Finally Sharing Pictures on Flickr!

I've decided to start publishing most of my pictures on Flickr - actually, I decided that a long time ago, but I take a while to follow through on things.  I had previously been posting them all on Facebook, but most of them have broader appeal, so I want to put those on Flickr and keep the "college antics" ones on Facebook.  I do eventually want to relocate previous ones, but one step at a time - and so, that first step is a set of pictures from a hiking trip that I went on in mid-June with a bunch of friends from the New Orleans trip.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marksowul/sets/72157602708557423/

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marksowul is my Flickr homepage.

 

PS: Kudos to Microsoft's free Live Suite; Live Photo Gallery lets you publish your pictures straight from the program.  That was a big help in actually starting to do this, since I have most of my pictures tagged and captioned here, albeit in Photoshop Elements, and duplicating this effort each time I wanted to upload pictures was a major deterrent to doing so.

Another thumbs-up for Live Writer, which lets you blog entries with ease, including adding pictures, categories, etc.  Thumbs half-down for Word 2007, which only offers basic integration with Blogger.com - in particular, no images and no categories.  So I have to choose between Word's superior offline feature set (proofing, etc) or Live Writer's online feature set.

Maybe someday Microsoft will stop reinventing the wheel (for example - the Zune doesn't use Windows Media Player, but rather reinvents it with different features, and that means you would need to keep two libraries.  Fun!  I have to admit though, I am far more impressed with Zune v2, and am also surprised that they are upgrading the features of v1 as well.  Maybe I'll write about that another day.)

Flickr Tags: Hiking Trip

<-- Another neat Live Writer feature

9/13/2007 - The Trip to Budapest

I had been thinking about whether to take the day trips to Budapest and/or Bratislava, and in the end decided to do just the trip to Budapest. If I'd had more time, I'd have gone to Bratislava as well, but I didn't want to spend half of my would-be time in Vienna going elsewhere, since Vienna was so nice. Next time, perhaps. : )

The trip was terrific. It took about two hours to reach Budapest by bus. It was a nice ride, and we passed by the Hungarian city of Tatabánya, which is home to the "Turul" monument, which is the mythical bird of the Magyars' (Hungarian people's) origin myth. It is the largest bird statue in Central Europe, but to me, it was fairly unimpressive from our vantage point.

When we reached Budapest, we had a short bus tour through the city, and then lunch. It was beautiful, though I learned that 70% of it had been leveled during World War II. In contrast to Austria (which had also been widely damaged, evidently), the country was not rich enough to instantly rebuild it, so it was, in many places, still run down.

At lunch it was as though I was back in America; we were eating at a restaurant in a Best Western (Hungarian food though), and I was at a table talking with a couple from California and a woman from Phoenix. We talked about various things, including travel, and then the whole real-estate crisis. Needless to say, I ended up telling my story, and then the couple from California was talking about theirs; they had traveled a lot, and had been to a few different places on this trip, including having taken the day-tour to Prague the previous day. They said they preferred to see things in depth, and so on a two-week vacation they might see only one or two cities, because they wanted to really experience them and remember them and so forth – I didn't quite understand how that philosophy fit together with their taking these one-day trips to Prague and Budapest. The topic shifted to the real-estate stuff in the US, and they said they were not shedding any tears about the realtors, as they went through some of their bad experiences (they've moved seven times), though I kind of lost interest.

After lunch, we subsequently went on a walking tour through the city. There was a Russian couple (living in the US) with whom I chatted briefly; I had heard them ask the guide whether she'd ever been to any of a few ex-Soviet countries they named (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc). Consequently, I wondered whether they were Russian, and then heard them speaking to each other. Another element of Russia that was strange to see here were Russian nesting dolls as souvenirs. I didn't quite understand what they had to do with anything here. Apparently someone else raised a similar question or the guide read my mind, because I overheard her say that they were Hungarian-made, which she imagined might have been the point; she too disagreed with selling them there since they had no relevance to local culture, but admitted that they were popular souvenirs, so it benefits them in the economic sense. Shrug. The ironic thing is that this "traditional symbol of Russia" was actually brought there by the Japanese.

