Day 11: Rome

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Rome

Now that my body's pretty much fully adjusted to the time here, I'm growing more and more resentful of my alarm clock tearing me out of dreamland. Even when I get a lot of sleep (a whole seven hours) I'm still tired. Today was a huge day though. Breakfast at 7. We went down the stairs to the breakfast room to be greeted with the worst breakfast yet...hollow buns and Tang! Wow. Definitely not substantial enough to get us through our huge day. In any case, I stuffed a bun down my throat and hopped on the coach. Zoltan drove us to the train station La Giustiniana (I love how that rolls off the tongue) to Valle Aurelia (that too!). This is where we first implemented what Pom Pom called "the spiderman technique" - basically smashing oneself against a wall after exiting a train as to not get lost in the crowd. Sounds silly, but it works. One transfer later, we all boarded a bus - thank god for day tickets. Finally, we arrived at the huge walls of Vatican City. The line was already INSANE, and it was only a little after 8 in the morning!

Pom Pom was sneaky and took us to St. Peter's Basilica first - as we walked through the columns of the square, it was kind of surreal - how many times had I seen this place on TV, filled with people? We went into the Basilica with no lines or anything and it was completely incredible. I was totally amazed. Every inch of the vast space was covered in so much detail. There were nuns in habits and priests galore. What do you expect, I guess :P The place was massive and opulent. Kind of made me wonder why people have always though that that kind of extravagance was necessary to appease the god(s)? Just a thought. The Pieta was insane - to think Michelangelo was only 23 when he did it...and Pom Pom was right - never had a sculpture looked more dead. Amazing stuff.

The group met up at the obelisk in the centre of the square and we walked over together to the lineup for the Vatican. About two hours later, give or take a bit, we finally got in. It had been kind of unfun, standing around in the scorching sun, getting cut in front of by a pushy Asian tour group, and overhearing a terrible, nasal, annoying tour guide in a Minnie Mouse dress talking down to her group. We managed to survive passing the time, and we eventually got up to the doors. Once we got into the Vatican, I would have liked more time to look around - we had to kind of speed through to the Sistine Chapel, but there was so much more to see that I didn't even get a chance to glance at. Such is life. When we reached the chapel after walking for a good 20 minute, it was incredible. I cannot fathom how one man could create something so beautiful. The ceiling, the back wall...my neck was sore after looking at it for 10 minutes. The place was packed, and my god, I would shoot myself if my job was to shush people all day. In any case, I was blown away, being surrounded by so much beauty. I stopped in the gift shop on the way out and picked up a few things. The nun helping me wanted coins so she could give me a bill back, but I didn't understand what she was asking me, so we had a little game of charades before she laughed at me, took the wallet from my hands and plucked out the twenty cent piece. Yup. I got laughed at by a nun. In the Vatican, no less.

I'd lost everyone somewhere along the way, so I strolled over to the pizza place to meet up with everyone, and holy crap. Pom Pom had been right. It was like a little piece of heaven in my mouth. The pizza was sooo good. So simple, but so fresh and delicious. I can still taste it...like a punch of flavour on your tongue. I'd felt a little crappy, after having lost everyone along the way - the pizza put me back in a much better mood.

From there we hopped, skipped and jumped over to meet Gabriella, our guide for the Imperial walking tour of Rome. She was a cute little Italian woman with a speaker strapped to her belt, telling us all about the Roman ruins. It was really interesting - the old city is much lower-lying than the modern city of Rome. We saw gates, the senate building, where Caesar was cremated, and all of this led up to the big finish at the end - the Colosseum. My feet were absolutely killing me after all of that walking on cobblestone and standing in line. I went in to the Colosseum because, well, you can't not. But it's just a REALLY old crumbly building if you're not really into the history of the place and the gladiators. It almost felt like a waste of money going in, but it IS one more thing to cross off my list of things I have to see in my lifetime. After taking some pictures, we left and a group of about 12 of us went to catch the metro to the Spanish Steps. I was so paranoid getting on the train - actually all day I'd been white-knuckling my bag. We found our way to the Spagna stop, got off and saw the steps. Unimpressive!! They were steps. With a lot of people on them. I put my foot on one, just to say I'd been on them, and we went in search of food.

