Roman Holiday Part 9 - Pizza & Wine and Everything's Fine

Previously: I did a lot of stuff in Rome, most recently wandering around on Aventine Hill, so much so that it made me hungry for dinner. I decided to go to La Montecarlo, which is a pizzeria that was highly recommended in my Frommer’s guide. Distance-wise it was a bit of a walk from my hotel, but the path seemed straightforward enough on the map. Suffice to say, I got completely lost, yet again, and this time I really should’ve known better.

I went to far North, and instead of turning around on the main street I was on I decided to head East and then what I assumed would be back south, as if the crazy backstreets of Rome were formed in an NYC-style grid. They are not. They took me in several diagonal directions until I wound up heading North again. So, eventually I made it back to the right street heading in the right direction. I kept walking East, waiting to come across La Montecarlo but I kept on going and nothing was there. By this time, I’m really hungry because dinner is already much later than usual and I’ve been walking (and biking! Nilor!) all day long. Just as I’m about to give and head to the nearest McDonald’s (there are quite a few) . I give myself one more intersection, and there luckily was La Montecarol. The restaurant was very busy and there was a long line of people waiting. Since it is “solo mio” eating at a table for one tonight, though, I get seated rather quickly. A bonus of travelling alone is that even crowded places can usually find a space for just one person.

So I sit down and look over the menu. I went with “The Frieds, for One” as my appetizers and a pizza with all the toppings for my main meal and ¼ carafe of house red to drink. I went with the frieds, because back on the plane ride over the Tisi Women told me I had to sample the fried cheese balls that have different fillings in them. This seemed like my last big opportunity. When the frieds came out, I thought my eyes were deceiving me. The plate was huge! How was this an order for one person? Seriously there were probably 12 pieces of fried goodness in my serving. I wolfed them down. They were quite filling and I probably would’ve been okay with just eating them for dinner but I knew I had a personal size pizza on the way so I’d just have to really fill up tonight. I gulp down the carafe of wine, which was gone before the pizza came out. I order a second carafe to eat with the pizza. So delicious! Worth wandering the streets at night to find it.

So now I was stuffed to the gills what else could be the next stop for the night but Giolotti’s for a triple scoop of gelati? Sounded reasonable to me. I figured I’d take a nighttime stroll around the Pantheon and then make my way up to my favorite gelati store. As I’m walking along, I recognize that I’m a bit tipsy. Certainly not drunk because no matter how much wine I had I’d eaten just pounds and pounds of food. But it had been a LONG day and I was tired and the streets of Rome are very uneven and I was staggering, more so than usual. I was also feeling happy. As I came upon the Pantheon (I found it without getting lost!) everything suddenly became really hilarious to me. The craziness of taking this trip by myself, all the stuff I’d seen the fact that I had managed to avoid getting myself in any trouble despite my general ignorance about where I would be. Then, my life in general became really hilarious to me. How I was alone and had been for a long time and no matter what new goals I had set for myself over the past year, I still had not managed to solve that one big riddle of loneliness in my life. Oh, how funny it suddenly was! I looked up at the Pantheon, who’d been standing in that same spot for a couple millennia. Did it have answers to this riddle? Did it feel lonely? I give one of it’s big marble columns a hug. It feels so strong and cool against me skin. Maybe I was a little drunk.

(Looking at this picture makes jealous of myself for that delicious gelati. I also i wonder where I put that sweater...)

The piazza around the Pantheon was bustling late at night even though it had closed hours before. It was still filled with people who were eating at the surrounding restaurants or just sitting around and talking, drinking in the atmosphere. I make my way up the street and around the corner to Giolotti’s and get myself a nice cone of chocolate chip, frutti di bosco and pistachio. Yum yum yum! There was room in my tummy after all! With cone in hand, I headed back to my hotel. I would be leaving for Rome the following afternoon and I had a full morning of activities planned.

