Shane Life

When we started planning this trip, we were filled with anticipation and nervousness. As it got closer, we began to worry that we didn’t start planning early enough. Once we got on the trip, we realized that our nervousness and worry was nothing - this trip was about us. It was about falling in love in another country and discovering that, even worlds away, we are the best of friends.

This may sound somewhat arrogant, but weaker couples would have come unhinged by the struggles and inconveniences we encountered along the way. We returned stronger and more in love than we’ve ever been.

Discovering Paris together was so fun and I imagine we’ll return to Paris and Venice sooner than we’ll return any of our other locations. My negative experience in Florence almost made me want to go back and give it another try. But not enough.

We spent a lot of time in Rome - enough for two separate posts covering all we did. Rome was interesting enough, but it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. We did, however, see Ferris Bueller and Carrie Bradshaw, which was cool.

After Rome it was off to the Amalfi Coast. It was incredibly beautiful, but difficult to get around. By the end of our trip, we craved creature comforts that we often take for granted (more than 1 pillow on the bed, easy access to food, etc.). But getting home wasn’t easy.

As happy as we were to get home, we were ready to go back after about a week of sleeping in our own bed. Having the experience of this trip will give us more experience going forward. I can’t wait for our next adventure.

Here’s one last thing, a re-posting of my earlier Trip By the Numbers:

• Miles Traveled: over 12,000
• Countries Visited: 2 (and the USA)
• Cities Visited: 8
• Hotels Stayed In: 6
• Hours Spent on Planes: 39.5
• Hours Spent on Trains: 44
• Hours Delayed on Planes: 32 (includes a 24-hour delay in Paris)
• Hours Delayed on Trains: 7 (includes the 3-hour delay that caused the Paris delay)
• Taxis Taken: 13
• Trains Taken: 11
• Subways Taken: 8
• Planes Taken: 4
• Boats Taken: 8
• Modes of Transportation: 12
• Stairs Climbed in Churches: over 1,000
• Times Swam: 5
• Gelatos Eaten: around 20
• Pizzas Eaten: Shane - 7; Alli - 8
• Croissants Eaten: over 20
• Museums Visited: 6
• Americans Met: 19
• Movies Watched: 7 (Including Shrek the Third in French)
• Celebrities Seen: 6 (Jude Law, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Andie McDowell, Nicole Ritchie, and all of Good Charlotte)
• Books Read: 4.5
• Times We Did Laundry: 4
• Souvenirs Purchased: ZERO
• Pictures Taken: 1,920

I hope that you have enjoyed my overviews of each city. It’s been fun to revisit the trip in this way. I apologize for my long-windedness in many posts, but this isn’t nearly as extensive as my written journal, which is now effectively shut until our next trip.

We now return to your regularly scheduled blogging. There’s lots to discuss. Chiefs, poker, US Open Tennis (how good is Roger Federer?), golf, etc. The floodgates are now open.

We received a very unfortunate piece of news on the final day of our vacation: Alli’s high school art teacher and mentor had passed away after a battle with cancer. It was a really rough time - Ms. McGuire was the reason that Alli became a painter and much of the reason that Alli took the trip to Europe to see all of the artwork that we did.

The news came as a shock to her, but we were buoyed by the fact that we would in fact be arriving home in just enough time to drive to Council Bluffs for the memorial service. We waited quietly for Claudio to come pick us up so we could make our train from Naples to Rome.

We decided early on that we would fly in and out of Paris because it was considerably cheaper than flying out of Rome. Plus, it gave us the opportunity to see Paris, which was something that I really wanted to do with Alli.

What this meant, though, was that we would have a full day of travel our last day of vacation. First we would ride with Claudio to Naples, then we would catch a train to Rome, and then we would catch another train that would take us overnight to Paris, where we would wake up and have plenty of time to make our flight home from Charles de Gaulle airport.

The first part of the trip went remarkably well. We arrived in Naples with plenty of time to make our train (thanks to Claudio, the consiglieri of the Italian Taxi Mob), and we arrived in Rome with enough time to grab some food before our night train.

We went to a place called Mr. Panino, a fast-food, Italian version of Subway, only without all the health. Man, was it ever disgusting. We grabbed our last gelato of the trip in the airport and it ended up almost making up for the nastiness that was Mr. Panino - it was creamy and tasty, probably the 3rd best gelato we had (out of 11 total, I think).

