We left on Wednesday February 18. We flew out of Stansted Airport on Ryan Air at 8:40 in the morning. Throughout our trip we saw several groups of BU people and the first instance was on our airplane! We flew into Ciampino Airport which is the best airport in the world. I have never passed through customs or claimed my bag so fast.
We took a taxi into the city, first stopping at Ashley and my hotel and then taking the rest of the girls to their hostel. Our hotel was great! It offered a yummy continental breakfast and was about a 15 minute walk from the Coliseum. After unpacking, Ashley and I went out to pizza for lunch. The pizza was amazing! We also ordered cappuccinos to help wake us up which were delicious. I basically ordered cappuccino at every meal from then on.
After lunch we headed down to the Coliseum to meet up with Carly, Darah, and Carrie around 3:15 (Their hostel was about a 20 minute walk from the Coliseum so it was the rendezvous point throughout the trip).
While we were waiting for the other girls, a tour guide came up to us and told us that the Coliseum closed at 4 and that the last group guided tour in English was about to start. We desperately tried to call the other girls but they weren’t picking up their phones and we couldn’t find them. Ashley and I are both really into tours and learning about the attraction so we decided to go for it and find the others later. The tour was awesome because it let us skip the lines and was extremely informative! And of course we ran into more BU people on the same tour!
The tour was a great deal because it also took us into the Forum area which is an ancient center of Roman life that is a major site of ruins and temples.
I learned a lot from the tour guide in the Forum area, Ian, particularly about where some of our culture’s wedding traditions come from: the classic picture of a groom sweeping his bride off her feet and carrying her into their honeymoon room is actually a Roman tradition commemorating the male Roman founders’ abduction and rape of the Sarbine women since there were no Roman women, “taking a women’s hand in marriage” comes from the Roman tradition that shaking hands was a legal binding contract to be wed (when men needed to greet each other in ancient Rome, they would grab each other’s forearms), women wear white dresses in weddings because Roman women wore them to emulate the sacred virgins, roman grooms wore black because everyone at the wedding knew that a man could not truthfully wear white so he wore the opposite, left symbolized evil in ancient Rome and for the same reasons that men wore black instead of white, men originally stood on the left hand side during the ceremony. However, some Pope in the early 1500’s “realized” that was Eve’s fault that God kicked humans out of the garden and made a declaration that all women should stand on the left during a wedding ceremony to symbolize their evilness.
The Forum is a gorgeous area with lots of trees, paths, and open space. We looked at the Forum ruins from a balcony and he told us the history and stories of several temples and ancient buildings.
It began to get cold as the sun set and we needed to meet up with the other girl, so after the lecture was over we left the Forum area and found Carly, Carrie, and Darah. We decided to part ways for naps, showers, and preparations for the night.
We all met up back in front of the Coliseum around 7:30.
After a mini photo shoot with the lit up Coliseum behind us we caught a cab to Campo de Fiori, which is a square full of bars and restaurants. We went to a cute restaurant and I ordered gnocchi which was amazing! I ate the whole thing!
We went across the street to the chain “Blue Ice” for gelato and I ran into my middle school friend Gabby McNevin who is studying in Rome! It was so random; it really is a small world.
I knew that my high school friend Cate was also studying in Rome and we had previously agreed to meet up Wednesday night at the bar Giganti in same area. We all headed over there and ordered some very fun fruity drinks. I eventually found Cate and we had a chance to catch up for awhile, but we didn’t want to stay out to late so we head home around midnight.
Thursday February 19 we went to the Vatican. Ashley and I decided to try to the Roman bus system. There was a bus stop 5 minutes from our hotel and the nearest metro stop was about 15 minutes. The bus system turned out to be confusing and hard to follow. They didn’t announce the stops and people did not speak English when we asked them for help. We ended up missing our stop and took the bus to the end of the line. I strongly dislike the Roman public transport system because the metro system covers about 25% of the city’s surface so it was not convenient at all. I also found the buses to confusing because they often required line transfers to get where we need to go. Anyway, we finally met up with Carly, Darah, and Carrie in a square near St. Peter’s around 9:30. We all decided to pay extra for a tour by the same company that did the Coliseum tour in order to get the most out of the experience (and not walk by wicked famous things without noticing them). The tour guide was Ian again and that was fabulous because he was very cute. He gave us headsets that connected to a microphone he spoke into so that we could always hear him.
The tour started in the Vatican Museums and ended in front of Saint Peter’s. Ian told us that the word “Vatican” has its roots in the Latin word for prophecy and that area of Rome was nicknamed that because of the pagan witches that would hang out there and make prophecies.
The Vatican Museum was huge and full of famous artwork by Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Da Vinci.
