Rome!

M We were a little nervous coming into Rome as we had been warned numerous times about the pick-pockets, and our guide book said not to walk alone around the train station at night. But we found our hostel which was right by the train station with ease. We got in just after dark, and we decided why not start our time in Rome by seeing the Coliseum at night! We got a map and headed out, and it wasn't long before we found ourselves lost in a bad part of town and facing a locked gate (as the Roman Forum, which was between us and the Coliseum is locked up with a huge gate at night). After 10 minutes of walking quickly and staying in any lit area we could, we got back to the main street. We stopped and had a WAY overpriced pizza (charged by weight we found out) as a late dinner. Jes wasn't thrilled, but we were happy to just sit down in a well lit place. Then we decided to just head home.

By looking on our map Jes decided to take a little short cut, (bad idea). When we got to our road we looked down the creepy side street and decided to walk up a block and then over. It was not long before we were completely lost again. The thing with Rome is they like to avoid putting street signs anywhere. The few they have I think were put up during the Roman Era and are half faded away. We were wishing we had our dog repellent on us, but this was one time we did not. We were heading towards a hotel to ask directions when we found the train station. We now knew how to get home, but realized why our guide book had warned us about the area. There was an incredible number of homeless people, as well as men just standing around doing nothing. Was it ever a relief to be back in our hostel safe and sound!

J As Michelle said, we had a rough first night in Rome. The hostel looked safe enough, big spacious dorm room, comfy beds, what more could we ask for? We found out shortly, one of the 4 other roomies we had started to snore, so loudly that it woke everyone up. A few of us pondered proper etiquette in this situation, had someone known the perpetrator personally they may have hit him with a pillow (as Michelle often does to me, when I do snore, occasionally). After listening to the incredible noise I thought it might be funny to take an audio recording to remember the moment.

Anyway, this went on for hours, after 4 hours of sleep or so I was awake and there was no going back to sleep (even with earplugs in). So instead of suffocating the stranger, I chose to simply leave the room, I found myself sitting at the computer working on the blog and reading the news. Michelle joined me shortly, and we attempted to go back to sleep, but the snoring continued until daybreak.

Later that morning after showering and grabbing some grub at the hostel we headed out to explore in daylight. The area around the train station was a little more tame, although there was crap everywhere, we hoped it was dog poo, but had our doubts. After the disaster of attempting to see the Coliseum the night before we decided to return as we were excited about seeing the famed structure. We bought a 3 day metro pass (Let's Go did not mention any Rome card, nor did we see any advertisements) which after discovering the layout of the city was a mistake. We did however enjoy taking the metro as often as we did as our legs were sore from the hiking we had done in Cinque Terre. We found the colossal structure with ease (right out the doors of the metro station) and walked around it in awe. We had seen a Roman arena before in Verona, but the Coliseum seemed bigger, older, and simply more impressive. Plus it came with real Roman gladiators around the entrance attempting to pose with us for photos (tip expected of course).

The first good choice we made in Rome was avoiding the constant offers for tours and waiting in line for 20 minutes to get into the Coliseum. Sure enough for €3.5 a person we got a tour by a real Archaeologist, which we throughly enjoyed. Afterward we wondered the nearby streets looking for a lunch deal which we finally found (if you can call anything in Italy a deal). Two plates of pasta and a Sprite which we shared for €10, not bad. We walked outside to find it raining. We found the shade of a tree just outside, but after 15 minutes we decided to brave the weather and continue our tour of the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill area, although looking back we should have went back for our umbrellas.

The rain did not let up and we quickly toured the area while hiding under our the hoods of our 3in1 jackets. Although water-resistant we soon became soaked. We did get some pictures of the area and ruins but regretted choosing to see Palatine Hill when we did. We headed back to the hostel to derobe and get dry.

We grabbed some groceries but being too lazy to cook we decided to wait for the hostels free pasta dinner, which ended up getting canceled (imagine 20 hungry young adults being told at 7:30 at night there is no food coming). We had a very nice stir-fry that made our neighbors jealous, but later made friends and spent the night chatting with them and drinking the better half of a bottle of Chianti (our last one in Italy I might add).

M The next day we joined our new friend, Helen, and went off to the Vatican. At least the majority of the Vatican's sights were inside, as it looked gloomy out again. Of course we headed straight for the Sistine Chapel, which took a really long time to get to. Not because there was a line up, absolutely no line up at all which is the only advantage of traveling at this time of year, but because they make you go through huge halls of other awesome artwork first. Helen was very knowledgeable about Italian art and taught us about what we were seeing. The majority of it was biblical, so we were able to tell her about the stories the pictures were displaying. We made a good team.

From the museum we went to St. Peter's Basilica and saw the square in front of it that is always on TV when the Pope comes out. The Basilica was of course huge and impressive, although I am really big-catholic-churched out. We then went down to the crypt beneath the church where all the old Pope's are, there were many people outside Pope John Paul II's grave crying and mourning.

When we were done at the Vatican it was just starting to get dark so we decided to get a picture of the Coliseum at night, and Helen had not seen it yet. We again braved the rain which was mostly just a drizzle, but were able to get some good shots. That night we stayed up chatting with our roommates, luckily the snoring guy had left and we were all happy to get a good nights sleep.