Our train from Rome to Paris was slightly delayed, which sucked because the Rome Termini train station is a madhouse, full of begging gypsies who exploit their own children and various vagabonds and smokers. Plus, it was spectacularly hot.

When we got on the train and into our tiny traveling car (the picture at right shows ALL of the room - the beds are behind that mirror and fold down), the heat was stifling. The air conditioning was barely leaking out of the single vent by the window and it didn’t work properly unless you shut yourself in the closet of a room, which emphasized the suffocating nature of the heat.

We pulled away from the station about 30 minutes late, which didn’t cause us a ton of worry - the guy who was the train representative in our coach assured us we’d make up the time on the way. Even if we didn’t, we had over 4 hours to make our plane when we arrived in Paris - plenty of time to get from Gare du Nord, where we’d be arriving, up to the second Charles de Gaulle airport train terminal.

Alli and I passed some of the time watching episodes of The Office on our ipod video (totally genius) and The Italian Job. We tried putting the beds down and crowding into one of them, but the heat persisted through most of the night, keeping us plenty uncomfortable along the way. We attempted sleep, but as it was before, sleep was difficult on the train. It was made more difficult when in the middle of the night, we discovered that we were stopped in the middle of nowhere. We got concerned as the stops got longer; at one point we were probably stationary for over an hour.

As light came, we began passing through French towns, which was encouraging, but not uplifting considering that we had to get to Paris, which sits in the Northwest part of France. I knew that once we passed through Dijon that we were a couple hours out. We were scheduled to be in Dijon around 6:45. We arrived after 9.

We were really starting to get concerned now. The cabin train rep assured us that we’d only be 2 hours late, which would be enough time for us to make our plane still, but any later and we’d be seriously pushing it considering we were on an international flight to Newark.

The cabin train rep lied. 2 hours became 3. We now had just over an hour to get off our train, catch a metro from Southern Paris to Northeastern Paris, clear security and make our plane. It was starting to look bleak. I started to unravel and my wife, God bless her, was the one who remained calm along the way. We finally managed to get some change to get onto the subway and got quickly on the train to the airport. We had to make 11 stops in about 45 minutes.

We didn’t make it.

Considering that we were trying to return home in time for a funeral, it was a major blow. As I spoke with the Continental desk, Alli sobbed behind me, which made me all the more upset that Continental was not doing more to assist us in finding another flight out. It’s no wonder that people are disgruntled with the airline industry - Continental provided us with no assistance and absolutely no concern for our well-being. I could chalk it up to the desk workers being French, but it is the same back in the states. We need an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights and quickly.

After attempting to get on several different airlines (despite the Continental desk telling us that we couldn’t…we could for a fee), we resigned ourselves that we were not going to get home that night. We found the only hotel that was a part of the airport, the Airport Sheraton. It was certainly above what we wanted to spend, but I really did not want to get a taxi or shuttle to another, less expensive hotel. Considering that I was planning to make Trenitalia or SNCF pay for our stay, I wasn’t too worried about it (I am still waiting to hear back from them).

I had an absolutely spectacular cheeseburger - something I’d denied myself these 3 weeks - that evening in the hotel terrace restaurant. While we could have stayed somewhere cheaper, it was nice to stay in a quality hotel and get a good night’s sleep after all that we’d been through in the past 36 hours. It was awesome to get a nice hot shower and to have a comfortable bed to sleep in after sleeping on plywood for a week in Amalfi.

We awoke plenty early to make our flight, arriving when the airport opened. We got in line to clear customs and found ourselves in line for a flight to Newark that left earlier than ours did. This was weird, considering that the morons at the Continental desk told us that we were on the earliest flight out. Another Continental worker that morning managed to get us on the flight because (big surprise) all flights to Newark were delayed. The early flight, scheduled to leave at 9:10 AM was now not scheduled to leave until after NOON.

Guess what. We missed our connection in Newark. But we did finally make it. It turned out that Andie McDowell was on our flight from Paris and the first thing we saw when we got off in Newark was her yelling at someone on a cell phone - a very diva-like moment. We had almost 4 hours to wait for our flight, during which we charged our ipod.

We also had one more celebrity sighting, spotting Nicole Ritchie and all of Good Charlotte waiting for a flight to Nashville. I snapped an OK picture of her, but it’s hard to spot her baby bump. She is so small that it’s hard to imagine her carrying a baby…she looks like she’s maybe 11 years old.

