My sacrifice!

This is a combined blog entry of everything I wrote during a six day trip to Rome, Pompeii and Pisa. It describes what happened, what went wrong, what was I feeling and what do things look like in Italy. I took this trip with my family (mom, dad and sister) in our “new” camper. The trip was taking place between 29.10.2005 and 4.11.2005, during highschool holiday brake.

NOTICE: This page will be full of pictures as soon as I upload them, so stay tuned!

Day One

Saturday, 29.10.2005, 14:00

So, it’s happening. The whole family is taking a week off, we mobilized our “new old camper” and we are driving to Rome. At this moment I have no idea where we are, but we are around 4 hours from Secovlje.

Before we left this morning, we went to the cemetery to pay respect to our late grandfather (on my father’s side) and my aunt’s daughter Sara, who died at birth. It’s nice to see people remembering their dear ones, but I wonder… why do we need a holiday to do this? Why don’t we do it more often? Why do we wait for a day when we are “supposed to go and remember them”? People are strange…

Anyway, I’m writing this in case I accidentally stumble upon an open free accessible wireless network somewhere on the way. ;) Notebooks rule! It’s so nice to have my music, my work files and other stuff with me on my trip. If I get a chance I’ll post some pictures with this post before we get back to Slovenija.

I guess I’ll try to find something that remotely resembles Cyberpipe in Rome and establish some contacts. I just hope they are not so “underground” as C| is. But then again, Italy has some weird laws when it comes to public internet access. I wish I had established that “anything over DNS” thingy we heard about on 21C3. I’ve downloaded the OzzymansDNS the other day but I gave up, when I couldn’t install all the Perl dependencies it needed. (This is on my TODO list :)

/me is currently listening to “Daniel Powter - Bad Day” thinking…

Saturday, 29.10.2005, 18:40

Finally, we passed by Florence (Firenze), which is half way to Rome. We were stuck in some heavy traffic for about 3 hours, made approximately 120km at average speed of 40km/h. Which is 30% of
everything planned for this time. Not good.

I’m starting to regret the decision to leave my EOS 50 at home. Sure, it would be expensive to get it to work (it needs the battery - 3000 SIT; and a few film rolls - about 1000 SIT/piece) but at least I would have a semi-pro grade camera to work with. This way everything I have is my moms Pentax digital camera, which is far from usable for art photography or even “secret portreting” I like to do when visiting large cities.

A good friend of mine got herself a new EOS 350D digital camera and I am so jealous! Sure, she practically sold her soul to the devil but, hey, it’s sure worth it! When I find my soul (or get a soul-mate to replace it) I’ll get one of those monsters too. Till then… I’m convicted to this heaven of half-working-piece-of-crap-digital-shitties. Oh, well, at least I have my iBook that works like a charm and it does what it’s supposed to do :) It can’t take pictures, tough. :(

Saturday, 29.10.2005, 23:20

We’ve finally arrived to Camping Roma, on Sunset Hill :) I don’t see any sun setting, tough. We still have to check in, but we are finally here! Rome, here we come!

*damn!* My iBooks battery is dieing! Have to find a plug soon.

Day Two

Sunday, 30.10.2005, 22:33

You know the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and you say “Today will be a good day.”? Well, this was NOT one of those days.

It started just fine, but soon things went bad and a while after that even scaled to worse.

Yesterday we were so late to check-in to camp we were parked on the far side of the camp that didn’t even had electricity. This is the reason we tried to get a good spot this morning - lack of electricity. My Marvin needed juice and the fridge wasn’t working right with “gas-cooling”. So, just before we went out of the camp we re-parked the camper to a better spot. And while we were maneuvering (well, my dad was) we broke one of the upper tail lights on camper. While we were
busy doing that we managed to take the time to brake something on the neighbors’ camper. After we successfully re-parked we found out that some of the closets inside were not properly closed, so stuff fell out. This almost gave my mom a stroke. Anyway, we then set off to the city.

For all of you that think that you’ve seen crowded public transportation in Ljubljana, you didn’t. What is often thought as “a very crowded or packed-full bus” in Ljubljana squeezed is only an understatement to what you can see here. It’s like 3 tuna fish cans squeezed into
one. Sure, you can close it, but you may have some of it sticking out here and there. This is how people (and unfortunately us) commute in Rome.

When you first get off the bus somewhere near the centre, filth is the first thing you may or must notice (as there is nothing more obvious to notice at that point anyway). Garbage is everywhere. I can’t believe people can live in such filth.
On the other hand, I was really put back by the sterile cleanliness of the Metro Stations. It was like hospital but without so many people to make it filthy. And the trains are clean too. They sure have some of the strangest behaving trains (one of them just passed by a fully
packed station - empty), but they are clean.

