"No boyfriends? Oh, so you lesbians!"

Crazy, fantastic day today. We saw so many great things and have numerous funny stories. I'll try and give you a quick low-down, but it was a long day.

We got up moderately early for a Saturday and bought tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus tour through Rome, where they then informed us that the buses would stop running at 3 because traffic would be shut down due to some strike or demonstration or whatever. So we decided to do a full loop and then decide where to hop off later. This was unbelievably fun, it was a warmish day and we got to drive past every cool part of Rome we never would have seen if we had to walk. Here are some highlights from the last 2 days:

In the Campidoglio from Saturday we saw this statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, made by Michelangelo. It is one of the only statues to have survived being melted down for their bronze during Rome's conversion to Christianity, and this was only because at the time it was mistaken as a statue of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. It is said that as long as there is gold remaining on this statue, Rome will continue to exist. Thus the original has been removed and placed in the museum in the Campidoglio, and the one in the square is a replica. I thought that was pretty interesting.

All over Rome (and I mean everywhere, from buildings to manholes) are the letters SPQR. This is the motto for the city of Rome, left over from Republican Rome. It stands for "Senatus Populusque Romanus" which means "The Senate and the People of Rome." It was the official signature of the government, and is a major part of the city.


Another piece of ancient Rome that we see pretty often are statues of Romulus and Remus and the wolf. The story goes that Romulus and Remus were two twin brothers, born to a vestal virgin and the god Mars. The king at the time ordered the baby boys taken out and killed because their mother was the deposed queen and they were thus the rightful heirs to the thrown. But the servant didn't have the heart, and instead left the babys in a cave where they were found and nursed by a wolf mother now called Lupa. Once grown these brothers formed a small city that is present day Rome, and fought over who had the support of the gods to rule the city. Each brother took a hill, and a supposedly a circle of birds then flew over Romulus signifying he should be king. Romulus later slew Remus and became king, and it is said that Rome is derived from his name. But note that being mythology there are many different versions of events, and that's simply the one that I'm familiar with.

We drove through an impressive but seemingly unimportant piazza called la Piazza della Republica (which I only noticed because there was a McDonalds in it, very out of place), and the recorded guide we were listening to in our headphones was talking about something called the Fountain of the Naiads. It mentioned how it was a modern fountain that replaced an older one with lions in it, but this new fountain had statues of the 4 water nymphs in it. It was beautiful, but scandelous because the nymphs were all nude. We made a loop around the piazza and then went through it once more, and this time I realized that was the fountain we heard about, and blurted out "OH! so those are the naked nymphs!" That was the first quote of the day :)

The rest of our 'moments' happened when we stopped at the Vatican. First off, I thought Saint Peter's square would be a lot bigger and more isolated. Before entering the square we stopped at one of the pizzarias for lunch. That was pretty fun, this place had all types of rectangular pizzas, which they cut in half and folded to make a panini. I finally found some pepperoni, and it was very spicy. We sat down on a bench along the road to the Vatican to eat, and street vendors kept coming up to us to sell us jewelry. Then this one Indian guy comes up with some bracelets, and starts trying to chat with us, asking where we're from etc. Finding out we're American, he informs us Obama is supposed to come to the Vatican tomorrow. I have yet to verify that, but we later saw a huge motorcade of police and black Audi's going through Rome. I choose to believe that was Obama. So the vendor then turns to Kelsey, the only asian one of us and tells her "And you from China!" She replies no, she's American too, and he insists she's from China. She finally tells him actually she's Japanese. He responds with "But Japan good country. Why no live in Japan? Japan good country!" At the time we thought this was histerical.

Then our new friend starts asking us each one by one "Boyfriend?" We all replied that no, no boyfriend. He was shocked and he didn't believe us. At that point we're all kind of muttering 'thanks for reminding us,' when he gets this look of understanding. He suddenly replies "No boyfriends? OH! so you lesbians!" We thought this was hilarious, and walked away laughing at that point before he could insult us any more.

So us lesbians then proceeded into Saint Peter's square, just kind of checking it all out. It's pretty, but one really needs to go into the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel to get the full effect. We're just meandering, when one girl Christina sees a sign outlining the dress code at the Vatican and has to get a picture with it. She then mentions "someone should like stand next to it and show their midriff or something." Of course I volunteer! So on the count of three I flashed my stomach and they took a picture, and I'm pretty sure everyone around us was looking at us funny. Then Christina points out (entirely seriously) "OK let's go the nuns are coming." Yet another quote of the day.

Overall a very fun day. We were supposed to finish it off by meeting up with some other girls and going to a discotecca they had found Friday. We were all ready to go (I should mention that tonight I realized the best antitheft place for money is in a bra. Uncomfortable, but effective) but come 9pm we were all too exhausted and called it a night instead. We're planning to do a massive pub crawl sometime in the coming weeks, and I will eventually get out to a discotecca. But tonight, sleep. Tomorrow we'll be taking it easy, going to a nearby flea market, getting breakfast (I am now a cappuccino drinker, ma con molto zucchero) and hopefully doing the bus tour again, but this time actually getting off and exploring. Hopefully that means more fun stories.