Vatican City

The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre is St Peter's Basilica, with its double colonnade and a circular piazza in front and bordered by palaces and gardens. The basilica, erected over the tomb of St Peter the Apostle, is the largest religious building in the world, the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderna - http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/286

This wasn't the first time I'd been to the Vatican - about twelve years ago I'd also visited as part of my high school's Europe trip. It was the middle of summer, and the whole area was heaving with tourists. I vaguely remember standing in the queue to go inside the Vatican Museums for a good half hour.

Yes, this is how stupid a person looks when they take a photo with an iPad in public. Let that be a lesson...

On this trip, being November, it was blissfully cool, and by some miracle there was actually no line at all when we arrived to buy our tickets. No such luck actually inside though, the crowds were as thick as ever, and we joined the queues shuffling past the paintings and sculptures.

Most people end their visit to the museums through the Sistine Chapel, and it was hilarious to watch the tourists play the game of 'sneak photo' with the guards. Photography (even the non-flash kind) is strictly prohibited in the famous chapel, and most people respect this. However, there are always some who are probably quite indignant that they had to wait all that time to finally get to arguably the most famous part of the tour, just to be robbed of the opportunity to post a fuzzy shot to Facebook or Twitter. From the nonchalant to the surreptitious, those brave enough to sneak a shot would invariably be spotted by a guard and silently berated.

After the museum we headed into St Peter's Basilica. Again, I'd been before so it wasn't quite as awe-inspiring as the first time I'd seen it, but still very impressive.

We ended the visit to the Vatican with a walk across Ponte Sant'Angelo, just in time to snap some lovely shots during the 'golden hour' of photography.

[Flickr set of Rome here]

DC

We've only had one and a bit days in DC and already have walked a total of about 15 miles (or 24km) around the city! Unlike New York the subway system isn't as extensive or conveniently close to our hotel, so we've been deciding to just walk everywhere, with pretty tiring consequences... but it's all grist for the mill, especially as Yosemite isn't far away now.

Last night when we arrived from New York it was already about 7pm, as soon as we got into the room it was a relief to see that the lack of space restriction meant we could actually walk around without tripping over ourselves! And finally some free in-room wifi too. Unfortunately laundry service prices were still astronomical (US$3 for a pair of socks, US$8 for one pair of pants) so this morning we had to find another laundromat, but that worked out okay.

Dinner was at a tapas bar called Jaleo which was packed, we had to wait for a table but it was worth it because everything was delicious! Afterwards we decided to take a look at some of the monuments in the dark, first we went up to Capitol Hill, and then all the way down to the Washington Monument, which was actually quite a walk... we also intended to have a look at the White House at night but it was so well hidden behind the trees (and we didn't really know at the time where to look) that we missed it entirely. By the time we got back to the hotel it was about midnight and we were exhausted, little did we know how much further we would walk the following day...

The following day (today) first thing we did was drop off the laundry, and also grab some breakfast - I tried cheese and grits for the first time, which to be honest was a bit bland by itself, but I'm still glad I got to try it... it was raining pretty miserably the entire time, so we headed into the Smithsonian's Air & Space museum. It was packed (especially with school groups) but still worth the visit, it was funny to see how they had hastily corrected all the Pluto references in the Solar System exhibition, everything was in need of a bit of an update really! But probably the coolest thing was seeing things like the actual propeller from the first Wright brothers' plane, actual things used by astronauts in the Apollo mission, and I also touched an actual rock from the moon (worn smooth by many visitors past)!

After we finished we were pleasantly surprised that it'd cleared up outside, and was actually quite balmy. It was time to collect our laundry so we did that, dropped it back off at the hotel, and then headed back out with better directions to find the White House. We managed to snap photos from both the rear and the front, and then went to look at the Lincoln, FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jefferson Memorials.

Overall, I've been very impressed by how well the neo-classical architecture (as James informed me) has been executed in DC, the wide expanses and grand monuments are a complete contrast from NY, and reminds me a lot of Vienna. Also, it was cool to see the famous speeches from the various presidents carved into their monuments, even though we weren't American, a lot of it is still universally relevant, especially seeing FDR's quotes and today's wars and economic crisis.

Tomorrow we'll look at the Natural History part of the Smithsonian and probably just take it a bit easier, given how much we've already done in DC.

Two top views, museums, and Comedy Central shows...

Have been doing so much lately I can hardly keep track of when we did what! Let's see how well I can recall it without also looking through the photos at the same time...

