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Published: February 10th 2008
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Vatican statue
In St. Peter's Basilica Alright then, so much to say...let's see if I can do it briefly. And by the way, the ' key is to the right of the 0 and there are some other changes to this keyboard so we'll see if it all comes out alright. Anyways, we made it to Europe alright, just a little later than we planned. Our plane which was supposed to leave at 12:01 am from Bangkok got delayed until 8 am so that was a bit of a bummer. But Thai airlines shuttled us over to the airport hotel. The hotel was a very fancy one which provided some good fun exploring and Dan and Kam took tons of pictures inside. They also gave us a free dinner buffet at night and a breakfast buffet in the morning. So we didn't really sleep much but I certainly felt like it wasn't a waste of time. Then we got our 12 hour flight to Rome. We flew over Afghanistan (safely) and some of the rest of the Middle East, which had some really cool landscapes to look down on out of the plane and then we got to Rome and had to pay 11 Euro each to
take the 20 minute train ride from the airport to the city (that was a few days of living in SE Asia).
So the first night in Rome we pretty much just got settled into our hostel and then wandered around the streets near where we are staying and found that there really isn't much going on in the area. Our hostel is really good, it's very cheap for Rome and pretty small so we've gotten to know a number of the other people staying here pretty well. The second day here we started our serious sightseeing. We got up early and headed over to Vatican City with a couple of Canadian girls who are in our hostel too. We explored Saint Peter's Basilica first which was just incredible. It was huge, very ornately decorated, and a little overwhelming (as has most that we've seen). After spending some time in St. Peter's we headed out to grab some pizza (mmmm....) and then went to the Vatican Museum. We headed for the Sistine Chapel first but it was through a long maze of hallways full of tons of other great art. The chapel itself was amazing but the experience
St. Peter's Basilica
Some cardinals giving a sermon was a little dampened by tourists and guards. The chapel is fairly large but it was nearly packed with people. There was supposed to be no talking and no taking pictures in the chapel but everyone was talking and most people were trying to take pictures. This led to lots of guards saying "shhh" loudly and sometimes over a loudspeaker and going around yelling "no photo" at just about everyone in the room. But aside from that the size, detail, and color of the artwork was very very impressive. There were also tons of other great paintings, statues, and tapestries around the museum. After seeing the museum, the 3 of us guys headed off to the Castle of Saint Angelo, which is where the popes retreated to if the Vatican was under attack. I got some gelato on the way (mmm.....). Once there Kam headed into the castle and Daniel and I split up to wander the streets on our own. I followed a detailed map that I had to zig-zag my way through Rome and see a lot of other sights including the Piazza del Popolo and it's nearby hill with some nice views, the Piazza della Repubblica and
Vatican City
Fountain in the plaza a number of other fountains, statues, and cool buildings as I walked a very long way to get back to our hostel. That night Kam and I headed out to find a liquour store, which took us a long time to find a place that sold something other than wine and very expensive alcohol. Finally we headed down a pretty small alleyway and found the absolute oppossite of an American inner-city alleyway liquour store. There was a small crowd of nicely dressed people in the store and a table with free bread, cheese, and salami on it and a man practically forcing us to try a few different types of wine while we browsed the store. It was wonderful and we managed to get some cheap vodka while we were there too and then we headed back to the hostel to share an enourmous pizza we had pitched in for. There was day 1, rather tiring, but awesome.
Alright then, day 2: It was off to the Colosseum to begin with. We took the subway and got off near the Colosseum and split up right away to head our own ways while exploring. Due to the lack of
a better a word, we'll start off by saying that the Colosseum was... overwhelming. It was huge and stunning, both as a large part of human history and as an architectural masterpiece for its time. Again though, there were very many people there and you often had to wait a while to squeeze your way up to the railing at the good viewpoints. After exploring for a while I ran into Hannah and Suzy (our Canadian friends) and they had payed for the audio tour guides so they managed to fill me in on some more of the history and details, so that added to the whole experience. The 3 of us then spent much of the rest of the day together. We headed out for a good lunch near the colosseum of lasagne and wine (mmmm....) and then went into the Roman Forum, which is a large area of ruins. Inside the forum was Palatine hill, which was important in Roman legend and served as the home to most of the rich and powerful in Rome. From there we headed through some other cool sights which I don't remember the name of and then I split off to go
Vatican Museum
Tapestry by Rafael see the Pantheon and then the Trevi Fountain. The Pantheon was cool, but not too special after seeing everything else. The Trevi Fountain is knows as one of the most romantic spots in Rome and it sort of was. It was a beautiful fountain and I got some gilato from a place which is supposed to be one of the best and hung out with all the other people packed around the fountain. It was very nice, but not as majestic of an atmosphere as it is built up to be. Well, that was about it for Rome and tomorrow we head down to Naples to see the city and make trips out to Pompeii and maybe Herculena. Alright then, Arrivaderci (p.s. Italian is fun to speak).
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