Day 30 - Camera Purchase

This morning we got off to kind of a late start. The previous days we left our campground at 9 and today we left at 10. Since we only had about 30 pictures left on our memory card we spent the morning looking for a larger shop so we could buy a camera use the cord then return it later on. We only could find some mom and pop stores. We got some suggestions from an information booth on where to try so we decided to do our sight seeing then head out of the city to the store that was recommended to us. So we headed straight for Saint Peters Basilica with our guide book in hand. We snapped some pictures from the outside and headed on in. Moving through the line i noticed the pictures they posted about appropriate attire and innnapropriate attire... I was borderline. I had my swim shorts on and shorts were not allowed. I brought a pair of windbreaker pants with me just in case they frowned at my attire but who wants to wear pants when it is BLAZZING hot out. So, I pulled down my shorts so far that they looked like capri pants, shirt covering my butt of course. I waddled right by the security guard who was pulling a lot of people out of line because they had shorts on. Heading up the stairs to the church my shorts slowly migrated back up to there original position. We spent an hour and a half touring the church and reading about the history here. This church was huge. After checking everything out we headed to the top of the dome. We are cheap so we took the stairs in stead of the lift. Not to bad 300 an some steps later we were at the top. from the top we could see all of the vatican, which is behind big walls, and the rest of Rome. After our tour we hit up a pizza joint and were off to the Italian Mall outside of the city. When we arrived we found a huge electronic store. After about 30 seconds of charadds, the employee figured out i wanted to buy the camera in the display. The employee explained that I had "7 days with the receipt, after that 2 year warranty with Kodak". Great, 2 minutes later I was out the door. Sat down at McDondalds for some dinner and started downloading the pictures. AFater we downloaded we did some shopping and headed back to the store to return the camera. The Owner of the store said we couldn't return it... WHAT!!! I looked over at Allison and steam was coming out from her ears. She started talking in her italian ebonics (you know and some funky ending on each word to make her English sound more Italian, she even through in some extra hand gestures like the italians do) they explaind to us that it was Italian law!!! What kind of garbage is that? They said we could exchange it for something in the store for the same value, that was it. GRRRRRRRR so we looked around. Allison told me i could get an X-Box if i wanted. WOW!!! Last time i mentioned that i wanted an X-Box the next words out of Allisons mouth were "over my dead body" no joke. I thought this was a test, you know how our wives do that to us in unique situations to see what we would do. I was scared i didn't know how to respond, was she serious or not??? I paused for a moment and then i thought to myself, am i going to carry my backpack and an x-box for the next 2 weeks? I said no i enjoy my free time with you better then some dumb machine ;) Phew I got through that one... We decided we could take this brand new camera and do something with it. We thought of all of our friends who had kids and no digital camera. We started listing off everyone we knew who would love a Kodak 6.1 megapixel camera DX 7630, I know great camera huh? It needs a good home. We left beat down and with a lot less money in our pockets. We ended up at the train station and checked on our train times and figured out what time to leave Rome. By this time part of the subway system was shut down so we took a bus home. On the bus there was a VERY drunk man who decided to strike up a one sided conversation with Allison in Italian. He proceeded to show her and talk about each animal that were in all the advertisements all over the bus. We made it home safely and showered and called it a night.