Yum yum yum yam yum yam yum?

Sadly, this will be the last foreign edition of the blog. What a trip, though. Also, there
will be no pictures again tonight, as they all require resizing to squeeze through the cable
to Google's US servers, and once again, I'm exhausted. We'll post hundreds of pictures on Kodak gallery or Snapfish or something like that when we get home.

This morning, we got up at 5am, walked through the dark to the Metro, and rode it to the
stop near the Vatican. Walked through the streets to St. Peter's Square and got there about
30 minutes before the Basilica opened at 7am. The square was empty and we watched the sun
come up and illuminate the front of the Basilica. Cold, but an experience I'll never
forget. So beautiful.

Through security, and into the church itself. Wow. The scale of the Church is
something that is hard to believe. Incredible in decoration, scale, beauty, spirit,
everything. Once again, I won't try to convey the spirit of this place. You'll see our
pictures when we get home, but that's only the start of it.

From there, we walked out to the sun continuing to rise of St. Peter's Square. We walked
about a mile or so to our next stop, which we thought opened at 9am, but actually it was
7am. So we got a cup of coffee and some pastries to wait. Once we realized our error, we
entered the Museo de Purgatory. Fascinating place hidden in a back room of an incredibly
beautiful church that houses artifacts hundreds of years old. The belief is that when
someone is in Purgatory, they can be prayed for by the living, and enough prayer will get
them out of Purgatory and into Heaven. Consequently, these deceased folks appear to the
living to appeal for their help, and often leave marks behind. So this museum has all kinds
of artifacts that have finger and hand prints burned into them by apparitions of people in
Purgatory. Each apparition and artifact has been attested to by a witness, and there are corroborating stores. Fascinating and weird.

From there, we walked to Castel St. Angelo, a fortress that was originally a tomb, but later
housed Popes and Papal treasures. We learned a lot, then got the best views to date of the
city from the 6th floor terrace of the ancient building.

We walked through an open-air market and bought a couple souvenirs, including a crepe
filled with Nutella. YUM!

Took the Sheite Boos for the last time, and got off at the Forum. We walked around the
ancient Roman capital and got some great pictures before stopping for lunch. Amanda claims
she had the best pizza ever, and I'm inclined to agree. I had a fantastic panini.

Walked to the Metro station, and took that to Piazza di Barbarini. From there, we walked
around the shops near the Trevi Fountain for a while, before heading back toward the hotel.
After a quick stop at the Hard Rock Cafe for a beer and another quick stop at our new
favorite wine bar for some Italian coffee (YUM again), we made it back to the hotel.

At this point, we tried to go up to the rooftop bar again for a drink and maybe dinner, but
the place was reserved for a wedding. We got seated by the host, then kicked out and
apologized to. So we took our money somewhere where it was wanted. This was the Cafe di
Strega. Amanda had Spaghetti Carbonara, and I had some kind of large spaghetti with lots of
seafood. Awesome, as always. The waiter was very friendly, but spoke very little English,
He asked repeatedly if we liked our food by saying "Yum yum yum yam yum yam yum?" Kinda
creepy, but funny.

From there, it was back to the hotel for packing, blogging and sleep. Tomorrow we're off to
our next 2 exotic locations: Atlanta, GA for 3 hours, then Lexington, KY. All good things
must come to an end. And we miss the dogs and birds! Talk to you from the US! Goodnight!