chips and a gadget!

another day another dollar. make that a lot of dollars. no...make that euros.

we figured out what we are doing today...for the next few days until we get to Barcelona (and ive got to start saying it "barthelona"...cause thats how they say it there..so weird") Anyway... we are going to a cute little beach town on the west coast of italy for 3 days.. its called Tarquina...and we will be on the beach and just relaxing in this little town from thursday-sunday. then....we have a flight to barcelona... EXCEPT... we realized after we booked our flight... that it really isnt barcelona... its a town 2 hours away.. the airline tricked us!! it said "barcelona-girona" and we just figured that was the name of the airport or something...but no... its a town a couple hours away... and we will have to take a bus to actual barcelona. i felt a little decieved. oh well.

yesterday.. a good chunk of our day was dedicated to going to Vatican City. we have heard that people can wait 4 hours in line just to get in...but our tour guide told us that if you go at a certain time (1:30) the line is pretty short...and we only waited probably 10 min (to get in).








the museum was massive! i think we heard there were 1400 different rooms... so crazy... we had a little audio guide, but we were still pretty overwhelmed by everything. one of the things we got a big kick out of were these little "dont fall down the steps" signs that were everywhere...not sure why...but everytme we saw it...we couldnt stop laughing.




the end of the museum is the Sistene Chapel. wow. thats all i can really say about that.






from the chapel....we also learned from a tour guide on a previous day that you dont go out where it says "exit" but you go out another exit it leads straight to St Peters Basilica instead of having to go outside and wait in line again for that. it lead us straight to the underground part of it...where the tombs of all (or most..not sure) of the previous popes are. it was really crazy to believe how much history was in the room... so many leaders who have done so many things throughout the church...all right there. one dissapointing thing about being down there... was how disrespectful people were being. there were very clear signs saying that it should be silent...and people were being very chatty anyway...

here are some pics of some of the tombs. the first one is Pope John Paul II. this was really crazy for me...to see the tomb of a pope that i had grown up hearing his name all the time and seeing on the news and everywhere. people were still laying flowers on his tomb.




the next one is of the disciple Peter..who the catholic church calls the first pope. the basilica is named after him because it was built around his tomb. it was breathtaking to see that... someone who knew Jesus personally... his body was right there. it just was a little overwhelming for me.





the next picture is of a pope (of Pope Pius X ...but its also an example of how most of the tombs looked)






after the downstairs part with the tombs, we actually went into the church, st. peters basilica. it is HUGE... i can now say ive been to the largest church in the world. there is just so much to it... it feels neverending. but really awe-inspiring and beautiful.








last night we webt to dinner... and after my last experience with paying for bread (and seeing brads comment how you just dont eat it if you dont want to pay for it) -- the bread came out and we didnt eat it... and at the end of our meal they took it away (made me wonder...im sure the re-used it for someone else... thats pretty gross..they dont know if we touched it or not). anyway.. when it came time to pay...we saw a charge for something we didnt understand.. and when we asked about it they said it was a COVER CHARGE for the table!!!! not a service charge...that was already included..but a charge to sit down at a table! whos ever heard of such a thing!

today...we went on a search for a camera store (no luck...think we are gonna have to order a charger online or something) and a post office....and then we went to the Spanish Steps (and the Piazza di Spagna)









...then went to the Villa Borghese ..which is suppppposed to be these beautiful gardens. but its august...and all we saw was a bunch of brown grass...haha..maybe we missed something. we also discovered this little underground mall at the main train station at rome... so that was fun to walk around today and go to some of the shops and the grocery store there...(we are buying our own fruits/snacks to save up for the day).

we leave rome in the morning! its been good... really good to us. both of us are glad that we stayed around and got to relax and get a feel for the city the way we did..intsead of running around like a bunch of rushed tourists... we got to take in the city leisurely, at our own pace...and really started to understand our way around this place!