Italy Trip Journal

Foreword by Brian Cobb

So, here is my Italy Trip Journal. I wrote it in the summer in between freshman and sophmore year of college, roughly one year after the trip. I believe this journal is poorly written, simply because it was written more as a reminder of the times I had while in Italy, rather than a means to entertain. I really have no clue whether or not ya'll will like it. I hope ya'll do. But I understand if you don't. Let me know of any suggestions or any questions ya'll have pertaining to events, places, happenings, and whatever I can do to make the journal more pallatable for those who were not on the trip. Please please give me comments on whether or not ya'll like it and what I can do to make it better. Read, comment, and enjoy!


Well it’s been over a year. Though it feels like yesterday when we went to Italy. I was hoping to write this about 8 months ago. But college, it turned out, was a little more work from McGill. Now, its my first full day of summer so I decided to do something productive. So here it is.

Friday, April 13, 2001:
The day before we left. I remember having butterflies in my stomach. I had a checked and re-checked my luggage making sure I had my passport and stuff like that. I was physically prepared for the trip but I had no idea what to expect. That night I got to bed at about 1:30am. I was wakened by Mom and Dad at about 3:30 in the morning. I remember feeling like I hadn’t slept at all and I was wide awake and feeling fully refreshed.
Saturday, April 14:
After a long night of sleep I awoke at 3:30am. I got my luggage and headed out the door along with my surprisingly wide awake brother and parents. Matt on any given school day takes about 4 hours to get out of bed and about 5 to be fully awake-just in time for school to be out. That morning was different. We arrived at McGill about 4:00am and I saw some of the ugliest people I have ever seen. No offense to anyone. Nobody looks great at 4 in the morning. After gagging from the sight of some people I stumbled out of the car and greeted everyone. I don’t remember who it was but some dumbass shined a video camera with this bright light in my face. I then made a secret pact with myself to kill this person. All of the guys and Brian Upton began to cram all of the luggage and instruments into the bus. Then everyone sat around and got briefed by Mr. Hallman and I‘m sure Mrs. Stewart said something. Then we said our goodbyes to our parents and left about 6am. We were supposed to leave about 5, but oh well.
The bus ride was blurry. We stopped at a rest stop around Montgomery. Then after that I got on the bus I blacked out. I awoke in the middle of loading instruments into a luggage container in an airplane hanger at the Atlanta airport. I thought they hired people to do this task but hey what would I know about loading luggage onto planes. We then drove to the airport and waited in line at customs. It would’ve been a boring wait but my bro kept us all entertained with his witty humor and some jokes that probably broke International Laws. We then found our terminal and waited some more. After, what felt like over 2hrs, I heard over the intercom a women announce the boarding of our flight. I was so excited and nervous I almost threw up. Now everyone in our group was beginning to act like tourist. We were all loud, obnoxious, jumping up and down, and some dumbass was filming his empty plane seat before he sat in it. I took my seat. Then it hit me. I was going to Italy. I WAS GOING TO ITALY…the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, David, the food, and the culture. I was seriously about to cry with happiness, fear, and overall excitement. The fasten your seatbelt sign came on and we climbed a cruising altitude of about 42,000ft and we leveled off. The flight was awesome. It was here where the whole group of about 60 people began to bond in ways no one would expect. Think about it we got to know each in a very special way. And it all started with that plane ride.