The first thing we went to see today was the Colosseum. This ellipsoid in the centre of the city sure gives you a feeling of glorious days of Imperial Rome. They have an x-ray and a metal detector on entrance but it must have been broken today as my notebook passed through them like
the hot knife through the butter. Next time I’ll rig it with a bomb and try to blow up something and then we’ll see :)

Once we taken a few pics we roamed from Colosseum to the hill next to it, to which we accidentally bought tickets (it was a combo with the one for the Colosseum). It’s quite an experience to walk through the ruins in which the founders of Roman Republic (well, the Republic was never founded anyway) lived. They sure knew how to treat themselves. Huge parks, exotic fruits, pools and jacuzzis, beautiful women, etc. Las Vegas of Roman Empire :)

Next, the road, well, mom really, led us to the Pantheon. This is quite a piece of architecture. It has a “cassette-style” ceiling with a hole in the middle. The legend says that there is so much uplift from the inside of the building that there is no raindrop that could fall through this 9m hole. In theory. I believe that in practice there is always a little wet under the hole - when it rains, that is.

Right in front of the Pantheon there is an Egyptian obelisk in the middle of the fountain. Looks nice but a little out of his place (Egypt).

After a cup of coffee and hot chocolate, we took a look at this big fountain in the middle of some square, that was actually quite smaller than this big ass fountain. There were so many people we got lost for a moment.

The next, and final sight-seeing stop, was an 45 minute rip-off in this thing called The Time Elevator. Basically, it’s a video tour of Rome with added effects like rocking chairs and non-surround-sound in stereo-phones. I won a quiz with questions about Rome that was held
before the show, but 11 Eur for a movie? Well, you are in Rome only once (you are then broke and can never go back :).

After the show we felt too tired to take the Metro back so we found an almost direct link with the station from which our bus went to the Camp. We got to the right station in two trips, as we overlooked that there are at lest 8 bus-stops named exactly the same - over a street they are located on. And then we were facing the same scary crowd we were in the morning. Our bus was packed so much the door wouldn’t close and the driver wouldn’t take off. So we waited for another bus which was quite empty at the beginning, but after 20s it was full. But we were on it. Which turned out to be the biggest mistake of the day…

You see, when you have a 6 million people in the city there is quite a big number of them that are robbers and pickpockets. And that being so, there is a rather big possibility that one of them is on our bus. And when you mess with probability, you always lose.
In short, my mom was robbed on that crowded bus. After we got out, she noticed that her bag wasn’t closed right. So she checked and found out that the wallet with the credit cards, her health insurance card and 300 Euros was stolen. It was a professional job, with professional
con artist on work. She canceled the cards as quickly as she could but we are still 300 Euro short.

I guess we learned a valuable lesson today: “Always carry a gun!” No, wait, that was something else… Oh, yes: “Never have that kind of stuff so accessible! If you don’t have trouble getting to it, neither will the bad guy.”

PS: Oh, yes, did I mentioned that we didn’t even know the right time of the day half of the day!? It was a time-shift night today and we were so confused with some other time-stamps that we didn’t know if it was true. It was, and we were running a hour ahead. :)

Day Three

Monday, 31.10.2005, 23:42

This entry will be, like this day was, a total opposite of yesterday.

The day started nice, there was no crowd on the bus to the Vatican and almost everything today, with the exception of a few things, was bearable.

First thing we wanted to do today was to take a little tour in Musei Vaticani. We stepped off the bus right in front of the entrance and were imedialty put back by a few 10 meters of queue in front of the entrance to the Musei. As we proceeded to search for the end of queue to stand in to, we found that the actual queue was almost 1000 meters long and about 10 people wide. What we first saw was only the tip of the iceberg. When we arrived to the start (or end, whatever you like)
we were practically on the main Vatican square. Not willing to spend 6 hours in a non-moving queue we instead placed ourselves in the other queue, that was actually moving and was looking promising. It was a queue for the Basilica di St. Pietro. After 30 minutes of slow moving
and, here and there, non-moving queue, we finally got in.

The actual Basilica is breathtaking from the architectural and artistic point of view, mostly. It’s huge! And it’s full of great statues and frescas. The content, message and iconography don’t really
interest me, it’s the technical details that I enjoy in such things.

We took a look at the Vatican’s Treasury and the Tombs in the same breath and then left the complex. We headed for the river, but decided to have some problems with a local ATM, who completed all the steps correctly, but wouldn’t give out the money. Dumb machine! After a bank
teller solved our financial difficulties, we searched for a bite to eat and a cup of coffee. We found a nice bakery and a coffee shop in a back alley near the main square.

