rah rah ah ah ah ROMA ro-ma-ma

As the title of this entry suggests, I have Lady Gaga stuck in my head. Also, I went to Rome. I had been looking forward to the trip, as it would mean I would be well into the double digits of countries visited. Because there’s not just Italy, you see, no no, there’s also the VATICAN! So I have officially visited 12 countries (I don’t count Ireland because that nightmare of an airport doesn’t need to be remembered). Cool. Moving on.

We met up with the API group at 9 a.m. in Plaça Catalunya where we would be taking buses to the airport. We got there with a little bit of time to spare, so that was cool. A couple of people and I actually RUSHED to find coffee at the airport because we didn’t wanna miss boarding. Well, we definitely didn’t need to worry because the flight that was supposed to leave at 11:15 didn’t end up taking off until sometime around 1:30. I had vowed not to eat anything that day unless it was Italian pasta or pizza or even gelato, so needless to say I was starving.

We did eventually end up in Rome and we had a bus tour of the city scheduled for 5. Like I said, I was starving, and my little group was as well so we ran into a restaurant and told a guy in a weird mixture of Spanish, English, and Italian, that we had 20 minutes, and he said “LASAGNA!” so we sat down, got 2 pitchers of wine (WHY?) and waited. When we thought we were gonna have to bail on the lasagna as there were only 5 minutes left before the bus tour, he brings out our lasagna and our table became one of an eating competition. After no more than six minutes, we were out the door having all eaten our entire lasagna and somehow managed to empty both pitchers. Pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. We met up with the group again, and uhh… no one knew where the buses were. Not even our “tour guides”. So we spent an hour walking around searching for them and when we finally found them, it was dark and it was kinda dumb. We were supposed to go into St. Peter’s basilica and stuff but, you know, it was closed. I actually fell asleep on the bus at one point.

After the tour my group (Amberlyn, Katie, Charlie, Joe, and Brian) and I went to find some food. We found an awesome place and got our fill of pizza/pasta, and then, because the waiter had kinda forgotten about us, though we didn’t notice, he wanted to make it up to us so he got us all two shots of Limoncello. Yumm-ay! After that we walked around and ended up at the Trevi Fountain, where we had the first gelato of the trip. The fountain was beautiful and it was really cool seeing it at night because it was all lit up and stuff. A guy proposed to his girlfriend while we were there awwww! Anyway, we kept walking and decided to go into this one bar for a drink. It was really really funny because there was a “band”. Just two men doing their thang, playing (bad) covers of Michael Jackson and other weird stuff. We were all just laughing, without anyone ever saying anything about it and we finished our drinks and got out of there. We found an Irish pub which was much more all of our scene, and we were happy. Apparently, that weekend was when the 6 Nations rugby tournament was going on and there were SO many people in kilts walking around! First time, it was kinda cool, but when there’s a bar FULL of men in kilts, you just get overwhelmed. They know how to drink though, and the bar was LOUD!

Saturday was spent touring the Coliseum and everything else. It was really cool to see the coliseum, just cause it’s so ginormous. AND that’s not even the whole thing. It used to be bigger! It was fun to imagine the whole thing full of people, cheering and hollering in excitement as a gladiator fights for his life. They had some old marble that had survived all those years with “graffiti” on them; spectators would carve pictures of their favorite gladiators or of animals into the marble, and that was really cool to see. I always get so weird when I think about really ancient stuff. Like, once upon a time, thousands and thousands and THOUSANDS of years ago, people were here. Doing stuff. It’s a bit surreal for me to think about.

