italiano!

italy is one big blast of a time. it's wonderful. we started off in florence, which was alright. we saw the david by michelangelo, which was amazing...he's really, really, really big! i think the best part of was the hotel room. 2 floors of sweet fun in one room! 2 bathrooms, 3 beds, tv, mini bar, badays (however the heck you spell those...as dennis describes them, "it's like a carwash for your behind." no, i have not used one yet and have no itensions of using one)...and our room had one big huge belcony! it was a blast. next was rome, where we almost had a toga party...didn't quite happen, but maybe tonight? who knows. first night in rome, we party under the beautifully lit colleseum...it was so beautiful. the next day we had a tour of the vatican, saw the museum, the sistine chapel, which was slightly a let down. there was so many people there and our tour guide warned us many times before we entered: no pictures, videocamers and NO TALKING. we entered and it was so jammed packed with people screaming at people you would have thought it was wall street. but the paintings by michelangelo were so beautiful...it's not what i imagined the sistine to be, but it was pretty amazing. then we went over to st. pauls (we saw st. peters the night before, equally amazing). the cool thing about st. pauls is that it is so porportioned that you have no idea exactly how big everything is in there. there was writing on the top of the walls that look to be about a foot but was really 6 feet tall! we also saw a dead pope...i can't remember which one, all preserved in a glass case with wax over his face. kind of creepy. we didn't have time to go down and see john paul II, not enough time. from there we excited and got back on, what we affectionatly call "the eurobus" as that's what it's named (it may be sung a couple times in a row). then a couple of girls and i ran around town seeing julius ceasars grave, the mouth of truth and a whole bunch of ruins. then that night we hit up the trebbi (sp?) fountain and the spanish stairs. 3 others and i stayed at the spanish stairs until way into the night as there were many guitar players there and we were so mesmerized. it was an absolute blast. we met germans and sang and clapped along to well known songs. if you go to rome, i advise you to go pary at the roman steps and the fountain one night and plan on staying late...and hit up the colleseum at night when not to many people are there and it's beautifully lit up. today we visited orviato (which is rumored to be where they filmed under the tuscan sun). i wanted desperatly to buy a sunflower, my favorite just to carry around for the day, but they are out of season. instead, i indulged on fresh picked fragola (strawberries) from the market and some fragola gelato (ice cream!) it was fantastic. we made it to venice tonight...well outside of venice. the most expensive hotels in the world are in venice so we aren't staying there. we are a little ghetto-y here at our hotel area, but the rooms are nice. but nothing like our posh places at florence! o well. to lido tomorrow for a beach party! it's so hot here...sorry to hear it snowed at home...what happened with that? we had the cold weather here when you had the hot weather and now it has done a 180. odd. anyways...shower and bed! night!