When In Rome

Day 1: Ancient Rome

Arriving in Rome on less than two hours of sleep seemed like a difficult concept, especially considering we didn’t know where our hostel was and the fact that it was 9:30 in the morning and already 80 degrees.

With luck and my guide book, which pointed us to a nearby internet cafe, we were lucky enough to find the hostel, which was surprisingly close to the train station. We check in, put our stuff down, and, exhaustedly realized that it was still only 10 in the morning, and we had a full day ahead of us.

Our initial plan was to take a nap in a park, but Roman parks aren’t that nice or comfortable, so we figured that we’d tough out the day. Finding parks not easy to come by or sleep in, we thought we would seek out what we really wanted: food. That's not hard to find in Rome, and after lunch of Lasagna and Pizza, right outside of the Colosseum, we thought it best to do some sightseeing.

After charging my camera battery, we made our way to the ultimate European tourist destination – the Roman Coliseum. Most people say you’re disappointed by the Coliseum, but I don’t think I was. In my mind, the Coliseum fulfilled my expectations. It’s awesome to think that an ancient civilization could build something large enough to hold a crowd about the same size of Kenan Stadium. Good thing I charged my camera battery because I took a ton of pictures. I just feel like pictures of the Coliseum are the kind of thing I’m going to want to have when I get back home.

We took a guided tour of the coliseum and then headed into the Palatine Hill and the Forum, where someone who is clearly an awkward art history graduate student showed us around and told us things he, too, learned from his history textbooks. But seeing the forum was really neat, and exactly what I expected to see when I thought of it.

After finishing the ruins of ancient Rome, we made our way north to check out the Trevi fountain, which might just top my list of favorite fountains (even above the Mannequin Pis in Brussels. I know, shocking). I would hate to describe it and do it an injustice, so just Google Image search, look at my picture of it, or go to Rome and see it four yourself.

For dinner we had an incredible meal. Annie really loves Italian food, and I figured my mom and my dad and my grandpa would come down on me pretty hard if I went all the way to Italy and didn't have an incredible Italian meal. So we had one. Three courses from this amazing restaurant down this funny little side street in the heart of Rome. It might have been the highlight of the trip. Plus, the next day, we found 50 Euro in the train station, which I deemed to be Karma repaying me for giving a guy back $400 that he dropped while I was walking around Zurich.

Day 2: Catholic Rome

I guess it's not technically considered to be in Rome to go to the Vatican, seeing as it's its own country, but I'm going to consider it Roman anyways. Anyways, I like to think of it as the third reason for going to Rome outside the nifty ancient history and the incredible food.

Yeah, so this morning we headed across the Tiber River to check out where the heart (the old, Papal heart) of Catholicism resides.


When we arrived in St. Peter's Square, I was shocked at how many people there were there. Well, actually, I was more shocked by how many people were waiting in line to enter St. Peter's Basilica, a line which we soon joined. The Basilica is massive. And every inch of it is elaborately decorated and worth more than I will ever make in my lifetime. I'm not really a church person, but I enjoyed the Basilica.

After the Basilica, we headed into the Vatican museums, which culminate in the Sistine Chapel, where you're unfortunately not allowed to take any pictures. I wasn't overwhelmed by the Sistine Chapel. It's cool, but it's just as cool as all the pictures. It doesn't rank up there with the Mannequin Pis or the Glockenspiel as the most underwhelming sights of the trip, but it doesn't get up there with the view from Eiger or the Berlin Wall or the Trevi Fountain as the most impressive either. If I made a scale, the Sistine Chapel might fall right in the middle.

The rest of the museums were cool. At some point in history, some Pope ordered that leaves be put over all the nude statues' private parts, which made for funny, out of place leaves. While I know nothing about art and will not claim to, I will say that my preference for sculpturedefinitely involves soldiers fighting stuff or scenes from ancient mythology (which usually involves people fighting stuff), rather than just people standing around.

We moved from the Vatican to the Pantheon, another religious site, and then to the Piazza Navona, another square with a fountain I wanted to see. Now, the only real reason why I wanted to see this piazza was because someone is killed there in Dan Brown's Angels and Demons (really the only part of that whole book I can remember, which is sad since I'm in Rome and would probably enjoy remembering things from it). Unfortunately, the fountain is undergoing major renovation and was not available for viewing.

We saw the Spanish steps tonight. Tomorrow we're trying to make our way to Croatia (yay) where we'll be lounging on the beach for a while, since, you know, after all this Euro-travelling, we really need a vacation. Please don't hate me.