91/2hrs later, Easter Sunday, April 15:
I felt very weird. I didn’t slept at all since the bus to Atlanta and then I only got about an hour. Add that to my 2hrs of sleep the night before and that equals only about 3hrs of sleep. I’ll pause here to let all of slow people do the math. …Ok. Back to the story. The flight was great. I remember Chris (the dumbass) [Even though I wrote this a full year after the trip, for some reason I was still rather bitter towards Chris for shining a bright light in my face at 4am] filming the landing even though the Captain asked that ALL electronics should be turned off. So now Chris has a segment of me looking over from my seat yelling at him to turn of the camera as we made our slightly turbulent entry in the Zurich airport. Ahh, yes, Zurich Switzerland has a neat airport. And that’s about all I know about Zurich, Switzerland. We played in the airport waiting for our next flight. Some people bought some chocolate and looked at the world famous Swiss watches. It was great. If we would’ve gone home right then I would say that the trip was awesome. We then waited at the airport “terminal”. This airport was a little different from Atlanta. The terminal weren’t terminals at all by American standards. They were a bus ride across the runway to your plane. As we were about to load the buses. Something strange happened. It began to snow. We frolicked and pranced through our new found glory. We held our mouths open towards the sky and took pictures. We looked like idiots to all of the other passengers but who cares. The Swiss people probably trashing us in their native tongue to our faces. But it was fun. We drove to our plane and watched the Swiss baggage handlers give special treatment to our luggage. I saw a trumpet case that sat on the runway for about 30mins in the middle of a snow storm. During this short 1 ½ flight to Rome a lot happened. My bro Matt and Corwin secured a special place in Mrs. Stewarts heart by annoying her throughout the flight. All I can say is that she deserved it and Matt and Corwin weren’t necessarily doing anything bad but they were doing stuff that annoyed Mrs. Stewart. Like talking and laughing and breathing. Then we passed over the Swiss Alps. Which were unbelievable. I guess this was our first real breathtaking sight of the trip. Another thing that happened, was the incident that involved Matt, Emily, and two pieces of Swiss chocolate. During the flight, Em and Matt accepted Swiss Chocolates that were being passed out by the Swiss stewardesses. Let me pause here to remember the Swiss stewardesses…aaww yea. Alright, so Matt and Em accepted the chocolates while in sleepy stopper. They then fell asleep. And during landing they awoke to find the chocolates liquefied on their shirts. I consider this the first great sight on the trip. Everyone laughed. They did not. But oh well.
We landed in Rome welcomed by custom agents with automatic assault rifles. Chocolate Matt made no jokes here. To some people’s dismay their luggage never showed up in Rome. I personally think it had to do with the special care provided by the Swiss baggage handlers. After American Mr. Hallman tried to communicate with the Italian Customs Agency about the lost luggage, we left thinking that the luggage will arrive in February on the backs of alligators fueled by spaghetti. I think there was a misinterpretation somewhere in the conversation. We then departed from the airport for our first major stop in Rome (our shall I say outside of Rome and outside of Italy completely). Vatican City.
Ahh yes. Vatican City. This for me was a life changing experience. I vividly remember walking through the streets of Rome and turning around a corner catching my first glimpse of the walls surrounding Vatican City. I was awe struck. The entrance of Vatican City has HUGE pillars and columns that form a crescent shape around St. Peters square. The curvature of the crescent and the size of the columns don’t allow anyone entering to see the St. Peters Basilica or the full scope of the piazza. The square was designed like this for defensive purposes so that attacking armies would be unaware what awaited in the square. I wasn’t attacking but I was definitely unaware of the full scale and awesome beauty of St. Peters square. So like pretty much anyone that enters, I passed through the huge columns and came upon an opening, which was St. Peters Square. It was unbelievable, but I can recall the site to this day. The square of course is big, but I wouldn’t say massive, but the architecture, the statues of Saints that peered down on the square from the walls of the crescent, the fountains, the obelisk, and probably many other fixed structure that I was unaware of due to my senses being overwhelmed. It also was a beautiful crisp clear Easter day, which added to the experience. The whole group of about sixty people were in the same state of mind I was in. Everyone jaws dropped and all was silent within our group. I wasn’t only moved by the sight of the place but also the history of it. Knowing that I was standing on the grounds where some of the greatest leaders of history ruled and where some of the greatest people walked and live and of course died. The obelisk in the center of the square marks the place where St. Peter himself was crucified. I didn’t know this until years after I left (we were not accompanied by a tour guide at this time), after walking around the square and taking many pictures I decided to sit at the base stone of the obelisk to rest and think over what I’m looking at. Our grouped all gathered together to go into St. Peter’s Basilica. Once again I was unprepared physically and mentally to see that sight too.
