When in Rome...

Hello again folks,

Welcome back to Italy! I’m currently enjoying the beautiful train ride to Florence, where Catherine and I will be meeting Siena for dinner, but thought I’d fill you all in on Rome so my Italy post didn’t get quite as epically long as my Andalucía one. After an epic day of travel (including a 6 hour lay over in the Milan airport, which incidentally is rather reminiscent of Bradley airport in Hartford), Catherine and I arrived in Rome! We trekked on over to our hostel after the bus from the airport dropped us off at the train station. Navigating Rome has been very easy – we got a great map at the train station, and Catherine and I both have pretty good senses of direction, which definitely helps. Rome is big, but definitely not in the sense that London is big. We were able to walk everywhere easily, which was great.

This was not the best hostel I’ve been in, but it was fine. We had a pretty big all female dorm, which got crowded with luggage, and there definitely weren’t enough bathrooms or showers for the whole hostel, which was contained in a very small flat in an adorably cute, very Rome building. Still, on the whole the staff were friendly and helpful and the little annoyances were not a big deal considering how reasonably priced it was (I love hostel prices, haha).

For dinner we met Catherine’s childhood friend, Stephanie, who is studying in Rome this semester. She was super friendly and a great dinner buddy – she also explained that in Rome to cross the street, you have to just walk – there are rarely any signals. Cars will stop, but it helps if you stare them down, which Catherine and I got very good at. I had AMAZING pesto pasta for dinner. Sorry Bryce, your pesto is delicious, but the combination of freshly made pasta and amazingly fresh pesto made this a whole different story. Catherine and I headed for bed after that as we were very tired since we hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and had had a long day of traveling.

We got an early start the next day and went to the Tomb of the Unknown Solider, and then to the Trevi Fountain (Courtney said we should sing Hillary Duff songs there since she did that movie there, but we decided against it, haha). The fountain was beautiful, though, as with most of Rome, was very crowded with tourists. It was too funny – we heard almost as much English as we did Italian.

Next we headed to the Vatican. We were approached by a tour guide and listened to their intro for free, thought about doing the tour, and then decided to save ourselves the 20-euro by just doing the route they had explained on our own. We figured out that if you go in through the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel and then take the tour guides exit to St. Peter’s Basilica, thus missing the horribly long lines in front of St. Peter’s. The Sistine Chapel was absolutely breathtaking – after a very long walk through the museum, Catherine and I spent about 20 minutes just taking in the chapel – it is just so incredibly impressive. Then we walked through the crypt of St. Peter’s and saw the tombs of several popes, including John Paul II. It was incredible to see how many people were crying when they saw his tomb and who were praying in front of the tomb. We then went on into St. Peter’s itself, which was absolutely breathtaking. It actually reminded me a lot of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, which is surprising since England so differentiates its church from the Catholic Church.

For lunch we had some earth shatteringly amazing pizza, followed by café (typically Italian – very strong espresso, and delicious). We then walked around Trastevere, which is a cute little neighborhood with a great hill that offered a lovely view of the city. We then took a break at the hostel, re-grouped, emailed (this hostel had wireless that worked with my Mac, which was greatly appreciated – the wireless in Spain had not liked my Mac for some reason). For dinner I had Gnocchi, which was again absolutely amazing. I love Italian food and will be so sad to leave it behind, though I’m excited to eat more delicious Spanish food in Barcelona). We then went to see the Spanish Steps, which were gorgeous, particularly with the lights since it was dark out. The weather was great the whole time we were there – sunny and nice and warm, probably around 65 to 70).

This morning we got another early start and headed over to the Pantheon, where we saw the Rotunda and the Piazza Navona. We also found a Deutche Bank (they don’t charge you ATM fees, like Barclay’s in the UK, if you have Bank of America, so Catherine and I are ALWAYS excited to find one). We then checked out the Coliseum, which was SO big! It was quite impressive. We also walked by the Roman Forum before we grabbed some lunch. I had tomato soup, which sounds simple, but was wonderful. We then headed back to the hostel to regroup and then grabbed some café before heading to the train station to catch our train to Florence!

In other news, I have figured out my living situation for next year! I’m very excited to be living in the Fred in a quad with Catherine and our friends Fiona and Grace! That will make for an amazing senior year rooming experience!

Up next, Florence! I hope you’re all well and happy and enjoying life wherever you are!