After only a few weeks back from my two week vacation around Europe the newsboys (one of the bands on the label I work for) decided to take me with them to the two festivals they were playing in Europe in August. So essentially I was going on tour to Europe with one of my favorite bands as their photographer… no biggie

The two festivals were Flevo festival in Apeldoorn, Netherlands and Revo festival in Frankfurt, Germany. What’s amazing about that itinerary is that those were both places I hadn’t gone on my previous European jaunt!

The plane ride was as expected, but what was quite amusing and different about traveling with a band through an airport is all the extra luggage… or road cases rather… even with the stripped-down international set-up (the venue provides as much as possible in the way of equipment and crew) we still had 13 people and about 2 large road cases per person… so imagine a long train of people, a few of whom are rock stars, rolling a procession of those little airport carts chock full of road cases all the way through the airport. The baggage claim people seemed to see us coming, and got extra people to come assist in a speedy check-in. Baggage claim was uber stressful, since there are so many bags to account for…. but all of our bags made it.

Just like with my travels around europe with the trafalgar tour group two months before, we were counting on total strangers, the local festival organizers, to arrange our transportation, hotel and food. Which is always a little strange. I hope to someday travel Europe on my own, but alas, I will just have to wait until I’m old enough to rent a car.

We sat for a long time at the shuttle stop outside Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, waiting for the festival shuttle to come get us. We actually met up with another musician in one of the other bands playing the festival at the shuttle stop – Mojo of the Supertones – which was quite awesome since I was a huge Supertones fan back in the day.

After pilling into the shuttle, we were off on the hour long journey to the festival grounds and our hotel. We stopped on the way at a gas station to eat (another thing I had been accustomed to from my previous europe trip) In Europe, gas stations have much better food than in America. We all got sub sandwiches, and when I asked for mayo on mine, they looked at me very funny and didn’t know what I was saying. Some nice person translated what mayo must be in Dutch, and then they handed me little packets of “frietsaus” which literally translated means “sauce for fries” which explains why when I started squeezing the sauce all over my sub a Dutch guy next to me laughed and said “that’s not for sandwiches! That’s for potato fries!” I quipped that he should try it sometime and he would love it.

After we all payed to use the restrooms (my leftover Euros from my last trip came in handy) we were off again. Our driver was a delightful man named Pim who apparently had been the guys chauffeur the last time they went to Flevo a few years before. On the drive we passed a lot of pretty Dutch countryside, some windmills, and not much else. We finally arrived at the festival grounds, which were covered in tents and out in the middle of nowhere. We sorted out all the backstage passes, the schedule, and all that fun stuff, then went to the stage to do soundcheck. It was a long walk through a little wooded area to the main stage. I still remember that walk vividly because I had to make it 100 times.

At soundcheck I grabbed a lot of fun pictures (I love soundcheck because it’s more laid back then the show, so I tend to take even better shots since I’m not stressed) there were already some early birds there, so I took some pictures of the festival peeps too, and to my great surprise after putting them online a few weeks later, one of the people in my pictures emailed me to tell me it was her and that she was grateful I put the shot online for her to find. The power of the internet!

Flevo is the longest-running and one of the largest Christian music festivals in Europe, and it’s easy to see why… apart from booking a lot of awesome bands, it’s extremely well-organized and they take very good care of the artists. The people behind it are all extremely nice and genuine.

After soundcheck was done, it was time to check into the hotel. Surprise, surprise… the hotel was a Mercure, a kind of nicer holiday inn type deal in Europe. I had stayed in one in Paris a few months before. I had stolen a mechanical pencil. That pencil was still in my purse. Hahah. I roomed with Grace, which was quite fun. I prefer rooming with people to being alone… so much more fun on vacations! Our view out the window depressed me… I always hope for pretty views. Here we were, in Holland, and the view out my window was the front of the hotel. Boo. We were given a few hours to freshen up before heading out to Deventer, the nearby town. Steve (newsboys road manager) claimed that to break the cycle of jetlag, we needed to stay out until at least midnight Netherlands time to reset our internal clocks… which was about 7am Nashville time.  Oh boy.

