Sightseeing in Roma

Unfortunately for us, our day of sleep was a bit too much....I awoke at 5:30am wide awake! I looked across the room at Shane in his bed to find that he was looking back at me! Creeepy... haha jk. Apparently he had been awake and tossing since 2am. We decided that we might as well make the best of this situation by getting an early start on seeing the sights of Rome. I wrote a long blog before getting ready, but we were still showered and on the streets by 8am. Now for those of you who really know me, I try my best to sleep as late as I possibly can, and to have accomplished a blog, a nice leisurely shower, preparation for a sightseeing day, and even out of the building by 8am on a non-school or work day is pretty impressive.

This particular day was Saturday, or in other words our Sabbath. Typically we would have gone to church, but let me tell you that trying to find a Seventh-day Adventist church in the capital of Catholicism is NOT an easy task! Because of this we decided that being outside and viewing the awesome creations of......uh, man.....would be the best alternative. I don't think God expected us to sit in our hostel all day anyways.

We began by trying to find my favorite fountain of all, the Trevi fountain. (Look, my first picture insert!) It took us quite a while to find it, much to my chagrin. I had previously bragged to Shane how well I knew the streets of Rome without a map....well, apparently that was only the case when starting out from the hostel I stayed at last time. It took several tries, a map, and many wrong turns before we found it. But it was as glorious as I had remembered, and I took, as Shane says, a gazillion pictures.

After the Trevi came the Piazza del Popolo, where an annoying con artist tried to work his magic by offering to take a picture of us in front of a statue. He also held red roses, which he thrust into my hands, saying "Present! Present!" We declined his offer to take pictures of us, and when I tried to give back the roses he insisted that I keep them. Well, fine! As we started to walk away, he followed us like a shadow, rubbing his fingers together in the universal sign for money. We kept saying no, and I tried to hand back the roses. He wouldn't take them. (Well then leave us alone!!) Finally I put the roses on his half-limp hand and walked away. I'm assuming he caught them. I should have given him the look and tone of voice I used to give the annoying boys in grade school who were picking on me and had just gone a little too far. They always backed down, and quite suddenly I might add.

A few fun pictures with the fountains later, we climbed the steps to the lovely garden I had discovered last time I was in Rome...probably my favorite place in all of Rome. It were under construction which made it lose about 6 points on the charm scale, but we were still able to get several good pictures. The statues lining the walkway provided several minutes of camera entertainment. Following the garden we headed to the most important of sights in Rome--the Vatican. Upon FINALLY getting there, I was slightly surprised to see that it was packed with people. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised considering it was halfway between New Year's and Epiphany. Regardless, we were able to squeeze our way into the line and see St. Peter's Bascilica, a sight that should never be skipped. We also toured the pope's tombs.

By this time we were starving, and we had no food with us or in our hostel, so we stopped in a touristy ristorante to have their Napoli special: Bruschetta, a margarita pizza, and soda. Sodas here are very expensive and you usually don't get very much, so we substituted a much-needed bottle of mineral water instead.

Fatigue and my hot and heavy boots were getting to me, so we headed back to the hostel for a few minutes to change before taking advantage of the remaining 2 hours of sunlight to see the coloseum and ruins. It seems that in the winter is when much of the construction is done, which was the case for the coloseum. We didn't do much more than take a couple pictures of it before attempting to find the entrance to the ruins. I couldn't for the life of me remember where it was (another blow to my pride) and by the time SHANE found it, it was already closed to the public. Seeing as we were leaving first thing in the morning, we considered it our loss.

On our way back to the hostel that night we visited the grocery store for the first time and bought some apples (Pink Ladies, my new favorites), oranges, bread, jelly packets, a drink, and yogurt for our supper. I had forgotten how amazingly good European yogurt was! This satisfied our stomachs for the night, which is good because it was much cheaper than our typical restaurant fare so far. As much as we tried to hold out, the early morning took it's toll, and we were in bed by 7pm. After all, we had to store up some energy for the next day's cities: Naples, Pompei, and Sorrento!