My group and I walked from the coliseum to the Vatican and went to St. Peter’s Basilica, which was really beautiful. They had all the popes’ tombs in the basement and people were kneeling and crying over John Paul’s tomb (the one that recently died?). Also, St. Peter’s tomb was there and the basilica is basically built on top of him. AND, speaking of dead people, in the basilica, NOT in the tomb area, John the 23rd is just chillin in a glass case. Like… his real, embalmed body is right there for people to see. Charlie, who went to Catholic school and kinda knows about this stuff, said something about people believing it’s a miracle that he has been preserved so perfectly. Honestly, he could just be sleeping in this glass box; he looks like he’s still alive. Really cool, REALLY creepy. Anyway, after the basilica our group split up because SOME people were whiny about their feet. Charlie, Brian and I walked to the Spanish steps and we finally got to sit down. At this point, we had been walking for 6 hours straight. The steps were cool; no idea why they’re there or why they’re called the Spanish steps, and the view from the top was beautiful. It was weird to see the city from the top because everything is flat. The roofs of all the buildings are pretty much the same height, except for the basilica in the background. When we got back to the hotel, everyone needed some time to… I don’t know, nap? And while everyone was doing that, I was just hanging out, watching TV and stuff and I decided to use my pink highlighter to trace our steps of the day on the map I had. We literally walked the ENTIRE circumference of Rome, and then some. Holy crap!

Amberlyn’s birthday was Sunday, so we had to celebrate on Saturday. We found a place to have dinner and it was DELICIOUS! I don’t think I’ve ever paid that much for dinner myself but it was SO worth it. The company was really awesome too, making dinner such an awesome experience. We sat there for well over 2 hours and just talked and ate and drank and it was fun (: I really like those people. After dinner we went to a plaza called Campo di Fiori, which consists of bars, basically. The bars serve your drinks in plastic cups and people just walk around in the plaza. At one point I got separated from the group and was bombarded by Italian guys. That was fun, if not a little overwhelming because they all had something to say and they all wanted to say it at the same time so I was being pulled in one direction and the other and back again…
After a couple of drinks, Charlie, Katie, and I decided to head back to the hotel and we got gelato on the way. We just went to bed but apparently the other half of our group stayed up until 7 or 8. Brian never even went to bed. Crazies.

Sunday we were all hungover. We went to the Vatican AGAIN and saw the pope speak. That was about the only exciting thing about Sunday. The pope spoke mostly in Italian and a little bit in Spanish, English, and German. The square was PACKED with people and you would never think you were there to see the pope. He came to the window and people started SCREAMING like they were at a concert or something! He talked about the earthquake in Chile, and he gave shoutouts to different countries. When he gave Spain a holler we all cheered (: The whole thing lasted about 20 minutes and we slooooowly made our way back to the hotel. We honestly didn’t really do anything all day. Got some food. Got some gelato. Bought dumb souvenirs. Spent ALL my money, and then spent more money because I refused to leave Italy without something made from real Italian leather. I walked into a little store by myself, and there were two old people in there and I tried on some sandals. I couldn’t decide which pair to get so the owner lady told me to get both andddd I laughed cause yea right! I’m happy with my purchase and they are SO comfortable. I put them on yesterday while I was at home, thinking I should start breaking them in, except they don’t need breaking in at all, they are already really comfy! So awesome.

I think this blog entry has been sufficiently long now… I don’t feel like writing anymore. Basically, I think Rome is okay. It is absolutely beautiful around all the big tourist attractions like the coliseum and the forum and all that, but everything else is just… shitty. It’s a really dirty city and there really is nothing else to see in it, other than the attractions. In Barcelona there’s always something, even if it’s just a little side street, and I didn’t find that once in Rome. Granted I’ve been in Barcelona long enough to stumble upon these types of things, and I am definitely biased. I didn’t love Rome, is what I’m saying. I can appreciate the sights and the ancientness of the whole city, and I am definitely glad I had the opportunity to go there, but I didn’t love it. It was awesome, though, being somewhere and pretty much being able to understand the people. Italian is very similar to Spanish and my Spanish is getting pretty good and I got by speaking Spanish for the most part because people understood me too. My whole exchange in the shoe store was done in Spanish on my part, and Italian on her part, and we both understood each other. I love languages. I have an entry planned, about languages where I am, so I’ll get into that. For now though, I am done! Peace! You’re awesome if you read this whooooole thing!!!

http://gallery.me.com/rakel88#100122