Panasonic DMP-BD35 Blu Ray Player - Returned

After spending much time researching Blu Ray players on the Internet, I decided on the Panasonic DMP-BD35. It was rated just slightly better than the Sony BDP-S350. The best price I could find was $299. So I went to Costco today and they had the Panasonic player, just one, for $279. I was going to buy a second one for my sister, but she'll have to wait as all Costcos seem to be sold out of this model.

I just connect the player, without reading the instructions, of course, and played a few minutes of the Blu Ray DVD I just bought - Into The Wild. Costco had lots of DVDs, but not many that I didn't already have on standard DVD format, so I chose this movie because I heard it was good. So I turned on the DVD player and it took me through a short setup. Then I inserted the movie and it began to play. I was quickly disappointed at the playback. There was lots of "macro-blocking" and "pixilization", making it almost unwatchable. Now I know there are fixed to this. I need to update the player's firmware, but first I need to get it connected to the Internet. I have no Internet connection in my living room so I'll either bring the player into my computer room, or I think I can use my laptop as a "bridge" and get connection that way. I'll also check the AVS owners thread for this player for help. Also, the problem could be the DVD, and I have no other Blu Ray DVDs yet.

In order to use the DB-Live features of this, and all new Blu Ray players, you need a 1GB or more SD card for storage. I still need to buy one of these. Also, you need a permanent Internet connection.

Currently, I have the audio connected to my stereo using the players optical output, and the video connected to my TV using HDMI. After I buy a new stereo, I can connect the HDMI cable to the stereo and then connect the stereo to my TV using HDMI. This, I believe, is the optimal method for connecting components. This will also give me the 7.1 audio (7 speakers and a subwoofer) for the best possible sound. Stay tuned for further updates as I learn more about my new toy.

Edit: I have good news, bad news and more bad (or good?) news: I was able to connect the DVD player to my network hub and update the firmware. However, this didn't fix the playback problem with the "macroblocking". The problem was the same on my other HDTV, plus I tried a different HDMI cable and the problem also happened on the playback of The Simpson's Movie. Then, to make matters worse (or better), I got a coupon booklet from Costco, and it looks like the same Panasonic player is on sale starting Jan. 5th for $50 off! I get the feeling that the DVD player I bought was a returned item. So on Jan. 5th, I'll buy the same player, make sure it works, and return this one, hopefully without any hassle from their customer support.

Edit(2): Now I just read that Panasonic might be discontinuing this model. That would explain why Costco is having it on sale. Maybe I should return it and buy the Sony.

Added 1/2/09: Yes, I returned this player today at Costco with no problem. Now have to decide to buy another one ore wait and get the Sony, if it is discounted somewhere.

Added 1/5/09: Bought the same player again and it works this time! See post above.

Added 02/13/09: I got the player connected to the Internet. Read about it here.

Time Warner Cable to Discontinue Viacom Channels

If you are a TWC customer, and have watched any of Viacom's channels recently, such as MTV, VH1 or Comedy Central, you have seen a text banner on your screen urging you to call a number demanding that TWC keep their channels. Apparently these two companies are in a dispute over a price increase, so come 2009, you might not have all 19 of Viacom's channels. You can read about it here. There is another discussion here.

New Years Eve Eve

Well, I was going to work tomorrow, but I have decided to take the day off. The lab was going to be closed so I would have had to sit at my desk typing up test plans - boring! So I've gone to the gym and am doing laundry, giving me five days with nothing to do but relax, and hopefully exercise. I just weighed in at 191 pounds!

The photo above is of my car parked very close to a garage, but at least I didn't hit the support. I pulled up far because the driveway is very steep. That's Woody's 2-door Tahoe parked next to me.

Snow Covered Mt. San Jacinto

No, I did not hike this mountain, just took a picture of it from afar. I decided to drive up to my friend's house on Saturday, and after 24 hours, I drove home. Unfortunately, half the people who said they'd show up flaked-out, so it was just the usual crowd. We played poker, but not for money, and watched a movie. Somehow everyone slept in until 11:30 this morning. Now I'm just relaxing, getting ready to watch the Charger game. Go Chargers!!!!

Why not one more picture

It was such a nice day for taking pictures I'd thought I'd post one more. I think today was also "take your dog for a hike day", because there sure were a lot of dogs on the trail, from poodles to pugs. (Actually, there were no pugs, but I couldn't think of a large dog that began with "p".) It was funny, I kept saying to fellow hikers "good morning", before I realized it was 2PM. That's what happens when you sleep in too late.

