Rome would be a difficult place to be if you are allergic to smoke.Â

When I saw the Colosseum from the outside, I thought it was small compared to what I thought it would be.Â

I could spend hours in the outdoor markets here.  Everything you could want at really reasonable prices, provided you can do a little negotiating.

The food is amazing and Jens and I have stuffed ourselves several times with the incredible meats and cheeses available.

I highly recommend the prosciutto.  I don’t think I like prosciutto, at least not in the US.  But here it is excellent, as are the cheeses and breads that go with it.

The fruit and vegetables are also inviting, and laid out en masse.

My favorite part is the bags.  There are some great jewelry vendors also, but I really get sucked in by the bags.  Jens has nicknamed me his little bag whore.  If I had unlimited cash flow, I would probably come home with ten of them.  The going rate seems to be 20 euros for a purse.  They always start out asking 35, but you can usually talk them down to 20.  I haven’t been successful so far at getting them down below that.  I’ve really been enjoying my Gucci bag.

This morning we saw the Capuchin Crypt, which is truly a site to behold.Â

(Baths, Pickpockets and Other Stuff) See – it sounds better in Italian.

There’s nothing that compares to a long hot bath after a day of walking around seeing some of the coolest stuff on earth.  It has become our nightly tradition, partially because it’s a great way to end the day, and partially because showering isn’t really an option in this particular tub.

I saw a woman get pickpocketted today.  Well, almost.  It was intriguing.  She was wearing a backpack on her back and this couple walked right up behind her and started unzipping it.  I think they saw me watching and stopped touching her backpack – and the guy put his arm around the girl in a “we’re innocent and romantic” gesture – but they stayed right behind her on the way into the Vatican.  We had stopped at an ATM, so I don’t know if they eventually got what they were after.

I was going to get a backpack to use as a camera bag, but changed my mind after that scenario.  I did end up finding a good bag at a local store.  All the shops here are so small and quaint.  It’s such a nice break from the WalMart Dynasty in the US.  I will miss it when we go back.  And surprisingly, things are very reasonably priced, or at least they seem so to me.  I will miss the street vendors as well, they are entertaining and on occasion have some interesting merchandise.

For dinner tonight we had some genuine Italian pizza, outside in one of the many restaurants surrounding the Campo de Fiori market.  Apparently in Italy you’re supposed to eat your pizza with a knife and fork.  They don’t even cut it into slices for you.  This was one instance in which I made no attempt to blend into the culture.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to cut up a thin-crust pizza with a table knife?  Much less try to stick it with a fork.  Jens tried for a while because he doesn’t like people knowing he’s a tourist, but gave up eventually.  The pizza came with spicy salami and prochuto.  It was quite good.

Us at the restaurant:

Speaking of prochuto, I wasn’t aware that I liked it.  I’m not sure if I’ve never had it before, or if it’s just that much better here.  I’m sort of inclined to think the latter.  We’re going back to the Campo de Fiori market tomorrow to get some more.  It goes quite well with fresh bread and cheese.

Well, time for bed.  We’re off to a fairly early start tomorrow.  We have plans to tour the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and perhaps even the crypt that’s decorated with the bones of 4,000 monks. if we can figure out how to get there.  Can’t wait!

I am quite sure that when I stand up again, my legs are just going to fall off here on the spot.  We have done an outrageous amount of walking since being here, which I love – even though it does get tiring.

We spent most of today in Vatican City, touring St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.  The Basilica is the most expansive and extensive cathedral in the world, and you are very aware of this fact once you enter.

I have never seen anything so ornate in my entire life.  Thousands of sculptures, paintings and mosaics cover virtually every surface inch.

And it’s big.  Like most cathedrals, it’s basically a huge open floor with a pulpit in the middle…and we still got lost and disoriented.

As we were leaving, they began a small mass in this little wing:

One of the highlights of the Basilica was the tombs of the popes.  We were able to see Pope John Paul II, and there are still flowers at his tomb.  There were a lot of nuns and other people paying reverence to him.

When we arrived at the Basilica, the line to get in was fairly short.  There’s no fee to enter, but you have to go through security to be allowed in.  It’s a lot like the airport security procedure except you get to keep your shoes on and they don’t particularly seem to care if the metal detector goes off.

When we left, the line stretched around St. Peter’s Square (which is really HUGE, btw) so we were glad we had arrived early.  We were not so lucky when we ventured over to the Vatican Museum line.  It stretched around 3 city blocks.  There is a short cut to get in, which would have gotten us there in less than 10 minutes… unfortunately, Jens remembered this at the moment we arrived at the beginning of the line, after standing there for over an hour.

The climax of the Vatican Museum is the Sistine Chapel, but getting there is an adventure of its own.  For anyone who has never been there, here is a word of caution:  Don’t believe the signs that say “Sistine Chapel—>” …they are more likely to lead you back to the beginning of the tour than to put you closer to the Sistine Chapel.  It’s a frustrating labyrinth to navigate, but you can see some great art in the process.

