Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Days 33, 34, & 35 (Roma)

This is the post of the century. More about Wednesday night: We hopped on the Stansted Express and made it to the Stansted Airport at about 11:00pm. Mind you, our flight didn't leave until 6:00am. Susan told us that the Stansted Airport is kind of shady and that she's missed three flights there, because they leave unnaturally early. To be safe we decided to just spend the night at the airport. I'd be lying if I said I had a good time. I couldn't sleep, so I talked to Mom on the phone for awhile(thanks Dad), and then Macy and I ate and got online to write Calvin a poem that he didn't appreciate. The airport is a creepy place at 4am. I also looked creepy, kind of like a vampire....because I am even more white now than when I left, which is amazing because I was pretty darn pale. But good news, we got on the correct airplane and left on time.
Oh, I also drank 3 hot chocolates.Thursday! Our flight was so weird, kind of like a cruise line. They were selling perfume, hamburgers, smoothies. You name it, they sold it. They also payed music, and woke us up with trumpets heralding our arrival to Rome. Once in Rome we hopped on a bus and traveled to our sweet little hotel, Hotel Trevi. I loved our hotel, it was steps away from the Trevi Fountain. The Trevi Fountain is so beautiful! It is so underrated! We tossed coins in, but Paulo didn't come and carry me away on his moped...shame. If you ever go to the Trevi and weird, fat, italian men dressed like Romans want to take a picture with you...don't. It's the scam of the century. Plus, they smell weird and stand too close to you. After the Trevi Fountain we traveled over to Via del Corso for some shopping and Via del Corso = disappointment.I'd rather buy the clothes in London, but the atmosphere was darling. We saw the Spanish Steps, and heard an evensong at an old Catholic church and we saw a horse show! We had dinner at a little restaurant called La Bruschetta and it was very tasty, and then it was back to our little hotel to get ready for Friday.

Me and the beautiful Trevi Fountain.

Rome is great.

Emma and I in front of the weird horse show.

The Italian Metro makes us nervous...

Spanish Steps.

Emma and I on the Spanish Steps(sorry this picture is terrible quality.)

The first of many.

Friday we went to the Vatican! And, can I just say that we navigated the trains, buses, and streets like pros. We got to St. Peter's Basilica and it started to rain pretty hard, but it was ok because we were inside staring at the beautiful paintings and the Pieta. However, after the basilica we walked over to the Vatican Museum and it began to snow! Yes, SNOW. And it dumped snow on us, we were all soaked through and had to buy I Love Rome sweatshirts. We ate the world's best pizza, and the sun came out as we made our way to see the Four Seasons Fountain and Pantheon. The Four Seasons Fountain was hidden behind scaffolding, but the Pantheon was amazing!

We look super pretty early in the morning.

St. Peter's.

Vatican City!

Rome is pretty.

Outside the Pantheon some creep canadian tried to get us to go on a bar crawl, a.k.a. rape tour. But don't worry, we escaped back to our hotel to warm up and get ready for dinner. On our way to eat we stumbled upon Circus Maximus the chariot racing track. And when I say stumbled, I mean we literally though it was a drainage ditch. We ate dinner at a restaurant that the internet told me was delicious. My food was good, but the service was terrible. Basically we had to pay to use a tablecloth and napkins....not ok. Also, it was in the ghetto. We finished the evening with gelato. Maybe we ate gelato 6 times that weekend, maybe we didn't.

Rome is fun.

Spanish Castle.

Pathway of Angels.

The Ungermeyer and her map. I promise I was a competent guide, and no, I'm not 12 years old.

Pantheon!

Saturday we woke up and ate breakfast at the hotel before checking out. Every morning we got to go up to the roof to eat breakfast. I had a chocolate filled croissant everyday, delicious. We headed on over to the Colosseum and it was the most beautiful day! We took a not-very-informative tour and had a good time just soaking up the sun and walking around. We ate more pizza sandwiches and then I bought the most wonderful cookies in the world. Chocolate-dipped shortbread cookies! I want to eat them everyday of my life! When we had all been sufficiently fed we walked over to the Roman Forum to look at the ruins of the center of their city. I wish so badly that I could have seen what it looked like in its prime. Romans were so talented. We finished our last day in Rome buying souvenirs, eating more pizza, and mailing postcards. Since we had to check out of the hotel early, we ended up carrying our bags the whole day. For some of us it wasn't a big deal, for Macy it was an adventure. Her suitcase, aka R2D2, came everywhere with us. He was a trooper...and I kind of miss him following us around. The train ride/flight back was uneventful. The cruise line atmosphere made it impossible to sleep. Why do they try to sell us so many useless things?! I loved every second of Rome, but I was really glad to be back in London. In a weird way, when I got into my bunkbed Saturday night, I felt like I was home.

Our sweet little hotel.

Your average Italian man.

Matching is so hot right now.


R2D2.

Inside the Colosseum. I'm the hot pre-teen boy on the right.

Colosseum!

Roman Forum.

Roman Forum.

The best cookie in the world. Maybe I ate three, maybe I didn't.





I Love Rome.

Sometimes I'm such a tourist.

My trusty backpack. This baby went everywhere.

1 comment:

Jana said...

I'm just sayin', in the Ungermeyer picture, not only do you look 12 years old, you look exactly like Ally.