Ramblings from Rome, Day 3

Ciao!

It’s day three on my once in a lifetime journey, and it has been a really long day. The group participated in a lot of “guided tours” which basically means that I have five zillion facts jiggling around my brain right now—hopefully I remember them tomorrow. You would love these tours, bud, since you’re into history and everything. Rome is such a history-rich city. Seriously, even the new buildings are just built on top of crumbled old buildings and famous dead people. Cool and creepy—AT THE SAME TIME.

So, this was our schedule today:

            Wake up at 7:30

            Visit the Coliseum

            Visit the Public Forum

            Lunch around 2:00

            Visit the catacombs

            Visit the Spanish Steps

            Window shop in the rich people areas

            Dinner around 7:00

            Chill/Free time

See? It was a pretty packed day, but I am feeling five thousand zillion times better today and it was really nice weather outside. I keep hearing about how home has snow out the wazoo, but here it is in the 50s and feels glorious. While we were at the coliseum in the shade we were all a bit chilly, but every other moment has been just wonderful.

Speaking of the coliseum, I think it was one of my favorite places that we’ve been to so far! It was so cool seeing the giant theater/arena and the technology they had in those days to raise fighters from underground. There was so much thought into the design. I was impressed, at least. I think it would be so awesome to redesign the coliseum and sell tickets to people to go see a reenactment of sorts—without all of the blood and killing. Million-dollar idea? Yes. After the coliseum we went to the public forum, which was cool but honestly I was getting a bit hungry and tired of new information at that point. I’m not as capable of information absorbing for long periods of time as you are, bro.

I started to get hangry (OH NO), but we made it to this little café on top of this building in the middle of Rome before that terribleness happened. It was the most gorgeous view of Rome—a full surrounding view while just snacking on a delicious salami sub. Seriously amazing. I also had coke in a bottle, which they gave to me with a tiny little cup. Unaware what I was actually doing, I just drank straight out of the coke bottle. Apparently they don’t wash them—they just recap them. So, yes, that was nasty. Thanks to Robyn for letting me know AFTER I drank the entire coke J Lesson learned though.

After lunch we headed to the catacombs, which is basically just where a bunch of dead people were once buried. It’s kind of claustrophobia-inducing down there and really it’s just creepy overall. However, it was the one time in my life where there were giant red buttons on the wall and I was allowed to push them when I felt like it! Those buttons controlled the lights in the group coffin, so that was fun! Completely exhausted we headed to the Spanish steps, but a short nap on the bus reenergized the group—so, I was ready to try out the language I actually do know—Spanish! Apparently that’s not what the Spanish steps are for, though. In fact, they are pretty much just steps. Good news though! There was a GOSPEL Christmas music festival going on while we were there. It was so fantastic—I knew all the songs, so I sang along. They were singing in Italian mostly though, so that was a bit of a problem.

After we pried ourselves away from that we just did some window browsing and headed back to the hotel. We even survived the metro ride back home—we were literally packed on like sardines all smushed up against so many people we didn’t know. It was uncomfortable but we made it. I didn’t even get pickpocketed! Just picture me koala-bear-wrapped around my bag, and that is how I avoid being stolen from. It has been effective so far (affective? Something like that)!

Once at the hotel a small group—Megan, Elsa, James, and Christian—all headed out to find some dinner. We stopped in this place where the greeter guy (a lot of the restaurants have English speaking people standing out front to attract tourists, offer “deals”, show off the menu, ect.) convinced us to eat at this little restaurant by the train station. Our waiter spoke absolutely zero English and was utterly confused by us. Also, my pasta that was supposed to be Fettuccine with Ragu tasted exactly like Spaghettio’s. Except not the good Spaghettio’s—the off-brand mom would make us eat from Aldis with the gross meatballs. It was my first Italy food fail.

Exhausted after the long day, we headed back to the hotel where the best thing ever was waiting for me. Okay, Okay. It wasn’t a bottomless Dr. Pepper in a Styrofoam cup with ice. So, the second best thing—my luggage!!! I am so pumped to finally have my lovely luggage back. Thank you Delta for finding me before I left Rome.

A few more random notes:

            --Today in the train station we started counting the number of couples we saw publically eating each other’s faces. We are already at four couples snogging disgustingly.

            --Today I borrowed clothes from Robyn, the study abroad office representative who is basically in charge, because I still didn’t have my luggage. She had gotten the pants for Christmas and hadn’t worn them yet, so she kept saying Merry Christmas to me since I borrowed her Christmas pants. They were a bit big, but at least they were cute! Did I mention I love having my luggage?

            --I have a ton of cool photos and a friend said I could borrow his photo card reader soon, so I will hopefully do a photo post soon!!!

That’s all for now!

Maddie

P.S. Sorry I am posting this so late—my internet at the last hotel was being mean and we have been traveling a lot today!