When in Rome

rome was a whole new ballpark for me. it was like nothing i had ever seen before, and yet had that familiar european feel to me. i couldn't understand anything anybody said, which actually through me for a little bit of a loop, realizing that i have grown very accustomed to france.. maybe not understanding everything, but at this point at least always getting the gist of things.

kirstin, her sister tania, and i arrived in the rome fiumencino airport after having spent the previous night in basel (where we would be spending time later in the week). after trying to navigate the airport as well as carrying all of our stuff (kirstin's bag was particularly heavy and difficult to carry), we finally found tania's friend nicole who would be joining us for the rest of the week.

next up was getting to our couchsurfers place, which turned out to not be too hard to find luckily once we'd gotten on the appropriate train and gotten off at the appropriate stop. we were greeted by our hosts, who then offered to make us some pasta. considering it was 3ish and we hadn't eaten lunch.. we accepted.
we had plans to meet up with a friend of tania's later that evening, and our host, daniele, decided to accompany us and show us the way. we agreed to meet at the spanish steps, and off we went. daniele told us it would be about a 45 minute walk, and we decided that sounded like a nice idea. turns out this walk was much longer than anticipated... buttt we got to see a lot of the city by night, including the coloseum, the trevi fountain, a couple churches, some other fountains, and a couple other cool things:

colosseum

trevi fountain

you really do see a lot when you walk seven kilometers... but hey, i'd say i earned whatever i ate this week! plus, i learned that in rome, people don't wait on the sidewalk until there are no cars.. you simply start walking and the cars will slow down to avoid hitting you. it's much faster to get around once you realize this is the trick!

eventually, however we did find tania's friend, and soon decided dinner should probably be the next stop since we were all quite hungry. daniele knew of this club/bar type place that you would pay 10 euros and get a drink and all you can eat at a buffet. this sounded good to us, so we set off in search of it. when we arrived around 8, we found out it wasn't really going to start until 8:30, and so daniele decided to show us some other sites. we realized however, we really needed to get some food immediately, so it was determined that obviously a gelato stop would be necessary before dinner. daniele took us to what he said was the best gelato place in rome.. and i must say, it was pretty delicious. i got lemon cheesecake and milk chocolate. mmmmm.

by a little past 9 we made it back to where we would be eating our dinner. i had never seen anything like it before. it was really nice on the inside, with a bar in the first room. when you continued into the next room, you found another bar off to the side a bit, a few tables around the edges, and a couple long tables with different pastas and plates to serve yourselves. oh and there was some live music on stage at the front. it was quite interesting. after a lovely evening with friends, we headed back to daniele's apartment... taking the bus this time thankfully since we all had very tired feet. and soon after taking a shower and getting ready for bed, we crashed. i mean we did have a full day ahead of us the next day.. and nicole was completely jetlagged from having just arrived in europe.

day two was very busy. we got up a little bit later than planned, but still managed to start our adventures by 10:30 i do believe. first order of business once we were in town was of course to get some food. aka pastries and coffee.. well, no coffee for me.
next we went to find the colosseum.. which isn't all that hard considering we knew we were close and it is pretty obvious.

we decided we wanted to take a tour, so we went to find out when they would be so we could plan our day accordingly. when we got there, a lady came up to us and told us that it would be possible to get a tour of the colosseum and the roman forum in english, and get in with no line for 25 euros (well it should have been 28 for me and nicole, 25 for tania and kirstin because they are european citizens, but the lady told us we could just pretend we forgot our id at home.. and therefore it would be 25 for us as well! ... also, i just got curious how much it could have possibly cost us to take this tour, and it looks like it could have been almost 50! we got a deal :)).. but we had to do it right then because there weren't going to be any other english tours due to the lack of english speaking tourists due to the number of closed airports because of the snow (it was really nice weather in rome while we were there though!). anyways. it sounded like a great idea and we jumped at the opportunity. for the colosseum part of the tour we were even handed speaker things so that we could wander a bit but still be able to hear the guide.

inside the colosseum

the roman forum

i have to say, i love the colosseum. and i am so glad we glad we found that tour. i think it was my favorite part of rome.. though now i really want to watch gladiator.

