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Well the last couple of days have been rather
turbulent for me, hence
why we are in Florence a day early. Thursday night, the
night after the frogs legs, I came down with the worst case
of food poisoning known to man. Furthermore, the food poisoning hit IMMEDIATELY after dinner
so we are hypothesizing that it was too close to dinner to
be it.
So that night I spent in the bathroom
and was in some poor shape on our way to Rome on Friday. The
train ride was a little turbulent
because we kept getting kicked out of seats. People can make
reservations on the train (for and additional €20)
but we did not. Therefore, we had to find open seats and
hope that they were not reserved but they were so we had to
move a couple of times.
The real trouble hit when we hit Rome
though. Immediately upon
walking out of the train station I felt as though someone
was suffocating me. I could not breath because the air
quality was so poor. It was so hot, humid and
absolutely filled with pollution.
To get to our
hotel we had to get on the metro which was even worse than
the air outside. There was absolutely no air system so it
was filled with HOT, stinky (I don't think deodorant has
been introduced there) air. But luckily out hotel was
situated about 200 m from the metro stop. Little did we know
what was coming.
Our 'hotel' was actually a large apartment
building. There was no signs for the hotel or
instructions of what to do upon arrival and best yet
the door was locked. So we were locked outside of where we
were supposed to be with absolutely no idea what to do. Luckily
a person came along and spoke very little English
but was able to at least let us in the front door. We then
went on a scavenger hunt of the building trying to find the
hotel.
The room was in
an apartment that had been subdivided into 4 bedrooms and a
shared toilet. the only positive thing I can say about this
hotel is that we are no longer staying there. It was dirty,
loud and unimaginably hot.
When we arrived
we rested for a bit hoping that my breathing would become
easier but it did not. I started becoming disoriented and
dizzy because I was so oxygen deprived. In the morning we got up early and
headed to St. Peter's Basilica. This was probably the most
beautiful place we have been all trip. I will never forget
the experience of walking
through the arches and into the square. The church was
equally as impressive. We saw the black St. Peter's statue
and the statue of the
Virgin Mary holding Jesus
in her arms after he had been crucified. One rather
interesting thing about the Basilica was that all of the
popes were shalacked (sp?) and
layed out in visible
tombs. We did not see Pope John Paul II's
but there were definitely a lot of other popes stations
around the Basilica.
We were unable to
get into the Sistine Chapel and the museum at St. Peter's
because the line was 7 hours long. So figuring that it was 8
am when were were there, there was no possible way we could
get in before it closed at 1:45.
Unfortunately
as the heat increase my breathing took a bad turn. While we
were at the Basilica I could barely stand and was pretty
spaced out. So instead we made it back
to the hotel and I spent the rest of the day in bed gasping
for air. We tried to go out later in the day when it was cooler
but I could not take more than 5 steps.
This quickly
determined that we needed to leave Rome. I did not want to
and was willing to stick it out for one more day especially
because as many of you know, Rome was the city I was most
looking forward to visiting. Oh well, I couldn't
see much of it from bed. I have to admit though, that even
though I am terribly disappointed for missing Rome, the main
part of it that I wanted to see I saw. Being at St. Peter's
was absolutely amazing.
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Elizabeth 
