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Friday, June 13, 2003 - Sight seeing in Rome / Heineken Jammin Festival Saturday, June 14, 2003 - The Eagle's Nest Sunday, June 15, 2003 - Go Back to USA |
 One of the few good things about the 14+ hour drive from Paris to Rome was seeing the sunrise in the Swiss Alps. One of the bad things about the 14+ drive - tolls...and lots of them. Including France and Italy, out tolls totaled about 158 Euros (about $185 US dollars). We got into Rome about mid-afternoon feeling very smelly, dirty and scuzzy. Our hotel room was the only hotel room that we stayed in that had air-conditioning. Thank God because it was 103 degrees. All of us were very tired, so we just showered, ate and slept... |
 ...Eric felt sick, so Gooch and I did some sight seeing early the next day. We first visited the Coliseum, Foro Romano, Campidoglio, and the Piazza Venezia. On our return trip on the subway from the Coliseum area, Gooch and I were stopped by a Rome subway rent-a-cop. He asked to see our subway tickets. Of course he didn't just pick on us because we were tourists, right? Apparently, the time limit on the ticket ran out, so he had to fine us on the spot. We were thinking okay, 5 Euros...maybe 10. Nope! 51 Euro fine which is about $60 US dollars. So I paid $60 to get bent over by a rent-a-cop and he didn't even have the decency to give me a reach-around! As we left, I yelled out thanks for the ass fuck! |
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 On our way back on the subway as we were still in shock/upset about our 51 Euro fine, I noticed that Italian women are very beautiful and sexy...except when you see that they have more armpit hair than you do. Definitely a turn-off! Anyway...Eric met us the Vatican, and we did a group tour. Our tour guide was really slow, so we decided to do our on tour which included inside of the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel which is absolutely one of the most amazing sights on Earth and St. Peter's (even though we weren't allowed to go in because of the dress code). The Sistine Chapel also had some tough rules - no video cameras, no pictures, and no talking. This didn't stop the tourists from taking pictures and talking. It was so dark, none of my pictures came out. |
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 We finish up sight seeing in Rome and drove 213 miles to Imola for the Heineken Jammin Festival. When we finally get there (traffic was terrible), we couldn't find the will call booth. We heard Metallica's crew doing sound check which meant Metallica would be on in 15-20 minutes. Apparently, Italians have not grasped the concept of putting the will call booth near the entrance. To make a long story short, we decided to skip this show for many reasons. So we drove 255 miles to our hotel in Austria and get a good nights sleep. |
| The next day, we traveled to Berchtesgaden, Germany (southeastern corner of Germany). This was where Hitler's Eagle's Nest was (as seen on HBO's Band of Brothers). The Eagle's Nest was Hitler's vacation spot given to him for his 50th Birthday. He hardly visited the place, and the Allies didn't destroy it in WWII, so it remains fully intact. After riding on a bus up a long and winding road, we finally got to the top - 6000 ft. high. It was truly an amazing sight. |
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| As our desire to get back to the good 'ol USA increased, we decided that was enough sight seeing in Europe. We drove 335 miles to our hotel in Frankfurt which happened to be right in the middle of the porn district! Yah! Sunday, June 15th - we finally go back home to the good 'ol USA!!!. We all joked around about what the first thing we were going to do when we got home. Me, I was going to drink a tall glass of ICE water (WITHOUT CARBONATION) in my apartment as the AC was kicking at a very brisk 60 DEGREES FARENHEIT as I sat in my underwear watching a television program where they spoke ENGLISH! Like I said, it was good to be back in the USA! |