just some everyday gladiators.. nbd

after the colosseum and the roman forum, we went to meet up with our friends elliot, minerva, and tina. eating lunch with them didn't work out.. so we just met them at the trevi fountain afterwards. we promptly decided it was appropriate to throw coins into the fountain.. seeing as it was tradition.

more wandering the city followed, starting with more gelato, then including getting a view from above a large christmas tree, and wandering around some woods in fog.. not creepy at all... ;)

we all got dinner afterward, which was delicious.. homemade pasta included. and after saying goodbye to our friends.. just for now, ill be seeing them all next semester!... we headed back to our couchsurfer's house. we arrived back around 11:30 and found he'd been wanting to take us out.. so though it was past midnight by the time we left again, tania, nicole, and i headed to what turned out to be some kind of hipster dive bar.. interesting to say the least... by the time we got back somewhere around 3:30, i was about ready to pass out... and i mean we still had another big day in rome ahead of us!

day three involved the vatican, st. peter's basilica, the pantheon, and a christmas market.
the vatican is big. and has a lot of cool artwork. and the cistine chapel of course... which you aren't supposed to take pictures of. and i have to admit, the chapel was different than i expected. i'm not really sure why, it just was. but it was pretty cool to realize i was in the building with the famous michelangelo painting that is always on postcards.. not that i bought one.

vatican

by the end of our time in the vatican (which was a couple hours i'm sure), i was starving.. i mean it was like 3 o'clock. but seeing as big sites close by 4 or 5, we decided to go see st. peter's basilica before getting lunch (i did make sure we stopped for a snack because otherwise i wasn't going to make it). the basilica was amazing. and we even got to see those guards in their silly outfits on the walk over.

st. peter's basilica

just a guard in a silly outfit.. apparently they are a pretty big deal still

when we finally got around to eating some lunch (around 4:30 or 5 i'd say), we went to a restaurant where the waiter was trying really hard to give us a deal.. that we just weren't really going for.. i think he was getting frustrated with us, but we knew what we wanted and were willing to take menu prices since it didn't fit with his deal. when the food finally arrived, it was ok, but i wasn't really all that thrilled especially after being a little annoyed with the waiter. but hey, i finally got some food!
we went to see the pantheon next, which was beautiful inside, but unfortunately had construction going on on the outside. i thought the big hole in the ceiling was interesting.

ceiling of the pantheon

we decided we needed some coffee/hot chocolate, so we went to find a cafe... which are not quite as common in italy as they are in france. but we found one that had coffee my friends enjoyed, and i got a hot chocolate. and what i mean by hot chocolate isn't chocolate milk that is hot. it was more like a large bar of chocolate melted and served in a cup. it was good, but rather rich.

next up was checking out the christmas market, which honestly reminded me of booths at the state fair, and looking for a restaurant for dinner. we checked out the menus of every restaurant in the square, and eventually decided on one. we got bruschetta, i got a spaghetti dish, and a glass of wine.. which i actually enjoyed! the meal as a whole was delicious. i was very happy with it, especially after having been a little disappointed with lunch.

after or amazing dinner we headed back to our couchsurfer's where we found them watching a movie. we just chilled for a bit, resting our feet, and thinking about sleeping. our new friends realized how tired we were and so decided to let us sleep. but first! we had gotten them a gift. a panitone.. because the other night we had returned to daniele just finishing up one. they decided to share it with us and we all moved to the kitchen to eat panitone, drink some wine, and chat. and soon some pandora was brought out as well (another cakey bready thing)! it was a nice last evening with them, and of course we realized a group picture would need to be taken before we said goodnight/goodbye... daniele had work early the next morning.

when we did wake up though/got packed/were ready to head out, we found francesco.. the other couchsurfer, had bought us each a pastry as well as a thing i forget whats it's called. something with a cheese filling that tastes like sweet cream rather than cheese? i dunno. it was amazing though. but soon we really did have to leave so that we wouldn't miss our train. but as a last minute gift to us, they had gotten us something as well. can you guess it? a panitone! to follow our new panitone tradition of course.

so it was a long 2 1/2 days in rome filled with lots of walking and not a ton of sleep, but it was fun. i was happy to be moving on to the next city though, not because i didn't love rome, but because i was excited to get to a slightly more relaxing city, with fewer plans/sites that needed to be seen. so off we went.. to switzerland!