la dolce vita

Rome is gorgeous. There is literally art everywhere you look. We are talking about the most beautiful cathedrals and basilicas in the world...and there are hundreds of them just in Rome.

We got off to a little bit of a rocky start. We arrived to the airport around 5 or 6 pm on Friday (I don't know why we didn't take a morning flight, but that's beside the point). Then after we got our bags and searched 20 minutes for the bus driver, we found out that our tour guide for our bus tour was no where to be found. Our program directors weren't too happy and then we ended up just picking up the tour guide from wherever he was haha. A little strange and then our bus tour ended up being a night bus tour which was okay, but at this point everyone seemed to be tired from travelling....So after the bus tour we got to our hotel which was amazing by the way. API really hooked us up. They even had doorbells for each room and there were motion lights above the doors...excellent choice. I went with a group of friends on a wild chase for a restaurant that was recommended to us, but when we finally found it we discovered we needed a reservation, which we didn't have so we continued on to find this little hole in the wall Italian place for dinner. Del.icious. I had bruschettaand gnocchi pasta with red wine The wine in Italy is definitely a good choice, I'm not that big of a wine fan and I love it. After dinner, even though we were stuffed, we had to get gelato. I think I had nutella, hazelnut, and strawberry or something like that and I would swim across the sea for another scrumptious gelato cone. :)

The next morning my roommate for the trip Lauren and I decided to wake up early and go for a little walk before the walking tour, since we were only going to be there until Sunday. (We are looking at basically one full day, a night, and a 1/2 day in Rome, I would not recommend this short amount of time). Props to the hotel for their breakfast. Breakfast isn't too hot in Spain so I thoroughly enjoyed the granola and dried fruit cereal I had.

So our hotel was pretty close to the Vatican and we started off our walking tour and just walked around the area by us and to the Vatican, just kind of taking in the scenery and the people. It was really nice to be out at 7 in the morning because the air was so fresh and there weren't a ton of people out...very relaxing. Our walking tour with API started at 9:35 so we headed back to the hotel, just in time for another stab at breakfast haha! The our tour guide took us to Piazza del Popolo (Plaza of the People) and from here 3 streets branch off from the Piazza, which is known as The Trident and these streets are known for their expensive shopping. We passed Louis Vuitton, Dolce and Gabbana, Prada etc, etc. We passed other plazas on our walk as well as several churches. She took us to the Trevi Fountain which I LOVED and didn't realize how big it actually was. Interesting story: she took us to the fountain from a side street and told us to stop in this certain place where we were standing right next to the fountain but couldn't see it because of this structure.

It was built by the creator of the fountain because a barber lived right next to the fountain and every day he would come outside and criticize the artist work. To stop his complaining this Ace of Cups was built right in his line of vision. I thought that was pretty funny.

The fountain is pretty incredible and we threw in 2 coins into the fountain, the first meaning we will one day return to Rome and the second meaning we will meet an Italian boyfriend or girlfriend.

After the Trevi Fountain we went to the Spanish step and drank from one of the public water fountains and by water fountain I literally mean huge fountain. haha all of the fountains have really clean water that you can drink out of anytime.

Then we walked to the Pantheon and saw Raphael's tomb inside. Saw more and more ancient ruins. They are just all over the city in fenced off areas. It's really cool to see. There was also a spot near the Pantheon where you could look down about 12 meters and see an ancient street of Rome. It is strange to think how much of ancient Rome is buried under the city of Rome today.

Our walking tour ended at Campo de Fiori, where they have a market each Saturday I believe. So I bought some trinkets while I was there, we grabbed a quick slice of pizza each and headed towards the Vatican so we could make it in before it closed for the day. We heard horror stories about the line for the Vatican Museum so we were worried that we might not get in, but we must have picked a perfect time because I think we were in line for only 10 minutes or less. The Vatican was honestly overflowing with art. There was so much there and we didn't even come close to seeing half of it I'm sure. We saw famous paintings by Raphael like The School of Athens

The best part, of course, was the Sistine Chapel and the painting The Last Judgement. We did not have time to go inside St. Peter's Basilica, but we did get to see the outside of it.

