So this past weekend stephanie, elizabeth and I went to rome! We didnt’ get home from bosom until 4 on thursday night and had to get up at 5:45 to leave for the bus, which wasn’t our brightest idea but we made it! we had to take a bus to pesaro, catch a train, switch trains halfway through and then take a cab to our hotel. it was an exhausting day of traveling and the bus and trains were notttttt comfortable at all so we barely got to sleep. We made a quick pitstop at the hotel and then went out to sight see!
We left our hotel and started walking towards the collesseum (but we had no idea where we were going so we had to have a map out the entire time, such tourists). We stopped at a pizza shop for lunch and it was so cool! It was a beautiful restaurant and the food was delicious!! Then we got a taxi to take us to the collesseum since we couldn’t figure out how to get there and it was so hot out! We paid 25 euro to get an english tour of the colosseum, palatine hill, and the roman forum. Our tour guide at the colosseum was SUCH A BORE! I have never even had a professor give a lecture that was that boring so that kind of sucked but we still got to walk around inside and take lots of pictures. We were also soo dehydrated from that tour since we forgot to bring water and we each bought 2 water bottles as soon as we got out. Then we got a tour of palatine hill and the roman forum which were both beautiful! Our tour guide for these was a lot better and more interesting. He had a thick british accent and we loved the way he said “marble”.
We headed back to our dorm to shower and freshen up and then we headed to the trevi fountain for dinner! We went to the fountain first which was soooo crowded but so beautiful all light up at nigh! We all made our wishes and then went off to find a restaurant for dinner. We found a beautiful restaurant and got to sit outside and eat a very YUMMY dinner. I of course order gnocchi and it was the best i’ve had yet, so delicious! After we finished our dinner and bottle of wine we went back to the trevi fountain for some dessert! We got crepes with nutella and strawberry which were absolutely delicious but soooo messy! They exploded all over us and we got nutella everywhere. There was also come creepy guy standing next to us at the fountain and was just blatantly STARING at us. I could feel him looking at us from the corner of my eye and when i finally looked at him, he winked at me, i don’t understand some of these creepy italian men. they’re disgusting.
This was one of the longest days of my life (the 24 hours of traveling to urbino being the longest) and i was so happy to get back to the hotel that night. Our hotel was so nice and our room was amazing! The bed was ginormous and so soft and the pillows literally felt like clouds. it was heaven.
The next morning we woke up to a loud ass riot/protest outside of our hotel window at 9:30 am. It was basically like a parade, people walking through the streets with huge balloons, banners, and screaming into megaphones. It was obnoxious so we just decided to get up and get ready for the day. We headed to the spanish steps to see them and get some lunch. We took pictures on the steps and then walked down Via Condotti, which is the famous shopping street in rome with all the high end stores like Gucci, Prada, Fendi, Jimmy Choo. It was very very crowded but cool to see all those stores! We found a little cafe type place for lunch that had literally every type of italian food you could imagine! Stephanie and I got chicken, potatoes, and some sort of enchilada thing, and elizabeth got pizza, it was so yummy! Even though I am getting sick of eating so much pasta and bread and cheese meals, I will never get over how delicious the food is here!
After lunch we headed to Vatican City!! As soon as we got there and got out of our taxi, people approached us about doing an english tour just like they had at the Colosseum. We decided to do this because it was scorching hot out and we knew we would be able to skip through all the lines! First we did a tour of the Vatican Museum, which was inside in air conditioning so that was great and then we got to go in the Sistine Chapel. All of these were amazing and it was so weird to think that people like michael angelo were actually in these buildings painting these things. It was creepy and breathtaking all at the same time. After the tour was over I really wanted to climb up St. Peter’s Basillica (which is about 900 stairs) but stephanie and elizabeth didn’t want to so I was bummed out. Guess i’ll just have to save it for the next time I come to Italy! So we just went back to the hotel, got a snack at a cafe, and rested in our room for a little while, then got ready for our night out!
One of our friends had told us to do a pub crawl in Rome and we also saw people advertising for them at the Colosseum so we thought it would be fun! We got a quick bite to eat and then went to the spanish steps because that’s where the pub crawl grope was meeting. We sat there for about an hour just people watching and waiting for everyone to show up. We had pretty high expectations for how fun and awesome the pub crawl would be and it didn’t really meet them. It was definitely fun and a good experience and i’m glad we did it, but it was just weird. We went to the first bar, where we paid $25 for the whole night, and we had an open bar for the first our. We didn’t know that this would be the only open bar throughout the entire night so we didn’t take as much advantage of it was we should have. We met some people from ireland and canada and a few other countries, so that part was cool! After about 2 hours we left and headed to the next bar. Some of the people that were there were obnoxious and some how already hammered just after that first bar, guess they’ve never drunken before. Elizabeth and I were walking near them when we were going to the next bar and they were just annoying, made me feel really old (weird). Then we went to the next bar and it cost 6 euro just for one cranberry vodka, RIDICULOUS! so we only got one drink and just sat around for another hour. Then we were off the the boat that they said we would be cruising around on for the next 2 hours. We got to the boat and it was parked by a dock in the river that goes through rome which was basically a swamp. And soon enough we found out that the boat was never going to leave the dock and just sit there all night….disappointment. The boat consisted of two large dance room with windows all around where everyone was dancing, except it felt like a sloppy middle school dance with drunk people. It was weird and so not my scene but we tried to make the best of it. The drinks there were 10 EURO which was just absolutely insane so we obviously didn’t get any drinks. Steph danced with the Ireland man for a little and then we decided it was time to go back to our big, comfy bed in the hotel room.
Getting home from Rome the next day was a debacle. We got to the train station at 8:45 to get tickets and then our train left at 9:37. This train was zoo much more comfortable than the one of the way there which was nice because I was actually able to sleep. This train was about 3 hours and then we got to a station where we had to switch trains. However, since our first train was delayed, we got to the station and there was one train sitting there about to leave which apparently was ours but we had no idea since our tickets were blank. So we didn’t get on this train cause we went to go check the board and by the time we did the train had left. So we missed our train and had to wait 2 more hours for the next train. Once we got that train we took it back to Pesaro where we had to wait another hour to catch our bus. Thank god we ran into other girls from our program there that we’re waiting for the bus too so we hung out with them. After the hour long bus ride we were FINALLY BACK IN URBINO. I have never been happier to be back, I even missed all the hills!
