Day 3

On the 3rd day of our Italian adventure, we had a 12:00-ish train out of Venice. We woke up early and were going to walk around a bit. Dad proposed that we walk to the train station, as it looked to be about a 30 minute walk. We thought, OK, sounds fine... I think we made it up the stairs of one side canal in the 90 degree heat before realizing that walking to the train station was a BAD idea. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how it's just not very doable to drag suitcases through Venice - there are tiny footbridges over all the side canals, so there are stairways every 50-100 feet. It's crazy!

Instead, we decided we had to try the waterbus... I mean, we cannot miss a mode of transportation. So we walked over to the nearest station (still sweating our butts off) and purchased tickets. It was actually a pretty cool and not expensive way to see much of the city, since it goes in a huge loop!
Once we got to Rome, we took a cab to our hotel. which was right by the Vatican. I was fascinated by the parking. I mean, people just parked WHEREVER. Plus I totally want a smart car so I can park perpendicular to the curb like this!

We did a little walking around on the way to find some din-din. This is the door to the Vatican Museum. It was massive!

This is a pic of some Vatican walls... Pictures don't do it justice. The guys were super impressed, saying "Hey, it would be awesome to toss some boiling water down these at your attacker!"

Another crazy huge awesome Vatican door. The Pope is for Realz about his security, yo.

We finally found the place that the hotel had recommended for dinner and sat down for a meal. Dad didn't like his creme brulee (it's so weird over there, like the color of sweet potatoes or something), so the guy brought him some panna cotta. Ding ding, we have a winner!

We stopped at a Gelateria with a line out the door on the way home and got some gelato. I got Nutella, which was amazing, and Mike got about three flavors with a massive pile of whipped cream on top. These guys weren't messing around, the gelato was AMAZING!

Mike and I started missing Milly at this point (crazy dog! How does she drive me crazy and make me addicted to her all at the same time!?), so we made up an "International sign for Beagle" and started doing it in pictures. Good times!