Ciao Roma

Got back from Rome on Tuesday night, absolutely exhausted. We had to cacth the 4 am shuttle bus to the airport, then when we got to Barcelona, we'd just missed the bus back to Logrono by around 10 minutes, so we could either wait till 10pm and get back at 4 am, or catch a bus to Zaragoza and the train from Zaragoza to Logrono which is what we did. Had enough time to fit in a Starbucks chai latte though. Normally I hate Starbucks- coffee stinks, they don't know how to froth and the service is appalling but they're the only place I've found in all of Spain that makes drinks with soy milk.

Italy was fantastic. On the first day, Breda and I just walked around they city, ate pizza, found a place that sold divine soy gelatos near Fontana di Trevi. Breda paid 3 euros for an espresso shot which was apparently the most disgusting thing she'd had in her life but we needed to use a bathroom really badly. I found Rome really overpriced. And overrun with overweight and loud American tourists. The second day we went to Pompeii and climbed Mt Vesuvius. It was steaming slightly from a crack in the crater- I was so excited I took about ten photos of the smoke and two video shots. When we got back down the volcano, it was too late to enter the ruined city but we snuck in through the back and got in for free. We only found 3 dead people, but I think that's enough. Old Pompeii was HUGE. (Well, I guess it used to be a real city.) It was absolutely amazing how much stuff was still intact.

On Sunday we went to the Vatican to get blessed by the Pope. The crowd was massive. I'd never felt so squashed and suffocated in my life, not at the Easter Show, the Sydney Olympics, on the metro... if you fell (which was practically impossible because people were squashing you so tightly you couldn't move) I suspect you'd just get trodden on. Useful Tip #1: If you ever go to the Vatican on Sunday to get blessed by the Pope, find yourself two stout, middle-aged Italian women to follow. They've obviously done this hundreds of times because we found two who pushed through people left right and centre with grim determination and we quickly shuffled through the opening they left in their wake. It was almost as miraculous as Moses parting the Red Sea. Instead of taking us an hour to get through the crowd, we were out in ten minutes. We took a tourist bus which I found very comfortable to sleep on.

Monday was Breda's birthday so we went to the Amalfi Coast, to Maiori and spent the day on the beach there. They fence off parts of the beach, set up deck chairs and umbrellas in rows and you pay to use them. There was only one tiny bit of beach not blocked off, near the rocks, so we lay down there. I had a very freaky incident with the man who worked at one of the beach clubs. I needed to use the bathroom, so asked him if I could, and he said yes and gave me the key. When I went to give it back to him, he said 'Bellissima' to me and pinched my cheek. And then he realised he'd left a wet mark on my face because his hands were wet, so he said 'Oh, pardon,' and wiped my face with the hairs on his arm. Ewwww. And human hairs aren't even absorbent.

I got a tattoo of a fire-breathing dragon on my shoulder.