Thursday, May 17, 2001

2001/05/17

Last night, we were sitting around our hotel room, Ryan was in bed, writing in his journal, Dave and Neil were laying on their beds, I was sitting there. We decided to have a pillow fight, so Dave, Ryan and I started smacking each other. When we realized Ryan was naked under the bed, we ended it right then and there.

This morning we went inside the Collisseum. We walked there from the hotel, and as we were getting close, a guy in a car stopped us, he was looking for directions. He spotted our Canadain flags, and started on about how part of his family lives in Canada, or something, and he really likes Canada. He was a rep for a big fasion company, can't remember the name, Vittori or something. Anyway, he liked us, he had some Antelope leather jackets in the car (samples), so he gave us 3. (Ryan wasn't with us, he wandered off earlier in the morning to do his own thing, and was gonna meet us at the Collisseum.) He asked us to give our word that we wouldn't sell the jackets, because they were samples, not to be sold. In return, he wanted a some money in return. I pulled out my wad, he grabbed at it, and took abotu 300,00 lira from me, then asked for another 50,000 lira from each of Dave and Neil, total of 400,000 lira, about $285 CDN, then shook our hands, and took off. We don't know if we got took to the cleaners or not!! The jackets *SEEM* very nice, and Neil figures they don't feel cheep. He told us they sell for about $600US each. If they are authentic, and they're not hot, then we were at the right place at the right time! If not, well, another lesson learned, I guess. At the very least, we did get cool looking jackets out of it!

We continued on to the Collisseum, carrying the jackets (in a bag...and they're HEAVY too!), and paid 10,000 lira to get into the Collisseum, about $8. The Collisseum is much more magnificient from the outside than it is from the inside. I'd say, don't bother doing the inside if you're in Rome, just admire it from the outside, looking in. Just my opinion, though.

Took the subway back to the hotel, and dropped off our jackets, then took the subway to the Vatican. We signed up for a walking tour of the Vatican earlier in the morning, the tour started at 1:00. It wasn't that interesting, the Sistine Chapel was actually kind of dissappointing. Michelangeloo spent years painting the ceiling, and while it's neat, I was way more impressed with the artwork and massive paintings at Versaille, for example. The one thing that did impress me at the Vatican was St. Peters Cathedral. This church is MASSIVE! It's the biggest church in the world, and I was in awe at it's size, especially from the inside. This is worth the price of admission (18,000 lira). We got to see the windows where the Pope lives. I was hoping he would stick his head out, but he didn't. They have a lot of stuff at the Vatican, though. Tons and tons of paintings and statues.

An interesting tidbit. Most Greek and Roman statues feature nude males. The church was getting a little "upset" at this, and in the 1800's, I believe it was, deicded to cover the private parts of all the statues with a fig leaf. More recently, the churches attitudes have changed, and they've been taking the fig leaves off of the statues again. In the process of removing the fig leafs, the private parts of the male statues sometimes comes off as well.

Another interesting note. You can't show a lot of skin in St. Peters. You have to have long pants (applies to both guys and girls), and no shoulders showing either. If you plan on coming to St. Peters, dress appropriately!

Well, tonight is our last night in the hotel. We fly out Saturday morning at 6:40am. We are supposed to be at the airport 2-3 horus before the flight leaves. So, we'll just head to the airport tomorrow night and spend the night there.

I don't know when I'll get access to the internet again, it could be that I won't until I get back to Moose Jaw.

So, to all who have been following my trip, thanks. I enjoyed reading all the comments (especially Nancy's anonymous ones!) I'll post one last one on our last day in Rome (Friday), we might go to a museum or something.

Bye.

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