We arrived at the main square in Deventer (pronounced Day-ven-tear) around 7pm. There wasn’t much happening at the time, but some locals seemed to be setting up a giant projector screen and chairs in the square. We all grabbed some seats at a pub, ordered some drinks, and started to chill. I didn’t feel like chilling out though… I was in Holland! So I got up and announced I was going for a walk. Nobody came with. I started up a street that looked as if it would lead to a giant steeple up the hill, which I could only assume was a gorgeous middle-aged church… and I was right! After a brisk couple minute walk up on the most beautiful cobblestone streets I had ever seen… I arrived at a timeless, perfect church. On my way back down the hill I took another street, praying it would end up back at the square… which it did to my delight. I told everyone about my short little adventure and how wonderful it was, and recruited Grace for another quick trip back up the hill. It was more fun with Grace… we took pictures of each other, and she claims she saw Peter Pan fly out of an open window. I sort-of believe her. If that was possible anywhere it was possible here. It was exactly like a Disney fairytale setting.

After about an hour sitting at the little table of the cute little cafe, the square really started to fill up… and then belly dancers started to perform in front the projector they had set up. I kid you not. After that it finally became apparent to us what was going on (none of us knew Dutch so it was quite hard to determine, you see) when they began the movie Slumdog Millionaire (with Dutch subtitles) it finally clicked… this was some cultural Indian celebration of some sort… complete with belly dancing and the best Bollywood movie of all time! Funny thing is I didn’t see s single Indian person there besides the belly dancers! The Dutch just love celebrating different cultures I guess.

A few of us decided that it wasn’t the best way to spend our time in Holland watching in American film with Dutch subtitles, so Grace, Jojo, Ben and I went off on another adventure… this time to “the bridge in that one war movie”. Someone had heard, from someone, that this town was famous for it’s bridge because it was used in a war movie. We didn’t figure it out there, but upon recent googling I’ve found this to indeed be true: the movie was “A Bridge Too Far”, a movie I had yet to see.

The walk was a very pretty one, past another beautiful church, a Russian nightclub, and down to the river… where the bridge was. We got there right at sunset, and climbed up to it… and noticed something very amusing about the stairs… they had smoothed and grooved bike track through the middle. Holland is of course known for it’s abundance of bikes and bike enthusiasts. Atop the bridge we took lots of pictures and a wonderful video, that my stupid memory card ‘corrupted’ and I lost. I still have the beautiful scene etched in my memory thankfully.

After countless hours sitting and wondering around the square, mostly searching for my food (we ended up eating a lot of fries with mayo) it was time to catch a cab back to the hotel. We had arranged a midnight pick-up with the cab company. They were late. There was an ice cream shop across the way, and I suggested we all go get some yummy European gelato… I went alone. It turns out the temptation was too much to bear however, because after I was done paying, everyone had followed my stead and got in line for their gelato. We had just made it in time, too… they were closing. Whilst enjoying the delicious gelato, we sat in the moonlight bathed cobblestone square, shivering. It got very chilly at night.

We slept very good that night… I don’t even remember waking up in the morning or anything before getting to the festival around 10am the next morning. Why I had to be there, I couldn’t figure out. The show didn’t start until 9pm. There was another soundcheck, but I wasn’t obligated to shoot it. My wild imagination and ADD began to kick-in hardcore, and I went up to the festival organizers and took a huge gamble: I asked if there was a way they could arrange a trip to Amsterdam for me. I was willing to pay the cab fare, no matter how expensive. To my surprise, not only were they totally cool with this, they were excited about it. They got Pim, our chauffeur from the day before, to find me a ride. A FREE ride. Along came David, one of the festival employees, who had nothing to do. They told me David could drive me in one of the “shuttles” (actually a cute little european car) to Amsterdam, give me a tour of the city, and return me to the venue. Doesn’t get much better than that.