Day After Christmas Hike

My one goal today was to hike up Iron Mountain. Once I dragged myself out of bed, at 11 AM, I eventually got ready and drove to the trail head. I wasn't the only one who had this hike planned, as the parking lot was quite crowded. Luckily, most people were heading down, so at the top, there were only five other hikers enjoying the clear view of the snow-covered mountains and glistening ocean.

I'm glad I didn't start the hiked any sooner, because it was very cold on the way down, since most of the path was in the shade. That motivated my to walk fast, making it down in 50 minutes. My knees complained with about one mile left, so I slowed down some. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to drive up to Desert Hot Springs to spend time with friends tonight, tomorrow, or not at all. I'll see how I feel in one hour.

Christmas 2008

Oh how our family Christmas traditions have changed. This year we saw a slightly less-violent movie, The Spirit, followed by a buffet at Harrah's. The movie was pretty good, but a bit long, and the buffet was mostly good and very filling. Afterwards we spent a little time at the casino, since we had never been there before. I found this machine off in one corner and had to play it, based on its name. It was a two cent game, and I put in $20. I was down over half when I got the instant spin and won$16. So I cashed out for $29.70. My Christmas present was winning $9.70. Not bad. Now I'm off work for three more days and I will try to take advantage of some dryer weather with a hike or bike ride this weekend.

My First Christmas Present...

... to myself have arrived. I was expecting a package to arrive soon, but when the doorbell rang at 8PM last night, I wasn't prepared to see a box on my doorstep. I guess the UPS delivery person was running late. Luckily I was home, because otherwise the package could have gotten wet in the rain.

Cinequest was having a sale, so I bought five action figures, the four pictured here plus a Willow ornament, which has no place to hang since I didn't put up my Christmas tree.

The next package I'm expecting is a They Might be Giants gift set, which includes all three of their "Children's" albums, a DVD, XL T-shirt and some stickers. I have one of the CDs, but not "Here Come the ABCs" and "Here Come the 123s".

After Christmas I plan to buy a Blu Ray DVD player, a new stereo with 7.1 sound and new speakers to match. Also, a sound card for my computer and once again speakers (only 5.1) to match.

Good Time at the Party

As a bonus, I won second prize in the raffle, a Jack Daniels gift pack. How appropriate! To get tickets for the raffle, you get one for doing a shot, and one for dancing per song. This is the hosts way of encouraging the party-goers to have more fun. I also participated in the pool tournament, but my team lost in the first round. The host, once again trying to make the game more fun, creates a team by paring a man and woman who are not a couple. I can't blame my partner for loosing, everybody was playing badly and the game took forever. I did wake up by 10, in time to watch the Chargers play and win! Where was this team all season? Why did they wait until week 16 to play like the talented team they are? So now root for Buffalo to beat the Broncos, which for some reason is not being broadcast on Time Warner Cable :-(

Follow-up: Broncos lost, so if the Chargers win against them, in San Diego, next week, we are in the playoffs with a 8-8 record!

How did Christmas seek up upon me?

With all my traveling in the past month, somehow Christmas is in five days! I had planned to put up my decorations. I even bought a string of LED lights at Costco. I guess I could hang them up, but I don't think I'll put up my tree with the Star Trek ornaments. I have been doing some "miscellaneous" house cleaning this morning, with Christmas music playing in the background to help put me in the Christmas spirit. Once my laundry is done, I'm going to brave a few malls to buy some gifts and other non-season items, such as a new coffee maker for work. The one we have been using isn't working too well, so I need to buy a cheap one and then take collections at work to help pay for it. Then I'll come home and rest for the big party I'm going to tonight. This party is always fun, and sometimes lasts into the wee hours of the night. There are friends I sometimes only see once a year at the party, so that's always nice. Tomorrow I'll watch football and try to get to the gym to work off the calories I put on in New Orleans. Go Chargers!

Bourbon Street Movie

I took one short movie while in New Orleans. We were standing a balcony above the street, and I ended up filming my brother filming a movie of the confetti cannon.

Craziness in New Orleans

When I mentioned to my brother that I saw nothing crazy happen in New Orleans, he replied "What do you mean? What about the group of Santas and other dressed-up people?". I reminded him I travel to Key West twice a year. Yes, there was a lot of good "people watching" opportunities, but I guess had we stayed out much later we would have seen some real blog-worthy craziness.

