Why have I gone off on this rant/tangent? (I believe from now on this should be called "rangent.") Because, I am thinking phrase "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." should be modified to "When in Rome, try not to murder anyone because you've been lost for three hours." The real question is, who should I take this amendment up with?
The true benefit is after you've been walking around for three hours, you've looked almost everywhere and it's virtually impossible not to find what you're looking for. And with that, let me tell you about Rome.
The first thing we noticed when we arrived in Rome was how pushy everyone was. We had to get on a bus to go from the airport into town and if we weren't getting cut in line or shoved around by other people, the bus driver was yelling at people. It wasn't a very pleasant first impression. But, despite all of the shoving and outright rudeness, we got onto the bus and rode into Rome. We walked around for about twenty minutes before we realized what an idiot I am... I left one of my bags on the bus. (Ty will try and tell you it was his fault. He is a liar. I repeat: he is a liar trying to make me feel better. AKA, he is a good husband. :) So, I walked back to the bus office and told them my mistake. After about twenty minutes someone told me they found it and to wait for an hour for the bus to come back so I can get it.
So, alright, I thought. My blonde moment has been rectified. We thought we could use the hour to walk around and find wifi. Wrong again. Rome has absolutely NO free wifi ANYWHERE. They may say that it's free, but you have to wait in line to buy something to even hope to get the wifi password. Instead of wifi, we bought a good, old fashioned, pocket map and tried to rout out the whole way to the hotel. After we got my bag back, we took one of the major metro lines listed on the map to the stop by where our hotel should have been.
The first thing we noticed when we arrived in Rome was how pushy everyone was. We had to get on a bus to go from the airport into town and if we weren't getting cut in line or shoved around by other people, the bus driver was yelling at people. It wasn't a very pleasant first impression. But, despite all of the shoving and outright rudeness, we got onto the bus and rode into Rome. We walked around for about twenty minutes before we realized what an idiot I am... I left one of my bags on the bus. (Ty will try and tell you it was his fault. He is a liar. I repeat: he is a liar trying to make me feel better. AKA, he is a good husband. :) So, I walked back to the bus office and told them my mistake. After about twenty minutes someone told me they found it and to wait for an hour for the bus to come back so I can get it.
So, alright, I thought. My blonde moment has been rectified. We thought we could use the hour to walk around and find wifi. Wrong again. Rome has absolutely NO free wifi ANYWHERE. They may say that it's free, but you have to wait in line to buy something to even hope to get the wifi password. Instead of wifi, we bought a good, old fashioned, pocket map and tried to rout out the whole way to the hotel. After we got my bag back, we took one of the major metro lines listed on the map to the stop by where our hotel should have been.
We walked a couple of blocks after getting off of the metro and this is what we saw. A picture can't really do it justice, but it's one of the most beautiful parts of a city I've ever seen. So, I thought, maybe Rome isn't all that bad.
After a couple more blocks of walking, we started to realize that maybe our hotel wasn't as close as we thought it was, and just maybe, there wasn't a bus route through the area. So, we found a big sign that said "BAR PIZZA FREE WIFI." And stepped inside. The sign should have read "NO AIR CONDITIONING." It was stifling hot inside, and we waited, loaded down with all of our bags for about ten minutes for someone to even greet us. When we finally were acknowledged by a waitress, we asked for directions and she told us the hotel was about a mile and a half. "Go straight and then take a right to the end of the road. You can't miss it." Ty and I weren't exactly new to walking, so this didn't seem to be too bad.
Wrong again. We walked straight uphill along a very narrow highway with cars zooming by us. Did I mention I was wearing sandals and it was muddy beside the road? (I'm just now beginning to realize that I would make a good character for one of those goofy comic strips.) Finally, FINALLY, we got to our hotel. We stayed there one night and decided to stay somewhere closer the next night. Needless to say, I'm on the lookout for a new pair of sandals. ;)
One good thing did come out of staying at that hotel, though! After our long trek, we got to celebrate our first night in Italy with pizza!
Once we had a good night of rest, we loaded our bags back up and made our way to the next hotel. "American Palace." It wasn't much of a palace, but we did get a room that was supposed to cost $250 per night for fifty dollars. We left our bags in the room and started our vacation out the right way: with a beach day! We took the Rome metro to the last stop, walked about fifty yards, and hello beach!
