Rome, Vatican City, Orvieto ^-^

 I know I know, I took forever. SORRY.

ROMA!
wow, today was a full day of walking all over Rome! Emily and I went together, we must have walked ten miles at least! We got on the bus and it took us from Civitavecchia (the port city) to Rome. it's about 80 minutes to get there. It was a nice ride, I took some pictures and then took a nap :P

When we got to Rome we started out at the Piazza del Popolo, with a  big fountain in the middle and statues and benches all around it. There are ancient ruins and old fountains and older statues all over the place in Rome! you can't turn around without seeing something from like 400 BC. It's kind of awesome. :)

A note about the roads: they are not paved like ours. they are straight up uneven cobblestone. pretty much everywhere. outside the city there are paved roads, but inside, no. nada. I can't tell you how many times we tripped today! we'd be walking and looking at a building or something and wham! sudden flailing.

So, what all did we see today? Well, on the bus on the way there we had a nice tour guide telling us about some of the things we'd be seeing and she gave us a map with some of the most important monuments circled and numbered. It was really convenient. So we started out, as I said, at the Piazza del Popolo. From there, we walked down Via del Babuino to the Spanish Steps. Apparently the Keats-Shelley house is right over there, but we didn't find that out until after we got back to our meeting place. I'm sad that  I didn't even notice it! So we walked up the Spanish steps and took some photos, then we went to see the Trevi Fountain. That might be my favorite thing that we saw, I loved it, it's so gorgeous! I got a picture with it, and a picture of me throwing a coin into it! :)

There are so many people in Rome. from all over the place. I heard a lot of German today. and British accents.

Anyway then we went to the Piaza Venezia where the Italian National Monument is. One of the statues there has a really nice butt.

Then we made our way to the colosseum, we didn't go inside though, it was ultra crowded. It was really cool to see it, all the same. Then we had lunch right down the street and while we were sitting there I said to Emily, "We are having lunch, in Italy, within sight of the Colosseum. Whoa."  It sort of dawned on me at that moment how epic the day really was. Oh, btw, I had gnocchi for lunch. :D  during lunch there was a lady sitting near me with bright red hair and an amazingly bright chartreuse lacey-ish shawl. I took a picture of her, very sneakily. :P

A note about our map: There is a section on it where there is a useless map of a Mosaic Art Gallery that we didn't even see, let alone go to. That special little map covers about half a square mile of roads and landmarks that we actually needed between the colosseum and the piazza di San Giovanni. So we ended up roaming in Rome (heheh) for a long time just trying to navigate our way out of that section of the map. Though we did see some neat things hidden away in that secret section. There was a very large wall that we walked up and discovered the entrance to, it required a ticket to get in, so we examined the signs outside and decided that it was an ancient school inside. I have no idea what it was called, my memory has failed me. But it was really lovely inside from what we could see, the grounds were really well maintained and the building itself was interesting.

While we were wandering around lost-ish, we ran into some SaS friends! What are the odds?! at the edge of the city, in a place so huge, two tiny groups of people run into each other completely by accident.

We saw at least 4 people in Rome dressed up like Sarcophagi, just standing there. It was weird.

After that we spent ages wandering around trying to get to the Pantheon. we finally did with aching feet. It was a little disappointing because half of it is covered in scaffolding for either cleaning or repairs or both.

We filled up our water bottles at the public water fountain (not fountain like the Trevi fountain.. fountain like a spicket, sort of). Rome has really good water, and we were dying of thirst. It's much hotter in Rome than it is in Barcelona. Especially in the middle of large Piazzas.

I was a creeper today, I took quite a few pictures of random people and children. they're so cute though, I couldn't help it! Also, I successfully got a picture of a metro Italian guy, woo!

I bought 20 postcards for a Euro. Don't know how much stamps are yet though.

The big main street, Via Del Corso, is full of famous designer's shops and big moeny stores. You could spend a fortune there if you had one. Emily and I went in one store and tried on some pants, because we wanted light linen pants for when we're in Egypt and Morocco, so we can be cool without being indecent, you know. I found some really cool pants, but they were like 60 Euro. sad. (but I have a happy ending the next day :P)

After a long day, we went back to the ship and relaxed. Aladdin was on the ship circuit! that was nice. ^-^


A Day in Vatican City
Buon Giorno, amici! I took Italian freshman year and in the past two days I have been remembering things! it's so bizarre. For example: I would never have remembered how to say "I'm sorry", but when we went in a shop and asked the man if he sold stamps there, he said "no.. me dispiace" and suddenly it was like OH! ha. I totally understood that.  and at the least my two semesters of Italian has helped me with pronouncing things correctly, even if I don't understand what I'm saying.

