July 24th, 1998

The vatican without scaffolding

After that, it was off to the Vatican City. We took the metro and then walked the rest of the way. Since there are no lights for pedestrians and cars are always going, you pretty much have to step out in front of cars just to get to the other side of the street. We finally got to the basilica at the Vatican City and the whole front of it was covered with Scaffolding. Apparently, they were preparing for the year 2000 celebration.

The guys had to wear pants for the morning, since the basillica does not accept shorts. We were baking, let me tell you what. The ladies had skirts that they had packed in their bag that they slipped on right before the entrance. To start off with, it was nicely air-conditioned. That was a definite plus considering how hot it was outside.

Dressing up for the Vatican Basilica

Inside the Vatican Basilica

A Clemens standing under a Clemens

The neat path leading up to the Vatican Museum

After doing the basillica, we wanted to look at the Sistine Chapel. From what it looked like on the map, it was right next to the basilica. A piece of cake, right. Wrong. The Sistine Chapel is located in the Vatican Museum. The entry to the museum is on the opposite side from where the basilica is. We had to walk about a mile or so in the very hot sun just to get to the entrance. Then once inside, you are required to climb up several levels to start.

One we got there, the Sistine Chapel was quite a sight to behold. Michaelangelo's work is just incredible. I had a book that told what story or person each panel represented. We kind of huddled together as I read out the different descriptions. I am glad that I brought my binoculars, though. The ceiling is probably about 30 or 40 ft from the floor. Your neck was kind of sore after looking.

The famous 'Creation of Man' scene in the Sistine Chapel

The great Colosseum, and some scaffolding

After that we looked for a place to eat. We wanted a place where we could eat fast. Italy seemed to serve some of the slowest meals of everyone, because they always did it in courses. The strangest thing about eating at the restaurants, is that they would not bring you your bill until you asked for it. There would be times that we would wait for a half an hour and it wouldn't come. Go figure. Luckily, the restaurant we got this afternoon, had very quick service and brought the bill immediately after we asked for it. It was not uncommon for a meal to take 2 hours. This one went a lot more quickly. The food wasn't great, but it was quick.

Next stop was the Colloseum. When we got there, everyone but Jessica and Jenny, decided to pay for the guided tour. The tour was very interesting. The guide told us how it looked when it was in use. She also gave us an idea of who attended these events and how often they occurred. It actually seated 70,000 people when full. That is about the same as some of the football stadiums these days. She also told us how those with higher status in the community, and better job titles got to sit in better seats than the others. It was actually a free event. The funny thing is, if a man came with his family and he had high status profession. He got to sit in the good seats, while his family had to go to the cheap seats.

The inside of the Colosseum

Our Tour Guide

Our tour guide was kind of an odd duck. At first she was kind of hard to understand, because she had a thick German accent. When she talked, however, most of the time she closed her eyes. She would smile and have facial and hand expressions. But she would do this most of the time with her eyes closed. Kind of an odd habit. She had a microphone headset on like a telephone operator would have and held a small speaker in her hand. That way she didn't have to scream for everybody to here her during the tour.

