Rome Again

For our trip to Florence, we decided to tag on a day at the beginning and at the end to see some things in Rome.  Our first day there, the weather was really beautiful and we enjoyed a walk around the city.  The next time we came to Rome, it rained--all day.  It was rainy and windy and chilly.  I guess we couldn't expect perfection two days! :D

We hadn't planned our time very well--just thinking that we would do the tourist hop-on hop-off buses, get off at the Vatican and tour there.  Then depending on how much time we had left, we could see other things more in depth.

Well that didn't really work so well.  It took us awhile to even find a place to buy tickets for the tourist bus, and then when we did, we waited and waited for the bus to come.  I take that back.  There was one bus filling up with people, but it didn't have any cover for the top, so people were only sitting down below.  We sat down, but then when we looked out the window we  realized that we couldn't see out!  They had advertisements all over this bus, preventing the windows to be of much use to tourists wanting to see the city.  So we got off and waited for the next bus.  Supposedly they come every 15-20 minutes.  Um, not that day.  We waited and waited.  Then when a new bus did come, a large school group of kids got to go on.  Then when they realized that it was too full with them, they got to take over the next bus as well.  But we were able to squeeze on that one--getting seats on the top.  This bus at least at a tarp over it, but the seats were all wet and it was cold.  Oh well, we had paid for it already and so we got on.

So despite being cold and wet, we somewhat enjoyed the ride.  We did get to see the Colosseum again and from several angles.  We should've gone for a tour there today since most people might have been deterred by the rain.  

We also saw the Roman Forum better and all kinds of ruins all over the city center.

It just amazes me that underneath this modern city there are layers and layers of previous occupants' buildings!  And it is so crazy to have such old building next to new ones in a city like this.  It's interesting to see the old buildings with the new technology all together.

We rode the bus to the Vatican City.  Here we got out and tried to make our way to the entrance.  We were stopped by a guy who said he could get us on a tour for 50 euros each.  It would be about 2 hours and we wouldn't have to wait in the line.  We hemmed and hawed for a long time--not sure if it was worth the money, because we had seen the price online and it was cheaper than that. After some long deliberation, we finally decided to go.  He took us to this little hole in the wall office where we could join the rest of the group.  Paul didn't have enough money, so they took him to a bank.  Glenn was not happy that day--he wanted to go with Paul; he didn't want to go inside another museum; he just wanted to go home...  I was starting to feel the same way.  When Paul got back, we both decided to not go with this 'company' because it just didn't feel right and Glenn was not happy.  

So we started to walk away.  We decided to maybe just go towards the Vatican on our own and see how much we could see.  Again we were told by others that they could get us into a tour with no waiting in line and it was only 40 euros.  We found the line to get in and decided to wait in it to see how long it would actually take us.  While in line we were bombarded with people trying to get us to skip the line--buy tickets from them--it's only so many euros.  It just felt like a scam.  

We were getting tired of people coming up to us every two minutes and we thought that maybe we could go see other things, so finally we left the line.  By that time they had opened up St. Peter's Square and we took a picture.  We figured that we would just come to Rome another time and buy tickets in advance online and not have to worry about all that.

We got back on the tourist bus, after buying a few souvenirs, and rode around until we got to the bus station/train station.  We stopped at a place to eat because we hadn't eaten much all day.  We bought a few more souvenirs as well.  We picked up our bags from the bus station and waited around for the bus to take us to the airport.  While waiting we did get some hot chocolate.  It was the thickest, creamiest hot chocolate I've ever had!  It was like drinking a melted chocolate bar!

Then we got to the airport.  By this time the weather was really bad and we got soaked just going from the bus to the airport entrance!  Since we had our clothes with us, we all changed into dry ones and felt much better.  While we waited for our flights, we both struck up conversations with girls around us.  One was from Taiwan, who was learning Portuguese.  Paul had fun talking with her.  I talked with a girl from Italy who was moving to Ireland to hopefully find a job.  I think that was my favorite part of the day!  I love people and love meeting them and finding out about who they are.  We had really good conversations.  The girl I spoke with asked if we were Mormon--yes we are!  She said that she could tell.  She had a friend who was learning English from the missionaries and she said they were very nice people.  I encouraged her to look for the LDS missionaries and church once she arrived in Ireland and she would find the same nice people there.  I didn't get her last name--which makes me really sad--so I can't find her on FB or anything like that.  But I do hope she finds the Church somehow.  Not only is it Christ's true Church, but it is a great community and family.  

While we waited to board our plane, the man behind us folded several origami figures for Glenn.  Glenn was so worn out that he fell asleep in my arms.  We then had to take a little bus/tram to the plane--through the wind and rain.  I held Glenn the entire time and he stayed asleep.  Then he slept the entire flight home.  When we finally arrived in Madrid, he asked if the plane was finally going to take off.  He thought we were still in Italy!  Nope, we were back in Madrid and had to catch a metro train back home.  When we finally did get home, we were exhausted!

Italy was great, but exhausting at the same time.  

And Rome, I guess it's true that you can't see Rome in a day.  We'll just have to go again another day...