After the walking tour, we then had some free time (two hours or so); I went up to the cupola of St. Stephen's Basilica, offering a great view of the city, and then walked around "Andrassy Street", one of the main pedestrian boulevards. I indeed ended up making it to Budapest after all, although I regretted the almost uselessly short amount of time, although between the walking tour and the free time, I did get to see a lot of the city.

On the way home, I talked at length with a man from Singapore. I hadn't realized English was the native language there, as he did have what I would consider an accent. He was a real estate lawyer who was on a 2-week vacation; he had succeeded where I hadn't, arriving in Italy and seeing two or three cities there (Milan, Venice, and Florence maybe) by train before taking the train to Vienna, playing it by ear. He gave me his card, telling me to let him know if I ended up traveling to Singapore someday. Ironically, earlier in the day, the man from California had said Asia was a lot of fun, except for Singapore. Hm. Guess I'll have to see for myself.

Anyway, he also helpfully reminded me (as have others along the way) that this is an opportunity I won't see again once I start working full time – yeah, I'm acutely aware of that (thus visions of sugarplums and teaching or the Foreign Service dance in my head). Черт знает.

He also was telling me of some of Singapore's draconian laws, among them being caned for vandalism – I have little sympathy for this; vandalism is a crime that benefits no one and is just a big nuisance. Another one is being hanged for drug trafficking. Wow.

We talked about music a bit also. He had ended up buying 20 books (many were thin; it was a few small bags) at a store and remarked at how gloomy and unfriendly the staff was. I remarked at how friendly Vienna seemed, and he agreed, but said he hadn't had the same level of friendliness that I had, encountering some less helpful people in the train station information office, and his first night's hotel.

In Budapest, there is a "6-star" hotel, the Four Seasons. We wondered about this, and then wondered what the point is, since if you're traveling somewhere you're usually only in the hotel for a few hours a day, mainly to sleep – as long as the hotel is nice enough and close enough, why pay thousands a night?

He had bought some food (there was lunch on our trip, but not dinner) and gave me some, as he'd bought too much for himself. It was a slice of pizza with peppers, corn, and other flora non grata embedded in it, so I "saved it for later" and tried to eat around the vegetables before just tossing it. So it goes. I met the first bum/beggar I'd seen as I walked around before returning to my hotel. I was relieved as I pulled out a bit of change (to "feed his dog"), that I had succeeded in not grabbing any full Euro/two-Euro coins. On that note, those Euro coins are a psychological menace, because it's very easy to spend some "spare change" that amounts to several dollars!

10/1/2007 – Scott Adams Predicts the News

I have in fact come home, but I have been too busy at the moment to catch up with writing entries about my trip. Nevertheless, I saw the following and had to share it:

Scott Adams describing the news (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/08/synchronicity.html):

"Indeed, all of the news is nothing but basic stories with randomized features. Watch as I predict tomorrow's headlines today:

EXTREME WEATHER BATTERS SOMEPLACE
IDIOTS KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE
POLITICIAN DOES SOMETHING ILLEGAL
PRIMATE ATTEMPTS INAPPROPRIATE SEX
EXPERTS WARN OF FINANCIAL CALAMITY
BIG COMPANY BUYS ANOTHER BIG COMPANY
FAMOUS PERSON DOES SOMETHING INTERESTING
A SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY MIGHT BE USEFUL IN TEN YEARS
GOVERNMENT FAILS TO ACHIEVE A GOAL"

(NB: Scott Adams proposes that, "As regular readers of [his] blog know, all coincidences are clues that we are holograms programmed by our long dead ancestors before the planet was annihilated.")

This was amusing because the same formula seems to apply internationally as well (I thought it was just the U.S. that had shallow obsessions with irrelevant "newsworthy" figures, but Europe is quite obsessed with Madeleine McCann in the same exact "JonBenet Ramsey" kind of way. And even if there is real news on the case, that's no excuse not to indulge in baseless speculation! Ugh.)

The other day (ok, last week in fact), I went into the city [i.e. Manhattan] to hang out with some of my Stony Brook friends. One might think that, having had to deal with several different foreign subways in other languages, the NYC subway system would be a piece of cake. Nope. It's significantly more complex, even more so than that of Moscow (map). I took an "express" train instead of a "local" and thus missed my stop and had to backtrack, wherein I had to wait nearly twenty minutes for another train (apparently there was construction) since the first one that came did not match the platform. (The express was an A train, the local was a C train – I was waiting at the C platform, but an A train came, and not sure which to believe, I waited for a second train to be sure).

