Trains

So we woke up and quick taxi'd (yes its now a verb) to the Colosseum and the Roman Ruins in Rome.  IT WAS SO HOT and STICKY.  At 9am!  Unbelievable.  We saw the Forum, walked on cobblestone roads, among half-standing buildings, walls and plazas... it was really cool to be in somewhere with so much history.  Not even famous history...but just to think that so long ago someone met his or her best friend in that garden that is now in shambles is... surreal?  I don't use that word often so I'm not quite sure its the one I am looking for but yes. That eerie, humbling feeling.
Then we caught our train to Siena, stopped in a tiny village for 45 minutes where we ate train station thin crust pizza and drank Cokes.  It was the first time Tarah had had katchup in a long time and she loved it.  It was a fun break.  We met two people traveling who were from Australia and one girl JayJay who was very helpful.  She was traveling Europe all alone and was only 19.  She deferred university in order to take this trip while the Australian dollar was up over the Euro.  She said lots of Australians are traveling too for this reason.  JayJay gave us some tips, like to stay away from Athens, Greece but that the islands of Greece were blissful.  Good to know for my next trip maybe? ;)
We finally arrived in Siena, said goodbye to JayJay and caught another (ack) cab to our hotel very close to the main Plaza Campo here.  Siena is the first town we have been to where I didn't feel like just another tourist.  Its a town for starters.  Its small, cooler than anywhere on my whole trip, has lovely views, old charming buildings and lots and lots of Vespas/scooters.  We got gelato (tasty) and sat in the plaza on not seats but a slope...We walked across town (maybe one hour) to check out a wine tasting bar and discovered it was lovely and not at all unaffordable!  We lounged there for hours with two glasses of wine, one white and one red chianti.  Then we were hungry and strolled back towards the plaza to pick a good smelling restaurant.  We found one that seemed to have a lot of Americans exiting so we thought we might give it a try.  It was pretty good, I got pici pasta with tomato and basil in a garlic sauce but didn't really taste the garlic or basil.  We walked back and are now getting ready for the beach in Cinque Terre tomorrow (another train).  Horrah!  Its the most expensive leg of our trip but comes highly recommended and will hopefully be a balance of relaxing and energizing that we need for the western Europe leg of our trip very soon!!!  How quickly the time goes...love you all!