Like I said, we were in New Orleans only long enough for three meals. For dinner we ended up doing the usual. Let a waiter outside a restaurant convince us to eat there, and once again, we were not disappointed. The waiter was really nice and all three of use enjoyed our dinner. I had seafood pasta, which was good, but not great. Brad said his meal was the best one of the trip. For breakfast we took my co-workers advice and ate at Mother's. We had trouble finding this famous eatery using our map, but a local helped direct us to the building. We were expecting a typical restaurant, but here you stand in line, order your food, then sit down and a waiter comes by and takes your receipt and then brings you your food. I got the shrimp omelet, which came with bread and grits. Now, grits are pretty much tasteless, and the shrimp was dry. My toast with butter and jam was the best part ot the meal. I'd say Mother's is overrated.

Our last meal was going to be a buffet at Harrah's casino, but we arrived too late. So we walked around and ended up eating at Crescent City Brewhouse. This ended up being my favorite meal. I had the redfish, with a red beer, followed by a triple chocolate cake. All very good.

I can't imagine this place during Marti Gras. The streets were pretty empty at dusk, but by midnight it was difficult to move around. People keep asking me if I saw evidence of Katrina damage, but the French Quarter was spared the flooding and destruction brought on by that hurricane.

We walked all around Jackson Square, looking at the art for sale. There were many self-proclaimed artists and lots of interesting paintings, but we bought nothing. We had the opportunity to paint our name on a door, for a small donation, and I which I had, but we didn't. There were also tarot card readers who didn't seem to be getting much business. Overall, Jackson Square was worth the time we spent there.

Art in New Orleans

There is more to do in New Orleans than drink. Apparently I ended up taking many photos of a city-wide art exhibit, called Prospect.1. I was just taking pictures of interesting objects, many of which turned out to be part of this art show, I believe. The photo above was taken in the back courtyard of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park office. The camera could not capture the full effect. Viewed from the right distance and angle, the hanging boards formed a three dimensional map of the world. There were actually four layers, so that is why I call this a "4-D" art.

This is a photo taken from a side view, so you can see the four layers. Each board had printed text, which I'm not sure of the meaning, but overall it was a nice, accidental find.

No blog post would be complete without me posing with some statue. This was close to our hotel. I'm sure this statue was of someone important, but it was late and dark and we did not make note of who he was.

There were these painted streetcar models all over the French Quarter. I know this one looks more like a coffin, which is still appropriate for New Orleans, but it is a streetcar painted with colorful hearts. The best one we saw was decorated with people, making it look more like a streetcar.

As we were walking near the place where there is a good view of Jackson Square, we heard this strange sound, that we thought was an underground subway. Then we saw this display of "junk", and realized there was a speaking playing the sound of people laughing. The art work consisted of junk that washed ashore during hurricane Katrina. This exhibit was rather unique.

We kept seeing this blue dog all over town. I first noticed it in a painting of the Blues Brothers, as in Jake and Elwood, who were also painted blue. I mentioned that there was no dog in the movie, but I didn't realize until the next day the connection between the dog and the painting. This photo of the blue dog was on the side of a hotel, so it is bigger than it looks.

More Photos from The Big Easy

I was hoping to get a photo of a nice ship, or even a barge floating down the Mississippi, but this photo of the Algiers Bridge is nice, and there is a ship near the shore.

There were many statues around New Orleans that made for good photo opportunities. Here I'm centered between a statue and a Christmas display.

I don't think this streetcar was named Desire, or even Marge, but it made for a good photo. Like I said, next time I'm in New Orleans, I'll ride one of these just for the fun of it.

On Sunday we walked further down Bourbon Street so I could see the oldest bar in town. It wasn't very busy at this time, but there was a strange man inside that kept staring at me. No, not the person to the left, that is my brother, and of course, his wife on the right. Somehow we didn't get a group photo of all three of us, but there are enough photos of me in New Orleans. It is hard to tell, but this building is leaning in all directions and the roof is sagging. I didn't get a drink, but I did walk in the bar and it looked like a fine bar on the inside.