We made the hour journey north back up to Amsterdam, talking about everything from the weather, to religion, to politics, to the always popular topic between international visitors and locals: the differences between our countries. I never get tired of talking to Europeans about America, and vise-versa.

When you arrive in Amsterdam you pass (or perhaps drive over, depending which direction you come from) one of the coolest bridges I’ve ever seen in my life. I couldn’t get a good photo of it sadly, but the bridge is called Enneüs Heermabrug, and it’s amazing. I love cool bridges. You also pass a lot of very modern, fun architecture on the way into Amsterdam.

We began our long walk through the city, just randomly crisscrossing the canals and wandering through markets and side streets… observing the locals, taking in the sights… my favorite thing to do! We eventually found Anne Frank’s house, which we decided not to do, since it was an hour wait to get inside. It was good enough for me to see the outside. We then bought some fresh Dutch cookies at a little shop… the Dutch make some mighty awesome cookies. We stumbled into the infamous Red Light District for a bit… quite sad and disturbing. After we passed through we came into when I can only assume was one of the central squares of the city – since it was huge, with thousands of bikes parked in bike racks on the sides of the street.

We wandered out of the square and down another, and there was some festival happening on a float in the canal, and the canal was packed with boats so densely you couldn’t see the water… and if you wanted to you could easily just walk across hopping from boat to boat. It was quite similar to Venice in this regard… the canals were used as streets, more so than the streets themselves were. Sadly, it finally it came time to say goedag to Amsterdam and head back to the festival!

That night was spectacular, the ‘boys and newworldson (the other band on our label playing there that night) were brilliant and Flevo fest had the best lighting set-up of any festival I had ever been too, which made my job as photographer at LOT easier. They also had a kick ass crowd… the Dutch can ROCK! There were about 15,000 people and almost every single one of them was on their feet rockin’ out the whole show.

The next morning we had to wake up bright and early for our drive to Frankfurt… or Grossostheim rather, a small town south of Frankfurt. Our ride was much better than the previous day. We had an entire double-decker (or double dutch as someone clever called it) coach. I sat up top with Grace, Jojo, Duncan, Ben and Mike… and some of the Bluetree guys, who shared the bus with us. Their Irish accents were highly amusing to listen to. Most people slept the whole drive… but I stayed awake, except for the 20 minutes in which we apparently passed a magnificent castle. Just my luck. We tried to decipher when we arrived in Germany… because there is no border station between the Netherlands and Germany… and we finally relized the name for exits had switched to “Ausfahrt” the Germany word for Exit.

We arrived in the tiny, quiet town of Grossostheim around 3pm I’d say… and immediately I had nothing else on my mind but exploration… and everyone else wanted to sleep. The “green room” was quite tempting… it was on an outdoor patio with tents and lots of inviting sofas covered in white sheets. The catered food was a traditional German variety, despite the fact that the promoters of the festival were Americans. You’d think they’d prep American food… but no. I had a giant ball of something meaty, covered in shredded beets and gravy, with a potato pancake like thing on the side, with applesauce. It was interesting. The festival turn-out was quite poor, but this was to be expected since it’s a fairly new festival, in a very small town.

After eating I decided to set out and explore.. and Grace a Jojo came along. We made it to this great stone tower thing in the middle of town, with an ancient well across from it, and then a very strange old man started shouting out to us something in German, and Jojo and Grace got understandably freaked out and we walked back to the venue. My thirst to see more of the town was eating away at me whilst I was lounging on a sofa in the green room… gazing out over the track field that was beside the gym that was the venue. I couldn’t take it anymore, got back up and started down the street into the town again by myself.

