Roma

Wow, so I'm super tired but I'll try to take a few minutes just to update you all on what we've been up to. We left Florence on Sunday, and made our way to Rome. There was some question as to how we were going to do this, as the trenitalia (that's their rail company here) workers were apparently going on strike. As it turned out though, only the little short distance regional trains weren't running, so we just had to catch a bus to a different station and take a different kind of train- it all worked swimmingly. The Termini station in Rome is huge, there is like a mall in it and restaurants and everything! We soon realized that the hostel we had booked wasn't actually in the city of Rome, it was in Ostia, which is kind of a suburb. This is a little bit too bad, since we have to ride the train for half an hour just to get into the city, and then we still need to take the subway to wherever we'd like to go from there. We just got transportation tickets that are good for three days, however, so its not too bad. The hostel itself is really nice- it is new and we have a huge room all to ourselves (there are three empty beds). We even have an ensuite bathroom! The hostel is right on the beach, but unfortunately the beach is quite dirty. Ostia is kind of a poor town, and the location of our hostel is pretty much in the ghetto! haha. So there is quite a bit of garbage on the beach, its not exactly the type of place you'd want to lounge for the day. (Don't worry though Dad- we feel very safe! :) ) So we'll leave the beach lounging until we get to Greece- there is tons to do in Rome! On our first day here (yesterday) we went to the Colosseum which was sooooo cool. You walk up the steps out of the metro stop, and there it is- this huge monument you've seen in pictures and on tv all your life! We took an English tour which was very cool, I'm glad we did it because there are no signs or anything on the inside, so if you didn't take a tour or at least get the audioguide you'd probably pay €9 just to wander around the place for half an hour wondering about what you're missing out on because of your lack of knowledge. (trust me, we've experienced this!) The tour price also includes a tour of the Roman Forum, but they only go at certain times and we had missed the ones for that day, so we just walked around the city for a few hours. It was so beautiful! We went past the Roman Forum (which we will tour tomorrow) and a whole bunch of other historical buildings/monuments. We got some pizza at a little pizzeria (where they sell it to you by weight) and by then it was dark enough to do some night sightseeing! We went to a few of the fountains (there are so many) including the Trevi fountain, which was so pretty! Everything was light up and there were tons of ppl, including guys selling everything from roses and postcards to bubble blowing guns and little mouldable smiley face ball things (does anyone ever buy these???) There are tons of squares everywhere, and its pretty easy to stumble upon a place and suddenly realize that you've seen pictures of it on postcards. Today we went to Vatican city and went into St. Peter's basilica, which was pretty cool. We wanted to see the sistine chapel as well but because of a long story we're going to do it tomorrow instead. We came back to the hostel for supper tonight (they have a bar/restaurant where you can get pasta and coffee and such) and since then we've just been doing laundry, trying to figure out our next hostel etc. I'm pretty excited that we just booked 3 nights at the Pink Palace on Corfu in Greece! :) We'll be in Rome all day tomorrow and we'll leave here on Friday. I think that this is possibly the coolest city we've seen yet! I feel as though you could spend a lot of time here going to museums, parks etc., checking out concerts and restaurants, shopping (I haven't done any here yet! Pretty impressive, no?), and checking out the night-life. (Which we aren't able to do because the trains stop running early but we're not too heartbroken over this). For some reason, my feet are sore tonight, even though we probably did half as much walking today as we usually do. Maybe it was the standing on the crowded metro and trains?? Love you and miss you all.....
Starr