Friday in Italy with a Little Knitting Content

The night before last I finished a pair of socks. I received the yarn for my birthday over a year and a half ago from my parents. It's Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn in Mixed Berry. I had a hard time coming up with a pattern and there always seems to be something else to knit first. But before we left for Italy I started back on them. I knitted on them and finished the first one in Italy. I started the second one while we were there. I was determined to finish the second one (along with Kelby's blanket) before my online knitting group starts our Llympics at 7 am in the morning. I've finally decided that I'm going to use Knit Picks Essentials in the Peacock Multi colorway. It's a purple, turquoise, and green yarn. I'm going to do the Hourglass Eyelets from More Sensational Knitted Socks. Interestingly, my friend, Alice, sent out her daily patterns today and there was a pair of peacock feathers sock in this exact yarn!!




Friday in Rome was a turning point for me. The day off had really helped my foot. The blister was still there, but doing much better!!! I keep forgetting to tell about the graffiti in Rome. You have this amazing historical, yet very modern city and everything is covered with graffiti. It's such a shame. One of the tour guides told us that as soon as they power wash it off, it's right back on that same night. I didn't see any on any of the historical sites, but I don't know why. Anyway, Friday was made up of two main parts. The first part of the day we went to Vatican City. Vatican City is the smallest country in the world. It's surrounded by walls. We walked in and up a fairly high flight of stairs. Once again we had to go through security and screening to get into the visitors center. There were a huge number of people there. Our tour guide, Gloria, told us that earlier that morning three cruise ships had docked and all come into Vatican City at once. There were over 10,000 people there at that time. We were lucky we came later!!! Gloria gave us a little history and then she took us into a fairly narrow hall. This hall was full of statues, paintings, and tapestries. There were some beautiful things in there. We tried to keep our group together as we walked and marveled. One of the first things we saw was actually Egyptian statues:

I was especially enthralled with all the marble. Even the floor we walked on was a beautiful shiny marble. This next picture is of a painting. I thought these were 3D, but they were just painted to look like that. This is not the best picture, but:


While we were walking we heard a loud bang behind us. My first thought was that someone had gone past the ropes and knocked a statue over. However, there was a teenage girl with another group that either passed out or was having a seizure. She hit that marble floor and wasn't even able to catch herself. Darrin knealt down and was trying to do what he could. It was a minute before anyone from her group did anything. That was scary!!

Anyway, we kept walking down this hall, occasionally we would go through doors into another part of the hall. There were tapestries that told stories and maps. It was such a treat. If I'd taken all the pictures I should have, I'd probably have doubled the number I actually took. As we were going down this hall, we were actually heading to the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was very crowded and not as big as I expected. It had beautiful frescos all over the chapel. I thought the ceiling was one big painting, but it was a series of frescos from creation through the New Testament. They were breathtaking. But like everything else we did, it was very hot and very crowded. That made it hard to really soak it all up.
One of the funny/ annoying things about the Sistine Chapel is that they didn't want us to talk in there. Needless to say, everyone was talking. There were these guys whose job was to shush everyone. I was wondering what kind of resume' you needed for that job. "I've shushed people at the movies since 1984." "I've been a church shusher since I was a kid." "You've got the job!!!"
The last place we went in Vatican City was St Peter's Basilica. It was full of statues. It seemed like we walked around in there forever.
When we walked out we were in this big square and our tour guide showed us where the Pope's apartments are.
After lunch Lara took us on a tour of Rome. It was another walking tour. While it was very hot, it was one of the most amazing days for me. We walked through this one square that was full of artists of all sorts. There were painters and musicians. Lots of people were walking around looking and buying. One of the neatest conveniences in Rome were these water fountains that just run water all the time. You could put your water bottle under it and get very cold water!!!! Or you could put your finger on the spout and redirect it out the top of the spout. They call it drinking from the nose. Here's Logan drinking from the nose:

This was another one of those days where you'd round a corner and find something truly amazing. For example we came upon this ancient and very worn statue right on a corner. Underneath the statue were all these pieces of paper stuck to the wall. It's a place where people put up complaints about the government - and always have:

After walking and looking we were about to get a big block of free time. Lara took us to another square that had a really neat fountain in the center and stairs all around. It was a great place to sit (once the sun moved). But the most amazing part of this particular square was the Pantheon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Pantheon was built to honor all the Roman gods. It's also one of the cooler places we went. Logan and I spent a lot of our free time in there. First we walked around and looking. It's not very big. One of the most interesting things is that there's a hole in the ceiling. So when it rains, it rains in the Pantheon.

There are drains on the floor for when that happens. This was also the only place I had Logan take a picture of me knitting. I was nearly finished with the first sock and I was enjoying knitting right in the Pantheon in the middle of Rome, Italy!!!!!!!!!!!

After we sat in there for a while we walked around outside and looked at the Pantheon from the side and back. I must admit that I was not very adventurous. I didn't want to go off exploring because I was horrified that we wouldn't be able to find our way back and meet the group! Our group started meeting back up and sitting on the steps of the fountain. When most of them had returned I took a picture:

While I was taking this picture, the cutest British boy walked up and offered to take a picture with me in it. I accepted. Before he walked off he told us about a big 4th of July party they were having. We already had dinner reservations, but I thought that was so cool!
From this area we started walking back to our bus. But before our tour was over, we went to a really pitiful place called the Ghetto. It's the area where all the Jewish people live. The really sad part is that most of the Jews that lived there during WWII were hauled off to Germany and killed. It took a long time for this area to repopulate. It seems that even to this day, they pretty much keep to themselves. The history was interesting, but it really made me so sad. There are several pictures of this area in my Flickr album.
Italy - a set on Flickr
As it began to get dark that night we got back on our bus and met up with yet another tour guide who took us on a night tour of Rome. It was really neat. It was, however, difficult to get pictures because they came out blurry. I did get a few very short videos of the outside of the Colosseum.
One of the funniest things we saw that day were two signs outside a restaurant:


Tomorrow I'll be talking about our last big day of touring. It was the day I was most excited about.

Knit On and More Later
Shama D