This time I made it all the way to the center, an adorable and perfect German square… complete with german style buildings and a cute little church. Smack dab in the middle, a perfect reward for my journey, was a Gelato stand. One banana, please! I said to the taken-aback small town Germans who obviously didn’t get many tourists. I issued a quick and quiet “Danke” after I realized everyone was now starring at me. I sat and ate my gelato on the square with the locals, trying very hard to blend in. Maybe it was just that I was alone that was weird? Yes… that was it.

After finishing I found a little holocaust monument beside the church… a sobering reminder of the haunted past of the country.

After returning to the venue, while we were still waiting for the show to begin, we heard that the lead singer of Bluetree was vying to sing the rap when newsboys played “Jesus Freak”… and I argued that I could also sing the rap, as I had it memorized. I sadly don’t remember the exact turn the conversation took after that – only that it ended with my friend Laurie and I deciding we would sing the rap together, and that we were starting our own rap group… her name would be “Laurie Licious” and mine “Breezy Vicious”… yes, we were all very bored. In the end Bluetree lead singer won out, and he did in fact end up performing the rap during the show. We still had a little bit of time to kill before the show started, despite it seeming like had been there all day…. oh wait…. we had been there all day. Tour life isn’t as glamous as one would think. Jody and I decided to play some ping pong. Well, let me rephrase that. I wouldn’t stop begging somebody to play with me since I was bored out of my mind, and Jody probably offered to shut me up.

It was finally time for the show to begin. It was a small crowd, not even 1/10th the size of Flevo Festival the night before… but just as fun. I love small shows just as much as big ones. Less exciting, but more personal. At Flevo I had missed the opening acts, since I had been running all over Amsterdam instead of sitting around the festival all day… so I decided to listen to Mojo w/ October Light… Mojo from the Supertone’s new band. I was pleasantly surprised… no… that’s an understatement… I was extremely excited to hear them play Supertones songs… something I’d never thought I’d get to witness again. The Supertones had long since broken up, to my dismay. But it was like that had never happened that night – rockin’ out to the greatest ska music every written (in my humble opinion) here in Germany… with a bunch of Germans… who were standing there like trees. Only trees actually moved more.

The show was awesome despite the smallness of the crowd… the Germans finally started moving a bit when the ‘boys came on. On the way back to the hotel that night we drove past a magnificent castle lit up on a hilltop. We didn’t arrive at the hotel until well after dark, however even in the pitch black you could tell we were up on a high hill, and had a spectacular view of the village and forrests beneath us. The hotel, to my delight, wasn’t a commercial hotel… it seemed more like a family owned lodge. I only hoped I had a good view… and I wasn’t disappointed at all. When I awoke in the morning I stepped out onto my private balcony, taking in the amazing sunrise over the hills. Then I was interrupted… by a phonecall from Jeff. “Hey Breezy – are you awake?” “Yes.” “Ok… just checking… you gonna be down in a few minutes?” “Um… ya….” I lied. Sort of. I hadn’t planned on being downstairs in a few minutes, but since he made it very clear that I should be for some reason (the airport shuttle wasn’t supposed to leave for another 45 minutes… I thought I had woken up early…) I decided to throw my bag together, throw on some clothes and get downstairs. Good thing I did – turns out that somehow, despite double-checking, I had got the time wrong, and I was actually 10 minutes late. Thank God I had woken up “early”… hahah…

The guys forgave me and we were off to Frankfurt International Airport. To go home. Not everyone, mind you… many were staying behind to take a train to Paris for a few days vacation. Jeff, Jeff, Duncan and Johnny O were all traveling home, like me. The ride down on the Autobahn to the airport was a sad one, despite a funny conversation about how Jeff and I thought the Autobahn was actually a certain road in particular, not the entire freeway system in Germany.