Anyway today we got up and went to the Vatican! we got train tickets there, 13,50 for the three of us. Me, Emily and Sam, of course :)

We got there and saw that the line was a mile long, so we decided to have lunch first. We ate at a place that was like an italian version of Subway/Jimmy Johns! But it was Italian, so it had some .. interesting ingredients. It was called Panini Espresso. I ended up having a panini with Ricotta, Sun dried tomato, Spinach, and pork that was very salami-esque. it was pretty delicious. :D

Then we went to see the Colosseum because Sam hadn't seen it the day before, so we took the metro there and spent approximately 3 minutes in front of it to take a couple pictures, and then took the metro right back to the Vatican!

I got some souvenirs. :) I got some pretty scarves and a rosary and a pair of pants like the ones I had tried on the day before! except this time they were 10 Euro instead, woo! because they were from a street vender instead of a fancy store on Via del Cavour.

I have trouble pluralizing the word Euro. I vary between adding an S or not.

I'm pretty sure we saw the pope when we were in the piazza del San Peitro.

We waited in line to get in the Vatican Museum for a little over an hour. I read some of Life of Pi. it's good! Then it took just as long if not longer just to walk through it all! Half of it we weren't even interested in, I just wanted to see the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel! However! becaue we were forced to walk through all the rooms and stuff, I saw the Laocoon! (I'm going to guess that you have no idea how to pronounce this word. it's lay-ah-coe-ahn. got it? okay. moving on) Which, I didn't even know it was there. ha. But I got super excited when I saw it, and I got my picture with it. It's so epic!

That was one of the first things we saw. Then we walked through nine miles of museum that had too many bodies and not enough air conditioning. They definitely make you wait for the Sistine Chapel too. It's pretty much the last thing in there! There are a bunch of group tours going through the museum too, and they always get in the way! they're like herds of cattle that are oblivious to the fact that they are in the middle of the road.

One room we went through had a bunch of really huge, really old rug/tapestry things in it, and it smelled like raisins.

fun fact: if you spent 5 seconds on each artifact in the Vatican Museum, you would be there for about 8 years.

When we got to the exit, we saw some SaS friends! What are the odds!? again! because they were the same people we saw the day before. haha. 

After that we caught a very hot and sweaty train back to Civitavecchia.

We showered because we felt so gross, and then we went out for some internet, but the places were closed so we got dessert and wine :) I wore my new pants :D I got some limoncello. that stuff is best served mixed with something, it is really strong!

Then we went back to the ship and Emily and I spent some time trying to figure out what we were going to do the next day. We looked through Wikitravel for some interesting places and also through the SaS trip book to see where they were going. We found a neat trip to Orvieto and then went to find some people who might be selling it. we did and we got ourselves the tickets for the trip! then we found out Sam was on the trip too! So we went to bed excited for the next day.

Orvieto!
We got on the bus at 930 for the two hour drive. I slept most of the way.

Orvieto is a city on a cliff (GREAT views), with a bunch of caves tunneled out beneath it! it also is the home of the Duomo, which is a very fancy church.

We went on a guided tour down in the caves, which are all manmade. people used to use them as workshops and storage space. A lot of people still have caves under their houses, and they are used just like basements or cellars. The tour was interesting but the lady droned on for ages about some things when she could have just been like "alright, this is an olive press, cool right?" Then we went to another set of caves where there were holes cut out in the walls for pigeon nests. pigeons were good resources for people back in the day for food, for selling, and for fertilizer.

After the tour we had a gross boxed lunch. After that we went to a shop and got a better lunch. I was adventurous and got a panini with some duck meat on it. it tasted a little bit like beef jerky. had a lot of fat on it though, which I peeled off.

we walked around for a little bit. Ceramics shops are very popular in Orvieto. we went in a couple places and I got a couple postcards and a deck of playing cards! it's become my thing. I got a deck in Barcelona too. I will have one from every country! to go along with my SaS deck, my Abraham Lincoln deck, and my Tinkerbell deck :P

We left at 330 to get back to Civitavecchia. On the way back I managed to stay awake and saw the amazing scenery!

When we got back we had dinner on the ship and then went to get some internet! which we were finally successful at. I put a new profile picture up on Facebook! :D 

Then we came back and watched the first part of Australia and went to bed early, around 11.

FIN.

now it's a new day and I am catching up on emails and blogs and reading. Sorry I have been late with blogging. Sorry that it is not as detailed as before. I'm going to go through my pictures, they usually help me remember things. I'll try to do better I promise!

It's the last day in Civitavecchia (do you need to know how to pronounce that? CHEE-vee-tah-VEH-key-uh.) tomorrow morning we will be in Naples!