Rome - Day 2 - free day

Day 2: 

Booking the underground tour was a pain....
We woke up late.  I called the Colosseum tour again and asked if they could put us in tonight, since the representative said I could only book over the phone and not in person.  After 5 minutes of waiting, an agent finally picked up and said the underground tour cannot be booked on the same day.....ACCCkkkkk I blew up.......I called long distance so many times before and they kept saying the schedule was not out (even the week before)?  After a bunch of crap, I finally was able to book an underground tour on Friday (Sept 21) at 12:40pm....

Our cheap little breakfast from vending machines:
We bought 3 sandwiches from the hotel's vending machines for breakfast (only 2,50 Euro each ~ Tuna salad, Egg salad and Shrimp...nothing too fancy...but quite good).  We also bought mocha and cappuccino from the vending machine too...

We didn't have much plans and we just decided to stroll around Rome.  Weather was quite bad, very cloudy and gloomy.  We walked on Via Nationale and checked out some of the leather shops.  We took some photos of some ruins, Altare della patria & Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio (Piazza Venezia).  That was like the centre of Rome, well for us it is.  Whenever we got lost, we just had to look for the Piazza Venezia.

We walked to the Spanish steps and the shopping district (high end fashion brands like....Prada, Chanel, Gucci......) We walked into this fast food place and had some pasta.  The bottle of white wine was only 3,70 Euro and it was quite good.  

Food court lunch - casual and cheap :)

After lunch, we went to do some shopping and suddenly it was pouring rain...so we went into the McDonald's and had some mcnuggets.  It was packed inside..many tourists went in and waited until the rain stopped, the server got quite rude to other tourists.  The McDonald's was quite trendy though.

Finally, the rain stopped.  The spanish steps....not as many tourists as I expected... It looked nicer at night time though (night shots at another pose) :)

Parking in Europe is quite impressive.....they leave so little space in between the vehicles.....it was quite amazing to see some of the parking jobs.  In Canada, we leave lots of space when we park.

Since our hotel had a very nice terrace, we decided to just relax and chill for the night.  We bought some freshly made sandwiches and opened the complimentary bottle of red wine we got from Florence.  The hotel's roof garden was quite nice.  It was still raining so bad, and it felt very peaceful just chilling at the covered patio :)