Tuesday, October 26th

Rain Rain GO AWAY!

 Tuesday we got up at a much more reasonable time, partially because I thought there was an earthquake! I’m not sure what kind of neighbors we had, but our whole room was shaking. I was kind of irate. I had yelled at Luke all night to lay still and quit shaking my bed, but turns out it wasn’t all his fault. I guess in the end it was good because we got up and moving.

Vatican Gardens

We decided to try our luck at the Vatican again. We were intending on standing in line and going through the museum on our own, but it was raining harder than the day before and the line was just as long. A man from a tour group offered us a tour for 45 euros. We asked if there was a student price and he lowered the price to 40 euros. We decided that that was just too much money for us to spend and told him no thanks, we were broke college students. He then told us that we could go on the tour for 35 euros if we didn’t tell anyone, but that was the last offer. We decided that this was a once in a life time opportunity to see the Vatican, so we went for it.

Pope's pimped out rides

The tour was really cool. Our tour guide was really intelligent and told us a lot of extra information about statues and paintings. I’m glad we didn’t just do the tour on our own.

The part I loved the most was the Sistine Chapel. I’ve seen pictures and heard about how beautiful it was, but it was way more amazing than I could have imagined! I couldn’t believe how much of the walls and ceilings were covered with paintings. There was just so much going on!

After the tour, Luke and I decided to keep walking through the museum. We saw Rafael’s rooms (two of which were under construction L) and lots more paintings and tapestries. I really liked the stable room with all the buggies and some of the cars older popes rode in.   

La Pieta

For lunch I had a hotdog pizza in the museum’s café. It was really unique, but cold which super stunk. Luke just had an apple and some cookies that I’d brought from the food bag my senora packed me up. He’s so cheap :-P lol

After touring the Vatican we went into Saint Peter’s Basilica. With our tour, we got to go through a back door and skip the line going into the basilica. Once again, totally worth it. I really liked seeing La Pieta, Michelangelo’s statue of Mary holding Jesus once he was taken off the cross. I couldn’t believe he sculpted it at 23! Incredible! The basilica is HUGE! A large portion of it was roped off, so we couldn’t even get in the whole thing, but Luke and I still managed to get separated and I totally lost him for like 20 minutes. Thank goodness he was wearing my hot pink book bag, which made him a lot easier to pick out in a crowd! Haha!

best ice cream EVER!

Next we set off to find the Pantheon. Along the way we found an ice cream shop. I had the best chocolate and coffee ice cream ever! I apologize now for breaking the All Carb Diet, but I had too!! ;)

The Pantheon was really beautiful. It was awesome because it was raining Tuesday so we were able to watch the rain come through the hole in the ceiling and drain in the floor. The entire structure was just incredible. I loved it!

Pantheon

After The Pantheon, we headed to the Trevi Fountain. Since it was dusk, the fountain was all lit up. Naturally we took lots of pictures in front of the fountain and I tossed a coin into it! J

Next on the agenda was head to this little church that my art teacher told me to see. When we got there mass had just started so we weren’t allowed in. We were bummed, but there were some pretty fountains around so that was nice!

Trevi Fountain

After the church let down, I declared it dinner time. Luke decided to just buy bread and cheese at the super market and eat back at the hostel, but I wanted to take advantage of the authentic Italian cuisine. We ate in the Republic Plaza. I can’t remember the English name for the kind of pasta I had, but it was DELICIOUS (pasta enchiladas?)! J During dinner, a street vendor came up with roses and Luke wouldn’t buy me any! L Guess that’s what you get for traveling with a cousin and not a boyfriend! haha

After making the long journey back to the hostel, the wireless network was still down. Thankfully the hostel had opened up the computer lab to all the guests, free of charge. So Luke and I did some serious Facebook creeping, talked to his brother in Germany, and figured out how were getting to Pisa the following day.

locked out of church :(

Even though it was only 9 pm at this point, we were sleepy and decided to head back to our room and go to sleep!