Still in awe, I started walking up the slight incline towards the Basilica. Once again, we walked through a set of columns and pillars, and entered the Basilica. This sight was even more breathtaking than the square. As we entered straight to our left was Michelangelo’s famous Pieta, which is a sculpture of the Mother Mary holding Jesus after he was pulled off the Cross. Also, there was awesome and very very detailed stained glass windows, frescos, paintings, statues, and there were many painting on the ceilings of the Basilica portraying angels and other religious symbols. At least, I thought they were paintings. I found out that they were actually mosaics. But due to the height of the ceilings and the small size of the pieces of stones and marble they looked like a huge painting on the ceiling. I still couldn’t believe it when I found out they were mosaics from one of the chaperones. The main alter was right in the center of the church. It was all bronze and massive and was designed by Bernini who also designed the square and the Basilica itself and he sculpted Trevi Fountain too. He makes me feel worthless. The bastard. The Basilica is mostly made of gold. Wherever there is a railing or some metal work it is gold. Its unbelievable. There is also the tomb of St. Peter in the direct center of the church, which is also the entrance to the tombs of all the Popes of the Catholic Church. It is made of gold too. At seeing all this, I will admit I cried from being overwhelmed by both thought and the sight of it all. I can’t stress how great a sight it was. I hid my crying by making it look like I was coughing and had something in my eye. So no one knew. After, I gather myself we all sat down to partake in Easter Mass. This was the first time I got to really relax since we got off the bus about 40hrs ago. I had no sleep since we got off the bus. So I sat in pew and proceeded to dose off while in St. Peter’s Basilica. I remember there was some Latin and that the choir sang. The priest said what I thought was a homely and then a lot of people got and left. So I left too. I went and sat at the base of the obelisk again. And just chilled talking to some of my friends who left too. A lot of the others stayed in church. After a while they all came back out and I realized I just missed Easter Mass at the Vatican. And I actually wasn’t bummed about it at all. I had a good time just sitting at the obelisk and really getting a chance to take all of it in and to relax a little. Plus, I think my lack of emotion for missing mass was due to my lack of sleep. We all gathered and met our buses to go to our hotel for the night. The hotel was named Hotel Pergola, a.k.a. Hotel Purgatory to all that resided there on our trip. Most of us dropped off our bags, some watched others drop off their bags (because they had none!). Luckily, the restaurant we were going to eat at was right across the street. So we all met there and sat down for our first Italian meal. We pretty much just sat down and fussed at each other because we were all tired and jet lag. Looking back on it, it was really funny. The food didn’t ease our attitudes and wasn’t too good at all. I think the restaurant made all the food in bulk since we had such a big group. And it was pre-made too because some of it was cold. The meal included a salad, some potatoes and pork and a little bit of (cold) pasta. Sounds good huh? The restaurants name was Ristorante Pizzado e Grigliando. Then we all crossed the street and returned to our hotels rooms. My room consisted of a room about as big as an O’Leary room. However, it had 5 beds. And a fake TV (the TV was hollow- it no wiring or tubes) on a stand. Along with our luggage and instrument. We had left 2 sqft of unused floor. Just enough for one to shimmy across the room to their bed. The bathroom had a shower without a curtain, a bidet, a sink, and a toilet. Many people complained about the size of their rooms and the lack of space. Some rooms just had a drain in the floor and a shower head on the wall- no tub. I didn’t care. We weren’t in the luxury of America anymore. I wouldn’t have had any other way. I came to Italy to experience new things and this hotel was exactly that. Plus it wasn’t as rough as camping. I would’ve been happy sleeping in my suitcase on the street honestly. My room consisted of Chris, Nick, Erik, and David (who evidently was attached at the hip to his girlfriend Kristina). We all went to sleep pretty quickly.