sweltering, miserable heat!

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Hi guys, Jen here. We are currently sitting in a cafeteria in Athens right now waiting for our midnight ferry to the island of Mykonos. So! Let us go back 4 days from now. Friday the 15th was our first day in Rome, we stayed at the Yellow Hostel which was great. I managed to tear Graeme away from the free internet long enough to visit the Trevi fountain. Tons and tons of people there, but it was well worth it, absolutely beautiful. We did the whole coin toss thing too to ensure our return to Rome someday. Our hostel had a kitchen, praise the lord, and there was a grocery store nearby that took credit cards, so needless to say, we ate GOOD. Going without veggies for about 3 days in Cinque Terre had made me the slightest bit shaky and irratable. Day 2, we visited the Colleseum and the Roman Forum and saw the temple of Julius Cesear, where he was cremated after being murdered and where Mark Anthony read his famous speech. The next morning I got up early and went to this huge flea market with Imogen and Julia, two Aussie girls that we had met. Incredibly hot and cramped but I found some cool jewellery. When I got back around 12 it was just completely miserable outside - 38 degrees celsius! So we decided to be absolute bums and do nothing all day but watch movies at the hostel. We met some really cool people there and spent all of our nights eating dinner and hanging out together - great times. On our last day we got up ridiculously early to go to the Vatican with the 2 Aussie girls and a guy named Dave who goes to UBC (and takes politics like graeme!). The line was insane but it moved fairly quickly. The Sistine Chapel was a lot smaller than I thought but still very cool to see. It did however feel a lot like being inside a pen of cattle with yummy Italian guards yelling "SILENCE!!" and "SHHHHH!" every two seconds. St Peter's was amazing, MASSIVE and defiantely blew the Notre Dame away. Walked to the Pantheon afterwards, which is supposed to be ancient Rome's biggest architectual achievement but unfortunately it was mostly covered in scafolding. We came back to the Trevi fountain on our way back to the hostel when Graeme noticed a small Canadian flag taped to this souvenir stand. He asked the old man running it why he had it and he explained to him that he had lived in Canada for 15 years, made a lot of money and then came back to Italy to start his business. Graeme was going to buy a bottle opener with a picture of the Pope on it, appropriately called "the popener" when the man told him that he'd give it to him for free if I gave him the Canadian flag off my bag. I agreed and Graeme got his popener but not before the man gave him heck for not buying his lovely girlfriend (that would be me) anything, all the while managing to "accidently" touch my left breast 6 times whislt gesturing wildly. I swear, Italians - they tell you they'd buy you the trevi fountain and then they grope you, but what can I say? When in Rome....

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