What exactly DO the Romans do?
We arrived at the hostel at 11pm on July 29th. While the check in hostel guy showed us "must see's" on a map, there were a few guys using the computers. When we were done checking in, one turns to us and says " I couldn't help but notice the Canada flags on your packs... where are you from?" In the remainder of the conversation, we determined that Baye had been to their (it was two brothers) Christmas party just this year, and they knew each other because these two brothers had an older brother that coached Baye's older brother. We laughed so much about how small of a world it was, and ended up having a few beers with them downstairs while watching Olympics. Met a tonne of other people while hanging out in the common room, we blew them away with some of our new Kings rules. On the way to find McDonalds (which is much more expensive here) we saw a GORGEOUS fountain... there are tonnes of pretty fountains, but maybe it was just because it was at night that this one was particularly inspiring. It had four sculptures, and after a few beers, we had a tonne of laughs debating/arguing about what the sculptures were supposed to be.
Next day, after about 3 hours of sleep, we had an incredibly full day of Roma. If gladiators did lots of walking, well... we fulfilled the "When in Rome..."
We spent the ENTIRE DAY on our feet (until about 7 or 8pm for a nap). We walked to the Vatican, went in the Basillica, went to the Pantheon, to the Colliseum and the Roman Forum, to a tonne of piazzas and fountains (including the Trevi Fountain, one of my favourite sites so far), and to two gelato places along the way. I'm sure there was more. We really did see almost the whole city (plus, because Vatican City isn't technically Roma). This was all from the outside though... the people we walked with didn't have passes, and Baye and I did (to skip the lines) so we didn't go into anything, and saved our all inclusive passes for our next few days.
One of the places we went to is called the Vittoriale. It was/is an incredible building, it stands out brilliantly from any high point in the city as it's all white marble and absolutely huge. The front is all steps, and we had the "blow my whistle baby" song stuck in our heads all day, because if anyone sat on the steps a guard would come up and whistle at them. It was actually quite hilarious, to the point where we TRIED to get in trouble just to have them whistle at us. We also snuck in some dead pans.
We drank a bit again that night with the expectation of going out, but we ended up just playing Euchre until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.
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Yesterday (July 31st) we got up for our free breakfast, and then went back to bed. At this point we still thought we didn't have AC in our room (though a new Aussie roommate last night showed us how to turn it on... *doh*)... but after our late get up, we went to Villa Bourghese, a parc, which took us forever to figure out how to get up to... we walked along the highway because it looked like the easiest way on our map, but obviously wasn't intended for pedestrians because we ended up cutting through a field and coming otu with a bunch of sketchy guys carrying their sheets with trinkets (the street vendors have all their hats, or purses, or sunglasses, or hand fans or whatever laid out on the streets on top of sheets because it's illegal for them to sell it, so they can make a quick getaway by whipping up all 4 corners of their sheet and running... I've watched them in action, and they run along warning all their buddies about it, too. Its kind of funny, but not so cool to walk through a group of them just sitting in the middle of nowhere...)
From the Park at Villa Bourghese we could get to a Terrace (Called Pincio I believe), which had a GORGEOUS view of the city. We also went to see another Church, Santa Maria (they're all starting to blend together now... soooo mannyyyy churchesssss) and went to see the Spanish Steps at night after dinner.
We've had gelato literally every day... and sometimes (actually, more often than not...) twice a day. It's cheap and freaking delicious. And you never get bored because there's so many flavours to try!! Despite the terrible diet of all carbs, I might not come home healthy, but don't worry mom -- I won't come home lighter thanks to gelato! We've been tight on our money, only really eating dinner out and having gelato to tie us over... the hostels usually have breakfast, which is all croisants, bread/toast, and cereal... so the most protein I've been getting is milk in my cereal and tea... and then for dinner we almost always have pasta or pizza, which is my only intake of vegetables. Sometimes we try to pick up fruit when we walk through markets, but I've had that backfire a few times, too... I had 3 bananas smeared all over my bag, and a couple peaches rot from the inside out because I didn't eat them right away.
Before we did our sight seeing yesterday, we tried to figure out the end of our trip. We decided not to ferry across from Italy to Croatia, because we have an extra day on our pass and it was 90 Euro each to take the ferry, so it would've been a huge waste. However, that also ended up screwing up our day trip plans, we later found out. We spent more than 2 hours at the train station, just waiting to be helped, and the woman who helped us didn't speak English, which was OK, except she was really in a bad mood about us not knowing Italian, which made it difficult to get help about what to do. A day trip to the beaches at the Amalfi Coast would cost us 4 hours each way of transportation and 50 Euro, and even to do a trip to Pompeii or Positano was going to be inconvenient and expensive. Not to mention we'd already killed 2 days in Rome and still had to use our full "Omni Pass" (for tours of the Vatican, Colliseum/Roman Forum/Palantine Hill + two museums) and we hadn't even activated it yet... so day trips are now out, and I'm crushed I won't actually see the Amalfi Coast. This just means I really HAVE to come back. But, also for the best, because now we're cramming to fit in all the sight seeing by the end of tomorrow, our last day in Rome!!
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