Day 9 – Friday
Yesterday we were at the Coliseum, they spell it Colosseo or Colosseum in English. Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colosseum
I forgot to say, we went there with the Metro. When Europeans (I’m saying Europeans because the French are equally as guilty as the Italians), when they tell you just over there, it might mean 2.2 to 10.5KM. If it is more than that they will say, take a taxi you cannot go walking.
Anyway, for the metro, they said it is 5 minutes walking, but it took a lot longer because we were being trained for a circus act, the sidewalk was litterally the width of my foot, so I practiced tightrope walking and the stakes are high, because you have cars coming full speed right next to you. Anyway, asking 3 times, we finally made it to the metro station, and asked the guard there on how to buy the tickets etc.
Well, let me say that God had something in mind, he wanted me to be a lot more sympathetic to the Fobbers that come to the U.S. In retrospect, I did not look any different than them. THIS WAS SO SIMPLE!! Yet I was like a 10 year old trying to figure out how to fill out the application for Harvard. Needless to say, it’s easy now, and I can help others, (I got over the experience in Paris, helping someone without knowing…)
The Metro in Rome
Just as a primer, there are 2 main Metro lines (Actually 3 if you count the one going to the airport)anywhooo, only 2 in Rome, A & B. See this chart, and whichever station is closest to your destination, you can get off , and then get on the other if you need to etc. One way (actually 70 minutes of use) is 1 Euro per person, or you can just buy an all day one for 4 Euro per person, or 3 days for 11 Euro. It’s that simple. The main station in the middle of the “X” is Termini. It is also the main station that you can go to other streets.
At the Colisseum, right after the tour ended, it started to rain. (Must start a new paragraph).
When I say it rained, I should really say a monsoon came through. The lights went out in the Colisseum. The rest is the way I described it in yesterday’s post.
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Anyway, today we went out to the Vatican. I cannot complain and say wierd things because the king here (It’s funny but they call him a pope?!?!) But according to people here, he has “Wasta” with God, so he might make the rest of our trip miserable. SO the Vatican is a landlocked country (I feel sorry already). They have funny looking guards, they look like girls, I think I can take on 5 or 6 of them while having a sandwich in my other hand.
So we went through the Main area of the Vatican, and then the Sisteen Chappel. They have misspelled “Sixteen” 🙂 but I didn’t want to make a big deal. I don’t want them to think us Americans know everything you know;-) It is amazing, the artwork is priceless and very impressive. I will post the pictures later. It is taking me a lot longer than I thought, and I keep forgetting the camera upstairs.
We decided to leave St Peter’s Basillica for the next visit because we had to walk another 20 minutes and wait 2 hours. So we had to leave something for next time or I would never come back to Rome. We came back to the hotel and got ready to go to Trinita di Monti & Fontana di Trevi. Nice impressive yada yada yada. Getting sick of saying the same things. Oh, I found out the U.S.A is older than Italy, did you know this? Italy only got to be the country of Italy in 1870, hey take that you tuscans!
OK, that’s it for today. TTYL