DAY 11. Thursday July 1,2004 CANADA DAY

We were up for 8 oclock to catch busses. And I do mean busses- we changed a number of times. It being Canada day, a large number of our crew were decked out in Canadian flag tattoos, but we had to wait until the next day for our anthem, it not being a Contiki bus day. One of the guys had his wallet pickpocketed while on public transat. So be careful… or plant cheap wallets with nothing in them. That would be strangely satisfying to have pick pocketed. We arrived at the Coliseum for a walking our. Our guides name was Gabriella and she was cool. Kept us interested with her antics. We also saw a cat, which apparently Rome has about 300,000 of , ½ of which live in the ruins and they are fed there. We went to the monument and climbed to the top (lots of stairs) and also saw the guardians of the tomb of the unknown soldier. Jeff also enlighted us that George Clooney was in town however we didn’t see him. We then headed towards the Vatican and picked up some pizza by weight (really good stuff and cheap). We went through the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museum including seeing the Creation of Adam which is my favourite piece. We then caught bus 64 getting off at the monument to walk along the shopping street, and get some gelato. We managed to successfully catch 98 back- much easier than in Amsterdam. (Jeff gave us great instructions, also warning us to validate on the bus or if you get caught its 60 Euro). We then spent a bit of time at the Hotel pool. Supper was pasta, hard bread and veal, potatoes and a bread like desert. It wasn’t bad, although there were some complaints. Paul had people over and we stopped in. The football game was on, and Greece ended up winning.

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The Coliseum, the Police Lamborgini in Rome, and inside the Vatican, the Creation of Adam