14 december 2010 - roma

hello all! i am officially DONE with my first semester of junior year. i don't want to talk about the fact that i am officially closer to being done with college than i am with starting it...

reasons i love criminal minds...

i've been spending my time watching a thrilling crime drama called criminal minds. roommate kristen used to watch this show every wednesday and i never gave it the chance it deserved. i am now wholly invested in the lives and careers of quantico, virginia's behavioral analysis unit. side effects include: constantly being on the alert for possible random serial killers. as if i wasn't an anxious person before... thankfully i have just 4 short seasons left!

but on to roma :) we arrived a day later as a result of the dublin airport fiasco and went straight to a subpar dinner and back to our hostel, were we fell asleep at the casual hour of 8 pm. i was awoken in the middle of the night by people being rowdy in the halls. emily and i were acting all annoyed until i checked the clock and it was merely 10 pm... when normal college students might be leaving to go clubbing or something? we're really cool. woke up bright and early on friday to take our guided tour to capri! unfortunately this tour was canceled and we ended up going to naples and pompeii instead. the trip should have been called just "pompeii" since we only did a quick driveby of naples... disappointing since i can't seem to keep my eyes open for more than 5 minutes in a bus. even when the guy was narrating, i was headbobbing all over the place.

but what i did see, pompeii, was incredible... for those who don't know, this roman city was completely buried in ash in 79AD. walking through the streets of this once-flourishing town was fascinating but disturbing. it was surreal to look at the plaster casts of people who had been suffocated by ash and casts of doors that were still ajar, just as they were left in a hurry 2 centuries ago. on a lighter note, we learned that pompeiian prostitutes were called "lupa" aka "she-wolves" which is i guess how shakira was inspired? and when pompeiians had dinner parties it involved a 16 hour feast, naps included. just off the main dining area was a room reserved for vomiting so that one could continue eating...

the best part of pompeii was our guide. we don't know his name but he was an adorable old man who left us with the parting comment: "we are approaching sunset, stay as you are." he was probably just commenting on the time of day, but i think he was metaphorically commenting on how fast life flies by. english major much? 

our guy is in the middle :)

friday night we found an adorable little restaurant near the trevi fountain. we took it as a good sign that there were natives in there! we had the best gnocchi in the world and shared wine while planning out the rest of the trip. after dinner? gelato time right next to the trevi fountain. coffee and hazelnut (ahem, spence) was on the menu and we were surprised with free entertainment when a drunk man climbed to the top of the trevi fountain! the gelato shop owner assured us that this was not a regular occurrence and we watched in awe as police roped off the area and tried to figure out how to get the guy down! funniest part was when they pulled out all the stops and brought in a fire truck with ladder to try and reach the guy... ladder was too short and they had to retract it in shame.

just like lizzie :)

on saturday, our first real day in rome, we bought a hop on hop off bus pass (if i've learned one thing this year its to sacrifice my dignity and throw myself wholeheartedly into being a tourist) to take us to the vatican. st. peter's basilica was the most beautiful and ornate church i have ever seen. it was brighter and more marble-y than notre dame and therefore it was easier to see how high the ceilings were and how every inch of it is intricately carved. after walking around with our mouths agape for about 30 minutes, we made our way to the sistine chapel. words cannot even describe how incredible the vatican museum is, let alone the chapel itself! i'm not a huge art person (see amsterdam post) but i could have stayed in there for hours. i think that i was most amazed by the vibrancy of the colors and the intricate details in every scene.

after a lunch of perfect pizza, we walked to piazza navona and campo de fiori to peruse some christmas markets. the market at piazza navona had a strange carnival atmosphere. there were also a lot of witch dolls around? no idea. next was the pantheon which was sadly under construction. inside, however, was a life- size nativity set that was gorgeous. we left the pantheon and walked along the tiber river towards the colosseum and roman forum. the colosseum was yet again, incredible to behold (pretty redundant here, aren't i?). i've decided that i'm pretty glad that i won't ever have to be a gladiator, but it must have been insane to stand in the middle of that ring.

 

exhausted, we returned to our hostel where we fell asleep watching cadet kelly in italian. thankfully i knew the plot so well that i could understand what was happening. i truly miss hilary duff's glory days. sunday morning we woke up to walk the spanish steps and proceeded to wander all over the place until our train to florence was set to leave. note: walking the spanish steps does not indeed require 3 hours.

i can honestly say that rome is now at the top of my favorite cities list. the food and abundance of monuments is really all i could ever ask for :) next up? florence!!!