Roma, Italia

Colosseum
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Day 1 (England to Rome, Italy): Thursday, 7 December 2006 So we flew out early Thursday morning. I got 30 min of sleep, Crystal got none. She was in my room finishing her Econ essay while I was packing up my entire room. We had to run through the rain carrying our stuff trying to find the bus stop. We almost missed the bus, and then because it was 30min late to London, we almost missed the shuttle to the airport. And then we got in the wrong line at the airport and only got to the correct counter 1 min before they shut it down. Phew. It was a miracle we made it, haha. We landed in Rome around 3 or 4 and had to catch the shuttle into the city center. We met a girl from North Carolina who was studying fashion in London for the semester. She was by herself because her friend missed the plane, so she asked if she could stick with us as we got into the city. We got her into the city, but convinced her to go to her own hostel because she was thinking about just going to ours... And on the bus she said that she was staying in/near Vacation City. And about 10 seconds later, Crystal was like, "Do you mean Vatican City?" And she didn't know what was around that part of town for her to do. Wow... some people... Anyway, we got some gelato at the train station (amazing!!) We checked into our hostel (very tired). It was a really cool hostel. It was run by these young British and Australian people. We walked around the city a bit, got more gelato, and some guys in a smart car honked at us (which simply isn't cool, haha).

The Vatican
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Day 2 (Rome, Italy): Friday, 8 December 2006 The next day we slept until noon. we caught the bus to Circus Maximus and walked around there a bit. We got lunch and dessert near the church of St. Anastasia. We saw an Italian wedding nearby too, which was neat. We met at 2:00 for a tour. It was led by a girl from Houston who majored in theater and Italian and she was living in Italy trying to get her work visa. She was dramatic but new TONS! We walked around Circus Maximus some more (where they used to have the chariot races). Saw Palacio Hill (where the word "palace" derives from). We walked through the Jewish ghetto and saw the Pantheon. It was closed for a religious holiday though. We grabbed lunch and more gelatto. We had spicy chocolate and it was soooo good! Then walked past the "Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II", (sometimes called the Wedding Cake or Type Writer), and by a bunch of forums and then to the Roman forum (the original). Oh, and at one point we passed the place where Caesar was assassinated (today it's a bus stop).

Palatine Hill
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By this time it was dark. We ended at the "Colosseo" and walked up a small hill to get a good views and lots of good pictures. The tour guide acted out a scene of what might have happened in a match at the Colosseum, that was interesting... The tour ended so we went to the "Fontana di Trevi" (Trevi Fountain). It was VERY crowded. We then walked to the Spanish steps, "Trinita dei Monti" and then went to find food. We then walked back to the Spanish steps and it started to rain VERY hard so we ducked under some overhang in front of some random front door for about 20 minutes. We then walked all the way back (~1 1/2 miles??) and passed the Piazza della Republica. We went across from the hostel and got tiramisu and some wine. We then wondered several miles to the Vatican (accidentally). Before this, we went into a bar/store to get a beer and people were sort of fascinated by us, especially when they found out we were from California. And then Crystal opened the bottle with the bottle opener on the bottom of her sandal. They loved that, haha. So we made it to the Vatican and then walked back along the river. We walked probably 6 miles that night.

Sistine Chapel
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Day 3 (Rome, Italy): Saturday, 9 December 2006 We woke up at 8AM and went to the Piazza della Republica to meet for the Vatican tour. This was a much bigger group. We took the Metro to the Vatican (only €1!), got breakfast, and then waited for over 2hrs in a giant line to get in. We walked through the Vatican museum (I think it's the 2nd biggest museum, after the Louvre, or something like that). Went to the Basilica. Saw the Michaelangelo's Pieta (my favorite sculpture EVER!). It's protected by bullet proof glass now because a few years back some nutso ran in claiming to be the Christ and shot off some fingers and part of a nose on the statue. Idiot... We saw the (very modest) monument to Pope John Paul II, Bernini's altar (biggest bronze statue in the world), and then walked outside for a bit. We ate food nearby and it was really, really good (as was typical of all the food we had in Italy). The head waitress/owner lady was kinda crazy though and kept screaming... haha. We took the metro back to the hostel and slept for a couple of hours. We got up and took the metro to the Colosseum and took TONS of pictures of it and of the Arco di Constantino. Tried to walk above the Roman Forum to get a good view, but we failed. We took some random bus back (we weren't even sure if we were on the right one).

Michaelangelo's Pieta
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Tour Guide while @ Vatican: "It's called the Sistine Chapel, not the 16th chapel. But I did have someone a couple of months ago who asked if we had to go through 15 chapels to get to the 16th and I said, 'Alas, no we do not.'"

"When Jesus was starting his new religion, he went to Peter, who was a fisherman, and asked him to be the fisher of men, and Peter said, 'I dig that.'"