I think we need to work on our communication skills....

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Ahh...the sights and sounds of a 2000 year old city.... could you really ask for more? personnally, i think not. So, if you didnt gather, we made it to Rome alright after two hellish days on trains and in dumb train stations. Things are just lovely now though as everything seems to be now working out in our favour. I just wish i understood what everyone was saying.... not a sniff really....But now... as for the way things are going, it couldnt be better....

If you had asked me two days ago however I would have given you a completely different answer which probably would have included many explicit words, phrases and gestures. Seriously. The whole Pisa fiasco was just stupid. We took the train after waiting in the station for 6 hours, as I have already gone through in the previous entry, and got on a very dirty train to Genova, where we were supposed to transfer to Pisa. Yeah, we got to Genova at 10:00 and as much as we would have loved to arrive in a foreign city at like 12:00, we werent to keen getting killed that evening. So, we stayed in a hostel in Genova, thank god there was one available. It was however very nice, cheap and convinent, so it all worked out in the end. The next morning, after bickering like an od married couple, Jackie and I went to the train station in good spirits with the hope of a brighter and happier day. We got to the train station and then took the wrong train. You can see where this is going cant you..... Of course the stop that we got of at was the stop from hell where no trains come or go and it is an abyss of endless uneventfullness.... we were there for a good half hour and were the only ones there for the majority of the time, which was less then encouraging. Finally this lady ame and we tried to ask her how to get to Pisa..... well, she told us but in Italian.... all we could do was stare blankly.... I think we need to work on our communication here as the blank stare just doesnt seem to get anything out of anyone. However, we must have done something right because we did get a rough idea of how to get to Pisa, and we made it there at a reasonable time in order to switch over to Florence to change our couchette tickets.... Unfortunetly, we were unable to see any of Piza, save the view from the train.... that was sort of uncool....however we did make uit to Florence, and after waiting in a line up of like 1000000 people, in the sweltering heat we got our new tickets. It was good. At 4:00 we got on another train to Rome. We had made it....

When in rome (hehehe, i had to say it at least once) we did as the romans do... we went out for some pasta... and god was it ever good....mmmmmm pastalicious......(it is too a word... ). However when we were done our meal it was a bit late so we had to forego dessert. We took the metro and a shuttle bus to our camping area, which is just amazing. It is really big and has everything we need. We had showers, (oh god did we ever need them, seriously, i was beginning to wish i could ditch myself.... ew) and went to sleep.

This morning, we went to begin our first of two days in Rome, our plan was to start at the Colosseum and work our wy up the ancient city. However, the metro was not working, apperently the workers went on strike or something... i dunno... so Jackie and I spent a good hour trying to figure out the bus routes to get us to where we wanted to go. an hour later, someone came up to us and told us the Metro was working again (way to stand for you right metro guys, yeesh....) so we were happy.... I hope the metro guys at least got a raise or something for all the trouble they caused.... SO we went off on the metro, but decided to start at the Trevi fountain instead of the Colosseum....we threw a coin in (thats right im coming back here) and then went all around the ancient city. It was so weird to think abour how old all of this stuff is and how powerful of a city this place was....we ended the day at the colosseum, so basically we went backwards from our initial plan. It worked well though.... it was a very productive day.... much better than the last two... I never thought i would say how happy i was to be walking instead of sitting.... wow...

Ohh and also, today is a very good day because we found our first slurpee of the trip. They dont have them here like at all. Except today, we found one.... we were overjoyed, especially since it was so bloody hot here. It was not as good as our slurpees, but it was well appriciated all the same.

Anyway, I am running out of time, so this is Sarah, signing off from Rome!

By the way, I am no longer sick, that was only a brief spell, and most likely a combination of the heat and the cheese of teh night before... everything is good now... no need to fret.

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