25 December 2003 Eventually the card playing comes to an end and everyone goes home for the night. But we don't stay away for long. The next morning we're back at Maxi's mom's house for Christmas Breakfast on Christmas Morning.  As is traditional in Germany (and elsewhere) here we are gathered for Christmas Breakfast. All of us except Maxi's brother, that is. He is apparently grumpy and wants to stay in bed.  I tried to take the picture again and get Maxi's mother to look at the camera, but apparently she thought that she'd look better if she wasn't looking directly at the camera. She's aiming for the mysterious and aloof look, I guess.  This is quite the breakfast huh? Eggs, bacon, sausages, cheese, smoked salmon, and even some salted herring. Except that in this case "salted" really means salted. The herring are MUCH more salted than you'd get them in The Netherlands. Yikes. Not like the fresh ones you get on the street in summer here in Holland. (But still tasty somehow...)  This is apparently a real German breakfast. All those breads and meats and cheeses and not a single box of sugar coated breakfast cereal in sight.  After breakfast it's off to the Düsseldorf train station to catch the ICE train to Frankfurt airport and embark on Maxi's Christmas/Birthday present. You see, Maxi is a fan of all things Italian: Italian coffee, Italian shoes, Italian bags, Italian pizza, Italian pasta, and particularly the raison riddled Italian Christmas cakes known as Pannetone. So I figured that it might be nice for her to get some authentic Italian Pannetone. And what better place to do that except in Italy, right?  Just over an hour later we arrive in Frankfurt Flughafen. And if the ICTY Christmas Market Adventure of two weeks ago didn't satisfy our Christmas Market cravings then we're in luck because there's a indoor Christkindl Markt at Frankfurt Airport. It's just not the same, however. But still worth a look.  Having arrived at the airport well ahead of time there is time for me to play with one of my own Christmas presents. This is the little travelling train set that Maxi gave me. Here you can see the little town I made at a deserted bar in the Frankfurt airport. Complete with a little train station made from battery packaging (where the train is currently stopped) and a billboard reminding the train passengers that "Smokers Die Earlier".  Soon we are in the air and headed South. I am not too thrilled about flying, of course, but the business class seats with ample foot and butt room ease my pains a tiny little bit. I think this may be the first time I've ever flown over Europe at night and actually looked out the window. The only other times I was over Europe in the dark was going to and from Cairo but I was unconscious for that entire flight. I am amazed by how much light there is from the towns and cities and highways down below. In Canada you can't see anything out of the windows unless you are over a major city except for a few pathetic little lights from farms and stuff. Here, over the Italian peninsula, there are lights everywhere.  Another picture of the same. (Bearing in mind that there is a lot more light than is showing up in this picture, but still very impressive, I think.)  Safely on the ground in Rome and a bus is waiting to take all of us to the main terminal. Oh that's nice. What kind of major airport doesn't have a JetWay for loading and unloading major flights? Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport, apparently. The last time I had to take a bus to and from the airplane was when I flew to Nürnberg or Berlin on small propeller planes. But the flight to Rome this evening was on an Alitialia MD-80 jet, not some little propeller-driven Eurowings CityHopper flight. Not to mention that the last time I got off a jet and onto a bus at night was when my MartinAir flight had its little accident back in 1998. And that time getting off the plane with fire engines and emergency vehicles with flashing lights all over the place wasn't much fun. This particular egress is eerily reminiscent of that incident and I find myself looking up at the engines to see if they are in one piece or not. The bus takes off and leaves two people behind even though they told the driver that everyone was onboard. We circle back to the plane to pick up the stranded passengers. Once in the terminal I head for the bathroom to wash my face and hands. Much to my chagrin all three of the linen towel dispensers on the wall have no more towel left. I pull on one to be sure and it falls off the wall. Welcome to Italy! Buying tickets for the train into the city I stick one into the validating machine which promptly sucks it up, jams and won't give me my ticket back. I tell a nearby train dude about this and he waves me onto the platform without a ticket as if to say that no one will check tickets anyway... and he's right. No one does. The train leaves late and upon arrival to Rome Termini at the heart of the of the dirty, smoggy, loud city where there seems to be more homeless people than people with homes I am reminded why the last time I was in Italy was 8 years ago (and why I was so happy to cross the border into Switzerland). Don't get me wrong though, Italy is wonderful. It's just difficult to go there from a Germanic-type nation where things tend to work properly as opposed to not. I get a similar sensation when I go to Belgium or France as well.  After checking into our hotel right across the street from the ruins of the Roman Forum the first stop is the infamous Trevi Fountain to try and find something to eat. Not much is open, but it is Christmas Day so that is not surprising. All of Rome's fountains have their water supplied via aqueduct from various springs around the city. The Trevi Fountain is no exception and is the last stop for water that has travelled from nearly twenty kilometres away through a two thousand year old aqueduct built during the reign of Augustus in 19 BC that supplies many of central Rome's fountains. The man said to have built the aqueduct was one of Augustus's generals (a fellow named Agrippa who we will hear from later on in this journey) who was supposedly shown the location of the spring by a young girl as he and his soldiers were searching for a source of fresh water in the hills above Rome. (The statues and what-not are obviously not from Roman times and were constructed during the 18th century.)  