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Published: January 29th 2009
Although we had an incredibly long day the day before, the girls and I were up bright and early. Learning from our mistakes, we did not stop by breakfast this morning. Instead, we headed to the little cafe we had seen that had everything a girl could want. My breakfast consisted of a chocolate croissant and a double shot of espresso. Amazing. I was finished before we even got out the door.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day! For the second day in a row, we headed to the Colisseum but this time, to go in. We walked the same way we had the day before and so we had to stop to take the always-necessary leaping photo (round 2 for this particular photo). The tickets we had bought the day before was a dual ticket for Palatine Hill and the Colisseum. First of all, on going to Rome, I was told that I would have to wait hours to get into the sites. It is for this reason that we got up early so we would make it to the Colisseum before the masses did. But, there was no line. We did not have to fight through crowds to see
A leaping photo
one of the manythe building nor did we have to wait! We simply walked right in! Even the inside was empty. Although I had been told going inside was pointless, I am so glad we did. It's massive inside! We walked around and around the base and took pictures in various areas. The steps that now dead end into a wall were extremely steep and narrow! I can't imagine masses of people racing up them (or down for that matter!) yikes. We then made the trek to the top on different stairs that were extremely cruel in their own way. They were not narrow but they were steep and they were tall. The steps were at least a foot and a half high. Talk about a butt workout! None of us could breath by the top! On the top level there was a museum of statues. Back in the day, statues used to be in between the columns around the entire building. Now, most of them are headless or armless, or really don't resemble any human at all. Moving on, to demonstrate how large the Colisseum really was, Andrea, Jess, and I walked around to the opposite side of the arena to take
pictures. It was a lot longer walk than expected and once we got to the other side we could not distinguish who Alyse, Emma, and Sabrina were. They were dots in the distance! Once again, I cannot believe how massive that structure was!
Realizing the time, we left the Colisseum in pursuit of the Vatican. Sabrina, Andrea, and I wanted to attend mass at St. Peters and that started at 11. Sabrina and I decided it would probably be a good idea to take advantage of our hop-on hop-off bus tickets while the rest of the girls hopped on the metro. We headed to the stop the bus had gone to two nights before with the couple that decided they didnt want to get off. We couldn't find any bus stop with our tour company's name on it! So we crossed the street. No bus stop with the name on it. We headed back to Palantine hill which was only about a 5 minute walk from where we were because we knew there was a stop there. We found multiple green bus stop signs but none belonged to our neon bus. So we asked a street peddler if he knew
where to catch the bright green bus. Our map said we should have already been at two of the bus stops but they didn't exist. The man was sure we needed to go back to the Colisseum because on Saturdays, the neon bus had limited stops. What? So we headed back to the Colisseum and the metro station across the street. There was a street peddler that actually sold the neon bus tickets so we asked them where we could catch the bus. They said back at the first stop we had tried. Great. So we headed inside the metro station to ask someone else. This person told us the map we had was old and that those stops were not the right stops anymore. We needed to go upstairs and cross the street and walk backwards or some nonsense like that. We were completely fed up. She said the closest stop if we didn't want to go upstairs and get lost, would be to head to the "typewriter steps". Annoyed, we did not want to waste the money we had spent so we walked very quickly to the steps where we had seen the guards the day before. This
was a good 15 minute walk and we were defintiely on a time crunch. We were supposed to be meeting the girls right now. So we go to the plaza with the typewriter steps and cannot find this stupid bus stop anywhere. We asked literally 4 police officers and they each pointed us in different directions. We probably crossed the plaza and its crazy traffic 4 times. At one point we saw our bus turn a corner and we started running! Sabrina and I were screaming to each other from across the street "do you see it! where'd it go? where did it come from!" Finally, we saw the stupid neon sign and crossed the street again to the stop. Arriving at the bus stop shoudl have offered relief. Instead, there was a man standing underneath of it with a clip board. At the same time, we noticed the streets were being closed off. So, we asked the man:
us: how long until the next bus
him: ohh 10 minutes or so
us: oh ok, phew
him: where are you trying to go
us: the vatican
him: (laugh)
us: what?
him: oh that will take probably an hour to an
hour and a half (completely serious)
us:
him: do you need to be there soon or something?
