Well, these pictures are going to focus on Lydia’s Mom (or my smokin’ hot wife). So, let’s start it off with a classic view:
Just in case you don’t know…that is Cyndi (with her nice straight European hair…tell her you like it in a comment). Her friend Jelena worked for about 4 hours on straightening her hair, and making it all the same color.
While we were taxing into the airport when we landed, we saw this view. That reminded Lydia about her grandpa sowe took a picture for him.
I went out for a walk while Cyndi and Lydia laid down for a nap. Here are some of the sights I saw. This isn’t too interesting, but I saw a Blockbuster…so I took a picture of it. I know it isn’t anything special…but I haven’t seen one in about a year.
Only in Italy would you see a pizza vending machine. I forget how much it was…but I’d never seen one before.
I saw a thing for RomaNBike. I took a picture, but didn’t do any looking for it. it may be a bike rental place or it may be something totally different. I’m not sure.
I stepped into a mcDonalds. Most of the others I have been in look like a McDonalds. This one didn’t so I snapped the picture. Sorry for the goofy whiteout. I was trying to be low key and not look like I was taking a picture.It had seperate stands. One place to order coffee and donuts. Another for ice cream. I never did see the place you order hamburgers…but I’m sure it was there. I didn’t walk all the way through since I had no intention of ordering.
I stumbled across the Spanish Steps while I was walking around. Sorry, I don’t have a picture to share of the steps right yet (we are going back tomorrow…I should have something posted about it in a week or so). But, while I was there, I saw several people get scammed the same way. A guy is taking pictures of his girl when a guy walks up with a few flowers. He hands them to the girl seemingly for the picture. When the picture is done, she tries to hand them back only he won’t take them. She doesn’t want them, but doesn’t know what to do with them. He then demands money from the people for the flowers they “bought.” I haven’t seen this anywhere else in Rome yet…but be warned. Here is a picture of the people talking to the guy about the flowers after they have taken the picture (The girl is in the white shirt, the guy in the blue shirt and coat is her “other”. The guy in front of them is the guy wanting money for the flowers):
Below are a few of the pictures I took of the Trevi Fountain. We went a few days ago and I took a few more pictures. Check back when I get Day 1 pictures up for a few more.
That evening for dinner, I had a Whopper from a Burger King (didn’t I already mention that??)
That concludes day 0 commentary on my pictures. Check out our flickr archive for 22 March 2009 to see all of the pictures we took on that day.
Why day 0? Well, this was our travel day. We flew from Belgrade to Rome and arrived around 8:30am or so. While trying to get to the place we are staying, we were thwarted by the Rome Marathon. Everything in the center was closed. We ended up and had to walk the last 1.5 km or so.
Here are some pictures we took while we were traveling to Belgrade and flying into Rome. Lydia did great on the plane.
Speaking of the marathon, here are some pictures we took of that. At first, we wondered where the runners were…but then we realized we had just seen the very first part of the race. Kevin…you should come over and run in this race. They go by some very historic stuff all over Rome.
We ended up and ate at the best fast food place in the world…BURGER KING!! I had this thing called an Angry Whopper. It was a whopper with spicy cheese and jalapenos on it. Lydia had a kid’s meal. I forget what Cyndi had. Lydia and I were tired after the long ride (and walk) to the hotel bed and breakfast place.
Well, check back later…I’ll write more later tonight or tomorrow.
One of the new features of Google Voice is SMS forwarding (I guess that’s what you call it). In addition to sending phone calls from people to wherever you want, they’ll send SMS messages on too. Wow…that’s kinds cool, I thought. See, I have Google Calendar set up to SMS reminders and notifications to me. Why not replace my phone number there with my Google Voice number…then, I can start using my “one phone number for life” places.
So, I tried it. But, lo and behold, Google Calendar didn’t think I had a valid number. Shazbot!
[Update 09-01-2009 09:20:51] I was fiddling around on Google Calendar and decided to see if this worked today. Sure enough, it did. See this post for more information.
Dates. Sometimes they mean something and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes dates just need some context to make sense. Below is a list of dates…what do you remember about each of them?
November 22, 1963 April 4, 1968 December 7, 1941 June 5, 1968 May 7, 1945 August 15, 1945 November 11, 1918 September 11, 2001 August 2, 1990 February 26, 1993 January 28, 1986 March 24, 1999
That list should help prove my point. For some of these, I remember where I was and what I was doing (Sept. 11, 2001 for example). Others, I remember only because because they were important in history (the ends of WW1 and WW2 for example). However, the ones that I remember the most were the ones that impacted me personally.
So what’s my point? Well, I really was looking for a way to write about the last one–Operation Allied Force–and thought I could tie it in by just talking about dates in general. Why did I want to blog about Operation Allied Force? Well, because once a week or so, we are reminded by people here that they remember the bombings. Sometimes the person talks about how they had to move. Other times, the person talks about it in general. Sometimes the people can talk about knowing some people who died.
March 24th is the 10th anniversary of the NATO attacks on Serbia. If you want to learn more, follow the link above to the Wikipedia article. The “main takeaway” is to remember the people of Serbia on 24 March. Many were impacted and the day means something to many people.
By the way, the picture is of the state TV station building in Belgrade. I found it in the Wikipedia article on Operation Allied Force. I thought I had some pictures of the building today–it still exists–but I can’t find them. If I ever do find one, I’ll post it here.
