Rome Continued

7/1/2009

After the Pantheon, it was off to the Trevi fountain.  The superstition goes that if you toss in one coin, you will be back some day, two coins is a wish for love and three coins is a wish for divorce.  Each coin must be tossed in separately, facing away from the fountain and holding the coin in your right hand, then throwing it across your body over your left shoulder.  I threw in one coin, as I did not have nearly enough time in Italy to truly see everything and absorb it all.  The Trevi fountain is one of the places our tour guide recommended for cheap gelato, and that was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up!  It was AMAZING!  I got raspberry and strawberry because it as so hot and humid out (especially with my fully loaded backpack for the 4 days and 3 nights off the ship) and I needed something refreshing and light.  We enjoyed it while people watching in the Piazza, then we moved on to the Spanish steps.  Luckily we approached from the top, and just had to walk down.  At the top of the steps, there were more vendors selling artwork, and a spectacular view of the city.  After getting our fill, we headed down the steps, which are actually quite slippery from years of wear making them smooth and slightly sloped, and into the Metro station.  We got day passes, which allowed us to ride as many times as we wanted, and anywhere the station went, and so we headed straight to the Colosseo stop, and the Coliseum.
I did not expect to walk out the exit of the Metro and practically un into the Coliseum, but that is exactly what happened.  Directly across the street there it was!  I was stopped dead in my tracks allowing time for it to sink in.  There were even more guys outside the coliseum dressed as Caesar look-alikes than there had been outside the Pantheon, and all of them called out in their broken English “I am Caesar, take a picture with me, photo, picture with Caesar”.  Apparently they charge 5euro if you oblige their request!  Absurd!  I snipered pictures of several of them, but none with me and them together.
On a side note, the fountains of Rome all have drinkable water running through them.  It is cold and fresh and delicious.  Many of them have a constant stream flowing downward, but if the hole is covered, they will squirt up in the fashion of a drinking fountain.  The water is supplied by the aqueduct system, which is thousands of years old but still fully functional.  I just found that interesting, enjoyable, and hard to get used to all at the same time.
After the coliseum, it was on the Metro and back to Vatican City, where the blue skies were quickly turning an angry shade of gray and the wind was picking up.  It was not very long before pouring rain started, and lightning and thunder so close it was an actual crack came rumbling through the massive pillars.  After that, some shopping, my first experience with Italian pizza, which was anticlimactic after all of the build up, and some more standing around and watching the lightening, Tyler had to catch the return bus to the ship.  I made my way back to the metro station, declining countless offers from guys selling umbrellas, and took the Metro back to the hotel I was staying in.  The other girls were still not back, so I grabbed my travel journal and some postcards and made my way to the Coliseum after the rain stopped.  I sat there writing postcards and updating on my adventures from the day, and then, when the sun sank a little lower, and it felt like it was going to start raining again, I took the metro back to the hotel.  Italy is vastly different from Spain, in that so many people speak English, and so it does not necessarily feel as foreign as Spain did.  While I was waiting for the girls to return, I sat at a restaurant right next door to the hotel.  It was outdoor seating that they would have to walk right past, so it was the perfect location.  I made friends with the restaurant owner, and the two older German ladies sitting at the table next to me.  I even got a free dessert out of the deal!  Apparently, if I learn Italian and go back there, I have a job waiting for me at that restaurant.  I guess it is good to have options…  As I was finishing up, Kelly, Amanda and Athena came walking back.  It was perfect timing.  I said goodbye to my new friends, and we all went to our room and passed out for the night.