ROME

I've always heard "when in Rome" but I never had the opportunity to use it till now... and actually now that I think about it, I don't think I did ever use it while we were there... damn.

Rome was amazing, so full of history and ancient monuments, it was everything I thought it would be... with some kinks. When we arrived in Rome we were pleasantly surprised to find that our hotel was actually LITERALLY right outside the train station, which saved us all some cab fare. After we checked in, we found out our room was on the fourth floor (again, 3rd floor in European terms) so we hiked up all four flights of stairs, carrying our now EXTREMELY heavy luggage, since we had accumulated several souvenirs by this point... a bottle of wine each for Sarah and Saaya. Huffing and puffing we finally reached our room, and though the plan was to hit the ground running as soon as we got there we were too exhausted to move, so we took short naps before heading out. When we finally left it was sometime after noon, just in time for the hottest time of day in Rome in the summertime... yay. Luckily for us, since we were staying so close to the train station, the bus station was right next to it (we decided to avoid the Metro, since we read it was the #1 pickpocket area!). The bus we were looking for turned out to only come once in a blue moon, so we waited in the hot heat for about 30 minutes till the right one came. And not only was it hot but it was also quite smelly, probably due to the heat and the homeless creeps wandering aimlessly around the station, waiting for the air-conditioned busses. We finally got on the right bus and a kindly old grampa fell in love with me (he asked me seriously if I was a model and I laughed at him) and so he led us to the Trevi fountain, which was our first stop. It was beautiful, and everything I imagined, but quite crowded, so we snapped our pictures, threw in some coins in honor of tradition, tourism, and good measure, put our hands in the cool water and left to find lunch. Lucky for Sarah, we found Asian (Chinese) food right around the corner and we went in. I finally felt useful with my Chinese language skills and helped order us some delicious food... Im actually quite impressed with how good it was... good Chinese food in Rome, who would have thought? After lunch we headed for the Pantheon. It was amazing! It literally felt like it had its own AC system because the marble interior kept the whole thing cool. Hanna and I found a place to sit (on the floor) in the corner for a little before getting kicked out. Oops, forgot to mention a couple things:

1. At this point in the trip, we had all accumulated several bug bites, thanks to Florence. Im saying around 10-15 each on average, I think Hanna had like 20, except Saaya because apparently her blood tastes like stale bread. And with my luck, I managed to get one of my bug bites on my eyelid. And it managed to swell, so I looked like quasimoto--aka Hunchback of Notre Dame--for a good 1-2 days before it went down... Joy.

2. On our way to the Pantheon we met a very drunk (yes, and it was like 3 PM) boy who invited us on a "ladies night" (by ladies night they meant 5 euros cheaper... he goes "for you beautiful ladies" and we go "wait for being ladies AND being beautiful we only get a 5euro discount???") pub crawl. We had fun on the last pub crawl we did so we figured why the heck not.. big mistake, which I will explain later.

After the Pantheon we headed to Piazza Navona to see the Fountain of the Four Rivers (I learned about it in Roman Civ sophomore year but now cant remember why its important...). It was beautiful and the square was full of artists, which was awesome. We lounged here for awhile... Saaya got lost from us and thought we ditched her and hid haha and then we all headed home to start showering for our pub crawl. When we get to the pub crawl, theres a beautiful view of the Colosseum since we met at the Colosseum metro stop, and the sun had just set. I was busy looking at the beautiful monument, but when I turned around I met two very nervous faces.. Sarah and Hanna looked at me and told me that we were basically going on a pub crawl with minors. I look around, scan the crowd (which was like 50 strong at this point!) and see a bunch of kids, about 16-18 looking... and mostly girls eye-ing us back. Lovely. I tried to see a bright side but there wasnt one... we decided to try and stick it out. Big mistake. Red lights flashed in my head when they started playing flip cup at an Irish pub, and the "all-you-can-eat pizza" turned out to be three small slices of lukewarm bread with no tomato sauce and no cheese and only shredded zucchini. Worst pizza Ive ever had hands down. Very unsatisfied, we tried to stay cheery and things got a little better at the next bar, especially when they played a Spice Girls song :) but the next stop was a bar that looked like the set of a cheap, under-funded 90's music video: all metallic.... yeah, Im serious. So I actually got more sober as the night went on, especially since we walked for like 30 minutes between each place, so they actually should have paid ME to go on their pub crawl. Hanna and I walked out and sat on the sidewalk, wishing for our money back and the will and know-how to get home when they announced body shots and we were like HELL NO. The night ended when we got big waters and walked home... and the convenience of the train station nearby suddenly became the scariest area of Rome probably...

The next day we slept in and decided to take it easy. We woke up late, got Chinese food (again) and decided to have laundry day, so the whole day was pretty quiet. After we finished our laundry we showered and headed to Piazza Navona for dinner. We went to a great little place called La Locunda de something right off of the Piazza Navona. They had the yummiest Njoda flan, it was like cheesy spicy flan that you spread on toast, so delicious! And I got ricotta and olivev canoli in tomato sauce which was also delicious. Hanna and I split a bottle of wine, which was no problem at this point since we had wine so much in Italy up till then!Then we wandered around the little streets, found a place that made cocktails to go, and headed back to Piazza Navona. Sarah bought a useless but very fun toy (it lights up and flies in the sky) and we played with it for awhile, laughing and chatting in the square before getting on the bus to get back to our hotel.

