anyway, here we are, day three. we (me, maddy, mal, chris, mike, janet) woke up early to get in line at the vatican museum, but when we got there around 845 am, the line was already probably a mile long. because the place closes at 1:30 or something (wtf? that's lame) and we had plenty more sights to see, we decided to ditch the museum and try again tomorrow morning, but get there even earlier.
we walked out of the country and into vatican city, the smallest country in the world (vatican city country jokes are SO funny). st peter's basilica--the pope's place--was gorgeous. you should see his view
the inside was expectedly phenomenal. of course it has to be the best--it's the pope's church! as none of us are particularly religious, we made lots of funny jokes about god and heaven. we all got separated inside the basilica, but when maddy, mal, mike and i (aw, man, i never caught on to the alliteration of their names!) met up outside, we decided to go up the copula (er however you spell that). though 551 steps to the top sign was a little frightening, we decided to save a couple euro (aka 1 gelato's worth) and make the journey up on the steps.
WAIT. one of the funniest stories happened in line before we walked up. we were talking about the trevi fountain, and mike goes, "yeah, if you toss three coins in, you'll get married." mal and i both gasped with excitement for no particular reason. "oOooooo get married??!?!?!" maddy and mike both gave us confused looks and we started laughing at our immediate, girly reaction to the marriage prospect.
anyway, back to the story. so we walked up a crapton of steps when we reached what we thought was the top...turns out it was really just the halfway point. my thighs were screaming a big "eff you!" but we dredged on. something weird happened. the further up we got, the skinnier the stairwells were. as we got up to the curved part of the basilica, we had to start leaning to accommodate the sphere shape. once i got to the top, i had to catch my breath. i caught eyes with this older woman, who also had that fatigued look in her eyes. she looks and me and goes, "gosh, look what we have to do to get into heaven!" lol. yeahhh that's totally what i was thinking.
oh, but if there is some sort of god, it's evident that he's here, because that view was amazing. it was a view fit for a god. the sun came out for the first time on our trip, which gave us a phenomenal view of two countries (no, v city jokes dont get old, like i said earlier).
on our way down, we stopped in the gift store. ooo, what to get to remember this oh-so-holy place? i had a tough time deciding, but once i saw it, i knew i had to get it--a vactican city shot glass. HELL YES i bought a shot glass in one of the holiest places on earth. i can't wait to consume some alcohol from that glass. even better, only nuns work in the gift shop (i think you have to be a nun to live in vc), so a nun sold it to me. mmmm sinning is so good sometimes.
after all that popey goodness we were ready for a meal, so we had lunch at our fave italian restaurant (well, we didnt know it was our fave at the time...it was decided a the end of the trip). mmm pizza. conversation flowed easily, no wine necessary. i love getting to know people because i get to know cool things...for example, one of mal's all time favorite movie's is jumanji. good choice, mal.
after that, we went down to the pantheon, which was actually open this time. i'm gonna admit something to you--i wasn't all that impressed. yeah, it's a really big building, but that's it. you even left a big hole in the top, so when it rains, water gets everywhere. lame.
our tummies wanted gelato, so we walked to my second fave gelateria, the one with 240957 flavors. they had a chocolate-peperoncini one! i tried it, but it was gross, so i passed. i went with pistacchio, nutella and blackberry. the nutella was a little bit richer than i expected, but delicious nonetheless. (btw, you may be wondering how, 5 days later, i can still remember my precise gelato combos. it's because i wrote them down on my special sheet of notes. yes, gelato is that important).
okay, this is getting freaking long and dull, so i'll try to leave out dumb details like why i remember the gelato combos. next on our to do list was make it to trevi fountain, which i had been preparing for all day. preparing, nicki? how? well, by thinking of what wishes to make, of course! but, once i got down on the edge with my coins in hand, i was so excited to flip them over my shoulder that i forgot what i wanted to wish for. sometimes i have the attention span of a child.
back at the hostel, after we showered and ate, we asked the front desk what sort of other things we should do in and outside of rome. this is when we met james. he was the hairy, roman guy working the front desk. he was helpful and god was he opinionated...and hilarious. he told us to visit lake bracciano, where he likes to go in the summer to see the girls with the plastic surgery (he made a boob motion on his chest). as he's looking through a list of tourist activities in rome, he mutters "bullshit...that's bullshit" to half of them. "oh, the colosseum? pay 11 euro, walk around for 10 minutes smelling piss and leave. bullshit." he also suggested this cheap but delicious gelato place 5 minutes away on a bus.
on james' advice, we tried to find the gelato place. we got a bit lost and couldn't find the place for about half an hour, but once we did, it was totally worth it, because they piled on the ice cream HIGH and for cheap. i got a crema and berry gelato. crema (like vanilla but a little sweeter) is my second fave gelato flavor...oh, man, i should've gotten a cinnamon/crema gelato. gosh, looks like i'll have to go back.
once we got back to the hostel, we tip toed around our room (of course our roomies were asleep) getting ready for bed. maddy and i did some yoga in the hallway and we all drifted to dreamland, resting up for day four.
1 comment:
P.S. I love when people have long blog entries, because I have NOTHING to do after finishing my lunch during the school's 2.5 hour lunch break... Going home isn't worth it, but reading blogs about FOOD... totally worth it.
Sounds like Italy was a blast :-)
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