The finicky metro cards are a fairly terrible design. There is always a huge funnel of people trying to go through the turnstiles, and it seems that there's about a one-in-a-million chance of the reader actually working on the first (or even second) swipe. The other subways that had electronic cards sucked in the ticket and spit it back out, which always worked the first time (unless it was invalid). The better of those sucked in the ticket at the front, and then spit it out at the actual turnstile just as you approached it. The voices on the trains were automated (and thus audible), instead of mumbling gibberish, and in many cases there was also a visual indicator of the stops as well as where you were (as with some of the newer subway cars).

Scott Adams describes his experiences here, hilariously as always: http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/09/new-york-city-s.html

Wilkommen in Wien (Part I)

I arrived in Vienna to rain. The flight may as well have been domestic; there was no border control or customs on departure or arrival as the flight was within the EU. This time I'd had the novel idea of actually emailing the hotel to ask for directions. This worked out mostly well; I took a shuttle bus to "Südbahnhof" and was then to take a "bim D" train one stop to "Schloss Belvedere." Right. My flight was a late one, leaving Italy at 9:30 and arriving in Vienna after 11. I fortunately made the last shuttle bus - very fortunately, as the next wasn't until early morning (5 or 6 AM). Based on this fact, when I got to Südbahnhof (a train station), I was unsurprised that the public transportation was largely done for the night. I figured I would have to take a cab - ok, at least I'd made it most of the way from the airport so it probably wouldn't be too bad. A taxi sat in the parking lot; I asked the driver how much to get to the hotel. To my great surprise he said it was straight ahead, only a few blocks away, maybe 500 meters or so, and even returned to the car to get a map and showed me how to get there. What a pleasant surprise!

I began to fish my umbrella out of my bag; he came back and said he would take me for 6 or 7 euros. Not particularly keen to walk in the rain and dark, I agreed. As we set out he named the lower price of 6 euros. We reached the hotel, and I was greeted by a very friendly, somewhat eccentric-seeming fellow at the reception desk. I took some tour brochures/maps (something which had of course been absent from the hotel in Rome). Among them were day trips to Bratislava and Budapest (and Prague, incidentally) - maybe I would reach them after all! There looked to be a ton of things to do; I lamented my short stay.

The next day I walked around after breakfast. Oh, what a terrific hotel! Sure, more cornflakes and ham/cheese sandwiches, but the location was marvelous. The room was quite nice too - whereas some of the others I likened to cozy little bedrooms, this was like a cozy master bedroom. It wasn't all that expensive either. Although I was enamored by Vienna, thus far I loathed the weather, which skittered between overcast, rain, and heavy rain. My first stop was a colossal palace, Belvedere, which was quite close to the hotel. There was a WWI monument there too - oh, right, Austria/Hungary used to be an empire not too long ago.


Afterwards, I made my way to the center. On the way, I passed a WWII monument; I thought to myself that it looked very much like a Soviet war memorial. Sure enough, I turned the corner and saw "Август 1945." Who'd have known Russian would follow me everywhere (as well as that damned umbrella song)? I then saw another giant palace, the Habsburg. A door was open and I ambled around inside for a while. Neat. I ended up at city hall, which could easily be mistaken for a large gothic church. I walked around inside there for a while too, both times keeping my door of plausible deniability open by only going through open doors and noting the German word for exit ("Ausgang") as to ask confusedly for it should the need arise.

In contrast to earlier cities, I saw few beggars, and in contrast to my previous stop of Rome, no middle-eastern immigrants running souvenir stands nor blacks selling counterfeit Prada bags nor rowdy youth all over the place. It was overall a very clean, and austere but friendly place. Cars were noticably deferent to pedestrians at crosswalks too. Another neat feature was a city-wide bike system - there were bike stations peppered throughout the city, and you could rent a bike from, and return it to, any station. The first hour was free; thus, if you used it right you could ride through the city entirely for free (well, sans a one-time 1 euro "registration fee" - still). I didn't end up using it, as I prefer to leisurely walk around and see everything; for this reason I didn't buy rollerblades in St. Petersburg last year as Kim had wanted to do, and it also obviously contributes to my massive amount of photography.


