Day 4, Halloween:
We had our first non-crazy driver bring us to the train station. He was following speed limits, going a decent speed, using turn signals, and slowing down plenty for corners. To put it in perspective, the taxi that brought us to the resort the first night/morning and the one driving the shuttle into town were driven similar to some of the James Bond scenes... zigging and zagging around the mountain (literally... we were on the other side of the mountain as the town), zooming around cars that were going the speed limit, and flying around curves that left me with a death grip on the seat. It was oddly refreshing.
SUPER hectic day in Rome today! We took the train and a subway (my first) to St. Peter's Square, waited in line 15-20 minutes to take about an hour walk through the Bascillica including going through the dome. That was such a steep climb up, the ride down would be one FREAKY ride at Disneyland. ;-) That's one that you may want to check the pictures... it's mind boggling to think about the people building and designing this thing.
From there, we almost ran over 3/4 of a mile (it took us 13 minutes to get there at a jog/run) to the Vatican museum (the last half a mile being the line of people to buy tickets... thankfully, Carmen already bought ours online). I know Carmen hasn't moved like that since the 5k and I think she even performed better in this run than the 5k... but we were both sweaty and exhausted because the tickets had a time listed on them that we had to be there for. Needless to say, it took a few minutes to compose ourselves (with the guard telling Carmen to put her shawl back on when she took it off to fan herself)... I'm glad she didn't bite his head off after the run we did to get there in time. ;-) After 90 minutes of walking, Carmen mentioned how hard this would have been if she had been pregnant... blessing in disguise? ;-)
When we finally got to the Sistine Chapel, it said we couldn't take pictures... bummer. I would have LOVED to get some shots of the ceiling and some of the artwork in this room, but I can understand with how many pictures and puzzles of it they had in the lobby and throughout the walking path. :-s Now I knew Michelangelo did the ceiling, but I had NO IDEA that this room was like 4 stories high and painted beautifully floor to ceiling! I was awe inspiring and would have given me a Crick in the neck had we stayed there longer. I was also really surprised at how many paintings of topless women were in this church! I'm not sure if it was the culture, if people just didn't wear as much back then, or if they were just more pervy back then, but I was taken aback none the less. :-s
A good lunch in the cafeteria with several eating options available. They had Italian food (mostly pasta), American food (burger or a corn dog), German food (which I didn't recognize enough to take a chance with), and even pizza. During the lunch, I had a super top-secret mission that I had to do without Carmen knowing... now that I've already given her the Christmas gift I bought, I can say that I snuck back into the gift shop (while "going to the bathroom") to buy her a rosary for her collection. She had no idea that I got it and I (half panicked) told her I would get certain items out of the backpack where I hid them so she wouldn't find it... all worth it on our personal Christmas when she got a tear in her eye after opening it. ;-) Am I slick or what? ;-) LOL!
LOTS of great pictures from this day so I won't go into details about those, but I saw my first pay toilet and surprisingly little of any indications of Halloween the entire day... just one little girl with a pair of fairy wings on in St. Peter's Square, a small group in costume (which looked like advertising for a store, not for fun), and a small carved pumpkin on a stoop in the resort. It was All Saint's Eve/Day so it was PACKED in a few places because of that, but the difference in culture was pretty apparent with this.
On our way back to the train to Assisi, we stopped in a small market (think the size of a corner grocery store in the U.S. as there were no "supermarkets" that I could find anywhere) to get some groceries and snacks. Not surprisingly, some pasta was super cheap... but Ramen noodles that normally sell for under 20 cents in the U.S. were marked at €1.49 (around $2) EACH!! Apparently the "college food" around there would be the typical Italian pasta. :-s
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