Why, yes, I did go to Rome . . .

Way back in January, while I was visiting Becky in Florence, we decided that we wanted to go see Rome. Or rather, I wanted to see Rome and Becky was nice enough to come along with me and spend her own money even though the school was going to be taking them to Rome later on and paying for everything. Being that we're poor college students, we did a very quick whirlwind tour of Rome, Jan 2-4, Wed-Fri.

After missing the train we were originally going to take, we train-hopped our way down to Rome from Florence rather than wanting to spend two hours waiting in a cold station for the next direct train to Rome. An experience I wouldn't really recommend. We managed to find our hostel and then set off to experience a little bit of the city. First stop was the Borghese Gardens and Art Gallery. The gardens are gorgeous, think of an Italian version of New York's Central Park. Since you have to have a reservation for the gallery we didn't stop in but just tried to make reservations for Friday. Afterwards, we walked around in search of food and ate some amazing sandwiches at a bar where after the bar tender unsuccessfully tried Italian on me, her next choice was German, which also rewarded her with a blank look. Gotta love the mix of people in Europe. :D

Being that I'm studying Spanish, a big stop for me in Rome were the Spanish Steps.

Even though they're really not much, just some steps next to the Spanish consulate, they are the "Spanish" Steps. So I was happy to sit down and pause for a picture. We then wandered through the streets on our way to find the Trevi Fountain.

I love the fact that the fountain is located in such a way that you can't see it from a long ways off down some street. None of the streets directly approach it so you're walking along, and bam! there's the fountain with billions of people. Our night walk continued on to the Pantheon

and then the Piazza Nuova where I had my first really big disappointment in Rome. One of the fountains that I really wanted to see was the Four Rivers fountain. It's a representation of the four most important rivers in the world and unfortunately was undergoing restoration.

Boo. While we were in the Piazza, which had a fair-type thing going on, Becky and I munched on big huge donuts slathered in Nutella before heading back to the hostel for the night. Mmmmmm.....

Day Two in Rome started way too early with a visit to the Vatican. After waiting for an hour and a half in line (glad it wasn't summer) we entered the museum and wandered up and down the halls looking at all the cool old stuff and famous paintings and sculptures and such. One great painting is the "School of Athens" which has a bunch of famous thinkers and such, including Euclid. Yay for geometry!

At the end of the museum is the Sistine Chapel. An amazing ceiling, I must say. That Michelangelo really knew what he was doing. And yes I did take a picture when I wasn't supposed to.

I managed to escape the censure of the poor employees who's job is, as Becky put it, "to be hated," as they tell everyone to be quiet and to not take pictures. After the museum we went into St. Peter's Basilica,

where we did not see the pope but did see Michelangelo's "Pieta." A little bit of a disappointment. I was hoping for something bigger. Outside the basilica, we spotted the Swiss Guard in their funny, out-dated uniforms and then went on our way.

We passed by the Vittore Emmanual Monument (apparently locals call it the "Giant Teeth" or something like that), another monument under restoration,

on our way to try to see the Trevi Fountain in the daytime (which we didn't). But I did throw a coin over my shoulder into the fountain which means that I should be destined to return to Italy at some point in my life. We then went back to the hostel where we discovered that we now had new roommates in our dorm room who were Spaniards (yay!) that we managed to have a conversation with. It's always so nice to run into Spanish people when I travel to other parts of Europe.

Friday began early again with a visit to the Borghese Gallery. This art gallery did not disappoint. Because of the reservation system, it's less crowded than the Vatican and it's mainly all people who WANT to look at everything rather than just rush through the museum to get to the end and see the most important work (think Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel). The sculptury there (unfortunately I don't remember the guy's name, started with a "b") was simply amazing. There was a sculpture of Napoleon's sister on a couch that was so well done, the cushion looked real and I wanted to touch it to make sure that it really was made of marble. After the gallery, we went down to the Colosseum. But not before going ALL the way back to the hostel to collect my camera battery that I had left in the charger that morning. Silly Joni. But yay for the Colosseum! Woot!

Pretty amazing structure, although I did think it was going to be a little bigger than it was. We also visited Palatine Hill where we got to wander through ruins and crouch in random holes and take pictures.

After that was the Roman forum which had all sorts of cool and random things like stairs that go nowhere,

the cremation site of Julius Caesar,

the rostrum for public speechs

and the left-over columns from once-magnificent buildings that now are nothing but something for me to try and fail to remember the name of.

We then went up the hill to the big teeth monument I mentioned earlier and had a great view of Rome.

Then it was back down the hill to go visit the prison that held both Peter and Paul. Talk about weird and cool . . . I was in the same place as two men from the Bible. This is the grate that they would have been lowered down through into the prison cell/pit.

Then it was some more church hopping to see different statues that have been deemed important by art scholars but tend to disappoint after all you've heard about them. Michelangelo's "Moses"

and Bernini's "St. Teresa-in-Ecstasy."

Then it was back to the hostel to collect our things, buy some amazing gelato down the street,

and hoof it to the station to catch our train back to Florence.

Ciao ciao Roma!