When in Rome....

Our train ride from Cinque Terre to Rome was short, sweet, and to the point. After 50 minutes of travel we hopped off the train, jumped on a bus and 4 stops later were taking cheesy leaning tower pictures. We spent just under two hours in Pisa pretending to hold up the tower, push over the tower, lean on the tower, etc. the best part was hundreds, literally hundreds, of people are doing this as you do it. We enjoyed laughing at everyone more than we enjoyed the tower it self. We grabbed a kabab, one of our new found loves, and jumped back on the bus. To our surprise we were castrated for having food on the bus by an elderly Italian women. As she cursed profoundly we ate away at what ever type of meat seemed to lie between the flat bread. The trip from Pisa to Roma is a little more than 3 hours and flew by except for the two germanic teenagers making fun of us for what seemed like an enternity. They exited the train an hour or so before Roma, we claimed the space in no time for the duration of the ride. We arrived late in the afternoon. Being in the center of the old world you would of thought we would go see the Vatican, the collesuem, etc. we went directly to the grocery store. We cooked furiously as we were being pushed out of the kitchen by the staff so they could make sangria for all, we kindly obliged. Mike filled his nalgene with the interesting concoction and we were off. Our hostel was literally three blocks from Piazza de San Pietro, or to the American St. Peters Plaza. We literally stopped in our tracks when we saw how amazing it all is. Our walk that night included the Vatican, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, and concluded on the Spanish steps. We enjoyed it immensely, right up until the Spanish steps. Apperently, the cool thing to do for Americans is get really really drunk, bad mouth America, and play the guitar and sing American songs on the steps. All while using the corner of this modern beauty as their private bathroom. Needless to say we were embarrased by our company.
The next day we woke up early in preperation to see the Pope. We didnt so much wake up early just to see the pope but Mike thought he lost his money belt in a dream and woke the whole room up trying to find it. We figured since were up we might as well go see the pope. Every Wednesday the pope makes an address and we just so happen to be in Rome on a wednesday morning. We sat for 2 and half hours watching thousands upon thousands of Catholics fill the plaza. And promptly at eleven he arove in the Pope mobile. We stayed for 10 or so minutes of the service, we left when we realized neither of us spoke latin. We fought the crowds and toured the Vatican museum, Sistein chapel, and St, Peter's basiclia. Our favorite was by far St. Pete's and Mike's personal favorite was the tombs underneath. One in every six people in the world is Catholic and we were standing at their Mecca. We watched as people wept at John Paul II grave and took in the surreal moment.
We spent our second day in Roma touring the colosseum, the roman forum, the capital, the pantheon, and the trevi fountain during the day. It was an amzing adventure. The night included wondering down the Tiber river to the Trastevere neighborhood, with 6 other girls from the hostel. This walk came highly reccomended from Tony and was quite enjoyable. Mike drank wine with two Italians that looked as if they hadnt showered in weeks. One of them spoke faint english and tried to translate between the three of them. While Mike was keeping up international relations, Mal was laughing her ass off with the ladies.
Today were headed for Florence and as usual couldnt be more excited.

Things we learned in Roma
1) there are clocks every 20 feet and not one of them has the correct time
2) the pope has a mercedez
3) the swiss guard dont like pictures
4) Mallory likes to drink water, the romans dont....
5) when confronted by the hundreds of bar crawl people politely tell them your morman and dont drink. It worked for us.

Things we loved in Roma
1) Rome
2) St petes
3) learning about the history
4) the sangria from the hostel. Reciepe includes 1) wine 2) lemons 3) more vodka than lemons and wine.
5) we love our families.
6) we love walking the cities rather than using the metro.


Ciao Bella,

Love m&m