us:
him: well you see with this protest everything is shutting down
us:
him: if i were you, i'd find another way to get there
us: thanks klasjdf;lkzxjvaiofjalskwemrn;zvcjalsfd
we stormed across the street. we were furious and we hated this damn protest AND the neon bus! Once we reached the other side of the plaza, we had a flashback to our first day with trying to find a bus driver who spoke english. We asked multiple people which would be the quickest bus to the Vatican and we were told the number bus to look for. Lesson: Italian busses dont stop where they are supposed to. Our bus stopped up the street from where its designated stopping point was. So Sabrina and I darted for the bus barely making it before the driver closed the doors. We went up to the bus driver and asked where we could buy our tickets. She didn't speak English. There was a priest and another man on the bus that spoke english that told us that we were supposed to buy tickets before we got on the
I'm on the opposite side
teeeny tiny on the other side of the Colisseum bus. Great. Unlike London, you can't buy tickets onboard. So there Sabrina and I were, panting, frustrated, and now defeated by the Italian bus system. The bus driver told us in Italian that "no ticket, no bus, we would have to get off at the next stop". We give up!Thank goodness this was the Vatican bus because the priest was translating what the bus driver was telling us (even though it was bad news) and then the other man pulled two extra tickets out of his pocket and punched them through the machine and handed them to us. We could not believe it! You hear that there are good people in this world but you seldom run into them! We kept saying thank you and offering to pay but he just waved us away. The bus had been re-routed because of the protest so we talked to the man about the protest and other various things that he had in his limited english vocab. It was now 10:30 (by the way). What was supposed to take 10 minutes took us about a 20 on the bus so by the time the man told us it was our stop, we literally
had 10 minutes left till 11. The man told us where to get off and we made a mad dash, thanking him again for his genorosity. So Sabrina and I were running through the plaza of the vatican (in dresses) looking for the girls that were already waiting in the extremely long line. They were almost up to security so they were behind a fence. Emma, Alyse, and Jess are all Jewish and had no desire to go to Catholic mass (understandably) so they jumped the fence (it was chest high) and traded spots wtih Sabrina and I. I was not a fan of having to jump the line but I figured I would either miss the experience or I would just have to do it. Besides, 3 people were leaving for 2 to join so its technically a win win for all. Note: it is an extremely ackward experience climbing a wooden fence in front of hundreds of people in a dress. I was shaking. Not fun. I guess one way of looking at it is I didn't have to wait in any lines in Rome. The time now is 10:55. We go through securty and, once again, make
a mad dash. Of course, we go through the wrong doorway and get kicked out by security guards. We make it through the right doorway and we literally have 2 minutes. I know it is extremely inappropriate to run in church but at the time, we found in completely necessary. All three of us were doing that awkward running hop walk type of thing. Thank goodness I had looked up what section of St. Peters the service was in. All three of us were wearing flat shoes and on St. Peters marble floors it was convienent to slide to a stop to turn the corner. I wish I would have had a video of it. We certainly made a grand entrance into St. Peters, that's for sure. After run/hop/walking to the other end of the church while attempting to look around at the same time, we made it to the little section where a priest was roping off the area. We begged him to let us in (whispered) and he pointed to the entrance at the end of the aisle. The roped entrace was for the bishop only. Whoops. So finally, after almost 2 hours of running around like crazy
people, we sat down for mass at St. Peters.
Sitting through a service in the holiest place in the world is a once in a lifetime. I understood absolutely nothing of the service except when people made the sign of a cross across their chest. I am not a religious person, therefore I simply observed the ceremony. I also refused communion. Although being able to say I took communion in St. Peters is also a once in a lifetime, if I find out "He does exist" and He asks me why I took Communion in the holiest place in the world when I was not baptized Catholic, I dont want to have to say "because I wanted to say I did it". Probably wouldn't fly.
I'm not going to lie, I'm glad it was a very short ceremony. Andrea and Sabrina looked absorbed in what was going on at the altar but by the end of the Italian murmuring my mind was wandering and I had started to come up with stories about the people stepping out of the confession booths that were located directly to my right. And, I was hungry. Maybe I shouldn't have turned down communion.
Illegal picture
The altar we weren't supposed to take a picture...whoops After the service, we left St. Peters marvelling at how large it was and how gorgeous everything was. We tried to get in touch with the girls that had opted out of the service but for some reason, the Vatican does not get cell phone reception! We stopped by a cafe to get lunch about a block away from where our Vatican tour was meeting hoping that we would see the other girls pass. The cafe we went into looked like a normal Italian cafe with sandwiches and espresso machines and pizza (all without prices). I ordered a plain piece of pizza and a coffee and sat down. All the waiter could talk about was American sports and he really knew players on each team and what city had what teams and who was winning when. It was impressive and he had never been out of Italy! Anyway, we asked him to bring out bill. It was over 30 euro!!! For 3 of us to have a piece of pizza or a sandwich and a drink. I ended up paying close to 15 euro because my coffee was 5 by itself. It was ridiculous. We were all sitting there in
shock. If on budget travel, do not go to a cafe outside the Vatican!
