Saturday, November 10th, 2012: Rome, Italy

Today was such a long day! But that's okay, because we were in Rome, the best city in the world!

Since it's supposed to rain tomorrow, we wanted to spend the day doing anything we wanted that was outside, so we decided to revisit the Colosseum and go to the Roman Forum and Palatine. It was quite a bit busier than last time we went, but that's probably because most people aren't crazy enough to visit the Colosseum in the rain like we did. Also, while we were waiting in line there was a guy who looked just like the human form of Pete from The Goofy Movie. Yep. Today was a beautiful day, and since we got a lot of information from our audio tour last time, we were able to meander and just absorb the massive building.

Arch of Constantine

After the Colosseum we walked really far to get to the entrance of the Roman Forum/Palatine Hille, but it was definitely worth it. Especially because on the way there we stopped at a vendor who just happened to be selling Oreos!  I'm so stoked to dunk those bad boys in some milk and feel like an American. I just checked, they don't say "America's Favorite Cookie." They really should work on that... Back to the historical stuff. It was really surreal looking at all these things that are so, so old and significant. I always think about how strange it would be if our civilization were wiped out and buried underground with bits of it forgotten. It's weird to me that actually happens. Also, when you see how impressive and long standing the remains are, you can't help understand why Rome was one of the greatest cities and civilizations ever. Maybe I'm biased, I just really love it. Best part of this was probably seeing the House of Augustus. Yep, Caesar Augustus' really, really old house.

We finished our plans by going out of our way to see the Trevi Fountain again only to find that it is insanely busy on nights it is not raining. We couldn't even really get to the front, let alone get very good pictures. Who knew the rain was actually such a blessing last time? And since it was so crowded, I had to chuck my coin into the foutain from a pretty significant distance. Thankfully I didn't hit any tourist bystanders in the forehead while getting their picture taken. #thatwouldhavebeenhilarious #jk

By this point we were really tired so we decided to go home. We accidentally got on the metro going the wrong way and then got off and realized we had to buy tickets again instead of being able to hop on a metro going the other way, which is how the metro stops have worked in our past experiences. That was a bummer, but on the way to the hotel I got a small cup of gelato with panna and a wafer for 1.50, which is by far the cheapest gelato I have ever managed to obtain. And it was delicious, so I felt the universe has evened things out.


Friday, November 9th, 2012: Rome, Italy

Aw man, I slept in so late today... oops. I thankfully asked for work off so I could travel to Rome in ease. Once I finally got to breakfast and a shower, I packed things up and Amber and I went off to Rome. The trip was pretty good except for an Italian lady asking me to be quiet. I usually wouldn't be annoyed by this (I generally have one volume which is loud), but I've been on so many buses where Italian have been about 5x louder than I was for the entire bus ride. So I just can't believe I was the worst thing she's ever encountered. Oh well.

We got to Rome and found our way to the hotel, mostly by luck because I accidentally forgot to write down the street number the hotel is at. Good thing there was a shiny sign on the building and it was just around the corner.

The hotel is by far the nicest we've stayed in. We've been to some nice-ish places, but they're all hostels or guesthouses. This is also a guesthouse, but it's basically a hotel standard. After having put up with some pretty rough stuff, I'm happy we get to end on a high note.

After we settled in we decided dinner would be a good idea. We walked down the street, but couldn't really find any real restaurants. When we finally did find one it was closed. At six on a Friday night? I still don't understand. We also saw an underground place with lights and swanky decor. We walked in and couldn't really tell if it was a bar or a restaurant. Apparently it was Spark status and when they brought out menus we didn't really see anything that would satisfy our cravings. So we went to a pizza place and I got a calzone and a Coke. It would have been delicious except there was eggplant in my calzone, which is maybe on my list of least favorite foods in the world. But other than that, I was a happy camper.

I finished off the day lounging the comfy, over sized bed.