After pushing all the carts of road cases through the airport and an uneventful check-in (this is not always the case, I’ve been told, since airport security, especially international, are sometimes not friendly to bands… they all hold their breath in anticipation for a problem) we were off on our way back home. It was a direct flight from Frankfurt to Atlanta, which I found a little strange. It seemed weird to me that was even possible. To travel directly between two places so incredibly different, and far from each other. That distance became even farther than I originally imagined, when to avoid bad weather in the Atlantic the plane was routed even further north – all the way over Iceland and Greenland. I had my head glued the the window, trying to spot the land masses. The flight was 13 hours. Apparently Duncan watched 5 movies in a row. Let that sink in. I watched 3, and that was too many for me. After what felt like an eternity, we landed safely in Atlanta… only to wait an hour more to board a puddle jumper to Nashville. We all ate at Houllihan’s, except for Duncan… who had headed for a lounge to relax. The food was very noticably un-european, which made me sad.

Eating made things a little better temporarily – but when we landed in Nashville I was totally dead. 18 hours of non-stop travel had taken it’s toll. Thank God Breeon drived me home, I would have been a safety hazard driving myself home in that condition. After another 30 minutes I made it safe and sound to my house, after my second journey to Europe in only two months.

Below is the continuation of my Europe trip blog. If you don’t start at the beginning, they don’t make much sense! Thanks for reading!

——

Back on the bus we drove off the ferry, drove across the bridge, and started on our way to our final destination on the tour: Roma! Although the drive was quite long, it wasn’t as long as I expected it to be. We stopped at another Aggrip gas station/rest stop after Fritz woke everyone up… and we ate at Ciao again. Not amazing but not bad. Definitely fast food quality. Ally and I ate alone this time, and intensely planned what we were going to do in Rome from maps and brochures.

Upon arriving in the outskirts of Rome I woke Ally up and said “we’re in Rome! When in Rome! When in Rome!” I know, I’m so annoying. I’m not sorry. It is so fun to say “when in Rome” when you’re actually in Rome. You have no idea. Or maybe you do. Ally was pissed off and said “this isn’t Rome.” Right then we passed a car junkyard that Jelle proceeded to tell this joke about: “My friend always says that’s not a junkyard, but the woman’s parking lot” Ally fell back asleep. I don’t blame her. The outskirts of Rome aren’t very impressive. It’s hard to see the epicenter of Rome from the outskirts, there aren’t any skyscrapers or distinguishing tall landmarks like the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Eye in London.

Upon arriving at our hotel, the Prime Area Hotel (what kind of name is that for a hotel?) which was very ironically named because it was nowhere near the “prime area” of Rome. More like the ghetto. The hotel itself was very nice, but it was in a very shady part of town that the cabbies couldn’t even find with detailed directions. Another lobby with beautiful mod white furniture and flat screen TVs… but no internet in the rooms. Just the lobby! When we got in the elevator to go up to our room, 208, we shared it with Mohammed’s mom, who was so sweet but couldn’t speak English. It’s funny how easily humor transcends language boundaries though, because when I went to push the button for floor 2, I got very confused by the number pad the elevator had because it was vertical instead of horizontal, and the numbers were placed in a very odd way on the buttons with weird stripe designs all over them. It still couldn’t find the button for two, and finally Mohammed’s mom held up two fingers and started laughing at me, followed by Ally laughing and calling me an idiot and pressing 2 for me.

When we got in our room we were pleasantly surprised how nice it was… marble tiled bathroom, huge leather floor to ceiling headboard on a beautiful, super comfy king sized bed with a flat screen TV. Even in what was a very nice hotel, the shower was so small I was banging my elbows on the walls again!

We didn’t stay in the hotel long before we had a bus call to do our included excursion of Rome.

First we got dropped off near the Spanish Steps, which I must admit I knew nothing about before the tour, despite them apparently being one of the most famous landmarks in Rome. They are quite beautiful and humongous… I was very thankful we only had to walk down them and not back up. At the base of the steps there was a mob of people sitting on them, and a cute fountain that people were filling up their water bottles in. All the fountains in Rome, big and small, have safe drinkable water flowing out of them.

