Roma

Hi there! Hope all is well with you all and I am thinking of you daily. My Italian life is evolving and changing so much everyday, it really feels natural to be here now and I am enjoying the culture and different lifestyles more and more. When my roommates and I leave for the weekends, I feel as though I am coming back to something normal, almost like a home, when we return back to Florence. Its a nice feeling.

This past weekend, we went to Rome. Alex, my roommate from Florida, has a brother who is visiting this weeks, so Taylor and I went with the two of them to see the ancient city of Rome. And what a city it is!

Its HUGE!! first of all. Much bigger then Florence, which felt big to me just 6 weeks ago. The is so much to do and see in this city, we were very busy in each day. We got into the Termini train station in the early afternoon on Saturday and headed straight to locate the hostel and to book some seats on a bus tour. We were suggested to do so because the city is so large, and its helpful to have the transportation already in place in order to manage time in between sites. 

We booked it to the bus stop in hopes of making it to Vatican City before the chapel and museum closed, but we were out of luck. The Basilica of St. Peter was still open, however, so we spent quite a while in this church. For those of you not familiar, it is indeed the largest church in the world, and is where St. Peter and around 140 other popes are buried. This in itself makes it such a magical place to be, and there is so much history behind the construction and Dome in this church. I can't remember exactly, but somewhere around 40 different architects helped to design the church because nobody was alive the entire time it took to build it. Amazing! We also visited the Pantheon which is another large church in Rome, but what's special is the height of the Dome is the same as the length from the front of the church to the back. Its very special to the city people.

We decided to head back to the hostel at this point, it was getting dark and we were getting hungry! Alex and her brother had to make a trip to the airport because his bags were lost on the flight to Europe, so Taylor and I had pizza at the hostel and then took the metro to the collosuem to see its glory in the night. We had heard from Molly that it was incredible to see it lit at night. SHE WAS SOO RIGHT!! What an amazing piece of history that we have been able to enjoy more then 10 centuries later!

On our walk back to the hostel, Taylor and I talked a lot about ourselves, or relationship history, and some other girlie stuff. Its nice to get connected with the people I am living with while in Italy, I really feel as if these girls will be in my life for a long time

Day two in Rome was packed with things to do. We went to the Vatican again in the morning, and were very excited to see the Pope and listen to his prayer to the people in the square. I took lots of photos, so check them out on facebook. 

Next we walked to see the Spanish Steps, Fontana di Trevi ( Trevi Fountain), and went back to the Colosseo (Colosseum) to go inside and take a tour of the ruins. This was very cool, because this is something that Romans are famous for..... GLADIATORS!! Pretty intense to hear the stories of how many people were killed during this popular but very violent part of sports in Roman times.  Thousands of people died in a very short period of time, and now serves as a place of prayer for the christians who were burned at the stake during the time the Colosseum was in use. 

I came home on the train alone last night as I was the only person with class Monday morning early. It was nice to have a little alone time, I am forgetting that I still need some of that during this exciting semester abroad. I was able to do some journaling and writing a few postcards to some loved ones during the 3.5 hour trip. And or course, to let the hamburger I was able to indulge on while waiting for the train. Red meat has never tasted so good!

Back to school for the week, classes are fabulous and I really am enjoying learning new things everyday. My classmates are great, and friendly, and I will continue to blog as my adventures seem to multiply. Melissa Boynton and Jessica Gollbach are coming in two weeks to visit, and we are going to Greece for my spring break with three other roommates. Very exciting!

 

Love to you all, your in my thoughts and prayers. Ciao Bella a tutti (a beautiful goodbye to you all)

xoxo