Birfday (aug 3/4)

Was mostly a travel day. We left Rome at 10am and arrived in venice around 2:0pm

Hostels in Venice were both fully booked and stupidly expensive... And in really glad they were or we wouldn't havethought to try a campground.

We're staying at camping Rialto, with tents and bedding provided, a shower and toilet building and even laundry facilities. It's been fantastic.

After checking in and laughing at how small our tent is, we headed back into Venice ( a 10 minute bus ride ) and walked around. We passed San Marco square and basilica (but didnt go in) and the Rialto bridge; the two main tourist sites. We also took billions of photos in billions of tiny bridges over the small canals, which will likely all then out identical though I bought each was photo-worthy.

So basically we saw all of Venice on foot the first day, but just to make sure, we did it again on door on august 4th, too, but this in we added a little shopping. By this point, the clothes that we've packed fir practicality are sickening us because the city is so beautiful so we wouldn't mind looking half decent when we take photos in it... And we currently look like sweaty bums (mostly because we are sweaty bums). I've been looking for a particular dress, and still haven't been able to find it, but I did buy one nice black shirt.
That night we found a pizzeria/snack bar on the water that wasn't expensive. I ordered pork and fries, and bays for adventurous with ink-soaked spaghetti. It actually was black. She said it was good though.

Backtracking, earlier on the 4th we walked to baye's old apartment in a square to write our postcards. It was so hot I passed out/fell asleep on the bench and barely got any written (now aug 12 I still have some Venice cards to mail!). I had to get gelato to cure me from the heat :)

When we get back to he campsite it's always a challenge to charge electronics cause you either have to charge in the bathroom while you shower, or sit on the patio of the market/restaurant/bar and wait for one of the 4 plugs to become free. At least with the latter you can have a beer and watch the olympics. We ended up having to do both methods of charging to keep our phones and cameras juiced. Especially when you wait 30 minutes for a shower anyways.

... Act like romans? (aug 2)

"when in rome, act like romans" overheard when in the colosseum by a Herman father walking behind us. Well, we knew what he meant...

On august 2nd we had a full rollercoaster day. We started with the roman ruins (the roman forum), which is now my second favorite site.. We had an audio guide that we barely used, but seeing the ruins from hundreds of years bc and being able to touch them was out of this world. We went from the forum to the colosseum (which us actually called the fluvial amphitheater), my current number one site. That makes the sagrada familia (In Barcelona) my number 3 and the flamenco ballet in Madrid #4.

We took so many corny photos in the colosseum, pretending to battle each other, while the camera was on timer (is this what the Romans do?) This often resulted in someone walking across our photo haha

on our way to and from the colosseum a man named victor (I remember because it sounds like the name of a gladiator and we were at the colosseum) tries (and succeeded) to sell a on tickets to a pub crawl event. Originally we had no desire to go out, but he convinced us with the value of an hour worth of free drinks and pizza, a pub location, a boat location and a club location. You had us at unlimited pizza. Sold. Plus we got a free t-shirt :)

After the colosseum we did our best get to all the sites we'd missed, starting with the Vatican Gardens. When we hopped on the tour bus to get us there it was already nearing 3pm, and apparently the last tour that the company runs or the Vatican Gardens is at 130pm, so we missed that opportunity, wasted an hour getting there, and we had paid for it on our pass. If anyone has plans for Rome, I would recommend getting the "Roma Pass" (30€) not the "Omni Pass" (85€)

After our attempts at Vatican Gardens we got back to the pantheon so i could take photos ( the first time I'd lent my battery to guys we were touring with because yet only had the one day and their battery was out in he same model camera as mine). We also it gelato on be way, of course, and then after baye and I split up. I wanted o go to the campidoglio national museum and baye wanted to go back home to rest.

