Rome, Italy, Day 1

6:40am: I arrived at Gardemoen airport, checked in and went to look for an iPad 2 but that's out of stock.  I had a lot of time to kill so I went into the tobacco and cigarettes section and had a look at the latest human killing technology.  There was a huge variety and cheaper than missiles and tanks, so in that aspect it is certainly economic if you are in the need to perhaps dispose of some person you dislike?

8:30am: Boarded the plane.  Woman at the counter spoke to me in Norwegian.  With my limited understanding I nodded and smiled and that seemed to work because she let me on board.

11:25am:  Arrived in Rome a full 25 minutes earlier than scheduled, after the usual wait for the luggage routine I met Lauren at 12pm just outside the arrival hall.

We then proceeded to catch the shuttle to the termini station.  I have to say, the countryside isn't what I expect it to be, it was a bit industrialised and many buildings looked like they could do with a few coats of new paint and some renovations.

1pm-ish:  Arrived in the hotel.  We're currently staying in Northeast Rome, at Accommodation Delia.  Here's the view just outside our window.

Would look a bit better with some balcony belly dancers

View of the other side

Free condiments located along our corridor.  The alcohol is free too.  Some people would have a field day here.

Our corridor's lights are powered by motion sensors, I think that's pretty cool.  Our room's pretty simple but it'll suffice.  It comes with a sink to wash your bum too.  Now that is very European...

Additionally it takes 4 keys to get into our room.  There's a main door key to a group of buildings, the key to our building, a key to get in through our corridor and another key to get through our room door.  Even Jack Bauer couldn't do break in to this mega fortress of ours.

We had a late lunch at the restaurant downstairs, called "La Famiglia".  I had a pizza and tortellini in broth and Lauren had some eggs in broth and scallopini.  Total cost was about 20 odd Euros.  I'm loving this not selling my arm and leg to eat outside here. :)

4pm:  Took a walk to "Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri"

And went to the church there, there was an exhibition going on.  The church has really awesome interiors.

Entrance

There's organ music playing too, imagine that in your head.

Put in a coin and a candle lights up!

This is part of a contraption that allows someone to tell the time of day as well as the day of the year using beams of light that come in from two separate pinholes located on the walls of the church.  Now we just use world time clock!

St John The Baptist

Galileo, the italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher.  He looks like a huge model from World of Warcraft

Galileo also discovered how to calculate gravity and deduced hundreds of years before it was actually proved that if you drop a feather and hammer on the moon both would land at the same time.  Amazing. He was also the first person to theorise about relativity.

5pm:  Took a walk down to Trinita dei Monti.  Along the way I took a picture of these four fountains located at a traffic intersection, "Quattro Fontane".

We finally arrive at Trinita dei Monti.  There's a loooot of people.  Trinita dei Monti is best known for its commanding position above the Spanish Steps which lead down to the Piazza di Spagna. The church and its surrounding area (including the Villa Medici) are the property of the French State.

Taken at the top of the steps.  It started to rain a little shortly after.

This fountain is located just behind the steps

We walked back to the hotel after that but not before being hounded every 10 metres to buy an umbrella.

10:44pm Time for me to sleep.  Didn't have dinner tonight.  Lauren is jet lagged.  So I've just spent the last several hours geotagging photos and writing this blog entry.  Stay tuned for tomorrow!