I don't think I've EVER seen so few people at the Trevi Fountain, however. Usually this place is crawling with people, even in the middle of the night. Apparently Christmas thins out the crowds and we almost have the place to ourselves. And so, unlike any other day of the year it is easy to get down to the lowest level just next to the fountain. As everyone knows you are supposed to throw a coin into the fountain during your visit. What most people apparently don't know is that doing this doesn't buy you a wish, but rather just ensures that you will return to Rome again some day. And apparently it works because here I am, once again, taking pictures of Trevi Fountain. Unless, of course, the legend you believe is that you will return to Rome some day soon, in which case it doesn't work since it's been summer 1995 since I was last standing here. Although maybe I didn't throw the coin properly on that occasion? Facing away from the fountain and over your left shoulder (must like you do when you spill salt) is the generally accepted "proper" coin throwing procedure. (I think that drinking the water is also considered to work for ensuring one's return to Rome. However, I don't suggest this particular method since I drank Italian water once and was sick on and off for two years afterward. No kidding.)  But coin throwing isn't all that the Trevi Fountain is famous for. It was also the location of one of the most (in)famous scenes in the history of cinema from a film that I don't think very many people have actually seen, but whose title everyone surely knows. La Dolce Vita by Italian director Frederico Fellini. (Not that I should talk since I dislike old films and seeing as this one is definitely one of those I have therefore never seen it. I do know of the scene, however, that's how (in)famous it is.) As you can see, the camera angle used in this picture taking during the filming of the movie is very close to the one in my own picture. The dude is Marcello Mastroianni and the girl is the ridiculously busty Swedish actress Anita Ekberg. Someone whom I once liked once asked me why they have still photographers running around on movie sets shooting hundreds of pictures? Why is this an actual job instead of a gigantic waste of money and time? The answer is both simple and complicated. 1) Because sometimes you get some good shots that make good posters. But more importantly... 2) Because since movies are generally not shot all in one go, from front to back, it's important for set designers, wardrobe people and hair and make-up artists to know what the actors and sets looked like three weeks earlier when they shot the first half of the scene they are about to shoot the second half of. Besides... they make for cool pictures sometimes.  (Yes I stole this photo from Corbis... so what? Let them sue me.) Here we see why Anita Ekberg was in Playboy after making this film (but not in any other movies that anyone's ever heard of).  These pictures don't really explain why Anita's character was wading around in the fountain in the first place, but like I said, I ain't never seen the movie so I have no idea. But maybe the universe doesn't need a reason to put a busty blonde fully dressed into cold water. At least it makes for a memorable scene and maybe that is enough, right? And partially thanks to Frederico Fellini it's nearly impossible to get anywhere near the fountain 364 days of the year.  And if coin throwing and movie scenes aren't enough for you, there is yet another contributing factor to Trevi Fountain's fame. Anyone remember the movie Planes Trains and Automobiles when Steve Martin and John Candy are on the bus and everyone is having a sing-a-long and Steve Martin's character starts singing "Three coins in a fountain..."? No one else on the Loser Cruiser knows the song so John Candy saves Steve Martin by starting to sing the theme song from The Flintstones. Well, the song that no one on the bus knew was called Three Coins in a Fountain, made famous by none other than Frank Sinatra. Besides which... who cares? It's not like it's real anyway. Just throw the coin in, take a picture, and let some homeless Italian guy wade in like Anita Ekberg to get some boozing change. I assure you that the bath will do him some good.  Making our way back to the hotel now we pass by some of the ruins of the Roman Forum. Despite the lack of light in this picture it is actually a good example of something that I personally find fascinating about the city of Rome. Specifically how the street level of the city during the Roman era is so much lower than the present day. If you look at the photo you can see a row of arches at the back. On top of these archways is the present day street level. At the bottom of the arches (or lower) is the street level as it was 2000 years ago. The reason for this build-up is because of the accumulation of dirt and soil, obviously. Much like the places of Israel and the Middle East that build again and again upon the ruins of the former settlements until the entire town ends up sitting on top of a small hill. But what makes the height difference so dramatic in parts of Rome is the fact that after the collapse of the Roman Empire the city became virtually uninhabited (compared to its population of more than one million at its peak during Roman times). The various buildings fell into disrepair and soil and plants eventually covered everything up. It is only in more recent centuries that the city has grown again and excavations of the ruins been undertaken (and continue to be undertaken). "Maybe they just dug down to construct this particular building?" suggests Andres. You, of all people Andres, should understand what I am saying about the difference in street level. But you are right to say that they dug DOWN to build this particular building. Ancient Rome was built amongst several hills (seven, I think, one for each of the ancient kings of Rome, except that the hills have different names), one of which was in the way when this particular part of the Forums was constructed. As a result they cut away parts of the hill to make room. But we'll get to that later on, ok?  The ancient ruins need a bit of help to stay erect. Think of these metal bands as a sort of archaeological Viagra. In the distance, between the two shafts, is the summit of the Vittorio Emanuele monument, Rome's most obtrusive edifice. But let's leave all that for tomorrow, shall we? It's late and it has been a long day. 
 
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