Bella Roma!

New plan: distract myself from tooth issues by finally blogging about my trips. First up: Rome.

What to say about Rome, except that it's huge, crowded, beautiful, stressful, and stunning? The amount of people in that city is just unbelievable. The fact that anybody has the guts to drive a car there is also unbelievable. The traffic is simply ridiculous and also unorganized; mopeds and motorcycles weave in and out of cars and occasionally onto the sidewalks, there are few stoplights (mostly roundabouts) and the only way to cross the street as a pedestrian is to wait until a small traffic jam and then sprint in between the cars. Definitely not a place I would want to spend the rest of my life in.

But, visiting Rome was absolutely amazing. You can't go two blocks without running into something historically, archaeologically, or artistically significant. It was astounding to see all these famous things that you hear about so much (i.e. the Vatican, the Colosseum, the Pantheon) actually in person. The weather was also fabulous and a nice break from the cold raininess I had experienced thus far in Germany.

Probably my strongest memory of Rome, though, is the first time Pascal and I took the metro. We were in the main train station trying to get to the Vatican. The metro train pulls up, and it is PACKED with people. Every aisle and doorway is full without an empty spot in sight. the platform was also so crowded that we actually didn't make it onto that first train, but had to wait for the next one (when we got aggressiver and started elbowing people out of the way). In German, the word "Menschenauflauf" means a crowd of people, and the word "Auflauf" itself means crowd or casserole. So every time I say that word I think of a casserole of people all jumbled together. And that about sums up my impressions of Rome. On to the pictures!

Walking around the first evening



Pretty painted columns; scary fountain; archaeological site in the middle of the city


Palazzo Venezia


The Pantheon and an obelisk


Trevi Fountain at night; me caught in the act (of eating gelato)



Crazy long line outside St. Peter's Basilica



Pascal and I checking out possible alternative entrances to the Vatican ;)




St. Peter's Square



Vatican Museums (only spent 1.5 hours waiting in line, not too bad)









A pagan statue cast down and replaced by crucifix, what I guess you should expect to find in the Vatican



The Tiber River



Castel Sant'Angelo


Inside St. Peter's


Michelangelo's Pieta: simply amazing




View from the top of the dome




The Spanish Steps


Pascal and I got a joint caricature drawn (let's take a guess as to whose idea that was). I'll have to post a picture of it later, because it's actually really cute.



Wandering through the Roman Forum and other ruins


I'll give you one guess as to what this is


These guys were hilarious...but not so hilarious when we found out how much they wanted to be paid





somebody's Arch (Flavian's?) and other parts of the ruins

BG Unfallklinik

BG Unfallklinik is basically the emergency room in Tuebingen (Unfall means accident). And that's where I was yesterday, getting a tooth put back in. Yes, you read that right. Gotta love freak accidents.

This is how it went down: I was returning from grocery shopping and heading to my dorm. As I was crossing the street a cobblestone reached up and grabbed my foot, tripping me. Normally, this would not have been such a huge problem, except that my hands were full of grocery bags, limiting my ability to break the fall. And the curb just happened to be exactly the right distance away to smash into my mouth when I fell. Oh hello, there's my tooth on the ground and a whole in my mouth. Of course it was one of the front ones too (the top left incisor, to be exact).

I start freaking out, because I don't like blood and I'm missing a tooth! Fortunately I was with a friend at the time, and he managed to get me and the tooth to the Unfallklinik, which was no easy task considering I was bleeding all over the place and sobbing/hyperventilating. He seriously should become an EMT, because he did a great job of talking to me and calming me down (at least to some extent).

Various x-rays, shots, and attachment procedures later I now have bloody and sore gums, braces across my front 6 teeth and a hugely swollen and scraped up upper lip (I look fantastic, let me tell you). No guarantee from the doctor that the tooth will "re-root" though, so gotta go back on Monday and see how it's going. Might have to get a fake tooth, but maybe that would be better, because the corner of the tooth that fell out got chipped.

What's really unfortunate is that I don't have any pain meds. I only had a few aspirin in my room (which are now long gone) and I can't get any more from a pharmacy because today is "Tag der Arbeit" (Labor Day, essentially), and absolutely nothing is open. And pharmacies aren't open on the weekends. Fortunately the pain isn't too bad, so I'm pretty sure I'll survive. And did I also mention that I don't have any ice? Germans don't believe in ice cube makers or even trays, or even in selling bags of ice at the store, so that kind of sucks. I attempted to use a bag of frozen beans last night, which was not the greatest idea ever because the bag was already open, so when I woke up this morning there were beans and wet spots all over my bed. Trust me, nothing makes you homesick like being sick or injured. Being alone in a dorm in a foreign country is not really that comfortable, but oh well.

Oh, and did I mention that all these shenanigans only cost me 10 Euros? Gotta love that socialized medicine system :-) Ok, time to get back in bed. I'll keep you all updated as the saga continues. And walk carefully!