At the hotel, I made my way to the lounge (which was empty of course, since the bar closes at midnight) and hopped on the computer to find out where in the hell that Mouth of Truth was hiding. Turns out the concierge lady was pretty close in finding it for me. Instead of being South of Circus Maximus west of it instead. I double check with the map in my Frommer’s guide and sure enough I see piazza bocca d. verita in blue italic font. With that I retired to my room and start packing all my non-essentials for tomorrow, so I didn’t have to spend time on it in the morning. Then thoroughly exhausted, I conked out on my bed for a good night’s sleep.

My previous adventures: My Flight There, Emperor Palpatine's Hill, Good Times at the Colosseo & Vatican, SPB & The 39 Steps, The Pantheon, Gays and Dining Out. Owen & Nilor Take Via Borghese, The More Than 39 steps of Vittoriano and The Battle For Aventine Hill

Roman Holiday Part 8 - The Secret Treasures of Aventine Hill

Previously: I got some bad directions on my quest to find the Mouth of Truth, and wound up heading to Aventine Hill. Aventine Hill is truly a beautiful area of Rome, sprinkled with lovely residences and churches of all shapes and sizes. It’s so beautiful that as I wandered around there I fantasized about living there, getting some job where I could work from home, and order my groceries from the Italian version of Fresh Direct, and eventually meet a nice woman online and show her pictures of my house and she would come stay with me and then we’d get married on the premises and then when the time came for it, we’d home school my children so I never had to leave. It’s that nice there.

As I wandered around the Hill, I never gave up hope that I’d eventually stumble upon the Mouth of Truth. That of course didn’t happen, but what did happen was that I saw several churches with lush amazing courtyards and obscene views of the city down below. A really impressive one was Santa Sabina. The courtyard was filled with people right at dusk, and so many of these people were just sitting around making out! It’s a very romantic atmosphere, but come on, people! We’re on church property!

When I made it as far as I could up the hill I got to this area that was closed off by high walls and there was a sign indicating the property belonged to the University Of Rome. There were vines growing all along the top of the wall that stretched back almost giving an appearance of a roof on what otherwise looked like an open garden space beyond the wall. The wall was otherwise non-descript until you came to a place where there were two giant green doors and several military men carrying automatic rifles. Automatic rifles?!! What the hell is going on? Why is the military guarding this area? I became very nervous that perhaps I didn’t quite understand where I was. Was I trespassing on the hill? If I made a wrong move were the guards gonna gun me down, no questions asked (none in English anyway)?

There was a short line of people standing in front of the green doors. They looked like tourists to me. I can spot my own kind. There was a small circular hole in one of the doors right above the handle. The people in the line walk up to the door one by one and take a peek into what’s going on through the hole. This is met with a lot of oohing and ahhing afterwards. The military guys are not shooting any of these people, so I reason it’s okay if I get on line as well.

When it’s my turn to go, I put my eye up to the hole in the door and I gasp because it’s like Fucking Narnia on the other side. I mean, not literally. It’s not like Mr. Tumnus was inside prancing about, but there are row and rows of shrubs that create this archway leading out on the horizon, and there miles away but framed perfectly within the archway stands the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, blazing in the light of the setting sun. It was an amazing telescopic effect and it was so unexpected and quite breathtaking. Right at that moment I was so happy the concierge at the hotel gave me such horrible directions to the Mouth of Truth. Otherwise I never would’ve found this hidden treasure. I’m so thankful to have seen this, while I was in Rome.

After that, I looked at one more beautiful church and then started back down the hill. My search for the Mouth of Truth had not been successfully completed, but I was out of daylight. I vowed to locate it online when I got back to the hotel and seek it out in the morning before I left for the airport.

I walked back to my hotel and took a small nap before heading out again for dinner. I also watched this travel show on BBC International that explained to me the benefits of visiting Germany when it’s not Oktoberfest. Then finally: dinnertime!

Note: Somehow I took no pictures of this part of my Aventine Hill journey. I know why. I was running low on shots in the disposable and the light was fading. I had gotten several skyline shots of Rome from Vittoriano earlier in the day and wasn't really that stoked for more. But I did take this one picture between Vittoriano and my hotel that's worth mentioning. There was this Native American band playing on the street, possibly selling a CD. They were SO LOUD. I could hear them all the way past the Colosseo. They were the last thing I expected to see on this side of the Atlantic. It gave me a good chuckle.

