Vamos A Granada: ROME: The Eternal City

So I’m going to divide this blog up into sections based on city because its way to long to do the whole week in one. But I’ll try to keep this fairly short with lots of pictures. I went to Italy this past week with Lindsay and Angie.

We started out our trip by waking up at the obnoxious hour of 6:15am, but I obviously didn’t get out of bed for another half hour. I was so tired, but so excited!! Lindsay and I had breakfast, said goodbye to Sarah, and met Angie at 8:15am at the bus stop, which took us to the bus station, where we got on a 3 hour bus for Sevilla. Sevilla was gorgeous and I can’t wait to go back. It was sunny and there were tons of palm trees, and we ate our sandwiches in a park. It was like 60 degrees. We got to the airport super early and sat in the airport for 3 hours before we left at 7pm for Rome. The flight was supposed to last for 3 hours, but we landed at 9:15pm. We hopped off the plane and buon giorno Italia!!

(me in Sevilla)

We took a bus to our hostel- Central Station Inn. The place was really nice, and we got our own room. We quickly learned that Italian is not that similar to Spanish, and not everyone in Italy speaks English. We went to sleep early, at like 10:30, because we had a big day ahead of us!!

Tuesday we woke up early again. We got free breakfast at a place called Canadian Bar. It was an Italian breakfast, which consists of a cappuccino and a croissant-like pastry. I hate coffee but it wasn’t bad. Then we walked across the street and got on a train to Roma Termini. Our hostel is technically in Ciampino, which is like on the outskirts of Rome. The train ride was only like 10 minutes. From Rome we got on a Metra which took us right to the Coliseum!! (Colosseo in Italian) Everything we’ve ever heard talks of the 3 hour lines for tickets, but there was no one there. We walked right up, got our tickets, and went into the Coliseum. It was absolutely gorgeous!! And I actually learned a lot, like it was built from 72-80AD, so it only took 8 years to build. We took tons of pictures inside the Coliseum, and then it was off to our next stop.

We had planned out 5 things we wanted to do on our day in Rome, and then the next day would be the Vatican. After the Coliseum, we went to the Jewish Synagogue for Lindsay. It was my first time in a synagogue and it was really pretty. It reminded me of a church, just no crosses. Then we went to the Pantheon. It was really pretty on the outside and looked like it belonged in Greece. Inside there were paintings, Rafael’s tomb, and a hole in the ceiling. We looked around and took pictures, and then it was off to our next stop, and one that I was probably looking forward to the most.

I was in charge of the map and we followed street signs and signs until we finally got our first glance at… the Trevi Fountain. I was so excited!! At first I just kind of looked at it to take it all in and then I realized that Angie and Lindsay had walked to the front of the fountain. We took tons of pictures together, plus we were all wearing our sorority letters. We stayed at the Trevi for like a half an hour taking pictures of each other from different angles.

Little fun facts: The Trevi Fountain was built (I’m pretty sure) in the 1500’s. It took 30 years to build. Posidon, the god of the sea, is in the middle. There are 2 horses on either side of him, which represent the 2 ways of the sea: calm and rough. The bottom of the fountain represents the ocean floor. If you throw coins in, it means different things. 1 coin means you will return to Rome. 2 means you will find love in the Eternal City. 3 means your wedding is coming soon.

After the Fountain, we had lunch. We got pizza and gelato, which was absolutely amazing. Then we only had one thing left on our list: the Spanish Steps. We walked there and took pictures. They were really pretty. We walked to the top and looked at the view. Then we looked at our watches. It was like 2:00. We felt really bad because we had done everything we wanted to, and we knew Rome has so much to offer, but we didn’t know what to do. So we just started walking and at 3:00 we found a place to sit. We took out our map and I found this Fontone de Tritone, or Triton Fountain, so we walked to that.

We decided to walk to this Plaza thing called Piazza de Popoli because it looked cool on the map. We found a statue of Caesar, lots of pretty buildings, and statues of lions. We obviously took pictures next to the lions because they are the symbol of our sorority. Then we looked up and saw people looking down at us from a Plaza higher up and decided we wanted to go up there. We walked up and saw a view of the whole city. It was so pretty. We even found another statue of a lion!

We wanted to see the Trevi at night, so we started walking that way again. In Chicago, it gets dark at like 4pm. Well in Italy, it doesn’t get dark til like 7pm. So we made it to the fountain and sat there until it got dark. We took some more pictures and then walked back to the train station with my super awesome map reading skills.

This was probably the most stressful part of the whole trip- getting on a train back to Ciampino. We thought we knew what train to get on by reading these signs that said Ciampino, but right before the train left, we heard over a loudspeaker some talking in Italian, and then about half the people on the train got off and started running to a different platform. We freaked out and we got off the train. We followed the running people and asked one person “Ciampino?” They shook their head no. We jumped off the train and went back to the sign we read. We were so lost. We decided we had to ask someone. We went up to a few people and asked if they spoke English, or even Spanish, a Spanish girl had helped us earlier. No one spoke English. Or Spanish. We finally found someone who worked there and spoke “a little” English. We got to our train and got off at Ciampino.