After walking around for a solid 10 hours I felt like my feet were bleeding and covered in blisters. haha. So we walked to the hotel to rest our feet for about an hour and then we were off again in search for dinner. We found a nice side street with nice restaurants where we got to sit outside, eat lasagna, listen to music, enjoy some red wine, and eat tiramisu. Can't get much better than that. After dinner we decided to walk to the Spanish steps because it is tradition for travellers to go there and meet other travellers. We did that and saw the Trevi Fountain at night. Two stunning views. After that we were completely wiped out and trekked backed to the hotel. I think I feel asleep in 2.2 seconds and woke up again around 6:30 because we had to be back at the hotel at 4pm.

We wanted to see the Colosseum and took the long way to get there passing through some older areas of Rome that were so so pretty and we even ended up catching the end of mass at San Maria in Trastevere. Some of our friends did end up going to the Vatican on Sunday to see the Pope at noon. Here's a picture...

I would have really liked to do that as well, but the Vatican Museums are closed on Sunday, so we had to do the museums on Saturday, which left us with Sunday for the Colosseum. The Colosseum was great! Our tour guide gave us all sorts of cool information and I took lots of pictures. It was pretty cool getting to see one of the 7 Wonders of the World. It's hard to imagine what it looked like in Ancient Roman times, because all that is left now is the bare skeleton and part of it was damaged from earthquakes. But it used to be covered in tapestries and there was actually a canopy top and marble seats. Pretty incredible structure for that time.

Now here comes my favorite story from the trip. My friend Marissa and I are the last people in our group to visit the Colosseum and then our ticket actually got us into Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum so we checked that out quickly before we had to leave...and then we decided to walk back to the hotel and find somewhere along the way to stop and eat. Well we found this cute little pizzaria and when we walked in the door this was this fairly large man anywhere from 50-60 years old standing there as well, waiting to be seated. Well the little Italian man waiter walks up to us and is like 3? And Marissa and I are trying to say 2, but he keeps going back and forth between 2 and 3 and he's speaking Italian and we are speaking English and Spanish and then it ends up Marissa and I asking this man to sit with us for lunch. Ok here goes...His name was Gerry from Louisville, KY. He has a wife with whom he is about to celebrate his 35 wedding anniversary and fingers crossed will get their vows renewed at the Vatican. He also has two full grown daughters, one who is expecting their first grandchild. Gerry talked alot. He told us he is an aeronautical consultant Boeing airlines and has lived in places like Russia, Panama, Kenya, numerous states...etc etc. He even ended up supporting this Russian artist who has painted the Queen of England twice, along with self-portraits of the women in his family. He also has a landscape painting from this artist estimated around 100,000 dollars. He asked us some questions about school and gave us some insightful advice. We had carbonara for lunch and strawberries and ice cream for dessert. Then it came time to pay for the meal and Marissa and I started to pull out our wallets and he told us he would pay for our lunches. When we tried to offer to pay again he said, and I quote, "You guys wouldn't even believe me if I told you how much money I made."

This story is no tall tale, but actually fact. Almost immediately after he paid Gerry tells us he has to run and catch a bus or he's going to miss it. He shakes our hands and tells us it was a pleasure meeting us and was gone just as quick as he'd come. I think Marissa and I stared at each other for approximately one full minute before either one of us could say anything.

The story only gets better when Marissa got up to go to the bathroom and the little old Italian man comes over and holds my hand while Marissa is gone. I don't really know why it didn't bother me haha, he was just a cute little man who wanted to hold my hand I thought. Then when we go to leave our waiter man is sitting outside smoking and he sees us and springs up from his chair dropping his cigarette. He starts to say goodbye to us and opens his arms like he wants to give each one of us a hug. Well in my joy of wanting to hug this little man goodbye, I totally forget that people don't hug in Europe, they kiss you on each side of the cheek. Well by the time I remember this I am WAAAYYYY to close to this old man, like too close for him to kiss my cheek and he ends up kissing my neck and I don't know why but all I can do is laugh. Then he called me bella and kissed both sides of my cheeks and at this point Marissa is dying laughing and I have tears running down my face. He tells us to come back next year when we are in Rome and we laughed the whole way back to the hotel. It was a perfect way to end our marvelous Rome viaje.

Phew. That took a long time to write. We are finally getting some nice weather here in Madrid and this is actually my only weekend in Spain this month. So I think I'm going to check out some museums and parks this weekend. Do some Madrid stuff :) Yesterday was St. Patrick's day and you know what it was pretty dang fun. No green beer and no South Side Irish Parade, but we did end up meeting the CEO of Tuenti (which is basically Facebook in Spain) and a bunch of his friends and they bought us drinks all night. So thanks Madrid for a good night!

-Morgan