Roma!

Oh goodness, let’s see here we will start with yesterday (8-19-08)…

Once we arrived back at our beautiful room, with the patio, we got settled in. I repacked by backpack, twice, and packed my suitcase for home. We decided to go find the Fendi store for Susan. So that means, Spanish steps. There is a so called ‘shopping triangel’ of all the high end and name brand stores, the middle point being the Spanish steps. We headed down the middle street, and apparently Versace moved, because it wasn’t where it was 4 years ago. I didn’t think we were ever going to find it, and dad looked up and goes, oh there it is. So, I took a picture first, then the guard at the gate opened the door for us. Dad was a little freaked that one lady follows you around the whole time, but nothing in thw store is cheap, and they will do anything for their customers, so she had to follow us around. If we would have wanted something to drink, she would have gotten us something. I helped dad pick out a purse I think Susan will like, we paid for it and left. We headed down the next street, and there it was, Nike Roma! It was beautiful, haha!! Actually it was small, but I just wanted a shirt that said ‘Nike Roma’ and I found one! So I was satisfied.

We came back from the Spanish Steps and shopping, settled in a bit more, then headed out for dinner. I had pizza again, and dad had some pasta. He got to keep his wine bottle, he’s going to make a candle with it they even gave him a bag to put it in! We got some gelato on the way back, and ate it on our patio as we tried to figure out why my external hard drive wasn’t working, however, we couldn’t figure it out. We went to bed, and slept hard, this hotel is just so nice!

Today (8-20-08) started wonderfully! I woke up and remembered I packed the cord that came with my hard drive, and boom! It worked!! Yeah, so that means I don’t have to lug my computer around! How exciting! Anyway, we ate breakfast and headed to the Holy land…the Vatican. We had a tour at 1130, which essentially just let us bypass the rediculously long lines to get it to the muesum and the Sistine Chapel. We had audio guides, but didn’t really use them, only on the stuff we thought looked cool. The Vatican has an amazing collection of Egyptian relics. We also saw some cool paintings, one of Raphels painting that has Michelangelo, Leonardo and himself in it. I’d seen it before, but its pretty cool with an explaination. Then we made our way to the Sistine Chapel, it only took about 2 miles of rooms, and over an hour on foot! But the Sistine Chapel is a rectangular room, and about 3/4 of the way down there is a railing looking thing, its about 10 feet tall. Then there is the art. Its beautiful. The colors are still very vibrant. When you are in the chapel you cannot to pictures (No Foto!) And every minute or so they yell ‘Shhhhh’ but ofcourse, Heidi, I got you some pictures! I don’t know how clear they are, but I will put them up tomorrow for you!! It took us over 2 hours to go through the museum and chapel, and when we got out it was after 130. We stopped and had some strawberries and water, then headed back to St Peters square. We decided to climb the coupola! The dome is so high, actually its the highest point in Rome! Law saw that no building can be higher than the dome! So, we took the elevator to the top of the church, then climbed the 320 (or 312 according to dad) to the top of the dome, and WHAT A VIEW! We decided this was the best view yet. While you could see the Roman forum, a building was blocking the Colosseum 😦

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After St Peter domes, we walked around the chapel, then headed down to the tomb of Popes. Its was cool, first we saw John Paul I, then we came upon John Paul II, Mr JPII himself Tok well his grave). People we kneeling in front, and guards were moving people along, but JPII clearly was loved. After the Vatican we decided to go see the Trevi fountain.

I told dad it was on the back of a building, he goes, ‘it really is on the back of a building.’ Well it is! We through our coins in, got pictures of us doing that, and relaxed for a little bit. Then we came back to the room to drop our stuff off before dinner. Dinner was good, I had pizza, again, its just that its so good because everything is soooo fresh, and I love all the different cheeses!! Tomorrow we are going to the Colosseum and the Roman forum.