New Orleans in 24 Hours

I am finally home from New Orleans, which is a funny thing to say since I was there for only 24 hours. First let me say that I had a great time during my short stay in New Orleans. I, of course, need to go back and do everything that I didn't have time for. We arrived Saturday around 3PM and after checking into our hotel, we started our walk to Bourbon Street. This was a "walking" trip, as we did not ride any trolleys, carriages or street cars. After about five hours of sleep, we spent Sunday walking around the French Quarter, visiting shops and museums until 4PM, when we took a taxi back to the airport. Up until then the trip was going great without any delays. However, our luck changed when the arriving airplane was two hours late, and our layover in Dallas was 90 minutes. The good news is that we were upgraded to first class for the third leg of this adventure, but since we landed in Dallas after our connecting flight left, we spent Sunday in a hotel in Dallas. We flew out this morning at 9AM and arrived home at 10. Since I work a few miles from the airport, I just drove to work, arriving in the office very wet, since it was raining heavily, and in jeans and with an unshaven face.. I tried to get something accomplished, but I was really tired. So after six hours I drove home in the rain and heavy traffic. So that is why I say "I am finally home" from New Orleans.

The first night there, I was the designated drunk. This is a photo of me drinking "three" beers due to a "3 for 1" special. The beers were in bottles, so the bartender poured them into two plastic cups. That is why it looks like I'm "only" drinking two beers. I also had a hurricane, Captain and Coke and a few shots of some colorful drink in a "test tube". After going back to our hotel, I "snuck out" and visited two more places. The Cats Meow and an Irish bar. I was good, and got back by 1 AM, enough time for six hours of sleep. I was tired on Sunday, but had no hangover. I'll post more photos later this week when I'm not so tired.

Snow In New Orleans

Why do I care? Because I'm going to New Orleans this weekend! The trip is just for one night, but since I've never been there I took this opportunity to go. Flights are really cheap and so are hotels. They are desperate for tourists, and I plan to eat good food and consume fine drinks. It will be a quick, fun, no-stair-climbing-to-the-top-of-domes adventure and I will take plenty of photos.

Riots in Greece

I've been reading about the riots in Greece. Two years ago I might have payed very little attention to this headline news, but having been in Athens just over a year ago, and reading about youths burning a Christmas tree in Syntagma Square (pictured above) where I walked through several time, the news caught my eye. I don't know what would have happened if the riots broke out while I was there last Thanksgiving.

Even though we didn't go to Venice, Italy, I also noticed the article about the recent flooding in Venice, having just been in Italy. In fact, any article about a country I've visited in the last four years catches my attention. I read about how Peru was trying to get a university in the US to return some artifacts taken from Machu Picchu. I guess this is what it is like to be "world traveler".

Rome: Best of Photos

Rome 2008 Best Of

These are the best of the photos taken in Rome, Pisa, The Vatican and Florence. Enjoy.

Leaning Tower Of Pisa Movie

More stairs, another movie. This time on top of the Leaning Tower Of Pisa. The weather was perfect for a good view of Pisa.

Be sure to click on the video to get to a tab/page that has a "watch in high quality" option for a better looking video.

St. Peter's Basilica Video

This short movie was taken at the top of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. The walk up the stairs was actually fun, and the view from the top was great! I was speaking quietly because I was alone at the time and I didn't want people to think I was crazy, talking to myself.

Rome: Florence and Traveling Home

I am almost done. Thanksgiving was our last full day in Italy. After a short stay in our hotel, we caught the hotel shuttle back to the train station where we once again checked our bags. We had until 4 PM to see as much as Florence as we could in one day, so we had to decide which sites we wanted to see the most. We started wandering around the city, and all roads seem to lead to Doma, the most striking building in Florence. We opted to walk to the top, another 430 stairs. On the way up we encountered a woman who was feeling faint and had to go back down, which wasn't easy since the staircase was so narrow. Once we reached the top, we were rewarded for the third day in a row with a spectacular view of the city. It was clear and sunny, making for good photographs. Once we walked back down, we found ourselves inside Doma, which was basically a big, empty building.

Once outside, we walked around some more and then walked to the Uffizi Gallery, one of Rick Steves audio tours. This museum included many works by Michelangelo, Raphael and other famous artists. A few times during the tour we got lost, but still managed to wind through the maze of rooms amongst the many tour groups. No photos were allowed, so all I have are memories of this place, which are kind of fuzzy, as it was just another museum. When we left, we all agreed that it was time for our Thanksgiving lunch. We found a small cafe near our next stop, The Accademia. Our Thanksgiving lunch was simple, as you can see from the photo: lasagna for everyone! It was simple and enjoyable.

