Venezia, Day 2 (Part 1)

On my second day in Venice, Saturday, I woke up at the hostel to a slight hangover and quickly ate some breakfast (included in my reservation), and headed towards the Rialto Bridge. I also walked around the old "Jewish Ghetto" (not gonna say anything) and then to Piazza San Marco again. I wanted to, obviously, see it during the day.

It was perfect weather and there were so many tourists I could hardly walk in some places (but this isn't saying much considering some of the main roads that you have to cross are alleys not even 4 feet wide).

This is the first of a series of photos of me in a goregous romantic setting - by myself. I became quite the expert at the whole "asking another tourist to take my picture and I will do the same for you" thing - which invariably ended with me taking a photo of a couple kissing every time.

Joking aside, it was really nice to walk around with my music and just chill.


A pigeon wing in the water?!


Speaking of pigeons, why are you doing this? Was it worth it?

Venezia, Day 1

Milano is to Venice what New York is to New Orleans: Much more hectic, people are (almost) constantly on the go, and no one really stops to think of the fact that they live in an actual geographic location. Venice, I was pleased to find out, has many similarities to my hometown, so my weekend there couldn't have been more therapeutic or magical.

First of all, it is hard to even publish this post because photos could never do a city like Venice justice. I tried my hardest, though (and, for the first time, used my SLR digital camera, a Canon 20D, which proved to be a fruitful idea and produced fantastic results). Within the first couple of hours in the city, I realized that Venetians, much like New Orleanians, have the not-s0-simple task of dealing with their geographic location and environs. Venice is also a lot more relaxed and, although it is Italy and no one actually works or has a real job, they are even more relaxed about it here.

Venice is, in fact, sinking, and there is evidence of this all over the city. I was amazed to walk into a piazza and on the border with the canal, part of the pavement is actually submerged. I was thankful to visit it at such a ripe young age and at a time when, although everything in Milano is still for the most part blissful, I needed a quiet weekend to myself and some time to just think, walk around, and, of course, listen to Beyonce.

I know. She was here. She was here just 3 WEEKS ago, for her 30th birthday, with Jay and their baby boy to-be...okay I don't know it's a boy but that's what we're secretly all hoping for, right?. I mean think about it...If it's a girl and it inherits ANY of Jay's looks, she's fucked. But a boy could do that and still be able to move his body in a way that would make Kelly and Michelle blush (again). Anyway, every yacht and fancy hotel I saw I kept an eye peeled for her, possibly wearing a lacefront and a freakum dress. But to no avail.

The following 3 posts will show exactly what I saw in Venice, day by day, including all of the magical and unexpected sights she offered to me on a silver platter. Without further adieu, Venezia.


Okay, I know, I hate those people that are like, "Roll 1: My luggage" But I thought you should see my trip from the beginning! The Milano train station is breathtaking. I left on Friday at 4 pm and Venice is luckily only a 2.5 hour train ride away - the PERFECT weekend trip.


Venice and N.O. have something else in common than gorgeous decay and a deep-rooted relationship with water: a causeway! I mean, how else are you going to reach a city that is literally comprised of 117 small islands in the Adriatic Sea?


My first view of the city, from the bridge across from the train station. It was about 7:15 when I actually got there and the light was beautiful. Luckily, my hostel, L'Imbarcadero (very nice, would recommend) was only a 2 minute walk from here and ON the Grand Canal (in the Santa Croce district).

After dropping my bags off at the hostel, I made my way over to Piazza San Marco, the main square of the city. I traveled via Vaporetto, the city's version of a subway, which are basically passenger ferries that stop all along the Grand Canal and there was luckily a station just outside my hostel's door.

I was by myself, so Alex, the hostel's coordinator, suggested I go there. It's a little touristy and typical, but then again, so is Venice in general (there literally isn't a "down season"). I bought a couple of beers and sat down and listened to a live orchestra outside of a restaurant for about an hour, which was amazing. The above panorama shows the view from my seat.


I loved this guy's shoes and kindly asked for a few photos.


This is a phenomenon all over Italy, and I hate it. Couples come to a bridge and lock a padlock to it, only to come and unlock it at a future time (I don't get it and I hate it). I will say I love the padlock on the right though.

More to come soon, a huge post detailing my second day in the city of and for lovers. And for me sitting with a couple of beers listening to Upgrade U. Life, sometimes, is so sweet.

