The days between-filling in the gap

After my last post, I had a little pause, sorry to those who are faithful readers.
Apologies for the lack of punctuation. I cant find the apostrophe anywhere. Also sorry for lack of pictures. I guess we will just have to go without since my digital decided to die in the Sistine Chapel.

Day 15
We spent the whole day gawking, impressed by gargantuan ancient ruins. Temples, stadiums, and the Acropolis all were amazing to see, as we tried to imagine what life might have been like at that time. The Acropolis also has a museum where beautiful sculptures, friezes, and reliefs are housed. I piggy backed on as many tour groups as I could; I am so thirsty for knowledge right now. Reading up on more history is definitely a must when I get home.
We did end up going back to our little Greek man the next night for wine, as we promised. He seemed thrilled to see us and 6 tin canisters of wine, bread, cheese, meatballs, fries, fruit, ouzo, coffee and hours later, we get no bill. Completely on the house, just because. Its hard being us. We scurried home, arm in arm, in the drizzle, in disbelief that we didnt pay for a thing all evening.

Day 16
We woke up early and hit the amazing Archaelogical museum in Athens. Sculptures of the human form that are over 6000 years old, marble statues corroded from years of seawater following a shipwreck, and other gems; half a day might be enough time there. I was so grateful for my art history education (and have been the whole trip so far), and desparately wanted to have Professor Gensheimer, my Survey 1 prof at my side. I think I may get my doctorate in Art History one day. Ive been talking about it for years, but I really think I might. Of course, a masters has to come first.
We caught a bus to the train station, a 5 hr train to Patras, Greece, a 20 hr ferry to Ancona, Italy, a 3 hr train to Rome, and a metro to our hostel. After 34 total hours of travel time, I must say we were glad to arrive in Rome late on Friday night.
We did meet some interesting characters and had a fun time on the ferry (slept in a childrens area, etc- see Hannahs blog entry). And Hannah had a goofy young suitor who wanted to marry her on our Ancona-Roma Termini train. Green card? Nice.

Day 17
We arrived to Rome, and despite the little bit of preparation that I tried to do with our hostel situation before we got off the train in the huge, busy city, I still felt unprepared. After paying the equivalent of a dollar to use the restroom, we wandered around, trying to figure out how to get to this hostel that we chose. I stopped a 60 yr old blonde Romanian woman named Niki, who spoke not a bit of English, and when I showed her our map and the address, she motioned without a word for us to follow her. She took us around to the metro (which had just closed), bus, etc, for about 10 minutes before finding the appropriate bus by asking several people, waiting with us, putting us on it, and telling the driver where we were getting off. An angel if I ever met one.
We walked to our hostel down a dark street late at night, feeling like sore thumbs with our packs on. We made it to Pensione Ottaviano, which is in Vatican City. We chose this hostel after reading the guidebooks description as having a good nun-to-tourist ratio.

Day 18
We started the day off easy, sleeping in a little and running errands. Around noon we set off for our sight-seeing, which started with a metro ride to the Colesseum, then we walked around Palatine Hill, found some excellent gelato (which started an awful trend), and continued to stumble upon great sights that we meant to see anyway. Our resting place was Piazza Navona, a square with an Egyptian obelisk and a Michelangelo fountain and a lot of night life. We found a little restaurant on a side street and shared words over a few glasses of wine, pizza, and sea salad. Two more gelatos that night before we found our way home by foot since all of the bus lines had stopped running. Otta-vi-an-O! and For-ty Ny-na! Were two things we kept humoring ourselves with as we mimicked the very drawn-out Italian accent.

Day 19
We got a late start, and headed to the Vatican-on a Sunday. Thats a recipe for disaster, but after a little creative line jumping (we had to! time was limited) and only a 1 hr wait, we were in the tomb of the pope, then St. Peters Basilica. This is where the remains of St. Peter are housed, under a large bronze monument by Bernini. There is so much to look at-gold leaf, painting, sculpture, marble-that it is difficult for ones eye to find a resting spot. All fascinating work, though, and I was most in awe of Michelangelos Pieta sculpture, which is Mary cradling a lifeless adult Jesus body.
Next stop was the Castle di SantAngelo and the sculpture-lined ponte (bridge) below. We again wandered around to several piazzas and fountains, in between which we had our first rotten encounter at a cafe (again, read Hannahs blog for more). We recovered quickly after more sight seeing (presidents house, fountain di Trevi) and gelato. We took the metro back since it was dark and we were not quite as brave or energetic as the previous night, then had to battle loud Dutch girls in our 6-bed hostel room as we tried to sleep.

Day 20
We woke up with every intention of spending our last day in all museums. We started off with the Vatican museum/Sistine Chapel. The museum had maps, tapestries, mini mosaics (3000 tiles per sq in!), frescoes, and paintngs. The Sistine chapel was, of course, amazing. It took Michelangelo 4 straight years to complete, his eyes and neck never to recover from the strain of craining backwards. It was at this point that my camera decided to die, which was just lovely. After seeing more sculpture, including another of my favorites, Laocoon and his Sons, and some really awesome Egyptian sarcophaguses and a mummy with hair and fingernails intact, we headed out. A quick stop at the hostel to get my stone-age 35mm camera, then back to our day. We took the bus to one of our first sights of the day, the Pantheon. This is a feat of architectural genius-a semicircular poured-concrete dome with no vaulting. (I really suggest google-imaging any of these if youre curiuos.) We then headed to the Capitoline Museo, which I was upset to learn was closed on Mondays. Of course. And I also learned that the Galleria Borghese was closed. There went my day. I kept a positive attitude, and just took it as an excuse to come back to Rome. Instead we saw another Plazza (Repubblica) and more churches, including one that houses another favorite of mine, the Ecstacy of St. Teresa by Bernini. We took the metro to our hostel, picked up our bags, grabbed a bite at our new favorite cafe there, and metroed back to the train station.