The most impressive piece was the giant purple marble bath tub. The purple marble, I can’t remember its exact name, is an extremely rare stone and one square inch of it is worth 10,000 euros. The Pope owns 80% of the world supply of it.
We also went into the Sistine Chapel where we all took lots of illegal photos haha. The Sistine Chapel was very beautiful and impressive. Ian pointed out many details of the painting, many symbols, and many interesting facts. For example, it was only recently discovered that Michelangelo put his fingerprints in all of his Sistine Chapel figures’ eyes. We also learned that the Sistine Chapel and the artwork inside it is a symbol of the close relationship between Christianity and Judaism.
After the tour ended in St. Peter’s Square, we went into St. Peter’s Basilica, which was huge and absolutely beautiful.
It is the largest cathedral in the world and is very impressive.
We found a restaurant for a late lunch and of course managed to take in lots of carbohydrates! Yummy! After lunch we took the metro back to the Coliseum so that all of us as a group could visit the Forum/Palentine area together. Although Ashley and I had a mini tour of it we didn’t really have time on Wednesday to explore the whole area. Like I said before, that area of Rome is absolute beautiful and is full of ancient stuff. We spent a couple hours walking around the gardens, paths, fountains, ruins, and temples.
We had a really good laugh when Carrie fell down a flight of ancient stairs (you kind of had to be there) and “Darah the Explara” came to her rescue with her emergency band-aid. After the Forum we split up for naps and showers. We met up for dinner near the Coliseum.
One of Darah's friends from high school was also studying in Rome so we met up with them and went to a fun bar called On The Rocks. A lot of young American students hang out there but we managed to find some Italian boys that were hilarious because the did not speak that much English. I spoke to one for awhile but our conversation basically went like this: "You are tiger women, I am tiger man...RWAR". I felt like Tarzan and Jane, haha. The boys loved photos and kept screaming "PHOTO!!!" so we took lots of photos with them.
Friday, February 20, we met up at the Piazza de Popolo which is in the north of the city. It had some pretty fountain and an obelisk of course, which are everywhere in the city. Ian told us that Rome has a lot of obelisks because Catholics believe that ancient Egypt held the wisdom of Adam so they have highly respect Egypt. We walked down Via del Corso which is a long street with lots of cafes and shops like Fendi. We walked all the down it right to the Pantheon which is absolutely gorgeous! We sat in it for awhile and just took in the architecture.
After the Pantheon we visited two Jesuit churches, Sant'Ignazio di Loyola and the Gesu, which was the first Jesuit Church in Rome. They were both very beautiful and ornate. The Gesu had very curious ceiling panting/sculptures where the paintings appeared three deminsional and sometimes sculptures would literally be becoming out of the painting at the same time. After our morning of churches we obviously stopped for some carbo-loading before heading out to Piazza Navona and the Trevi Fountain.
Friday night we made reservations to do a pub crawl, which seems like something one would do in London but we thought "why not"? We would have people show us cool places to hang out with lots of other young people AND we got a "free" T-shirt which Carrie loved.
At the first bar we met boys from Germany, Spain and Chili. We had a lot of fun talking to them except for "Frank the German creeper".
We moved to the second bar but didn't stay there for long because we all really wanted to go to Gilda, a popular night club frequented by celebrities. Carrie and Darah ended up going home before we got there but Mathius came with us. The club was amazing! It had great music and felt very chic. It even had performers come out on stage and dance to a Britney Spears remix.
Saturday February 21, we went to the "Capital" area of Rome. We used my guidebook and found some great views and cute little gardens before heading up to the Piazza del Campidoglio, which was designed by Michelangelo.
We went into the Capitoline Museums and saw some really famous statues like "She-Wolf" and "Constantine".
After the museum we headed to the Spanish steps for some carbo-loading, gelato, and a major people watching session.
We wanted to go to the Roman baths but we quickly realized that the Roman baths were in the Forum which we had already been to twice. So instead we renting this 5 person bike mobile contraption. The bike mobile allowed one person to steer and pedal with the help of 3 other peddlers. I was the lucky 5th person who got to sit and watch hilarity ensue. At first, Carrie was the driver, but taxi drivers were screaming "mamma mia" at us and laughing. One nice taxi drivers tried to help direct us in between some parked cars and a pole with no success. So Ashley took over as driver and between that change and everyone getting use to pedaling together, the driving became much smoother. We did every now and then though ALMOST hit cars/people/poles...but thats what made it so fun! :-) We biked around the Coliseum and Carrie shrugged at people and shouted "AYYYYYY!!!!!" when we got weird looks.
For dinner went back to Campo di Fiori and I orded gnocchi again and it was amazing again :-)
Sunday, February 22 we woke up nice and early to catch our flight home and were back in London by early afternoon.
Best spring break ever!!!! :-) :-)