We left the cafe and headed towards the restaurant where the Vatican tour we were signed up for was meeting. Jess, Emma, and Alyse were already there and we were about 20 minutes early so we voted it was time for gelato. The first gelato shop we found the shop owner was obnoxious! Yelling absurd things that weren't really that funny. Andrea and I were not amused so we moved on to find another shop. The second shop was much friendlier and gave me a cone with a mini cone of gelato! You can never get too much gelato.
Returning to the restaurant, our tourguide was waiting for us. Paid up she gave us headphones and told us how the tour would go. Of course we amused ourselves with gangsta pictures wearing headphones and sunglasses. I dont think anyone on that tour wanted to go with us by the time we left for the Vatican. We were that obnoxious group!
The tour was 3 hours that led us through the Vatican museum and ended after the sistine chapel. We passed a lot of artwork and statues
On the way out
Sabrina saw this through the window... and paintings and everything was so interesting. I felt the need to take pictures of EVERYTHING (did I really need to take a picture of the tiled floor?) Our tour guide was amazing and it did not feel like 3 hours of information. I did not know that a lot of paintings I have studied in the past were in the Vatican. Leonardo and Raphael painted at the same time and they didn't like each other. Fun fact for the day. The Sistine Chapel was amazing. I could have stayed in their for ages and just stared. You see pictures of it your entire life and then it's right in front of you. Thankfully people know how to restore the works as well. There were some patches left uncleaned to show how dirty it had gotten over the years. It was like night and day. The Sistine Chapel is the room in which all the bishops and cardinals and whomever else is eligible to vote for a new pope are locked in until a new pope is chosen. It is also the room in which the smoke originates from to announce it to the world. Leaving the chapel, we walked
the walk the first walk the new pope takes. While he continues down to the famous doorway, we made the last trip of the tour back to St. Peters. Executive decision on the girls part, we decided we wanted to climb to the top of the dome St. Peters. There were 320 stairs. I thought there were a lot more than that! We began climbing and for awhile we were just going around in circles. We reached the first break that was the inside of the dome at the base. We could see over the inside. We were HIGH. The dome of St. Peters, including the letters, are all in proportion to make it not appear as big as it actually is. For instance, at the base of the dome, the letters are 3 feet tall, a couple yards up, they are 5 feet tall, and another couple yards they are 7 feet tall. However, when you are looking down there is no optical illusion, you are just high! I clung to the wall and my knees were shaking. During this time we lost Sabrina so we continued to climb and slowly the walls started shrinking in, the stairs got
narrower and skinnier and none of us could breath (not from the walls shrinking in, but from step after step after step). We reached the second break and somehow we were not at the top yet! Instead we were on the roof and ran around taking brady bunch pictures and pretended to stretch as if the million stairs we had already climbed had not affected us at all. The final trek up the stairs, the walls were sideways and the steps treacherous. It was the worst part of the climb. Making things even worse, we were climbing with other people we didn't know so we couldnt' slow down or stop because there wasn't any room to pass. We had to just keep moving.
The climb was definitely worth it. We could see everything over Rome. Walking around the top of the dome, we could point out the colisseum and palantine hill and the direction of our hostel. Everything! And it was right at sunset so it was gorgeous!
We wanted to make it to the Vatican post office before it closed since the Vatican is its own country so we headed back down the stairs after taking the necessary photographs
and taking in the view. The stairs down were slightly terrifying at first but much easier than going up. Once we made it to the long easy steps towards the bottom, Jess and I decided we wanted to race. Bad idea. Going down steps in a circle can cause dizziness. We were neck and neck until the bottom step when I tripped and literally went flailing out into the middle of St. Peters with some crazy guard screaming "SHHHHHHHHH" after me. We had been laughing the entire way down and embarrassed, we apologized that we didn't know the steps emptied into the actual church. Moving on. We wandered around inside and their was another mass service going on in a different section than that morning and they had the altar boys and the swinging thing with incense and a small choir! Not fair.
We went into the Vatican post office and I had a very annoyed postman because I couldn't decide what stamp I wanted to use (He was the one who told me I could choose from various options). I hope my stamps worked because I never heard from those that were supposed to receive them : ).
From
the post office we headed to dinner. We stopped in and asked a lady where her favorite local non-touristy restaurant was and she gave us directions to a street filled with genuine restaurants. We made it there and chose one that had each of the dishes we were all craving within our price range.
