Italians should not have ever..

..been introduced to the invention of the internal combustion engine. Bill Bryson, or something close to what he said.

The streets of Rome are insane.

Picture a red light. Mopeds usually outnumber cars, and while waiting at a red light they work their way up to stop line. As the last daring pedestrians (you have to be prepared to take significant risks to life and limb just to walk here) sprint across before the light changes, knowing what comes, the mopeds start to rev their engines. Then, BOOM, the light changes and all the mopeds lay into the throttle at full bore. A fury of bluish smoke and the unmistakable "bwaarrrrrrrrrrrrr". And just as this happens, the whole thing begins to repeat itself for the other side of the street.

After arriving into Rome we immediately headed to the Vatican Museum. With regard to that: 1) The Sistine Chapel is a lot more than just that God touching fingers with man thing. Also, 2) St. Peters is freakin ginormous. I mean, really freakin big.

Yesterday we did the "Caesar Shuffle" and made our way through the Colosseum, the Forum, Palantine Hill, etc etc, basically all the sites you expect to see when in Rome. The blaring sun damped our enthusiasm slightly, but it was really something else to be walking down basalt lined streets that one day, a couple thousand years ago, Caesar himself could have been walking down.

Last night, after a requisite siesta, we headed out for a night walk through Rome's hotspots. Revealing another dimension to this pretty damn cool city, fountains and piazzas were jammed pack with street entertainers, gypsies, tourists, and locals alike, eating gelato and drinking.

After a few days of too much sun, pizza, and ice cream we're headed to Athens via a 5 hour train ride to Bari (oh boy), a 14 hour ferry ride to Patras (wheeee!) and finally a 4 hour train ride from Patras to Athens (awesome).

Final update from there.