call it a day

we did it. wait.. where did we leave you all....
we managed to wake up and get to the russian tea room on thursday, a little place (they weren't kidding about the "room" thing) stuffed to the brim (ha... get it?) with pots covered in russian designs, tea tins, russian fabrics, little paintings, other tea parifenalia, and a nice little selection of russian sweets.
meredith, ruth and sarah cuddled into a corner, picked three teas, and recieved three pots, which we steadily worked our way through. each pot that arrived was delicatly laced in russian patterns of blue and gold on white. much like ones you can find at the house of tea in philly, for a reasonable price! (was that subtle?) anyway. it was a very relaxing atmosphere covered in russian classical music, and spewing aromas of tea and russian desserts. after downing about the tea, the sweets became too alluring, and we ordered "blinis"s.... (pancakes?) one with honesy, and one with chocolate, some chocolate ball thing ("heavenly chochloate ball thing..." ruth) and some sweet cake that melted right into you tounge. all in all, it was a good breakfast.

after tea, meredith split, and we wandered our way to the synagogue (which they actually call a temple, because the "synagogue" in jerusalem was called a temple, and the jews here are ancient, 22 centuries old... we learned stuff.) after figuring out how to get in, we found ourselves in the museum, amungst around 800 embroidered torah covers. beautiful. we talked to the nice women at the desk and got on board for a tour in 15 min.s we wandered through the little museum on our own, and found an unexpected comfort non-jesus images. after looking at various hand written torah's, talmuds, and other things we joined our small english tour group, which consisteed of: two jews from Bordeaux, one from miami, and us... and our awesome italian jew tour guide. along with soem history, she showed us a small spanish temple with pieces from three different spanish temples that were all destroyed. after a small walk through the museum, we were taken into the big temple. now. you should know that due to a terrorist attack in 1982 (and it hasn't gotten better since then) no one is allowed in the temple without a tourguide. and the actualy roman congregation can only enter to pray three times a day. one hour in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one more hour at night. if we wanted to enter for a service, we would have to bring our passports. aparently it is like this all over europe. says our tour guide.
anyway. the temple was beautiful. the ceiling was painted with rainbows, starry skys and trees.... it was more beautiful than any chruch in rome. go team jew.
ANYWAY. then we were hungry. and in the perfect place. the ghetto. after asking at the desk, we were given a map, and directions to a place to get us some JEWISH ARTICHOKES! now... if you have never eaten said artichoke... you need to get your hindparts up on over to roma. and get on it. cause damn.

moving on. we had a nice evening after that. wandered some streets. made it to the pantheon. were given a turtle and an elephant by some jamacian dude. (turtle must stay in my purse, because he always goes along, slowly, but always goes forward. elephant my stay above my door, for peace and love.) that night ruth carlos and sarah went to see a movie. and guess what goes down. about half way through the film ir stops. screen goes black for a second and then says some big word in white. "intermesso" or something like that. "are you kidding me?!" yeah... so aparently, in rome at least, there is always an intermission at the movies... there are toilets in the theater, so you don't have to go far. and a little dude walks around witha tray of candy... this would not go down well in philly...

anyway.
yesterday, we went to see these old catacombs under this old church.... very creepy. old old old. bones bones bones. it was completely made of bones. all the typical things your would see in a chapel, columns, laterns, ornate designs, were all there. made of bones. supposedly the bones were from poor romans (where they down?) and others from friars. wierd stuff.
and in the last chapel there was a grave stone that read "what you are now, we used to be. what we are now, you will be." so yeah.



today:
awake and caffinated. we are going to go hop on a tour bus.. cause there is actually stuff to see in rome... unlike some places (coughphillycough)
also, carlos's mom bought ruth and i tickets to some circus outside of rome. so we're going to do that tonight. and then! FUNK IN THE GHETTO. http://myspace.com/24caratnight
so that could be cool.

so.... with that... we're off
peace peace peace yall