Day 3: Rome

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Since Rome is the seat of Christianity we decided we'd better go to church. The branch we attended had about 50 people in attendance- about 15 of those were visitors. We went expecting to only understand the Spirit but they provided us with headphones so we could listen to one of the missionaries translating. Sacrament meeting was fantastic- great talks, strong Spirit. Loved it. We left after Sacrament meeting so that we could do some sight seeing.

This was the day of awesome tour guides. We started out at the Colosseum with a crazy, crazy tour guide that I absolutely loved. All I could think about was wanting to watch "Gladiator" (which I just did the other day and damn that's a great movie).

Then on to Palatine Hill with Dani (our irish, italian, australian tour guide with an Arabic husband and a big fat baby... we loved her). Among the remains was the first home of Julius Ceasar which had amazing, vibrant frescoed walls, a modern building by Mussolini and a view of what was the Circus Maximus.

We then descended to The Forum and got into a free tour with a seriously intense but very knowledgeable Canadian guy. I'd been to the Forum before but knew nothing of the history of the remains. Learning what all the buildings were used for really made the place come alive for me. It was fascinating! It was so hard to believe that I was walking the same paths as so many famous figures from history. You can feel the history there.

We then walked to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier- beautiful yet big and overstated. Then on to the Pantheon- my favorite. The engineering behind this building astounds me- perfect measurements, no internal reinforcement. Wow. It is said that it would be nearly impossible to build such a structure today. We sat and rested our tired, sunburned bodies for a while before we got more gelato. Yes... gelato. Amazing.

We found a great little restaurant for dinner and fell in love with our waiter and the underaged hottie at the table next to us. Consumer had ordered fried cheese but couldn't finish it all. The waiter came up behind her and with his Italian accent said, "You don't like my cheese?" But, what Consumer heard was, "You don't like my shoes?" So, when she answered, "Your shoes? I like your shoes!" we all got a good laugh.

That night took us back to Trevi for more gelato (oh yeah) and the best people watching ever. Here's what we learned- Euros have no clue how to frame a good photo or how to focus. Also, they don't like to smile for the photos. Asians however love photos shoots. We picked up a couple of awesome poses that would follow us throughout the rest of our tour. Thumbs up!