Roma Part I

I didn't want to overwhelm you all with a 50-page synopsis of my experiences in Rome, so I will reveal it in segments that will hopefully be small enough for you to read without falling asleep. Here is part I:

             I was fortunate enough to live a lifelong dream of mine to go to Rome (ok, maybe a dream since I first saw the Lizzie McGuire Movie). On Thursday night we hopped on a train that would take us on a 15 hour ride to the amazing Italian city. It was a bit of a rough sleeping situation but I think we all got enough to keep us functioning on Friday.

            When we arrived Friday morning we went straight to our Hostel, which was in a pretty prime location. I must give props to Kendal who did most of the planning for this trip, including choosing the hostel we would stay in. This hostel had a wonderful luggage… shed… in the back where we could store our stuff for the day. I should also mention that, in contrast to the bitter cold of Vienna, the weather was simply DIVINE. It was not too hot, and not too cold. All you needed was a light jacket.

            Once we all got our stuff put away, we didn’t waste a second getting out into the streets of Rome! I took about a million pictures in the first 20 minutes because I didn’t want to forget a second! Then my camera started dying so I gave up that plan.

Italian on a motorcycle

Italian mannequins 

Italian Street

            Of course I was so excited to be there that I bought gelato at the first place we passed. Pistachio of course. If you’ve ever had Italian gelato, I don’t have to tell how good it is. But I guess if you haven’t, you should know it’s super delicious.

            As we walked and partook of this refreshing goodness, we came upon Capitol Hill. I will never get tired of seeing the amazing buildings that just pop up down nearly every street in Europe. We raced up a super long staircase (I won the race, but I’ll spare the loser by omitting their name :)) and had a wonderful view of the city. I was really surprised by the natural beauty of Rome. I never really thought about what the non-building/ruins scenery would look like but I thought it just added to the splendor of the city.

            After we had a nice brain-full of images of our remarkable surroundings, we headed for the Roman Forum. We didn’t realize the ticket for the forum was also for the Colosseum so the price seemed pretty steep. Kendal (blessed Kendal) asked the lady at the ticket booth if there was any kind of student discount. At first she seemed like she wasn’t gonna give us a break, but then she asked what we were studying. When we told her we were studying European art and history she asked if we could prove it. We actually have a museum pass for Vienna, which was apparently good enough for her. Then out of nowhere, she hands Kendal her ticket! Yep, for FREE! For the ticket we just had to show our International Student ID, our Jahreskarte, and another form of ID, and that baby was free of charge. I freaked out for about 10 minutes after that I was so excited.

            The Forum was awesome. There were a whole bunch of Roman ruins, statues and buildings. Kendal (seriously this girl rocks) even got us an audio guide that we all downloaded to our ipods before we came. So I got to look and learn at the same time. I really loved imagining the place back in its glory days. I find learning about ancient Greece and Rome super fascinating. Though I must credit Percy Jackson for most of my knowledge in that department.