Crossing the street in Rome

Courtney's Travel Tip #41: When the tour guide tells you to cross the street whether cars are coming or not... that should be a sign that she's a little off.

And by "off" I mean she told us to go ahead and cross any street in Rome and just don't make eye contact if a car is coming at you. Uh... tour guide lady, what happens if you make eye contact?!?! Do they consider it a direct challenge and run you over or something? Nothing is more frightening than trying to dodge your way across a 4 lane highway in the middle of traffic. It's like frogger trying to get across these streets only without extra lives if you get flattened by a smart car. (Although I'm convinced that I'd win the battle if it came down to me and a Smart Car.) I came up with a good strategy though... let Caz go first! (Sorry Caz, I know that's not right but you are a much braver woman than I when it comes to these streets!)

Courtney's Travel Tip #42: Tour guide lady is not lying when she says that she shouldn't mention a certain fact about women being executed in the Colosseum because it's too graphic to hear.

So we're touring the Colosseum with this self proclaimed pagan who got kicked out of Sunday school for sharing too much information with her students. I won't get into the gory details, but let's just say that Romans are incredibly creative when it comes to means of execution. But come on lady... you can't dangle a piece of information in front of a bunch of tourists and then say, "No I don't think I can tell you because it's too much!" She even made it worse when she told us that people have gotten sick when they heard what used to happen to these women. You can't do that to us. Of course we want to know now! (and all of you want to know too... don't you... See, I did the same thing as tour guide lady!)

So we got to see ruins and all sorts of ancient things. I even defied death by using my cat-like reflexes to dodge some falling boulders while on the top level of the Colosseum. (That should actually read: "I was standing still and a small chunk of marble fell from above and shattered in front of me," but for some reason my crazy computer kept changing the story to read that I almost died... hmmm... I should get that looked at.)

So after touring ruins and even getting to sit down and rest our weary selves on some 2000+ year old columns, we finished our first tour of Rome and made our way over to a restaurant for lunch.

Now I don't know if any of you have ever been to Rome but there are "Gladiators" all over the place. They're so authentic, in fact, that they are wearing sweat pants and loafers under their plastic garb and try to charge you to take a picture with them. Once again, if this is a successful business venture, then I'm in the wrong line of work.

Courtney's Travel Tip # 43: If you need to buy shampoo and conditioner in a foreign country and you look at the lables of two bottles and NONE OF THE WORDS ARE DIFFERENT then you're not buying shampoo and conditioner.

Subrule # 43: If the word SHAMPOO is anywhere on these bottles then you are buying SHAMPOO, not- I repeat- NOT conditioner.

When we were in Paris I ran out of shampoo and conditioner. I figured the local supermarket would be a good place to get my supply. So I went there, picked out two bottles that looked like they were for the same brand and bought them. Came back and mid-shower realized that I had just washed my hair with shampoo twice because I did not buy any conditioner. Upon closer review of the two bottles in question, I realized that I just bought two of the same exact thing. (Hence rule #43, if the words on two things are the same, then it's the SAME THING!)

Fast forward to yesterday. We found the Trevi Fountain and decided to get some shopping in at the stores in the area. I went into another store to buy conditioner (the hotel in Switzerland provided us with some so no need to buy it there). So here I am, all proud of myself because I was able to ask the clerk for the orange bottle in Italian, and ready to make my purchase when Caz does what I can't do and READS the label. Yep... you guessed it. SHAMPOO. (Hence subrule #43, if it walks like shampoo and talks like shampoo... it ain't conditioner!) I almost did it again. Now I know that's a lot of time to make all of you read about my shampoo buying debacles but I'm here to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to you! You're welcome!

Courtney's Travel Tip #44: Gelato is good.

That's all... Gelato is good.

We walked for MILES today... literally we walked. And walked. And walked. We walked up, down, sideways, backwards. We saw the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Forum, The Wedding Cake (a large monstrosity of a building that looks like... you guessed it... a wedding cake!), the Trevi Fountain, and finished at the Spanish Steps which we walked down, and then back up. Then we finished up with a walk up hill to our hotel. But I'm proud of us because we did it all on our own and got to see everything on our lists all in one day! Who knew we were so determined? Yeah... we didn't know that either. We pretty much stumbled on a lot of this stuff!

Courtney's Travel Tip #45: Bread is expensive!

When you come to Rome, they charge you for bread at your meals. Even if you don't eat it, even if you say "No pane. Grazie". After three meals here (well 4 since we technically ate at two different restaurants for dinner last night), we're still trying to figure out how to refuse the bread that they keep giving us and we keep getting charged for. I don't want your bread Roman dude!