We woke up bright and early the next day for the Vatican!! Because of the Vatican dress code, I wore capris and a tshirt.... BIG MISTAKE. Even though we got there around 10, I was already sweating and miserable. So miserable that I couldn't even concentrate on the cool Egyptian exhibit that the Vatican had! Note: I did see a real mummy in a coffin though!!! SO creepy. Anyway, we managed to drudge through all the hallways, lined with beautiful frescos and paintings, until we finally got to the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was a-m-a-z-i-n-g, first of all, because it was cool and dark inside, but more importantly because of the famous fresco on the ceiling. It was unreal! But it was extremely disturbing because despite signs that said very clearly NO FLASH everyone took pictures anyway! And the guards did nothing about it! Don't people realize that they are ruining beautiful pieces of art with their freaking flash photography??? It's bad for the painting!! GRRRRR we stormed through the Sistine Chapel with a lot of anger and tried to get to the Basilica. But of course, because things always go wrong when they can, we went the wrong way and had to go through the same route we had just come from. Again. And this time there were about 10 times more people. No. Big. Deal. 

The Basilica was really pretty as well. Being the biggest Christian church in Christiandom (I think?), I guess it had to be pretty spectacular! It was full of people when we went, with marble from the floor to the ceiling! Lots of surprisingly dark statues... it was beautiful but at this point we were all exhausted from the heat and lack of food. Sarah and I kept sitting down on the bases of pillars and then getting yelled at to stand up. So we took our pictures, even ran into some Texan teachers we had met in San Gimignano earlier in the trip (what a small world!), and left. On the way out we saw the Swiss guards dressed in funky outfits (because the Vatican doesn't have its own security! Weird, huh?) and sent our postcards to friends and family.

After the Vatican we went to Campo de Fiori for lunch--pasta again! :) And after lunch we hopped back on the bus to go back to the hotel: a change of clothes for me, and a nap for the girls. After a nap and a shower, we headed out, back to Campo de Fiori for another great dinner. After dinner we wandered around the small street off of Campo de Fiori where there were lots of little shops and restaurants. There was even a stand outside one restaurant for cocktails to go! I got a Mojito, it was awesome :) then we walked back to Campo de Fiori and shopped along the TINY "night market" if it can even be called that... in reality like 10 little stands on one of the little streets off of Campo de Fiori. I got burned by a woman's cigarette (ouch!) as I was running to catch up with the girls and when we got to the square, Sarah bought another useless item! This time it was a plastic light up toy that flies in the air. This purchase was much more fun for the rest of us, though, and we played with her new toy for awhile before getting on the bus and going home for a good night's rest before our last day in Rome!

On our last day we slept in a little, and then headed out to see the Colosseum (finally!!)! We were a little worried on the way there, because we were afraid that the line would be insanely long and we wouldn't have enough time to see the Colosseum AND the Roman Forum. But when we got to the Colosseum (around 11:30) the line actually wasn't as long as we thought it would be, thank Buddha. We snacked on really bad sandwiches and Pringles as our lunch as we waited in line. Hanna and I shared an audio guide, which was totally worth it, even though the line to get it was EXTREMELY unorganized and took forever. We walked around the Colosseum for a bit, which was REALLY cool, and then Hanna and I went to see the Roman Forum. It was incredible! I will say though that the audio guide for the Roman Forum was a complete waste of money so don't get one if you ever go. We managed to see all that we wanted in about an hour or two, and then we headed back towards the hotel since we had a flight that evening. We caved and treated ourselves to McDonald's! I went a little overboard and ordered a burger called the Big Tasty (oh, and of course the fries and the drink too... "large" which is actually like a medium in the States... jeez no wonder we have an obesity problem in the US!!) which was probably the largest burger I have ever eaten... diameter-wise. Of course it was only after finishing my burger AND fries that I looked at the box and realized I had just inhaled about 83 grams of fat in my one meal. That's more than you're supposed to have in ONE DAY! Thank goodness my "lunch" didn't count for much. It was frightening that I finished all of that, but TOTALLY WORTH IT.

So after our yummy McDonald's dinner, we took a "shuttle" to the airport... and by shuttle I mean a BMW. Yes, it was awesome. Especially because he was a crazy driver!! I loved it. Except for when he pulled into our terminal, when I thought I was going to die. But other than that I loved how fast he drove, it definitely made me miss driving! We got to the airport about two hours early, which felt really nice since it meant for once we weren't cutting it close :) We got in line to check in (which wasn't open yet!!) and in front of us was a girl who was traveling alone, and two guys. The girl was TOTALLY chatting up the guys in front of us, like hardcore. I was sitting on the floor writing in my diary when I kept hearing the iPhone alarm sound, and I was like... what the heck?? whose phone is that?? Then the girls and I realized that it was the girl's cell phone! Yeah, the one in front of us who was trying so hard to talk to the guys! Haha, it was HILARIOUS. She was trying so hard to get them to continue the conversation with her that she was ignoring her phone, which literally would not stop going off. It was so sad. Then, in a very funny turn of events, the guys start talking to us and completely ignored her for the rest of our time in line. You would not believe the death stare she turned and gave us when she saw that the guys she had tried so hard to entertain had just shafted her and started talking to us! Haha ahh :)

After we got through check in we headed in to go to our gate. Since our flight was delayed (we were to find out later that pretty much ALL flights in Europe are delayed), we wandered around duty free for a little, Sarah and Saaya got sandwiches, and Hanna and I split a bottle of wine (our last GOOD wine of the trip!!) and we all talked while we waited for boarding. The flight itself was actually scary because of the turbulence that greeted us when we got closer to Athens, and as we landed in Athens, it was hard to believe that we were in our last country!!