Then we were hungry and decided to go out for dinner. We walked around Ciampino and stopped at a place called Pizza Party. It sounded fun, and the menu was cheap. We really wanted pasta because we had eaten pizza for lunch. We walked in and they called a guy from the back to talk to us because he spoke English. He must have thought we were clueless. Angie asked what was in the lasagna and he started explaining what lasagna was to us; and then I asked what was in the ravioli and he started explaining what ravioli is. Hello, I’ve had Chef Boyardee. He talked me out of like 3 different entrees saying I won’t like that because it has like seafood or something else weird in it. Lindsay and I got the ravioli and Angie got the lasagna. Then he asked us what we wanted to drink. One thing I miss about the US is the free water… Water costed like 3 euros and I had just realized how thirsty I was. So instead, Angie ordered us wine. I don’t know what kind it was, but I was excited to try it. I’ve tasted wine before but normally I hate it and can’t drink more than a few sips. But this is Italy, and it’s famous for the vino. Our food finally came and it was delicious. The wine was actually really good and I had like 3 glasses. Lindsay didn’t really like it, but Angie and I really did. We might have had a little too much… haha. We paid for our food and wine and went back to our hostel, where we figured out there was a computer with internet. We found out on Facebook that ISU had closed down that day and Chicago was basically covered in snow. I was upset I missed a snow day, but then I realized I was in Italy and can’t really complain.

The next day we slept in until 7:45 and went to the Canadian Bar again for another free breakfast of coffee and pastries. I wore a cardigan because it was Wednesday and my sister started this trend called Cardigan Wednesday. I told her I would wear one if she watched the movie Letters to Juliet. She still hasn’t seen it. Anyways back to the story. We had to carry our backpacks with us because we weren’t sleeping in the hostel again that night. We figured out the Rome train station much easier today and took Metra A instead of B and ended up at the Vatican. We walked into St. Peter’s Square. It was huge. The walls surrounded the city and had statues of saints on them. There were fountains on either side. We took pictures and then actually entered the Basilica. It was so pretty and so big. You could take pictures, but it was really dark inside, so none of my pictures turned out very well. Angie wanted to go to Confession in the Vatican, and they have all these different stations with different languages. We couldn’t find English, so she went to the Spanish one. The ceilings were painted, and there were statues and paintings everywhere. It was so beautiful. Then we went into the Vatican Grottos and saw tombs of previous popes, including Pope John Paul II. Angie wanted to buy souvenirs for her siblings, so we stopped there.

(St. Peter's Square)

Then we wanted to go see the Sistene Chapel. We had to walk out of the Square and into the Vatican Museums. On the bright side, we got to drop off our backpacks! We wandered around the museums. They all had painted ceilings, so every time we entered a new room, I thought it was the Sistene Chapel. I remember seeing a movie about Michelangelo painting it in one of my classes, probably in high school, but I wish I had remembered more. We walked past paintings and statues and artifacts until we finally got there. Of course, no pictures. I looked up and was blown away. I can not believe that one person could paint all that. Especially considering he did it in only 4 years, and he permanently damaged his back in the process. But we sat there (thank God you could sit, my neck was starting to hurt from looking up) for like a half an hour just staring at the ceiling. It was so pretty and so much to take in.

Then we left the Vatican Museums, got our backpacks, and went across the street to get lunch. A guy in the restaurant asked Angie if she was Spanish, which is kind of funny because she really is Italian. Her last name is Spiotta. Today in the Vatican, a guy asked me if I was Spanish. I got really excited but then said no. I’m blonde here, and everyone has dark hair, so I really stick out as an obvious American. Although some guys in our hostel did ask if we were English. So anyways, in Italy, you basically have to pay double if you want to sit in a restaurant, so to save money we got our food to “take away.” We ate outside on some steps since it was a beautiful day. When we finished we went back to the train station.

This is the part of the trip where I got really mad at Eurail. They gave me a book with times to different cities at what times the trains depart/arrive. Rome to Florence should take about an hour and a half. The guy tried to charge us 10 euros. Um no, the point of the pass was that the tickets would be free. So to get a free train, we had to take a 3 hour train. Excuse me, that part was not covered in the book I read like 86 times before our trip. To cheer myself up, I bought the 3 of us McDonald’s French Fries in the train station. It has been about a month since I have even seen a McDonald’s. After waiting about a half hour, we checked what track number our train was. It was kind of like an airport, but no security, and you don’t have to get there 4 hours early. The train was actually really cool. We sat together, journaled, and we even had a tray between us. We talked and got excited for our next destination: Florence.