This dinner started out as usual with bread and oil, and 3 bottles of wine. When in Italy... We were alone in the restaurant, all tired from the day and happy to finally be sitting with food in front of us. The waiters weren't the greatest fans of us because we were loud and laughing and we spoke no Italian. They kept trading off waiters for our table until one finally he decided he liked us and joked around with us. When we got our food, a group of ladies came into the restaurant (there were 5 of them) and we made a joke that we were going to be like them when we were older. Then they asked us what food we were eating in English! They were British. And of course, after some wine, everyone is friends. They told us they had gone on
The Pope's walk
This is the first walk the new Popes make when they are elected trips every year since they kids had started school together (all boys) and of course they started matchmaking when they found out how old we were. We explained to them what we were doing in Rome and how what an amazing time we were having. The waiters must have really been annoyed by this point because now they had a replica of our table, only 20 years older and 10 times louder! It was so fun! Throughout dinner we would sometimes say something across the room about "if we were your age" or "when we grow up" that would set the entire room laughing. Alyse and Jess ordered more food because they had attempted to split a meal and it backfired. So while they ordered pizza, Sabrina, Emma, and I ordered more wine and tiramisu. By the time we received the check every plate was clean and all the glasses were empty. On the way out, we insisted we take a picture with our future. One lady grabbed me and sat me on her lap and said I was sitting on HER lap and she was holding me so tight. Maybe she thought I'd make a good match for her
School of Athens
I studied this painting by Raphael in art classes son. Dinner had been so fun.
Walking down the streets of Rome, Sabrina, Emma, and I found it necessary to sing random songs while dancing around. Alyse pretended to not know us and Jess and Andrea were ready to go home so they were walking incredibly fast. At some point, we all stopped for a huddle (except for Jess who was too far ahead) and decided we needed to make a pact. We all put our pinkies in and I said "like the women in the restaurant, we should make a pact to take a trip EVERY weekend!". And then the pact was made through hyserical laughing that we would travel every weekend! Maybe once a year will do.
Of course, we had not gotten our second round of gelato for the day. We stopped at the same place I had gotten gelato earlier in the day. I thought it was a good idea, mid-order, to ask the gelato lady to please take a picture for us! I mean, what better than from behind the gelato counter since we had based our lives around gelato that weekend! The cones framing the picture, perfection! For some reason, I wanted strawberry and
mint gelato. Not a good combo when I actually got it. I was in no mood for mint gelato! So I shared with Sabrina and as usual, everything was funny to us. Alyse wasn't even talking to us by this point. From the gelato shop, we moved on to the metro where after buying tickets, Sabrina and Andrea danced around as if they were metro performers doing karate kick leaps, or something like that. We got on the metro and I attempted to pull Sabrina away from a random Albanian man she was trying to learn how to speak Albanian from. Conversation pretty much went "how do you say no in Albanian?"=....."no". oh. While I was embarrassed for Sabrina, the other 4 girls sat across from us and pretended they had never seen us before in our lives. Good thing it was a quick trip to the train station by the hostel.
In the train station, Jess and Andrea immediately headed back to the hostel. The rest of us took a bathroom break (which cost money to get in and a stranger snuck me in since I didn't have any change) and then headed back to the hostel the long
Swiss gaurds
must: 1. speak seven european languages
2. be catholic
3. be single
4. be attractive
5. be under 30
yes, please
way. While Sabrina and Emma had an ugly face contest, Alyse and I wandered through some of the tourist shops that were still open and I bought a cute little snowglobe to keep to remember the amazing weekend we spent in Rome.
Sabrina and my plane left at 6:30 the next morning. We had to leave for the bus station by 3:30. We left at 3:30 and headed to the same place our bus had dropped us off. It was on the opposite side of the station and we didn't know how to get to the other side since the station was closed at 3:30 in the morning. We figured we would just walk around the building but there were walls on either side so we just assumed the bus would leave from somewhere else. We asked I dont even know how many people where our bus left from and not one person gave us the same direction. There was also a large group of Italian teenage boys that thought we should get on the bus with them. We didn't need to leave Italy. No thanks. We walked back and forth from each side of the station about
I have no words
The asians are following pokeman 10 times, people staring at us as we began to freak out. We tried following people with suitcases, wrong. Finally, when we had less than 10 minutes till the bus was supposed to leave, did we find someone who spoke english that could point us a decent way of getting around the station. We were literally running. We got around the wall and saw our bus. By this point we were sprinting because there was no time left. At one point, it did cross my mind that we could just miss our bus and stay in Rome longer, I didn't want to spring anymore but I continued running. We made it to the bus and there were only 2 seats left on it. The bus pulled away shortly after we boarded and Sabrina and I decided it best, in the future, to never take a bus in Rome again.
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