I ran into a great opportunity to go to Rome this early in the summer. On this past Wednesday (June 7) I had three tests. The following day I was only going to have one class, which we inquired about missing that day. The class was Art History and the professor said it would be okay. Maybe it is because we are currently studying about some of the Roman architecture in that is still present in Rome today. It didn't matter to me, so we headed for Rome on the evening of the 7th. We transferred to a different train a little after midnight where we had already booked sleeping accommodations. There were three of us on the trip and we were in a couchette made for 6. The others in the room were already asleep by the time we got on board because they caught the train in Paris earlier that evening. I hoped up on a top bunk and went to sleep. Woke up the next morning about thirty minutes before we arrived in Milano. We transferred trains in Milano and arrived in Roma at about 2:00 Thursday afternoon (June 8).

We walked to the hotel we had made reservations for and checked in. The room ended up costing each of us 40,000 Lire a night ($20). It was a very nice hotel for the price. It was very clean and appeared to have been recently remodeled. Well worth the 5% surcharge, on top of the original cost, for using a charge card. We cleaned up and headed out to see what we could see that afternoon and evening.

We walked to the Colosseo and took a guided tour. They are in the middle of a project to reconstruct a small portion of the floor so that it is easier for visitors to visualize how the wooden floor once looked. You may see that in one of the pictures. We then walked through the Foro Romano, or the Roman Ruins. Next was the Monumento Vittorio Emanuele II, the Italian version of the Tomb of the Unknown. The Pantheon was next on our walking tour on Thursday. We were only able to see the outside on Thursday, but we ended up going back on late Friday afternoon to view the inside. I will rearrange the pictures so that you can see the inside right after viewing the outside. The Piazza Navona was next. Basically it was just some fountains and monuments where people congregate. We ate dinner nearby. I ate Italian pizza that had a flatter crust than what most Americans think is pizza. It was pretty similar to the Harrison family recipe for home made pizza. It was late by now and started to rain so we headed back to the room for sleep.

The next morning we woke up and headed for Vatican City. We went through museum and then the Sistine Chapel. I never thought it was like that. All the pictures I have seen are of each individual painting on the ceiling. I have never seen them all put together like they were. The lower have of the walls looked like curtains, but it was just painted that way. To see that many great paintings at once was pretty amazing, even for someone like myself that doesn't enjoy looking at paintings all that much. After that we walked around the outside to St. Peters Basilica. It was so huge. The doorway that you see pictured is the one that the Roman Catholic Church believes that by walking through your sins are forgiven. I walked through twice because I didn't know what I walked through the first time, and I needed to take the picture. The inside of the Cathedral was just awesome. Marble everywhere! There were huge solid pieces of marble all over the walls. After we finished looking around we ate lunch nearby and headed back to the hotel to change.

We then headed to the Pantheon so we could look around inside. Headed over to the Fontana Di Trevi, basically it was a front of a house with this huge fountain. There were many people sitting around just enjoying themselves. We headed on to the Spanish Steps. We wanted to walk around the river and up to a castle that still stands next to it so we got off of the Metro one stop south of the Colosseo. While we were walking up the road I noticed an American flag over the top of a wall. I wondered if it was the US Embassy so we got out the book and looked it up. Although the address in the book was misleading we decided to walk around to the gate. Sure enough it was. At this point we should have walked away, but we stood there for a few seconds conversing about the house. Bad idea! The guard inside the fence came out of his little guard house and behind us a machine gun packing Italian service man got out of a van and both said something in Italian to us. With out understanding what they said one of us said, "It's okay we're American." At that point I decided to walk away without the picture I wanted of the small bronze sign that said it was the Embassy. We all walked away and went down the street to where other people were sitting on benches. A minute or so later another van that had 5 or 6 service men showed up, but left after a few minutes. I guess they thought we were terrorists. I still took a picture of the building behind the barbed wire topped wall from across the street. I think I will stay away from other Embassies. I guess I am not welcome in front of them. Hopefully I will not have a need to use the services of one of them for the rest of my stay in Europe. After our walk was done we headed back to the hotel to sleep before leaving the next morning.

Two of us took a train the next morning to Pisa. The other caught a train the night before for Venice. We went to see the leaning tower and ate lunch in town. Then we headed eastward to Florence. Spent the afternoon walking around and see the few things that there were to do. We had originally planned to stay the night in Florence, but we couldn't make reservations. So we decided to head back to Metz later that evening. We went up to Michelangelo Plaza and got a great view of the city before eating dinner and leaving. I returned to town midday yesterday (June 11) and caught up on some reading, this write up, finances and laundry.

I haven't thought about what next weekend will be, but it will be hard to beat the things I have seen this weekend. Currently my country count is at 3 (Switzerland, Italy and France) and I have picked up Coca-Cola cans in Switzerland and Italy. I haven't purchased a can to keep here in France yet, but I have another 2 months to do that.