Roma!!!!!

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December 30th - January 4th: Roma, the heart of Italia

Just a random tid bit of info before you get to hear about Roma:
So before we left England, Mitch and I had this brilliant idea. Hey, why don’t we get a bag that has both backpack straps and wheels for when we are traveling so we don’t always have to be putting stress on our backs for the next 32 days. Sounds like such a great idea. So, we go to London, buy some bags from these Indian vendors on Oxford street. The bags are ok, not great quality, but they should hold up for a month. Well, 2 weeks into the actual “backpacking” trip, we could not have been more wrong about the quality of those bags. Let me just break it down for you. My bag: the handle ripped off completely which means I have to stick my hand awkwardly into the fabric of the bag and lift it with my pathetically weak arms, hold my breath, and use all the energy in my body to carry it up stairs. About 5 days ago, the handle that pops out to wheel the bag just completely and totally snapped off. I mean if we ever get attacked or something, I could pull that thing out and literally stab someone’s heart out with it. The thing is like a jagged sword with a sweet handle. Mitch’s bag isn’t much better. All the side straps on the bag popped off, the handle snapped off, and when he checked his bag the baggage men decided to throw it through a shredder, so the fabric of the bag is all frayed and ripped. I mean these bags are no longer bags. It takes every ounce of my very being to haul my bag up 10 stairs where I then awkwardly use the straps to tow it behind me. Mitch walks really slow just barely holding on to the handle to tow his bag which will just randomly come out and SMACK his bag hits the ground. I am sure its pretty funny to watch because both of us get so frustrated and sweaty trying to make it through the train station. We are just waiting for the moment when the wheels pop off and the backpack straps rip in half…we both know its coming.

We caught the 7 am train out of Gryon to Geneva which meant we woke up in the pitch dark and made our way down to the dimly lit station before anyone in the whole town had even began to wake up. Luckily for us, the train took us straight to the airport so it made things really easy. At the airport, everything went without a hitch to my surprise and both Mitch and I were super thankful for that. God is good. Our flight was smooth and we landed in Roma around 1, had a hard time finding our bags, but finally got out of there and to our apartment around 2. We are in the old area of Rome, the actual oldest part of Rome called Trastevere. The streets are cobbled and all the buildings are old, peeling paint, and 300-400 year old wooden beam structures. It’s literally like stepping back in time. Where we are staying is actually a stop in Rick Steve’s Italy book, it’s where the Romans live, where they eat, and where they hang out. It’s pretty cool staying right in the heart of the old city, we are in a great location to explore all the greatest sites. The apartment in which we are staying in is quite story. We are actually subletting a room from a famous Italian writer who is about 4’8 with a twin sister who is the same. They are adorable little Italian woman, all wrinkly but hardy as hell. The trek up to the apartment is up about 40 stairs to the third floor and they walk up it everyday at 78 years of age, pretty impressive. Our landlord (Lory) wrote the book called “The Sky is Falling” and its about a young girl who is infatuated with Musselini. Apparantly it was a worldwide hit and they even made a movie from it. Lory was sad she didn’t have a copy on hand to give to us, but I am going to have to read it. Our room is nice, sort of, we share the bathroom with the twin sisters which is kind of weird because they will just walk into our room to tell us they are using the bathroom now. It’s pretty funny, makes for a really unique experience. Poor Mitch caught some kind of bug back at our last hostel and he was feeling pretty terrible when we got in so it was a priority that we get him into bed and sipping on some tea. So, the rest of the day we let Mitch heal up and rest up because he was feeling so crummy. We had a cheap but delicious Italian dinner in one the many piazzas in Rome, capped it off with some gelato and then went home to put little sicky Mitchy to bed.
We slept in this morning because we wanted to give Mitch as much sleep as possible to heal his sickness, so when we did finally get going it was around noon. Since it was New Years Eve, and everything would be closed on New Years Day, we didn’t want to get the 2 day bus pass so we just walked everywhere. The city is huge, but yet so small. There are so many things to see it’s a joke. Mitch and I are really loving everything we have encountered so far, we really can’t get over how extravagant and ridiculous most Italians dress. We are in a dark building and they are all wearing sunglasses like its sunny. It’s hilarious. We tried to go to the train station to reserve our trains in Italy, but the place was a zoo and we got out of there as fast as we could. It’s the biggest station we have ever seen. We went to the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish steps which both were crowded with people, and the strange thing was it wasn’t really tourists but the local Italians. The Trevi Fountain was beautiful, and Mitch and I threw a coin in together, cant’ tell you the wish though or it won’t come true. At the Spanish steps, all these Italian men are handing out these beautiful roses to women they don’t even know and telling them they love them. It’s super weird. It happened to me, this guy gave me three roses and told me he loves me. Then he creeps around the other side to Mitch and goes “give me some money, come on, small money” and Mitch just laughs and says “hey we love you too, you can take these roses back”…then he comes over to ME, the girl he gave them to, and asks me for some money. Really? I’m going to buy myself three roses on New Years Eve? I don’t think so. Anyway, we wandered around for a few more hours just checking out little things not the big attractions because we are saving them for the 2nd and 3rd of January. We went to dinner around 8 and had a lovely little meal before getting ready to head to Piazza del Popollo for the New Years celebration. We have no idea what to expect, and let me tell you we were not at all ready for what came our way. Not at all. It was the most crazy thing either of us have ever experienced. I don’t even really know how to begin describing what it was like…almost like a war zone. In the piazza, people were all gathered in a huge circle with a huge monument in the middle of the circle. There was a gap between the circle and the monument where people were throwing crazy illegal fireworks that sounded like bombs. Mitch said they were M2000s which are equivalent to 1/8th a stick of dynamite or something crazy like that. I am going to try and attach a small video so you could hear what is sounded like, it was literally like a war zone to me. I have super good reactions so each boom made me jump out of my skin which made Mitch laugh and me get mad. It was quite the night. We were the only tourists there while the rest of the people were all locals celebrating the new year. There were guys walking around illegally selling bottle of champagne and Mitch and I bought one so we could ring in the new year with a little bubbly. When it was almost midnight, the crowd started going nuts shouting, signing, and throwing more and more fireworks into the ring. It could easily have gotten out of hand and been on the front page of the BBC news the next morning…luckily it didn’t. At 12, the fireworks show began and it was absolutely spectacular. The best show either of us had seen and it lasted 25 minutes, just huge beautiful fireworks. They must be cheaper over here or something. There were hundreds of champagne bottles in the crowd and people started picking them up and just throwing them in the air and shattering them on the ground. It became a trend, everyone just threw their bottle of champagne onto the ground shattering it into a million pieces. Of course Mitch and I had to join in and after a few sips of the worst champagne we had ever tasted, we chucked our bottle in the huge pile of glass forming in the center of the piazza.

