A Tale of Three Cities -- Rome, London, & Mumbai

Sorry to report that the Internet connection here is too slow to upload our pictures. Hopefully we'll find a place with speedy connection to get our photos from Rome up, but until then here's an update on our recent travels.

Rome

January 20: We got up early and took a bus from Siena into Rome. We found our hotel, the The PopInn Hostel, which was a cute place near the train station with a DVD and plasma TV (we were very excited about this development!) It was situated near the train station, which is a bit of a seedy neighborhood, but overall it was fine. That day, we walked all around the city until our feet hurt, seeing many of ruins and monuments including the impressive Coliseum and Pantheon. While sitting near the famous Spanish Steps we got one of the best pieces of white pizza we’ve ever had.

January 21: We began our day by visiting what was supposedly the largest market in Europe. This is what the person working at our hotel told us, but we are a bit skeptical. It was mostly clothing and electronics -- nothing too impressive or unique. Then we walked to a neighborhood, Travestere, which is where lots of the locals hangout. It is a really beautiful area, with nice piazzas, colorful buildings, and numerous excellent restaurants, bars, and coffee shops. We had lunch at this great place where we tried Carchufo Romano at the recommendation of Benny’s parents. It is a traditional Roman artichoke dish seasoned with mint, oil, lemon, and garlic. We also found this amazing gelato place where we had pine nut and rice gelato...sounds strange, we know, but was absolutely delicious. That night we watched Forrest Gump at our hotel...we were hoping to watch another movie, but unfortunately the DVD player had broken and Forrest Gump was stuck inside. We felt bad for the people working at the hostel, who had to watch it about 8 times that day.

January 22: We got up early and headed to the Vatican. We were in the museum by 8:45, and wound our way through the galleries. Most impressive were the ancient Egyptian and Roman art and artifacts. The collection of modern religious art was pretty kitchy. We'll try to post one painting which we took a photo of, which certainly belongs in the museum of bad art. We of course also saw the Sistine Chapel. While it was undoubtedly impressive, it was also somewhat disappointing. Perhaps because it is held in such a high regard our expectations were too high. The famous part of the image where man touches God is actually quite small. That night we had our last meal in Italy --so sad. The food, as we're sure you can tell from our various blog entries has been a real highlight of our travels here. We went to another nice place in the Travestere area.

London

London?!? Yes, London. We had a 6 hour layover in Heathrow, so after we made it through immigration we hopped on the subway and headed into the city center. It was a fun adventure. 1 hour on the subway, dashing through the freezing streets without coats (since they were packed in our luggage) and into a restaurant in Chinatown. We had a quick dinner, then hopped back on the subway to the airport.

The flight was quite an adventure. We were on British Airways, which is a nice airline, quite comfortable. The flight left around 10pm, and we had fallen into a deep sleep probably around 1am. At about 2 am all the lights in the plane came on and an automated message announced that the oxygen masks would be falling and we needed to put them on. Everyone in the plane of course jumped awake, but no masks fell. It took nearly 5 minutes for the flight crew to come through the cabin to tell us it was a mistake. It was really quite scary. People were looking at the panels above them and trying to push buttons to try to get the masks down -- they didn't seem to realize that the air was fine in the cabin. Of course, after that it was difficult to settle down again, but the rest of the flight was uneventful.

Mumbai

We arrived in Mumbai yesterday, January 25, and took a taxi to our hotel, Bentley's. It is a pretty nice place. It is clean and we have a private bathroom. The shower has only cold water, which is difficult to endure, but not so bad since it is pretty hot out. We think in the high 80s. We were pretty groggy yesterday so didn't do much more than find a nice spot for lunch called Leopold's. It is always crowded with tourists and locals, a fun place. We had tandoori kebabs, one of chicken and one of paneer (that's cheese, Borat). We walked around a bit, but in our tired state the crowds, heat, and everyone trying to sell us something was a bit overwhelming.

We slept for 11 hours and stumbled out today at 11:30. We had a delicious breakfast of eggs--Alison had a scramble with tomatoes, onions, and Indian spices. We stopped by the post office to mail a couple things home. They wrapped the package in canvas and sewed it up. After walking around and checking out the street vendors we headed here to update our blog. In our Internet cafe right now a ratty pigeon has gotten stuck inside and is flying around. The man who works at the cafe, calmly walked over to the window to let the bird out. It appears to be a regular occurrence. Tomorrow evening we are flying to Aurangabad on Air Deccan and from there we will take a day trip to either the Ellora or Ajanta caves.