Ciao
-Jai'me

Vogue's Fashion Night Out feat. Royksopp

A week or two ago, I attended the Vogue Fashion Night Out event in Downtown Milano. I love any excuse to put on a sports jacket and pretend like I'm semi-wealthy, even fooling the occasional partygoer into thinking I'm from some sort of exotic dynasty. You know, like the Kardashians (kidding, obviously). The event was held in stores and boutiques all over Milan and was meant to celebrate the upcoming Fashion Week, which is actually going on right now (spoiler alert: a future post will see me and my girl Isabela actually attending an extremely exclusive real-life fashion show). Anyway, there were free drinks and more beautiful people and outfits than I had ever seen before, so naturally I was attracted to the event like Liza to Xanax. There was even a surprise ending!

Isabela and I ready to impress the locals.


Inside one of the parties, Annika on the left.


Don't ask me how, but we were somehow able to get into a pretty exclusive party at a fashion designer's store called Patrizia Pepe. That black man (the only one, towards the center) is the bouncer letting some people in, others not, like it's Studio 54. Incredibly chic, and even more crowded (being a 21-time Mardi Gras attendee, this didn't bother me at all, obviously).


Oh, and the DJ's for the event? ROYKSOPP!!!!!!! Yes, this is the thrill of the evening and the "surprise ending". We heard a little earlier in the night that they were DJing at this party and when we got to Patrizia Pepe, we pushed our asses to the front of the crowd and demanded to be seen by the spinning duo. Being a fairly big fan of Royksopp, and LOVING the song Poor Leno, introduced to me by none other than Anushi Patel (she's going to be so jealous when she reads this), I was amazed by how close we got. I actually took this picture! We were literally setting our drinks down on the DJ booth!


Well, it was a fantastic night, the kind Milan has been known to serve me since my arrival. I suggest you do a little research into Royksopp if you don't know them already, they're pretty great, totally my kind of music. And even though they didn't play Poor Leno, and I couldn't remember the name of the song at the time to request it, I was thinking of you Anushi!

I'm off to Venice in a couple of hours to get some much-needed James Time for the weekend. Yep, going alone (of course I would, to one of the most romantic cities in the world). Oh well, I'm sure I'll meet someone and if I don't, I don't mind. I've had so much fun already on this trip meeting myself.

Ciao
Jai'me

Roma, Pt. 3: Fontana di Trevi

One of the few photos taken of me and Georgia together on my trip. She wasn't really feeling the photo-ops, so I had to settle for this one. It's cute though, and I loved seeing my beautiful cousin.
Since we went at night after having dinner in the area (spaghetti with rabbit ragu - so good), I wasn't able to get a good day shot of the Trevi Fountain. However, here's a couple I found online:




Another interesting thing is that in 2007, an artist named Graziano Cecchini poured red dye into the fountain and stained it blood red. I think it's pretty beautiful, but, not surprisingly, many many traditional Roman people were pissed.

Roma, Pt. 2: Vatican City

Being a heathen, and a graduate of Holy Name of Jesus Elementary School, it was really an emotional experience visiting Vatican City in Rome, Italy. It's actually a landlocked sovereign city-state and contains St. Peter's Basilica and the Musei Vaticani, which houses not only one of the largest and finest museums in the world, but also the Sistine Chapel.

St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, showing the massive courtyard where the Pope gives mass every Sunday and on special occasions.

I'm not even going to begin to explain how hot it was and how long the line was to get through the metal detectors to get into St. Peter's. And you know with my sweating issues it was not pretty!

This photo isn't the best because I didn't bring my SLR with me on the trip. I know, I know, if there's any time to bring the damn thing it would have been to ROME, right? But i didn't want to risk it with Ryanair's strict baggage policy. However, I included it to show the size of the Basilica's main hallway compared to the people. It has the largest interior space of any Christian church in the world!

These are actually light phenomena that regularly occur at St. Peter's called crepuscular rays. Catholics interpret them as "holy" I think.


Even the ceiling is amazing.


La Pieta by Michaelangelo is in the Basilica, along with countless other amazing statues, most of them many stories high. Acording to some research I did, it's behind glass in one of the first chapels when you enter the church on the right because in 1972 a geologist named Laszlo Toth began chipping away at the piece with an archaeologist's hammer as an act of vandalism. As chips of marble fell to the floor, other churchgoers ran off with them!

After St. Peter's, it was off to the Musei Vaticani, which costs 8 euros and is about a 12 minute walk from the church. Access to the museum - which is SO worth it, includes access to the Sistine Chapel, or Capella Sistina. It was begun as popes began to more and more use the vast fortune of the Catholic Church to buy and commission art. A rare gem, a good idea from the Catholic Church!

