Last Day with Topdeck!

After bidding some of the others goodbye we hopped on the Metro - bags and all, with the remainder of the Topdeck crew and headed to Vaticain City.

Did you know it was actually a country? It has its own phone number code, Postal System, TV station, Radio Station and everything. Even though it only has 600 citizens! Its crazy!

You know what else is crazy? Getting there from the train station with 25 kgs on your back! It was the worst experience ever! REMIND ME NEXT TIME NOT TO BACK AS MUCH.

Anyway, we got there, eventually, with burning legs and sweat down our backs. We met our tour guide who was absolutely insane, and went inside. We were in a group, however we still took ages to get inside. Its hard to explain the amount of people where waiting to go in, it looked like close to a two hour wait!

Anyway we were in and able to drop our bags off at the ba drop. Our crazy guide was able to walk us around some amazing artworks for about two and bit hours and she never lost energy. I swear she must be eating redbull with her ceral!

Anyway we saw some truly astounding artworks from many many different centries. I was amazed at the prospect of people who did not have access to watercolours, easels, really good paint brushes etc, were able to create these very realistic paintings and sculptures. The amount of time spent on each masterpiece would have been incredible!

One set of painting we saw was called fresco which starts with a wall or peice of ceiling, which is then coated in a wetplaster like substance. Then the clock is racing for the artist who attempts to draw the outline of the picture in charcol before the plaster dries. If he leaves it too long and is not done before it dries, he cant just repaint, we must take it ALL of and start again!

Anyway this was very time consuming and you can imagne how painful it would be having to do it on a ceiling all day!

One of the most famous places in vatican city is of course the sistein chapel, which has the whole walls and ceiling painted in beautiful pictures of god, jesus and the story of birth, life and death. The ceiling was painted by michaeligo, who refused to do it four times before giving in. When we went in there is was like walking into another world. There was so much to look at, at one time, it was too hard to focus on one thing!

After some more wandering around franny and I said goodbye to the little country and we had lunch, took the metro to our hostel and crashed for two hours. Do you know how hard it is with huge backpacks trying to get every where! REALLY HARD!!!

Refreshed but a little groggy, franny and I ambled down to the bar where we met a super duper friendly guy from Sydney who literally invited us out to dinner with him and his mates. We had a drink with them all first in the hostel and the went across the road for some tucker. It was a very cool group of people from all over the world. there was an American Web disginer, Two Candian girls, Two different Canadian Guys, but the spoke french, Some aussies, and a south African that spoke french. Weird!

Anyway the place they took us for dinner was amazing! Best pasta yet! After some good food, ( and wine, which im proud to say I drunk) we headed out in the city of rome. We firstly went to the Trevi fountain for those who had not been before, and then we went looking for a pub. Bad idea. Could not find it. Not kidding we were walking around for about an hour! It was ok though, because franny and I didnt have to be the GPS, one to the canadian guy was, and he was really good! Asking everyone for directions!

We got to this pub and were pleasantly surprised because they were having a pub crawl that night. We got a free drink and watch all these guys have a beer chugging contest. I reckon 80 percent were aussie which is pretty funny! The party continued into the night - from a bar to a night club! I had the best time ( and so did franny! Hint Hint!)

Met some really cool people! No sleazes because it was mainly aussies thank goodness! Not like Barcelona! I was not keeping track of the time, but Chris ( the really friendly aussie) was and finally said we should probably leave, We walked around for a little longer because we were hungry, and before I knew it someone had handed me some pizzathing! I donno if it was because I had just been on a pubcrawl or if it really was very yummy - but I wish I could find that place again!

We caught a taxi home and hung out in the hostel until 5 am! Yes I had no idea we had been out for so long! Weirdest night ever but so incredibly fun!

I had a hangover the next day though . . . .