rome rome many tears have fallen here...

but not mine. i had an awesome time.

i traveled to rome with my friend rebecca two weekends ago and i was surprised how much i loved it! i didn't think anything could beat florence, but rome sure did give florence a run for its money.

it wouldn't have been a trip with ali labelle if some medical situation didn't come with. this time, my voice was on vacation as well. i couldn't say a word! poor rebecca had to deal with my whispers and sign language the entire first day...such a trooper. past that though, everything went smoothly!

we got into the city mid-afternoon on friday, so we dropped off our stuff at our extremely clean, very impressive hostel near the stazione termini (which, looking back, we could have stayed somewhere much closer to the cool stuff) and headed for the colosseum. it was closed so we couldn't go inside, but the sun was just going down and it was so pretty!

[rebecca]

then we walked past the monument to vittorio emanuele ii, which is essentially a huge white building with a lot of statues, but at night it was SO pretty! even though i had no idea what i was looking at.

[some beezys got in my picture]

i could list off every single thing we saw, but to look up all the names that i can't remember...nah. you'll just have to trust me that the city is beautiful, and that i saw a ton between the monument and the trevi fountain.

when we got to the trevi fountain, we did the typical tourist pictures, made some lizzie mcguire jokes, and watched some awkward and not awkward couples take pictures of themselves kissing and being romantic in a crowd of hundreds. i think the area around the fountain was my favorite part of rome that we saw...so many little restaurants and wine bars and leather shops! all tourist traps, i'm sure, but we WERE tourists, so i didn't feel too bad.

[had to do it]

we had wine at a place called chianti (i think?) before dinner. my parents kept talking about prosecco and how delicious it was, so i tried it and loved it. like parents like daughter. we had dinner at piccolo buco not too far from the fountain...3 courses! it was delicious and wonderful and the service was great, despite my trouble communicating. so fun!

after some gelato we called it an early night because we had both experienced the harry potter craziness the day before and had woken up super early. we fell asleep almost instantly and arose (a little behind schedule) to a jam packed day.

we headed towards the vatican city for our museum and sistine chapel tour. i am SO glad we opted for a tour because we would a) have had to wait in a huge line and b) never would have learned everything that we did! we walked right in and followed our little tourguide around to learn about the pope's house.

i'm not catholic, but i sure was in awe of the vatican. first off, there is SO MUCH ART. so much. it's unbelievable to me that michelangelo and raphael walked those halls and looked at the same sculptures and paintings that i did. second, i had a hundred and one questions about the logistics of the vatican. it isn't technically a part of italy, but it's own republic. can airplanes fly in its airspace? if there is an emergency, do they have their own police, fire, and medical facilities? can the people who live there leave whenever they want? unfortunately, i didn't get the answers to any of these questions because i would say them out loud to rebecca, and she had no idea, and i was too busy learning and looking to ask. i'll have to do some research later.

we went through a lot of the museum...a room of maps, some courtyards, the raphael rooms...and then into the sistine chapel. no pictures and no talking allowed, right? apparently this rule did not apply to the asian tourists. oh my gosh. some of them were just yakking away, snapping pictures (some with flash!) like there's no tomorrow. i was getting real heated about this...some people were having significant religious moments and these people were ruining it! so i have no pictures from the sistine chapel because i follow the rules, but let me tell you, it was beautiful. and i did see the painting of god and man reaching for each other. and it was awesome.

we meant to turn right into st. peter's basilica but we turned left, which was a one way exit from the vatican city. AHHH! there was no turning back, and we were so mad that we missed the way to st. peter's, but we would just go around the other side, right? no big deal. we left the city, grabbed some pizza, and headed towards st. peter's. and then we saw the line to get in.

ridiculous. we couldn't do it. we would be there all day! so we stood in the piazza for a little, took some pictures, gawked at the THOUSANDS of people waiting to get in, and headed out. it was time to see the pantheon.

we walked for a while, passed a lot of other really cool stuff that i don't know the name of, and ended up at the pantheon! just our luck, it was undergoing some refurbishment, so we didn't get any pictures sans scaffolding. oh well. it was still really cool to see it, especially after having talked about it in our art & architecture class.

we got some gelato and weaved in and out of shops for a while near that area, but it came to a point where our feet were screaming. after a quick nap break at the hostel, we headed back towards the pantheon for dinner. a clown kept bugging us and this reeeeally southern hick family was sitting next to us. the mom listened to our entire conversation and kept butting in, which was fairly uncomfortable. more gelato and a cab ride later, we were back home. it had been a long day. ten hours of traveling and some interesting little speed bumps were the only things standing between us and london.

i wish i could have spent more time in rome, especially because i wasn't feeling well and it would have been fun to experience more of the culture. but that just gives me a good reason to go back! shea? ;)