Rome

....has been conquered! (kinda) I had three days in Rome. Day one started with the Colosseum (which is just as impressive as I thought it would be). After about an hour of waiting in line I spent a good 30 minutes walking around inside the Colosseum. Right next to it is the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill, where the ruins from ancient Rome are. It's really well preserved and really cool to walk through. It's crazy to think that Roman social, economic, and political  life was centered in this little area. I mean they have monuments such as the Tempio di Guilio Cesare, which was built in 29 BC where Caesar's body was burned. Whaaaaat? Then it started to rain and our plans of making it to Vatican City were scrapped. (by rain i mean pour) On day two we made it to Vatican City with everyone else. And by everyone else I mean the thousands of people that came from around the world to celebrate the first Australian person to become a saint. The cool part was that we showed up right in time for Mass, which was given by the Pope. Not so cool was that we couldn't get into St. Peter's church for a while (I guess we had to wait for the Pope to clear out, and at that point thousands of people were there with the same plan as us) Also, I don't know if this is just the American in me, but there were not as many uniformed guards carrying guns as I would have hoped. I mean you have thousands of people in St. Peter's square, along with the POPE, and no snipers in sight. REALLY? I was creeping out my Aussie friend as I combed the crowd every 5 seconds for suspicious people and unattended bags. That's definitely not the most relaxed mass I've ever been to. 

On my last day I woke up early to make it to St. Peters again to actually go into the church. Wow. All i can say. It was definitely worth the 40 minute queue to go inside. There are hundreds of people in there taking photos at any given point, but there are two areas that are private. There are confession booths on one side and you have to ask to get behind the rope to do that. They're open to everyone but that way there aren't people taking photos of you as you confess all your sins. There's also a room strictly for prayer, which I went into for a little bit. Being in there, smelling the weird incense, got me all nostalgic for the days when I would be forced awake on Sunday mornings to put tights on and go to church. As I was hanging out in the prayer room, having a little chat with the big man (please don't let my plane to Paris fall out of the sky) this Italian woman started saying "get out" in a loud whisper angry to this couple behind me. I turned around as she began to say it louder and angrier, attracting the attention of the guard. Apparently this man and woman had tried to take photos in the prayer room, and this Italian woman had taken it upon herself to kick them out. May not sound too funny, but the look on their faces was priceless, and when I saw them later in another part of the church (a part where photos are allowed) they had the same face. Terror. Like we just got yelled at in St. Peters by an angry Italian.     

One thing I am going to miss BADLY are European clubs. Why? For one thing I love house and techno music so much better. In the States they just take the same top 40 songs we hear on the radio all day and put a beat on it. And what do we do? We dance. Oh wait sorry, we grind. Girls dancing in the states seems to be an invitation for guys to come up behind you -uninvited- and put their hands all over you. With the exception of Italy, European dancing is something that you do on your own unless YOU decide to dance with someone else. I know boys, it's crazy, but you can actually dance without us. Yep, you don't always need to sway behind us to the beat. I love that guys here just go for it, they just have fun and go crazy and sometimes look just as stupid and some girls can look while dancing. It's awesome. And honestly, it's hot! 

On a plane to Paris, catch ya later :)