The night before last we went up the Empire State Building, the original plan was to go up at near-twilight and then stay for the sunset and also night view. Unfortunately, the crush of tourists (even at 8, 9pm) combined with the slow security check meant it was fully dark by the time we got up there. Nevermind, still a lovely view and we got some great photos. We went up Top of the Rock the following night and by contrast it was very spacious and relaxed, heaps less people, and much better views actually - a full vista of Central Park and also a great view of the Empire State Building itself. If you only had the chance to go up one of these in NY, I'd definitely recommend the latter.

Museum-wise we've now been to The Met(tropolitan Museum of Art) and also the Guggenheim, which was actually really interesting because they had a special exhibit on Frank Lloyd Wright himself. The Met had your usual array of Byzantium, Ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian stuff, etc, so we didn't actually spend as long there. Also made our first foray into Central Park which was as massive as we'd expected. On the great lawn we witnessed some sort of bizzare version of American baseball played with a dodgeball and instead of swinging with a bat you kicked with your feet. Didn't seem that fun to play or to watch...

Food-wise I've finally achieved my goal of going to Katz's deli for a pastrami sandwich - at US$14.95 a sandwich it wasn't cheap, but James & I shared that between the two of us and it was as delicious as I expected, so I think it was worth the trip! For dinner last night we went to Sip Sak, a Turkish place, which was probably some of the best Turkish food we've both had, and tonight we had some empanadas and arepas at a place on 9th Ave, again, really good... Too bad I then nearly made myself sick on ice cream at the Cold Stone Creamery, but I guess I have yet to learn from my mistakes...

This morning we went to the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, which is basically an old aircraft carrier converted into a giant tourist attraction - really worth it, especially being able to go into a submarine! After that we took our 2 hour Circle Line cruise from the NY Pass, had a tour guide with an awesome NY accent and found out some interesting tidbits about the city.

Probably the most exciting thing today was NEARLY getting the chance to be in the audience of The Colbert Report, we were #7 & 8 on the standby list, but alas they only had one spare seat... Which is a shame since we spent probably two and a half hours in total around the studio, waiting, but... we weren't alone, that was for sure!

Well, I better let someone else use the computer now, tomorrow we're planning to go to the Statue of Liberty (finally) and also MoMA.

Brooklyn & Lower Manhattan

Turns out today was Puerto Rico Day (or something like that), apparently there was a parade on but we went out a bit too late to see it, however we did manage to enjoy the street market running parallel, starting pretty much right outside our hotel. There were plenty of food stalls selling things like gyros, grills, tacos, and even clam chowder - I ended up getting a chowder since I only had one in Boston (and it was a bit average) and this actually turned out to be pretty good! James had a taco, I had a bit of beef and I can definitely testify to its tastiness.

Afterwards we got on the subway and decided to get off at Brooklyn Bridge, on which probably 99% of the pedestrians were tourists... It was pretty cool walking across, the raised walk/cycleway is definitely a sensible approach but it's probably a bit late for Auckland to adopt that. On the other side we walked through some of the parks and and a cursory stroll in the leafy residential streets, before catching a bus back to Manhattan, getting off at Wall St.

Being a Sunday, Wall St was pretty quiet (except for tourists) and some roadworks, we took the obligatory photos by the big flag on the NYSE, and then walked towards Ground Zero. When we got there, as I expected we saw a huge hole with a couple of cranes in it and not much else. To be honest I can't say I had a huge emotional reaction, as there wasn't any proper memorial, and a lot of it was fenced and tarped off, but I guess I can say I've now been there.

After that we pretty much walked all the way down to Battery Park but decided to save the Statue of Liberty trip for another day - instead we hopped on the free Staten Island Ferry, of course there was absolutely nothing on the other side so we just hopped straight back, but you got a nice view of the statue and also Manhattan either way.

The last 'attraction' for the day for was the 'Bodies...' exhibition in South St Seaport, it was fascinating but also a bit disturbing, especially as it seemed all the 'specimens' were Asian males - did they buy them in bulk from China or something...? Though probably the most disturbing part for me was the ones with the baby fetuses in various stages of development. I definitely recommend it though!

Had dinner in the same area, and then headed home to find a laundromat, given the exorbitant fees of the hotel's laundry service (US$5 for washing ONE shirt!) We walked around the block and could see quite a few places, however they were all closed - will try again tomorrow, a place that's already looking quite promising only charges US$1 per pound of clothes, with a minimum of 6 pounds, which is how much I guesstimated our load to be, so that should be okay. Still, I was hoping there would be the coin-operated self-serve ones open 24hrs, but obviously not in our neighbourhood!