My Flight There, Emperor Palpatine's Hill, Good Times at the Colosseo & Vatican, SPB & The 39 Steps, The Pantheon, Gays and Dining Out. Owen & Nilor Take Via Borghese, and The More Than 39 steps of Vittoriano

Roman Holiday Part 7 - Never Ending Staircases and the Start of Wild Goose Chases

(My BBFF Nilor as we said good-bye at the bike rental place in Borghese. Gone but not forgotten...)

Previously: Nilor came to my aid in Via Borghese. Good times were had, but all good things come to an end. Having parted from Nilor, and now with only my feet now to carry me, I walked over to the cinema center in Via Borghese and had lunch – very delicious sandwiches to be had there! Afterwards, I took a final stroll around the grounds and head back to the Bat Cave-style Metro entrance that leads under the hill back toward Ancient Rome. As I start down the first bit of stairs, I got the first inkling of how Gypsies could make themselves a threat, as there was one sitting not so idly at the top of the stairs and a more suspicious-looking one standing on the first landing. They don’t pay me no mind as I pass, but there is a family coming up the stairs a few levels down. The children were running ahead of their parents and it looked like they were gonna take the side that would’ve brought them right up on the gypsies. I’m pretty sure I told them to take the gyspy-free side of the stairs, but I honestly don’t remember. It seems like something I’d do. I didn’t see what happened to the family, but I’m sure everything turned out okay.

The stairs going down are a endless as they were heading up and it really felt like I was traveling through the Mines of Moria after a while. Finally I emerged from the metro system to find myself situated right outside a gelati store! Excellent! I’ll take one with strawberry and lemon, please! Yummy! I turned the corner from the gelati store and Bam! What’s right in front of me but the 39 Steps! I couldn’t believe it. I had spent so much time the day before looking for the 39 Steps and then after that, looking for a gelati store in the vicinity, and this day I’m not looking for either and they both fall into my lap. I took my gelati up the Steps and decided this was the perfect opportunity to revisit my favorite painting in Rome at the Trinita de Monte. I wanted to make sure I wrote down the name of the piece and the artist who created it for future reference. I went into the church, took a good long gaze at the painting, sat down and said a prayer and then got out my journal to jot down “Corvi – Archangel St. Michael.” It is at this point that I notice I had scribbled down a note higher up on the same page that said “mouth of truth!” What was this? Oh, yes! On the plane the Tisi Women had told me I should see the Mouth of Truth which was shown in Roman Holiday. I almost forgot about it! I made a mental note to find out where it is after I make my next few scheduled stops.

I headed out of the church and travelled back down The 39 Steps. I made my way through town to Trevi Fountain to see what it was like during the day. Still as crowded as ever! But I made my way to the lip of the fountain and threw some change over my shoulder into the fountain for good luck.

(Trevi Fountain during the day, still beautiful and now 40 cents richer for my money.)

After that, I headed back down Via Del Corso toward the monument of Vittoriano. It’s this giant white stone monument that apparently the locals revile, but if you walk all the way to the top you can see an Amazing View of Rome, so that’s what I planned to do! It is a pretty long climb and the guards there are not big on letting people rest along the way. You cannot sit on the steps. This is the Vittoriano, not the Postal Building at 34th st and 8th Ave.

(It doesn't look like a lot from here, but I'd already climbed several levels to get to this point.)

So I climbed and climbed until finally I got to a level where you can take a lift the rest of the way to the top but you’ve gotta pay 7 euros for the ride. It’s worth it. The view from Vittoriano is great! It was a beautiful afternoon and it felt like the view just went on forever. You feel like you're up very high and it’s kinda of scary for agoraphobics like me, but I kept reminding myself that I’ve been sky-diving and been much higher than this and nothing bad happened to me then so I'd be okay now.

(Look! There in the distance is my beloved Colosseo! Rome is a beautiful city.)

