Rome....Italy that is

We left for Rome Thursday night at 9:00, landed sometime around 11, took a 30 minute bus ride, and found our hostel around 1:00 a.m. Thus began a muuuuch better hostel experience compared to Paris. The Yellow Hostel has a bar/restaurant downstairs and your reservation includes a free drink upon arrival. After checking in, we promptly ordered nachos, french fries, and drinks (the expensive ones we normally wouldn't want to pay for).

Lillie, Kelly, and Freddie with our free drink tickets.


The bar was decorated with all these movie posters and had a movie constantly playing silently on another large blank wall. I think Casa Blanca was playing when we first arrived. American music was all they played in the bar...which is not surprising. All we hear anywhere we go is American music. Paris, Spain, Rome...anywhere. I've heard more American music here than any other kind.


Ridiculously strong free drinks. Long Island Iced Tea and a Margarita.


Our Hostel Room. Those are supposed to be "bullet holes" painted on the walls coming from that little guy's gun. Sooo mafia.


Big big big room!

We had 2 roommates. Annoying and dumb roommates...from Arizona but studying in France for the semester. That girl on the bottom bunk to the right was one of them. She was dumbest and most annoying. She said the word "like" almost a gillion times and other things like "def"...as in "You def should."

Kelly and Freddie in the room



Rooms soo big at Yellow it is necessary to have rule number 4. Read closely everything within the parenthesis.

Friday Morning

Rome went very well for several reasons.

1) Already said the hostel rocked...it also had a 2 euro breakfast.
2) Absolutely perfect weather.
3) Smaller group of us traveling (and might I add three of my favorite people to travel with)
4) Kelly has a friend who lived in Rome and who sent us an itinerary for the weekend. It included everything from sites to see, when to see them, and good restaurants to try. For the most part, this list served us well.

First thing Friday morning: Buy the Roma Pass. For 25 € this gets you bus and metro passes for the weekend and entrance into 2 museums or tourist sites.


I would like to preface this Rome blog with one blanket confession of stupidity. I feel like I knew a little bit more about Rome, its history, and what cites I should see compared to my Paris trip...but not much more...not enough to save me from embarrassment. I pretty much just knew I should see the Colosseum and the Vatican. So there, you can't say I didn't warn you. I am just a traveling airhead when it comes to Europe. I will be most embarrassed for my friend Leslie (a Latin teacher in Tally) to read this. I should have sat in on some of your classes before I left.



First stop of the day: Colosseum a.k.a. Ring of Death.
The Roma Pass also let us skip the super long line to buy tickets.

First impression of Colosseum...it's old and pretty big, but our first viewing of it was from a lower level. It looks cooler when you go further up and when you see it from one of the ends of the oval.


A shot from the second level...much cooler.
At first we were confused as to why the ground was like that. How did the gladiators fight on that?


Then Freddie read that back in the day there was a floor that covered all that. Those chambers underneath were where the Romans would keep things (animals, other fighters and such...I think)...kinda like a basement. Then the floor had various trap doors that opened to let such things up and down during the show. I imagine it being like how they say the Disney characters appear and disappear in Disney World.


Romans would sit around the Colosseum according to their social classes. They generally watched men fight large, wild animals. The men would have only a spear and shield for protection. Clearly they died a lot. And as if that wasn't enough death... for intermission, people still needed to be entertained so they would just throw an unarmed naked dude into the ring and watch him get torn to pieces by the animals. Man, I love the Romans.
There were a few hippies back then who thought this was a totally barbaric and cruel custom, but no one really listened to them...especially when the campaigning politicians would pay for fights to get in good with the people.


Group Colosseum shot



Video


View from the back of Colosseum...or maybe it's the front?



Well what do we have here?
Roman soldier? How authentic. Don't worry, you'll get a close up later.



Rome has an arch too!