The next day was a day of exploring. We started with the Spanish steps first, and right as we arrived the rain started again (sigh). In front of the steps was a fountain in the shape of a boat, cool. The huge obelisk at the top was completely under construction, although there was a tarp with a picture of it over top. Traveling at this time of year we also see many things under construction. To escape the rain we ducked into a cafe for a latte macchiato and pastry, which we ate standing at the bar (as it costs double if you sit at a table). Italian cafe's are funny like that, as are the people. You see Italians come in, order their espresso, drink it in 2-3 gulps at the bar and they are on their way. There's not "going out for coffee" and lingering for hours.

After warming up it was off to Trevi fountain which was amazing, but it started to dump rain on us so hard even with our umbrellas we had to take cover in the nearest place, which just happened to be the golden arches of a McDonald's. lol Once it let up a bit we went to the Pantheon which was really magnificent. Then we walked around and ended up in an area that had a great view of the Forum and took some more pictures.

We then took a tram until it stopped, forcing us get off. Like is common in Rome we were right beside a bunch of ruins. We were looking at them and saw one cat after another. Jesse joked "this looks like a cat sanctuary". Then we saw the sign that stated in English "Cat Sanctuary, archaeological tours daily at 4pm". We looked at our watch and it was exactly 4pm. We took the short tour of the ruins, which is where Julius Cesar was killed. But what was more interesting is this cat sanctuary. Started 12 years ago by 2 Italian ladies who noticed many cats hanging out in the ruins as a natural sanctuary. Many were very sick and there were many dead cats and skeletons around. They moved in, illegally as it was technically on the grounds of the ruins, but 12 years later they are still there having transformed two small dirt caves beside the ruins. They promote spading and nudering of cats, as well as maintaing the ruins and several feeding stations. Then teaming up with a vet they began to get the cat population fixed. They clip the right ear of each cat done so they know if it is a new cat or not.

For some reason most Italians do not spade or nuder their animals as the vets do not encourage it (as it cuts down on their business I guess) and people think its a mean thing to do. This organization does a lot to promote it, as there are street cats everywhere in Rome. Oh it's illegal to abandon an animal in Italy, but it happens often. People often abandon them in ruins as they act as natural shelters from cars, noise, etc. Now that people know about the place they get about 3 cats a week either dropped off, or who wander in. They currently have 250-300 cats living in the site, and closer to 400 in summer. They quarantine them, vaccinate them, spade or nuder them and then let them go, but the cats can choose to stay or go. They have a nursery for their special needs cats who would not survive out out on their own, and often volunteers come and play with these cats.

Jesse fell in love with a 6 month old kitten who was blind. If we were not in Italy I am sure he would have brought him home. After prying Jes off the blind kitten it was off to the Hard Rock Cafe to buy a t-shirt. Jes' foot was bugging him all day, in-fact we both had been having weak ankles since our hiking in Cinque Terre. After stepping off the metro though something happened to his foot and he could barely walk on it. He slowly limped to the Hard Rock, and I ended up getting a shirt instead of him. I was questioning if he really hurt his foot or not when he suggested eating dinner at the hard rock. We did end up eating there, and unfortunately his foot did not get better. It was very nice to be there, it felt like home again, toilets with seats and toilet paper, which seem to be hard to find in Italy, people speaking English, all English music, and most of all American sized portions and food. Our nachos were huge!

We got talking with our waiter, Monir, who was from Bangladesh, and found that his sister lives in Lethbridge, Alberta. As soon as we told him we were from Edmonton he said "the capital city of Alberta" and our jaws dropped. lol He plans to visit her in May/June of this year, and after exchanging email we offered to be his tour guide if he ever came to Edmonton (or his sister). We enjoyed chatting with him although we monopolized his time that evening, he even gave us a discount on our meal (as he could tell we were trying not to spend too much). So after a good 3 hours talking and enjoying our surroundings we headed home to bed. Back at the hostel we again stayed up late (till 2am) talking with our roommates, Helen, two other Aussies and an American.

Our last day in Rome we spent seeing anything we missed, and this time the sun came out between the clouds. What a difference it made! We saw many more fountains, ate more gelato, and biscotti from an amazing little biscotti/cookie bakery we had found thanks to our guide book. We had been told by others in our hostel of a hill that has a great place to take a picture of the city. We found it on the map and started out. As we walked down the road that leads to this hill we found that the road was far below the hill with a huge wall on one side of the road and we could see the hill up above. Very frustrating at the huge detour we took, with Jesse limping all the way, but we made it to the top eventually. The view was amazing, but even cooler was that a movie was being filmed there! There were all these cars out of the 60's and people in the appropriate clothes to match. We saw them shoot one scene then we went on our way.

We have had the worst luck with phone cards! We could not get ours to work while on the pay phone which was costing us 10 euro cents per min, so we decided to just go to a call center. The plan was to book a ferry going to Greece for the next day. After no luck at the call center as the first ferry place was closed and the second didn't speak English. We looked on-line, after about 2 hours of rearranging our plans we decided that we would stop go to Pompei the next day then head to Bari, the port city. We had to find a place to stay once we arrived as we could not find anything on-line. The following day we would hope to get on a ferry to Greece.

Tired and frustrated we went back, ate dinner, packed our things and went to bed early (0pm). A good start we thought, but only to have new roommates come in very loud at 2am turning on the light, then on top of that one of them snored! Not again! Yep. Jes again spend about two hours on the computer as he could not sleep. Even with ear plugs in I could not sleep either but was too tired to get up. We were off early in the morning and ready to take turns sleeping on the train. lol

Jesse's most overused phrase this week: "when in Rome!"