Bloggin From Rome

Why hello there peeps, I'm in Rome. :) Today has been an extra-long day. Got up at 5:15am after going to bed around 1:45am. :-/ We had to be on the bus and leaving today by 6am, so I raced around, finished packing, raced down with Liz to scarf some breakfast, then jumped on the bus. The bus ride went well, it was a little over 9 hours long as we got here around 3:30 in the afternoon. Did some napping, watched Gladiator, had a nice 30 minute stretch-stop at Autogrill and another 45 minutes for lunch, got some time to chat with Liz and it was cool. :) Traffic in Rome is just insanse- I've never seen anything like it in my life. What you have is streets with no lanes and the cars just kinda decide how many lanes and where to drive. It's basically just free-for-all pavement to drive and stop wherever and whenever you please. Occasionally, there are stop lights (if people use them). I'm really glad I don't have to drive, because it's just nuts, it really is. :-P And, people here love their scooters. There's thousands of these scooter bike things that are like cheap-motocycles and the zip in and out of cars and go fast and cause all sorts of problems. This city is just crazy! Anyhow, so we got settled in, then we went off as a big group around 4:15 and toured the city a little. Dr. Schuetz took us in three different churches which were all very neat and beautiful to see, and we walked around and saw a bunch of other landmarks and monuments and buildings and stuff. It seems like Rome just has amazing things around every single corner and the people here don't care one bit about it. To me, it's awesome, but I guess they're just used to it. It's like every street I go down has an amazing building, or ruins or monument, or something. There's so many hidden treasures here! :) The coolest part of the quick tour was getting to walk through the major area of ruins and the Forum area ruin from B.C. which were so neat. I hope to go back there when it's lighter out. Then, we got to walk down and see the remains of the Coliseum, which was VERY awesome. Got to see it as the sky was turning and dark bluish-black and it was just beautiful and so neat to see then all lit up. :) A dream come true. :H Got back from our tour around 6:30, then Liz took advantage and read and discussed a chapter of our marriage book for 20 minutes before dinner at 7. Had a nice group dinner with great spaghetti appetizer and awesome dessert. The main course wasn't so great- it was some type of cod fish that was extremely boney and thus, made it very hard to eat. :-/ After dinner, Liz and I bought tickets for an opera tommorow night and then, since we were both extremely tired and don't condone of such activities anyhow, we decided not to head out to the bars with the gang and instead, just hung out together and chilled a bit on the couches in the lobby. We hung for a little over an hour until just before 11 and Liz went up to bed. Now, I've played with my pictures and done my blog and I'm off to bed also! :)