Well I'm posting this from the good ole US of A. The last two weeks of our trip were, as expected, hectic. We arrived in Rome on Friday morning, the 18th, after spending the night at the airport in Sofia, not as bad as it sounds. Unfortunately when we arrived and called the place where we would be staying we were told the shuttle may arrive at 8:30am, if not then 10:30am. As we would soon learn to be the norm the shuttle arrived at 9:20... more on "italian time" later. We stayed at this campground/country club, I haven't seen anything like it before they have a few restaurants, two pools, athletic facilities, two night clubs and a few pubs. After setting up our tents I headed straight for the city. I don't know if it is designed this way intentionally but going to see the colosseum via the metro (subway) involves quiet a shock. When you arrive at the "Collosseo" stop walk up the stairs and out the gates there it is, directly in front of you, so high you cant see over it and so wide you cant see around it. For the most part it looks exactly like it does in the pictures we have all seen but you really cant appreciate the grandeur and placement of it within the scheme of ancient Rome. The ancient section of the city is fairly intact and free from modern structures, from the right vantage points with a little imagination you can see how the city would have stretched out in front of you in ancient times. The forum and the colosseum are directly adjacent to each other and both are still under archeological excavation, which I suppose adds a bit to the dust bowl effect the city had when windy. When I got back to the campground I found that a friend of ours, Ron, had arrived. He managed to arrange to DJ at the nightclub in the country club in exchange for what is essentially an all inclusive paid vacation. Fortunately for us this includes the use of his own private 4 bed bungalow, which we quickly moved into... hmmmmm tent and no AC VS Bed and AC... really tough decision. The next day I again headed into the city to see the Spanish steps (a Huge staircase lined w/ flowers and a chapel at the top) very picturesque and the gorgeous, but tourist infested, Trevi fountain, which legend has it, if ones throws a coin into, you assure you return to Rome ...of course I did, a 1 cent bulgarian coin, equivalent to 8/10 of a US penny ... the legend doesn't say what kind of coin it has to be :) After a little souvenir shopping I also saw the Republic and Termini Station, quiet nice and modern compared to what we've seen in the past few weeks. We decided that saturday would be our big night out in Rome and headed to a huge night club on the beach just outside the city. Apparently some of the night clubs in the city center close during the summer as everyone is in the beach area. After using Ron's DJ credentials to get past the doorman/line (we weren't exactly dressed in nightclub attire) we followed him as we cut past what must have been at least 300 people waiting in line to pay cover, essentially beating the italians at their own game, they DO NOT stand in an orderly line for anything, they are simply to cool for it. The club was nicely laid out and had a lot of different settings and three separate areas w/ different music in each. The italians however were incredibly rude, not only to us, but as we observed, to each other. The music was also pretty lame compared to all the other cities we had been in, even if we couldn't understand the words, you know what a cheesy pop song sounds like in any language. It was a good laugh though when they broke out en mass with synchronized dances for each specific song (you know, middle school style, Ehhhh Macarena!) . By far the most entertaining part of the night was when Ron and I (OK and even Dennis once, maybe, after quiet a bit of chiding from us) started to ask random people "Do you have my waffles?". No we hadn't had to much to drink, in fact only one, the drink were exorbitantly expensive at this place. We figured if they were going to play dumb about not speaking english (I was told by an italian they have all taken several years of it) then we were going to have a little fun with them. The idea being if you ask a really silly question and they smile or laugh, you know they understand, even if they refuse to admit it, although we did get a few to admit it. I guess its not fair to label the Italians as lazy and/or rude, it just doesn't seem to be in the culture to work hard and be hospitable, not in Rome anyways. I mean if you ask the staff anywhere a question they will not even hisitate to answer "I dont know", not "I'll check", not "I'll look into it", not "let me talk to my manager". You need to ask for all of those things to be done specficly, otherwise they will repeat "I dont know" until the cows come home, late of course, I mean the cows in Italy are on Italian time, ie half an hour late and not ready to work for another half an hour. I know you might think I'm being a little harsh on them, but for example after only four days we were honestly waaaaaay to happy over something we take for granted in the states as when our airport shuttle actually showed up on time, I mean he did stop after two minutes of driving for an 8 minute smoke break, but it wasn't like anyone had a plane to catch. The next day was sunday and I headed off to the Vatican for mass. Unfortunately Benedetto, as the italians call him, was out of town, hanging out "down under" for the week. Either way, holy father or not, the Vatican was amazing, it makes the collesuem look like childs play. San Pietro's square is the largest in Rome and so large it was easily spotted from the plane when flew out. There is an egyptian obelisk in the center of the square, which I assumed was a copy, its not. The Romans brought several of them from ancient Egypt, two real, and several copies still stand in the city today. St Pietro's Basilica sits at one end of the square and is flanked by two curved rows of collumns, huge and white, roman style, of course. I managed to catch the last mass of the day, which although in Italian was the same old song and dance. They block off the front of the basilica for mass which given the number of tourists in the back I thought might not be enough. Turns out the place is soooo huge you cant even hear the tourists from the front during mass. The alter was surprisingly simple although the chair of St Piertro flanked by golden angels behind it was quiet grand and magnificent. The cathedral is decorated from floor to ceiling (oh and those are decorated as well) with beautiful works of art, some of them by Micohelangelo himself. Speaking of Micohelangelo, in a bit of a miscalculation on my part I chose to visit the Vatican on a sunday, on which the Museums and Sistine chapel are closed. Ahh well, there's always next time. Well now that I'm back in the states and I've got a decent net connection I'm going to put some more pics up, also I think I'll be adding two more posts, one for London and a final best/worst list with some closing remarks.
-fjd
