Europe Trip: Day 35, June 24th

The next morning was too early, but Lubna had to head in again to get more work done on the project. Since Lubna's grandparents were coming by train from their town to Roma, she wanted to go in earlier than the day before.

I stayed out of the way and tried to get some planning done for the last part of my trip. First I looked up hostels for Bari, and found a decent one. Then I looked up hostels in Corfu and found a giant one that seems to have all sorts of activities, as well as a private beach. So I decided that I would spend 2 days (1 night) in Bari, then take the night ferry directly to Corfu and stay 4 days (3 nights) in the Pink Palace hostel.

After that I will take an overnight bus to Athens, stay there for 3 days, then 2-3 days in Thessaloniki, and then take a train to Istanbul. My last week will be spent there before flying home to Seattle. Since I had been looking forward to going to Constantinople (Istanbul) for a very long time, I really wanted to have a local show me around.

Luckily it didn't take long at all to find hosts for the entire week! Within an hour of sending out 4 requests I had someone (a couple) say I could stay the first 3 nights, and then in the next 6 hours or less another person said I could stay the rest of the nights.

Anyway, after sending out those 4 couchsurfing requests I went and had lunch with Lubna and five of her friends. And then I headed off to fulfill another one of my quests: climb to the top of San Pietro (St. Peter's). While I was waiting in line, the family right behind me looked Hispanic and so I asked 'Hablan espanol?' So I had fun trying to communicate in Spanish. The dad was from Peru and the mother was from Spain. After going through the metal detectors we parted ways, as they headed for the Basillica and I headed for the stairs to the top of the Cupola (Dome).

I climbed over 500 stairs to reach the top, but it was well worth the 5 euros. The first half of the steps you can skip if you pay 2 euros, and that gets you to the inside of the Dome where you can see beautiful mosaics. Then the last half take you around the Dome to reach a viewing area on the very top with a great view of Roma. On the second set of stairs I ran into a woman who was very angry with her husband and was saying 'Why did you do this?! You know I am afraid of heights! I hate you right now. Don't talk to me!' At the top I saw them again and she was saying the same thing, and also on the way down.

From San Pietro I took some side streets and made my way to Campo di Fuori, proud of myself for not getting lost. I had gone here before with Francesca, and she had explained that it was where they used to do executions/beheading. There is a statue there of Bruno, a monk who had been killed by the church for having contrary ('heretical') beliefs and not staying in line. It is a favorite place for students to hang out in the evening. I took a break there, before heading back towards Piazza di Popolo.

On the way to meet up with Lubna I stopped at a couple random churches, but nothing too fantastic. When I reached her university I found out that she had finished early, and was eager to head back home to see her grandparents.

When we got back I was introduced to them, and throughout the evening I attempted some rudimentary communication with her grandfather, using what Italian I had managed to pick up. Whenever Lubna or Francesca were in the room they helped translate stuff, and it wasn't too bad.