We followed the road past the Spanish Steps down a ways before coming across the magnificent Trevi Fountain. Much larger than I expected, it looks more like a huge swimming pool with fountains flowing into it than a fountain. Ally did the honors of throwing coins in the fountain, while I video taped. All around Rome we spotted recently married couples getting wedding portraits taken, but my favorite was here at the fountain… a gorgeous Italian couple were getting their portraits done by a very professional looking photographer, and along with many other tourists I snuck a few shots of them. Thankfully they didn’t seem to mind at all. What else can you expect getting your portraits done at one of the world’s biggest tourist attractions?

Next up on the walking tour was Hadrian’s Temple, which looks so archaic and beat-up you wonder how on earth it survived so long. It’s pocket-marked all over not because of war or decay, but because over the years the metal serving as structural support between the stone and the stone itself had been removed to be re-used… the same reason the Colosseum is in ruins. Earthquakes and wars contributed slightly, but these structures would be in much better shape if not for neglect and recycling of their marble and metal. Hadrian’s Temple was remarkable to behold… simply knowing you are in the shadow of a building that’s been standing since the year 145 is incredible.

Next on the tour we walked through a restaurant and shop filled alleyway and came out into a huge square – Piazza della Rotonda, home of the Pantheon. I had to take a deep breath and just stand in awe for a few moments at this one. Having studied the Pantheon and it’s brilliant dome and oculus in Professor Zaho’s Art History class, I felt like I had stepped into my text book yet again. I wanted so badly to go inside and behold the marvelous oculus, alas it had just closed to visitors about a half hour before. Another thing to do next time!

Moving swiftly along we passed through another alleyway filled with shops and restaurants… by this time knowing full well around every corner we would step into another fantastic square with something else to marvel at. The next one didn’t disappoint – it was Piazza Navona, home of the Four Rivers sculpture/fountain and the something Palace. Our local guide told us the history of the fountain, and how each of the four rivers and four men represented the 4 continents (back when they thought there were only four)… as she was speaking I walked all around the fountain taking pictures… then I scooped up some water from the fountain and splashed it on my face… quite refreshing and clean! Our guide then announced we were free for an hour to eat before the our bus call to take us back to the hotel.

To Ally’s delight just a stone’s throw away from the fountain was a restaurant on the square that she had wanted to eat at (she researched a few of the best restaurants in Rome before we came and it just so happened to be one of them) The place was called Tre Scalini and like all the other restaurants in Rome most of the seating was outside on the square, with a picturesque view of the fountain and the twilight sky sourrounding it.

Our waiter was absolutely adorable and very funny. I ordered the Fettucini Alfredo. It was the most delicious Fettucini Alfredo I’d had since the first and only other time I had it at an authentic Italian restaurant in ‘Italy’ at Epcot. It’s a shame that Olive Garden, Maccaroni Grill, Maggiano’s and all those other American Italian chains can’t get Fettucini Alfredo down. After having the first entree in Italy that lived up to (and exceeded) the hype of authentic Italian cuisine it was time to order desert… what else but some chocolate gelato? Around this time we realized that we had only 5 minutes until we had to be at our bus, yet we had just ordered our desert! Since we were in a very convenient location on the square it just so happened Jelle walked right past us on his way back to the bus… and we told him we weren’t going to make it and we’d find our way back. This made our desert much more enjoyable knowing we didn’t have to cram it down our throats. We took our precious time finishing up our first dinner in Rome, and by the time we were done night had set over the square in a lovely shade of cobalt blue. The fountains and shops were all illuminated and bathed the square in a lovely warm light…

We paid for our dinner and parted ways with our fantastic waiter and strolled through the artists and merchants throughout the square to a toy shop at the opposite end. It was like stepping into a weird, small FAO Schwartz. The shop had a spiral staircase to a second floor overflowing with stuffed animals… the bottom floor had a few life size knomes and horses you could sit on or pose to take pictures with… not to mention a lovely collection of toy cars, mostly Italian sports cars. We bought a few gifts for our brothers and then we were on our way.