Do not fear. This Roman cat is alive. We checked. Everyone that walked by had the most horrified look of concern and would just stare at it until they confirmed that it was not dead. That's how relaxed the cat was. Just living the cat life in the Colosseum.


Love this one of Lillie




"Look at that perch!" -Lillie, pointing out this bird's phenomenal perching job.




Italian lovers on the hill. Well, they're probably not Italians. This is right outside the Colosseum so they are probably tourists, but we saw Italian make-out sessions all over Rome. I thought Valencia had a lot of public kissing, but it's got NOTHING on Rome.


Roman soldiers again. And wait...yes...that is Cesar in the yellow. These guys just stand outside the Colosseum and try to take pictures with you for 5-10 euro... What a rip off, right? Especially when the photos are taken with YOUR camera.

When I asked how much a photo was the soldier (below) told me 5 euro, I said no then snapped his photo. He did not like this. He proceeded to place his hands around my throat ever so lightly and call me a bastard. He said, "You disrespect my work. I work to buy food and feed my family, etc." It took me a second to realize a Roman soldier was pretending to strangle me, but he walked away soon after leaving me in perfect condition, and now I have his picture.

And seriously? Disrespect his work!? You dress up in a goofy outfit and rip people off all day!
Sooo I decide I'm going to take a picture of every ridiculous Roman soldier I see in Rome.

This one will be Roman Soldier #1 - Strangler Soldier


Roman Soldier #2- Smoke Break Soldier



Tourist photo shoot from the outside of Colosseum



Group shot
Why the lady who took this thought we wanted a close up of the 4 of us I don't know!

No, please, we don't want ANY of the Colosseum to be in the picture. The less of it in the picture the better. Feel free to zoom in all the way.

Freddie certainly had his fill of taking the girls' picture over the weekend.


Arch from the front. I know nothing about this arch...besides that it's next to the Colosseum.


Photos on the hill...got a little carried away taking and editing these. I decided to spare you and post only about half of them.



Freddie gazing upon the Colosseum


Girls on the hill


Girls on the hill in sepia


Roman Soldier #3- Fabio Soldier



Roman Soldier #4- Action Soldier...no, this one was not about to slice me with his sword. The only one that got mad at me was that first dude.

Leaving the Colosseum, we walked by the Roman ruins but decided not to pay to go in. We could get a good enough view for free from the road.

Sure wish they weren't ruined.

Really old ruins and then not so old thing behind it...which we´ll see in a bit.

Roman Soldier #5 - Sign Language Soldier... motioning like he's taking a picture.

Same one, but with ruins behind him. 2 points for that I think.

Another weird street guy...with tiny legs.

Roman Soldier #6 - Foghorn Leghorn Soldier

Piazza Venezia a.k.a the Wedding Cake... oh and Freddie.

This obnoxiously large white building was built in nineteen o´something...not very impressive in general, but especially not impressive in an ancient city. It is a war museum. It has a name but foreigners just call it the Wedding Cake or Typewriter since that's what it looks like.

But we still enjoyed the view from the top.

Self portrait and Lillie

Girls on the wedding cake.

Roman Soldier Two for One Special. #'s 7 and 8.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumber Soldiers

Trevi Fountain. One of the things I would not have been able to tell you I should see in Rome. But now I can say I saw it!

Girls and Trevi

Freddie preparing to throw some coins into Trevi.

We have a girls picture throwing coins in but that's on someone else's camera. I'll have to add it later when they get back from spring break.
So insert image here.

Trevi water break

I thought there were a lot of vespas zooming around Valencia... WRONG.

There are bagrillions of vespas in Rome. Everywhere you went vespa vespa vespa. Or some form of 2-wheeled moto.

Hords of vespas parked along the streets.

Can you finish the pattern?