We were obviously pretty happy to see some water.
Then, it became obvious we don't have water where we come from, when we fully failed at the whole romantic drawing in the sand thing. I was going to write "Stelting" with a heart around it, when Ty jumped in and wrote "and Kelsie."
We had a chance to redeem ourselves by taking backlit beach pictures, but that went awry as well. In my opinion, this shot would be pretty cool for a murder scene... or maybe a girl after she saw Ryan Gosling walk by. Hashtag, swoon.
Day Three in Rome was much more educational.
First, we went to see the Colleseum. It was really nice apart from when we were getting assaulted by vendors. "Take a tour of Rome, you won't have to walk!" "Scarf? Scarf for the pretty lady?" "Water! Ice cold water." "What you don't wan't this? It's too expensive? How much would you pay?" I think my neck was sore from shaking my head so many times!
The much more enjoyable part of the day was seeing the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museum. Both were extremely beautiful. This is a picture of me in St. Peter's Square, or "San Pietro" as the Romans call it.
Another cool thing about Rome is it's impossible to get dehydrated--and not because there's so many people begging you to buy their water. There are water fountains all over the city that constantly pour out clean drinking water. (Warning, drinking the water may cause you to become extremely cool and wear a fanny pack. Drink at your own risk!)
By the fourth day in Rome, both Ty and I were pretty sick with a cold. Must have been those - insert Italian accent here - spicy meatballs! We dedicated the day to Roming (haha get it?) around the city and seeing Fontana de Trevi, also known as the Fountain of Loooooove!
This was a cute fountain on our way to the real thing... Mozzarella sticks to the main course!
And then, the main course... The fillet mignon of fountains. The fountain of love. It really was worth the hype. It was a HUGE fountain and behind it a beautiful building. The water was crystal clear. I read online that half a million euros are thrown into the fountain every year and that it's all donated to charity. But, since I have already found my love--and we were out of coins--I didn't bother donating to some nameless charity. :) It was enough just to see it. Oh, and in front of the fountain, the fillet mignon of shoes. My sister designed these for me and I love them!
Despite all of the beautiful things I've seen in Rome, my favorite part of the trip had to be Wednesday morning when I fulfilled one of my Catholic dreams of seeing the one and only Pope Francis. We woke up at 4:45 and went to St. Peter's Square so we could wait in line to see him. I think it was well worth the wait.
He rode into the square on his pope-mobile and the thousands of people jammed into the square went wild. Mothers took their babies along the fence and held them up like Simba so they could be kissed on the forehead by the Pope. He reached out and shook hands with as many people as he could as he drove by. The whole time he was smiling.
This is just half of the crowd in San Pietro who came to see the Pope.
He spoke in Italian the whole time, but there were several men who came to the stand and translated what the Pope said in several languages. At the end, we all sang the Lord's Prayer in Latin. It was wonderful to see so many people come together to see one of the world's most important religious leaders, and hopefully to worship!
We spent our last day in Eat-aly (because really, everyone looks forward to Italy most because of the food) was spent seeing some of the must-sees. These are basically huge beautiful buildings that you go to because they're cool. But, in my opinion, there are plenty of beautiful buildings out there. It's really just a pile of stone. While these are very impressive, I'm more impressed by the people who came together to make such grand creations without the help of advanced technology! (Because really, how did they survive without Google?)
This is some of our luggage (and my husband carrying most of it) in front of the Pantheon. Which, according to my brilliant husband who seems to know more history than I do, an ancient clock. Now it's just a very pretty dome that people flock to to take pictures of.
This was the Venetian Square. The picture doesn't really cover it, but it was blindingly white in the midday sun, and very stunning. It kind of popped out of nowhere!
After that, we saw the colleseum one last time, hip-hopped on a Metro-rome (music puns, look at me all cultured and whatnot!) and said goodbye to the city of getting lost!
Our friend we met at the Vatican says, "Thanks for reading!"
Great post and pics I'm still reading and can't wait for the next one love you guys.
ReplyDeleteThanks! We love you too!
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