Besides, visiting the Frari Church...
... we really did not do much beyond taking some photos of the places we would be visiting the next day...
... I got to eat some of the sweetest fruits I've ever tasted on the Realto Bridge...
... and Operation: Gelato Finito (OGF) commenced.
The next day, we met up with U-jin and his two friends, Renato (a Brazilian) and Vincent (imitation goods produced in Taiwan and branded in the USA. Nothing compared to the owner of this blog) and sightseeing in Venice commenced in earnest. Here they are, starting from the left, Vincent, U-jin, the back of Renato's head, Jiahui and yours truly, the one true Vincent.
You can observe from the composition of the shot, the relative importance of the people on the trip. Size of face proportional to importance. And because the previous statement holds true, Jiahui's importance is growing every day.
... and the San Marco's Plaza.
After day 2 of OGF...
...we actually ran into Hanxian from SMU. Venice was not some place I was expecting to see a familiar face. That night, we took the red-eye train out of Venice and into Florence.
Ahh Florence. Home to Michelangelo's David. The supposed "Perfect Man." I suppose we cannot fault Michelangelo for having being born too early to sculpt me, Vincent, the truly perfect man. Nonetheless, after checking into our Hostel, we headed straight to the Accademia to see what should have been a scuplture of me.
Inside the Accademia, we ran into Huiyi! (Remember the hot babe from my Oktoberfest photo?) Excited at our chance encounter, we started taking photos inside the Museum with David in the background. Clearly, we don't give a shit. I wish I could post these photos though but I haven't gotten them.
Florence is really quite a compact city with all the major sites quite near each other and as a result, we passed by the Duomo...
... and crossed the Ponte Vecchio countless times.
Apparently, couples used to come to the Ponte Vecchio to lock a padlock with their name on it and throw away the key into the river. Locks in the love apparently. Unfortunately, the officials of Florence thought that it was too polluting to have so many keys in the river and stopped people from doing it any longer. Boooooo.
Rubbing the nose of this wild boar apparently brings you back to Florence.
The Palace in Florence looked pretty dull, so I decided to surf the Turtle in front of the Palace instead. This sparked off a surfing frenzy in me which you will soon see in coming posts.
However, that evening, climbing up to the Piazza Michelangelo to get a good view of the city, my camera started to give me problems and when I was at the top of the hill, my camera couldn't work!!! I was so depressed!!! There I was with an awesome view of Florence and nothing to take it with. That's when, noticing my affected mood, Jiahui passed me her camera and asked me to take photos with it. She said, "I think the utility you get from taking photos is much higher than mine." SCHOOOO SWEEET! Here's a shout out to all SMU people, even though Jiahui looks quite hostile and everything, beneath her ice cold exterior is a very nice and sweet girl! Really! Eventually, my camera started working again and I returned Jiahui's to her and took this photo to remember this moment where Jiahui's sweetness was more obvious than other days where its more well camouflaged.
Florence!
That night we finally found this Gelato place recommended by Huiyi (the Oktoberfest one) and it looked freaking exciting.
Look at it! It's like the Las Vegas of Gelato. And the range of flavours were insane! We decided to return to this place the next day for Operation: Gelato Finito.
Realising that the next day would be a difficult day to get Gelato, we decided pre-empt any possible Gelato shortage by preconsuming day 5's Gelato. And so on the night of day 4, we had a second round of Gelato.
With that, we said goodbye to Florence and the next day would see us in 3 Italian cities.
We first hit Livorno. I'll admit, I didn't really want to go to Livorno. I wanted to go to Pisa and head to Rome and spend a little bit more time there. But since we all slept past the Pisa stop and the next stop was Livorno, the decision to go to Livorno was kinda made for me. However, Livorno was surprisingly nice! And we just spent an hour or two just chilling at the beach and looking at the sea.
Took a picture of a sea urchin!
And accidentally dipped my leg into the water while trying to get a picture of a crab. Basically left me with a wet foot the whole day. Marvelous.
We eventually got to Pisa and took photos in the exact same pose that everyone that has and will come to Pisa takes. Holding up the tower shot.
Everyone does it. See.
Does everyone know why the Tower of Pisa leans? Its quite simple really, the tower leans towards the South-East. And who, until recently, has always been living in South-East Asia?? In the Island of Singapore???? Clearly the tower leans because it is drawn to my sexiness. Fact.
Of course, all roads lead to Rome, and so that was where we went. Arriving that very night what immediately struck you was how... epic everything there was.
Trevi Fountain! EPIC!
Throwing a coin in ensures your return to Rome! EPIC!!!!!!
CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH AIHUI IN MY HOSTEL!!!! EPPPIIIICCCCC!!!! That night I slept under the same roof as two out of three of the Hey Gorgeous SMU finalists. Sigh....
The next day we explored Rome in full force and we were blessed with good weather. Beautiful.
Arch of Constantine. Supposedly a super awesome dude named Constantine owned some people and became sole Emperor and decided that if you weren't Christian you kinda had to die. Not surprisingly Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire after that.
Palatine Hill!! Its a Hill! With Rocks! EPIC!
The Forum!
There are also about 70 billions shots of Churches and their interiors but I really don't remember any of the Church names... All except the Pantheon.
That night we finally found our Gelato place completing Day 6 OGF.
Jiahui got this thing... this monstrosity called the TARTUFO. Also known as Death.... by Chocolate. Here they are lined up in a morgue-like display. Rows upon rows of death.
We ended our night there because the weather started to become quite shitty. In fact it stayed that way the whole of the next day and we were caught in the rain most of the time. Thankfully, we were visiting Vatican City and its Musuem meaning we would be indoors. Of course we didn't count on the wait to GET indoors.
But inside we saw masterpiece ...
... after masterpiece ...
... and a sculpture of the Romans engaging in their favourite pastime, Rock Paper Scissors.
Epic Hallways...
But we were eventually able to get into the highlight of the day, the Sistine Chapel. Where we were absolutely forbidden from taking photos. Like I care.
Even the exit was Epic.
We went to St. Peter's Basilica next...
... where I was greeted with... EPIC CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH AMBROSE!
While queuing into the Basilica, we saw a beautiful rainbow!
Question, how do rainbows form? Wiki says that you can observe rainbows whenever there is sunlight and there are water droplets in the air... that would mean that it was RAINING!!! Raining while we were queuing to get into the Basilica! On the bright side we got good weather on the first day so that, I guess, was something to be thankful for.
When I finally got into the Basilica, I think it was at this point where I decided that there was really nothing more in Europe that I desperately wanted to see. Well actually, there's still the stuff in London and Paris but I'll be doing that just before returning to Singapore so no worries there. Basically it was at this precise moment that I had my fill of Museums and Churchs and Rathauses and Towers and Bridges and Statues and Parks and Gardens. From here on out, all I really wanted was to Chillax. People watch. Take it easy.