Colossal Waste: Around The World 2011 Day 21: Bangkok to Paris to Rome

If I did not make it clear yesterday, we boarded a plane in Bangkok and fell asleep soon after it was in the air. I must have been awful tired, because I slept and slept on this Air France business class bed. I would wake, turn over, and be back to sleep in an instant. When I finally woke up, for all I knew it had been 3 hours or 6 hours.

I awoke to see this beautiful map, placing us near Stuttgart, Germany. (Amusingly, this had been our travel buddy Michael's hometown when he was young.) Both Barbie and I basically slept for ten hours of a twelve hour flight. I could not ask for more.

Sunrise from the airspace over Germany.

Breakfast, Air France style.

A rainy early morning in Paris, but we do not care as we will not be making it outside. We are only here for a short layover and then we board a plane to Rome.

I always take the jetway picture. It proves you are in motion.

All countries need signs like this at the end of their jetways. It is a lovely thing to welcome someone who has just arrived at your doorstep.

The new terminal at Charles de Gaulle. Impressive. We went through customs and then headed for the Air Franc business lounge.

Now that we are in Europe, time to switch my MacBook Air's plug. Yes, this brought me joy.

The joy of not using an adapter. A small joy, for sure, at least I do not have to worry about that heavy cube falling off the adapter.

Yours truly, working on the Waste in an airport lounge. I suppose it is most appropriate to write the Waste in such a place. Soon enough, it was time to board another plane.

Au revoir, Paris.

Here is the moment we broke above the rain. Kind of perfect.

Buon giorno, Roma.

We have arrived in Roma, and met up with Josh at baggage claim. He has flown from Austin to Rome to meet with us for a few days, then he heads over to London to do some work.

You cannot do better entertainment-wise than a Roman taxi driver. I appreciated his fearlessness rushing up on the tram, and if you look you can see him looking at my iPhone in his rear view.

We arrived at our Trastevere apartment, which you will see later. We are all very hungry, and we headed right out into the neighborhood for lunch. We stopped at Pizza Roma, and took a seat.

Josh ordered a Diet Coke, and the Coca-Cola company has done enough research to know that surely anyone drinking Diet Coke is female or wants to be.

Proscuitto e melone.

Mushroom pizza. This pizza was beyond excellent. We will be returning.

This is the Parmigiano Pizza, with eggplant and parmesan. Like I said, we will be returning.

Barbie and Josh in Piazza di San Calisto. We have always loved visiting Trastevere, since our first visit to Rome five years ago. Now that we are finally staying on this side of the Tevere (Tiber) River, we could not be happier.

I have seen Piazza Trilussa a dozen times, but always at night filled with teenagers. To see it empty during the day is surreal.

Josh takes his first picture of the Tevere. He bought a new camera for this trip, but he needs to be mocked for not taking many pictures. He claims to still be in the mindset of film, when we all had to be careful to not use up our film too quickly. Well, that was a decade ago.

We crossed the Ponte Sisto and walked down Via dei Pettinari. That is the smile of a woman who feels like she has returned home.

We strolled over to Campo di Fiore, where merchants sell their junk under the gaze of philosopher Giordano Bruno brooding from under a hooded robe. This is another place that fills with young people at night. Too bad I never came to Rome when I was young. I might have had the best time of my life.

Piazza Navona. Josh has never been to Rome before, and we are taking him on a quick tour of its greatest hits.

Obelisk. I swear to you I will never look at an obelisk and not take its picture. And this picture, with the clouds? I agree, it is an excellent shot.

Some people got gelato at our usual place in Piazza Navona. They shared with me, which means that they are nice and I will not be losing weight.

Time for the greatest of the greats.

Not only is the Pantheon one of my favorite buildings in the world, and one of the most copied buildings in the world, but this visit marks the very first time since 2006 that I have seen it free of scaffolding. No scaffolding! My heart is filled with joys.

We used to always joke about the McDonald's across from the Pantheon. Barbie learned on her recent visit here without me that, gasp, the Panthwon McDonald's is no more.

Everywhere in Thailand the tourists wore Chang Beer shirts. This young man is from Rome, but we stopped him because less than 24 hours ago we were in Bangkok and we needed a shot at the Pantheon with his Chang Beer shirt.

I have taken this picture dozens of times. I know it is old hat, and I tried to do something different next.

Distorted, yes. But I like it. How is that for a shot of the dome of the Pantheon? By the way, I re-remembered that Hadrian had this building erected in 126 A.D. Therefore I have decided that we must come here in 2026 for its 1900th birthday. I am sure Rome is going to put on a party for this.

It is the law that you have to visit Trevi Fountain. And everyone who visits Rome abides the law.

I know, I know. It is predictable that while everyone else takes a picture of the fountain, I take a picture of them taking pictures of the fountain. Note Barbie and Josh have surrounded this Asian tourist.

And note that the Asian tourist has decided to take a picture of Barbie. Or perhaps he is recording video? Barbie could end up on his Women Without Bras 2011 best of video.

Romance.

Travel rule: always always always help people out and offer to take their picture. It makes us better humans to help each other.

Easily the most visited fountain in the world. And it is all because of a movie? A movie everyone misinterprets? Yes, it is almost sad. (Read last year's Trevi Fountain visit for the whole story.) Amazing how a wrong interpretation of something can grow to be so very powerful.

I will turn my back on discussion of other things that have been misinterpreted and become massively influential. Considering how much time I spent in Buddhist temples and will soon be spending in Catholic churches, I best keep quiet.

The Spanish Steps... how am I going to take an original picture of them?

I have an idea.

I used QuadCam and picked a point on the church to place in the corner of each individual shot. Me? I like it. Not sure if anyone else will. It remains to be seen if I liked this experiment enough to repeat it.

You cannot be too fashionable. It remains a dream of mine to fly to rome with an empty suitcase, and then buy an entire new wardrobe here. When I return home, I will be unbearably fashionable and will never let anyone spend more than ten seconds with me before they begin to hear how fashion in the USA is simply nothing. Nothing.

We paid a visit to the Hotel De Russie. This is a Rocco Forte Hotel. If you are a loyal reader at all, you would know that Rocco Forte Hotels are a step above all others. It almost hurts to not be staying here.

Piazza dei Popolo. This huge piazza will always be a favorite, even though shade is very hard to come by and with climate change it seems that Roman summers have gotten hot hot hot.

Redux. I took this shot last year by accident. I take it this year on purpose. Odds are that when I compare them I wills see that the accident cannot be improved upon.

Happy people are photogenic, photographic, and basically cool.

Chemical Brothers? I missed Chemical Brothers by a week? I would be mad, but the truth is that for all I know they have come to L.A. a few times and I have missed them there. Besides, the smoke at a concert in Rome would probably make me sick for a week.

After this good walk, we hopped in a taxi back to Trastevere. After some quick marketing to have the essentials in the apartment, I believe we all hopped on our laptops for a while, as is required by law. Today has been a day of lawfulness.

Here is what you really wanted. Dinner. And even though I was not so hungry and could have skipped dinner, I went out anyway because it seems we cannot convince Josh to join the dinner-skipping plan during his first visit to Rome. Understandable.

We walked around the corner and stopped at the third restaurant, Il Capriccio, one we had scoped out earlier when walking by.

Josh's pasta.

Barbie's mushroom pasta.

I ordered the antipasti size of eggplant parmesan. This was right up there with the best. I would return for sure.

Our server at Il Capriccio is a young woman whom many men would consider memorable.

Walking the fifty meteres back to our apartment, I spotted a store across the street called Frutteria.