Journal 35 "Where are we again?" Wednesday: So today I was going to wake up a little early and try to go and see the Pope. Well that didn't end up happening. I woke up around 7am or so and went back to sleep since my alarm was for 8; and still being on London time, it was only 6am for me. I woke up again at 8, right before my alarm went off. I talked to some of the other guys in the room here who were awake and getting ready for the day. They mentioned that they heard the Pope wasn't going to be coming out for his prayer today; that it was some sort of holiday here and he had the day off ?!?! So I decided to not try and get there and instead go back to bed, I was really tired still...not sure why. I finally got up at 9am, which isn't too surprising seeing as how that's only 8am in London. I showered and changed, then had a nice breakfast of licorice (red vines) since I missed breakfast here at the hostel (by five minutes). I then debated whether or not to try and make it to the Sixtine Chapel for a tour before Chris got here. I walked outside and it was raining. I know that's a bad reason to not do something when I'm here in Italy, but it just kinda killed the little bit of drive I had to do something in the two hours before Chris arrived. I walked over the supermarket to see about buying a phone card to call home with. They didn't end up having phone cards; but they did Sprite Ice Cube (I have no idea what it tastes like). I then walked back to the hostel and sat in the computer room on my laptop building picture pages from yesterday while I waited for Chris to arrive. Chris got here to the hostel around 12:20 or so; he found me in the computer room just as I was finishing on my laptop. We went upstairs so I could put my stuff back and then headed out to buy lunch. We went to a little restaurant on the corner here. I had a pepperoni pizza (I still like american pizza more) and Chris ordered eggs and bacon for breakfast. After we ate we went back to the hostel so he could check in. Then we decided to get over to Vatican since we're planning to go to Pisa tomorrow and this is our last day in Rome. Well we hopped on the Metro, which didn't cost a thing since no one in Rome pays to use the Metro - you just walk right past the ticket machines. We got to the Vatican around 1:30 I think. It was pretty amazing being there and seeing it. I mean, you always see these things in movies, and you see the pictures your family took when they were there in August, but it's still amazing in person. We walked around the plaza area before going inside. We passed a sign that, from what we can tell by the pictures, says men are not allowed in if they're wearing a spandex wrestling singlet. Hahaha. Anyway, we pretty much walked right in since there were hardly any people there. Again, my crappy pictures taken with my little camera can't even begin to help show you how amazing this place is. Chris and I walked through taking pictures of different and trying to figure out what some of the stuff said. We noticed people were walking around the top area, so we asked how to get there. We had to go around to the side and pay to go to the top. We were told it was 6Euros for the lift, and 4Euros to walk... walking was just fine with us. We took a wrong turn and ended up at the bathrooms; so now we both say we've used the toilets at the Vatican. So we paid our 4Euros and started walking up the stairs. Well these stairs were about three feet long and slightly angled upward; 320 of these is going to blow we thought. Well we made it up all those which put us on the roof. After that we still had a hundred and something much smaller stairs. These ones led through a series of hallways that tilted with the dome of the roof. If you looked in some of the fenced off areas you could see the old walk ways where the monks would have to walk when it was first built. After making it to the upper interior part there were even more stairs to get to the upper exterior part, these were even more narrow. The view from the top is amazing. I don't remember my sister saying she went all the way to the top; but I really hope she did. You could see all of Rome from up here. Chris got it all on video, and I took a bunch of pictures. We tried to figure out what the different buildings were as we looked out and then compared it to the map we have. Some of the stairs on the way were even more steep; I swear this place was built for midget monks. Once outside we ran into a nun who was from Philadelphia. She had turned around and asked if we were American because "we were speaking her language" she said, we then asked where she was from since she spoke perfect english. We talked to here a little bit, and I asked if the Pope had come out this morning to talk. She said she wasn't sure if he had or not, but hoped he did. She also let us know where we could get tickets for admission (for free of course) to morning prayer on Wednesday. We thanked her but said on Wednesday we're planning on being in Berlin, oh well. After talking to her for a bit longer we decided to go to the Coliseum so Chris could at least see it while he was here. We took the Metro to the Coliseum, again paying nothing - it's great, we're saving money, woo hoo! We walked around for a bit and saw a lot of the area I had seen yesterday. It's too bad, it's not as lit up at night as I would have hoped. We walked up the street the Piazza Venezia and saw all the ruins along the way. Again, all these would probably be pretty amazing to see during the day, but the sun goes down here around 5. From there we walked back to the Metro station at the Coliseum and took it back to the Termini train station. I thought we had to change Metro's but it turned out that we didn't. So we got back on and headed toward our hostel. We walked around trying to find a deli of some sort to get a sandwich for dinner. We couldn't find one so we went to a Kabob place and got some Kabob's. That's what they're called in London, here I'm not sure, and in the US it's a pita-sandwich. They were really good though I could have stood for it to be a little spicier; I haven't had any good spicy food since leaving California. After that we walked back the hostel to try and start mapping our trains for tomorrow. The plan right now is to catch the first train to Pisa in the morning, see The Leaning Tower, and then to head to Firenze/Florence. I'm hopefully going to upload this tonight, along with all my pictures (since it's only 8:20 here in Rome). So if you're reading this anytime before Friday, then I was able to do it, haha. After doing updates tonight, and typing this same entry, I went out for a walk out of boredom. I went to try and find a place that I could buy a can of coke for a decent price. Well, I ended up wandering all the way to the Termini station. I passed street vendors that were out even at 11o'clock or so. I wandered around the station and figured I may as familiarize myself with it then, so we wouldn't have to do it the next morning. I passed a lot of (what appeared to be) homeless people sleeping in the station. I watched the people that were rushing to get trains, even that late at night. I considered getting an ice cream cone from the McDonalds there... though I realized it was because I was thirsty, and not hungry, so I passed. After wandering around a bit longer I made my way back to the hostel to get some sleep before the next morning. |