Day 13: Rome and Vatican City

Victor Emmanuel Monument
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Breakfast is nice and early at 7, as the bus is leaving at 7:30. They want to get us to the Vatican early, so we can "beat the crowd". Ha! Pants are required to enter St. Peter's Basillica, so I'm glad to have my zip-offs. Jeff wisely brings along a change of shorts, while Ting suffers through the day in his jeans. On the train, Bruce commandeers my backpack to store his trousers, but I don't see him after that and end up carrying them around all day. At the Vatican, half the group gets in the Vatican museum line, while Jeff insists on going with the group seeing St. Peter's first...in hindsight, a bad idea, but oh well.

Victor Emmanuel Monument
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The basillica is absolutely amazing, one of my favourite sites on the trip. It's quite awe inspiring, even for someone non-religious such as myself. The bad thing is that seeing it kind of ruins every other church from now on! After leaving the basillica we head over to the Vatican museum line looking for the rest of our group, but they are already inside. We resign ourselves to waiting in the line which now stretches over several blocks all the way back to St. Peter's square. We start waiting at 9:15, and everyone makes guesses as to what time we will get inside. The guesses range from 1045 to noon - not overly optimistic. Luckily, the line moves faster than anyone thought, and we get to the front by 10:20. That's a good thing, as it continues to heat up outside. Our ISIC card finally becomes useful when we save 4 Euro on the admission price!

...given that it is 35 C and he is close to dying of heat stroke...

Roman ruins
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Inside the museum, we hurt our necks by looking up so much. The highlight is the Sistine Chapel, but there are many, many more rooms painted floor to ceiling by the likes of Raphael. Amazing stuff. Signs command "no photo", but of course everyone snaps a few. One thing becomes clear as we walk through incredibly opulent rooms - the Church has a lot of money! Thoroughly impressed, we exit the museum, and mail a few postcards from the Vatican post office, as it apparently is far more efficient and reliable than the Italian post system.

Roman ruins
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We leave the Vatican about noon, and set out to find a TravelEx to cash some cheques. My Amex travellers cheques suck though - there is a hefty fee to cash them at the TravelEx. While wandering, we run into Jess, Lana, Laura and Allie for the first time. We walk past the Castel Sant'Angelo and find a small restaurant to get lunch, where we run into the girls again! We order pizzas, and end up waiting forever for them. Ting finally goes and asks about them before they come out. The breaker trips twice while we are waiting, making us wonder what kind of place we are in. The pizza is really good though, and we leave quite stuffed.

The Roman Forum
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We walk over to the Victor Emmanuel monument and climb up the stairs, checking out the nice view and the war museum inside - there are exhibits from the Italian unification and WWI. It's all free, which is nice. We then take a roundabout route to the Colosseum, walking by the Circus Maximus, which turns out to be not much more than a big empty field. Ting is unhappy with the extra walk, given that it is 35 C and he is close to dying of heat stroke. At Palantine Hill, we buy the combo ticket mentioned by Tori, and head up. There are a bunch of ruins, which are cool, but we're not really sure what we're looking at. There is also a great view of the Roman forum from up on the hill. We run into Laura again, as well as few other people around the hill.

Roman Forum
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The last stop on our hot, sweaty tour is the Colosseum. We greatly enjoy walking past the the huge lineups at the ticket desk and going right on inside. Certainly quite the sight to see, and we have some fun pretending to be gladiators battling with our water bottles. Yeah, we're dorks. Having had our fill of walking in the scalding sun, we head for the metro. I have somehow managed to lose my ticket and have to buy another one - luckily it's only 1 Euro.

We make it to the bus stop indicated on our info sheets, and we stand around waiting for the 246 to take us back to camp. Jess and Allie find us yet again, and we hear about what they got up to (other than following us everywhere). The bus finally arrives after half an hour, and is absolutely packed - we have to literally push our way on, as we are not waiting for the next one. There is hardly room to breathe, let alone move. Yet some asshole insists on pushing his way through the crowd...I'm sure I feel something at my back pocket - yep, this guy is working. Luckily my back pocket is empty, and my hand is firmly on my wallet in the side one. After getting off, I find out that Jess actually did have her wallet and passport taken out of her handbag - she seems not too distraught, due to shock I think. She ends up having to stay in Rome until Monday to get a new passport at the Aussie embassy. Luckily she had photocopies to speed up the process.

A Church in Rome
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We hit the Panorama and pick up some beer, which we put into the sink to try to cool it, but that doesn't really work. I shower and change shirts but start sweating again right away - it's hard to feel clean in this weather. Meanwhile Jeff makes friends with the retired couple in the neighboring trailer and hears about their travels. Ben has prepared lasagna for dinner, plus bruschetta and gelatti - it's awesome. I get stuck on pot wash again - bad luck, as there is a huge amount of dishes tonight. I end up just doing preliminary rinsing though. A couple people are upset about Stacie's lack of doing...anything, despite being assigned to help.

Colosseum
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There is a "Sangria Party" at the pool tonight, so we head down there to drink 2 Euro Sangria. A few of the guys play beach volleyball until they are kicked off the court, but I prefer to sit, drink and gossip with the girls :) They kick us out of the pool area at 10:30 and the group transitions to the bar, which soon goes to "club mode". Ting just heads to bed, but Jeff and I stay out for a while. The DJ is horrible, not mixing songs well at all, and even outright repeating them. But the 3 crew members get hammered, which is amusing...Tori convinces Kenny and Stacie to do body shots off each other (and apparently Suzie and Willy later on). Kenny continues to impress people with his dance moves - however, Jeff resists the worm this time. I head off at about 1:30, while Jeff stays out till close (party animal, that guy!)