So, on my way to the museum I was obviously trying to take self photos.... And while on one bridge, overlooking done of the ruins, a man named Fabio stopped me and asked how I was enjoying Rome (I very obviously stood out as a tourist). He was really nice and very happy to share information about his city. He told me history about the surrounding buildings, such as the years they were built and for what purposes, asked what I'd been to see so far and recommended some places, showing me on my map. He asked if he could show me around, but I told him I really wanted to get to the campidoglio museum, which he said was great and really close by (but of course I already knew that). So for the 5 minute walk to the museum he showed me 2 incredible lookout points to see the roman forum (much better than the one I was originally at), spoke to officers in Italian about why a road was barricaded off (turned out to be because the mayor was staying in the building and security bc he was leaving soon), then was able to sneak me through the gates so I could fill up my water bottle AND take the shortcut to the museum.

The square out front if the museum was designed by Michelangelo, Fabio explained. He told me about the pillars/statues and said that the statue in the square I'd the man on the horse can't remember the actual name of it) was a replica I'd the original one thats in the museum I'm going to. That's where he left me to go into the museum.

However, they would t let me in. My Omni pass, at least I thought, was supposed to cover 2 museums and we'd only been to the castle, but they said only 1 and could tell me all the places I'd been in to. I got a reduced rate with the pass, but still didn't want to pay 10€ so I decided to go walking elsewhere.

So to summarize, the Omni pass got me into the Vatican museum (worth 12€) with line skip, the colosseum + roman forum/palentine (worth 12€) with line skip, and to castle St Angelo (worth 8€). We didn't make use of the Vatican garden (worth 24€). Or the city bus tours (worth unknown but I think about 30€), and we only used our audio guide in the colosseum and roman forum, so I do t think we got the full 85€ value even with line skip. Oh well.

As I walked away disappointed, I set out for an ATM and a backpack. I had started out with a drawstring pack from roots, and within 3 weeks, the amount of times opening/closing it the fabric wore out at the top, and recently ive been carrying it around on my hip like a baby since the strings won't hold it up anymore.
After successful errands I returned to the fountain of San Maria, near our hostel, because I'd only had photos at night and I really did want to know what the creatures in each statue were supposed to be. It was the first fountain (well, first anything really) I'd seen in Rome, and I really liked it. So I sat here and thought for a while.

Then it was pub crawl.

The free t-shirt we got for signing up says "rome's ultimate party". We also got vouchers for a free shot and a free mojito, because the rest I'd the free drinks were beer or wine. So for the freebie hour we got a mojito (finally, after Barcelona it was weird bit to hear the word every 5 seconds), 2 beers and a tequila shot, and 2 pieces of pizza. This lasted us the night, on top of the drinking contest we had to do!

They lined up all the girls, and while pouring beers they had us yell out where each of us is from. This is how We met totally awesome Canadians Kim and Natalie. Best friends in ten seconds EVER. We were laughing about bow the Canadian girl from Toronto (who won) must have cheated haha.

At midnight, a select few who knew it was my birthday shouted happy birthday in the streets for me. I didn't have a birthday cake or drink or dinner or anything on my actual birthday (with the exception of virtual cupcakes from my sister, and my moms card that I opened 4 days late because I forgot I carried it with me!) but that night, victor (the guy who sold us tickets) snagged me a pink pub crawl bday shirt :D
Its by no means attractive, and the list of things on the back that I've supposedly don at the pub crawl is only about 50% true... But I love it :)

Prego!

Prego is a pretty common word in Italy, it means "welcome" so they usually start a sentence with Prego if they're in customer service, especially if they're seating you at a restaurant or something, but it's also for "you're welcome".  Anyways, we hear it a lot, but i just can't help but think of "preggo" being slang for pregnant... it's how I remember the word, but also funny.

Today we went to the Vatican.  We aren't in the greatest health/alertness, and I can't help but feel we wasted our pass a little.  We walked there, which took us a good hour and twenty, and we have already seen a lot of churches and art museums.  This is the largest church in the world, and we've already been in the Basillica, but we went to the museum and Sistine chapel today.  Spent a few hours walking around, but our feet were really sore. Its not even the most walking we've done in a city, but I think its a combination of heat and poor diet (and maybe addition of so many days of walking everywhere) that its really starting to get to us.  The Sistine Chapel wasn't as impressive as I expected, but Baye reminded me why. We've been to tonnes of churches with paintings, and you really get to take it in and feel the silence as you look around... Today the Vatican was SO DISGUSTINGLY PACKED, there was no way it was going to be silent, and the guards force you into the crowd instead of standing at the door waiting for people to move through. So the room didn't seem as large as it really was, and you couldn't really get a good look without people stepping on you or bumping into you.  Plus no photos.  But thinking about it now, every square millimetre of the place was covered with paintings, and the ceiling was really high.  It was a cool place, just don't know if it was worth the pass we bought.

