Trip - Rome-Durham

By the 5th day I was really missing England, and it made me happy to think I'd be back that night. I was exhausted, still hot and thirsty (despite spending more money on drinks than on hotels!), tired of carrying my bags everywhere, and frustrated that I couldn't speak/understand Italian (although Spanish was somewhat useful at times).

But I was in Rome and had a few more hours, so I wanted see as much as I could. I walked through St. Peter's Square to get to the Vatican Museum. I went to part of the mass that was given by the Pope. How cool is that? It was very crowded, but that also made it interesting.

The Vatican Museum was huge. I was disappointed to find out that they didn't have old Bible manuscripts (I was hoping to see the Codex Vaticanus and Textus Receptus, but apparently you have to write a letter to the bishop and jump through a lot of hoops to see those). But it was interesting anyway. It had a huge collection of art, mostly Christian art, and much of it was quite early 3rd-5th century. Then there was a VERY long walk through countless rooms on the way to the Sistine Chapel. Most of these rooms were filled with amazing art work and some very famous paintings, but they also were extremely hot and crowded. Eventually I made it to the famous part of the Sistine Chapel and it was worth the wait.

After that, I still had a few more hours, but was so tired and hot that I didn't want to walk around anymore. So I got to the airport a couple hours early and cooled off there. The plane was an hour late, but that didn't bother me too much. As much as I wanted to get out of Italy, it was nice to finally sit in an air-conditioned room. When the plane finally boarded I was very happy - not just because I was headed back to England, but also because it meant that my dirt-cheap Ryanair flight was legitimate!

When I arrived at the Durham Tees Valley aiport it was like heaven. The area was beautiful from the air, and on the ground it was clean and friendly. And people there spoke English! (with a very Scottish-sounding accent) I couldn't believe how friendly everyone was. I was still 200 miles from Reading and thousands of miles from Oklahoma, but the feeling I had was "I'm home now".

posted by Matt @ 10:14 PM