I made my way back to the Habsburg on the way to, well, elsewhere; someone was selling tickets to a concert there. (I had heard someone earlier in the day trying to sell tickets but figured I'd worry about it later - the best way to avoid doing things is to decide to "worry about them later" and by then, it's no longer an option, and thus: decision made). I looked at the program and wasn't terribly excited; tickets were 59 euros or 32 euros depending on which section you wanted to sit in. As I thought about it, as I did want to see a concert at some point during my stay, the man said that for students all seats were 25 euros. Sold. I went to dinner nearby, and the waitress was really friendly, which was another reinforcement of that aspect of the city.

I ended up with a nice 2nd row seat next to a couple from Ireland, with whom I chatted. The concert was good, and turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. Some of the songs had singing as well, and one of the singers was quite a jovial fellow - although I couldn't understand him on account of not speaking German, his facial expressions and gesturing made that minor point irrelevant, as it was clear that whatever it was, it was supposed to be funny. There were five singers altogether, each doing various songs before one including all of them. Among these singers were two young Asians, one male and one female. The male especially had a terrific voice; it was unbelievable to match this rich tenor's voice to its owner. The girl also sung well, although her accent was noticable even to me, but a hilarious moment ensued when she was paired with the first guy - they were dancing, and it was obviously some sort of romantic duet, and so at the end he lightly kissed her hands, but then abruptly pulled her in for a strong kiss on the lips, leaving her visibly surprised.

More amusement accompanied the polkas, which already evoked a smile as the musicians (particularly one of the clarinet players) showed their obvious enthusiasm. Except, that is, for one of the two bass players who couldn't have looked grumpier or less enthused throughout the concert if he tried, barely moving his hands when plucking the strings and moving his bow as little as possible, in particular contrast to his neighbor. Anyway, during most of the polkas, there would be some sort of skit by one of the percussionists, usually with the conductor. For example, during one, he played a two-tone whistle at regular intervals during which the music was paused: high, low; high, low; high low, and then: low, high! The music remained stopped as the conductor "glared" at him, and so he stood up, pointed to the sheet music, and shrugged. During another one, he used some kind of whistle, and then started to switch between it and a birdcall, and then during one of the the bird-whistle iterations, he held it for what seemed like minutes, standing up as he blew until his face was nearly purple, earning applause (and laughter) from the audience.


But one of the most entertaining was when they brought out what appeared to be an apparatus fashioned out of a log, and then he put two anvils which he hit with hammers that he took from a knapsack. Of course, as he and the conductor "reviewed" before starting the song, the percussionist would hit them as loud as possible and would try to hit the conductor's fingers as he pointed to which anvil to hit. During the song, the percussionist pulled out a bottle from the knapsack and took a swig, and then he sleighted a Playboy from the conductor's stand and opened it to the orchestra, with the aforementioned clarinet player gesturing to rotate it as to see the centerfold. The percussionist then to turned it to us to reveal - a puppy dressed in a sweater. Then he wagged his finger at us. It was a really delightful concert.



I returned to the hotel on foot - the hotel was really well-located - and the same man who checked me in the previous night greeted me, and remembering me, gave me my key, happily proclaiming, "Ah yes, Mr. Sowul, number 41!" which made me smile even more than I already was. So far I'd had a terrific success rate with friendly, helpful people.

The next day consisted mainly of walking around aimlessly; I walked through "Stadtpark" and then through a good deal of the city on the way to its iconic ferris wheel. I went up near sunset, and then made my way back home. The following day was a day-tour to Budapest.

Arrividerci, Roma (Part III)

The next day I went throught some more of the city, mainly more parks on the west side of the center, before ending up at St. Peter's again. While I was standing around, a girl came up to me and asked if I went to Stony Brook, indicating my bag. I said yes; we chatted for about 2 seconds (she was from East Islip, and asked where I was from) before she darted off. Hm. Even so, it was the most I'd heard in native English in weeks. I wanted to see if the cupola at St. Peter's was open today, as the notice that I'd seen the previous time I had been there implied that the closing was only that one day (of course). It was, so up I went - 550 stairs (or so) each way. What a terrific view!

