We arrived in Rome at around 6PM (their time, 12PM our time) then took a shuttle to our authentic Italian lodging at Holiday Inn.  Our room was just like a hotel room in America with one main difference – right next to the toilet on the floor was a sink that almost looked like a toilet.  I think it was for drinking water.  It tasted a bit funny, but I guess water is different in another country.

The next day we got up for Rome.  I don’t know if you know this but people in other countries don’t speak English.  So imagine trying to use the metro system when everyone you ask speaks a different language.  Well we finally figure out what track we’re supposed to get on, and we do really well reading the map.  But actually too well, because we get to a stop that wasn’t on the map, so we get off trying to figure out what is going on.

Here’s us trying to figure it out. 

Of course, there’s no one on staff, no information booth, nothing.  So after scouting out the place there’s this guy who sits down and I ask him.  He’s Filipino!  Whew. 

There’s some sort of automatic bond you form when you are in a foreign nation and you run into someone that is similar to you in some way.  Here we were similar in two ways, we both spoke English and we both had the same ancestry. 

So anyways he tell us we’re on the right track, but this stop just wasn’t on our map.  Somehow we did some secret trick and ended up in a bonus warp level. 

Lost in Warp Level -1 (You Nintendo fans better get that reference)


So after I went around picking up coins and a 1-up we continued on our way into the heart of Rome.

The first place we stop is The Vatican.  Did you know that Vatican City is also its own country?  Here we are at the Vatican.

  

The art in that place is astounding. 

One of the highlights is where Peter is buried.  Yes, THEE Peter.  Like Peter in the Bible.  The Peter who denied Christ.  The Peter as in First Peter and Second Peter.  Not Peter and the Wolf, or Peter, Paul and Mary, or Peter Rabbit.  The apostle Peter.  That was amazing.

 

Then we stood in line to go to the Vatican Museums, but mainly the Sistine Chapel which is placed at the end of the dozens of connected buildings with art EVERYWHERE.  The line was forever, but we happened to stand in line next to a pastor from Canada.  Having someone to speak in English to was seriously a blessing.  After over an hour we finally make it into the Vatican Museums.

I really can’t put into words how beautiful everything was here.  You’d go down a corridor and there were hundreds or thousands of paintings.  It’d be like trying to walk though a record store and listen to two seconds of each album as you pass through, and each album was incredible but there’s just so much amazing stuff that you miss most of it. 

Okay, someone try to count how many paintings are in this one picture.





 

Here are a couple of our favorite.

Apparently wars past, clothing was optional. 

Raphael painted this ceiling – with sais. 

Now the big payoff after seeing 20,000 pieces of art was the Sistine Chapel painted by Michaelangelo (the one with the nunchucks).  Now if VH1 did a countdown of the greatest pieces of art of all time, the Sistine Chapel would be #1 through #100.  #1 would be the main wall with the Judgement painting.  Now, this thing is something like 3 stories tall.  Can you imagine painting a 3 story wall?  I mean I get sick of painting one room one color with a stupid roller. 

I mean look at this thing.  I could spend all day looking at it finding new things.  It’s like a Where’s Waldo book.  That is just ONE wall, which is only about 15% of the entire huge room with its ceiling.

 
 
This famous painting one of the million paintings on the ceiling.

After we got out of there we got authentic Italian pizza.  It’s a thin crispy crust pizza with hardly any toppings.  Pizza with mushrooms should be renamed, pizza with a mushroom.  And there’s no refills on drinks.  And you have to pay for water.  And soda cans are like $3 a piece.  Give, me, a, break.

So now we work our way over to the Coluseum making stops along the way. 

Now Rome is amazing because everything is just so old.  Oh, that was made by the Greeks before Christ.  Oh this thing right next to it was built by the Romans in the first century.  You go around any place in America and it’s like, “See this intricate building here?  It’s covered with what we call “Siding” and was built in the late 1970’s.  And see that there?  That’s called plastic. 

Some important historical bridge.


Something de Emmanuel

 

I can’t explain it, and there’s pictures don’t do the city justice.  It’s all so beautiful. 

 

But even here, America rules.  U! S! A!!  U! S! A!!

 

Our first glimpse of the Coluseum

 

Finally at the Coluseum which is pretty big.  Yeah, this thing is about 2000 years old. 

Time to fight!

People mistook me for Russel Crowe

 

Where'd everyone go?  Look how small everone is. That's how big this place is.


Ooh, artsy.

