Live in the Roman style...

I'm finally blogging about Rome!

Tuesday:
     I got up at 3am to make it to the airport in time for our flight. I was so tired! We hired a van shuttle service thing to take us there and then we waited for a few hours until our flight left. And then we landed in Rome!!!! I was so excited for the first like hour or so that we were there. Then it got super hot and we decided to do the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum all before we got anything to eat. I was so hungry and tired. Everything I saw was really cool but I was distracted by my need for food, sleep, and air conditioning. So after we did everything we finally went to find a place to eat. We found this cute pasta place that was in the Rick Steves book. I had fettuccine noodles with meat sauce and it was delicious! I loved it. Then Hilary got some tiramisu and let us try it and it was delicious, too! This place was amazing. Then we had to try and find our hostel in the dark at like 11pm. We were really freaked out because it was a little outside the city and we had to walk all the way there. It ended up being fine though. The guy that owns it was so nice to us and we actually felt safe there. No one was stolen from and our room was pretty nice. The bathroom was kind of yucky but other than that I was very impressed with our hostel. I was definitely expecting much worse.

Wednesday:
     We got up today and headed over to the Pantheon. It was really cool. The columns were built with the bottoms bigger and then they taper off a little at the top so that they would still look straight from far away. I loved the Pantheon.Then we decided to do some museums. We did the four Natural History of Rome museums. They were all really cool but I can't believe we did four museums in one day! I was exhausted! And my feet hurt so bad! I got so many blisters because I didn't realize we were going to be walking so much. I don't get blisters when I wear the shoes I brought with while I'm in London but that's because public transportation is better in London. In Rome they only had two metro lines and they didn't really go very close to any of the major sites so we still had to walk like 2 miles once we got off. The bus system was sketchy and too hard to try and figure out. Also, while I'm on this tangent, everything in Rome is so inefficient. People crowd on the escalator and just stand there in the way so people that want to walk can't pass by. The metro moved extremely slow as well. It was super frustrating. Anyways, after/in between the museums we walked through Piazza Navona and Piazza Venezia and got gelato! Gelato is so freaking good! It was amazing and cheap! Yum :) Then we had some really yummy pizza for dinner and went to see the Trevi Fountain all lit up and I made a wish :) It was beautiful! Then we went back to the hostel and called it a night.

Thursday:
     Today was Vatican City Day!!! I was so excited to see Vatican City. This was definitely my favorite day in Rome. We got up super early so we could beat the crowd. First we went to the museum and we spent 6 hours going through every exhibit! I've never spent that much time in a museum in my life! It was amazing! I saw so many famous art pieces and surprisingly a lot of copies. There were a lot of real famous art pieces but there were also a lot of them that we would get excited about and then read that they were just copies. It was kind of weird but the rest of the things we saw were really cool. We saw a lot of funny people in the museum, too. There were these guys that kept posing in front of the statues with these really suave looks on their faces. Haha, they looked so ridiculous and it was hilarious. Then there was this guy trying to take a picture and Lacey photo bombed it and when he looked at the picture and saw it, he gave her a thumbs up! Hahahaha, we laughed so hard! We ended the museum by going into the Sistine Chapel. It was absolutely amazing. It is one of my favorite places I have ever been. We just sat in the chapel and looked at the ceiling and read through all the information on the paintings in Brittany's book. It was so cool. Then we went to St. Peter's Basilica and it was just as amazing! Wow, all the paintings and statues were so cool and there were a lot of pieces by Bernini. It was absolutely stunning. After seeing everything we went and got gelato and some pasta for dinner. We got four cheese risotto and pasta with pesto sauce to share. It was delicious :) On the way home we were walking down the street and I saw this homeless man walking towards us. His clothes were ripped and as he got closer I could see that his clothes were ripped a lot more than I thought and in places that I wished they weren't. Also, he was not wearing any underwear... yeah... that was interesting. And then we went back to the hostel to get some sleep!

Friday:
     Today was pretty chill. We walked around and found some churches to look through and just wandered really. We got some treats at a little bakery. I got a canoli and tasted Lacey's amaretto cookie. The canoli wasn't that great but the amaretto cookie was absolutely delicious! Yum, it was so good :) Then we went over to the Spanish steps and sat there for a while. Then we found the Keats and Shelley museum and looked through that. It was really cool and apparently it was in the actual flat that Keats and Shelley lived in while they were in Rome. Keats died there, too. Then we went and got dinner. I got lasagna and it was so rich and creamy and delicious! I also got some chicken and potatoes and that was delicious, too! All the food we had in Rome was amazing :) Then we walked home and passed by the Colosseum all lit up. It looked so cool!

Saturday:
     We just had the morning today because we had to be at the airport at 3:30. So we went to the Borghese and walked around the park and took pictures until our reservation at 1. It ended up being more expensive than we thought and it was really hot outside and the staff were really rude to us so by the time I got in to the museum I was so frustrated. I really wanted to go to the beach for the morning but no one would go with me and they said I wouldn't want to miss the Borghese. We also only had an hour to make it through the museum because that was the only reservation they had open. So it was cool and I love Bernini so seeing his sculptures was awesome but I think I would have survived without seeing it and I really wish I would have gone to the beach. I just love beaches and would have loved to see the Mediterranean sea but I guess I'll just have to go back to Italy :) I would love to see Tuscany and Siena :) So then we rushed to the airport, got on our flight, and made it home to London! I was so excited to be home! Every thing is so efficient here and it's logical and practical and no one stands on the wrong side of the escalator. Haha, I realized that I would really love to live in London while I was in Rome. It seriously is amazing here :)

I forgot to put these in originally but here are some funny things said while in Rome...
- Lacey: Wait, whose your group? You... two...
- Brittany: Abby got retweeted by a sandwich. Lacey: Wait, a sandwich has a twitter?? Abby: Someone made a twitter account for a sandwich. You know the ones without crusts?
- Brittany: It's like those creepy faces that pop on your computer out of those happy fields.
- Brittany: I don't know. I didn't inspect the other one. I was too busy falling of the broken toilet seat. Abby: It's kind of like surfing with your butt.
- A gladiator came up behind Abby and she didn't see him at first so he got really close to her and said, "You have beautiful eyes, and beautiful lips, and beautiful hair."
- A man on the street said this to Lacey: Ms., you dropped something! *Lacey turns around* "It was my heart!"
- Me: Where's Lacey? Abby: Well, call Liam Neeson! Me: Cause you've been taken.
- So I took my hair out of my braids and it was all curly and poofy and Abby says this: You should leave your hair like that. It's pretty. You look like Anne Hathaway in Princess Diaries. Me: Yeah, before the makeover!
- Brittany: Guys, I'm glad we came to Rome so we could make friends.
- Abby: I guess you'll never know the exciting conclusion to "Abby wears a bra."
- Some Italian boys yelled "Hey girls! Spaghetti, Parmesiana, Lasagna!" at us. Apparently they thought we only understood food names in Italian.
- Abby: Where's that mouth of truth thing? Brittany points to her mouth, "Right here"
- Me: I think it would be fun to come here with a boy and rent a moped. Abby: And makeout!
- Sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle: Hilary: I'm a skanky doodle dandy, he's a skanky doodle boy!
- Me: Oh, we can kiss people on the cheek here! Abby: I love kissing.

And here are the millions of pictures I took!!