We slept in till about noon on New Years day because the whole city is pretty much shut down until about 2 in the afternoon. The Romans appreciate a late morning after a heavy night of partying and carrying on. Mitch is really not feeling well so we have been taking it easy. The rain was pouring down when we woke up and pretty much went on and off for the rest of the day. WE didn’t do too much today because like I said, little Mitchy isn’t feeling so hot. We got our trains all figured out for the rest of our time in Italy, and we enjoyed a lunch at a little café. There were a lot of open markets and things in all the piazzas and Mitch and I always take forever to get through those because we both love to look at every little thing even if we have already seen it a hundred thousand times. We found an Irish pub in the city that had a really awesome atmosphere, so we decided to go in for a pint or two. It ended up being only half a pint because holy cow those prices were ridiculous! It was great to be in that atmosphere again, definitely our favorite in Europe. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city not really accomplishing too much worth writing about. We mostly just looked at the architecture and Mitch felt like crap so we went home early so he could get some rest for our dedicated sight seeing day tomorrow.
Going to the pub for a drink, wandered around the city, didn’t do much.

We woke up to a sunshine filled morning which was good for Mitch’s health condition and overall well-being. High spirits were in order for the two little travellers. Today was the day we were going to tackle the big spectacular sights of Rome and first on our list was the Vatican city. It was about a 20 minute walk from our room along the big river. The streets are pretty quiet except for the occasional scam artist who will pull over and say he is a rep for Versace and tell you he has a free present for you but he needs some money for gas. A load of bologna, but somehow we always fall for it in the first 30 seconds. Anyway, the entrance into Vatican city is quite impressive as the Pope’s Crib sits at the very end of this long street. It towers over the rest of the buildings and the basilica is quiet impressive with its massive dome. Once we got closer we realized that all those little dots in the square were actually PEOPLE, and when I say people I mean tourists. Tourists to the max. We are talking Asians with the cameras, fat Americans with their whiney kids, Italians in their sunglasses and Gucci, and even the Pope himself…not really but I wouldn’t be surprised. The line was over 2 miles long with literally thousands of people in it, at least a 2-3 hour wait. We couldn’t believe it. We were not about to stand in line for that long when there were 2 different lines for the Basilica and the Vatican Museum, both being a 2-3 or even 4 hour wait. NO way was that going to happen for us that day. So, we had a change of plans and headed into the center of Rome to go to the impressive Coliseum. The line there was pretty massive as well so we signed up for one of the guided tours which skips the line and actually tells you what every rock and stuff means. We are pretty clueless otherwise so we thought it was worth the extra 8 euro to actually know what you are looking at. We were both really thankful we did it because we learned some really cool facts. Surprisingly, the movie Gladiator is a pretty accurate representation of what Roma life in the coliseum was. IT was so intense, disgusting, and just bloody. Rabid monkeys were released into the crowd to get them ready for the fights and the monkeys would literally mutilate people’s faces and pick their eyes out and stuff, super intense. There were over 1 million people and 3 million animals killed inside the coliseum in one year. I found that statistic pretty staggering. One time they even flooded the floor and put crocodiles in and threw people into them, but it wasn’t gruesome enough because the water would just turn red…the crocodiles would eat everything, bones included so there were never any remains. The Romans wanted blood, guts, and pain…One of the most interesting/scary facts we learned was that there was a man dressed in black (where the grim reaper is derived from) with a long sceathe (sp?) type thing just raking the dead people into his hole. From there, the dead man was grabbed by this man who had a huge hammer and knocked his knees and elbows in and throw his mangled body into the fire where his remains were later taken to the famous Roman catacombs. How incredible is that? What a sick world, not that it’s much better now, but geez. At the end of our tour, the rain started coming down in buckets and like idiots, Mitch and I didn’t bring our umbrellas…the early morning sunshine fooled us. Our feet got soggy, our hair was smashed