We got on our flight to KC that was supposed to leave around 8:30. DELAYED. But this time, we were on the airplane and sat on the runway for OVER TWO HOURS. After this experience, I’ll never fly Continental again. I don’t care if I have to pay more to fly someone else…it won’t be Continental. It’s so confusing how airlines cannot get their stuff together. I saw an interview with the head of American Airlines and he acted like they had no control over the awfulness that plagues the airways. You and I know this isn’t true. Customer service is at an all-time low in every airline except one. You’d think that the other airlines would study what Southwest is doing right with their domestic flights and figure out how to apply it to international flights.

But alas, the major airlines are all run by morons who think they know what the customer wants, but really have no clue. We finally arrived home after a huge delay, thankful to be back on the ground in Kansas City and to be sleeping in our own bed that night. We were also thankful to have someone picking us up at the airport (thanks, mom).

As dreadful as our travel to and from Paris was…if I had to choose between going and not going…it wouldn’t even be a contest. But still…it would be nice to know that if we decided to go back that the morons who run the airlines and trains somehow managed to remove their heads from their behinds.

Continued from earlier…

Rome is much bigger than I expected.

After finishing up at the Vatican and walking all around the basilica, we somehow got lost looking for food. We made our way back to Caffe Leonardo for the second night in a row.

The next day we walked around the rest of Rome that we planned to see. We started at Palantine Hill, a large group of ruins that sits above the Colosseum. We then took a guided tour of the Colosseum with an absolutely mad woman. Over the course of the tour, she managed to offend Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Romans, Fascists, Christians (sort of), and somehow animals. We walked through the Roman forums, up to the Trajan Market (the worlds first mall! - according to the map), over to Piazza Navona, and then to the Pantheon.

The Pantheon is beautiful. It’s hard to believe that it was originally used as pagan temple because when you step into the building, the presence of God is palpable. I felt extremely close to God during our time in the church. The most stunning feature of the church is obviously the oculus, which was in its full splendor when we arrived around 4 in the afternoon.

We got some gelato and then went over to Trevi Fountain where we found another American couple who we exchanged pictures with. It’s interesting - when you are in a foreign country, biases about cities you live in, etc. are thrown out the door because you are just so happy to hear English. The folks that we met at the fountain were from St. Louis, our cross-state rival, but we were pleased to speak with them for a while. We had a similar experience on our tour of the cupola where we met perhaps one of the friendliest New Yorkers we’d ever come into contact with.

After the fountain, we returned again to Caffe Leonardo for another half-liter of the house white and some dinner. It was a big day and we were pretty famished by that point. Our strategy for Rome had been to eat as much breakfast at the hotel as we could. The Rome Hilton has a “continental” breakfast that was included with our room because my dad is a gold card Hilton member and an all-around good guy. The only thing “continental” about the breakfast was that there was enough food to feed a small continent. Each morning we gorged ourselves on fresh fruit (at least I did), made-to-order omelets, 8 kinds of fresh-squeezed juice (the blood orange juice was the best), more pastries and breads than I could imagine, and the best brewed coffee I’ve tasted in my entire life. We figured with a breakfast like this, we could do 2 meals per day in Rome and dinner ended up being at Caffe Leonardo every night. Usually we ate an early breakfast, which wasn’t exactly regular, but since our favorite restaurant was open at that time, we figured it made sense to do it this way. It worked for us…people who are more “foodie” will probably choose a different way.

That evening after we returned to the hotel, we headed down to the lobby terrace that overlooked the pool for the evening. We caught up on our journaling for a few hours while we drank more of their wonderful Holland coffee (all I know about it is that it was FROM Holland, but I’ve yet to find it and figure out where I can buy it) and listened to the lounge singer who was entertaining the nighttime pool crowd (and by “crowd”, I mean the 10 or so people up on the terrace enjoying the beautiful Roman evening).

The lounge singer was great, covering everything from traditional Italian songs to “Roxanne” by The Police. Most of what she sang were lounged-up covers of American pop songs with an Italian accent. It was such an enjoyable evening sitting outside and speculating on what she would sing next. Time passed quickly and we ended up not turning in until after 1 a.m.