After the afternoon snack we headed in the direction of Villa Borghese, a huge green park on a hill near by. The mission was to get online for free, as the park was supposed to be spreaded with WiFi access points. On our way there, we visited a few “sightseeing” destinations (Piazza Spagna, etc.) and when we got to the park, it was almost dark. We sat on a bench and I took my Marvin from captivity.

The AirPort is on, KisMAC running and… juhu, it connected to an AP with 46% signal strength! I tried to ping Arnes, but it failed (it resolved the domain, tough). I tried to visit Google, but all I got was this captive portal saying the testing free period ended in April 2004 and I can now purchase a subscription for a fee.

I was furious, as you may imagine, but not for one, but for two reasons! First, I forgot to check the date of the article that was describing the whole free WiFi thing. Second, I was mad for not setting
up the OzzymansDNS I’ve played with on thursday and friday! This would allow me to tunnel all of the http traffic to the server in Ljubljana via DNS protocol and effectively surf for free! But… now it was too late and this was put on my to-do list for when I get home. So, mission failed.

The way back to camp was rather dull, as we were smart enough to outsmart all the people that were to ride the bus we were on. This is the only way to actually get somewhere.
What we did was that we waited for the bus we needed to be on one stop BEFORE the final stop where it turns around and goes in the way we wanted to go. This way the bus was almost empty when we got on. And just 2 stops after the turning one it was packed-full, again! It was
weird seeing the people that were standing maybe 30 meters across the street on the other bus stop and waiting for the same bus as you but then couldn’t get on, because there was too many of them to fit in. I felt bad for them, but, as we’ve learned yesterday “in the city you must
fight to survive.” And as far as I can tell, we fought well and we’ve won.

This big cities bring out the worst in a human and this is why I don’t like them. Sure, there are places you MUST see, but living in such place would be a suicide for someone coming from our background. You just can’t replace 400 singing birds with 6 million rageing Italians.

PS: Today is halloween and there is a party going on somewhere near. But I’m just too fucked up to even write anymore, let alone party.

PPS: Well, this entry turned out just as long as yesterday’s so I made a wrong assumption in the beginning. Still, a very different day than yesterday. :)

Day Four

Tuesday, 1.11.2005, 18:25

Today is/was sort of “yesterday, part 2″.

In the morning, we checked out from the camp, but left the camper there plugged into the electricity. Then we took a trip to the Vatican again. Dad insisted we visit the Musei Vaticani, but we were out of luck once again as they were closed due to a christian holiday.

Instead we decided we will try our luck with a view from the top of St. Peter’s Basilica. When we arrived to the main square there was a lot of people just standing there but the queues were empty. We found out later, when we were standing in the queue for the elevator to the
top of the Basilica, that the Pope was supposed to give a speech at 12 o’clock. And just a second after we were educated about this, the crowd went wild[0] and the Pope appeared in one of his windows and addressed the crowd. The sound was so fucked that I doubt that even those in the square haven’t heard anything.

When we finally got to the elevator and stepped out of it, 3 stories higher, we were introduced to 321 steps we were to take on foot so we could see the Rome form the “air”. And let me tell you, these are not some ordinary stairs. These are those “small-narrow-shitty-with-walls-on-both-sides-of-your-head” kind of stairs, with occasional
“round-steps-so-steep-even-God-would-go-fuck-you-i’m-staying-here” kind of stairs. But when we got to the top… well, that was something else!

Sure, the weather wasn’t all that great, but the view was great non the less. We took some pictures, pointed to some buildings we were in and then headed back down.

After all those steps and everything, we wanted to sit down somewhere, so we thought we could combine “pleasure with some more sightseeing” and take a tour with Romes double-decker. But then we found out that it would take a whole day to do it right. So, we found a coffee shop on a
corner somewhere and had the most cheap coffee in Italy so far - 1,50 Euro for a coffee with milk!
During all this it started to look like it will start raining, so we decided to call it a day and get back to camp.

In the camp we had some hot dogs for “lunch”, made all the necessary stuff with the camper and then set off for Napoli.

We are now driving again and again I would like to kill the man responsible for Italian highways! It’s a nightmare! Viaducts are put together so badly that every time we get on one, and even when we pass over one’s many junctions, everything in camper jumps a few
centimeters in the air. And there is a shit-load of viaducts! :(

Anyway, Pompeii, here we come!

Tuesday, 1.11.2005, 23:15

We are currently stationed at Camp Zeus right in front of the main entrance to Pompeii ruins. I’m tired. Jumping up and down in the back of the camper is not a walk in a park. Specially not with a notebook in your hands.

