Rome
Rome,
Lazio,
Italy
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Yesterday afternoon was spent walking around and seeing the Colosseum and surrounding area. We decided to spend the money to do a tour, unfortunately, our tour guide was a complete ass, not only was he rude, but he didn't give great information. The second half of the tour was at the Palatine Hill, which was significantly better and with a much better tour guide named Stan. (We wanted to go on Stan's tour of the Vatican this morning, but that didn't happen.)
After an afternoon in the sun, we came back to the hostel for happy hour. After some quick pizza for dinner, we went with a bunch of people from the hostel to do a pub crawl around the area by the Spanish steps. Our crew for the evening consisted of Josh from Toronto; three girls named Ashley, Diana, and Charlotte; and Scott who is now from Chicago, originally from Indiana, and was in the same fraternity as Andrew but at Purdue. There had been a guy from Australia named Chris, but we ended up losing him and so both Andrew and Scott became "Chris." The crawl was a lot of fun. Andrew had girls all over him and even had to start charging a euro per photo since the number of people wanting them got ridiculous! I spent most of the evening talking to Scott (and occasionally his girlfriend Stephanie when Scott became "that guy" and called her about 3-4 times over the course of the evening! After lots of alcohol and some dancing, and no longer being able to find either Scott or Andrew (to save me from a few sketchy guys) I ended up taking a cab back to the hostel with Josh, Ashley, Diana, and Charlotte, stopping along the way grabbing a bite at McDonald's. Upon arriving back at the hostel, we found Scott sitting on a stoop across the street, happily talking on the phone with his girlfriend once again. I definitely crashed immediately upon my head hitting the pillow.
Sadly, I woke up this morning in immense pain. I don't know what I did in my sleep, but I somehow wrenched my sternum again and re-inflamed it. NOT GOOD!! So I spent my second day in Rome, lying in bed (I didn't bring any strong pain killers with me), with ice on my chest, praying that Tylenol and Aleve will do more than I think they are capable of doing. Around 4pm, after being totally bored from lying in bed and staring at the ceiling for hours, I made my way downstairs and am trying to get a beer or two in me to try to calm the pain since at this point I don't have any other options. So that sucks! Obviously taking it easy tonight, and hopefully I will be pain free enough tomorrow to see the Vatican and the Modern Art museum, since it will be our last day here.
