When in Rome...

We've been in Rome for 3 days now. It's been quite an adventure...here are a few highlights and pictures!

We finally managed to navigate a European train successfully. The trip from Florence to Rome went great with no incidents. We ended up sitting next to a priest-in-training who was very nice, helpful, and eager to practice his English! He is being placed in a church in San Francisco this coming October. He did fairly well except I think he thought we were Catholic. Consequently, when Derrick, in the course of a conversation about church services, told him our service lasts 2-2.5 hours, he said we should report our priest to the Pope while we are here! Woops!

Another highligt of the train trip were the hot air balloons we saw. They were breathtaking, floating acrss the Tuscany countryside, the early morning (our train left before 8am!) sun reflecting off their sides. What a treat!

Sunday afternoon we headed to town to participate in an age-old tradition: biking the Appia Antica. You know the saying, "All roads lead to Rome."? This is one of the roads that saying referred to. It is the oldest of the 7 original roads leading to Rome. We came across a group of men and women reinacting a Roman battle - they were in full dress with period weapons and everything! We took a tour of Saint Callisto's catacombes, the largest of all the catacombes found in Rome. It held 500,000 bodies, of whihc 100,000 were babies. So sad - they're tombs were so tiny. It was quite an experience to be 2 stories below ground in the dark, walking around a maze-like, giant grave! While we were waiting for it to open after lunch, we met a nice lady who ended up in our tour group. When the tour was over, she gave us all tracts, saying, "You can't visit the catacombes without thinking about the after life." I thought that was really neat.

Monday we toured the Vatican Museum and St. Peter's Bascillica. As we were walking up to the church, someone told us there was a free tour in English about to begin. So, of course, we joined it. As it turns out, the guy leading the tour, Jason, was from Lafayette, Lousiana!!! Talk about a small world. He got excited when he saw my LSU tshirt and dug in his bag to find us like the last two ear pieces he had! He did a great job on the tour and we learned some fascinating things, which I won't take the time to type out here.

We hit our first patch of bad weather that day. All our evening plans were rained out, including another guided tour with Jason to some of the monuments at night. This tour, of course, wasn't free, but we didn't get to go anyway.

Yesterday morning was our first potential disaster. We tried to take money out of the ATM, as we were completely broke! Our card was denied by the machine and because we were unable to pay for the hostel in Rome with that card, we just knew the bank had locked our account for some reason. We called every number we have for VISA and our bank, but because it was 2am in the states, no one answered. I paniced, had my first good cry in Europe (hopefully the last), and we sat down on a street curb to figure out what to do. We debated spending €1.50 of our last few euros on 15 minutes of internet to check our account online, but desided against it. Instead, we decided to go back to the bank and try my ATM card. When we got there, there was a nice American lady in line in front of us. Her card was denied, too, and she just casually said, "Oh, the ATM's out again." We thought our card might still be frozen, so we followed her into the bank. As we all waited in line, we told her the basics of our dillemma and she was very helpful, offering advice and directions to other ATMs. Then, after she finished her business, she walked back to us and handed us €20!!! She told us that would at least buy us some food if we couldn't get to our money. We refused, but she insisted, so we had to take it. We both stood there, speechless, wondering if maybe she was an angel. Everyone else we had asked for help was very unhelpful. In the end, our account wasn't frozen and we didn't even need the €20 she gave us, but she was long gone. I wish we could find her to thank her and return the money.

With our money issues solved, we spent the rest of the day at the Colloseum and the Roman Forum. We walked through what was once the downtown area of ancient Rome - you could still see the shape of what used to be little shops/stalls along the roads. We walked across the Circus Maximus, the chariot race track of ancient Rome. We walked down the Via dal Corso, the street where they used to race horses. We did some geocaching and found a cache on the backside of the Colloseum and one on an island in the middle of the Tiber River at the base of the oldest bridge in Rome. We went to Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon around dusk - they were both beautiful in the sunset. We returned to Trevi after dark and that was really pretty, too.

To add to the list of places we've met people from:
Padua, Italy (the priest)
Pennsylvania
Lafayette, LA (the tour guide)
Houston, TX (the lady at the bank)
Missouri (the lady at the catacombes)
Paris, France
Bologna, Italy

GELATO (ice cream) flavors we've eaten:
Derrick:
Chocolate
Chocolate Chip
Tiramasu

Ashley:
Chocolate
Chocolate Chip II
Crem Caramel ***
Strawberry
Crema
Ferrore Roche
Nuttela Variegeta
Chocolate Mousse **
Caramel

OK, as promsied, here are a few pictures: