Aaahh!!! Real Monsters!

For those of you who got my 90s Nickelodeon TV show reference - 10 points for you (although it will not be necessary for 4 more paragraphs)! Today, we we were finally leaving Rome, but first we went to the St. Peter-in-Chains Church for an up close and personal look at the supposed chains that held St. Peter in captivity before being crucified upside down (he did not feel worthy to die the same way as Jesus), as well as Michelangelo's Moses.

the chains...hmm?? what do you think?

Michelangelo's Moses

From there, I did a little bit of gift shopping and postcardage and we checked out of the hotel, took a taxi to the railway terminal, and waited awhile to rent our Avis car. Eventually, outside the terminal where we were told to wait, a sketch guy came up to us and said he would take us to the car...yay... He packed us and our luggage into his tiny car and we were off! We finally made it to the Avis car center and got our car (WITH GPS - best idea I've ever had). And then....

mother drove in Rome. I don't think I was as scared as she was because I trust her and we had the GPS (our life-saver)...and we eventually made it out alive! (and without killing any scooters)

Next stop: the Park of the Monsters!!! A randomly awesome place that mother knew about (and Rick did not) from Landscape Architecture! In 1552, Prince Orsini had Pirro Ligorio (the architect of the Vatican after Michelangelo's death) build this monumental garden as an expression of his love for his wife. There were a lot of signs to tell us not to take pictures....so of course we did anyways :)

Proteus-Glauco - seamonster symbolizing Orsini's power in the world

mother being eaten by the giant Ogre head!

the elephant "distinguish(es) good from evil"...notice how he is catching a legionary and not me :)

Eventually (and only with the help of Mr. GPS) we made it to Siena and checked in. Unfortunately, we had lots of problems involving the internet, my computer, our converter, and postage. We finally found a store and bought a new converter (45W), set my computer up to charge, and left for dinner. We walked to Il Campo, the city's center square and ate dinner (of pizza and some sort of crepes) where we had a great view of City Hall and the 330-foot City Tower. Sadly, we didn't do much else in Siena - mother had a bottle of wine to herself and a shot of Limoncello (they brought us these shots for free...I'm still not sure why) which made for a long, crooked walk back to the hotel. I don't want this to sound like I'm dissing on my mom or anything like that - she was funny and all, I just didn't feel like drinking anything.

my terrible nighttime picture of Siena...

We got back to the hotel...which was HOT...sat in our underwear - mother went to sleep and I got on the computer for a bit. Some people walked straight by our window and looked in...well that was awkward! After our hotel in Rome, I was definitely not used to living on the first floor next to foot traffic apparently. On the computer, I was excited that I had charged up to 83%. On the computer, on the computer, tra la la...80%. What? I was still plugged into the wall...the charge should not have been dropping. Turns out I had blown our brand new converter. We didn't understand...our converter (not the new one we bought) had either a 50W side or 1600W side which specifically said use the 50W side for chargers. Oh well...tomorrow Florence.