Day 26 – Friday December 31st 2010 (New Years Eve) (Rome, Italy)

ROME! NEW YEARS EVE! YEAH! We slept in a bit late knowing that tonight would be a late late night and so we by the time we left the flat is was already noon. We decided that we should make our way to the coliseum first, seeing how its so famous and all. We found it quite easily. Probably because its so big, and then took photos and walked around it trying to find a way in. We discovered it had already closed that day and so we were unable to go inside but we were able to sneak through the exit into some kinda tour thing for the outside columns area thing. It was interesting but we were distracted by the strange singing we kept hearing and we had to leave to go find its source. Its source was this massive screen and band that was performing or warming up or something. It was grand but it was still early and we weren’t about to just stand around waiting for new years for 7 hours. Nope. So we went and explored some pantheon buildings and some more churches. We went to Mass at a huge Basilica, we climbed some huge staircase to nothing and we shopped in some real interesting stores. Eventually we ended up in a restaurant just talking about stuff and eating. We did that for about 4 hours and then we were ready to find the fun. It was real easy we just followed the sweeping crowds of people pouring through the streets and we were led right to the giant partay again! It was extra crazy now though! There were thousand upon thousands of people there, I estimate that it was around 70,000 people in this Huge mass of people as far as the eye could see in two directions. It was nuts and there were all these explosions going off and the music was all weird and we finally found where the explosions were coming from and let me just say that fireworks in Rome are AWESOME! They knock the breath right out of you! Its amazing. I was searching for someone to buy some from all night, I would go up to sales males and yell in there face “Boom”! They would either look confused or and then some guy just gave me one! So I’m saving it.. for later… muahahah. Anyway the Fireworks we sooo loud that we were going deaf and one of them sploded and hit me right in the thigh and gave me a big bruise. Another one that was spose to go off in the sky went off insead, in a crowd of people, it was actually really funny looking and no one got hurt. I did see a super drunk get knocked right on his back because he got to close to a big splodin one. It was great. Overall it was just the best New Years eve I’ve ever had. We saw so much and it was just great and by 1am ish we were so exhausted that we just had to head home. I love the tradition of throwing old dishes and pottery out the window on New Years it made for a colorful walk home. I also randomly bought Lijah a really cool wood carved chess set that also had dominoes and other games in it. All hand made! I talked the guy down from 60 to 45 to 35 to 20 and then I bought it and he was like 30? And I was like you already said 20! Duhhh… hehehe … owned… I’ll never forget any of it. When we finally got into the room we passed out in our beds instantly and were only awoken a little when our drunken friends came home a bit later.