Subsequently I was to meet Lidia and have dinner with her family - while I waited to meet her, I saw another student of the "keep going until you hit the car in front/behind you" school of parallel parking. As her mom drove us, we stopped occasionally to see views of the city. Lidia showed me around her apartment a bit; there was a Ukranian woman staying with them for the time being. We had some pizza and spaghetti (and bread), a combination which Lidia said was not usual for them to eat, but so that I could have some of each. Her sister joined us; Lidia said she had made the sauce. We talked some more about language (she speaks nine), and they drove me back to the hotel; on the way we saw some more sights, including the Circus Maximus, now illuminated, and much to my surprise the lights were all different colors. She and I agreed to meet for lunch the next day, and I bid farewell to her mother and sister.

By now I'd seen most of what I wanted in the center, so I bought a day-ticket for the metro and decided to just go around; my first destination was St. Paul's cathedral. This was my first excursion on the "B" line of the metro, and it was quite a contrast to the clean, modern "A" line (which was reminiscent of Prague) - the wagons were old and almost completely covered with graffiti. St. Paul's cathedral was also amazing. Subsequently I stopped at the adjacent "Piramide" station, where there was indeed a pyramid. I looked around there for a few minutes before continuing on and meeting Lidia. We got some pizza and walked to Piazza del Popolo and chatted while we ate there, before heading back for some ice cream and looking in vain for somewhere to sit as my two cups of ice cream begain to melt. Afterwards we headed back to the metro and bid each other farewell; I walked around a little longer before taking the train to the airport, which was a nice ride at sunset, with a rainbow in the distance.

The flight was fairly uncomfortable; fortunately it was only little more than an hour. It was an MD-80 with three seats in each row, and not enough room in the overhead bin to fit my backpack. Coincidentally, the Alitalia inflight magazine also featured St. Petersburg as the cover story.

Oh, and in addition to popped collars, I hate sweaters tied around people's necks.

More in Rome (Part II)

The next day, I again missed the morning shuttle; I thought it finished at 10:30, but no - that was the last departure from the metro. Arg. Lidia and I were going to meet in the evening and join her friends to watch a Russian movie, so I again explored the city during the day. I saw the Circus Maximus, which was filled with lights for some reason - later I found out that there was a, well, wouldn't you know it, "La Notte Bianca" (White Night) festival throughout the city. I also walked through a lot of the nearby ruins before making my way up to a park near Villa Medici and Piazza del Popolo, whereabouts I later met up with Lidia and we walked around a bit, with the festival now in full force. We took the subway (free now) to her friend's flat, where there were three of her friends, one of which was from Ukraine. Who'd have guessed. While Lidia and I walked to the metro we had talked about various things, including 9/11 (that day was the 10th). Thinking back, it was hard to know exactly how we had all found out (a classmate told us while we were in math class, but I don't know how he himself found out; I think he had seen it on TV in the library), but further, it was hard at first to remember whether I had indeed seen the towers fall live, because of the endless replays on the news throughout that day and the following few days. I remember having read Newsday that morning and noting the date was 911, like the emergency number. Hm. How little I knew how the world would change a few hours later?

Right, so we went to her friend's house, where Vladimir and I cast our votes for Операция "Ы" ("Operation "Y") to which I was introduced in the culturology class. Parts of it involve last-minute preparation for exams, about which we later had to write an essay, "От сессия до сессия студенты живут весело" ("Between exams students are carefree"). I agreed with this in my essay, saying that it was universal, or at least that students in the US and Russia were the same in this respect, and now Lidia was providing evidence for it in Italy, having a few hundred pages of text still to read before her test. I really enjoyed the film and thought it was terrific - just purely funny, good-natured humor. I loved it, and look forward to watching other Shurik films (I had earlier seen one thanks to an assignment for Russian class back home, wherein I had to watch a Russian film and talk about it in class; my roommate and I had watched one where Shurik makes a time machine and ends up switching time periods with Ivan the Terrible. I had really enjoyed it but didn't realize there were other Shurik films. I also learned the actor had a sad life, unsuccessfully trying to avoid being typecast, and then becoming an alcoholic and living in poverty after the welfare system disappeared, before dying of a heart attack.) Shortly after the movie we went home, and as I walked back from the metro (this was about a half-hour trip now that I knew where I was going) I saw a fairly suspicious car fire. Hm.

