Last day in Europe

This morning we almost felt like just staying at the hotel all day again. But that felt a bit pathetic being that it was our last day here! We just didn't have anything else to really see. We could go back to places, but eh.

We decided to walk through Trastevere this afternoon. It's in the south east of Rome. My guide book made me laugh when it informed me that it was originally wasn't considered part of Rome...until 270 AD. I know, I know, there was a lot of time before that (and important historical stuff too), but the book made it sound like it was recently that it was added to Rome.

We had heard that Trastevere is often overlooked by tourists and that it was a shame. It was a pretty part of town, kind of on a hill. It seemed a little dead, but that's probably because it's overlooked by tourists and many Romans are on holiday so they closed their shop up. But we enjoyed our little stroll through the alleys and streets

An arch that we found. We didn't stay long enough to find out what it was because it had a pesky chirping sound on it. In a park near where we used to live, there's a gazebo that had one of those sounds. It's ear piercing. We always thought it was to discourage hobos from sleeping there. This was the first building that we encountered here that had one though. So we covered our ears and kept walking

View of Rome

This was a fountain across the street from where the above picture was taken. The water wasn't that cold, but we still wanted to jump in it. We didn't though because there were military guys nearby and I hear it's a hefty fine to swim in their fountains...

Pretty streets in Trastevere

And old buildings

Santa Maria Church in Trastevere

I love ivy!

Laundry and ivy. Picturesque

Then we walked along the river to find our way to our normal bus stop

We stumbled on more ruins. Signs were in Italian though...so we don't know what they were. But they were cool looking

We made it to the bus stop just as our bus pulled up and then pulled away. The stop is both the beginning and end of the route, so normally they wait 10 minutes before leaving. So we were shocked when he just took off. So we bought some gelato to pass the time to wait for the next bus (which was 40 minutes later). Doug got Strawberry and Lemon and loved it. Probably his favorite of the week (but I'm putting words in his mouth). I got watermelon and pineapple. I hoped the watermelon would be more candy flavored than tasting like the fruit, but I hoped wrong. It wasn't bad, but I did like the pineapple more. After we were done we waited some more for our bus on some steps in the shade.

It finally came and nearly passed us again. We were expecting it to stop, and luckily Doug signaled that we wanted the bus. I don't know how the bus works in the US cause I've never used it. But here you need to hail the buses, almost like hailing a taxi. But most bus drivers stop at every stop anyways. Not this bus driver. It was a pretty empty bus and we got to our stop in record time. It felt like teach-the-tourists-the-Italian-way day. We kept passing up stops and seeing the people get left behind (you could tell by the incredulous look on their face or how they moved toward the bus, but didn't signal). Another thing is that they have buttons on the bus to signal when you want to get off. The bus driver doesn't stop right when you push it, but at the next stop he will let you off. All of the buses we'd been on all week stopped at every stop and opened the doors, whether someone pushed the button or not. We were sure to push the button for our stop cause we guessed he would not be stopping otherwise.

So we made it back to our hotel pretty quick and headed for the pool. We cooled off in the water with more dunking, jumping, diving, and somersaults. And we soaked up the last of the Italian sun. After a while we came back upstairs, watched some How I Met Your Mother, and then went down to have our last meal in Europe at McDonalds. It some how seemed fitting :]

Then we came back and packed up our bags. Somehow I have a little more room than the trip here. We charged all of our electronics and are pretty much ready to go. Our flight isn't until 12:55, so luckily we don't have to get up super early. And Doug always makes sure we have plenty of time (even extra most of the time).

Now I'm off to eat my last Magnum ice cream bar and to watch more tv online :) It's been a great trip and we feel so blessed to have been able to come here. We're not sure if we're ready to come home yet. We're ready to leave Rome, but it'll be weird to be home. But it's time to resume our lives again and see what God has planned for us

A Nothing Day

Welp. I don't really have anything to say. And no pictures to post from today. Sorry everyone. We took the day off.

I woke up around 10 and Doug was on te computer. We ate some breakfast, put our suits on, followed by a layer of sunscreen, and went down to the pool.

We laid out. We played in the water. We tried to dunk each other (Doug's just too nice though).

We read. We laid out. Repeat.

Around 1 we went down to a local pizzeria. We had seen it earlier in the week but didn't get around going there till now. Doug got a pepperoni pizza and I got a pesto one (here I would have inserted a picture, but we left the camera in the room on accident). I love pesto (Doug doesn't really care for it). But here they more or less just spread it on top of the pizza. Which isn't bad, just strange. So it had tomato sauce and cheese, and then pesto on top. It was good, but we both agree that American pizza is just better. We may not have our own food, but I firmly and biasly (ok I made that word up), that we do improve a lot of foods by "Americanizing" them.