Vespas upon vespas

We're all lucky we weren't hit by one of these things. Crossing the street in Rome is slightly different than in Valencia. IF there is a traffic light, people still don't follow it strictly. A tour guide explained it like this,"In Italy, it's best to just close your eyes and start walking and praying as you cross the street." Many big roads didn't even have a crossing light. So you just start easing yourself out into the traffic and then sprint. It was kinda fun but I'm very appreciative of how we actually follow the crossing lights here in Valencia now.

Pantheon. For the record, I'm pretending like I already knew this was in Rome. I mean it certainly rang a bell once someone said, "We need to go to the Pantheon."

Roman Soldier #9 - Cellular Soldier

Roman Soldier #10 - Re-evaluating My Life Soldier

Pantheon ceiling. Hard to photograph this ancient building on the inside.

We learned from a guide on Saturday why the Pantheon is extra cool. The dome weighs tons and tons. It weighs so much that technically, this building shouldn't be standing. The dome should be crushing the walls. But it hasn't. Here it is (in Rome). She told us that modern architects don´t understand it and are not able to replicate it. You Romans...so advanced you were.

Girls in pantheon


Random family...the girl in the middle looked like she hated her life.

We all started to get reeeally tired in the Pantheon. So we went to get a Caffe latte...(Italy's café con leche except more expensive).


Before café


AFTER CAFÉ!!!

Next we meandered over to Piazza Navona,

a nice open plaza with fountains and art vendors everywhere.



Aw cute couple by the fountains... blah

Lillie and I refuse to be outdone by the cute Freddie/Kelly couple.

We want precious romantic pictures too.

We give up.

Tiber River (ummm of course I already knew the name of the river before this trip)

Night time Vatican...we'll see you tomorrow!

Bus ride home during Roman rush hour. Thank goodness we got on before all these people. We could not fit anyone else on this bus.

People were getting shut in the doors... if they were even able to get in the doors at all.

Penny pincher dinner. Trying to save money on dinner, we went to this store and bought food for 3 euro. Not really worth it, but it was fine because we had had an amazing pasta/pizza lunch earlier that day.


After dinner, we took a taxi to find a few bars Kelly's friend told us to try. This was unsuccessful. The first bar, The Drunken Ship, was soooo crowded and only Americans. We left immediately as we did not come all the way to Rome to pay 6 euros for a drink and hang out in a bar with Americans playing beer pong.

Then we wanted to find a bar that supposedly served shots out of chocolate shot glasses. (This was also according to Kelly's friend). Only problem was we did not know the name of the bar or where it was. Sort of a big problem. Oh and yeah, we don't speak Italian. However, we still tried to ask randos on the street if they knew of this bar with chocolate shots. Each time we asked someone, it involved us making a drinking motion and saying chocolate really loud...So naturally they said, "oh sí sí" and pointed us in the direction of a gelato shop. Seeing as how I was so tired I hadn't even want to begin this nocturnal adventure, I was ready to go home after the first failed attempt. We finally got a taxi back and went to bed.


Where we got sent instead of a chocolate shot bar.



What is it with Europeans and their nutella. It's everywhere.


A few hours after I fell asleep, I hear some yelling through my ear plugs. I open one eye and see our dumb roommates standing in the room with all the florescent lights on. One (the dumbest one) is yelling at the top of her lungs, "McKenzie you have got to calm the f!@# down! Just calm down McKenzie. I've lost my shit before too...etc, etc." I mean, she is YELLING, and McKenzie is sobbing. It took me about 4 seconds to realize McKenzie had lost her stuff (money, phone, etc.) and another 2 seconds to realize I didn't care to see the rest of this episode. So I rolled over and went right back to sleep. Apparently, the drama lasted a lot longer and both Lillie and Kelly heard the whole thing while pretending to be asleep. McKenzie even made a frantic, panicked phone call to the other girl's parents to try and cancel her cards. I love ear plugs.

In the morning, McKenzie wakes the other dumb girl up and says, "Stacey, I owe you an apology. I found my stuff after you went to sleep. It was under some of my other stuff. I'm so sorry."
Gaaaaah.