Rome day 2

View from the dome on the top of the Vatican

St. Peter's foot being rubbed smooth

Day 2 in Roma began with a visit to the Vatican. It was spectacularly large and full of amazing sculptures. We have seen many great chapels but this one scores really high. They had the option of an audio tour that they said focused on the spiritual aspects of the cathedral and a real tour that talked more about the architecture of it. I thought it was interesting that anyone could only appreciate the building for its architecture when the spiritual side of it all was the reason that it was even built. I find it really cool to learn about other religions and why they do things. It is funny though that sometimes religions, including our own, don't even know why they are doing something. For example, people were queueing up to rub the foot of a statue of Saint Peter and when we asked the man watching the statue why, he said it's just tradition.

Inside the Vatican

After having a look at the inside we decided to make the climb up to the very top of the dome. It cost more for an elevator up so we walked the 550 stairs, just like we did at the Eiffel Tower. It was hard because the stairs kept getting steeper and smaller. The dome obviously tilts inward so the walls to our left as we climbed kept curving in on us. Well lets just say if you are an ounce overweight you couldn't get up these intense stairs. Good thing Nath and I are SO fit! Anyway, we finally got up to the top and the view was worth all the leg cramps we suffered for the next few days. View of Rome from on the top of Vatican. Like!
Next we took a break at a McDonalds for some lunch. The worker there was crazy. He was under the impression that we would have to pay to have ketchup packets with our meals. Outrageous! Well, after a ridiculously ketchup-free meal we made our way to the biggest green spot on our map.


The park was nice and big and had tourist trap bicycles for rent. Did we fall for that? Nope. We came across some Segways for rent as well and kinda did that thing like... “Do you want to?” “Oh, I don't know...Do you?” “Well, maybe but... I don't know.” Then I saw Nathan looking at them just as longingly as I was. Sold. We jumped on our Segways and enjoyed the ride. You see, we only have had three movies with us on this month long trip. One being a personal favourite, Paul Blart: Mall Cop. In this movie Kevin James is on a Segway 90% of the time. It was great to try a Segway out for ourselves. We did our best Paul Blart impression and did various synchronised routines too. They are really fun and pretty quick. We both marveled at how no one really has one. But all we would have to do is look at each other to know the reason why. Everyone looks so ridiculous on them! We couldn't watch each other ride one without laughing out loud, or LOLing, if you will. :)
Enjoy the video below of our sweet moves on the Segways-

Hundreds of locks all over the bridge

As I mentioned in the day 1 blog, Lovers often come to the Castle Saint Angelo bridge with a lock that has both persons name on it and attach the lock to the bridge and throw the keys into the water signifying their love is forever. We walked our way back toward Castle Saint Angelo looking for a lock that we could fasten to the bridge just outside of the Castle. The walk was once again fabulous. It was so fun wandering the streets of Rome at dusk. Everything is just so lovely. Just before the bridge we found a vendor selling locks. Done. We realized though that we didn't have a sharpie to write on it with. We asked someone and they were more than willing to help. He must have loved the idea of the “love locks” because he was very kind and helpful. It seemed like everyone believes in the magic of Rome. We wrote our names and the year on the lock. We found a good spot on the bridge to fasten our small lock and made a video of the occasion. It was just going dark as we fastened the lock and through the keys in the river. So romantic!
The night was still young so we headed for Trevi Fountain. This site was what I was most excited to see so when we got close Nathan covered my eyes and took me all the way to the front of it. I opened my eyes and there it was. So lovely! We threw a coin in which is said to mean that you will come back to Rome. I hope so I absolutely loved it! By the end of day 2, Rome had been our favourite place to visit. Oh how I wish things could end there but alas there is a little bit more...

Nathan with roses in his backpack at the Trevi Fountain

We loitered around the city a bit after seeing the Fountain because everything just looks cooler at night. Well because of our meandering we decided to just take a later train than we had planned. Well when we got the the train station at about 11, the place was deserted. Just one man sitting at what we thought was our platform. We asked him about the trains and he said, “Fini.” I don't know very much Italian but I know what that means...Done! Over! Final!... or in our case, You are DOOMED!
We had missed the last train out of Rome. We were staying outside of Rome to save a little money so walking was out of the question. Nathan quickly came up with a good plan: take the metro as far North as we can (because we knew that was the general direction we would want), then take a cab and pray we had enough money on us to pay the cab driver. So we headed off for the metro, but soon found out our tickets that last for 108 minutes had just barely run out so we would have to purchase another ticket... yeah that wasn't going to happen. I won't post on the internet about breaking the law. You can fill in the details... Next we were on a metro heading north.

We only had 50 Euros with us so we were nervous about the cost of a taxi. We got off the metro as far north as we could then asked the man in the ticket office about taxis. He gave us a look that was very somber and said “Expensive!” At this point we had come to face the fact that we may have to give up our first born son to a taxi driver just to get home. There was a taxi waiting just outside the station. When we asked him how much to get back to our “hotel,” he said 20 Euros! We asked again just in case, but sure enough it cost only 20 to get back. Miracle! We got back fine and life is good. Heading to Venice the very next day.