Prego!

Ciao! Prego! Pizza! That pretty much sums up my time in Italy so far. I had a long ferry ride and a longer train trip to get to Pompeii (four transfers, but eh, it was cheap). We saw the sights a Pompeii - Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79AD and covered the place in ash - 25 ft deep so naturally, everyone died by asphyxiation and the city was covered up for 1700 years before someone trying to put in a road accidently found it. The mosaics from the brothels were the highlight but the Villa dei Mysteri also had beautiful frescoes and was totally intact (even with a secret passage). We ran into some high school Italians who were asking us direction and then we spent the next 20 minutes trying to communicate throwing out every foreign word we all knew. It was hilarious - at a pause in the conversation when we were flipping through our phrase books and typing in words to the translator, the Italian guy said "Me, very stupid!" Followed by, "Metal-leek" (and then he started signing a Metalica song - so random)

Rome is not as big as you would think. We walked at least 5 miles the first day alone and saw the Roman and Imperial Forums (aka more ruins), Ampitheater (aka Colosseum) and the beautiful and intact Arch of Constantine, Pantheon, many piazzas and dozens of fountains. Last night we were planning on sleeping on the floor of a hotel that one of the Purdue guys friends is staying at but that did not work out so much and at 11:30pm I was walking the streets with at 40 pound pack trying to find somewhere to stay. I was tempted to go into the only Irish Pub in town (that I happened to wander by where there were lots of American students) but the pack was preventing me from getting through the door.

Today I tried to meet my friends again to see the Vatican but by planning "to meet by the front" was a bad idea considering it is a whole country and it is surprisingly large. However, we managed to run into each other. I met these three guys in Athens, somehow found them in Patras to catch the ferry, left each other to go to Pompeii and found each other the next morning on the sidewalk going to the site, then, separated again so I could see Napoli and met up at a hostel in Rome, then separated last night and ran into each other and climbed to the top of the dome in St. Peter.

The Sistine Chapel was as awesome as they say - over 15,000 people see it each day! The museums were filled with so much stuff that I feel like I never really have to see any more museums again - especially greek and roman statues! The Basilica di San Pietro was the most impressive. Michelangelos masterpiece, Pieta, was the highlight, followed by the 350 step spiral stairs to the top of the dome (magnificent views inside of the mosaics and outside of the whole city). Tonight I am off to the Spanish Steps for a good ol backpacker pub crawl. Good thing the agenda for tomorrow is "count how many fountains there are in Rome." No small task but very relaxing!
Ciao!
Katie