Catacombs and candlelight

A video (1 of like 5) that Nick took when we were leaving the catacombs.  We were walking on opposite sides of the road...because he was being a mean pinna...and then this is how he made up for it...it should be noted that nobody was truly mad!!!  The awkward wave?? That's because I had NO idea he was videoing me...or why he was waving! 

This blog will primarily consist of pictures because it was an adventure, but it was also a day of taking photos with my love.  I'll try to see if I can get a video or two to load as well! The morning started off by joining the boys for breakfast.  I was sad that we all had to part ways once again, but we knew it was coming.  So, Myles was the first to leave us.  Then David was leaving to go to The Vatican.  Nick and I talked about how this was reminiscent of the first day we spent alone in Rome when it was supposed to be me, him, and David, but David left to go catch his train!

 So, left to ourselves, we went to get our stuff together, take it downstairs to have them hold it (which was a bit sketchy because it was semi out in the open), and then we were off to the catacombs.  We did a couple of "attraversiamo"s (let's cross over...the street) trying to get in the right direction, only to discover that I needed to have my museum card with me and had to run back into the hotel.  Then we were headed in the right direction for the buses to the catacombs.  We found the correct bus right away, but had to go find a ticket.  The guy told us that he was leaving in 8 minutes, and the first place we went to get the tickets sent us to another place, Just as we were walking back up to the bus, it pulled away.  Another bus came right away, but then we had to sit on it for like 20ish minutes.  When we started going, it was a nice ride.  We had no idea where we were really supposed to get off the bus, but there were some other people on the bus going to the catacombs as well.  When we first saw a sign for them, we went to the next stop, thinking that it was taking us to some other catacombs.  We decided to just get off the bus and go back to the first ones.  This was slightly dangerous, but it's Italy...they are used to driving on the other side of the road to avoid things! Haha....

So, we went in the gate, and started the long walk to the actual catacombs.  Without a guide book, or any idea of what we were doing, we just started walking and searching for signs.  So, what did we do on this long walk of ours?? We took pictures of each other! Haha..

 

 

 

I spotted sheep, which have now been renamed as, "holy frickin' cows!!"

 

 

We took more, but those are some of the highlights.  We finally found the catacombs.  We bought our tickets for the last tour of the morning, and then I had to go to the bathroom.  I left Nick with the camera, and this is just a little bit of what happened when I did that:

Silly Nick wanted to document that I went to the bathroom.  I think it is safe to say that none of us need pictures to know that I went to the bathroom...but we now have them.
  

They then divided everyone by the language that they needed.  THen we were on our way.  We went into this little church like place where the lady gave us an introduction to the catacombs.  Apparently, according to her, we had chosen the oldest ones in Rome.  So, this was where Christians buried their dead many years ago.  She showed us what individual "graves" looked like, family ones, and sadly, children.  In an odd way, it was exciting to see the catacombs...I think it was mainly because they are so old...so ancient...such a piece of history! IT was a little eerie once down there, but they told us that in the public area, the bodies have been removed...that was a bit more disturbing than the alternative.  The one picture I took:

 After the tour, we started walking back to the bus stop!  We saw some more "holy frickin' cows", also known as sheep, and took a few more pictures.  SO then we walked to the bus stop, where I insisted on talking in Italian...but that did not last long.  SO then we took the bus back to the area of our hotel.  We decided to walk a bit and find something to eat.  We stopped at St. John again, and took some pictures outside...walked inside to see it again!

 

Do we look happy? It's because we are!

We ended up eating at the same place we ate the last time we were in this neighborhood; the place where Nick dropped his knife and spilled the water!  Haha...we split a pizza (well, I had some...Nick ate most), and had a little bit of their specialty for the day, lasagna.  HOLY COW...the lasagna was incredible.  I dont remember why I looked this way, but this was the only picture from lunch:

After this we walked a little bit, looking for a decent, not stupid sweatshirt for me to take back to Cosenza so that I would not be as cold.  We ended up like 5 minutes from the Colosseum, and with the idea of, "what is our life when we can say, 'hey, isn't the Colosseum just around the corner?? Should we go see it?'"...we went to see it...You cannot see the Colosseum without taking a few pictures though! We were in serious photography mode today, if you cannot already tell!

 

 

Along the way we also went into the church, Santa Maria Maggiore.  It was gorgeous, and definitely something to see!!

 

 

After all of this, we had to get back to the hotel to get a cab.  We took the cab to the train station, bought tickets, had to go to the farmacia, and then went to get our train.   We thought that Anna Paola, Nick's teacher should be on our train, but we had no way of knowing.  So, we settled in for the ride.  We spent the 2ish hours talking, laughing, and just enjoying our time together.  We found out that Anna Paola was in fact on our train, but we did not know where.  We had be joking around saying, "dove Anna Paola??"...and one of the last times we said it, we saw her stand up a few rows in front of us, and then she spotted us!  I love her...she is so incredibly sweet!  She came back to talk for a few minutes and said, "I did not know you were in this car...I did not hear any funny accents!!" Haha...well AP, that's because we weren't talking that loudly, which is a novel concepts sometimes on the Italian trains!  It was good to see her, but then she got off the train to take a train to Perugia, where her car was parked!  Our pictures from the train: 

 

When we got to Gubbio, we had to wait on the bus at the station, so we split the lone cornetto, and I had to use the disgusting bathroom, and then about an hour later we took the bus.  We had serious conversation on the bus...that was...umm...fun?  We got to Nick's apartment, after we had to walk a bit in the cold.  We settled in a bit, and we made some quick pasta.  then went to La piazza e' nostra, which is our special place in Gubbio!  

THe rest of the night was just resting and then SLEEP!