Rome was great! We traveled by bus this weekend; the man who works at the front gate on campus, Alberto, organized a charter bus to take about 47 of us to Rome for only 90 euro (the train would have cost about 150 euro, if not more). The bus ride wasn't bad, I slept a lot of the way. When we arrived in Rome we were surprised to find that the "hotel" we booked was actually an apartment, complete with a separate bedroom, bathroom, pull out couch, balcony (with a great view), TV (which had English speaking channels), KITCHEN, and kitchen table!!! Let's just say we were super duper excited!!!
The girls I was with decided since we had a kitchen, obviously we had to buy groceries. Although I wasn't too thrilled on the idea, because I didn't think we would have much time to do a lot of cooking and cleaning, it turned out alright. We bought things to make sandwiches, which we used Friday for lunch, and they made pasta for dinner Friday night. The rest of the time we ended up eating out because it was a lot easier (was I had expected).
Thursday night we went to an Irish pub down the street from our apartment with a couple guys from our program and just talked. We turned in fairly early that night because we knew we had a big day ahead of us.
Friday was filled with sight-seeing. We saw the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel (where I snuck an "illegal" picture of the ceiling), the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, & St. Peter's Basilica (definitely my favorite), just to name a few. Being in the Basilica definitely made me proud to be Catholic! We also climbed to the top of the Dome at the Basilica, because apparently climbing to the top of buildings is what you do in Italy. There were definitely more steps this time, more than 500 for sure, but once again the view made it worthwhile.
By the end of the day we were exhausted, but had to get ready for our pub crawl!! The first bar was nearly impossible to find. I ended up having to have my mom look it up and text me directions because we had no idea where it was located, besides that is was near the Spanish Steps (more like 3 blocks away). The pub crawl itself wasn't as impressive as we expected, but it was still fun.
Saturday night we went to the David Guetta concert. The only word that can describe this night is INSANE. The concert started at 11pm...and didn't end until 4 IN THE MORNING!!! The entire concert was techno, which I guess was to be expected. Thank goodness we found a boy from our program to go with us because there were so many creepy Italians it was overwhelming. The two girls I was with are really into techno music, so this was definitely more their element. Me on the other hand, I couldn't tell one song from the next. It was definitely an interesting experience...one that I don't plan on ever doing again. Did I mention that the taxi system in Italy sucks at night/early morning, so we ended up having to wait until 6am to ride the subway back to our place. Basically, I didn't get to sleep until 7am because when we got home I had to take a shower, seeing as the entire night I felt like I was in a sauna. I guess I can officially say I've watched the sun rise...
3 hours after going to sleep, we had to wake up so that we could pack, clean the apartment, and catch our bus back to campus. The three of us were passed out for most of the bus ride home. Overall it was a good weekend. Now we are in our final week of classes. I have a paper, 2 presentations, 2 finals, and a 4 hour gourmet dinner standing in the way of me and LONDON...here goes nothing!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment