Pompeii and back to Rome

And we're back in Rome!

On Wednesday, we left Sorrento to head back to Rome, with a stop to visit the ruins of Pompeii along the way...

I expected to see a lot more presevered, ash-covered bodies, but we only saw two. =( Here's one of them:Our guide showed us a row of ruins which used to be brothels...and then down the street we saw a penis carved into the ground that, ironically, pointed to the row of the brothels. Apparently, if you step on it, you'll get married. But no one ever said anything about sitting on it, as one guy in our group did, haha! =P

View of the ruins with Mt. Vesuvius in the background

When we arrived in Rome, the entire group went out for a walk to see the same sites we saw on our first day, so we just napped...mmm it was so nice to relax, since this tour is draining! Franco was right...on our first day, he said semi-jokingly, "This tour is not relaxing; you're gonna need a one-week holiday after!"

The next day (Thursday), we had the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel tour. Our guide was sorta boring; I was falling asleep standing up. So Chris and I ran off to do Rick Steves' Vatican Museum tour ourselves. We met up with the group at certain points, but I think we saw more than what they saw.

We walked through the Museum, which had SOOO much stuff in it...I had to take pictures without flash, so some came out a bit blurry, but if you wanna see what I took, ask me because there are way too many to put up here.

The Museum connected to the Sistine Chapel. Holy cow, my hair stood on end. The place was PACKED...we could barely move around all the crazy tourists (and the stupid ones taking pictures, with and without flash, even though it wasn't allowed...one person in our tour group actually got kicked out). Simply amazing.

After our erm, "guided tour," we were basically on our own for the rest of the day. Chris and I decided to explore St. Peter's Basilica, thanks to Rick Steves. =)

Michelangelo's Pieta

God's "four-poster bed," made by Bernini

St. Peter's Square

Oh yeah, we actually walked past Swiss guards! We were trying to find the Excavation Office so we could make reservations for a tour of the crypt (and see St. Peter's tomb), so I walked past all the tourists taking pictures of them (Chris was being chicken and didn't wanna ask himself, haha)...and one of them walked up to me as I walked up to him. I seriously had to tilt my head back; apparently these guys have to be at LEAST 5'9". (O_O) I explained what we were trying to do, and he let us through! =D Unfortunately though, we couldn't get reservations; the next available ones were in May. Booooo.

After more walking around and exploring, we headed back to the hotel and got ready for the farewell dinner. AWWWWWWWWW! Everyone looked so nice dressed up and having fun! I'm gonna miss all these people, especially after spending 2 weeks with them...

With Ben and Data

With Franco, our tour manager

With Cornelius, the best bus driver EVER!

Franco dancing to our wakey-wakey song on the disco bus

So this morning, after checking out and saying bye to the people left/leaving, we moved to the our last hotel for this trip to Italy. It was HELLA nice! It's a cute little bed&breakfast about 10 minutes away from the Vatican. And it has internet! I was SO surprised because all the hotels we had throughout the tour either had: a) public computers you had to pay for, or b) no internet at all. After checking in and settling in and whatnot, Chris and I decided to explore Vatican City and Rome again. Our first stop was lunch, where we attempted to order in Italian but failed. HAHA we suuuuck! Next time we come back to Italy, we're gonna be semi-fluent!

The Holy Door...according to Rick Steves, these are only opened during the Jubilee Years, on Christmas Eve every 25 years. On Christmas Eve 1999, Pope John Paul II knocked on it "three times with a silver hammer and the door opens, welcoming pilgrims to pass through." Afterwards, the door is bricked up again to wait another 24 years.

Speaking of Pope John Paul II, we were able to see his tomb underneath St. Peter's.

We bought a LOT of rosaries as pasalubong for people, so instead of carrying them around with us everywhere, we went back to the hotel to drop them off. On the walk back, I spotted a sign for a Korean restaurant (that we'll probably check out tomorrow):
Haha, Korean food in Italy! This should be interesting. =P Chilled at the hotel for about an hour and a half; I uploaded the blogs I'd been writing since the tour started, along with pictures. Finally, we ventured back out into crazy Rome to see sights we hadn't yet seen. We took the metro to the Colosseum...

Check out that graffiti!

Of course, we were walking around with the Rick Steves book, so we decided to take his advice and try one of the restaurants around the Colosseum. We walked into the Caffe dello Studente and the daughter of the owner, Simona, immediately spotted the book and was like, "Rick Steves! I'm in that book!" It was cool, cuz she gave us free cocktails and introduced us to her husband and father. We got delicious sandwiches for really cheap and got to sit at a table for free (restaurants here charge if you wanna sit down). Yay for Rick Steves!

We tried to visit the Roman Forum after dinner, but apparently most major sights close at 7pm, so we sat there thinking of stuff to do since it was still pretty early. And we thought, hey what the heck, let's get gelato near the Pantheon and take a night walk. So we were standing at the bus stop, looking through the Rick Steves book, trying to figure out the best route to the Pantheon...and this lady points out to her friend, "Hey, they're reading Rick Steves!" HAHA oh man...Rick Steves brings people together! We chatted with them for a bit, then finally decided to take the metro to Barberini, then walked to Trevi Fountain, then walked to the Pantheon.


We stopped by McDonald's to use the bathroom and to try out their chicken nuggets (and woohoo, they were dark meat!!!). Looked through the book again to find the "best gelato place in Rome," and on the way up the street, we ran into a couple using a Rick Steves guide to find the same gelato place. It's like a cult! Haha just kidding! =P The four of us found the place and had the best freakin' gelato, tied with Gelateria Romana in Urbino, over a nice conversation in the middle of the street (even gelato places charge for you to sit at a table). We parted ways after about 45 minutes, and Chris and I continued our night walk...

Vittorio Emmanuel monument

We decided to take the metro back to the Colosseum...last night, we drove by at night, but taking pictures without flash in a moving bus was a nightmare. Here's a clearer shot:

Beautiful, no? =) Well...except for that ugly streetlight. "I hate modern-day Rome!" Haha, just kidding. After that, we hopped back on the metro in order to get back to the hotel, but due to construction, at Termini Station, Line A stopped at 9pm and switched to buses. Chris, being a PSYCHO, wanted to take bus #64, aka the Thief Bus. I, being the paranoid one, said, "Hell no!" and we took the #40 bus instead. I'd rather not get robbed, thankyouverymuch.

Since our hotel is very close to the Vatican, we were able to see St. Peter's Square at night. At one point, we tried to use the exit we used earlier in the afternoon, but it was blocked off and we couldn't find a way around it. "Ahhh, we're stuck in Vatican City!"

Night shot of St. Peter's Square

See the three rectangles of light? That's the Pope's private study.

Rome is so beautiful at night...so much better than during the day (probably because, according to Chris, "it hides a lot of things you don't wanna see"). Mmm, Rome...the Eternal City.