ROME!
finally, i can tell you about it.
this was sean's favorite excursion, but not mine.
more on my reason's later...
we docked in civitavecchia, italy in the morning.
after our stretch class (still sore from day 1), we had breakfast then hopped the train to rome.
our ride was about 45 minutes.
we're pretty good about spending our time doing something fun together during long waits.
we both love to play games and are really competitive with each other, in a fun, flirty way.
our top games of the trip were: speed scrabble, double solitaire, kings in the corner, go fish, 5 card stud & texas hold 'em - sean taught me the last 2 on this trip - much more fun than i expected!
once we got into rome we navigated our way to the vatican city, just a few blocks from the train station.
we planned to walk everywhere in rome, since we were told everything was about a 20 minute walk from the city center.
ummm, we really should've double checked our sources.
vatican city
after snapping some pics of the vatican - waaay too touristy for me, just filled with people -
castel sant' angelo
tiber river
we walked past the castel sant' angelo, across an amazing statue-covered bridge, and along the tiber river on our way to the colloseum.
should be about a 20 minute walk, right?
well, about 85+ degrees and an hour and a half later...
we finally stop and ask someone for help.
*note: we did learn quickly that asking for help is the best way to go. most people were very willing to be helpful if we asked nicely.*
location of circus maximus
so we saw the location of circus maximus, where the chariot racing was held, but it had all been destroyed/decayed.
this is below the originally wooden floor of the colloseum - the gladiators and animals were kept under it!
then we finally found the colosseum.
and then i bonked.
now, that is a term i've stolen from my husband's vocabulary.
he's a cyclist, and when you bonk basically you've depleted your body so much that you just can't go on.
basically, i hadn't eaten enough or drank hardly any water, and because of the heat and miles we had walked, i just bonked!
unfortunately, it was while we were in the colloseum (did you know you could actually walk around IN the colloseum?!?).
i was most excited to see it more than any other place, but i had no desire while we were there because i was so pooped!
at one point i was resting on a bench and a group of women came and asked me to take a picture of them.
for about 3 seconds, i contemplated saying no!
but i refueled and we decided that public transportation was the way to go, so we hopped a bus to trevi fountain.
did i tell you it was hot?
instead of doing the traditional coin toss into the fountain, we did the non-traditional soaking of swollen feet in the trevi fountain.
it was cheaper and felt much better!
as we were racing back to the train station since we were running late, we ran into another couple from our boat that were in our same predicament.
all turned out fine, but sean and i played a funny game from it.
when they weren't in ear shot we played the name game:
we each guessed what their names were, just for fun.
sean guessed the guy's name was brian and i guessed brad.
when we finally introduced ourselves to them, and he said his name was brad (!!!!!), sean choked back his laughter in an awkward way and i did my best to pull it together!
anyway, good times!
so when we got back to the ship we had another massage.
sounds like we spoiled ourselves, right?
what i didn't tell you about our first massage is that we also did a couple's rasul, which is basically a salt scrub and body mask thing you do for each other and then a steam room.
well, our shower water was freezing, so we never got to do any of the scrub or mask, so we just sat in the steam room the whole time.
as an apology, they let us do it again.
this time, the water was only luke warm and so was the steam room.
then, part way through our steam, water came POURING out of the ceiling onto us.
not such a good experience!
later that night at dinner, someone at dinner mentioned something about someone's birthday.
click! a light bulb went off in my head!
IT WAS SEAN'S BIRTHDAY!
i had completely forgotten it the whole day and i felt horrible!
sean was very gracious to me, but i still felt terrible.
to make up for it, i celebrated his birthday for the rest of the trip, telling him happy birthday each day and letting him choose things "just because it was his birthday"!
i don't think i'll ever let myself live that one down!
-lindsey
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