Day 8 – Saturday, December 26, 2009 – Day 2 in Rome

March 13, 2010

The day after Christmas! We woke up late this morning, but got ready pretty quickly. Breakfast again in the hotel. Very good. I heard later today that this breakfast would have cost 18 Euros per person had it not been included in our room.

We missed the shuttle – actually it was full and left five minutes early. So, once again, we took the cab. This time, we headed to St. Peter’s Square to catch one of the tour buses. We boarded the yellow Roma Christiana bus, and it is not much different than a city bus. Just a way to get around… and you can sit on top. It rained all day today, and it was a bit colder (maybe 50 degrees F). It was hard to see anything from the bus. We sat on top, and I think the kids enjoyed that. They both wanted to listen to the tour voice… you have to plug in these ear-sets and chose a language to hear what you are passing. It was a very computer-sounding voice. Poor guy probably never gets a date.

We got off at the Roman Coliseum. Gabriel was asking a lot of good questions about the early Christians and how they were persecuted there. We bought a tour that was worth it. This tour took us through the Coliseum, and then it took us up the hill and we toured through the ancient city and the Roman Forum – the oldest part of Rome. For the second part of our tour we got a very good tour guide. Her name was Jill, and she was studying for her PhD in theology. Sounds like she knew the pope. Catholic. She was extremely knowledgeable and obviously had a passion for Roman / Christian history. This might have been the highlight of our day today, as we got to stick around after the tour and talk with her about Christian history in Rome. She told us where they found the apostle Paul’s body, and also the house where he was under house arrest and wrote the letters to the churches. Sounds like we have a plan tomorrow. Anyway, the constant rain was memorable today… especially as we were out in it all day. There are still many sights to see and one day left!

Random: They really to drive aggressively in Rome. Parts remind me of certain cities in the states.