ROMA, Italy

Bonjourno from Rome, Italy!

Awaiting our departure time of 2am…my friends and I sat in our empty rooms together and chatted...mostly about how weird it was that we would never be back at Harlaxton again…or if we would then it would never be with all of the people that have been here with us day in and day out. It hasn’t really dawned on us yet that we will never be back…well at least not me. We left Harlaxton on Thursday morning at 2am…we all cried as we drove out of the circle, away from the magnificent house that has consumed our lives for the past 4 months and been our home and we drove into another foreign identity and unknown territory. We got to the airport after a 3 hour drive in the coach, checked our luggage, and hopped on the plane…not knowing what to expect (meaning the ash cloud). The first few turbulence drops were a bit frightening…I was too on edge to sleep…but then the all nighter caught up with me and I passed out. We landed in Rome safe and sound, got our luggage, and walked out into 75 degree weather…we were all so excited that we almost took all of our clothes off and just laid on the ground from our 4 month lack of vitamin D.

Thursday afternoon – This city is so incredible and historic. I had no idea how much there is to see and half of it you aren’t intentionally trying to see. There are more fountains and monuments and churchs and Piazzas that you know what to do with! Once we got settled in the hotel and hit Vatican City! First we stopped at a street pizza place and got a really good Pizza for lunch (First Italian food!!) We went to St. Peter’s cathedral which was incredible…the largest Cathedral in the world. This American guy who is here by himself asked me to take his picture for him in the church (VERY cute…more of a pretty girly cute than a manly hot…you know?) and we started talking about my camera and his camera and then he pretty much went into his life story and me and my friend Emily were talking to him for about 15 minutes in St. Peters…is was Halarious! OH!!! And by the way (mom and dad…mostly dad) It is Cultural week in Rome so EVERYTHING is FREEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We don’t have to pay to get into anything!! Except for Vatican Museum and we get student discount for that. How incredible that we are here for cultural week…and it ends Sunday right when we leave! I have already saved over 60 Euro! WOO! Okay so we left St. Paul’s and then ran into a wonderful public water fountain (Im not kidding...it was really wonderful)…that had 5 spouts that continuously pour water out of them. Its just like a big fountain but you can drink out of it...and it was the best water I had ever tasted. We walked to the Vatican Museum and missed the last time to enter so then we went to the Trevi Fountain, got FIRST GELATO! and came back to the hotel to freshen up and then went and grabbed our first Italian sit down meal! I got lasagna…YUM! Then we went to bed and had a wonderful day in Rome! Oh and we saw the most beyond good looking guy in the world on the Metro…imagine every hot model you have seen in a magazine and they all just stepped out and combine…that was this guy. He worked for a Refrigeration company hahaha!!



Friday – Today was a great day! We woke up and had a nasty breakfast at the hotel…which involved a pre plastic packaged Croissant. What is that? It was raining today  Boo. We went to Vatican Museum first thing. This is incredible…there were so many sculptures…so many…and the ceilings were spectacular. At the very end of the Museum is the Sistine Chapel. Talk about awesome. However, you have all of this other really amazing stuff that leads up to the Sistine Chapel so you think that this is going to blow your little pee brained mind out of the water…and it does but I think that the suspense built up is a little extensive. There were tons of Chinese tourist groups there that don’t know how to mind anyone’s space…as usual. However there weren’t many mirrors around for them to take pictures of their reflections doing the peace sign. Sad day. We finished The Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel (which I took pictures in, and I probably have the authorities after me right now)and went to a Trattoria Restaurant place right outside of Vatican city and eat a GREAT meal. I had Spaghetti and meat sauce and the men who ran the place were so nice. They gave us bread and chocolates for free. One of the men went in the middle of the street and started eating a plate of spaghetti to get people to come to his restaurant haha!! It was so funny. They were the nicest Italians that we have encountered so far. Then made our way to Piazza Navona and The Pantheon. The Piazza Navona is a wide stadium like place (like a park) and it has tons of artists and fountains and a tall pointy monument in the center. There are a lot of shops and restaurants around so we hung out there for a while and looked around. Then we went up a couple blocks to The Pantheon. This is also in another park like space with a tall monument in the middle and the Pantheon is a LARGE church building which is VERY cool and is beautiful on the inside…but different than any other church you have seen. We walked around and took pictures and then got on a bus and went to The Colloseum, The Forum, and The Palentine. These are the Roman Ruins. The Colloseum is obviously where the Gladiators used to fight and prisoners, where ‘Jumper’ the movie with Hayden Christiansen was at (most likely NOT filmed here) and also where Lizzie McGuire had her concert in ‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie’ (also very likely NOT real). But who cares…the most important person in the Colloseum is ME! We took tons of pictures (it was still raining and this is all outside) and went on the different levels and then made our way to The Forum…which are more ruins of stadiums and such that the Romans used. This was a HUGE area covered in ruins and 3 cats that we happened to encounter while we were there haha. After all of this excitement and history, we were pooped and about to collapse on the sidewalk in the rain. We went back to the hotel and rested for a bit and then went to the Trevi Fountain so that we could see it at night. It was incredible! We tossed some coins, took some pictures, and got some gelato! I got a yogurt Gelato that has blueberries, raspberries, and black berries..YUM! We came back to the hotel and got a few things at the supermarket, took showers, I went down to the lobby to get on the internet and ended up waiting an hour while talking to my friends. Then I came up, loaded pictures, and went to sleep  Great Day in Rome.

Saturday – Raining again! What is your deal Rome?? We didn’t really have too much to do today because we saw most of Rome either by purpose or just by running into churches and monuments that we didn’t really mean to see. So we decided to wake up late and walked to a really beautiful church nearby our hotel. We walked around for a while and then took the metro to the Spanish Steps (most expensive shopping area in Rome) and if you stick your hand in this statues mouth and lie then it will bite your hand!! I didn’t do it because I forgot and we were all really hungry and getting cranky. We shopped around for a while and then went down to the Pantheon & Piazza Navona to eat and got pizza and rested and then we looked at a few shops and then we went to a Gelato shop with 92 FLAVORS!!! It was awesome! I got a 4 flavor cup and I got 1 strawberry, 2 banana split, and 1 chocolate mousse…heaven in my mouth! It was called Della Palma and it was in front of the Pantheon. We were all about the fall apart so we caught the bus back to the hotel and took a LONNNGGG nap . We just woke up and went to the Supermarket and got some snacks and now we are back at the hotel and sitting and chatting. This has been a great city and a great trip. We are heading to Florence tomorrow!!

Some more to add to blog after pondering in the bus to Florence.

- There were nuns and fathers walking around everywhere in Rome which was super cool especially when you know that this is their homeland haha. It was also awsome to see all of this stuff that is in Angels and Demons and alot of other movies filmed here.

- Outside of our room was a constant club party going on which was an interesting lullaby to sleep everynight. It was also mixed with one of my roomates snoring.

- 5 DAYS TILL HOME!!!!!!

I love you all so much and I cant wait to tell you all about Rome, Florence, and Venice!


Ciao!!

Me in front of St. Peters in Vatican City

Me at Trevi Fountain

Me in front of bridge in Rome

Me in front of Colloseum