This weekend Kati, Robyn, and I may go to Paris because train Italia is going to have a strike from midnight on Thursday until midnight on Friday, so we can't go skiing in Italy. So Kati's looking up hotels because she's fluent in French and has been to Paris before and one of the hotels lists amenities as "fire escape." hahahaha!! we've been laughing about things like that for like an hour now.
Roma was very fun. I have been trying to upload my pictures, but still haven't finished because I took over 100 and that doesn't even include the ones other people took that I'm going to take from them, which include some of my favorites. We left at midnight on Friday and Amanda, Sarah, and I shared a car. It was kind of sketch because it was us three and three other guys. The guy next to me decided it was ok to take up half of my seat so he could sleep and I got a little irritated with him during the night. The rest of our group had a car together and pushed the seats together to make a big bed so they had a much more pleasant train ride.
We got there at around 7 and went to the hostel, but they said if we wanted a room all together we would have to come back at 4 so the guy could clean it. We agreed, because otherwise Sarah, or Dan since he offered, would have to stay in a sketchy room by themselves. We walked to the Colosseum, which was really close to our hostel and ate breakfast at Cafe Oppio. ha! It was a cool looking cafe for obvious reasons. I had a chicken salad sandwich for breakfast and it was really good. I think that was the kind of sandwich I had when I went to Mozart's Birth House in Salzburg. I'm glad I know what was in that sandwich now.
Then we went to the Colosseum, which was you know, cool because it was the colosseum. Don tried to find a sword he had hidden there a few years ago, but it wasn't there anymore. Sarah, my artsy photo friend, took 18 pictures of padlocks. ha! We kind of laughed about that a lot. But they are beautiful! She took some really awesome pics.
Then we saw the Arch of Titus and the Arch of .... someone else. They're right next to each other, so if you look up one you will know the other. We're surrounded by all these historical ruins and two of us get the idea to take a picture of our shadows. Well, then we became obsessed with shadow puppets for about 5 minutes. It was just so funny, because "We're surrounded by antiquity and we're amused with our shadow puppets," as Father Dan Steeves said. Father Dan Steeves is the new nickname of Dan who acted as our tour guide throughout the ruins we saw that day. He used Rick Steeves as his tour guide reference and he was wearing a button up shirt with a white shirt underneath, so in pictures we took of him, he definitely looked like a priest. Hence the Father and Steeves. (And by the way, we had an awesome group because we managed to do Rick Steeves' suggestion for how to do Rome in 2 days, without even looking at it. We planned it ourselves and found out that it was exactly what Rick Steeves suggested, except for getting up early. We thought we should write our book.) We walked around the ruins, saw the Circus Maximus, etc. Then we got lunch and walked to the Pantheon. By that time I was exhausted so I thought it was cool to see Rapheal's grave, but I was ready to go back and rest. We went back to the hostel and some of us took naps, while others played cards. Then that night we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner and it was SO good! I got a hamburger and for awhile I forgot we were in Italy. Then I think we just went back to the hostel because everyone was really tired. I wasn't, but as soon as I was in bed I was the first one to fall asleep.
Saturday they all slept until 12. I got up earlier to take a shower. Our hostel was only 10 euros a night but we they gave us juice, caffe, and biscotti for breakfast. We also got free internet access. Some people thought it was sketchy because they played Bob Marley or Eminem starting at 6 in the morning and perhaps on Friday night there was some excessive partying, but I slept through that so I found the Bob Marley relaxing and didn't think it was sketchy at all. The beds were comfortable, but the bathrooms were gross. The bathrooms were the only problem.
But anyway once we got out of bed on Saturday we headed over to Vatican City. On Saturday, the museum closes at 1:45 so all we could see was San Pietro's but that was ok with me. We saw Pope John Paul's grave and that was really moving, just because I never really mourned his death. I just thought, 'Well, hey, he's the Pope, so now he's in heaven with God. Good for him. That's what he lived his life for.' But the last time I saw him he was alive, so it was really bizarre to see him buried. We also saw St. Peter's tomb. We climbed 551 steps to the top of the basilica. That was so fun! The walls started tilting at parts and some parts were really claustrophobic. But the view was amazing! We found everywhere we had been the day before, including the Pantheon. On the way back down, Dan wrote Casa Artom '06 Wake Forest U. on the ceiling of the staircase, so if anyone goes there, be sure to check it out. I know I will. Then we went to mass at 5 and that was cool. Surprisingly, we have always been able to make out some of the homily, which is always good.
Then we walked to the Spanish Steps and then ate dinner at Cafe Leonardo, near the Spanish Steps, and it was sooooo good. Overall the meal was just great, but nothing in particular was amazing. The meal as a whole was quite wonderful. Then we went to the Trevi Fountain and saw a dog who wanted to go into the water and a juggler. It was fun. Then we just went back to the hostel again.
Sunday, we slept late again and just ate lunch at the Hard Rock again... yeah, we wanted to stock up on the American food while we could. I got massacred by their biggest burger. I felt like such a wimp, but I feel I could have handled it if we hadn't gotten the combo appetizer before hand. Then we went to the train station and this ride was much better than the other. We got a faster train so it was much more modern. We were back by 10:30ish and it was just an amazing trip that I find hard to explain. We had a really good group and we got a lot closer.
The best part of the trip, though, was definitely being able to say, "yay! we're going home!" or "yay! we're home!" which was Venice. I go to Rome and get to come back to Venice. I mean... it was just incredible. We are living fabulous lives.
Yesterday... mmm... we went to the police station in the morning to get our permit of stay. I think that means we're temporary citizens of Italy. Rock on!
Then Robyn, Kati, Allison (my roommate), and I decided to go to Panorama, a really big store like Costco or Walmart that is on the mainland. So we found the industrial sectur of Mestre (the mainland), as well as the projects (or at least what looked like the projects), and chased a bus to try to find this place. When we did find it, we found at it didn't open until 1:30 on Mondays and it was only 11. That was fun!
Last night we watched "Kingdom of Heaven" and that was ok.
Today Peter Loritzen came to talk to us because our art history teacher isn't here this week. He brought his wife, Rose. If anyone has read "The City of Falling Angels" by John Berendt, then these names should be familiar to you, because they are the couple who rented out the apartment in their palazzo to him. They are pretty dominant characters in the book, since he lived with them. SO that was cool. His talk was about the restoration of Venice and it was jam packed with information. It was almost overwhelming, because he's from Minnesota but he has a British accent and he was spoke quite animatedly. I really enjoyed the talk, but it is too much to go into detail about the actual talk itself. (Paige I thought you would find that cool.)
Then Kati and I went to Panorama. I bought a webcam for 13.50 euros. I really wanted shoes because I feel way too American with my sneakers, but they were all regularly priced, so I figured I'd go to a "real" shoe store to buy them if I was going to spend that much money.
Tonight we watched, "La Strada" for our film class. It just got old after awhile. I'm not sure what the exact point of watching it was, but it was Fellini's first international hit.
Then tonight was spent looking up tickets for "La Boheme," which is playing in Trieste. We can get tickets but we may have a problem getting back from Trieste that night, so we may not be able to go. It's about a 2 hour trip out there by train and bus. We're also planning the Paris trip. So it should be another fabuluos weekend.