Actually, somewhere in there we stopped at a telescope museum, which housed telescopes by Galileo and other astronomers. The main floor was closed, but we had our fill of telescopes. This museum had some "hands-on" exhibits and did allow photographs.
So after lunch, we got our tickets to The Accademia. This museum is famous for Michelangelo's David, and Rick Steves audio tour started with this statue. David was larger than I imagined, and rather well preserved. You can walk around the statue, which is protected by a six foot high plexiglass wall. The rest of the exhibits paled in comparison, but we walked through each room to get our monies worth. No photos were allowed, so I don't have my own photo, but David pretty much looks just like all the photos you have seen, in his full glory.

From here, we walked towards the river than runs through the town, which I can't seem find the name of. There is a bridge that crosses the river that was nicely decorated with Christmas decoration, and there were many jewelry shops on the bridge, which we did not stop at.

We continued to walk around the streets, encountering protesters many times. They were non-violent but still noisy with whistles and cow-bells, and we couldn't figure out what they were protesting. Perhaps something about farming.

Having been walking and climbing stairs for three straight days, we were getting tired, so we slowly walked back towards the train station. It was getting cold as we stood for almost an hour waiting for our train. Once it arrived, we sat down and soon the train was off. I don't know why, but the trip back to Rome went by very quickly. Back at the train station in Rome, we considered taking a train to the airport, but the next one left in an hour, and we realized that a taxi wouldn't be much more money. So we got in a taxi and were in for the ride of our lives! These taxi drivers are crazy. They ignore all rules of the road, such as stop signs, lanes and cross walks. However, I wasn't scared, because this is their city and they know who to drive, and I didn't see any dents in the car, nor did I see any auto accident during the entire stay in Italy.

The last night we stayed at the airport Hilton. We each had our own room, which turned out to be the nicest room of the three hotels and the one we spent the least amount of time in. For dinner, we ate at the hotel restaurant, which offered a buffet. This could have also been our Thanksgiving meal, but we had already proclaimed the lunch in Florence as our official Thanksgiving lunch. All the food was good, and they had a nice variety of dishes, and of course, desert. We finished dinner around 10:30, and I was in bed by 11:30, having just set the alarm clocks, three of them, to go off at 4:20 AM. We were warned that it might take three hours to check in at the airport.

Our flight left at 7:30 and we arrived at the airport by 5:15. Everything was going well when we saw our plane left from terminal C, and not 5, which required a shuttle ride to. However, when we went to get our boarding passes, the lady at the British Airways counter could not find our itinerary in the system. She typed, made a phone call, and then said we would have to go to the main ticket counter. So we stepped out of line and looked for the ticket counter, which didn't seem to exist. There was a ticket counter, but no one was manning it. So we went to call the American Airlines Gold hot line, and the one phone capable of making international calls had a dead batter. So while I watched the luggage, Brad went looking for an outlet and Lorie went back to the same woman, who told her that everything was taken care of and to come back to her to check in. During that time, a busload of Canadians arrived, so we walked to the first-class line and they let us through. The man at this booth was given some signal from the other woman, and he got us our boarding passes no problem. We never found out what happened, but we didn't care.

The flight to London was very short, but we still got a light snack. Once in London, we got through their security rather quickly and didn't have to wait long to board our plane which would take us all the way to Los Angeles. This was the longest flight I have ever been on. It took 11 hours, and more interestingly was the route took us over Iceland, Greenland and Canada. We passed over Greenland about noon local time, and I saw the sun to the South, and being close to winter solstice, it was very low in the sky. I tried to sleep on this fight, but every time I dozed off, they started food service. So during the flight I watched two movies, read, listened to my iPod and ate. In Los Angeles, we got though passport control and customs with no delay and had plenty of time before our connecting flight home. We arrived in San Diego by 6PM and home by 7. This marked my 24th hour of awakness. By 7:30 I was sound asleep and didn't wake up until 7:30 the next morning.

This trip to Italy was very enjoyable and I'm glad we went. We are already planning our trip next Thanksgiving to Buenos Aires with a day trip to Uruguay.

