3:30 a.m. Saturday. I wake up to Amanda asking when I was going to get up. Thank god I had packed & showered before bed because I had slept through my alarm and had just enough time to get ready and run out the door as Danielle was waiting anxiously because the taxi had called her to say it was here already…twice.
So after a successful taxi ride to the airport and flight to Rome, we got to tourist information, who told us to take a bus to the city. But it left before we got to it so we took a taxi. A taxi that:
1) Drove on the right side of the road and I didn’t notice until like 10 minutes into the ride.
2) The windows were down all the way – the whole time – at like 90 miles an hour
3) And the driver, oh yeah, he talked on his headset phone in Italian the whole time.
But we got to the city and after some mass confusion found the hostel and Lindsey, who had taken the train from Florence to meet us and may have gotten off at the wrong station. But we found her and went to the hostel. It had the biggest doors I’ve ever seen and the woman was so excited to hear Lindsey spoke Italian…and then sad to hear she was only there for the day.
Then it was on the metro train to the Vatican museum. Inside was filled with statue after statue of muses and roman gods and the most beautiful ceilings I had ever seen. And then, at the end, was the Sistine Chapel. We couldn’t take pictures so I bought a few postcards. It was so beautiful and intricate and I just wanted to stand and stare forever.
Next, was Old Bridge gelato, which is some of the best gelato in Rome according to Lindsey’s friends. Not only did we order in Italian, but it’s common to get 2 flavors in one cone…brilliant right? So I ordered chocolate chip and mint (and when we went again on Sunday, I got chocolate and rum cream yum!)
Then it was the Trevi Fountain, which may be the prettiest place in the entire world. I threw in two coins, which means I will return to Rome and find a new romance so I threw one with a British coin and one American coin to diversify my options. I also made sure we say this everyday we were there.
We took Lindsey to the Colosseum so she could see it before she left and it is literally right outside the train station. That’s how the whole city is. We were just walking along and it was “hello Roman ruins” or “Hello giant monument.” We ate dinner across the street on a 2nd floor terrace that overlooked the Colosseum. Not a big deal.
We were exhausted, so we ended the night with cannoli and 44 cent liters of water. (Such a good idea – why don’t we have that in the States?) And went back to our summer camp hostel with the tiniest showers ever.
Day 2 – Sunday and St. Peter’s Basilica. Mass in the Basilica in Italian. Tombs of the popes including John Paul II and St. Peter. And over 300 steps to the top of the copula. And they weren’t just steps. It was spiral staircases and slanted staircases with slanted hallways that if they were any more slanted I wouldn’t of fit. But the view was all of Rome.
Dinner was in a piazza with a beautiful fountain and delicious food. At the restaurant, they gave us lemon liquor that is an after dinner drink. It was like drinking pure lemon sugar water. Then, we went exploring and found a bar to have drinks where the bartenders were crazy and danced all around us.
Day 3 – The Colosseum was amazing and all around it was the Roman ruins including several temples, arches and the Roman Forum. It was crazy to walk through all of the ancient ruins. So we went shopping and then took the train the airport. The train had little glass rooms a la Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Express.
Three days was really the perfect amount to see everything we wanted to see and not be rushed. And I still can’t believe I was really in Rome.
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