We arrived in Rome at around 6PM (their time, 12PM our time) then took a shuttle to our authentic Italian lodging at Holiday Inn.  Our room was just like a hotel room in America with one main difference – right next to the toilet on the floor was a sink that almost looked like a toilet.  I think it was for drinking water.  It tasted a bit funny, but I guess water is different in another country.

 

The next day we got up for Rome.  I don’t know if you know this but people in other countries don’t speak English.  So imagine trying to use the metro system when everyone you ask speaks a different language.  Well we finally figure out what track we’re supposed to get on, and we do really well reading the map.  But actually too well, because we get to a stop that wasn’t on the map, so we get off trying to figure out what is going on.

 

Here’s us trying to figure it out. 

Of course, there’s no one on staff, no information booth, nothing.  So after scouting out the place there’s this guy who sits down and I ask him.  He’s Filipino!  Whew. 

 

There’s some sort of automatic bond you form when you are in a foreign nation and you run into someone that is similar to you in some way.  Here we were similar in two ways, we both spoke English and we both had the same ancestry. 

 

So anyways he tell us we’re on the right track, but this stop just wasn’t on our map.  Somehow we did some secret trick and ended up in a bonus warp level. 

Lost in Warp Level -1 (You Nintendo fans better get that reference)


So after I went around picking up coins and a 1-up we continued on our way into the heart of Rome.

 

The first place we stop is The Vatican.  Did you know that Vatican City is also its own country?  Here we are at the Vatican.

  

 

The art in that place is astounding. 

 

One of the highlights is where Peter is buried.  Yes, THEE Peter.  Like Peter in the Bible.  The Peter who denied Christ.  The Peter as in First Peter and Second Peter.  Not Peter and the Wolf, or Peter, Paul and Mary, or Peter Rabbit.  The apostle Peter.  That was amazing.

 

 

Then we stood in line to go to the Vatican Museums, but mainly the Sistine Chapel which is placed at the end of the dozens of connected buildings with art EVERYWHERE.  The line was forever, but we happened to stand in line next to a pastor from Canada.  Having someone to speak in English to was seriously a blessing.  After over an hour we finally make it into the Vatican Museums.

 

I really can’t put into words how beautiful everything was here.  You’d go down a corridor and there were hundreds or thousands of paintings.  It’d be like trying to walk though a record store and listen to two seconds of each album as you pass through, and each album was incredible but there’s just so much amazing stuff that you miss most of it. 

Okay, someone try to count how many paintings are in this one picture.





 

 

Here are a couple of our favorite.

 

Apparently wars past, clothing was optional. 

 

Raphael painted this ceiling – with sais. 

 

Now the big payoff after seeing 20,000 pieces of art was the Sistine Chapel painted by Michaelangelo (the one with the nunchucks).  Now if VH1 did a countdown of the greatest pieces of art of all time, the Sistine Chapel would be #1 through #100.  #1 would be the main wall with the Judgement painting.  Now, this thing is something like 3 stories tall.  Can you imagine painting a 3 story wall?  I mean I get sick of painting one room one color with a stupid roller. 

 

I mean look at this thing.  I could spend all day looking at it finding new things.  It’s like a Where’s Waldo book.  That is just ONE wall, which is only about 15% of the entire huge room with its ceiling.

 
 
This famous painting one of the million paintings on the ceiling.

After we got out of there we got authentic Italian pizza.  It’s a thin crispy crust pizza with hardly any toppings.  Pizza with mushrooms should be renamed, pizza with a mushroom.  And there’s no refills on drinks.  And you have to pay for water.  And soda cans are like $3 a piece.  Give, me, a, break.

 

So now we work our way over to the Coluseum making stops along the way. 

 

Now Rome is amazing because everything is just so old.  Oh, that was made by the Greeks before Christ.  Oh this thing right next to it was built by the Romans in the first century.  You go around any place in America and it’s like, “See this intricate building here?  It’s covered with what we call “Siding” and was built in the late 1970’s.  And see that there?  That’s called plastic. 

Some important historical bridge.


Something de Emmanuel

 

I can’t explain it, and there’s pictures don’t do the city justice.  It’s all so beautiful. 

 

But even here, America rules.  U! S! A!!  U! S! A!!

 

Our first glimpse of the Coluseum

 

Finally at the Coluseum which is pretty big.  Yeah, this thing is about 2000 years old. 

Time to fight!

People mistook me for Russel Crowe

 

Where'd everyone go?  Look how small everone is. That's how big this place is.


Ooh, artsy.

A memorial to the Christians killed at the Coluseum.


Julia took this one of course because all my pictures end up looking like they were taken by the clinically insane.

 

 

Walking around Rome more.

Something else totally famous.

The Fountain of Trevi. Legend has it that if you drink from the fountain, you magically get E. coli.


The Pantheon!


Dining outside of the Pantheon!
 

Outside the McDonald’s on the other side of the square with the Pantheon!

 

So we headed back to the hotel.
 

Rome was wonderful and old.  Kind of like the original Nintendo and original Star Wars.  The new updated versions can't compare to the wonder and awe we felt in the olden days.