When I finished taking in the beautiful sitting while basking in the mid-afternoon sun, I started my descent back down the monument. It’s funny, but whenever I face a long flight of stairs, I always think of my friend Suki who broke her ankle badly on some unsafe stairs at a 2-story Duane Reade a couple years ago. On my way down Vittoriano I kept thinking “Oh, Suki would not like these stairs.” Then when I was almost at the bottom with 5 steps to go, my ankle caves in and I go tumbling down. Luckily all that was injured was my pride. If you’d seen it happen you’d probably think it was hilarious, but at the moment I was very nervous that I had injured myself and I was alone and a fair distance from my hotel, and what about the marathon I had to run that was only a few weeks away?? But a quick assessment revealed that I was not hurt. It could’ve been much worse, as those stone steps can be very unforgiving. Somehow I managed to land on my right hand in just the right way that it broke my fall without breaking my wrist. Nothing else to do but dust myself off, walk down the last couple steps and head back to my hotel to get more info on the Mouth of Truth!

Now oddly enough, my Frommer’s Guide does not list Bocca de Verita or Mouth of Truth in its index, so after breezing through the different maps looking for it, I gave up and asked the concierge at the Mercure Colosseo for help. The lady at the counter printed out a small map of Rome from the interent and circled an area south of the Circus Maximus. She tells me the Mouth of Truth is there. This is not true. The Mouth of Truth is not there. But I don’t figure this out until WAY later. So in the meantime I’m about to get myself all sorts of lost on Aventine Hill!

Next Up: Part 8 - The Battle for Aventine Hill! Guns are involved! I'm not kidding! For the rest of trip: My Flight There, Emperor Palpatine's Hill, Good Times at the Colosseo & Vatican, SPB & The 39 Steps, The Pantheon, Gays and Dining Out. and Owen & Nilor Take Via Borghese

Roman Holiday Part 6 - Via Borghese, Travel provided by Nilor

In honor of Rafael Nadal's bid this week to claim his fifth Rome Tennis Masters championship, I've decided to finally transcribe the remaining stories of my adventures in Rome last October from my notebooks into my blog. I had been working on them months ago, but never completed them until now. By finishing, I'm keeping a new year's resolution I made to myself to finish the projects I start, so even if it's just for the sake of finishing, and no one reads it, I'm glad I'm doing it. Enjoy! (hopefully!)

So... we're up to Sunday (links to parts 1-5 are at the bottom)! I woke up in my hotel room and realized that the room was too bright for what time I think it ought to be. I overslept?!! Where was my wake up alarm that I set on my TV the night before? Hmph. Not good. I got up and checked and saw The TV was not working at all. Curiouser and curiouser. I tried the lights and they weren’t working either. Hmm… Luckily there was a decent amount of sunlight coming in the room. I got myself ready, and as I turn on my camera I note the battery is very nearly dead. This is of much concern because it’s a rechargeable battery and as I noted earlier, I don’t have a working outlet converter for any of my electronic gizmos. Once the battery died, it’d be dead til I got home. I felt like if I just turned it on, took pictures quickly and turned it off again, I could make it though the day. I had high hopes! High delusional hopes!

I made my way downstairs and asked the desk clerk about the TV on my way out. “Ah yes,” we have had a power outage. It should be back shortly.” She said without concern. I don’t really know how she’s checking people in or out in this condition, but okay, if she’s not gonna worry, I’m not gonna worry.

I headed out from the hotel toward the metro (Hi Colosseo! You’re looking well today!) heading for today's first destination: Via Borghese. I was very excited to explore this area of Rome. It’s a large park area to the north of the Ancient Stuff. I got off the train at the Spagna station. The station here is very interesting. It’s kind of inside the hill (a very very tall steep hill and there are many stairs and escalators that take you from the bottom to the top. It’s a longer process than you’d think and it eventually lets you out into this overrun area that looks like a secret batmobile entrance the batcave on the 60's Batman TV show. You come out and you’re on the side of the highway… it’s weird. It felt unsafe. But that was the entrance to the metro! I walked about 200 yards north and came to the proper intersection leading into Via Borghese. It’s very pretty. I was excited because once again the weather was gorgeous and the sky was beautiful. Before heading in, I decided to take a walk down the street and find a place to grab some delicious pastry for breakfast. Not a lot was open yet because it was still early on a Sunday morning. But I found a nice coffee bar and got myself a croissant and a banana and headed back toward the parks.