A memorial to the Christians killed at the Coluseum.


Julia took this one of course because all my pictures end up looking like they were taken by the clinically insane.

 

 

Walking around Rome more.

Something else totally famous.

The Fountain of Trevi. Legend has it that if you drink from the fountain, you magically get E. coli.


The Pantheon!


Dining outside of the Pantheon!
 

Outside the McDonald’s on the other side of the square with the Pantheon!

 

So we headed back to the hotel.
 

Rome was wonderful and old.  Kind of like the original Nintendo and original Star Wars.  The new updated versions can't compare to the wonder and awe we felt in the olden days. 

 

 

 

              

Vacation - Day 0, The Flight

by Conrad; Saturday, December 2 2006

My parents, my sister and her husband, Julia, the kids and I all planned to go on a cruise on the Western Mediterranean during the first part of November.  Julia, the kids and I planned to spend a full day in Rome prior to the cruise where then we would meet up with the rest of my family. 

 

Our adventure begins on Thursday, November 2, when Julia, Jordan, Victoria and I sit and wait for our plane to board in the magical place called Harrisburg International Airport. 

The feast before the flight.

Whoo hoo! Harrisburg!

Flashing gang signs.

This was the kids’ first trip on a plane so they were excited about that. 

 


Man, I look just like my Mii.
 

We first had a short layover in DC and then got on a plane that was headed to Frankfurt, Germany. 

 

Somehow between the time we took off and the time were were over the Atlantic Ocean, I grew a Mohawk. 



...That is power my friends.

 

The plane was great because each seat had it’s own TV monitor built into the headrest in the seat in front of them. 

 

We landed in Frankfurt at like 6AM (our time) and messed around.

 

Whoo hoo!  Germany!

The Germans made us work while we were there.


Don't mess with this flight attendant.


Durt!

 

Then we partook of the local cuisine.  How better to celebrate our layover in Frankfurt but with an actual frankfurt. 

 
Scary.  I wish our layover wasn't in Frankfurt Airport but rather at the Steak and Lobster Airport or even the Clam Chowder Airport. 

 

Conrad comtemplates eating it.

 

Conrad the intrepid.

 

Conrad and Germany are now enemies.  Germany beware my wrath!
 

Jordan enjoys the meal.

 

It’s not Diet Coke, it’s Coca Cola Light.

 

Back on the plane and over the Alps.

  

 

After 8 or so hours in the air, we finally make it to Rome.  But I'll save that for another post.  I actually have it written, I just need to upload all the photos. 

 

But here's a taste of Rome.  When we got to our hotel in Rome, we flipped channels and got to watch Walker Texas Ranger, dubbed in Italian. 

 

God Bless the U.S.A!

              

Nov 30 - Computer Stuff

by Conrad; Thursday, November 30 2006

I just had to replace my computer and as I reinstall everything.  In some cases I’ve found better ways of doing stuff.  All these programs are free.

 

ClearType

Microsoft should have just included this with XP rather than making you go to their site to download it.   It’s a quick improvement to how text is displayed.  It makes a huge difference.

 

TweakUI

Here’s another feature I don’t know why Microsoft just doesn’t include in their control panel.  You can customize tons of stuff that XP does – from how Windows explorer displays stuff, taskbar settings and tons more. 

 

Thunderbird

No more Outlook Express for me.  Mozilla’s email program is really nice.  It’s spam filter seems to be working okay.  The biggest thing is that I don’t have to use Norton for my spam filter anymore.  It was great, but Norton is a resource hog.

 

Firefox 2

I hope you already use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer for most of your browsing, but in case you didn’t know, it’s been updated. 

 

Core FTP

I’ve only used it for a couple hours, but I love this FTP program.  

 

Zelda Update: I'm currently in the Goron Temple.  And - I just bought a Zelda Sweatshirt that is super awesome.  Julia said, "It's too geeky." 

 

              

Nov 28 - Wii Wiilly Like The Wii

by Conrad; Tuesday, November 28 2006

The Nintendo Wii is pretty much kicking my butt right now.  It’s so much fun.  Who ever thought that in the days of killer graphics and ultra-complicated games, that I would be playing tons of a bowling game?  Yes, bowling.

 

If you’re not already familiar with it, the Nintendo Wii uses a remote that you wave around and the Nintendo registers your movement in 3-D space.  Nintendo also packaged the Wii with Wii Sports which includes Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing. 