Rome: Traveling to Florence and Pisa

Wednesday was going to be a full day of travel by train, foot and taxi. When we were planning this trip to Italy, we considered a day trip to Pompeii. However, we quickly realized that there wouldn't be time. But when we were looking at our overnight trip to Florence, we noticed that Pisa was only 30 minutes away by train, and this would be a great opportunity to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. So we checked-out of the hotel in Rome and took a taxi to the train station, but not before the hotel doorman almost got into a fight with another taxi driver who tried get us to take his taxi. Once at the train station, we ate breakfast at McDonald's and watched for our train to arrive. When they showed which platform it was on, we walked to the train and boarded, finding our seats with no problem.

We were on the high-speed Eurostar train, and it took about 90 minutes to get to Florence. The seats were comfortable and I spent my time listening to music and looking out the window at the hillsides. It was very green in Italy, and there was a dash of Fall colors in the trees. Once we arrived at Florence, we first looked at the train schedule to Pisa. There was a train leaving within an hour, so we bought four tickets. The train stations have a place where you can leave you baggage, for a fee, which we did since the hotel was far away and we didn't want to carry our bags. When the train arrived, we found seats in the second class car. This train was not as nice as the Eurostar, and we soon had our first encounter with a "pick-pocket", which we were warned about at the ticket booth.

Shortly after we left the station, a man came in the car holding some sheet of paper, and held it in front of my sister, who kept saying "No!". Luckily, Lorie saw him reaching for her purse and she jumped up and said "get out". The man refused and my brother, who is 6'4", like me, stood up and told him to leave his wife alone. The man still didn't leave for a moment, but then walked into the next car. I just sat there watching the whole event, kind of in shock, but ready to jump in if need be, also being much taller than the would-be-thief.

The train trip was uneventful after that. This was a local train, so it stopped several times before arriving at Pisa. Once there, we looked at a map of the city and decided the tower was within walking distance. So we headed through the middle of town, and arrived at the entrance to the plaza in about 20 minutes. The weather cleared up and it was sunny but still cold. After a few photos of the tower, we bought our tickets for the tour of the tower. The tour consisted of a half-hour time slot to walk up the steps, spend time at the top, and walk back down. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is not all that tall, so the hike up the steps wasn't to hard, just a little narrow near the top. It was interesting, while walking up you couldn't tell the tower was leaning, but on the "down" side of the tower, you ended up walking on the outside of the walkway, and on the "up" side of the tower, the worn path was on the inside.

Once at the top, the 360 degree view of Pisa was amazing. Unlike Rome, it was sunny and clear. You could see snow of in the distance mountains, and all the colorful buildings of Pisa were clearly visible. I had left my jacket in the lockers so I wouldn't have to carry it (and my umbrella, which I didn't need), so I was a little cold, but it was worth it. I took many photos and another movie at the top. We then walked back down and retrieved our stuff from the lockers. After somehow getting separated from everyone else after using the restroom, we all met back up, walked around the plaza looking for a place to eat. I bought my one souvenir here, a "leaning shot glass". There were lots of "leaning" gifts to buy. There were no food places inside, so we started walking back the way we came until we found a place to eat. We ended up at a cafe, and had a light lunch. The walk back to the train station was short, so we took our time, looking at the stores along the car-free street. Our train arrived on time and this time it was more crowded, but there were no beggars on board looking for free money.

We got back to Florence before our hotel shuttle pickup time, so we wandered around Florence to get an idea of what we were going to do tomorrow. We had intended to take a hop-on-hop-off bus, but we never did find where to buy the tickets. But after walking through the city for 30 minutes, we realize that everything we wanted to see was within walking distance of the train station. I snapped a few photos, and we walked through a street bazaar, and then back to the station to retrieve our bags. We didn't know where to catch the shuttle, but found a place where hotel shuttles were stopping. After an hour of waiting, we realized that our Sheraton shuttle was not arriving. So another taxi it was. He sped off and got us to our hotel, which was way outside the city.

After checking in, we were ready for dinner. There was nothing near the hotel, so we were forced to eat at the hotel restaurant, which had just opened at 7 PM. Being the only customers, we had two waiters, who attended to us non-stop, constantly switching out our silver ware, based on what we ordered. We first ordered wine, beer and bottled water. We all got the vegetable soup, which was really tasty. I forget what my main course was, but the desert was also good. As we ate, other customers arrived, all business men sitting alone. It was very quite, and we were the only ones talking, so these men were apparently listing to our conversation because we were the most interesting people there.They all heard our conversation with the waiter about a special Tuscan lemon drink. They said one drink would warm you up and two would guarantee you an enjoyable evening. Karen and Lorie each bought one, but I ended up drinking most of theirs. The drink was maybe two ounces, and it seemed to get stronger as you drank it. The alcohol must have sunk to the bottom of the glass. It was rather good and did warm my insides.