After strolling down the street to Piazza del Popolo, where there was some massive concert about to begin with a bunch of punk and goth kids, we split up for our food. Sara, Jon, Will, Jen, Rylan and I went to this little family pizza place, and the sleezy guys behind the counter were not easy to deal with. They were either annoyed or flirting. Or both. So we took our food outside and illegally sat on their patio. Screw the sitting fee, we said. We scarfed down our food, hoping not to get kicked out. Success! We ran away like fugitives -alright, we actually just packed up our stuff and left, but the fugitive bit sounded so much more intense!- and we stopped at a little gelati stand. I got chocolate and lemon this time. Interesting combo! Me likey. I was getting uncomfortable though. I was tired, my feet hurt and I wanted to leave. We went into a few stores, but none of us were in any condition to walk anywhere else. We hopped back onto the train and went back to Valle Aurelia, where a lot of the group was waiting. We were half an hour early, but sitting was amazingly relaxing for all of us tired folk, until the girls who had been indulging in the vino came stumbling and screaming out of the train station. Haha. We got back on the coach after climbing about EIGHT FLIGHTS of stairs and as we got back on the coach, poor Pom Pom and Zoltan were nearly molested by the umm, ladies of indulgence. I'm sure they didn't mind 😉

I was so happy to get back to the hotel, it was heavenly. I jumped in the shower, washed my hair, got dressed and went in search of a corkscrew so I could open my cheap Swiss wine. Crazy Aussie Andrew to the rescue. I quickly downed a few mouthfuls, then went out and sat on the steps with some of the crew, chilling out, kicking back, and discussing the tour thus far. When I went to get more wine, the door was locked and Rachel was in the shower. I went to the front desk and asked if I could have the other key to open the door. The receptionist looked annoyed, so I played the sweet card and told him I'd bring it right back. He said gruffly, "I'd appreciate it". So I took the key, unlocked the door, downed a cupful of wine and ran the key back out with a big Canadian "Thank you very much". I played a few rounds of UNO and hung out in the lobby. At one point, Leacia and Brooke pulled me over to where they were sitting and started asking me about "the bartender" and talking about how into me he'd been and how he'd sent a text message to Pom Pom about me. Pom Pom was sitting right there, so I turned to him, my jaw on the floor and asked him to show me the text. In the worst, most broken English I've ever read, I deciphered something along the lines of him telling Pom Pom to say hi to his little Canadian girl Pippi and to get my number so he'd know when I'd be coming back to Engelberg. Hilarious.

The rest of the night was a mix of laughing, hanging out in the lobby and on the front lawn, and flirting with EVERYBODY. I don't know what got into me. At one point, I went to the little bar to get a drink, and the bartender -who was also the receptionist who'd given me the key- gave me my wine on the house "Because you are so respectful and nice". Sweet! If that's all it takes to impress someone...I've got it made. Jeff and I were among the last ones up, and we chatted about nothing among the dew-dropped blades of grass until I finally gave up and went to sleep. Not in the grass, of course; I made it to bed. And even though it was a crappy bed in a sketchy hotel, sleep was a welcome relief after the day we'd had.

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Photos

Me
In front of St. Peter's

The pizza place
So yum. Mental note, around the corner from the Vatican. I'm going on a pizza pilgrimage.

Roman Ruins
The ancient city

Boys and sticks
Gladiators they are not

It's big.
Me at the Colosseum

Colosseum-y goodness
Me and my buddy

we came all this way for THAT?
The Spanish Steps...Steps and people. Big deal.

UNO in Rome
Playing UNO. Look, it's Zoltan!!!

Huh?
I was just trying to take a nice picture...crazy kids

Text messages
Me and the Pom. He's got such pretty eyes.