Let me begin with Friday, our awesome day in Vatican City. After walking for almost an hour and a half through Rome we made it to the Vatican and went to the Vatican Museum. I honestly cannot describe how incredibly lucky I feel to have been able to see this museum in addition to seeing the Ufitizi gallery in Florence and the Louve in France. Seeing some of the most famous paintings, artworks and sculptures in the world has been completely unreal.
Vatican City!
The square
Inside the Vatican Museum
We left the Vatican and headed to St. Peter's Basilica. And it was such a joy to again pass a million Bangladesh men who think that by shoving scarves, trinkets, bouncy balls or umbrellas in your face is their best biz strategy. IT IS NOT. I think after hearing "Ah, you girls beautiful! Like this scarf? Made for you! It is waiting for YOU! 6 euro! No, where you go? 4 euro! Wait, I make good price! I make deal! We are friends!" I literally once just yelled NO a little too loud and surprised myself. I'm SO grateful we don't have crazies like this in America because in every single country we've been to they are around selling everything you can imagine on the street. (My favorite time was probably in Paris when these Moroccan guys came up to us and kept calling us Lady Gaga as they pushed tiny metal effle tower trinkets in our faces. Thanks?)
Sorry for that random tangent. (I'm in operations management and have been hearing too much about aggregate planning so I might be going a bit crazy. Don't worry I'm 100% paying attention though..)
Back to Friday.. the Basilica was VERY beautiful and spiritual and magnificent and everything you could imagine. I mean the Pope does attend church there so I guess it has to be pretty rad. I kept trying to casually sneak behind tour groups to hear some fun facts but unfortunately I didn't come across many English tours and my Japanese was a bit rusty.
Inside St. Peter's Basilica!
After wandering around the Vatican and loving it all, Maddie and Layla then went shopping while I went back to the hostel to take a power-nap (I had only gotten about three hours of sleep the night before since I was up super late registering for classes.) And also who knows how much sleep you get in Rome, so I needed to prepare. (Another random tangent: I was the last rotation for registering and the only classes that were left were bizarre classes like "Computers for Poets" and "Nuclear Weapons in the post-9/11 World" and "German Literature in English Translation." Luckily I was able to get into some business classes but who knows, I may end up having to take Islam or something, lets all hope I'm able to crash some classes.)
Back on track here.. Later on, we headed out for a night walk across Rome (coordinated by our bff Rick Steves) which began at the Spanish steps. We got off the metro right after the downpour had subsided and were lucky enough to see the gorgeous area with very minimal tourists around! After admiring the ritsy shopping streets around, we walked to our next stop, the Trevi Fountain. I'm SO glad we were able to see the Trevi at night because it was a lot more magical, (and the rain had kept most of the tourists away. Yay.) We also walked to the Pantheon and it was so impressively preserved for being built in 126 AD. Fun fact.. the Dome is the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. Genius.
Trevi Fountain
The Pantheon!
After, we meandered to Piazza Navona and saw great markets, and then on to Campo di Fiori (a huge beautiful piazza) for dinner. I had dinner with my family in Campo di Fiori when we were there and still randomly recognized the restaurant where had eaten dinner! We chose the place next door and sat outside looking onto the huge piazza complete with couples frolicking, tourists roaming around, and Italian guy mobs just mobbing (oh have I never mentioned that Italian guys like to travel in packs? Yeah. Like mobs of six guys just roam around together.)
The night turned out to be very entertaining when two Italian guys having drinks at the table next to us kept winking and eventually told our young waiter to tell us that they would like to by us drinks. Luckily, Maddie and I were sitting with our backs to them, but Layla was facing them so she had to bear the winks and remarks. We politely told our waiter we declined (since they were closer to the late 30's range) but couldn't stop laughing because they were being sooo forward and schnazzy in their Italian ways. We felt so bad for our waiter because he somehow turned into their messenger, but he was loving it and our total embarrassment. Our waiter then came over and insisted that the guys wanted us to go to a club with them and would drive us in their car, to which we realized this was getting way out of hand so we just kept diverting eye contact. Unfortunately, a rose-carrying Bangladesh guy walked into our restaurant at the wrong time and before we knew it we were being handed roses and the guys were winking and saying all sorts of things in Italian I'm glad I didn't understand. We nervously laughed and said grazie before we luckily paid and slipped out pretty fast. Ohh man, Roman men. You've been warned!
Campo di Fiori
On Saturday, we woke up to rain but thankfully it only lasted for a bit and by the time we made it to the Colosseum it was clearing up. It was pretty amazing to be standing in the presence of such an immense building that was built in 72 AD. (I still cannot fathom how things like this were built without cranes or machinery. It's just insane.) Even crazier is how men and animals, like tigers and leopards, would fight to the death and thousands of people came out to watch the bloodshed go down. Did they bring popcorn or something?!
Rainy day & the Colosseum
Amazing!
Dear Rome, you're GREAT.
We headed to the Roman Forum afterward and spent awhile seeing the rubble of what were once incredible structures. Even though it was hard to picture, I loved walking on the cobble streets and thinking about all of the people who have walked on the EXACT same stones and thinking Caesar totally stepped right here. (We also met a very photogenic cat and may or may not have spent 10 minutes staging the cat by random Roman Forum buildings..)
Adorbs!!
Roman Forum
Probably have never seen such a gorgeous city in my life!
View of Colosseum!
Sunday involved a lot of doing whatever we felt like and ending up wherever that led. Which is the best way to find the most random and neat things. We wound up at the Trevi fountain again and did our obligatory coin tosses for good luck. According to google three tosses are the best.. one for love, marriage, and to return to Rome. :)
Throwing the coin!
Happy kid!
The gelateria that Julia Roberts goes to in the movie Eat, Pray, Love!
We did some window shopping, people watching, and lots and lots of walking around the entirety of Rome. At least 432 miles. After dinner at a hole-in-wall Chinese place down the street from our hostel, we decided to head back to see the Colosseum one last time to see it at night before our flight home. It was gorgeous and the perfect scene to end our trip!
View from the top of the Spanish Steps!
Now back to reality.. apparently we're learning about facility utilization. Our final for this class is next Monday so I should get back to real note-taking instead of just typing all of this while looking up and nodding every few minutes. Only 46 more minutes to go. At least I'm heading to Prague in three days with my best friend for our last European trip! And weather.com is predicting SNOW. What the whhhhat! I'm going to be rocking six pairs of leggings.