This is the hall of maps at the Musei Vaticani. The hallway was built for the sole purpose of having an arist fresco maps of Italy onto the walls. There are 40 of them total and they were painted around 1580. However, the really really really amazing cool thing is the ceiling. As I pointed out before, the ceiling of St. Peter's is quite amazing. But this one really takes the cake. Why? Because the hallway is 120 meters long - and a football field has 10 less than that.

See what I mean?


The museum also houses countless works that anyone would recognize. This one, The Lacoon Group, is my favorite. Imagine, the piece of stone has been carved in this way for over 2000 years, and it's sooo intricate and the people have such emotional looks on their faces. It's one of the clearest "masterpieces" I've ever seen in my life.

Also interesting is that the sculpture is not meant to be viewed from any other angle than straight-on. When viewed from the sides, it loses some of its drama and appeal.




The one photo I got of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. As I'm learning is the case with many of the things you really want to take pictures of, you aren't allowed. Oh well. It was breathtaking, though. Definitely the coolest thing I saw in Rome.

Roma, Pt. 1: The Colosseum

Being an American, or regazzo americano, I have rarely had the fortune of seeing truly "ancient" architecture, monuments, and works of art in general (I'm not counting the Renaissance collections at, say, the Philadelphia Museum of Art or the Met, neoclassical buildings that are, in comparison to their Roman counterparts, are about as old as the cactus I bought at the supermarket 2 weeks ago). So, you can imagine how blown my mind was when I first arrived in Rome last Friday to see my beautiful cousin Georgia, who is studying at RISD's Rome program for Architecture.

I was also joined by two friends from NABA, Isabela and Annika, both of Mexican descent. I opted for a Ryanair flight, my first, leaving Milano at 8:25 am (well, an airport 50 minutes away from Milan). The plus side: I got to Rome at 9:30 in the morning. The down side: I had to wake up at 4:20 am. However, this was a good idea in the long run; the train costs the same amount and takes 6 hours (this was the mode of transportation taken by Isabela and Annika). Ryanair was pretty easy and security in Italian airports is, frankly, a joke - a point that made me a little uncomfortable after realizing I was flying out on Sept. 11. All went well though!

Upon arriving in Rome, I dropped my stuff off at our hostel (see map below). It touts itself as a "party hostel" and I found it to be clean and the staff to be pretty respectful. EVERYONE staying there was between the ages of 20-23 and it had an unusual 11-4 lockout, which I took advantage of by doing what I love: walking around a new place listening to Beyonce. I saw the Pantheon and went inside, hung out in Piazza Navona (the story of that place is just too much to describe) and walked along the Tiber river.

My eyes quickly became pinwheels at the sights of such things like the Colosseum, which was literally about 4 blocks from our hostel. Annika and Isabela arrived after I did, and Georgia was on a school trip, so I had a good 3 - 4 hours to wander the city. I brought nothing but a map, not even a camera or phone. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and have no distractions, so there are no photos from those first few hours, or the first day of our trip in fact.

However, what follows is part 1 of 2 of my Roman adventure: our trip to the fabled Colosseum.


Our hostel is the red pin. Notice the short distance to the Colosseum.


Our first glimpse of what was awaiting us: a fucking huge line (I later realized this is the case with almost all "touristy" things [duh]). I shouldn't have worried though, it only took about 30 mintues to get through and was a reasonable 12 euros for entry.


Here I am! So happy! Devotees to my life will notice the quintessential Jai'me outfit: camouflage and skull scarf. Some may call these patterns clashing. However, I believe a classical look befits classical architecture.


In awe.


You can only imagine the delight Isabela and I felt when we found out smoking is in fact allowed at the colosseum, and we would one day (well, that day) be able to say we smoked a cigarette at the Colosseum.


There really isn't a day that goes by that I don't remind myself how lucky I am to be here. I of course dread coming back to America; I know that when I return I will be kind of sad. But for now I am really enjoying this experience and learning a lot, especially about myself. It is making me so much more confident and comfortable with myself and my abilities. I guess I really do feel like I'm on top of the world.

Perhaps Mary J Blige and Lil Wayne would be the best to sum it all up:

So I like what I see when I'm looking at me
When I'm walking past the mirror
No stress through the night, at a time in my life
Ain't worried about if you feel it
Got my head on straight, I got my mind right
I aint gonna let you kill it
I wouldn't change my life, my life's just fine.
-Mary J Blige, Just Fine (remix), featuring Lil Wayne

Ciao! Part 2 coming very, very soon.

-Jai'me