Rome

Rome was definitely the best trip I've taken so far in Europe. It makes me want to learn Italian so I can move to Italy! What's not to love... delicious food, friendly people, beautiful scenery, history/ruins EVERYWHERE. Take my advice: GO TO ITALY. GO TO ROME. (Though I hear Florence is incredible too. Next time.)

We were off to a semi-inauspicious start, however. We (eight girls from my Paris program: me, Rachel, Shelly, Stevie, Misa, Sarah, Lexi, and Megan) got a bus from the Ciampino airport into the center of Rome itself and then were totally lost. We found a bus station (it was roughly 12:30am, by the way), but could not figure out how to catch a bus. Then, out of nowhere, who appears but a Chilean Jesuit priest named Claudio! He just approached us and asked, "Do you speak English? Are you lost? Do you need help?" He was such a nice guy! We actually were going to take the same bus as him, so he showed us how to buy tickets and pointed out several things on our Rome map. Turns out he lived in Madison, Wisconsin for the first eight years of his life, even though he was Chilean. I didn't want to ask why he left Chile... thought it might be rude. Now he lives in Rome with other Jesuit priests. He even told us we could come visit him, but we didn't end up having enough time.

We eventually found our hostel, which was actually a converted convent, so it was for women only and was quite clean and nice. Since there were so many of us, I was in a room with four other girls so we didn't have to worry about our roommates stealing our things. Our time in Rome was absolutely jam-packed with things, and at the airport waiting for our flight back to Paris, I made a list of things we did, so I'm just going to transcribe it from my journal.

Friday, Nov. 28

***Author's note: many of the facts I will relate about Rome are courtesy of our excellent Colosseum/Roman forum tour guide, who know a lot about a lot. She was amazing.

Wake up call: 8:30am

Borghese Gardens: A park-type area with a gallery of amazing art

Bernini sculptures... Apollo and Daphne, The Rape of Persephone, David

These were hands-down the most amazing sculptures I have ever seen/will probably ever see in my entire life. You weren't supposed to take pictures, but my friends Misa and Shelly are art freaks who snuck their cameras in anyway, so I have copies of their pictures. Just LOOK at Hades's hands on Persephone's thigh and waist... can you believe that's marble??

By the way, it rained probably 60% of the time we were in Rome. Apparently we managed to get there during the rainy season, aka close to wintertime.

We ate pizza at this restaurant where no one spoke any English... now I know how tourists feel in France. It sucks. :-)

We took the Roman metro to the Spanish steps. I had heard lots of horror stories about the Roman metro, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Rome's metro is something like only two lines though, and they don't go many places. The problem is that there are so many ruins underground that the city will start digging to make a new line, then they'll run into ruins or something and have to decide if it's worth it to keep going. Often they'll just fill the ground back in because they don't have enough money to excavate, but they don't want to destroy the ruins either. Bummer.

We ate gelato and walked around the Colosseum at night and saw Constantine's arch as well. We passed a building (don't remember what it was) that has the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (with a torch) and the eternal flame of Rome. Apparently, the Roman soldiers are licensed to shoot to kill if someone attempts to smother either one of these torches. Is it the same in America? I don't actually know.

We went to the Trevi fountain at night and just relaxed. I threw in a coin for good luck. The Trevi fountain is gorgeous! Then we went to the Pantheon and ate dinner in this cute little outdoor restaurant decorated with white Christmas lights while these men played some jazzy bongo drum music. It was amazing, except for the part where it hailed!

Afterwards we got more gelato. After all, when in Rome... eat gelato!

Bedtime: 12:30pm