When in Rome...

This past weekend Katie and I went to Rome from Munich. This trip we did not have any trouble with trains like we did on our Prague trip. The train down there was a straight shot and the three we took on the way back had about 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours between them just in case one of the trains happened to be late! We made all the trains and got back when we wanted to!! Yeah!! In Rome we had a great time, even though is was super HOT!! It was like Texas weather (which we should be used to...right) but there was no airconditioning! The fist day we were there we went to the Colleseum, Roman Forum, and Palentine Hill. This was all outdoors, but it was cool seeing all the old Roman ruins right in the middle of this huge city. After being outside practically all day we were really tired, so we went back to the hotel and went to bed early. The next day we went to the Vatican early after buying this delicious peach in the market on the way to the train station! Even though we got to the Vatican museum 15 minutes after they opened there was still an enormously huge line that wrapped around 3 corners of the wall! It was miserable standing out there for 2 hours in the heat, but luckily about half of it was shaded! When we finally made it inside, it was such a relief to feel the airconditioning. The museum itself was great, and the Raphael rooms and the Sistine Chapel were especially amazing. The frescoes were gorgeous and they all told stories!! There were so many tour groups in the museum, though that it made it rather difficult to see things and to move on to the next room! We also went to St. Peter's Basilica, which impressed me much more than the Sistine Chapel. We took a self guided tour of the church with Rick Steve's as our guide. That was really cool because then we knew what we were looking at. I was amazed that there are no paintings in the Basilica-they are all mosaics, but they use such small tiles that they look like paintings! After going up into the dome, we attended a mass in the Basilica. It was so awesome!!!! The mass was all in Italian, but since Catholic masses are so structured, we could still tell what was going on. Later, we walked down to the Pantheon and got a three-scoop cone of delicious italian gellato!! We walked around some more and went shopping, and when it was darker we went to see Trevi Fountain at night. It was beautifull!!! And of course we tossed in some coins for good luck! From there we went to the Spanish steps, which were full of young people having a good time. That was the end of our sight-seeing adventure, but one more thing to add about Italy is the traffic. They don't have the green and red people to tell you when to cross the street. Instead everyone just walks out into oncoming traffic and they all stop!!! We could not get used to this idea, so we were always hesitant crossing! It just doesn't seem safe! Oh-also, the train we took down to Rome was quite old and the toilet was not a flush toilet-it just had a hole in the toilet that emptied out onto...guess where...the TRACKS!! That is so disgusting!!! I guess that's another good reason to not walk the tracks!!