We walked through the museum a bit, but when we were tired of seeing the art/statues/paintings we tried to find where the Vatican Gardens are, and ended up walking around the ENTIRE Vatican City.  By the time we made it back to the front of Vatican City (where the Basillica and the square with all the pillars are), someone told us that the entrance is right where the museum is, so we had to go back again... but by this time it was 4pm and I had read that they stop letting people in at 4pm because it's closed at 6pm.  So we decided to try again tomorrow, even though they might not let us (our Vatican pass was supposed to be single entry only, but maybe they'll say the Vatican gardens is separate, I'm not sure..)

After that we walked to the Saint Angelo Castle, which we got free with our pass.  The inside wasn't anything spectacular to look at, but it was really old and all brick (and nice and cool in the underground parts).  They hid popes here/made apartments to protect them at one time, and it was also once a prison.  You can see some of it, but mostly they're just weird little rooms. The top of it has a nice view of the city, too!

We decided we wanted a break, and went back to the Villa Bourghese to lay in the shade and read... and ended up sleeping, of course... after a long nap, we head out to the Spanish Steps again because I wanted to get some photos during daylight, and then to a restaurant for dinner.

At restaurants here, they don't really have host/hostesses, but they have people trying to recruit you to their restaurant. Some are HILARIOUSLY pushy!  Yesterday, while walking through trying to find a restaurant, the guy walked right along with you, pushing a menu in your face and telling you what foods they serve (as if pasta, pizza, and spaghetti is really unique around here...).  These guys, and many Italian guys on the street, are very flirty. Sometimes its annoying that they just eye you and cat call or kiss through their teeth (Baye and I look at each other and laugh, cause 100% of the time we're covered in sweat, wearing sneakers and/or duct tape around our feet, and in decently dirty clothes that are in NO way fashionable... but hey, I guess we're blonde.) But sometimes they think they're being so smooth. Unfortunately none of the Italian men have been attractive... not that that would've mattered ;) (LOVE YOU!) The same guy who was super pushy about getting us in the restaurant yesterday, we ended up sitting at the restaurant right across, so he kept making eye contact with me. He joked around and came up to us with his menu and fanned us, and in really broken English I think he said something about really good service to provide us air conditioning... all we could do was laugh cause it really was hilarious.  After about 2 minutes of him fanning us, he leaned in and put his cheek infront of my face, obviously asking for a kiss (EWWWWWWWWWW).  I made a kiss sound and then he turned and kissed my cheek (not in a smoochy way, but the way europeans greet each other).  Oh GOD how embarrassing.   Later he came back with a business card saying "see you at 10:30 tonight".  and Baye and I both read it confused.... he tried to explain that that's when he gets off, and so we had to get another waiter to come in and help translate from us to him that we would definitely not be sticking around.   He was a funny old man.  Italians. Sheesh.

After dinner today (where I got my first serving of vegetables in a while), we went back to the Fountain of Trevi, which is really nice all lit up at night.  There were a lot of people there, it's apparently a pretty decent hang out spot.  We took a few photos, which were difficult in the night, and then also brought our coins down to make a wish.  First time we just threw them normally, but then we saw that everyone else was throwing them backwards over their shoulders and wondered if our wish was going to come true if we did it wrong, so we wished again, this time throwing them backwards :)

Now I'm back at the hostel, disappointed that I can't upload photos to their computer to share them. Tomorrow is going to be a REALLY full day. Lots to see at the Colliseum + Roman Ruins + Palantine Hill, then the Capitaline museum, and a few other things I need to revisit because my battery in my camera died the first day.

Time for sleeps!

When in Rome...

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!!