. And that's why the one movie that I really wish I could have seen (more than Frost/Nixon, even though it's up in all the big categories) is Happy-Go-Lucky. I've heard nothing but good things about it from all of my most-respected sources. But it never played in Edmonton and won't be released on DVD until March 10. For me, this category implies more than just that the screenplay is not adapted from another source. With movies like Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Lost in Translation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind winning this in recent years, it appears that the Academy is also looking for a screenplay that is genuinely original. So in that sense, Milk is out. Frozen River, while a great movie, did not have the strongest screenplay, so it's out. I haven't seen Happy-Go-Lucky, so I won't give it my vote. Wall-E, as much as I loved it (my top movie of the year), does not have a screenplay that can stand up to In Bruges. In Bruges was unexpectedly awesome. It is a dialogue-driven, crude dark comedy, and it was really good. It's screenplay was pretty much perfect (although not for the faint-of-heart or few-of-years). So I'm going to go out on a limb, because the Academy seems like they are willing to in this category as well, and give it my vote.

Best Picture - It's disappointing to look forward to the Oscars as much as I do and not care about the Best Picture category. Not one of these five movies would make my top ten films of the year list, I don't think (I haven't actually worked one out). The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire would have a chance, I guess. I think it's because last year, my favourite film of the year won Best Picture, so this year, when my favourite films like Wall-E, The Wrestler, The Dark Knight, and I've Loved You So Long don't even get nominated, it's hard to get excited. So, based purely on the fact that it's been winning all the awards, and that, like I said in the Documentary category, the Academy will be looking for optimistic, hope-filled movies, I am predicting that Slumdog Millionaire will be the Best Picture winner.

So, to summarize all of my picks, including those from part 1:

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Best Actress: Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis - Doubt
Best Animated Feature: Wall-E
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Costume Design: The Duchess
Best Director: Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Best Documentary: Man on Wire
Best Documentary Short: The Final Inch
Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Foreign Language Film: The Class (Entre les Murs)
Best Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Original Score: Wall-E
Best Original Song: "Down to Earth" - Wall-E
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Short Film - Animated: Presto
Best Short Film - Live Action: Spiezleugland
Best Sound Editing: The Dark Knight
Best Sound Mixing: Wall-E
Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Screenplay: In Bruges

Interesting. I try to select each category in a vacuum, as that is how they are chosen by the Academy as well. There is no group that sits down and says, "Well, we better make sure that we give Milk one." So you'll notice that I am predicting Milk, The Reader, and Frost/Nixon, all up for Best Picture and Best Director along with several other nominations, will go home empty-handed.