Rome with the 'rents. [Part 1]

Alright, these entries are going to be super sparse of details, as it's now like two months after the fact. Also, I have a lot of backdated entries to write... so I'll keep it short and sweet so I can catch up on what I've been doing the past few months.

Tuesday, 18th September '12
I arrived at Rome a few hours before my parents and it took me a rather large amount of time to figure out where the hell the apartment was that we were staying in. I arrived to find that the owner was nowhere in sight. There was a hotel next door and luckily they knew the guy and could call him and tell him I was here.

The guy's name was Maximo... and he was genuinely the most Italian looking person I've ever met in my life. Like, every stereotype you can imagine, he fit it. He came swaggering along with slicked back white hair, a cigar, swishy suit with pastel coloured sweater around his shoulders and fancy leather loafers. It was great.

I was supposed to meet my parents when they arrived at the airport, but of course I was ridiculously late because Rome is CONFUSING. It took me so long to find the right coach that goes to the airport. Our little reunion was super cute, running across the parking lot, hugging my mom for ages while she wept into my shoulder telling me she missed me. It was pretty cute.

Wednesday, 19th September '12

This was the main day we spent in Rome. We did a LOT of stuff. In the morning we walked to St. Peter's Basilica. Unfortunately I've lost a lot of the pictures I took in the morning, I am le sad. But I guess, I'll just have to go back!

The line to get into the Vatican was massive. So we paid a bit extra for a guided tour (tour meant we could skip the line) and we walked like 20 minutes to some random entrance. Anyway, we walked all through the art collection of the Vatican where all bunch of famous people had just donated a whole bunch of priceless art. Then we went through the Sistine chapel where we're not supposed to take pictures... everyyyybody was taking pictures and they yelled at like one of every fifty people in there taking pics. It was lols. The chapel was nothing like what I thought it was. It was literally like being in a rectangle box with every surface painted. Obviously the paintings were amazing, I love, love, love the genesis fresco and last judgement but I felt the actual atmosphere of the place was... lacking.

We walked through some long ass corridor and they had really awesome ceiling/wall paintings. It looked like a lot of the ceiling was carved, but actually it was painted to look 3D even though it's only 2D. It was sick.

Afterwards we separated from the tour and had a walk around the actual basilica. The place was so huge and every corner was elaborately decorated and gilded and wtf. The catholic church has too much money. It's hard  to overlook the hypocrisy after seeing so much wealth throughout Europe.

Anyway, afterwards it started to absolutely bucket down with rain... this continued on for the rest of the day basically. We had lunch somewhere near the Vatican, after having to walk like 2 miles back to the entrance we went into in the first place so I could pick up my backpack. We then took one of those tour bus things to the Colosseum  which was just magic. That place is and will always be one of the most astounding buildings on earth. I've always loved it depicted in paintings and it's just as cool in real life. Really awesome stuff. After that we took a jolly (and by jolly, I mean, terribly long, wet and up-hill walk) to the station to head back to the apartment.