A Rough Start in Rome

The next day I took a cab to Kiev's airport (which was about an hour away), as the constantly slow and overcrowded public transport didn't fill me with confidence. The airport was interestingly (read: badly) designed: it was bizarre, confusing and inconvenient - arrivals and departures were mixed, and there was nowhere to sit as customs control was before check-in, and so you had to wait for your flight to be checking in before you were able to pass, so there was of course a colossal crowd standing outside this barrier. After that it wasn't so bad, but somewhat delayed. I worred as I wasn't sure how much time I had for my layover, and I hadn't packed my luggage for contingencies, almost begging for such a fate. Fortunately that worked out. I had a brief stay in Prague airport, and then was off to Rome. Czech airlines has terrific legroom (obviously an important factor when you're 6'+), so the flights were very comfortable. The inflight magazine, coincidentally, had St. Petersburg as the 'cover story.'

Upon arriving in Rome, there was apparently a large Asian plane that had preceded ours, based on the massive queue for immigration, and Lidia had said she'd meet me so I looked around for a while before finding her and her mother. I was worried they'd left or something, but they had hit traffic. She said she'd mixed up the dates of her exams, which were not the 21st as she originally thought, but rather the 12th, so she was going to need to study for the first two days I was there. I assured her that it was fine, and that she should of course do as convenient for her. They drove me to the hotel, with some difficulty as it was far from the center and hard to find. We had to ask for directions a few times. The first time we saw someone standing on the side of the road and slowed down as to pull over - it was a prostitute. We sped back up and mused that she had different questions in mind. We asked police at some point - it was strange to be in the mindset of being able to trust them again. Eventually we made it to the hotel, and I expressed my gratitude as we agreed to meet up again in a few days.

A man and a woman were working at the reception desk. As I was checking in, the man asked if I spoke French. I said no, and half-jokingly offered Russian instead. Ha ha. Well, the woman spoke Russian, so we indeed completed our business in Russian. Who'd have thought. Of course, Lidia and I communicated mainly in Russian as well, and indeed we met in St. Petersburg last year as I introduced myself with my incipient Russian skills. The hotel seemed nice; I was practically in my own little bungalow. Working the lights was mystifying initially. I had to insert my keycard into a slot in the wall. And keep it there, I learned, after the lights went out a few minutes later. There was another airport nearby, so I had the roar of airplanes to lull me to sleep. Right.

Breakfast the next morning was included, so that was nice to have again. Of course, it consisted of the apparently universal ham/cheese sandwich and cornflakes, although there was a satisfying array of desserts here as well. The contrast in wastefulness between Russia/Kiev and here was also apparent, with plastic cups at breakfast, and the daily replacement of my plastic cup in the bathroom as well as the bar of soap I would end up using maybe twice.

The hotel had a free shuttle to the metro, which was fairly far away. The hours were fairly inconvenient: from 8 until 10:30 in the morning, and from 5 to 9 in the evening. So I thought, anyway. I was flummoxed when I got to the metro, as all they had were automatic machines that took coins, and all I had were 10 euro bills. I finally found a cashier and waited in line for about 15 minutes only to find out, sorry, he had no change. I looked around in vain for an internet cafe for which I'd earlier seen a sign, figuring I could get change that way. It seemed to not exist, and I grew very frustrated and angry that I apparently had no way to solve this problem, so I decided to walk, dammit. There were some ruins I explored along the way, and then ended up having to backtrack in lieu of climbing the fence next to the fairly busy road I'd been walking down. I made it to the next metro stop, or rather, a metro stop, and resigned myself to buying a water to break the 10 euro bill, and made damn sure to stockpile coins from that point on.

