Marriage, Rome, Barcelona and other updates

I'm sitting in my cold little house in bed stealing internet from a neighbor. I don't know how long I'll have so I'll try to post as much as possible.

I'm married. The wedding was perfect and I love being married to Matthew. It's amazing how you can be so scared of something that is so blissfully wonderful. Matthew is a perfect husband, which makes it easy. After only 2.5 weeks, it's incredible how much more I love him than I did the day we got married. Here are some wedding photos:

We were married in the Oakland Temple which means that we did not take vows "until death do us part,"
 but we made eternal covenants. We will be married to each other forever. I think this is one of the more tender parts of my religion.

We were lucky enough to be able to go to Barcelona and Rome for our honeymoon. And we were especially lucky because we didn't get stuck in Heathrow like 10,000 other people did during that week.

Barcelona was beautiful. The whole city was a distinct mix of varied architectural styles and it was all very art-centered. We ate some amazing food there and bought almost 2 kilos of candy (all of which is gone already). We spent Christmas Eve at Midnight Mass. The people there were unbelievably kind and friendly and welcoming. They were beside themselves with excitement that we were there. The Priest himself came to us and said (more or less since neither of us speak Catalan) "It makes me so happy to see such young people attending church." I almost cried I was so touched. It was wonderful to feel the love of Christ and charity from these people, especially on Christmas.

Xurro and Xocolate (Catalan for "The best thing EVER!")

Sagrada Famili

This is a real thing. Part of the Christmas tradition is that there was one shepherd who missed the angels coming because he was off going poop (see image above). To be fair to the poor shepherd, whose only crime was obeying his bodily necessities, people add a pooping man to their nativities because it's not fair that he should be left out. Here is a giant effigy made to honor that man.

My husband, feeding pigeons. He then informed me that I would make him the happiest man alive if I bought him a pigeon as a present. No way.

Delicious paella. It was so good going down -much worse coming back up several hours later. Matthew was a good husband and stayed up with me until I could fall asleep again. We watched Catalan dubbed "Saddle Club".

Our next stop was Rome. We actually spent a disgusting amount of time in airports this trip. In SFO we sat in the airport for 4 hours. In Heathrow, 9 hours. In Barcelona, 5 hours. In Rome, 8 hours. Then in Heathrow again but we had to sprint across the entire airport. I thought I was going to pass out. I love traveling, but it is really comforting to know that I don't have to fly anywhere any time soon.

These photos are very out of order so bear with me. This is a photo inside St Peters Basilica early one morning.

Outside the Capitol building. It was built right next to the original Roman Forum in homage to its first capitol buildings.

St. Peter's Basilica -the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church. Usually the line is 4-6 hours long (see photo a few down), but we woke up at 6.30 and we were the first in line. American's know how to wake up early to queue. We toured the Basilica with no more than 10 other people. It was incredible to be there as it was, but to be there alone made the Basilica even bigger. It was honestly an enormous structure. It was early enough that people were taking mass and we could hear some people chanting somewhere. 

My favorite thing was pointing our Papal Keys all over the city. There were EVERYWHERE. I loved it because of the clearly defined importance the Roman Catholic Church placed on keys of the kingdom while we have a very strong emphasis on keys in our religion. Little things like this remind me that the Gospel is true. 

Our favorite Gelati place. We went there every day (sometimes twice a day). Pistachio was THE BEST. Followed closely by Blood Orange.

Outside St. Peter's in the early morning. Rome really doesn't wake up until almost 9 am. 

Best pizza ever. Again, we came back almost every day. 

Rafael's tomb. Yes, Rafael. 

Here's the long line I was talking about. At its peak, it almost went all the way out of Vatican city.

No explanation needed. 

The man who made our delicious pizza.

Tiramisu. It was even better than I thought it would be. And it was absolutely worth 7 Euro.

Remus and Romulus. We bought one of these statues for our house.

Colloseum. There is too much to say about it. It is bigger than you can possibly imagine and the whole time we were there we wanted to watch Gladiator.

Pantheon

In the massive ruins of the ancient city Palantine we found an orange orchard. The oranges were so golden and beautiful and plump. They were, however, really gross.

We had an incredible trip to Europe. We're so blessed that we were able to go. I could really go for some pizza right now. We did throw coins into the Trevi Fountain (which means you're supposed to return to Rome in your lifetime) so hopefully we'll go back someday.

The Hotel Pink Floyd

Last night Matt and I booked our hotel for Barcelona, but we had the hardest time finding a place to stay in Rome. We found this place called Hotel Pink Floyd, their own website made it sound pretty good -really close to the center of Rome, really cheap, bare bones but workable. We were about to book it when we read this review:

Where do I start? On arrival at Rome Termini, I spent a good one and a half hours wandering the streets of Rome looking for the ill sign-posted, Hotel Pink Floyd. On eventually finding it, I thought I had arrived at the scene of Dante's Inferno.

The decor can only be described as being that of a retro-sixties crack-den. The bunk-beds, whilst functional (insofar as you could just about sleep on them - and we only managed this because we went out and got bladdered to make up for the pain of having to stay here) were somewhat dangerous. I sat up a bit too quick and ended up with a sharp shard of metal scraping my forehead.

Now onto the toilets. Ah yes, I thought I was in Rome yet I got to see one of the world's natural wonders, Niagra Falls recreated before my very eyes as I attempted to flush the unit. We basically had to limit our toilet trips during the night so as not to create a flood.

We didn't have to co-habit with any humans, although I would say that Alexander Fleming would've had a field-day with the amount of penicilin available - so at least if you need antibiotics, you can probably help yourself to the vast array of moulds there.

Bare wires in the wall (apprantly a television arial), removable windows (see 3rd reviewers pictures) and a wonderful door which needed kicking down practically to get in, all added to the experience of one night in purgatory.

Seriously though, I've stayed in many hostels - and this is by far the worst I've stayed in. Hostel isn't really appropriate - this is merely a couple of rooms in a ghetto - no social life.

Why it's called Pink Floyd? Who knows? The only reason I can think of is that you'd require an LSD trip of Roger Waters proportions to enjoy. Please don't stay if you value your time in Rome - it almost spoilt ours.



We're not staying there...