Thank You, Silence.

First installment of the Italy Spring Break 2011 Travel Journals!

This will mostly be pictures with commentary; I’m still missing like 500 pictures so it’s hardly anything close to complete, and I’m not typing up my actual journal yet, but I went through the 600 or so pictures I have so far and chose the very best to tell you about.

No, this is not going under a read more, although it’s going to be very long. I’m sorry guys, but I just think it’s too important for that! :D

Okay! Let’s start in Naples:

This was the view directly out my mom and dad’s window in Naples. We were in kind of what looked like the shady part of town, but I kind of got the feeling that the entire city of Naples is like that. There was some kind of old church at the end of that street; we didn’t have enough time to check it out. D:

This was our first Bulbasaur pic! We got like 5 billion. We went to a little outdoor market and it just looked so absolutely Italian, I had to get a picture. I love it.

Another Bulbasaur pic! This time in Pompeii, in this big amphitheater thing. Super duper interesting, yo.

In that same amphitheater thing in Pompeii. In the bottom right corner, in the blue and in the yellow, that’s my brother and I.

Ancient porn! No but seriously, these are erotic drawings. Notice that the pictures are above rooms. Basically, you go into this place, you pick whatever sexual act you liked (since hardly anyone could read, pictures were useful) and then you went into that room. Wonderful.

Yes, that is Emily holding Orangey the Tiger next to a stone dong on the wall. More on that later.

These things still fascinate me. When Mt. Vesuvius exploded, some people were encased in ash and when archaeologists found these empty cases, they filled them with plaster and made casts of the person. We only saw a few of these, but they’re small (people were littler in ancient Rome) and everybody’s hands are at their mouth, because they were choking on the poisonous gas. Totally fascinating, and also extremely creepy.

Bulbasaur and I in Pompeii <3 yes I got douchey Darren Criss pink sunglasses. I love them.

Just a lovely display of the outdoor market outside the ruins of Pompeii. Wait a second…

Is that…

Yes, yes it is. Dongs! Dongs everywhere!

Also, look how happy that dude on the right is.

The ancient Romans were a strange people.

The men in my family being boys. I love them, yo.

Now to Rome!

This was Roberto, our first tour guide in Rome. It was the Angels and Demons tour. It was extremely interesting, and he was a great tour guide. After he introduced himself, as we were walking, Reade leaned over close to me and whispered, “Our tour guide looks like Jesus.” Gotta love that boy.

This is the Pantheon. Yes, the Pantheon. Basically, the oldest Catholic church in Rome. It was an ancient Roman temple to all the gods, and then it became a church to all the martyrs. Really amazing. it’s huge.

Roaming the streets of Rome. Everything looked like this. It was absolutely amazing. I’m pretty sure Emily and I are making a video right here.

I just kind of like this picture of me. But yeah, it was packed with people everywhere. Kinda like…kinda like Disneyland. Yeah. Rome = Disneyland. Except, you know. Not.

This is basically what we did the whole trip. We saw on ancient, sacred works of art and ate gelato.

No but I’m not kidding, we ate so much gelato it’s almost not even funny.

Oh, hi, Colosseum.

The inside of the Colosseum. It was actually a little smaller than I thought it’d be on the inside. All that you see on the bottom, that used to be underneath the actual place where the gladiators would battle. They had like trapdoors and stuff and yeah. ‘Twas interesting. And very cool.

Emily and I amongst some ancient ruins.

Castel Sant’Angelo. Remember in the Angels and Demons movie, the last place they had to find, that had an angel on top pointing downwards as if to say, “HERE!” That’s this place. I have a better picture of the angel on Emily’s camera. I’ll post it later.

BULBASAUR! STOP PHOTOBOMBING ALL THE GOOD PICTURES! No but actually, I love Bulbasaur in pictures and this is a great one. This was like Piazza Barberini, waiting for the Crypts and Catacombs tour. <3

Bulbasaur after enjoying a nice Italian meal.

This was during our tour of the Vatican. The ceilings everywhere looked something like this. In the bottom right corner, that’s Tiberio, he was our guide.

Oh look, The School of Athens.

Yeah, okay, I saw some pretty amazing things. I was constantly humbled over and over again, I felt like I was going to just be squished into the floor with the weight of everything I was witnessing in real life, in person.

Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel, by the way. Sorry.

St. Peter’s Basilica. Yes, in the Vatican. I felt like I could just fall over and die.

I love my Daddy. There was a big mix up and we ended up going somewhere in the early, cold morning, and that meant we had to walk back and Emily was behind us, and I was freezing cold and so. Yeah. My dad was great during this whole trip. I really do love him a lot. I admire him for putting up with my mom, too :)

Oh look, a little reminder of home. No but I was totally excited when I saw this. Whenever I see the letters H and B together I get excited. This was some bar or something. But. Yeah.