Via Borghese is LARGE. There are several museums, picnic areas, ponds, and attractions throughout the many many roads and paths within its borders. There’s even a zoo! I walked a little ways in and saw a bike rental area. It was 10 euros to rent a bike for three hours. I decided to invest in the bike figuring I'd be able to cover much more ground on a bike in 3 hours than I would on my feet. I went with a traditional bike instead of a mountain bike. I’m not sure why, maybe it was a little cheaper, but it was fate that I did so, as I was introduced to my BBFF (bicycle best friend forever) Nilor. I didn’t know it right away but Nilor (that was the word written on the frame of the bike and thusly it became my name for him) and I would bond quite deeply over then next few hours.

When I got on Nilor, it was like I had been riding with him for ages. He was very comfortable to my height and body frame and we just took off. I tested the brakes as we went downhill and they were solid. Oh, how nice it was to feel the breeze against my skin as we whooshed through the crowds! It was not a steep hill, but the incline was enough that I didn’t even need to pedal and we were passing long distances in no time. Oh it was definitely the right call to rent the bike.

(Nilor and I posing with big smiles outside Galleria Borghese. It's the last picture taken by my digital camera in Rome. At least it's a good one!)

I stopped outside the Galleria Borghese by a lovely fountain and had a nice tourist take my picture with Nilor. Then, disaster happened. As I was trying to look at the picture he took, my thumb accidentally switched to movie mode. Movie mode drains the battery like nobody’s business. So right after I got my picture with Nilor, the camera died. Nooo! This was so sad. No more pictures? Everything is so beautiful! Well, I resigned myself to a camera-less existence. I took off on Nilor, and headed across the park. On my way I pass this rentable four person bike that looks a bit like the Flintstone mobile. This contraption looks fun to drive in theory, but lots of the paths in Borghese have restrictive poles coming out of the ground so that cars can’t mistakenly go on them, but they also are not wide enough apart for the four person bikes to get through. So the flintstonemobikes turn out to be kind of a pain in the ass. Also? They don’t go that fast. When I was traveling down a main thru-way where cars CAN get through the park, I witnessed an unfortunate/hilarious incident when a Flintstonemobike got stuck in front of a tour bus that was barreling down on them. The bus honked and honked and the riders screamed as they attempted to pedal fast enough to get out of the way, but they couldn't. There wasn't even enough of a shoulder on the road for the pedalers to veer out of the way and let the bus pass. I zoomed ahead on Nilor and I honestly don’t know what happened them, but I’m sure it probably all turned out okay.

Leaving the possible tragedy of the Flinstonemobike behind me, I went to look at another museum and then it dawned on me that they might have disposable cameras for sale inside! I went and take a look and the guy working there told me they didn't sell them but suggests I go look outside the park in the neighborhood of Flaminio. Take Nilor outside the park? Was I allowed? I had paid for his usage by the hour and it didn’t seem like there was an area restriction on where I could take him. But was it understood that he was strictly a park bike? Well, whatever. I wanted a new camera and taking Nilor around was gonna make my search much much faster. So I headed out of the park towards Flaminio.

When I got out, I biked around a few streets but everything was closed. That’s when I remembered it was still Sunday morning. I was screwed! This heavily Catholic city residents were all at effing church! I locked up Nilor at a bike stand and I headed into some of the side streets to see if I could find a store with disposable cameras. How can this city have no equivalent to Duane Reade or CVS? It just doesn’t. It's odd. You'd think people would need pharmacies. The whole are of Flaminio turned out to be a total ghost town this AM. I went back to Nilor and head back into the park, but then I remembered that the place around where I initially entered the park after having breakfast had some life to it. So I biked all the way back across and exit Burghese from the other side in Via Veneto. This side of the neighborhood was all downhill. I started checking newsstands and while they were open, nobody had cameras. Finally (after about a total 45 minutes of search time, I found a place with disposable cameras! Hooray! I headed back uphill into the park, which was not so easy since Nilor was a regular bike, not a mountain bike, so there were no gears to shift. But when I got back I once again could take pictures. I take pictures of Porta Pinciana, The Temple of Diana and the Orologio ad Acqua.

