The cheapest flight we could find was for Friday morning at 5 am, so Annie, Kate and I spent the night at Kate's apartment (and by spend the night I mean we didn't sleep at all and helped Kate pack because she waited to wash all of her clothes until the night before so they were all still wet and on the drying rack. great planning) and left for the airport at 3 am, backpacks stuffed and ready.
We checked into our hostel, the Pop Inn, full of primary colors and all things eclectic, and then walked around a little bit and found our way to the Spanish steps to meet two of my friends from Auburn, Cassie and Leah, who are studying in Ariccia, about 45 minutes outside of Rome! Chi O reunion hay hay! And then came our first encounter with italian food, all courses big, cheesy and heavenly. We went to eat lunch and each ordered what we thought was going to be only a slice of pizza, you know maybe Sabarro style, until they brought out an entire pizza for each of us. Whoops. And you should have seen us trying to order. We kept forgetting that we needed to speak Italian for people to understand us, not Spanish, so there was a lot of hand gesturing and pointing to order and throughout our whole visit. We had never missed speaking Spanish so much. Cassie and Leah showed us around a bit and then we went back to the hostel and passed out for a few hours. That night we met one of Kate's friends from home who is studying in Rome for dinner and she showed us around to some of the ruins and the Pantheon! We attempted to make it to the Trevi too, but got a little lost in Rome's labyrinth and called it a night.
clearly lost
The next day we got up bright and early and headed for The Vatican! But apparently not early enough because tickets for the tour of the museum for the entire day were sold out before we even got there. So we settled for going through St. Peter's Basilica and leaving the museum for another day. The basilica was incredible! It blows my mind that it was built before there were cranes or power tools or you know, cell phones! Just kidding about the cell phones, but it really is amazing. After the basilica we went to the Trevi hopefully to relive the Lizzy McGuire movie and meet our very own beautiful famous italian rockstar, but we had no such luck, so we ate pasta instead. Oh and found this little shop with wooden Pinocchio's! Then we met up with Kate's friend again and she took us to The National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II (I'll be honest, I had to look that up to remember the name), or the Wedding Cake, and then we all went to The Crypt Museum and took a guided tour, you know I'm all about those, which ended up kind of being a bust because the guide only spoke italian.
In front of The Vatican!
St. Peter inside his Basilica
The Trevi!
"The Wedding Cake"
*I would like to preface this post by stating that blogging is a foreign idea to me and I have ZERO experience in this sort of writing and after Kathryn reads this I am sure that I will be banned from blog contribution in the future due to my "lack of wit". That being said... here goes nothing.
The following day Annie choose to sleep in while Kathryn and I woke up at...... 6am!!! Daylight savings oops! If the start to our morning was any foreshadowing of the day, we did not realize it. Being that Rome is a city dominated by Catholicism, we had gotten in the habit of dressing to tour religious sites. This morning Kathryn asked me if we were planning to tour any religious site and without even really thinking I told her that no we would not need to be completely covered. We donned our skirts and dresses and started out on our adventure to the Catacombs of Rome.
Eight metro stops and a bus ride later we were in the outskirts of Roma. The Catacombs are situated in the beautiful countryside, nestled between two tiny, cobblestoned roads that lead out of the city.
Looking around at the entry one would never suspect that beneath our feet lay half a million tombs hidden from the prying eyes and hands of the Goths and Lombards.
The Catacombs is a Christian cemetery that is the final place of dormition for everyone from 15 Popes to nameless citizens and children who fell victim to the Pagan practice of infanticide. Our tour guide, a priest from New Zealand, explained that after the Goths and Lombards looted 90% of the tombs the site was lost for 10 centuries. Pius VI reopened the Catacombs in the 18th century after extensive searching. As our tour guide put it, the discovery was an "Ah-Ha!" moment for the church; if I may quote him, "Bob's your uncle! That's the spot!"
We traveled beneath the earth and explored only a fraction of the 20 km! of passageways. The narrow corridors are lined from floor to ceiling with tombs carved into the stone walls. Looking into them one can see how the bodies laid; the head, shoulders, and where the feet rested.
Our tour guide explained that masses are held in small chapels located amongst the tombs.
we climbed the steep stone stairs into the daylight and to our delight spotted a large sign depicting a woman with a skirt on with a big X through the picture... thus explaining the strange looks we received from the other patrons upon our arrival at the RELIGIOUS site. Win. Embarrassed, we scurried to the bus stop and headed back into the city.
A big round of applause for Kate! Can you tell she's going to be a lawyer one day or what? So after the Catacombs, definitely one of my favorite things that we saw in Rome, we headed to meet up with Annie at the Colosseum! We all knew that it was going to be huge, but hoooooly smokes I don't think we realized how huge! We didn't have a guide or anything for this, unfortunately, so we casually lingered around the tour guide groups to mooch off of them. Sometimes you just do what you gotta do. But it was so cool and then we went and walked around the Roman Forum and popped a squat on the steps of a church to give our poor feet a rest. Nuestros pobres pies.
Little did we know there would be half a million tombs down these stairs
WHOA
ruins of The Roman Forum
And finally, the big sha-bang. The next morning we woke our sorry bums up tan temprano, waited in line for 2 1/2 hours, and then, The Vatican Museum! Where to even start, I don't think anything I could say could do it justice. First off, it was HUGE. If I learned one thing that weekend it is that if the Romans did something, they did it big. It took us about 2 1/2-3ish hours to get through it, and even that was taking the shorter tour. It was so crowded that I kind of felt like I was at a concert, but incredibly beautiful. There were hundreds of statues, big, small and in between, beautiful tapestries, and the ceilings, oh my goodness. Those Romans loved a good painted ceiling. Every inch of that place was stunning. When we finally made it to the Sistine Chapel, they were 2 security guards herding us in and then clapping and yelling at everyone NO FOTO. So naturally we just snuck to the back and hid behind each other so we could take our pictures. I mean how many times in your life are you in the Sistine Chapel?
Mom, remember when I was Athena in 4th grade for greek day? I think my costume was pretty spot on
You can't really tell from this picture, but this big toe was HUGE. I would love to see the rest of the statue that this went to because it would have to be enormous.
How did they do it?
The Sistine Chapel!
¡ NO FOTO! but come on, how could I not?
We had people tell us before not to go to The Vatican Museum because they said it wasn't worth it with waiting in the outrageous line and everything, but I have to whole-heartedly disagree. It was so so cool.
That night we wandered around for hours trying to find this little leather shop we had stumbled upon one day, but instead we found 2 Twilight stars in a vintage shop.
Nikki Reed, or Rose in the movies, and Jackson Rathbone was there too but we thought asking for a picture with even one was annoying enough. But what are the odds?
We all really loved Rome and it was an incredible long weekend, but after 5 days of not knowing what anyone was saying or how to get anywhere, we were homesick for Barcelona and ready to be back on our own stomping grounds.
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