Italy Tales - Roma

Italy - was wonderful. The longer that I am at home, the more that I wish that I was back there. Although Dave and I would need a never ending source of money. Man, that country is expensive! But so worth it :)

Dave and I arrived to Rome Monday morning at 8:30 AM. We got our bags, flashed our passports and headed to find our ride. The hotel was arranging a driver to pick us up. After waiting and looking for an hour for the driver, we decided to find other means of transportation to take us to our hotel. We arrived to our hotel around 11 AM and after the front desk lady accused us of lying (because the driver said that he was there yeah right) we went to our room and crashed. For hours. Seven hours. It was so nice. The next day we got up early and headed out into the town.

We saw the Colleseum. Awesome. We saw the Forum. Awesome. We saw a bunch of other old things. Awesome. For lunch we ate a cute little hole in the wall restaurant and for dinner another cute hole in the wall restaurant - where we ate RAW ham (we didn't know!) and met some people from MA.

On Wednesday, we put on our Sunday best and headed for the metro (Subway) to take us to the Vatican. Thank goodness we asked the hotel for help (a nice, very helpful, not-rude front desk person), because the subway is CRAZY. INSANE. Wow! Everybody is running and pushing and sweaty and smelly. But we made it. And our adventure was rewarded with stepping into St. Peter's Square to see the Pope. Yeah, we actually saw the POPE! A very neat and surreal and weird experience. There were people singing songs, waving posters and flags in the air, shouting cheers, and my favorite - smoking while they waited for him to come out. (Everyone smokes in Italy). Then, when he finally came out, he was driving in his little golf cart looking thing, waving and shaking hands, all while this horrible (and I mean really horrible) organ music played on the PA system. It just made me laugh and then contemplate all at the same time. These people are so blinded. They worship the Pope and not God and they don't know any better. It's really very sad. And, after being in Italy and seeing all the churches and museums, it seems like they worship everything but God - Mary, Saints, the Pope - man, I don't get it.

The Vatican was cool. Lots of paintings and Sculptures. Really grand and intricate things. There is no way that I would ever be able to create anything like it. We saw the Sistine Chapel and stood in awe as we looked up at the ceiling realizing that one man painted the entire thing - granted it took him 15 years, and his diligence paid off, because it's amazing.

Other things we saw in Rome: The Treve (sp) fountain, Spanish Steps, and many fountains. It was great! You should go there sometime.

Signing off for now-