Since we had missed the bus we decided to trace our steps back through the city and eventually catch a taxi back to the hotel. We passed by the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain and night, both of which have a completely different look lit up at night. We finally came up on a street corner with lots of cabs, but before grabbing one we decided to stop in a cute little gelateria Ally spotted. As if we hadn’t had enough gelato, Craig and Ally both ordered more. I was just too full. The gelateria was owned by a wonderful man named Valentino, who guaranteed us it would be the best gelato we had ever tasted. He was so passionate about his gelato and was such a delightful man… we stayed and talked to him a few minutes about where we were from and he showed us some awesome old pictures he had on the walls of his shop. Ally and Craig both agreed it was the best gelato ever.

After Ally and Craig finished the gelato we finally got in a cab and headed back to the hotel, and upon turning a street corner a few minutes into the drive we saw something coming up in the distance we all started screaming like little girls about – the colosseum! Up until this point we still hadn’t driven past it or seen it, and here it was! We were about to drive right past it, and our nice cab driver drove nice and slow after realizing our excitement about seeing it. It’s partially lit up at night and is apparently still open, because they’re were crowds of people still gathered around it.

Upon waking up the next morning we grabbed some food in the lobby and made our way to the bus for our final full day on the tour. Our first stop: the Vatican. Francesco gracefully took our huge bus through the winding crazy streets of Rome until we came to the fortified entrance to the tiny country, which doubled as the entrance to the Vatican museum. There was a humongous line to get in, but as usual, we skipped the lines and got right in with the tour. I almost felt bad for the people in line.

After going through the metal detectors and all that fun stuff, we had entered our 6th country of the trip! Our local guide took us through corridor after corridor of ancient treasures, each hallway more ornate and glittering than the last – the walls and ceilings were just as or more impressive than the artifacts and art being displayed on them. Some of the highlights were the finest and best preserved middle ages tapestries, and ancient maps of Italy. After what seemed like a mile of walking through the museum, we came upon the Sistine Chapel. You walk through this relatively tiny door/ staircase and come into the ethereal space that’s covered in the greatest art ever produced. The room is abuzz with about 100 people all gapping and gawking at the art encompassing them, but since it’s a chapel the guards like to keep it quiet for prayer. So about once every 2 or 3 minutes all the guards would issue a loud SHHHHHHHhhhhhh… and the volume of the room would drop to a whisper, only to gradually rise back up again to conversation volume… and this cycle occurred about 10 times while I was in there.

Even though you weren’t technically allowed to take pictures or video, this didn’t really stop anyone. The guards were fairly strict if they caught you, but they were very outnumbered and it was still very easy to get pictures without them noticing. I simply kneeled down in the crowd of people so my camera would be invisible while I took dozens of photos and videos.

Eventually we had to leave, but it wasn’t too sad since the next stop was St. Peter’s Basilica. My brain was already on overload but it was pushed over the edge here. I took about 150 photos in the 10 minutes we were in there. The Pieta is housed inside, as well as almost all the pope’s tombs and countless works of art and beautiful things to stare at. You could spend a day in this building and still not see all of it. We took a tour all the way around the central alter, and as we were leaving a choir started to sing and a mass procession began down the aisle.

Next we made our way out to St. Peter’s Square. They were setting up for something and thousands of chairs were placed in front of St. Peter’s. We hung out for a while in front of the church, waiting for a few of our tour mates. We were then given some free time to get some food or roam about the Vatican & Rome… so we hopped across the border back into Italy, which was just across the street, and ate some pizza or something at a little cafe. Then we went in the Vatican gift shop and bought a rosary for my mom, which is then blessed by the pope and delivered to your hotel later that night.

