The Oculus

Oculus - Ocular - Eye

We?re in Rome! My friend and I got up super early today. The taxi arrived at my place at about 4:30 in the morning and I had gone to bed around 1:30 that night. When the taxi drove up to the Bordeaux-Mérignac Airport, I remembered the first day I had arrived in Bordeaux and I couldn?t believe that I would be leaving after being here for about two months. It felt like a little preparation for my real departure from Bordeaux in May.

We arrived at Rome some time at noon. Our stopover in Lyon delayed us close to to thirty minutes, but that was okay since Emily, my friend who is studying in Rome, was running a bit late herself. We got off the plane and the airport bussed us to baggage claim. We waited and waited for my bag to land on the carousel, but it took so long. While we waited, Alicia and I were having a little fun with the stuff on the carousel. There was a little red tomato sticker that Alicia had noticed.

-She said, "Hey look! A tomato!"
-I replied with enthusiasm, "Yeah! Are you ready to have some pasta, spaghetti, gelato...?"
-Alicia responded in a slightly uninterested tone, "I actually want a hot dog."

We both laughed and continued to wait. After what seemed to be hours my bag finally began to make its way towards me. I picked it up and we exited to go find Emily. With not too much difficulty we found her. I was so excited to see her. It was hard to believe that I was half way around the world, in Rome, with Emily. We then took the train to Roma Termini, the main train station in Rome, but as we were trying to help a woman catch our moving train, we only had her luggage when the door started to close. Our train sped away and the woman displayed a face of defeat. She ran and Emily and the other man at the door tried to help, but alas our efforts left us with a woman separated from her belongings. When we arrived to Emily?s place, Cassandra, Emily?s friend who was temporarily staying with her, greeted us. Cassandra suggested that we open the bag to see if there was any information about the woman so that we could attempt to return in to her. There was nothing on the bag. No tags, labels, names, or phone numbers. Instead, there were clothes and a modeling portfolio was glamour shots of the woman. Emily then said that she would go back to the airport and give it to the baggage people so that they can return it to her.

After that fiasco, we saw Rome! There were so many monuments and buildings to see and so much history and information to learn. In short, this is what Emily showed me and Alicia and what we did:

- had lunch at a Chinese restaurant. We were going to order pizza, but it was not that time of day, so we all ordered some form of chicken,
- went to La Piazza di Venezia,
- drank some Caffe Latte (Café au lait),
- saw a church, the Roman Forum, the Coloseum,
- ate some gelato
- threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain,
- went inside the Pantheon (where this photo was taken),
- returned home and met more of Emily?s friends as we dined on Pizza (Paulette is one interesting character),
- saw a light show about Futurism,
- and so much more...