(The Orologio ad Acqua is a clock that runs on water in the middle of the park. It may or may not count down to Doomsday. I'll guess that it does.)

Finally I tried to go find Pincio, which I’m told is a beautiful park area, except it was all borded up! But at the very top of Pincio Hill there was a beautiful outlook that was not boarded up and as I gazed over this area I realized I had been in this area before… yesterday I had inadvertently climbed all the way up here from Piazza del Popolo! Oh, it’s nice to wander around a city and not really know where you are!

(One of the beautiful views of Rome from Pincio. Such beautiful skies! Quite a sight to see.)

After a few more loops around the park, including one around Galoppatoio which took me totally off road so I had to carry Nilor back to solid ground… and over a couple barricades (there MIGHT have been a sign that said no bicycles in that area, but it's hard to remember EVERY detail from that morning), it was time for me to return Nilor to the rental place. I was not ready to part ways, but the three-hour-mark was up. Sometimes people or bikes come into our lives for a reason. Nilor helped me so much beauty in Borghese, and without him so much picture taking would not have been possible. He'll be in my heart. Yes, he'll be in my heart. He'll be here in my heart. Always...

Up Next: Part 7 where there's lots of climbing up and down steps, lots of beautiful views of Rome and the quest for the Mouth Of Truth.

For the rest of trip: My Flight There, Emperor Palpatine's Hill, Good Times at the Colosseo & Vatican, SPB & The 39 Steps, and The Pantheon, Gays and Dining Out.

So You Think You Can Be A SYTYCD All-Star?

(Look, Ma! I'm an All-Star! Kat is back!)

The 12 Returning All-Star Dancers for the upcoming season of SYTYCD have recently been revealed. I think it's a good cross-section of dancers that I'm happy to see again. I don't really understand how the nuts and bolts of the show are going to change. I mean, are we supposed to only vote for the non-all-star half of the pair, because otherwise people could be getting through based on a former contestants popularity. Tune in and find out, I guess. find out. I'm not sure what constitutes an All-Star, but "former champ" is not part of the criteria because no previous winners are returning. Also, there's nobody representing from Season 1 - but that hardly surprises me since the show often tries to forget the original Cat Deely-free season ever existed. SYTYCD really came into it's own in Season 2.

So here's a quick run down of whose returning listed in alphabetical order. We've got one dancer from Season 2, 5 dancers from Season 3 (my personal favorite), 4 dancers from Season 4, one dancer from Season 5 and one dancer from Season 6. After I started making the below list, the official SYTYCD website came out with its own very similar list, but I disagree on some of the most memorable dances, so I included links to the ones I liked best. Re-watching these dances made me very happy. It proves that when this show is on, it's really the best competition out there.

Stephen “tWitch” Boss
Originally Competed In: Season 4. Finished 2nd to Joshua
Dance Specialties: Hip Hop, Popping, Locking, Krump
Memorable Dance: w/ Katee performing Mia Michaels choreo to "Mercy"
Odds & Ends: partial to wearing fake plastic glasses

Comfort Fedoke
Originally Competed in: Season 4. Finished Top 8
Dance Specialties: Hip Hop
Memorable Dance: w/ tWitch performing Dave Scott choreo to "Forever"
Odds & Ends: Originally eliminated before top 10, but came back when Jessica got injured

Courtney Galiano
Originally Competed in: Season 4 (noticing a trend?) Finished 4th.
Dance Specialties: Contemporary, Jazz
Memorable Dance: w/ Mark Kanemura performing Sonya Tayeh choreo in "The Garden"
Odds & Ends: known for her tiny size. Had a strong starting partnership with the also-short Gev.