The next morning, on the recommendation of one of our waitresses at Caffe Leonardo, we visited the Gallery Borghese, an art museum that is a part of the large park in Rome, Villa Borghese. We had to make a reservation to get into the gallery, so we were excited about what we might see, even though we had not heard much about the collection. It turned out to be not very good at all.

The collection was very well put together and all came from one guy - some Cardinal from a long time ago who was related to some Pope (whatever happened to that vow of poverty?) - but this place was knotted up like Fort Knox. You couldn’t take ANY bags in and it cost more to enter than it did to get into the Vatican. Based on the collection that we saw, I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was all about - it was mostly sculpture and stuff that I didn’t really recognize (nor did Alli, who took Art History). Not really our cup of tea.

After our alotted two hours in the museum (we didn’t need both hours), we walked around the park a bit, stopping for a while near a fountain, where we both got out our journals and drew. Yes, I attempted to draw. While Alli took on the Colosseum, I tried my best to sketch the fountain in front of us. It was a pretty cool experience and Alli seemed proud of me, which was enough for me.

We walked to Piazza Popola at the Northern entrance to Rome and then back to…you guessed it…Caffe Leonardo for our last night in Rome. The next morning we were headed for our final destination - The Amalfi Coast.

Out of all the cities we visited, I would say that I was most looking forward to visiting Rome. There’s something about the city where modern civilization seemingly started - a city rich with both religious and political history - that made me anxious to visit it. I think that what I envisioned was something more like Paris or Venice, where the historical parts of Rome were preserved instead of intermingled with a bustling metropolis. Rome just seemed crazy to me and I didn’t like it nearly as much as I wanted to. Perhaps the terrific hotel room spoiled it for us; maybe it made us just want to hang in our room more than explore the city. I still wouldn’t trade that hotel room (and that breakfast!) for anything.

After another great night’s sleep and another wonderful breakfast, we once again found ourselves on a train headed for a new location. This time, our destination was Naples, but only briefly, as we would then meet the head of the Italian Taxi Mob himself, Claudio, who would then take us to our last stop on the trip - Villa Scarpariello Relais.

And yes…that was the view out of our room.

UPDATE: Alli’s Rome post.

One of the things that we were really excited about our trip was that we were going to get to celebrate our 7th Wedding Anniversary in a foreign country! It worked out that we the day of our anniversary ended up being our travel day from Florence to Rome. Even so, what lied ahead of us in Rome was reason enough to celebrate.

I spent the short train ride to Rome catching up on some reading (I ended up reading 3 books while on vacation, I think, which was so nice) and when we arrived, we quickly realized that, compared to Florence, Rome was a whole other ballgame. Roma Termini (the main train station in Rome) is the size of some airport terminals and about 10 times busier. We made our way off the terminal toward the exit, looking for the taxi stand.

As we neared the taxi stand, I saw an older fellow standing by some other drivers and he hurriedly grabbed our bags and shoved them into his dilapidated old brown Mercedes station wagon that curiously didn’t have anything close to a sign that said “Taxi” on it. CRAP.

We took the taxi anyway up to our hotel, The Rome Cavalieri Hilton, named one of the best hotels in the world. You might ask how we managed to stay at such a beautiful place. Well, the truth is this: my dad travels all over the world for business and had a TON of points. He converted those points for an anniversary present to us - a wonderful anniversary present that allowed us to stay in our nicest hotel yet.

Our room was huge - a big, clean bathroom, a sitting area, a king-size bed with 4 pillows each, and room-darkening shutters. You heard me correctly - Room. Darkening. Shutters. When we got into our room, Alli was running around in it just because she could. After almost 2 weeks of small hotels and bed & breakfasts, this really was a welcome luxury, especially on our anniversary!

Once we unpacked all our things (the first time we’d actually unpacked out of our suitcases), we took the hotel shuttle down into the main area of Rome, craving some good food. I realized that we were quite close to the Spanish Steps, so we took a side street and ended up at the top of the steps. We were just getting ready to walk down the steps when I heard a vaguely familiar voice. I turned around to see who it was and my jaw dropped.

Life goes by pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

That’s right. Ferris FREAKING BUELLER. Looking closer, I realized that the person that Matthew Broderick was talking to was none other than his wife, Miss Sex-and-the-City-Carrie-Bradshaw-herself, Sarah Jessica Parker. Don’t believe me?