This was the most expensive dinner so far, but worth the price for the food and convenience. Back in our room we turned on the TV to see the news about the bombings in India. BBC and CNN were having non-stop coverage of this breaking-news event. Since we had to get up early, I turned the TV off to get some sleep. However, I learned that it is not good to watch news about death and destruction before going to bed. It took me almost an hour to fall asleep, with the disturbing images fresh in my head. The next morning there was a newspaper from New York, and the story about the attack was the fourth article on the front page. The story about the beagle that won the dog show was a bigger headline.

Rome: The Vatican

Tuesday's plan was rather simple - visit the Vatican. We were up early once again and after another quick breakfast we hopped on the metro. The stop for the Vatican was about five stations away - a fairly quick trip. When we started walking to the Vatican, I noticed that there were many more tourists than there were in the center of Rome on the previous day, and an increased number of people trying to sell guided tours of the Vatican. We already had our entrance tickets to the museum and were going to use Rick Steve's audio tour for St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel (this blog is turning into an advertisement for Rick Steves!).

Our first stop was St. Peter's Basilica. First we had to stand in a line to got through security. During the course of this trip, we went through a lot of metal detectors, at airports and all museum. It is sad that they are even necessary. Once though security, we entered the basilica (which is different than a cathedral) and began our audio tour. This tour lasted about 45 minutes. St. Peter's Basilica had a lot more meaning to those visitors that were Catholic, but the statues and decorations were amazing to look at for people of all faiths and beliefs. I even touched the foot of St. Peter, which is supposed to bring you good luck, or something. Because it was so dark, many of my photos didn't turn out very good, even with a flash. This photo of me is very "Photoshopped".

After we were done here, we decided to take the walk to the top of the dome. There are approximately 300 steps to the top of the dome, and even in the cold, everyone worked up a sweat. The higher you get, the narrower the passageway, as can be seen by the photo of me leaning into the wall. I'm not posing for the photo, the staircase really forced you to lean, duck and generally watch your every step. Once at the top (not the fake top), you have a 360 degree view of Rome. If it hadn't been foggy and smoggy, the view would have been even better. I took many photos and even a short movie,which I'll post later. We then headed down, making a stop at the gift store, located on the roof of the basilica.

It was lunch time and we were hungry, so we walked outside the Vatican where we were quickly approached by a man trying to get us to his restaurant. We figured it was as good as any, so we followed him a block away and sat outside. The food was good, but somehow the bill was more than we expected, even though we ordered the special. They add funny charges for tax, service or whatever. Once done eating, we made the long walk to the entrance of the Vatican museum. The museum consists of many museums, covering Roman, Greek, Chinese and many more cultures. Most of the rooms we walked though pretty fast. Most of the statues and paintings looked just like the ones we saw last year in Greece. Plus, if you follow the winding maze of hallways, you eventually make it to the Sistine Chapel, the highlight of the tour.

For some reason I was drawing a blank on the significance of the Sistine Chapel until I entered the room and remembered that this was the famous chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo. If it weren't for the audio tour, one might spend 10 minutes in this beautifully painted room. But Rick Steves has you sit down and he spends 30 minutes explaining the meaning of each painting, and pointing out details that you would not notice without a guide or book. He spent about five minutes explaining The Last Judgment, which was painted several years after the ceiling. This room was very crowded, especially when a large tour group came through. I'd hate to be there in the summer, during the busier time of year.

Once we exited the chapel, we wandered around, looking at a few more rooms and getting a quick snack. It was actually getting late in the day, close to closing time. We walked back to the metro station and headed to our hotel. After a short break, we walked around the streets, in the rain, looking for a place to eat. We ended up at a cafe right outside our hotel. They were extremely nice there. I had vegetable lasagna and a beer, and we all ended up getting desert afterwards. Each desert came with a bonus, smaller desert treat. I had the teramesu, and it just melted in my mouth.

Back at the hotel, it was time to pack up, because we were checking out in the morning and taking the train to Florence.