Anya Garnis
Originally Competed in: Season 3. Finished Top 12, was so awesome she went on tour anyway.
Dance Specialties: Standard and Latin Ballroom
Memorable Dance: w/ Danny Tidwell performing Tony Meredith choreo to "Girlfriend"
Odds & Ends: Fun fact: she is the original hot tamale on the now standard setting Hot Tamale Train.

Lauren Gottlieb
Originally Competed in: Season 3, finished 6th
Dance Specialties: Jazz, Contemporary
Memorable Dance: w/ Pasha Kovalev performing Shane Sparks choreo in "Transformers"
Odds & Ends: has assisted many of the choreographers before and after her season on developing dance pieces.

Neil Haskell
Originally Competed in: Season 3, Finshed 3rd
Dance Specialties: Jazz, Contemporary, Broadway

Memorable Dance: w/ Sabra Johnson performing Mandy moore choreo in "The Table Dance"

Odds & Ends: was known for his gymnastics-inspired moves.

Allison Holker
Originally Competed in: Season 2, finished Top 8
Dance Specialties: Contemporary, Jazz
Memorable Dance: w/ Ivan Koumaev performing Tyce Diorio choreo in "Why,”

Odds & Ends: She's the only one of these dancers I don't actively remember.

Mark Kanemura
Originally Competed in: Season 4, finished Top 6
Dance Specialties: Jazz, Hip Hop, Cultural Dance
Memorable Dance: w/ Chelsie Hightower performing Tabitha and Napoleon D’umo choreo in “Bleeding Love.”
Odds & Ends: Mark performed with Lady Gaga in The Monster Ball Tour, so if you watched any of those youtube videos where she falls during performances, you probably saw him too!

Pasha Kovalev
Originally Competed in: Season 3, Top 6
Dance Specialties: Standard and Latin Ballroom
Memorable Dance: w Sara Von Gillern performing Benji Schwimmer choreo to "Rockafeller Skank"
Odds & Ends: I have a total guy crush on Pasha. He and Anya are unbelievable together. He once did a solo dance with a mannequin on the show. It was weird.

Kathryn McCormick
Originally Competed in: Season 6, finished 3rd
Dance Specialties: Jazz/Contemporary
Memorable Dance: w Jakob Karr performing Desmond Richardson and Dwight Rhoden choreo to "At this Moment"
Odds & Ends: Probably would've won her season if she'd had one more week to build momentum in a Final 4, instead of having to go for the title in an unusually large Final 6 finale.

Ade Obayomi
Originally Competed in: Season 5, finished Top 6
Dance Specialties: contemporary and jazz
Memorable Dance: w/ Melissa Sandvig performing Tyce Diorio choreo in "This Woman’s Work,”
Odds & Ends: A great partner, I felt Ade was an under-appreciated talent in his season. I'm glad he's back.

Dominic “D-trix” Sandoval
Originally Competed in: Season 3, finished Top 8
Dance Specialties: Hip Hop, Breaking
Memorable Dance: w/ Sabra Johnson performing Shane Sparks Choreo in "Make It Work"
Odds & Ends: Dom was a part of Quest Crew that won Season 3 of America's Best Dance Crew with fellow SYTYCD fav, Hok.

Are there dancers not here I'd like to see? Sure! But lots of them are working on other shows. This is a good group. It just goes to show you how you can pick 12 all-stars and still have so many left over... hopefully for future seasons, if the format changes are a success! Also in the spirit of All-Stars I've been campaigning for the judges to pick lovable perennial also-ran Natalie for a spot in the competition. I'm hoping that she and the formerly mono-stricken Billy (Elliot/Jamie) Bell make it the main event this year. C'mon, judges! Do the right thing!

(Natalie: The All-Star Contestant!)

Rafael Nadal: The (Six) Count of Monte Carlo!

(After almost a year, Rafael Nadal tastes victory - literally - once again. The delight on Rafa's face, matched with the reflection of the stadium shining in the Masters Series Trophy makes me deem this photo, "Super Awesome.")

