Rome, Day 4 - St. Peter's & the Zoo

Friday morning, we woke up bright and early to get to St. Peter's when it opened. Max was to stay behind, because we had to check out of the apartment at 10:30, and we wanted somebody to stay, just in case the line was already long and we didn't make it back in time. When I got ready, though, my head felt like it was about  to split in half. I just couldn't go. So, I stayed and took a nap while Mom & the kids went. They said it was spectacular. They went up inside the dome and saw some awesome views. Unfortunately, it was hazy & sunrise, so the panoramas of the city didn't turn out very well. OK, so I want to tell you more about the line we encountered on Wednesday.  In this picture of the Piazza at St. Peter's, you can see in the bottom left hand corner where the piazza enters the cathedral. The line started there (with many amusement park-style twists and turns) and then came out into the piazza. It went all the way around the left-hand side, following the curve of the piazza, near the columns. It then went all the way across the open section, still in line with the columns. It ended somewhere near that white, box-looking thing in the center-right. Please note how huge this piazza is. This picture was taken from the top of St. Peter's.

I woke up not long before Mom & the kids got back home, around 9. Since we had some time, we headed out to another church in which Mom really wanted to see the paintings. So, we did. The church didn't open until 10, though, so Max & Em headed back to the apartment, in case the lady came by before we got back. They stopped and got a coffee, I'll let Max share that one with you at the bottom.

After we checked out, we headed to the train station to drop off our bags at the baggage drop off. Our plane didn't leave until 10pm, and we didn't feel like carting around all that luggage all day. Luckily, the train station had a place where you can leave your luggage for up to 5 days. :) It was pretty cheap, too. For 6 pieces of luggage, it ended up being just under 30€ for all day.

After dropping off luggage, we headed for the Villa Borghese, where they have a zoo. The kids had been begging to go to a zoo since they found out there was one in Frankfurt, and we needed to kill a whole day. So, we went. They loved it. Em took almost as many pictures at the zoo than we took the whole rest of the trip. It was a nice little zoo, and it took the perfect amount of time. We started walking to find a tabbachi that would sell us bus tickets to get back to the train station, and we were told by a bus driver that the closest place to buy tickets WAS the train station. Damn. Max hailed us a cab, and we went back to the train station. We got on the shuttle bus to the airport at 6:30. We thought we would be hours early for our flight, but it took us almost an hour and a half to get to the airport on the shuttle. When we got to the airport, the line for check in was horrible! Nothing like we had stood in to see museums, but really bad for an airport line.

Oh, remember that umbrella that I bought in Florence? The one with Primavera on it? Well, it didn't fit in any of the bags, so we taped it to the handle of the check-in bag. I was absolutely sure that they weren't going to let it through (I was trying to think of ways to break it enough that it would get in the bag without being ruined completely, or I was even willing to just salvage the fabric part and try and attach it to a different umbrella), but the lady let it through! I was amazed.

We found some dinner in the terminal and ate it sitting on the floor. Ciampino is not a nice airport. I don't know anything about Rome's other, larger airport.  The terminal was horribly crowded, and there are almost no seats. There were three or four flights getting ready to leave, so the whole place was a giant crowd. Remember how RyanAir has no seating assignments? Yeah, that means it's just a big line/cluster, and you fight your way to a seat. So, the place was just filled with people. Anyway, after dinner, the flights cleared out, and it was our turn to get in line/mass. We were towards the beginning, just behind a group of old people. Of course, as the night went on, people didn't get in line behind us, they just made the line fatter around us. I had a guy that was so close behind me that I couldn't even stand up straight. I could feel his breath on my neck. I wanted to punch him in the face.

Our plane was late. The gate attendant finally showed up as we were supposed to be boarding. She ignored us. It was pretty amazing the way she managed to pretend there was no crowd. She was good. We finally made it on the plane and got seats near each other. About halfway through the flight, Max asks me if I have the ticket for the parking at the Frankfurt airport, because it isn't in his wallet. It's not in mine, either.  Damn. Max had cleaned out his wallet earlier. Some of it went in the checked bag, some of it had gone in the trash. When we got off the plane and got our bag, we checked madly for the ticket. Thank goodness, it was in there. We finally got home at about 2am, and went promptly to sleep.

Emma's latte

Max says -At the first cafe, I ordered two cappuccinos and asked where we'd sit. The waiter seemed to be doing an imitation of an Italian accent.

"You takea de coffees with you?"
"No, we'll have them here if it's okay."
"DE BAYBE hava the coffee?!"
"It's okay, she likes coffee." At this point in the states I usually
relent and order her a decaf and be done with the judgmental barista
archetype, but they don't do decaf in Italy.
"No! No! She'sa de baybe you give her some milk maybe."
"No, she has coffee a lot, she likes it."
"But she'sa de baybe! How you giva de coffee to de baybe!?"

This went back and forth until he agreed to give her a "cafe latte", that seemed to be more latte than cafe. Before the drinks came the waiter left to test drive a Vespa and after making a few laps around the intersection never came back.  

 Emma says - The zoo was awesome, and I got pictures of just about every animal from like 7 different angles. I liked going up in the dome at St. Peter's, (Fun fact- last city-state in the world =D) because I got awesome pictures there, too. I'm glad I stayed with Dad or else he would have been bored to death.