titolo (italian for title)

hmm alright -- a few things.

we really pretty much made yesterday a "day of rest" too... its just so nice to be in one spot and not have to be rushing around everywhere. Although, we did have to change to a different hotel. say goodbye to our little apartment with a kitchen...they had apparently already booked it before we decided we wanted to stay longer. sooo... we got a new hotel and found out that it was about a mile away..and then packed everything back up into our backpacks and walked on over to our new room. its actually not bad... its not in a quiet neighborhood like our apartment, its on a busier more "happening" streeet...but its also walking distance to everything we need! (internet cafe is next door!)



as we were walking around yesterday... we came across the Piazza della Repubblica, one of Romes more noble open spaces. In the middle is a gorgeous fountain with naked nymphs with swans. the fountain was built fairly recently, by roman standards. according to a guidebook, the women who modeled for the nymphs were a pair of sisters, two popular burlesque dancers of their day. they gained a bit of notoriety when the fountain was completed...the church tried for months to prevent the thing from being unveiled because it was too sexy. the sisters lived well into old age, and even as late as the 1920s these two old ladies could be seen walking together everyday into the piazza to have a took at "their" fountain..and every year, once a year, for as long as he lived, the french sculptor who had captured them in marble during their prime would come to rome and take the sisters out to lunch, where they would reminisce together about the days when they were all so young and beautiful.









soo..if you know much of anything about me or emily...you probably know we looooove reading. big time nerds really. anyway...when we were trying to "pack light" each of us only brought two books for our trip...which really...we should have known better. we have read our books and each others books...and we NEEDED to each have another book (in english) for the time being. we went on a hunt and found an international bookstore with a goodsized english section. yay!! by the way...the books that we have read so far on the trip, we HIGHLY recommend...definitely some of our favorite books so far. if you read...you should check out

Eat, Pray, Love - by Elizabth Gilbert
The Kite Runner - by Khaled Hosseini
Life of Pi - Yann Martel

so we each got a new book (the new hosseini book "a thousand splendid suns" for me, and "inheritance of loss" for emily...both supposed to be good!)

another thing... we found a use for the duct tape that everyone said you should pack in a backpacking trip...lydia told me "you never know what youll need it for..but you probably will" or something along those lines... so i went and bought some duct tape...and sure enough -- last night we used it! we have to use a converter to plug in anything we brought over into these european outlets (like the camera battery charger). anyway...it wouldnt all stay up on the wall and it kept falling down...so we taped it to the wall!

speaking of the camera battery....turns out, it wasnt the battery that was bad..its the charger! soo... now we have 2 dead camera batteries and a charger that is apparently broken. blaaah... so we arent sure what to do. i guess try to find a charger somehow.

also... a weird story...emily was trying to use a payphone the other night.. and there was this man at the payphone... and she was standing there..obviously waiting to use the phone.. and the guy just kept on talking..so she went walking around... and eventually, came back to the payphone about an hour later and the man was still there at the phone. But emily said she couldnt even hear the man talking...so she got a little closer...and the man was just standing there...making kissing noises into the phone. she was furious cause all she wanted to do was use the phone and some weirdo was kissing into the phone. i thought it was pretty funny...

yesterday we had pizza and pasta for dinner last night at a place across the street from our new hotel. they brought out bread with the dinner...so we ate it. when we got the bill, they had charged us for the bread! what?? i thought that was very rude...and if i spoke italian i would have said something...but i dont, so we paid and left...oh well.

today we are off to vatican city to see the vatican museum, sistine chapel, st peters basilica...more updates to come later.

love to you all!