roma - giorno uno

Dubai

Rewinding a day, our trip started with a quick stop-over stay in Dubai which is apparently located in the United States of Arabia or "USA" (quoted: Carrie-pedia 2009).  It's quite a strange place - imagine picking the hottest and most desolate area in Australia, filling it with Arabs and building a big glamorous city.  Sounds like Perth you say?  Nay, there are a couple more oddities - people dress up in the heat (I think that's more an all year round thing), they have air conditioned bus stands and our taxi driver had two wives (one Arabian and one Pakistani).

We had plenty of daylight when we got there so we decided to have a guided tour by our dual-wived taxi driver who I will name Mohamed for ease (Praise be unto him).  The joy ride took us around most of Dubai, past a couple of palaces which were quite extraordinary in themselves, covering huge areas.  We also checked out the tallest building in the world, the hotel that has that crazy tennis court up high and the new and old gold markets.  We were also encouraged to look for another wife by our taxi driver (we'd probably only be able to get an Arab or New Zealander on our wages), but both Ant and I declined the offer after little thought.  All very interesting, but we were all pleased to get back in the hotel and rest up for the next flight.

Italy

With a little further ado, let me introduce our travelling companions.  Firstly there is me and my wife Ruth (chi e incinta).  The other couple joining us are Anthony (Ant, Curry, Candypants) and Hayley (mastermind of the trip).  I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Hayley and thousands of helpers spent millions of hours organising the trip down to the nanosecond :)

Now without further ado, day one of Italy.  We took a taxi from the airport to the hotel.  The road we drove was pretty much the first road I had taken that leads to Rome (I don't know where that expression comes from!).  The second half of the trip took us past some pretty grande momuments!  I wasn't particularly intersted in seeing the touristy side Rome per se but I was absolutely taken by the grandness of some of these buildings and junk and am now really excited to explore everything!  The colosseum was so much bigger than I thought it would be.  We're going to take a better look at it tomorrow.

Once we had rested a bit, we took a stroll down to check a couple of the sights out.  Pretty much everywhere you go in Rome, you are confronted with old things - old people asking for money, oh and beautiful old buildlings with awesome artwork or nudey men in front.  We checked out Travy's fountain (there must have been a really cool Travy before me that they named it after, although I really only answer to "Trav" or "Travis" please people!) where we spotted Sylar dressed up as a Polizei (films just aren't making money these days - arrrrr they?).  Then we went and checked out some Spanish (and otherwise) stairs.  Both places were heavily tousisted, but it was still amazing going to see them.  You get a glimpse into how wealthy the Roman empire was.  It would have been amazing to see it in all its glory, but alas, that would require a time machine which is yet to be invented.

Pictures coming tomorrow.