I Don't Like Pope in my Juice

We are currently sitting in our hotel room getting reading to pack our things up as we head to Assisi tomorrow from Rome and we are enjoying the Michael Jackson memorial service. And by enjoying it, I mean yelling at the TV wondering what is going on, and what we missed. We really don't have much of a choice really though – our hotel gets 13 channels, 2 of them in English, and the memorial service is on 5 different channels. So we get to analyze this mess, organize our clothes, and get our blog updated before we go to Assisi.

Everyone who is talking, keeps mentioning how great of a human being he was. There was even one person who said she sold all of the things in their home to get to the memorial service. Yikes. Though I think it was all worth it to hear one of the news corespondents say how many people MJ had touched. Nice. Now if Cory Feldman and his MJ impression will be a part of this memorial service, this might not be so bad after all. Cory Feldman. Now I want to watch Lost Boys.

Ok, enough of that. While yesterday was Ancient Rome, today was Catholic Rome. It was pretty amazing, and exhausting. We spent the morning, first on line, and then eventually inside, St. Peter's Basilica. I'm not quite sure if I was prepared for how big it was. We were probably in there for almost an hour and a half, wandering around, looking at the sculptures (Michaelangelo's Pieta was one) and frescoes, saying some prayers in one of the chapels, and generally being amazed.

As most of you know, I was pretty paranoid about coming on this trip. By nature, I am a pretty paranoid person (thanks Mom). Of all of the things I was afraid of happening, never did I think that the biggest hassle we would get would be from (breaking news...according to Al Sharpton, Obama would not have been able to be elected if it weren't for Michael Jackson) the rogue tour guides that Alice had mentioned yesterday. In order to get from our metro stop to St. Peter's Square, we had to pass about 10 different people offering us tours in English with promises of not having to wait in lines. The rogue bands of keep left signs or gangs of elderly people* have nothing on the tour guides. Tip for if you ever go to Rome: Ignore the tour guides on the street. Just pretend like you don't hear them and they will eventually give up and try for someone else. Anything they can tell you will either be in a tour book you have with you, or an audio guide you can rent at the site for cheaper than the guides will charge you. And the fact that the guides go all hush hush when the police come past makes things even more shady. As for the keep left signs coming at you? Good luck. Your best bet is to hope they don't come for you.

Please tell me someone got that reference.*

In addition to St. Peter's Basilica, we also went to the Vatican Museums. It probably took us about 4 hours to go through the entire museum. We got to see countless statues, paintings, mosaics, frescoes, and archaeological pieces. Some things stood out more than others. One was the Sistine Chapel. It was as good as you would think it would be, so there really isn't much I can say about it. Another piece of art that stood out (literally) was a statue of a man holding some fruit. Now, that might not seem that amazing, but what did make it unique was said man's, well, excitement, from this fruit. You could tell that at some point (long after the statue was created originally), some additional fruit was placed over a certain area of this man in attempt to cover up his happiness. This really isn't the important part. What is important is why this man got so excited. Perhaps, he really likes fruit. Or, perhaps, there was too much fruit to carry with 2 hands, and he needed some help...balancing. Maybe his, situation, had nothing even to do with the fruit, and it was just a happy coincidence.

Tomorrow we will make our way the last time towards Rome's termini station and onwards to Assisi. Our expectations for this next hotel are kinda low, so we are not expecting internet, but we will continue to write daily and post as often as possible.

Speaking of hotels, we are giving our Rome hotel (Villa Morgagni) two thumbs up. The room was nice. There was air conditioning. It was in a convenient location to the metro. Breakfast was good (they had these cookies...like vanilla wafers and graham crackers combined).

We never were able to pick up a new power converter but remembered that Uncle Frank had lent us his. It is just enough to charge up the essentials (yay). So thanks! We still don't have anything to connect the camera to the computer to get the pictures off, so you will have to deal with videos for now, and we will show you pictures when we get back.

Arrivederci!



and that's us waving in the gold...

*Note: there are two new posts below this one. Comment away! (I'm serious...we enjoy your comments).