Bonjourno! I've been having a great time in Roma. The weathers been great and I've met some really good people. Meeting people is so different on the road. People realize the importance of time and everyone just skips over all the b.s. There's a small bar here in the hostel which gets pretty crowded every night. Unlike back home, there's really no separateness of groups and it would probably be impossible to sit down there and have a drink by yourself. Last night, I ended up drinking with Australians, Canadians, Argentinians, Venezualins, Belgians, Americans, and of course Italians. I met a really cool American guy named Marcus last night. He's here playing pro basketball in Luxemberg and had interesting stories. There's also a guy here from some ABC sitcom. None of us know his name so we just call him ABC. It becomes pretty impossible to remember names after a while so people are more or less just called what country their from.
Back to the touristy stuff. Me and Josh saw the Vatican & St. Peter's Bascillica yesterday. Everything was pretty overwhelming. While we were in St. Peter's, they were having mass so that was really interesting to watch in person. It's amazing how much time and energy was put into the Vatican. People always talk about the Sistine Chapel, but all the ceilings at the Vatican are intricately painted. It must go on for miles. I was able to get a couple quick pictures at the Sistine Chapel before they told us to put our cameras up. We also went down to the Pope's tombs. Each Pope has their own tomb and the most recent deceased Pope's tomb is lit up and surrounded by people praying.
After leaving the Vatican, we walked over accidentally found some castle nearby. I didn't even know they had castles in Roma. We then headed back and met up with Lauren and John and ate on the sidewalk at a nice little Italian place. The servers here are paid hourly and don't get much in the way of tips. With that being said, dinners here tend to last hours as the servers are in real no rush and aren't trying to turn as many tables as possible. After dinner, we took a bus to the Fontana di Trevedi to see it lit up at night. We got some really good gelato there too. Overall it was a great day.