Split Croatia -> 2 nights

I didn't really know what to expect going into Croatia as I had heard very little about it before our trip. All I really knew is that it is an eastern european country on the Adriatic and its where MMA fighter Mirko Cro Cop "the Croatian Sensation" was from. We flew from Rome to the city of Split. The flight was less than an hour and as we got off the plane and were waiting for our bags, Jack's came but mine did not (this is the first time an airline lost my bag on the trip). So I went to their lost and found area and put my report in to a guy speaking broken english and smoking a cigarette. He told me that my bag was probably in Rome still but could have been sent to Zurich, I was hoping for scenario one. He went on to explain that the budget airline that we were on does not deliver lost baggage so we would have to come back to the airport to pick it up and he would let us know if and when it arrives. This threw a wrench into our plans because we were only supposed to spend 1 night in Split. So we ended up staying 2 nights and my bag had still not arrived so we decided to press on without it and I would just travel a little lighter. So we get to our hostel and got settled in before going for a walk around town to check things out. There was an area nearby with shops so I bought a toothbrush, bathing suit, t-shirt, pair of underwear and a pair of sandals all for 80 kuna (kunas are the Croatian form of currency and 80 kuna is like 25 bucks so I made out like a bandit.) Here is a shot from the plane coming into Croatia. The picture does not do it justice but basically there all these little islands all along the coast, it is really cool to see. 

Here is a main drag through Split. This had the store where I bought all my clothes and everything. It was inside a palace from the year 305 AD built for the Croatian Emporer Diocletian. Throughout the palace now is all these shops and restaurants for tourists and it is really well preserved considering its over 1700 years old.

Here is a giant cruise ship that was leaving port. It was yuuuuge.

We stumbled across this sign that said the Marjan Trail and

 we had nothing better to do and time to kill so we decided to check it out. We walked up steps for about 20 minutes and all we were thinking was about how bad we wanted a beer because it was like 80 degrees out. Here is the view from the top.

Well, it turns out the Croatians really got their shit straight because at the top of the trail, there's a bar. This wasn't any bar, it was on this outdoor deck with a spectacular view, it had couches, a retractable sun shade and smooth jazz playing in the background. We could have sat there all day but we had to keep on keepin' on so we settled for a few beers before we moved on. We continued along the trail and saw signs for a zoo. We had more time to kill still, so we checked it out. The entry fee was 4 kuna (like 75 cents). It turns out you get what you pay for because this was like the land of misfit zoo animals. Here are some pictures from the zoo. 

I stood at the fence taunting this llama for about 3 minutes before Jack made us leave. I am not even going to put up any more pictures from the zoo because they're so pointless. Some highlights were peacocks and chickens that walked around uncaged, a blue butted baboon,goats, and black bears in a 10 foot by 10 foot cell that just walked back and forth and stared at you. This is why you hear about bears in zoo's attacking people in other countries, it was legit like they were in prison.

We went to the beach one day, there are very few sandy beaches in Croatia. Most beaches are pebbles or just sheer rocks, that is the one downside about Croatia if you find that to be a downside. But here are some shots from da beach mahn.

Nightlife in Split was pretty tame. They said it was because it was september and the end of the tourist season. One night we took an absinthe shot after dinner. We did it the real way, where you drop the sugar cube in the absinthe and then light it on fire before you drink it. It tasted like warm sambuca (which I like) but it had very little effect on me or I wasnt tripping balls at least and I was quite disappointed. One night we were gonna take it easy and we went back to our hostel around 11, but there was this Australian kid there by himself who had just been on a cruise where he bought 5 liters of vodka for like 20 kuna (5 dollars for 4 bottles.) Needless to say we stayed up till 4am drinking cheap vodka and rockin out to AC/DC. The next day was our ferry ride to Hvar (our next stop). Miserable is a good word to describe how I felt.

Antolini said he'd never been to Croatia, but he had no alibi for this piece of evidence. Definitely his handwriting too. Next up, Hvar, stay tuned.

Guardiaregia .. researching my ancestral roots

One of our goals on our trip was to get to the village where our Grandparents are from in Italy. It is a small town about 150 miles east of Rome called Guardiaregia, in the state or province of Abruzzi. Guardiregia is tucked away up in the mountains and is not on most maps, so we felt it would be in our best interests to pay the extra 10 euro and get a GPS system in our rental car. This turned out to be a wise decision as it would've taken us at least 2 hours longer without it. So we made the drive through the Italian countryside in our Fiat, stopping once at a rest stop on the highway for a slice of pizza but we were able to make it there in about 3 hours. 

We had a rough description of what our grandma's house looked like and where it was, so as we drove up the mountain we stopped at one that we thought fit the description, however it turned out to be an abandoned barn as we later found out so we have about 10 pictures a rundown barn with jack and I in front of it, which is nice. 

Anyway, we moved on and got to the town square and parked the car and started walking around. We saw the church where our grandparents got married and a war memorial that had a bunch of Rotundo's on it. So we milled around and took pictures like Japanese tourists for like a half hour. Here's the church where Cosmo and Carolina tied the knot.

So we ditched the car and set out on foot walking through the neighborhood up the hills and getting the lay of the land. 

