Michelangelo?

This might be as close as I'll get to a real Michelangelo statue. I think. The bus tour in Rome told me there was a statue by him but the original in the square was a reproduction because they didn't want the original to get damaged. The original was in a museum near by. This is taken through the door of a museum, and the statue in the square was pretty similar, so that's why I say maybe.

Roman Empire

Roman Empire expansion maps. These are so similar to ones I use in class I had to get pictures of them!

Rome day one

Yesterday in Rome was a crazy day. I got one of the hop on hop off tours because I didn't want to deal with public transportation. I think it was a smart decision. First I went to the Colosseum. I managed to get a dual tour of that and the forum, plus a ticket for Paletine Hill for €22 instead of paying €15 for each one. That was nice! The Colosseum tour was ok, the woman had a little mic on and we each got a radio so we could all hear her. I kept wandering a little bit away from the group because there were so many of us it was hard to see anything. The Colosseum itself is massive. I never noticed before that there are no seats remaining. A lot of it has been reconstructed, partially in ancient times, but there are just pieces of the place where seats would be, not the seats themselves. I loved it that the whole place could be emptied in 15 minutes due to the set up though.

Then I walked over to the forum and took the pictures of Trajan's column to use in class. I got a walking meal and headed to my forum tour. This woman was much better as a tour guide. She is an archaeologist, so she new a ridiculous amount of information. I was in a group of kindred spirits too, where we all were seriously interested in history and asked good questions. At one point we were supposed to be done but we weren't, so she asked us if we wanted to continue and got a resounding yes! So we got an extra 30+ minutes of touring.

Then I went back to the bus and rode around for a while. I was so tired I ended up napping on the tour bus, that's why it's a good thing I got that ticket instead of taking public transportation! I wasn't the only one though, half the bus was snoozing by that point. Then I went to the Trevi Fountain and came back to my hotel room. I meant to take a quick nap and go out for dinner, but I ended up sleeping from 5:30-this morning. Oops!

Trevi Fountain

This is a very cool fountain. It's peaceful even with hundreds of people around, and if you can find a spot to sit you can hear the water flowing and it's nice.

Teaching tools

Anyone who has taken my world history class in the last four years will hopefully recognize this. I drove past it and almost made them stop the bus so I could get right off! I love seeing the things that I teach so I can substitute my own pictures instead of the book ones.

Colosseum

I discovered that if you offer to take pictures for other people, they will take one for you. Some of them are good, some of them aren't. But I get pictures of myself at these places!

Colosseum

I made it to Rome! I don't like the actual city as much as I liked Paris but I'm not sure why yet. I do like the history everywhere though!

Trip to Rome

Mot much to report today. I spent the whole day on the train, due to a section of closed track that made me have to take an extra bus and train. I did get to take a high speed train from Milan though which was cool. It was interesting to look st the screen and see that I was going 300 kilometers an hour!

Notre Dame

This is why I love gothic. It's just so interesting to look at!

Venus de Milo

I didn't recognize this statue until I read the plaque about. How was that possible?

Mona Lisa

Yup. That's the Mona Lisa. Nuff said.

House model

This made me laugh because I'm pretty sure some of my students have made the same model of Egyptian houses as projects.

Eye of Horus

I love the eye of Horus and always have. Some of you know how much :). This one is really cool, I thought.

Louvre

Ok, I know everyone says this, but the Louvre is HUGE! We had nowhere near enough time but I hit the major pieces I wanted to see.

Notre Dame

I'm so obsessed with gothic architecture. I just think it is so much more interesting than the other types out there. Notre Dame has always been a favorite building of mine, so I actually came here twice...once the first day and once the second. Entrance is free, so that's awesome and rare in France. I teach the kids about three aspects of gothic: ribbed vaults, pointed arched, and flying buttresses. I got lots of pictures of all three to be able to use!

Eiffel Tower

This is also a really cool thing. I was like, eh, seen one picture seem the whole thing but it is great to see in person.

Eiffel tower

This was our first good view of the Eiffel Tower. Finn was passed out cold and we had to wake him up to see it. He loves the tower, mostly because a character from one of his books lives there. It's a mouse named Mossie or something like that. He spent the whole time wanting to find the mouse!

Me at the arc

Self explanatory...me at the arc!

Finn and Anna at the Arc de Triumph

The arc is really cool. It's massive, but not in a tall way. It just takes up a ton of space and is very solid. The carvings are really cool, and the details are great.

So much has happened!

So much has happened its hard to know what to update. The little bits I'm doing with the pictures will have to do for a lot of it since I don't have three hours to type. Just know this: I am in awe of the age of things here. When everything I'm seeing predates the US, it's crazy!

Yesterday and today were pretty much both spent in the car in pissing down rain, to steal a British expression. We went to Killarney and saw a cool medieval tower house, after a 5.2 k hike. I'm still sore. Plus I'm pretty sure I insulted the tour guide when I said the house was smaller than I expected. It's a huge tower house, but I kind of had castle in my head and thought it would be bigger. Oops!

Today we drove to Kilkenny, known as the medieval city. We are here for two nights, so Finn and I took tonight off again. We had a good time in the hotel pool and then ordered room service. Now we are watching bad British tv. There is nothing over here! I thought American tv was bad.

Tomorrow we are going to do a bike tour of town. I'm kind of scared for that, and am hoping the town is mostly flat! I'm thinking I'm going to pre-dose myself with Advil just in case.