Friday, July 8, 2011: “We feel pretty, oh so pretty, we feel pretty, and witty, and gay.”

Day 1: Roma

Let us begin by explaining the purpose and title of our blog. After a nine hour, overnight flight from Houston to Rome, under the influence of a 5 Hour Energy, and standing in the heat of the Roman sun we decided a blog would be the easiest way to “journal” our experiences, communicate with friends and family, and share pictures through out our two and a half week journey through Italy, Austria, and Romania. If you have no interest in reading this, you can just stop and we will not be offended. Although, be guaranteed you will not be receiving a present from our European travels.* If you would like to read more about our trip, hopefully laugh a little at us making slight fools of ourselves, then continue on my friend.

The title of the blog , “Dominating Europe With Beth and Jesse”, was chosen because, simply put, we are dominating Europe 4-1. We found the baggage claim (1 pt), we got money from the ATM (1 pt) we found and boarded a train from the airport to the city center (1 pt), we also walked from the train station to the hotel and then from the hotel to the “Cesar Shuffle” (1 pt). Europe gets a point because we are pretty sure the ticket seller at the airport train station scammed both Beth and I for an extra Euro for our ticket. Beth is also pretty confident he was scamming everyone therefore this point on Europe’s side is debatable. As some of you read this you may think, “Beth and Jesse are lame for keeping track of their successes. Going to the ATM? Really? I do that all the time.” We are both pretty sure some people were lacking the appropriate amount of confidence in our abilities to travel to a foreign land successfully, therefore, we immediately started recognizing all the things we were doing well and started keeping score. (Liz, we were channeling your competitive nature)

Today’s title, “…Pretty, Witty, and Gay”, comes from yet more confidence the fine people of Italy have given us.

Pretty: Men here love us. We are keeping score of this too. Our dear friend Hasina once said, “Black men don’t hesitate to compliment you. And it is genuine.” Italian men don’t hesitate to do so either, we’re pretty sure it is genuine, and so far it is all the time. Keep in mind that Beth and I were at, what we would consider, our worst shape of the trip today. We got off the plane, I was wearing glasses, no make up, hair in pony tails, etc. As you can see in our pictures we were not at our best. We are pretty excited to see what tomorrow holds from the men of Italy after a shower and a full nights sleep. Blonds and red heads really do have more fun, in Italy at least.

Witty: As you can see from this blog we are.**

Gay: We are really happy and it just fit with the song lyric.*** As we strolled through the Coliseum this afternoon we both were talking about the fact that we are in I-T-A-L-Y, still have Austria, and Romania to look forward to on our trip, we have amazing family and friends, we are going to get to eat great food for the next two and half weeks, drink delicious wine, and experience new cultures and people. We feel pretty lucky.

The actual trip: Some of you quit reading long ago. We don’t blame you. We promise we’ll become better at blogging when we are not so jet lagged and are not having trouble falling asleep. Today we did the “Cesar Shuffle” which included the Coliseum, The Roman Forum, and Palentine Hill. All three were beautiful and amazing considering how long ago they were built and with none of the modern technology and tools we have today. Pretty impressive. This area was the center of ancient Rome and therefore, for many centuries, the center of the

Western World. After a military coup Christianity went mainstream here, naval battles were fought in the coliseum, and too many other important historical events occurred to try and list here. The crowds were fairly intense, but nothing overwhelming. My sweet Aunt Tara and dear Mother had me fearing that I would be swarmed by thieves at every corner trying to steel my belongings. This was not the case. Beth found it fun to taunt me about this paranoia and my fear of swallowing Italian tap water (which I did while brushing my t

eeth…oopsies). My nerves have been eased to a reasonable level (don’t worry Mom, I'm still on high alert at all times) at this point thanks to the theft-free day. And I haven’t keeled over dead from the tap water so that is a plus as well. Beth, who is practically European after living in Romania for three years, has no fear. She is very brave and reminds me that I am silly from time to time—see, these are the good friends I mentioned earlier.

Food has been amazing! We had a simple sandwich we picked up outside the Coliseum (tomato and mozzarella) for a late lunch and a pizza we split for dinner. We followed it up with Nocciola (hazelnut and chocolate, like nutella) gelato and made a pact to have gelato every day. Don’t worry we walked about four miles today and will probably do more tomorrow. No wonder Europeans stay so slim!

That is all for tonight. Hope you enjoyed. If you didn’t, remember the ma

in purpose of our blog is for us to remember the trip and to help us keep track of our interesting, amusing to us (and hopefully you), and wonderful adventures. Buona sera!

*Even if you do read this blog, you are not guaranteed a present. We are teachers. Just sayin.

**Again, we have had very little sleep, we each had a five hour energy, and we think we are funny. Hopefully we won’t read this in a few days and regret sharing our reflections with the rest of the world. Don’t judge us.

***As we were walking through the airport I was teaching Beth som e simple Italian phrases. “Bonjourno, Ciao, Prego, Io non parlo italiano, etc.” The final phrase I taught Beth, jokingly, was “Bonjourno Principessa!” from the Italian film “Life is B eautiful”. Beth said, “Are you planning on hitting on women, Jesse?” We both laughed. Then later when we came u p with our blog title for today we realized, this is a little gay in that way. Not that there is anything wrong with that.