against our head, and we were two unhappy campers. We stood under a makeshift umbrella for about an hour until the second half of our tour took place which was a journey through the catacombs, Palantine Hill, and the old Roman Forum. It probably would have been much more enjoyable had it not been raining cats and dogs, but all and all it was pretty amazing. The Palantine Hill was basically the Beverley Hills of the Roman society, it’s where all the rich dudes lived in their big palaces and had their orgies and conducted their shadey business. The remains were left from some of the old palaces and you could just tell they were pretty incredible. Palatine Hill was created when one of the emperors wanted to distance himself from society and build a huge house, which he decided to call a “palace”. Our guide was really knowledgeable and we learned some cool facts about all the different emperors of Rome, Nero being the nastiest awulfest one ever. Evil evil man. After about 2 hours, our feet were soaked through and our backs were aching so we decided we should head back to our little apartment and get some rest. We went to dinner around 8 in one of the big piazzas which are always entertaining. The nightlife here in Roman is almost more exciting than the day life, the city just seems to come alive. It was important we get home early and rest up because we were going to attempt to ransack the Vatican tomorrow morning….oh boy.

This next day is written by Mitch Folks:
The Vatican (The Pope’s Crib)
We knew from the previous day that the lines getting into St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museum we ridiculous, but what we didn’t know is that the lines were OUT OF THIS WORLD ridiculous. Just like every other morning on this trip, we set our alarm to wake up a solid hour before our target because it takes us a good hour to get out of bed, especially when we wake up early. Also, just like every morning, we quickly shut the alarm off when it rings and go right back to sleep. It really makes no difference. We end up waking up about 15 min short of when we were supposed to be leaving the apartment so we rushed putting our clothes on and were out of the apartment both showerless and still asleep. When we arrived to the Vatican city after a 15 min walk, the line into the basilica was very short, so we decided to knock out the museum and Sistine Chapel first. When we arrived at the line that had to of started before the museum even opened, we were slightly relieved because, as mentioned above, the line the day before was about a mile and a quarter long. BUT…little did we know that the line actually runs past the entrance and then u-turns back towards the entrance in a zig-zag form, causing the wait to be just about another hour and ten minutes long. It was a mental battle, but like all mental battles that Tara and I have been through, we both breezed through this one and entered the museum after 2 hours and 15 min in line. I will start off by saying that the museum was over-rated but the Sistine chapel was well worth seeing. It took forever to get to but when we entered it we were pretty shocked. The outside of the chapel is pretty non-existent. The chapel is built into the building that it shares with the museum, but the inside is awesome. The paintings on the ceilings and the wall are very impressive. Tara and I sat down and just gazed up all over. I ended up sleeping on Tara’s shoulder for about 10 min though because I was sooo tired and was sick during this time with a terrible cough and chills (possible fever). After seeing the Sistine Chapel, Tara and I wanted to go and see the Basilica. Because we didn’t pay the 35 euro for the private tour that takes you through an underground passage straight to the church with no wait, we had to exit back out the museum and walk about a half mile around the city walls and wait in another line, but only for about 30 min. The basilica was very very impressive. What sets it apart from all the others is the beautiful marble work. It contains many different types of marble from white to red, to green, to black, most of which actually comes from the coliseum. After a giant earthquake ruined the coliseum, they decided to take the marble and use it to help build the Basilica. We really enjoyed looking at all the Pope’s graves underground too. That was really awesome as well. There was a huge burial ground underneath the Basilica that contained most of the previous popes dating back to Pope Clement. Crazy Stuff!!!!!! After a very long day of waiting in lines and walked around, we decided not to pay 7 euro to go up top the basilica where you can see all of Rome. I was broke and we both weren’t feeling very well, but despite that it was yet another successful day in the lives of Mish and Tala.

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