Hey, where's Russell Crowe?

---

Well, last time I wrote on here we were on our way out of Antibes to Italy - this was basically a wasted day as we spent the whole time in a stupid train station and our train didnt show up on time so we were forced to skip Pisa and stay in Genoa for the night... which was scary because we didnt have reservations and for the first time on this trip, I had no idea what anyone was saying... at ALL... Plus we were there pretty late and basically it was quite nerve-racking. However, I got some friendly Italian guy to show mehowtouse the phones (which are all differentso I guess there is some trick that you needto know to use them... like a secret code or something...??).Anyhow, we stayed in the local youth hostel and embarked first thing in the morning for Roma. This was also a bit of a crap day because we accidentally took the wrong train. It had to happen sometime I suppose, but we were supposedto get on the 9:10 train and a train showed up earlier so we figured "hey, may as well get on quick and grab a good seat"... yeah, no, we ended up on the train to Middle of Nowhere, Italy. Then we had to take a bajillion more trains to get back to civilisation, and a few more to get to Florence because I had to cancel a ticket and finally we got to Roma at about 9:00 last night. So I hate trains.
When we got to Termini Station in Roma, we hiked to this little restaurant and had our first Italian meal, which was the best thing ever. We had some DELICIOUS pasta in meat sauce to start, then some really good chicken. We were kinda freaking out though because it was late and we wanted to get to our camping spot before all the crazies came out, so we skipped dessert (ah, the willpower) and took the metro. The metro here is weird because it only has 2 lines, the A line and the B line, but its good because it is far easier to figure out, than, say, London with its myriad of confusing directions and changeovers. It took us a while because we had to take one train to a station called Flaminio and then leave that station and go to another one which is above ground and take that train, then take a shuttle bus to the camping area. Thankfully, we met a family from Minneapolis (how do you spell that word?) who were also staying there, so we followed them.
Our camping area is quite nice, we have our own little half-cabin and the area is fully equipped with internet, bar, restaurant, pool, market, laundry, etc.. After having a shower because my feet were so filthy that I was embarrassed to admit that they belonged to me, we went to sleep.
Today we got up and hopped back on the train to Flaminio, and were standing around to take another one to Termini which is basically the train/subway/bus hub, a security guard came and said something in Italian which I didnt understand, and then everyone started leaving the station... so me and Sarah followed them, and it turns out the Metro workers went on strike, just our luck, so we had to figure out the bus system, which was IMPOSSIBLE. Thankfully, the Metro started up again, but that kinda sucked becasue it took about 1 hour out of our day.Stupid public transportation anyhow.
Our first stop was lunch, becausewe were starving,so we went for some pasta - mine was tortellini in pesto sauce, which was delicious but so filling that I basically waddled out of the restaurant feeling like a fat hippo. And the heat wasnt helping either. We walked down some really interesting streets full of vendors to Trevi Fountain (I threw a Canadian penny in) and chilled out there. The amount of street vendors and beggars is crazy - we were therefor about 20 minutes and about 40 different people came up wanting money or to sell me something. Anyhow, our next stop was the Pantheon, which was very beautiful and quite educational (I've taken up this habit of eavesdropping on tour guides), and OHMYGOD we found someone selling slurpees. Seriously, we haven't seen one slurpee on this whole trip. So naturally we bought one.
Then we went to the Roman Forum which was SO awesome - ruins everywhere and there were signhs which showed you which ruins belonged to which era, like a bit of pavement was the foundation of Caesar's forum, and so on. Ourlast stop for the day was the Colosseum, which was amazingly huge and still very well intact, considering. I looked everywhere for Russell Crowe but he was nowhere to be seen... dammit. Also, I tried my hand at the art of bartering! I won't say what I bartered for because it is a gift, but I will say that I am the queen of discount prices - he was asking 25€. and I talked him down to 15, go me.
So now we are back at our little cabin, waiting for the restaurant to open because the market sadly has only got melons and bread and wine...
Tomorrow we are off to the Vatican!
Ciao
Jackie
 

---