Roming around Rome

Sorry for the delayed post!! had classes and such the past two days! we're officially alongside Dubrovnik, CROATIA!!!!!!! Will be here for 4 days! :) :)


Wednesday: Day 16
Italy day two: ROME

In the morning, we woke up really early (0645) to head to the Vatican.  Before we got off the ship, we had purchased tickets to go in so that we could skip the ridiculous line and go straight in.  I am so glad we did because the line literally wrapped around Vatican City.  It was crazy!! All sorts of beggars were there and people trying to sell “tours” to us.  We got in to the Vatican at around 0830 and began touring the museum.  We got the audio guides because we didn’t know much about what we were looking at.  It was well worth the 7 euros cause it was very informative. While in Vatican City, we also saw St. Peter’s Basilica.  I actually did not realize that the pope holds mass there every Wednesday and Sunday.  That made it a LOT more crowded while we were there. 

Everyone that came on the ship to talk about Rome mentioned this little gelato place called Oldbridge right across the street from the Vatican, so of course we can never turn up a good gelato place! Of course it was EXCELLENT.  Gelato here is awesome, and it is pretty cheap! Most places give you a very generous portion for only 2 euros, and usually that gives you 2 to 3 different flavors in one cup.  In addition to the chocolate and Nutella flavors that I mentioned falling in love with earlier, I should also include lemon because omg it is scrumptious.  It tastes just like those awesome frozen lemonade things (Luigi’s Italian Ice anyone??) you can get only like a bazillion times better.

After our glorious gelato, Daniel headed off on his own while Kyle, me, and the other three girls (Lindsay, Amy, and Sarah sorry forgot to mention them earlier!! The six of us were all together for the next few days) took the metro to see the Tiber River, which is the river that splits the city of Rome in half.  From there, we walked through the Piazza del Popolo, where we saw people setting up a whole bunch of vacuums that they were using for a photoshoot! It was funny cause there were all these guys dressed up in suits pushing vacuums around by the fountain while other Italians sat on the edge of the fountain just watching them.  We walked up a hill and found ourselves in Pincio Park, which was absolutely lovely.  It had an area that looked over the entire city of Rome annnnnd a little stand selling frozen waters.  Those things are the best!! These street venders literally take bottles of water and freeze them to sell for 2 euro.  It is so nice because the ice will last a good little bit, and we have been able to refill them at fountains so that we have cold water as apposed to the warm or even hot water in our water bottles.  Well off of that tangent… we ended up just resting and enjoying the park for a good 45 minutes. 

Then it was time to hit the road.  We headed back to the hostel to pick up our stuff. (the hostel people were awesome and let us leave our bags there even after we checked out so that we didn’t have to carry them all day) We took the train to the airport and successfully got our plane tickets.  Only lame part was going through security I totally forgot and brought my B&BW lotion that I absolutely love, well I should say LOVED, because I got it taken away ☹ ☹ apparently it was too big a bottle.  Sad day!! Oh well. Now I am on a mission to find some more lotion cause that was the only one I brought! Haha.

We broke the rules and ate McDonalds at the airport… before you yell at me I know I know!! Such a bad traveler to eat McD’s, but seriously, it was like THE LEAST sketch place to eat at the airport.  The rest of the airport food just did not look appealing.  And surprisingly enough, for some reason it seems that most McD’s in Europe are actually wayyyyy nicer than in America.  Its actually pretty funny! Like the one in Spain where we stole free internet and got awesome glasses? Yeah. That place was SWEET. It was like three whole stories! It was even decorated all modern and such.  But once again, I digress… so we ate McD’s, felt slightly guilty but savored the French fries and homely feel.

The flight was uneventful.  Kyle and I ended up being able to move seats around, so we sat next to each other, and Sarah sat in the row in front of us.  Me being me, I met my new bff during the flight… the older man sitting next to me.  HAHA. He was really cool.  For the first like 15 minutes Kyle and I were being ridiculous trying to figure out how to say hi to him in Italian (up until that point, pretty much everyone we encountered at least spoke a little English). We finally figured out and said “Ciao!” to the man only to find out that he actually spoke a good amount of English….. I’m sure he had been really REALLY amused at Kyle and I the whole previous 15 minutes when I was literally telling Kyle “All I want is to say HI to him!! Why is it that Rick Steve doesn’t tell us how to freaking say HI?!?!!” hahaha. Anyways, he ended up giving us some good advice and in general being good company.  He lives in Rome, but frequently goes to Venice for business trips.  He loves both places, and told us that he wished we had more than two days in Venice because he said there was soooooo much worth seeing. 

The boys made fun of me for making such good friends with the man when we got off the plane, but I think they were just jealous ;) hahahaha. From the airport, we just decided to take a taxi to the hotel because it was already late, and we really did not want to get lost.  The taxi was a little expensive, and we had to take two because there were 6 of us total, so it ended up being about 11 euro each.

The hotel was pretty nice.  We had two rooms. Each had a double bed and a twin bed.  So of course I somehow got stuck living with the boys for two days haha. They shared the double while I got my own bed at least :) score! Tired from our full day of excursions, we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.