Day 28 - Rome / Vatican City

Me and Rob got up really early (7ish), got slightly dressed up, then took the Metro west to Vatican City. Our tour guide from the day before had been so good that when she told us she was running a 3.5 hour Vatican tour the next day that we definately had to go. We figured out where we had to meet her and then had a cappuccino. While we were waiting for the 9:30 tour to start, we met this very pretty English girl from London who was taking the tour as well, Fabienne, and when the tour started the guide grouped the whole group into 3's, so she put the two of us guys and her together. What a lucky girl! And lucky guys...

We had to 'queue', as Fabienne would say, for about 30 minutes in order to go through security, but that was the only line all day, so not so bad. The tour was great and I definately think its the only way to fully get an appreciation for the history in the place, otherwise it would just be a series of statues, paintings, and frescoes that you wouldn't understand really at all. None of the art is labelled at all, so you wouldn't know really any of the hidden things in the paintings or know the Michaelangelo's from the Raffael's unless you were a mega art buff.

Every room in the place was jammed with priceless works of art and just seeing it all was mind boggling. Of course, the most famous being the Sistine Chapel where conclave took place not too long ago. It was really nice and the roof and the main wall were amazing, but i have to say that it was smaller than i imagined and definately was a bit of a disappointment compared to what i was kind've expecting.

The tour finally ended in St. Peter's Basillica which again was mind-boggling. After the tour, the 3 of us bought and sent postcards and then Fabienne left for her hotel to get ready and me and Rob climbed up into the dom of St. Peter's and took some pictures of Rome from the top. It was pretty crazy being able to look down over the whole inside of the church from the top walkway and then down over Rome and the main square from the top top of the dome.

In case anybody doesn't know, Rob is afraid of heights. He was hilarious walking/crawling up the steps to the top of the dome. If it wasn't for the fact tha the stairwells were one way and so narrow, I would have put lots of money on him turning around...he would've put the cash on himself too.

Afterwards, we walked around the main courtyard for abit and then took off. I picked up Fabienne at her hotel near the Vatican and brought her back to our hostel where we'd planned on meeting up with Dave, Anne, Rob, and this French girl, Emilie from our hostel room. She also, unfortunately for us guys, is very pretty. She definately also has the attitude that i'd expected girls from France to have and also does not speak or understand English fluently, so i did alot of translating here and there, although she still got on very well on her own.

We went for dinner again at the same place as last night and the manager and waiters were very happy to see us again, and even more so because of the pretty girls that we'd brought with us tonite on top of Anne. They treated us like gold again with more free champagne and wine. We ate much earlier and quicker than last night because of the big pub crawl.

We paid for dinner, then jumped on the Metro to the Spanish Steps where we met up with the start of this big pub crawl we'd been told about. Ever night, this company hosts this pub crawl starting at the top of the Spanish Steps where for 15 Euro we each get a free t-shirt, then get to drink as much beer and wine in 1 hour as we could and then we went to 3 bars where we got a free shot at each place. As far as i remember, it was a good time. Went to bed at X o'clock adn have a faint memory of 4 black, transexual hookers fondling me and Dave through our pants and one of them taking their boobs out and playing with them before we could avoid and get out of the situation....gross and weird.