Rome Tidbits

Before I forgot, let me just write down some tidbits about our trip to Rome.

1.  R2 was planning on walking everywhere, but after the first day we realized that it would be impossible to do so while still wanting to visit as many place as possible, so we bought 3-day tourist tickets that allowed us to use the metro or buses without any limit. I bought the tickets from a newspaper stand seller. Here's a pic of our tickets:

2. Here's a pic of R2 in the metro station:

On the last day of using the metro, there was a pickpocket. We were already inside one of the metros when in one stop, a group of young women came inside followed by two teenage girls. The two teenage girls ran inside and ran as quickly outside, then I heard the young woman standing next to me scream something in Italian while grabbing for her wallet inside her bag. Her purse zipper was open, but thankfully her wallet was chained into the inside of her bag, so the teenage pickpocket couldn't get anything. In fact, while trying to get out of the metro ASAP, the end of her jacket got caught in between the doors, so the doors opened up again and she ran out along with her friend.

After that the young woman told her friends about what had just happened animatedly in Italian and even though I don't know the language, I know what she was talking about 'coz she pulled out her wallet and I noticed that there was a chain connecting the wallet with her bag (she was standing right next to me, after all). Well, glad to know that her wallet was safe! :-D

3. Indonesians would probably laugh upon seeing this photo. "Galak" chocolate bar LOL!!! Galak is an Indonesian word. It can be translated roughly into "fierce or hot-blooded" he he he he he...

4. On Tuesday April 2nd we had a plan on which places to visit, but alas we got caught up in the middle of a heavy rain which even turned into a hail at one point. We had a small umbrella with us, but it wasn't enough to cover our legs. We got wet up to our knees and our sneakers were wet, as well, so we had to go back to the hotel to dry ourselves. We tried drying out sneakers using the hotel's hairdryer LOL LOL!!! We used the time to relax and rest our feet he he he he he he...

A funny thing happened during the heavy rain/hail. We were at the side of the road and an umbrella seller came to offer us another umbrella (a bigger one). We said no a few times, but then when the hail started and R2 was afraid that the umbrella we had would have holes in it, the seller came by again to offer the big umbrella and yes, we did buy a bigger umbrella at a high price due to the situation HA HA HA HA HA HA...And of course we didn't bother bringing it back, so we just left it at the hotel (we brought back the small umbrella, though!). 

After we got back to the hotel, I was laughing so much 'coz I told R2 that the umbrella seller may have been telling himself, "Ha, those two stubborn tourists disregarded my first few attempts to sell them a bigger umbrella, but after a while they finally gave up. Silly tourists!" LOL LOL!!!

Wanna know what happened after the rain? Here goes:

And this is the picture we took before the heavy rain - notice the sidewalks? 

5. When we had lunch at a restaurant, we were served two slices of cake for free afterwards and I LOVED it! I didn't ask what it was, though, but I found out about it on my own when we were in a souvenir shop selling chocolate and foodstuff. This is the cake that we had and I just had to bring back a big bag of it 'coz I can't stop myself. (side note: I browsed online and found out that this Colomba cake is a traditional Easter cake).

Even though it was rather inconvenient to bring something like that 'coz I couldn't put it inside the backpack (too big) or the luggage ('coz it could get crushed), I'm SO happy to find a store that sold them at a 50% discount. In fact, all the Easter eggs and cakes were sold there at a 50% discount LOL!!! 

OK, I have a test coming up (theory test) next Monday in Finnish, so I've gotta get back on reading up the materials. I wrote this post to have a break from studying he he he he he...I'll write more about our Rome trip later.