Slanted Rays

This image features the Château de Versailles from a distance. A long, winding line of people are waiting to enter the château. The old, stone structure stands on the left, with a golden gate in front of it. To the right, a taller structure that appears to have a hallway with a mural and columns is actually an optical illusion; the columns are painted it using perspective to trick your eye. Hello! I have decided to scatter my Adventures in Tourism blog posts, rather than foregoing them altogether or writing the remaining posts one after another. Eventually, I hope to evolve to posting about strange and interesting places that I visit in the United States. For today, I want to tell you about my visit to Versailles. I procrastinated on visiting Versailles until my last day in Paris. After a week of post-study-abroad travel, I wanted nothing more than to stay in the hostel and rest. However, I dragged myself to the metro station and headed off to Versailles. With the advent of...

The only surviving picture from my fourth day in Rome, featuring a set of statues at the Piazza de Popolo.   Hello! By my fourth and final day in Rome, I was exhausted, nearly out of phone storage, and impatient to get on the train to Florence. We checked out of our AirBNB at 10 AM, so I spent the day lugging around my travel backpack filled with everything I would need for the week. Still, I enjoyed a pleasant, relaxed day with limited responsibilities beyond ensuring that I caught the train to Florence. In lieu of the usual "photos with commentary" Adventures in Tourism blog post format, I am posting an excerpt from my journal, with minor edits for grammar and clarity. I am writing this while resting at the Piazza de Popolo. My phone has cursedly run out of storage space, so I am unable to take photos, and Google Maps won't load correctly. However, I am trying to see this as a positive. When I'm traveling, I always feel bad taking the time to look after...

Landscape photo featuring the Colosseum,  three tall trees, and a cloudy sky. This was my favorite shot of the day. Hello! Out of the photo sets that I have been ruthlessly dumping on Facebook, the photo sets for my third day of Rome is the largest because, for some mysterious reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to visit Vatican City and the Colosseum on the same day. We arrived at the Vatican an hour later than I had initially planned, which put a wrench in any hopes of getting in line early. There were many third-party sellers trying to sell us skip-the-line tickets. These sellers said that they were employees of the Vatican, but they tried to sell us tickets at several times the regular price. After choosing not to get skip-the-line tickets, the next choice in the tourists' Choose Your Own Adventure game is whether to get in line to see the inside of St. Peter's Basilica, or to get in line for the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. We chose the second...