Where we might have sat almost 2000 years ago for an event Jonathon at the Colosseum A last look at it After that, we went to the Spanish Steps. It was very pretty. We were hungry by then, so we stopped off at a McDonalds while Arnie and Elsie looked for an ATM. We were all out of cash, so if they didn't find an ATM, we might have to start begging on the street. Luckily, they came through for us. By now most of us were totally exhausted. We ate our meal. The Spanish Steps The Trevi Fountain Afterwards, even though it was still early, we almost decided to go to the train station and call it a day, but we got to looking around and then decided to head down to the Trevi Fountain. Legend has it that if you throw a coin in the Trevi Fountain that you will return to Rome some day. I'm glad we made the walk there, because it was a very beautiful fountain. It was very big too. A lot bigger than I thought it would be. We sat on the steps there and soaked in, what would be our last significant sight of Europe. We then made the walk back to the metro and then to the train station. It was 7:00pm by the time we got to the train station, so Jen and I decided to take the 7:20 train ride to the airport. What the plan was, was to get a ride to the airport, and get familiar with the surroundings there so we would know what to do the next morning. Then we would take a complimentary shuttle ride from the airport to Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn was closer to the airport than our other hotel, so this would be much more convenient. When we tried to buy our train tickets at the train station, we found out they wouldn't accept Visa, so we had to get money out of the ATM from our Visa Card. We didn't really want to have to go down that route because of the charges you incur when you do that. But we didn't have a choice. We bought the tickets, said our good-byes to the Ytreeides as Arnie video-taped our departure. I, of course, was kind of nervous about the whole thing. As we were starting to get on the train, Arnie said, "Is this going to the right airport." I hadn't realized that there was more than one airport. Arnie had seen a sign that said Fiumicino Airport close to the train and thought we might be headed in the wrong direction. We wanted to go to the Da Vinci Airport. He checked with the conductor, and he said that this was the right train. It's always hard to understand, though, with the language gap and all. We got on the train and sat next to someone from Spain. We talked with him for a little bit, then Arnie got onto the train and asked if we had the confirmation number. Jenny went with Arnie to see what he was talking about. I, of course, was scared that the train would take off while she was off the train. The time was closing in. She didn't know exactly what he was talking about, but we had all sorts of papers about the trip and figured we had what he was talking about. We started talking with this man that we sat next to. We asked him what airport he was going to and he said Fiumicino. We then pulled out our schedule that we had picked up from the train station. Sure enough, it had Fiumicino all over it. It was about time for the train to leave and we were trying to decide whether to get off or not. We decided that, even though it was probably the wrong airport, we could take a taxi from the other airport to our hotel and worry about sizing up the correct airport tomorrow morning. Half way through the train ride, I decided to look at the map in the back of my book to see how far apart the airports were. I looked under airports and I saw the entry: Fiumicino (Leonardo Da Vinci) It turns out that the Fiumicino and the Da Vinci airports were one and the same. I was very relieved to see that. Especially since we did not have that much cash left to pay a taxi. We had a very pleasant conversation with the man we sat with on the train. He was on a business trip from Spain. It took about 30-45 minutes to get to the airport. We went to the international part of the airport and looked all over for where we should go tomorrow to check in our bags. The only Lufthansa signs that we saw were the ticket counters and by then they were all closed. It looked like they were several places to check in luggage but they all had numbers associated with them and very few of them had signs of airlines next to them. After looking around and trying to figure things out for about an hour, we decided that were tired and needed to get to our hotel. We called the hotel to confirm our reservation and inquire about a shuttle to pick us up. They had a green bus that was due to be there at around 9:00pm. It was already 8:45pm. They said that the pickup point was right outside the international airport. About 2 minutes after we were waiting outside we noticed a Holiday Inn Bus headed down our street. It was a little early but we weren't complaining. The driver loaded our luggage and we hopped in. Then as he took off, he told us that he doesn't normally pick up people there because that is not the spot where the bus does the pickups. We started asking him some questions and he said "Shhh, I don't understand English". We thought that was kind of a funny way of saying that. He then proceeded to drive to the real pick up spot. It turned out he was the 9:00pm bus going to his spot. If we hadn't of spotted him earlier, we probably would not have figured out where the pick up point was, because the receptionist at the hotel was not very clear. The next bus that would have come out was 10:00pm. We would not have liked waiting another hour. We waited in the bus, and then took off at 9:00pm. It took us about 30 minutes to get to our hotel. A little farther than we were anticipating. The shuttle's first departure in the morning was 7:00am, and our plane took off at 7:00am. So we needed to take a cab. The receptionist assured us that the most the taxi would cost is 50,000 lira. That is what we had left. The hotel was very large and very big. It wasn't like some of the renovated houses that were turned into hotels. It had a very big lounge. The halls were big. And the elevator was very spacious. It was kind of like getting a piece of the U.S. Our room was very large and very American except they couldn't leave out the boday. We were still in Europe. We got some expensive cokes and water and hit the hay.