When in Rome...

After a near Hogwarts experience, we made it safely (and maybe sanely) to Rome yesterday morning.

The overnight train was a bit of an experience. As mentioned, I felt like I boarded at Platform 9 3/4 with M and was packed away into a tiny compartment for the evening. Dinner passed the time and was most entertaining. The train ride was a bit turbulent so our dinner items always precariously tipped each time we hit a rough spot. But it killed an hour and we found ourselves back in our bunk beds (literally). M watched something on my IPod... I curled up with the Twilight series (which sadly... I have become a huge fan of all of a sudden... UGH... stupid teen romance/angst novels with totally implausible outcomes. Must buy remaining 3 books upon return.)

We arrive in a few pieces to the Termini station and find our hotel and lunch. Unfortunately, being on a rattled train for 14 hours can really mess with your head. So M and I both had vertigo for at least 4 hours. Blah! Made lunch very interesting. Speaking of which, if you order a pizza in Rome, make sure you split it. I was expecting a very expensive pizza by the slice... I got a large pizza instead. Which actually was not that hard to finish... but still. Could not finish it due to the room spinning.

After napping and reading the last half of the Twilight novel (oh shush!), we decided to take the subway for the first time to tour some of downtown Rome's hot spots. Like the Trevi Fountain. Very fun to people watch there with some gelato. Unfortunately, the lack of sleep from the night before finally caught up with me and I was not exactly a fun traveling partner. At any rate, we still managed to find the Pantheon at night... but couldn't get in because it was closed early on Sunday. Maybe later.

Today, we get our Catholicsm on and head to the Vatican. (St. Peter's and the Museum.)

Some last notes about Paris: we did climb to the near top of the Eiffel Tower yesterday which gave us some cool photos and was well worth it. The gift shop was quite entertaining as well. You don't really realize how tall the structure is until you make it to the second tier and the third tier is still a zillion feet above you.
I also kind of regret not having any wine in Paris. But wine makes me sleepy, and we were already tired from everything. I would have barely made it back to the hotel. But we did have lots of coffee and cheese. I think we did our culinary part.
And our Paris hotel: probably not going to return to it. Yes it was convenient and the staff was friendly... but compared to what we have in Rome... UGH! At least in Rome, I can actually sleep on a mattress, rather than a rock. And we have an actual SHOWER STALL in our bathroom. And a beday... heeeee.

Until next time...