In all of the pizza shops we've been to, the pizza is already cooked and cooled, and laid in a case much like a bakery. When you order it, they cut off a slice (They're long ovals instead of circles. More like round rectangles actually) and heat it back up in the oven. This gives it a slightly rubbery texture. Or rather like having left overs. So not really worth the money you pay for it. It'd sad to say but we miss Pizza Put.

We went to the grocery store next door and bought some more essentials like salami, bread, muffins, and pepsi. Then we went back to our hotel and back to the pool for a couple of hours.

When late afternoon came we went back to the air conditioned room and finished season 2 of How I Met Your Mother. We ate popsicles and Magnum bars (may be my new favorite). Now it's almost bed time and we're gonna watch "Dragon Trainer."

We didn't go anywhere or wait in any lines or get shoved around by the Italians. We didn't wear our legs out or dehydrate ourselves in the heat. We didn't sit for hours on public transportation or get asked for money. Instead we enjoyed a day in Rome doing absolutely nothing. We got a vacation during our holiday. Tomorrow's our last day in Rome, and we'll be sure to make the most of it. We just needed a day to just be.

We did try to send out our postcards today that we've had ready for about a week now. Our front desk didn't have the stamps and said that the tobacco shop would. The tobacco shop didn't and said that the post office would. We will probably just bring them home and send them in America. It will be cheaper and the people will get them sooner than if we had sent them here :]

Vatcian City and Sistine Chapel

Today we went to the Sistine Chapel. We were prepared to stand in a long line if we needed to. It was really hot today again (probably 90 degrees?) so we weren't looking forward to a line. There were people asking everyone if they wanted to skip the line and get a proper tour. They were legit tours through companies, they were just expensive! We misunderstood a guy that told us that we could get a two hour english tour through the museums (second largest in the world to the Louvre), and skip the line, all for 40 euro. He meant 40 euro each. That was a pretty steep price, and we didn't doubt that we would appreciate the tour more if we understood what we were seeing, but it wasn't worth the month to us.

We stood in line for about an hour, a lot less than my guidebook warned us of (which was 4 hours). And about half of it was in the shade of the building, which was also good. I brought along a scarf to cover my shorts up when we went inside, since I didn't want to wear jeans again. With our student discounts we got in for 8 euros each. Much better, especially for people like us, who get a bit antsy in museums :)

One of the courtyards that we walked through

View out one of the windows of Rome

Some artwork on the ceiling

Statue of Homer

Socrates (these we were able to find out who they were based on the number coding and a chart in the room that decoded the numbers on every piece of art. Unfortunately, not all the rooms had the chart to decode the numbers though)

This room was actually designed based on the Pantheon. Yeah...I have a picture just like it from there...

There were statues everywhere. It was hard to get a look at stuff too because of the steady stream of people pushing their way to the Sistine Chapel. It's kind of a one way ticket through the museum, so if something caught our eye, we had to jump out of the stream to see it

Mosaic pictures on the floor

Lots and lots of paintings on the ceiling. There were also paintings of curtains on the edge of doorways which I thought was pretty cool (but I didn't get a picture of...)

They had a net under this part of the ceiling because it was cracking and looked like pieces might fall. Oh no!

Hall of tapestries

Carvings on the ceilings

This ceiling had carvings and paintings on it. It was really impressive to walk down

More paintings in a dome

Then we got to the Sistine Chapel. I'm sure I'd seen pictures of what it looked like, but I didn't remember and didn't have a picture in my head of what it was supposed to look like. Yet it didn't look like how I thought it would. I thought the Creation of Adam was on the inside of a dome. But clearly it's not. And it's not as big as you'd expect since it's such a famous painting. We weren't supposed to take pictures inside, but I just had to (and everyone else was). At least I didn't have the flash on. But here you can see the Creation of Adam, in the middle. I can't imagine painting that. They say Michelangelo never did recover from painting the Sistine Chapel.

Aristotle

Cool stairs to get out

After our visit to the Sistine Chapel we were pretty hungry. (Poor Doug was hungry the entire time). So we found a place that was doing a deal where you got a pizza, salad, coke, and gelato for 10 euros each. We thought that was worth it, since we wouldn't get a lower price if we tried to buy those items separately. They serve their salads here with olive oil. I don't really like it. (Where's the Italian dressing?). All you taste is the oil and by itself it's not that great. When mixed with spices and vinegars and such it's great. The pizza was good though. And the gelato too. But still not as good as our ice cream. I keep telling Doug he's not missing out on much (the kind they served was vanilla so he couldn't have it since it has milk), but I don't think he believes me.

We're kind of done with Rome now. At least with the big stuff. This afternoon we tried to get to a mall to find some DVDs to watch at night. I use the word try even though we did make it to the mall, just because the effort was crazy. We took the metro and had to change from one line to the other (they only have 2), and then had to take a bus to the mall. There were supposedly 3 different buses that would get us there, but we could only find one number on the bus stop that we found, so we waited for that one. We finally got on that bus and rode it to the mall.

