Roman Holiday

Big.

Rome is really, really big.  When I got there, I kind of felt like Coming from Firenze, which is incredibly walkable and small, I was overwhelmed by the size of Rome from the second they handed us the map.  I was shocked at how overwhelmed I was by the size considering I've grown up with New York City, but the City is a grid and I've grown really used to it, so Rome was a whole new thing.  However, besides being absurdly huge, Rome is pretty cool.

Roma is really different than Firenze (and being there made me so happy I'm studying here instead of there) because the contrast between old and new is so apparent there.  In Florence, the new stuff seems to blend in, while in Rome, you're walking down a modern street and all of the sudden it's, "oh hey, there's the Colosseum!" It's also a lot more open and spread out than Florence, which meant I spent my weekend taking cabs or metros between the main city and my hotel (which was on the outskirts in the middle of nowhere, and pretty much sucked all around because it smelled like smoke and the concierge was mean and almost lost our key, rude).

Anyway, we left for Rome at 8 am on Thursday, which meant I had to leave the house at 7 30, which meant I woke up at 7.  Hello, high school zombie-faced me.  It was great, and a wonderful reminder that I am so glad I don't have to wake up that early anymore.  The bus ride to Rome was bellisima; Umbria (where Rome is located) is green and gorgeous, your stereotypical Italian countryside.  Once we got to Rome we got lunch, and sat around and did nothing, because the hotel screwed up and didn't have our rooms ready, but our tours didn't start till 2.

Finally, it was touring time.  The tours were led by teachers from our school, who all magically knew everything and anything about Rome and every little building and art piece in it.  I was amazed.  Miriam and I were in a group with a bunch of our friends led by her painting teacher Franz, he's awesome.  He also crosses streets whenever he wants, whether cars are coming or not, which is not so convenient (or safe) when you have 25 people following you on walking tours.  Only a few near death experiences though.  That day we saw the Pantheon, and I was in awe of its sheer size.  Miriam captured the moment...

Yes, that was my actual face when I walked into the building.  I was most excited about seeing all the ancient Roman buildings and ruins because I am a dork and a)love history and b)love mythology, so the Pantheon was awesome (although its a church now like everything else in Rome).  We also saw the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain (where we threw in the obligatory coin, although I just looked up and apparently you're supposed to throw in 2 or 3...oops.  Fun Fact: approx 3,000 euros are thrown into the fountain PER DAY...the money goes towards the poor...thanks wikipedia!)  We also saw a TON of churches, whose names I can't remember, but they were pretty cool.  That night I saw my friend Ben from high school for dinner, and it was so great to catch up.  From dinner, I met up with my UMD friends from my program and we went out with a bunch of UMD kids who are studying in Rome.  It was so much fun to be with a bunch of Maryland people and was totally worth the late night even though we had to be at approxiamately 7 30 am the next morning.

Friday was Vatican Day.  Seriously, I think saw every single piece of artwork in the Vatican collection.  It was really cool, and the Vatican is beautiful.  The Sistine Chapel (which the signs keep telling you is close, but actually you still have another 2 hours of touring to go before getting there) is really amazing, although really different than what I expected.  Each individual scene is much bigger than in pictures and the whole thing is not as tiny and cramped as I thought it would be.  From the Vatican Museum we went to St. Peter's Basilica, and by this point I had been on my feet for about 4 hours and was tired, hungry, and my feet HURT (like wearing my 4 inch heels for 4 hours hurts, it sucked).  My friend Stacey took a great picture of me that entirely accurately describes my mood

St. Peter's was stunning though and GIGANTIC.  I've never seen such a big church, and at this point I've seen a lot of churches.  There's statue of a saint in the church that Catholics rub the foot of for good luck and obviously I thought of Testudo and his nose :)  From St. Peter's, Miriam and I got lunch with two of our roommates and then went back to the hotel to nap.  After our nap, Miram and I went with our friends Sarah, Sarah, and Ali (who are all in SDT with me) to meet up with our friend Laura who's studying in Rome and is also in SDT.  It was great to have dinner with them and we went to this amazing place called Tony's (where every single abroad student was eating that night...I saw two people from my high school).  The food was honestly some of the best I've had since I've been here.  You should all go and order their bruschetta and their penne alla vodka, which isn't technically an Italian dish, but they put the American versions to shame.  And we got free dessert :)  We were all stuffed and exhausted afterwards so we went home and went to bed.

Saturday was by far the best day of the trip because we went to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum and they were GREAT.  It was so nice to have a break from all the churches and learn about another part of Rome's history.  The Colosseum was freakin awesome...although really cold...but it was so cool to see where all the gladiator battles occurred and to just be standing in such an old structure.  We spent a little while there, and then three of my friends and I got lost.  Our group went one way and we went the other.  However, Miriam called me and informed that Franz (our guide) no longer felt like waiting for us.  Luckily we found another group to take us to our next stop (where we saw the horned Moses) and we found our group again.  Thanks for waiting Franz.  Although, because we got to the Moses church (yes, I just said that) early, we got to hear this choir singing and they sounded gorgeous.  The acoustics in the church were perfect and their voices just soared through the air, it was really awesome.  Afterwards, we went to the Roman Forum to see those ruins. SO COOL!  We saw Caesar's grave and all these old temples and it was just great.  I loved it.  The rest of the day involved lunch and more touring, but Miriam and I were tired and "sneakily" ditched our tour (we are the least bad ass people ever) to take a nap.

That night we went to the Spanish steps to see them at night and then met friends at a restaurant for dinner.  From dinner, we went to the Trevi Fountain to see it all lit up, it's pretty :)  Then we went to a place called Scholar's Pub, an Irish Pub where I watched my first ever rugby game...what a violent sport, they weren't kidding when they said there were no rules.  We made friends with these older couples from Wales who were in Italy for the Rugby game and they were really fun.  It was a chill night with great music and lots of friends :)

Sunday morning was early again.  The night before the concierge had lost our room key (a lot of times here the front desk holds onto your key for you) and I was all ready to go downstairs and politely yell at them and tell them I wasn't paying for it, but it was there, so no angry me.  From the hotel we went to Hadrian's Villa, which is SUPER old, but the ruins were really cool, although at this point I was so tired it was hard to appreciate them.  And then we went to Tivoli gardens which is filled with fountains and beautifulness.  Seriously, they are stunning.  Miriam and I had asked Franz about them and he told us we'd want to take our wedding pictures there, he was totally right.  I may fly back just to take pictures.  From the gardens we got lunch and then headed back to home sweet Firenze!

Miriam and I got dinner with Negrin and Jordan that night at our favorite place around the corner.  They spent the weekend in Spain so it was great to hear about that.  Great end to a great weekend.

Ciao!


P.S.  I totally wrote this post in such a timely matter because I am procrastinating from writing my term papers.  Be proud mom.