Italy - Day 2 - Summary - Rome
Friday, December 7th, 2007
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Day 2 was awesome, filled with amazing sights, long lines and a little rain, but an experience to remember indeed.
My night in the Alessandro Downtown was uneventful. Having only one sheet on the bed made me a little cold, but I was so tired that I didn't notice. I did learn a lesson that night by being the last one in the room and the first one out. Try to have everything you'll need out of your big bag by 9pm or 10pm. That means laying out sleep clothes, only having essentials & toiletries in your day pack and also having your bed ready to get into. I was disappointed with the amount of noise I made when I went to bed and woke up and I felt bad for my roommates.
I woke up at 5:30am and did a little more work on the Day 1 write-up. The inability to transfer data from my laptop to the web via the computers at the hostel was frustrating to say the least. I tried to re-typing the summary, but the keyboards in Italy are different. For example, the '-_' key is where the '/?' key is. '/' is the shift value for '7'. Other frustrations are that the shift key is smaller and easy to miss. '<' and '>' are on the same key and both '"e;' and '=' are in different places too.
I went and took a shower before grabbing some breakfast and meeting Westin. Let's just say that it was an experience. I definitely did not want to touch anything in that bathroom and it smelled like someone had just used the facilities (yuck). But the water was hot and I did feel cleaner for the experience. I went back to the room and grabbed only my small camera bag instead of my day-pack since I heard that bags were hard to get into the Vatican. Let me clear up that myth. Security at the Vatican was very reasonable and bringing in a normal pack should be no problem.
I partook in the free breakfast that the hostel provided. The meal consisted of a roll, corn-flakes and some juice/coffee. I'll have to say that for how simple that sounds, the roll with some strawberry jelly really hit the spot.
The Vatican
 I met up with Westin and we headed over to Termini to catch a buss over to the Vatican; Westin knew that the #40 buss went there so I played follow the leader. They only sell local buss tickets across across the street at the newspaper stand. Don't know exactly why they sold tickets there, but one way passes cost 1 Euro.
After the packed ride over, we were able to go right into the Basilica without waiting inline. Later, the line would have been at least a 10-15 minute wait. Being inside was an experience that I can't believe I do not remember from the last time I was in Rome. My only thought is that last time it was so crowded that I couldn't enjoy the experience. Either way, this time I was much more appreciative. It is an amazing structure. Click the link below to read more about the Basilica.
click here for the basilica writeup
By the time we left the Basilica, it was about 10:30am and we headed the .6 miles to the Vatican Museum, where the Sistine Chapel is. After about .1 miles, we came upon "the line". There were probably 2000-3000 people in this line to get in and it stretched around 4 corners and went at least .5 miles. We had to wait in it. It was not too bad, Westin and I waited for about an hour before we got in. I am very thankful to Westin for being there to pass the time with, having someone to talk to while waiting helped time fly by for sure. Click the link below to read more about the Vatican Museum.
click here for the vatican museum writeup
 After being herded out of the museum, Westin and I grabbed some pizza on the way to the Castle Sant'angelo. I had a delicious Salami pizza. When I was a kid and over here, I didn't like Italian-style pizza much, but after frequenting restraunts like mellow mushroom, my tastes have changed. And while the U.S. counterparts don't tasted the same, I very much enjoyed the pizza I've had here so far.
We walked over to the castle and bought our tickets, 5 Euro. Which later seemed like a waste because no one actually checked our tickets. The castle was nice. Very interesting to see such a large building with such small rooms. It was almost claustrophobic in the inner rooms. The roof of the castle, however, was very nice and even had a cafe that overlooked St. Peters. It was about this time that the rain started to come down. Westin and I began our trip back through the city on foot.
One of the most enjoyable parts of Rome was the ability to stop by any church along the way and to know that inside you would see an amazing piece of architecture. The 2 that we stopped inside on our way back were just gorgeous inside. I wish I had spent more time going through the city looking at some of the hundreds of churches that there are.
When we got back, I started to work on my blog entries as well as editing my pictures. I stayed up until 3am and only had 13 pictures ready for upload. However, since the hostel wouldn't allow me to upload files, I knew that sometime the next. I felt bad for being 'that guy' going to bed so late, but, what was worse was the fact that I had to get up by 7:30am or so to go see the inside of the Colosseum.
-END DAY 1-
Click here to see day 1
Click here to see day 3 |
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