Then we headed off to the Colosseum! We parked well above it on a hill and got a nice view of it, and then had a fun little walk to get there. Upon arrival we got in very quickly, as usual, and took an elevator to the top to work our way down. Our local guide told us the history of the place… but I had long since zoned out and was meditating in the thoughts and emotions of this crazy building… where the first Christians had been thrown to the lions for sport. Where gladiators battled for freedom. Where mock naval battles had been staged by filling the arena with water. We slowly made our way down level by level, and plotted our upcoming free time with our tour friends.

Next we decided to head over to the ruins of ancient rome across the street. I grabbed some gelato along the way, which was delicious and refreshing in the very hot Roman sun. It was a long and sometimes steep climb to the top of the hill where the ruins were, but we made it… and surveyed the remains of the city that literally laid the foundation for modern city life as we know it.

Some areas of the city were in such good shape, you could imagine ancient Romans still living there… it felt a little spooky, since these ruins are essentially an ancient ghost town. There are no guards, no people patrolling and no guides through it… and it was surprisingly deserted up there. I walked around the corners a few times by myself, wondering what I’d find…

After a half hour or so in ancient Rome, we headed back down the hill, sweaty as can be, and had the option to go back to go back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner, but as usual, we didn’t take it. We decided to take the few hours we had off to try and find Vespas to rent. Emphasis on the word TRY. We ended up convincing our friends Chanel and Rob to come with and we trekked what seemed like miles through the city trying to hunt down a Vespa rental shop. When we finally found it, they wanted an obscene amount of money for 3 hours when we only wanted to rent the Vespas for one hour. We made the smart but unfortunate decision to not rent them, and went a few blocks down the street to a “Mackers” to drown our sorrows in Big Macs and fries. Yes, we ate at McDonald’s on our last day in Europe. And I don’t regret it at all. Finally we caught a cab back to the hotel (not surprisingly, our cab driver got lost trying to find it).

We then returned to a restaurant on the other side of the Colosseum for our farewell dinner, with a view of the sun setting behind the massive ruins. Dinner was strange but delicious, a more traditional Italian meal that I had never had before. We spent a lot of quality time with our tour mates, and one of the Aussie families gave us all little Koala bears. We reflected on all the awesome things we had done in the trip, said our farewells and took pictures together, then boarded the bus and headed back to our hotel.

The next morning was a very sad one. Only a few people were actually flying home from Rome that day, most everyone else was spending another day there or continuing on to other European destinations. We traveled to the airport with only Val, Pam, Jelle and Francesco.

At Fumiccino/ Leonardo Da Vinci Airport (the airport in Rome has two official names) Ally and I had some time to kill and Euros to spend, so I bought my only souvenir of the whole trip – a Ferrari pen – and Ally bought some cool stationary stuff and a tiny little pen (we like pens I guess?!) and then we waited, and waited, for our flight to London.

Upon arrival in back in London we got a killer view of the city from the air, and the sky was clear almost the whole flight so I also got a good view of the Alps as well, and pretty much our entire route that took two weeks by land I got the see again by air in just a few hours.

To save money on our flights Ally and I had to schedule our return flight to include a stay overnight at LaGuardia in NYC… little did we know that they don’t let you pass through security back into the terminal until just 3 hours before your flight, and our flight was 9 hours from then. We had planned to simply sleep on the floor at the gate, but this destroyed that plan and rendered us homeless in NYC for the night. Needless to say we had no other option than to find a hotel, so we waited in the hour long taxi line and stayed in one of LaGuardia’s “airport hotels” which was actually 15 minutes away in the ghetto of Queens. We checked into the hotel at 1:00am, and we found out we had to get the 5:00 shuttle back to the airport if we wanted to play it safe to catch our flights. The woman who checked us into the room checked us out 4 hours later with a puzzled look on her face.

After two weeks of travel, six new countries and lots of new stories and adventures under my belt, I made it safely back to Nashville (and Ally back to Orlando) at 9am, and was picked up by my coworker and driven straight to work. Good thing I love my job.