The mall was really pretty actually and I was surprised to see they have a Hollister here. We did get two DVDs that were on sale: Angels and Demons and Dragon Trainer (How to Train Your Dragon). We watched Angels and Demons on our honeymoon and Doug kept remembering parts of it on our tour of Rome, so he was wanting to see it again. And we just liked How to Train Your Dragon.

We found our bus to get back to the metro station, and then took that to the Colosseum, where we walked up to catch our usual bus back to the road near our hotel. We had a guy on the metro who performed karaoke. He even sang "Billy Jean." It's just crazy how long it takes you to get across the city on public transportation. In London and Paris it would take maybe 15 minutes on a metro? Here you have to really plan out the trip and know which buses you can take. Our mall trip took about 4 hours, and we were only at the mall for about 45 minutes.

We got back to the hotel around 6:30, and the pool would only be open till 7. So we skipped it and just got cleaned up instead. Doug went and got us McDonalds and then we watched Angels and Demons. It was really fun seeing all of the sites in Rome on the t.v. and thinking "We were there" and "We could go there right now if we wanted to!"

Now it's pretty late, so I should get to bed. We're not sure what we're going to do tomorrow. But we'll let you know then :)

Oh, and we found Doug a hat today! So now we both have one!

Gelato, Fountains, and Obelisks

Today we visited stuff that we set out to find, and stuff that we found by mistake. Rome is pleasantly compact, making it easy to walk from place to place. Which is also good since the public transportation isn't all that great. It's probably the worst of the cities that we've been in. So it's lucky that things are much closer than they look on the map!

Our first stop was by accident. We took a bus and got to where it'd be easy to walk up to the Trevi Fountain.

We walked up and found the Piazzo Navona with the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi in the middle. There were also people selling art on one side.

These Egyptian Obelisks are all over Rome (there's 13 according to Wikipedia, 8 which were taken from Egypt after Rome conquered it).

From here we walked and found the Pantheon which was just around the corner. "It is the best preserved of the Roman buildings and oldest important building in the world with its original roof intact"-- according to my guidebook. It's technically the second Pantheon (the original burnt in 80 AD, , but this one dates from 125 AD. That's old!

There's no closed roof on it, but an opening in the middle of the dome.

I like their road/alleys here. It's nice to get away from traffic, and I think I like the novelty of European streets

We kept walking and finally found the Trevi fountain!

We didn't throw any coins in. Supposedly one coin ensures a prompt return to Rome (don't really need that), two will bring you love in the Eternal City (done), and three will bring about your wedding (also done). So we bought gelato with our coins instead (ok, so really with bills...)

I got peach and kiwi this time. I really liked it! You just can't think of it as ice cream, and it's good :) We sat on some steps and enjoyed our cold treats

There were police everywhere blowing their whistles at people. Not sure what the people were doing. Putting their feet on the railing I think. At least they're protecting it.

We walked up to the Spanish Steps next. They were slick so we were glad they weren't also wet. These are iconic steps, but we don't really see what the big deal is. Even the back story is kind of boring. They just needed a way to connect two piazzas and there was a competition and now there are steps...

At the bottom of the steps was a fountain where people were drinking from the spouts and cooling their heads and faces off in the stream. People were wading in it and sitting on the edge with their feet in. When in Rome, right? So we put our feet in. After we left we heard police whistles, so maybe you weren't supposed to do that...

It was so refreshing though! Ice cold!

From there we walked to the Piazza del Popolo. This was a massive Piazza! The obelisk in the middle used to be located in the Circus Maximus and was moved here. It was the Egyptian obelisk of Rameses II from Helipololis. It's also the second oldest in Rome.

I took 4 pictures from about the middle of the piazza to show just how big it was to stand in

I also found a hat! We bartered with them and got the price to 5 euro. Which we thought was good. At another stand the guy wouldn't budge from 15. We still haven't found one for Doug though yet.

Doug wanted to see the Circus Maximus so we took the metro down to it (we were on the other side of the city from it at this point).

There's hardly anything left of it which is kinda sad. Doug was pretty disappointed. The Circus Maximus is where the chariots used to race (think Ben Hur). Now it's just grass with barely a ruin left. We wouldn't have known what it was except that we knew where it was, or where it was supposed to be. It sounds like they use it for concerts once a month now. It's mainly been destroyed because of the buildings recycling the material for other buildings in Rome.

We walked past the Roman Forum again to get to our bus stop. I took more pictures since it was from a different angle. Plus you really just can't help but take pictures of ruins.

We came back and went grocery shopping since it was finally open. We got drinks, milk, soy milk, cereal, cookies, grapes, peaches, bread, popsicles, ice cream bars, spaghetti, sauce, and muffins. And some candy. We walked back to our hotel and went down to our pool to cool off and lay out. I read some from my Kindle and just relaxed. Then we came back and ate our ice cream and popsicle bars on our porch. We watched some tv and then made spaghetti for dinner.

Enjoying the sun!