 

So to bowl, you physically hold the “ball” up in front of you, and swing it like a real ball.  To golf, you actually swing it like a golf club making sure you adjust your speed and follow through.  

 

You can make little characters for yourself, called "Mii's".  As you can see in the picture above, mine looks just like me.  If you look closely you can even see George W. Bush in the background.  I made one for him (and John Kerry and some others).  You can also see Tom Bastian, who use to be the Decap Music Editor.  He sent me his "Mii" from his Wii to my Wii. 

 

So I have Zelda, which is an amazing game.  And being the spiritually mature person I am I have infused this maturity into naming my character in Zelda. 

 

Behold, the spirit of the forest speaks to me...

 

 

 

That's right I'm coming to save you.  But after another few games of bowling.

 

It really is like real bowling without all the negatives.

 

1. You don’t feel like an ashtray after one game of bowling.
2. There are no parents cussing at their kids
3. The awesome food that are reasonably priced.  And by “awesome food” I mean “old hotdogs made from goats and cigar butts”, and by “reasonably priced” I mean, “as much as a PS3.

 

And by the way.  I bowled a 237.  Try doing that with a PS3. 

 

So far Julia hasn't broken her arm bowling (like the last time she went bowling), but I have hit myself in the face with the wii-mote.  That should count for something.

              

November 20 - Wii! Thankful to be back to the new house from Europe!

by Conrad; Monday, November 20 2006

Oh my.  I have been so busy I haven't been able to update in forever.  But I was tricky in the title of this post cause I mentioned most of what I'm writing about.

 

Here's the major things that have been happening…

 

1. Move into the new house.  Pictures coming soon.
   
    - Having a garage – Awesome.
    - Not sharing one shower amongst four people – Awesome.
    - Wide Open Spaces (not a Dixie Chick reference) – Awesome.
    - Grass growing – Awesome.
    - Having a house that doesn't smell like Brutus' pee – Super Awesome.
   
   
2. Cruise on the Westen Mediterreanean, and visiting Rome.  Pictures coming soon. 
   
    - Visited Malta – which is now the only country I'd ever move to if I were on the run from the law.  Awesome.
    - Saw where Peter the Apostle was buried at the Vatican – Totally Awesome.
    - When in Rome on the subway, we were standing next to a guy who got his foot stuck in the door.  MEGALODON AWESOME!
   
   
3. GOT A NINTENDO WII! 
   
    - Got in line at Target at 3AM.  48^th in line out of 60 available.  Awesome.
    - Being prepared with chairs, blankets and food.  Julia Awesome.
    - So those of you Decapper who live in the area, we will be having a Wii Day over at our place sometime.  Forseen Awesome.
    - Had it for a day and still haven't even opened Zelda cause we're too busy having fun with Wii Sports.  Had Julia's family over and had the best time playing video games maybe ever.  Fun Awesome.
   
   
4. Thanksgiving. 
   
     - We're gonna try to have Thanksgiving at our place even though we're not all that ready to have it.  But we go the space and the Wii, so we'll be good.  Family Awesome.
   
   
5. My computer is dying.  I guess it's bad when your computer tells you that you should replace the harddrive and your computer shuts down every few minutes and it takes 15 minutes to boot.  Gonna hopefully pick up a new Sony laptop.  Computerized Awesome.
   
   
6. I played Street Fighter II Championship Edition in a Costco cause they were selling an arcade set up with a zillion games.  FYI… I still got da skillz.  Handsome fighters always win.  Go Vega!  In college I received a major in Street Fighter II, and minored in Samurai Showdown.  Retro Awesome. 

Okay that's it for now.  Pictures coming soon.  Hopeful Awesome.  

              

Whew. We've Finally Moved In.

by Conrad; Tuesday, October 31 2006

After six months of having our house built, we finally moved into our new house this past week.  It's been hectic for me during the past four months.  While there's a whole lot of work left to do, it's work that just isn't quite as important to get done.  It's quite a relief. 

I've learned a lot of random things during the building of this house.

 

 - Lowe's is way better than Home Depot.  Hope Depot has about two people on staff, so you can never find anyone to help you.  But the one thing Home Depot has going for it is self checkout lane.  Which really is amazing. 

 

 - Always buy more than you need.  You'll save yourself a trip in the middle of your project.  Then just return the stuff you don't need later. 

 - When you have to special order something in a department, there will invariably be three other people in line, in front of you.  And they all speak at the rate of five words a minute.

 - People think our house is way bigger than it is. 

 - People think that Julia and I are teenagers.