A true italian market, we bought a kilo of bananas in search of a cure for our inflamed muscles. Shin splints - and only the third day in.

I sit down every chance I can get, We're making our way through Vatican City...

Today we had planned on visiting Capella Sistina (The Sistine Chapel), but after discovering that it's free every last Sunday of the month, (and everyone else overslept) we decided to put it off. Instead Susan and I headed East... One more parting shot of the popes headquarters from "Via d. Conciliazione"... This photo does a better job of showing just how large The Vatican is.

The Castel Sant' Angelo sits along side the Tevere River...

The Vitt. Em. II bridge (I have no idea what that stands for)... The river is pretty polluted.

The Sant' Angelo Bridge, The photos don't show the true enormity of these river spanning structures. They're made completely of marble (It looks like). You can't help but wonder how the hell they built these things so far back in the day.

Across the Sant' Angelo lies a large section of tight intertwined streets, only navigable by motorini (scooters) and foot. Much cleaner than the area of Rome we're staying in and an ancient cathedral every 10 kilometers.

The motorini's will run you down:
motorini - high [2.15 mb]
motorini - low [120 k]

We ran into The Ex Palazzo di Giustizia (this means nothing to me) on the way back. Good looking building.

Small fountains like this are found all over the place in Rome, it's drinkable water and we drank.

It took us about 30 minutes to figure out how to work this phone. They don't take change, you have to purchase a public phone card to make calls. What took awhile to figure out is that the corner of the card needs to be broken off in order for it to be functional. "Strappare" means tear off, which was written in a corner of the card and we eventually figured it out.

Somne Vatican guards on horseback.

In this same area (just ouside the vatican) we ran into this little street theatre, everyone plays american music, at one point some local busted out the chorus of jingle bells - saturated in mockery :
large quicktime [4.5 mb]
small quicktime [305 k]

We stopped by this Alimentari (Deli) and requested a commonly eaten sandwhich in Italy- Salami, Turkey and Provologne - no condiments, straight up on a roll. Turns out the italian word for Turkey is a lot like the italian word for cream cheese, and that's what we got - Salami, Provologne and cream cheese - no condiments, straight up on a roll...

They were good.

That night we ended up at the Vatican's christams eve mass, where the nativity scene was unvailed:
nativity - large [5.48 mb]
nativity - small [486 k]

Although I didn't catch his visible drool on tape, we only saw the pope via the outdoor screens:
pope - high [12.8 mb]
pope - low [1 mb]

A little more of the pope on the big screen:
pope - high [2.63 mb]
pope - low [208 k]

While the language barrier is still huge, use of your fingers and pointing can really get things accomplished. In addition to "Gratzzie" my italian vocabulary now includes (I'm spelling these as they sound): "Choi" (hello / goodbye), "Quonta Costa" (how much are these), "mi dispiatche no italiano" (I'm sorry - I don't speak italian), "Bonne Natale" (Merry christmas) and "Chi sonna multi motorini" (There are many scooters).