Europe Trip: Day 25, June 14th

Sinfully, I more or less slept in again. It was this morning Lubna and Francesca realized that despite what their American friend John had said, we did not have eggs every morning as a 'typical' American breakfast. I think Mom and the rest of you guys can realize the irony of this breakfast for me specifically. Of course I was too polite to mention differently and accepted my overeasy eggs with gratitude.

I left around noon and the plan was to visit the many different famous Piazza's of Rome and a couple places on the way.

The first place I went to was a park called Ville Borghese, my hosts had been trying to sell me on going to the museum there that had many famous sculptures. After the 20-30 minute walk to get there I found out that you could only go in by reservation and it was sold out for the entire day, and then closed on Monday. The people weren't very nice, and I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.

I walked back along Via Veneto, which is a very rich shopping area that had some of the big American hotels and the American embassy. Also along there was a place I had really been wanting to see, it was a Crypt created by the Cappucini monks decorated with the bones of hundreds of past monks. You walk through it with a somber Latin chant in the background and there are 4 or 5 rooms each with different shapes and constructs made entirely of bones. Prominent are the many stacked skulls and arm or thigh bones in one room.

I was walking with a group of Swedish students, and talked a bit with them. Unfortunately no photos were allowed, so all I can do is a poor attempt to explain it. Maybe I can find some decent pictures on a Google image search.

Next I headed to the Trevi fountain, which was packed. Lubna tells me that even at 4-5am there are people there. Her and a friend had tried to wait all night to see if they could be there when no one else was, but had no such luck. I threw my coin in -- 20 euro cents because I am cheap -- and was on my way. I got overconfident about my sense of direction and ended up heading the wrong direction, but after an hour I found the Spanish Steps (Piazza del Spagna).

To save some time I altered my plan and cut across a side street and visited the museum that holds the Altar of Augustan Peace, which I had heard about in my Ancient Rome class. You are allowed to walk through it, with only one small area roped off. Since the steps weren't roped off I thought it was fine and I climbed up to the top -- which makes you feel like an Emperor. I was enjoying the view when the guard lady came over and got really mad at me, motioning me to get down. I hurried down and when she said something to the two guys who were supposed to be watching the area, I made my escape. How was I supposed to know it wasn't allowed?

On the floor beneath they had a gallery of modern art. I took some pictures, I especially enjoyed one that was like a chessboard but one of the rows had been chopped off and an extra column added (7x9 instead of 8x8).

By this time it was getting a bit late, so I headed for Piazza di Popolo, which had a metro stop nearby. As I walked through and saw the obelisk in the center, I saw out of the corner of my eye a group of people in white dress shirts and ties. I did a double take and was like, are those Mormons? Then I saw the Book of Mormon, smiled to myself, and decided to go over and talk to them. One was from Logan UT, another from Rexburg ID, and one girl was even from near Seattle (Lake Forest Park).

Finally I decided it was time to head back. The metro went smooth, but at the bus station I had to wait 40+ minutes for the bus to come. It was nice to make it back to my host's place.

Francesca made lasagna, which was delicious. And after dinner I showed them some pictures of my family, our house, and a little bit of information on Idaho and the USA. They said it was surreal, just like in the movies--the funny thing is that we would say the same thing about Italy, perspective is everything. It was getting late, though, since we didn't eat until after 10pm, so at 1am we had to turn out the lights. I promised to show them more one of the next nights.