That’s her with the two bags in the middle. The navy blue-shirted guy (whose face you can’t see) to her right is Broderick and the non-entity that both are addressing between them is their son. With the lesson of Jude Law behind us, we knew we must photograph the occasion, so we snapped this picture and a couple others. Unfortunately, I tried to be all coy about it and they didn’t turn out quite as well as I would have liked, but still…Carrie Bradshaw and Ferris Bueller. HOW COOL!

Since their son was with them, we again left them alone and went off in search of food. We found a great cafe just around the corner called Caffe Leonardo. It was a relatively small place, but given its location near a very touristy area of Rome, almost their entire staff spoke great English and they were more than willing to help us out. We liked Caffe Leonardo so much that we ended up eating there every night we were in Rome. Some might call that short-sighted or unimaginative, but we enjoyed the atmosphere and the fact that by the second time we came back, they remembered us.

The next day we decided to tackle the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. We also ended up visiting St. Peter’s Basilica and Square as well, but not after waiting in one heck of a line to get into the museum. We got in line at about 8:00 AM, 2 full hours before the doors opened to the general public. With this in mind, we were still a good half to 3/4 of a mile back in a line that seemed to go on forever. We were surrounded by touring groups of students who…I’ll stop there before I say too much.

The Vatican’s collection is rivaled by few museums in the world; it is fascinating and massive and includes works from many different eras. Obviously, the collection of religious art is unequaled anywhere in the world. Alli and I made our way slowly through the galleries, savoring every moment in that we could. Passing through the rooms containing Raphael’s beautiful frescoes was so inspirational. Alli and I were glad that we’d invested the €6 to have the informational walkie-talkies along the way. We learned a lot about the vast collection and enjoyed hearing the stories behind the pieces that we liked.

Everything leads you to the Sistine Chapel. It’s a maze of rooms previously occupied by popes and other important Vatican figures. Finally, after seeing 100 or so signs reading “Capella Sistina” you arrive in the small chapel considered as the pope’s church and famous for the beautiful frescoes on the walls and ceiling designed by Michelangelo.

This was moment was one of the biggest reasons for making the trip. As an artist, Alli had always dreamed of coming to Italy and seeing these works of the masters and the Sistine Chapel was at the top of the list. You’d have to ask her to be sure, but I think that the look on her face would tell you that it was worth the wait. Many people had mentioned that it is smaller than you think it will be, but that wasn’t what startled me…it was the absolute magnificence of Michelangelo’s work. Alli and I stood in the Sistine Chapel for at least an hour, just craning our necks and staring all around us at this unbelievable expression of what human beings are capable of when God helps. It is truly spectacular.

After our time in the Sistine Chapel, we exited the museum through an absolutely beautiful staircase that someone said was designed by Michelangelo as well. and made our way toward St. Peter’s Square. The plan was at least to see the inside of the basilica, but we ended up taking the cupola tour, which was about 700 steps up winding, narrow staircases to the very top of the largest cathedral in the world.

You get some spectacular views on the tour, first from the inside of the basilica looking down into it:

Then once you get to the top you can see all of Rome:

To get there, you have to climb up staircases that look like this:

Insane.

OK…before this post goes on and on, I’ll split it up over two. So…

To be continued…

I still have yet to cover Rome and Amalfi regarding our trip (which we returned from well over a month ago). I’m working on it…just wanted you to know I haven’t forgotten.

• Miles Traveled: over 12,000
• Countries Visited: 2 (and the USA)
• Cities Visited: 8
• Hotels Stayed In: 6
• Hours Spent on Planes: 39.5
• Hours Spent on Trains: 44
• Hours Delayed on Planes: 32 (includes a 24-hour delay in Paris)
• Hours Delayed on Trains: 7
• Taxis Taken: 13
• Trains Taken: 11
• Subways Taken: 8
• Planes Taken: 4
• Boats Taken: 8
• Modes of Transportation: 12
• Stairs Climbed in Churches: over 1,000
• Times Swam: 5
• Gelatos Eaten: around 20
• Pizzas Eaten: Shane - 7; Alli - 8
• Croissants Eaten: over 20
• Museums Visited: 6
• Americans Met: 19
• Movies Watched: 7 (Including Shrek the Third in French)
• Books Read: 4.5
• Times We Did Laundry: 4
• Souvenirs Purchased: ZERO
• Pictures Taken: 1,920