JULY 28th

so bloody hot from the beginning of the morning. we were toying with the idea of jumping on one of the hop-on-hop-off tour buses to just see Roma's main attractions but missed them by five minutes.seeing the next lot weren't due for another hour we thought we'd grab a coffee at Maccas in Roma Termini (Rome's central train station). it was FANTASTIC! cover or service charges are always a bitch in Italy, so Maccas is a sure fire way of avoiding them! but Roma Termini Maccas was something special. the seats were really comfy and it was so nice and cool inside. we actually ended up spending 2 hours in there! it was just such a blessing to be out of the heat! but we made good use of the time by planning what we were gonna do for the next couple of days.caught the metro to a small church that we wanted to see, but they have a siesta, so we wandered along the leafy Via Vittorio Veneto to Villa Borghese Park. along the way to the park was an actual Lambo shop that had two cars on display and various little Lambo knick knacks for sale. unfortunately they were siesta-ing too, so we continued to the park.we hired a bike which had a canopy and you sit side by side in. once you start pedaling, an electric motor kicks in and does all the work for you! it was great fun to hire for an hour and go along all the paths in the park! definitely do it if you go!headed back to the church which in Jee's book was labelled as Chiesa di Santa Maria Concezione, but didn't appear in the Lonely Planet. this church - or the crypt of the church more like it - is a MUST SEE! it contains the skeletal remains of 4000 faithful followers (i think of the Capachuin monks). but these skeletons aren't lying there whole in slots in the wall or anything as mundane as that. they've been dismantled and the various bones now adorn the walls and ceilings in a myriad of patterns and designs. you'll see stars made of coccyxs (what the heck is the plural form of coccyx?) with borders of ribs and jaw bones and such forth. picture taking was a no no, so i bought a couple of postcards and will take pics of them and post them on the blog hopefully! the final section had what looked like child skeletons. they had the feeling of being cherubim of death. and indeed pinned to the ceiling was one complete skeleton which held a scythe made from bones. twas a really macab!
"What you are now, we once were.What we are now, you will become."i over heard an american saying something about a similar crypt in Paris, so hopefully we\'ll have a chance to check it out too!tried once again to enter the Lambo shop but it was a no go. this time we could see a guy in the office, but no matter how often we rang the bell, he didn\'t unlock the door. i guess they\'re really sick of tourists wanting to take photos of the cars, but i really wanted to buy wanted one of the scale models of a Gallardo so i was a tad disappointed.we bumped into Jeong Hun (K-guy) and Konomi (J-gal) - a couple of friends we made at the minbak - in front of the Lambo shop. they\'d been sightseeing elsewhere and were trying to escape the heat too. went to the spanish steps where "all the beautiful people go". there were lots of "beautiful" indian guys hawking their wares too! probably all the beautiful people go there cos all the boutiques are round that area!headed home for dindins then went out with Jeong Hun, Gyu Sang (another K-guy) and Konomi to a bar called Stardust that was "the author\'s choice" in the LP. twas cosy and funky. stumbled home quite drunk by about 1am