[0] I was thinking about this afterwards and came to a conclusion that the Pope is the only public figure that can gather so much fanatical people in one place besides a Rock/Metal/Music band. The only difference is that he’s old and can’t sing. OK, some of the rock stars are old and/or can’t sing either, but that’s besides the point. :)

Day Five

Wednesday, 2.11.2005, 22:42

Today was a long day. Who would think that looking at old ruins in excavated ancient city of Pompeii would be so exhausting. Still, after a few hours of walking up and down rocky streets, in and out of ancient houses with stunning mosaics and that sort of stuff, I was focused on how to walk out of it. Pompeii sure was a nice city and it sure makes a nice ruined city but there is only this much walking a man can take in a day - well, last 5 days.

After we got out of “the ghost city” we found a coffee shop near the place that promised “a virtual Pompeii” only to discover that it was not in business for quite a while. This was supposed to be the
most exciting part of the whole trip. I saw a piece about this on Discovery (or was it Hallmark?) and was really looking forward to it. I guess things don’t always go as planned when you want them to.

We then got “robbed” by the bartender as we “overlooked a notice” about 20% servicing fee written on the last page on the menu. That and double prices for coffee (one if you stand at the bar and another if you get served at the table - which, I suppose, already includes the
servicing fee) really got my dad in his “don’t-fuck-with-me” mode which can be cool (when you can get a discount) or annoying (when it has no effect).
Well, at lest the guy at the camp charged us only one night’s staying. We were expecting to pay for “parking” for those few hours that we were in Pompeii. On the other hand, I could hardly agree with the charged price per night because of the state of facilities on site. In comparison with the Camping Rome this was an absolute disgrace! Non-heated WC and bathroom house, hot water only in showers, no dedicated chemical-toilet (for emptying the campers one), etc.

Now we are driving in the direction of Florence (Firenze) and are still deciding on where to spend the night.

Wednesday, 2.11.2005, 23:20

We’ve just spent 30 minutes driving through the f***ig fog trying to find a camp pointed to by Lonely Planet Guide to Italy! No luck. Now we are again driving in the Florence direction.

Thursday, 3.11.2005, 00:24

After the dinner on a highway rest we decided we’ll try to find the other camp described in the Lonely Planet thingy. Mom called to the camp and got direction how to get to it. We are now driving around Florence center trying to find the streets mentioned in the direction mom got. This involves sudden 5G breaking and 5G accelerations which make typing a lot of fun (I’m actually spending a lot of time catching the flying notebook).

I wish we would have a Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy kind of thingy that would actually have the needed information about the places we need to get to.

Thursday, 3.11.2005, 00:32

We found the camp! I’m just about dead……………..

Day Six

Thursday, 3.11.2005, 10:24

We are finally on the way to Pisa. I was just convinced that bad roads are not the only factor in this “catch-everything-that-flyes” type of travel. My dad’s driving sucks too! So, everything combined… it’s more exciting than rollercoster rides anywhere in the world! “And you can ride until you are sick of it! Literally!”

Thursday, 3.11.2005, 19:30

After a nice tour through Pisa and the cheapest coffee in Italy (cappuccino 1 Euro, coffee 0,8 Euro - almost like home :) we are now on the way home. Juhu!

And I was actually allowed to drive for last two hours! Isn’t that something!? :P Well, I was driving on that very part of highway that had the most repairs going on so it was “one-lane-with-big-big-trucks” on and off. But it was fun too!

Have you ever had your mom on the back seat of your car while driving through some very nice curves at 150km/h? Well, having my mom in the back of the camper and my dad in the co-driver’s seat, driving through this “bobsled” type of curves with big trucks all around us, at 100km/h… this is FUN! Mom is screaming “Brake, brake!”, dad is freaking out “Slower, careful!” and the camper is leaning more than the Pisa tower! But I don’t even know what are they bitching about! We didn’t even drive on two wheels! After that was over, dad couldn’t take it any more of moms screaming so I was “honorably retired.”

Thursday, 3.11.2005, 23:14

I believe we are near Venice, which means we are relatively close to home. I spent last few hours watching some stand-ups with my sister, playing cards with my sister and listening to my music - on my own. :)

I’m sick of all this card games! I’ve had it for a while now! Even the sound of cards being mixed gives my stomach a twist. And while I’m on the subject - I have this pressing sensation on the left side of my stomach and I can’t locate the problem causing it. It’s so annoying. Now I’m being reassigned to “navigator seat” so this will be fun… :/

Friday, 4.11.2005, 01:30

Finally at home! I’m too tired to write and have to get some sleep because I have to go to Ljubljana today.

This sure was one hell of a trip! One way or the other, I believe it was worth it. And now, when I get back to the “boring” student life of studying, working and worrying I’ll have lots of stories to tell, when I hang out with my friends. In the end everything I have is memories and those are the most precious things in life.