I woke up to fantastic news this morning! Rafa Nadal won the Monte Carlo Masters Tournament, thus becoming the first player in the Open Era to win a tournament title for six straight years! That's CRAZY. Rafa beat his friend and fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-0, 6-1. in the first all-Spanish final at the event since 2002. Rafa's been on fire all week. This is his third match of the week he won by the score 6-0, 6-1. He raced to the victory in only 85 minutes and improved to 10-0 lifetime against Verdasco. Rafa had been playing extremely high-level tennis through March and April but had not made it past the semi-finals of a tournament during that time. To get back to the podium at the event he has owned for years, is a huge boost of confidence to him going forward into the clay court season.

"It's fabulous to win here so many times. This has been an unbelievable week for me, it was very emotional for me," said Rafa. "This is the best week I've had in a long time and there is no better place to do it than here."

With this win, Nadal ended an 11-month title drought, stretching back to last May in Rome. Much of this empty-handed time was a result of injuries that affected him from the French Open all the way through the end of last year. Now he's really back and undeniably in top form!

Nadal has now won 16 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles, tying the career total of Roger Federer and putting him one shy of all-time leader Andre Agassi. I think it is safe to say that both Fed and Nadal will break that record. With Rafa still only 23 years old, if he stays healthy, who knows how many titles he can rack up throughout his career?

Nadal remains the one-to-beat on clay this season. His stats are unbelievable. He has won 54 consecutive matches on clay for the month of April and he’s won 10 titles during that time, six in Monte-Carlo and four in Barcelona. His last loss on clay in April came on April 8, 2005 (five years ago!!!) to Igor Andreev in the Valencia quarter-finals. Even with that amazing stat, Rafa still only ranks seventh overall in the all-time list of clay-court title leaders. He currently has 26 trophies, whereas Guillermo Vilas, at the top of the list, has 45. Keep climbing that ladder Rafa! Vamos!

Rafa at Indian Wells: Hey, a Title is a Title!

(on the left: Rafa wins a tournament wearing a not-crazy pair of shorts for the first time in ages. on the right Rafa and Marc Lopez share the trophy. They are both delighted by their success and so am I.)

This weekend, Rafa Nadal and Marc Lopez went from being just a Spanish wild card doubles team, to being the Doubles Champions at the Indian Wells Masters Series. They claimed the title after beating the No.1 seeds, Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic,7-6(8), 6-3 in the finals. Congrats, guys!

Rafa had two big matches on Saturday. The first was the singles semifinals against Ivan Ljubicic which Rafa rather surprisingly lost 6-3, 4-6, 6-7 (1). Rather hilariously, Rafa claimed he'd lost that match only "accidentally." The rest of his totally charming explanation went like this: "That's my feeling, because I was playing (well) enough to win the tournament. It was an important accident, and I have to learn to try to play more aggressive next time, try to convert the opportunities. But for the rest, nothing to say, no? I was feeling I was playing better than probably ever on this court. This tournament I was playing very good, having very good victories, beating a very difficult opponent like Isner, and later against a very good Berdych. So I happy about how I did here. I am playing at my best level. I know that. But just not today." It should be noted Ljubicic played the tournament of his life, taking the title over Andy Roddick in the Championship match on Sunday,

If the afternoon gave Nadal troubles, they didn't stick in his head long, because by the team the doubles final rolled around in the evening, Rafa shrugged off the disappoint of the earlier loss and went to work winning the final, which not-so-surprisingly, made him very happy.

"For Marc and me, it was an amazing week and a dream to win the title here. After losing an important singles [match], the victory in doubles makes me happy. Always is nice to win the tournament, no?"

Always is nice indeed, Rafa. Nadal now heads down to Miami to play at the Miami Masters Series Tournament. Rafa drops to #4 in the world this week, because this was his first tournament back since the Aussie Open, and because he didn't reach the same result he did last year in Indian Wells when he won. Rafa has lost a bunch of bonus points to add to his ranking by not playing the past few weeks. He made it farther this tournament than current world's No. 1 and No. 2, Roger Federer and Novak Djokivic did. Plus after Miami, we're into the clay season which is always Rafa's bread and butter. So expect more success! Vamos Rafa!