As we were walking through the neighborhood I noticed this on the side of one of the apartments. The door was open but there were beads in front of the door. I didn't even notice that right behind the curtain of beads was an old gentleman who came out and greeted us. I did my best to put together a sentence in Italian but failed miserabley and his english was no better. But we showed him our driver's license to show that we too were named Rotundo and told him we were from America. He was very happy to talk to us and invited us in for Coffee. We sat and drank espresso with him (Pasquele) and his wife Vittoria and did our best to communicate. The woman, Vittoria thought she knew my grandmother, who knows? But it was an awesome experience to be invited into a strangers home in another country whos language you don't even speak and have coffee with them.

Here is Jack Rotundo, Pasquele Rotundo, Vittoria Rotundo and Ben Rotundo after we sat and drank espresso. This was one of the major highlights of the entire trip through Europe, Jack and I were dumbfounded at how friendly they were and insisted we stay for coffee, they reminded us of our grandparents.

This is Minimarket Giannantonio. My grandma's name is Carolina Giannantonio and this is her families house that was also a little market. It was closed while we were there unfortunately because it was during ciesta.

Museums and Tourist stuff

I cant figure out how to move these pictures around and put a caption under each one so I'll just kinda overview them all. The ones at the top are at St. Peters Basilica, the Vatican Museum and the Sistene Chapel. The one with the Dome is St. Petes Basilica and that dome is entirely mosaic. We walked up to the top and you can see its a mosaic in the picture with jacks head in it. Theres a nice shot from the outside on the roof of the dome where you can see the circle and all the saints on the roof. The sculptures are in the vatican museum, one is of the River Nile god and its wierd cuz hes got babies crawlin all over him and a gator too. The next is of the guy who killed medusa and is holding up her severed head. The next is of a beautiful girl walking down the street and the rest are pretty self explanatory.

AS Roma Vs. Napoli

One thing on my list of to do's while in Europe was go to a Soccer match. And on our second day in Rome, we asked around and found some tickets for AS Roma vs Napoli. Apparently, this is a huuge rivalry, and we were warned the games could be dangerous for opposing fans. So, immediately we bought Roma jerseys and did our best to fit in with the raucous crowd. 

Here is a link for a video I took of the Roma fans before the game singing along to what seemed to be their fight song. It was great how loud everyone was singing along to it. They have these flags that our like 10' by 10' and they wave them for literally the entire 90 minute game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN2PnPQbn-E

Roma scored about 20 minutes in and the place went nuts. There were very few Napoli fans there at the beginning

 of the game, less than 1000, but at the half they all came in at once and all of a sudden their section, that is quarantined off by police was filled and they were going crazy. Napoli scored in the second half to tie the game, when they scored the Napoli fans starting lighting off flares and the whole stadium filled up with smoke. They then started throwing the flares at the police that were guarding their section and they were shooting off a cannon they had in the parking lot. Here is a link to the video of after Napoli scored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXHJhN-hoLg

This is the section of Napoli fans during the first half. Note the lines of cops in the yellow vests blocking their section off.

This is Napolis fans during the second half when they started getting rowdy.

The game ended in a 1-1 tie, they need to do some kind of overtime with soccer because ties are the worst. The Roma fans were less than pleased about the outcome as they are supposed to be the better team. After the game we made our way back to the hotel, but before that we stopped in a piazza (square) and had a drink and watched this cool brass band.

Roma Roma Roma

We flew out of New York the next day after the game into Rome. It was hot there, very hot, things only got worse for an already sweaty kid. Here is a shot of our cab driver, who was delighted to hear we were American, as soon as we got in the cab he shut off the meter and charged us a flat rate of 20 euros to take us 10 minutes to our hotel. It was the one and only time we were ripped off during our trip. We wisened up after that.

We walked around the first few days and did all the normal tourist stuff. Heres John

 Cosmo posing in front of some ruins, which are everywhere in Rome, they really n

eed to fix it up.

Yours truly in the Coliseum. We took the audio guided tour that gives you great info about the structure and how it was back in the day. I definitely recommend it. 

To say the food is good in Rome is the understatement of the century. I just ate pizza and spaghetti the entire trip because I was on a budget and I needed to save money for more important things like beer. This is a pizza covered with prociutto, my favorite cold cut.

Heres Jack in front of the smallest car I have ever seen. There are tons of smart cars in Rome. The thing with smart cars is you can park straight into the curb, where normal cars would have to parallel park, its pretty funny actually.

One the left is a shot of me and one of my college roommates, Justin. Poor kids a Yanks fan, we met up in the afternoon and had a few chardonnays before the game.

Here is a shot of Bernie and Jerry Remy, note the scary resemblance. This was taken at a Boston Sports Bar in downtown Manhattan.

Before Jack and I set out for our trip, Bernie Jack and myself attended the Yankees/Red Sox game in NY. Bear in mind that this was back in August before the Yankees season was laid to rest. It was a great game pitched by Paul Byrd and the Sox won 10-3. We saw at least 8 ejections from the stands, which provided constant entertainment, and a few fights between Sox and Yanks fans. There was one moment in particular which was the best. It was between two 30-something year old women, one was a yanks fan the other a sox fan, and after the fight was broken up the woman yankees fan was mouthing off to the cop who coincidentally was also a woman,  so she turned her around and tried to cuff her. The fan was having none of it and was resisting heavily. It took like 3 more guy cops to run up and help her, meanwhile everyone in the stands is yelling "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" (as in Jerry Springer.) The funniest part was that as the woman was being led down the steps out of the stands in cuffs yelling the whole way, you see the father following them carrying their like 4 year old son, great memories for their sons first trip to the ballpark.