Again, every square inch of surface area is covered – especially the ceilings.

They also have an amazing collection of Roman sculptures – thousands upon thousands of them fill the halls, rooms and walls:

Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure why the Sistine Chapel gets all the fame for its artwork.  I mean, it was really amazing and all, but so was everything else.  Room after room after room covered from floor to ceiling in paintings depicting every imaginable scene.

After about an hour of walking around and getting redirected and confused, we were beginning to think the Sistine Chapel didn’t really exist.  And then suddenly, we turned a corner down a relatively nondescript hallway, and there it was.

They don’t like you to talk or take pictures in the Chapel, but everybody does anyway.  When we walked in, we saw cameras extended over people’s heads and flashes going off everywhere.

Then they started cracking down a little more on the rule.  A girl near us got thrown out for taking pictures just a few seconds before I took this one, so that’s when I turned off my camera.  We found a quick exit through the group tours door, so we didn’t have to spend another hour getting led back through all the peripheral rooms.  Upon exiting, we realized that if you really just want to see the Sistine Chapel (which was really why we were there), you can probably just enter through the group exit and end up right in the Chapel.  Something to think about next time (ha – next time – a girl can dream, can’t she?).

After we left the Sistine Chapel, we stopped at the post office in Vatican City to send a couple of post cards and purchase some Vatican stamps and coins.  Then we made our way to a market we passed while forging through the three blocks of the Museum line.

I got my Gucci purse

Today we went to a farmers’ market near where we are staying and bought some bread, meat, cheese and fruit.Â

Saint Angelo Castle is a massive structure situated on the banks of the Tiber river. The castle is connected to the Vatican Palace through the Vatican Corridor because it was used by popes as a fortress in times of uncertainty. Today, there is a museum inside the complex exhibiting objects from the castle’s 2,000-year history.

Saint Angelo Castle was built initially as Roman Emperor Hadrian’s mausoleum in the 2nd century. Later, the structure was fortified and used as a fortress.

The view from the top is pretty cool:

The area we are staying in comes alive at 8pm and doesn’t quiet down until roughly 3am.  This can be a little disturbing because the old building and paper-thin glass windows provide zero sound barrier.  We can hear every word of every conversing couple that passes by (despite being on the 3rd floor), not to mention the street-sweeping vehicles and barking dogs and reckless zooming scooters.  And somebody shooting a gun? in the middle of the street at 2am…

There’s a bell tower somewhere nearby that rings every quarter-hour, but we have learned not to depend on it, as the bell-ringer evidently isn’t very skilled at counting.  Sometimes 2:45am will come after 3:30am (we were unfortunate to be awake enough to know this last night), or he will ring 6:00 instead of 7:00.  He seems to be pretty accurate until the night life begins, so we can only guess he’s enjoying the good wine a little too much.  This evening the time went from 7:45 to 9:00 in 15 minutes.

The “street” outside our front door is really just an alley, but the vehicles use it as a road, weaving around pedestrians and trashcans.  The driving culture is completely different than in the US.  Vehicles weave and speed and merge, and it seems to be understood that if you jump out in front of somebody, they’ll yeild for you.  Traffic laws apper to be more of a suggestion here than anything else. I could never drive in this city.

We arrived at our appartment last evening and found ourselves quartered in a historic building that has been updated with modern appliances, plumbing, and IKEA furnishings everywhere.

Evidently, the building was constructed by hand without a lot of architecting, as there are no straight lines or 90 degree angles in the entire place.  The floors aren’t even, the hand-hewn celing beams are crooked, and the walls jut out from each other at all angles.  They have had to compensate with drywall to make the rectangular sink and bath tub flush with the wall.

The doors are tiny and appear to be the original thick, hand-carved wood as the ceiling beams and window frames.  Anyone taller than I would bump their head on the doorframe of the steps leading up to the living room (which resembles a partial attic).  All in all, the place has a lot of character, while still providing the modern conveniences we need.

Except heat.  We have yet to figure out how to make the heater work.  Despite being assured that it was in working condition, the guy from the rental agency can’t figure it out either.  Hopefully the man that actually owns the apartment will be by sometime tomorrow to take a look at it.

Jens is taking me on a trip to ROME for my Christmas present!  It was a total surprise and he planned and executed the whole thing without me knowing until the day before we left.

I have the best husband in the world.

I also received a NEW! CAMERA! for Christmas from my parents, so I’m having a wonderful time putting it to use in one of the coolest places on earth.  I’m going to try to put my daily updates on this site as a sort of travel journal, so that when I get back I can remember the names of all the places we went and what I took pictures of.

So if you don’t like looking at other peoples’ vacation slides, feel free to skip out on this site for the next few days

I’m writing this from the JFK Airport in New York, while on a layover before continuing on to LONDON and then to ROME.

Because J is JUST. THAT. COOL. Merry Christmas indeed!   Will share details later.

Hope you’re all having a great holiday, though I’m betting it’s not as cool as mine (insert maniacal laughter here)…