So I finally made it to the center, and all my frustration evaporated as I walked through the city, seeing all these amazing things from history, ruins mingled with modernity, mixed with monuments. I saw the city from the top of Vittoriano, offering a terrific view, and then went to the Colosseum, which was amazing to see for real! It began to rain while I was there. I had pizza and pasta for dinner, relieved to finally be somewhere where it was natural to eat Italian food all the time. I went to an internet cafe and, due to terrorism laws, had to show my passport. I wondered how that could possibly help unless they monitored you, and then drew the unfortunate conclusion. I wrapped up and returned by 8:30 and called the hotel for the shuttle by payphone, as I'd not succeeded in finding a SIM card yet. The phone was really quiet and the volume button didn't work.

Anyway they informed me that the shuttle stopped at 7. What? (There was an airport shuttle from 9 to 9, and I mixed up the 19:00 posted at the desk). I asked how to get back but couldn't hear and ran out of money. I paced back and forth for a while, hoping for a taxi but not succeeding, and strongly missing gypsy cabs. I asked a few stores/restaurants if I could call a taxi, but they either had no phone or refused outright. Desperate and out of ideas, I decided to walk. That I didn't know where to go did not deter me; the map I had only covered the center, so I was literally wandering the streets, at night, in a foreign country, where I didn't know the language, and tried to head in the direction I thought the hotel was in the vain hope of finding it. Life's full of small challenges. I actually reached the street, but my address was 95 and this only went up to 91; it continued on the other side of the highway which I couldn't cross, so I had to find my way around. I had to backtrack quite a bit, and then overshot when walking around the cloverleaf-esque thing, and found another hotel and asked how to reach my street, but he didn't know (nor did the guests that had just entered), thinking it was somewhere in the center (yeah, I wish). I didn't really have enough money for a cab (those 50 euros went really quick), so I backtracked and continued, and after three hours or so I actually made it; I tried not to entertain the million what-ifs that came to mind throughout. I saw the sign at the desk for the shuttle and it indeed said 19:00, and so I asked how to get back otherwise, and was told to take a cab. Nice. So that meant I had to be back everyday by 7 PM. What crap!


So the next day I overslept and missed the breakfast and the shuttle bus. Nice. There was a map on the wall in the hotel, so I prepared to set out on foot, as I (sort of) knew where I was going this time. (I asked, but they didn't have any maps for me which had the hotel or its surroundings. Nice). A cab arrived as I was leaving, and after it had dropped off its passengers I asked the driver if he could take me to the metro for less than 5 euros, as that was practically all I had - the hotel, of course, conveniently lacked an ATM. He said yes, although it was metered and came to 5.50 or so, so I gave him 6 euros (I had a grand total of 9). So I took the metro and withdrew a lot more money this time as I reached the center, and got a SIM card from a place that had been closed by the time I had reached it the prevous day.


I got some brunch - a small pizza, water, and ice cream. The total: 18.50 euros. What? The small gelati was not 3 euros as I thought (which was still pricey) but rather 8. Whoa. I mean, it was delicious, but $10? Clearly the era of cheap ice cream was over (but it was delicious, so I had more throughout the day). I walked through the city, seeing, among other things, the Pantheon and Castell Sant'angelo on my way to the Vatican to see St. Peter's Basilica. Being there was also unbelievable. It was amazingly big, grand, opulent. I also visited the papal tombs, which included that of John Paul II. It was quite a magnificent church, probably dwarfing every other one I've seen (or close to it). I was irked that all the churches here, especially this one, were turned into tourist traps with little pay-kiosks for information or to turn on the lights or such things, along with large crowds of people just talking loudly and taking pictures and videos; at least in Russia there was some semblance of respect.

I then went up to the cupola, which, due to repairs, was partially closed. I could only go up to the terrace and the inner ring (inside the church) which was still amazing. I wanted to see the Sistine Chapel but it was closed by then, so I got dinner and went home. I just made the last shuttle, the route of which I carefully noted. I had scheduled my follow-up language evaulation for the Russian program for 11 PM that night, so I had several hours to kill and so I listened to music and napped. I was relieved that that had actually worked out (ensuring that reception was aware and was able to forward the call and so forth). This time was far, far easier than the pre-program evaluation, although the line was still extremely noisy as it had been the first time (in spite of assurances that the problem would be fixed this time), so that messed things up a lot. Still, it was very much easier than the first one, so the program (and/or the 10 weeks in Russia in general) had obviously helped a great deal.