Roma!

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie its amore! - I love Rome!

Seriously, I fell in love with it, and I didn´t think that I would. I almost wish that I would be there instead of in Barcelona, but oh well too late now! But really, Rome is definitely one place that everyone should go at least once.

So my venture started on Friday morning. When I got to the airport I noticed that my flight was delayed for an hour. Ok, no biggy. Then it kept getting delayed and delayed... and delayed. Five hours later, annoyed, pissed and thinking "of course this would happen to me, this week" I boarded the plane. But you better believe that I took the 6 euro food voucher they gave us while we were waiting and used every last cent of it. So with three candy bars, a pastry and a cup of cafe con leche I left the Barcelona airport for Roma! YAY! I was soo excited! Mostly to see my Kikers, but also to see Rome.

When I stepped of the plane it was a little overwhelming to hear Italian, which I know none of. I walked outside, without anyone even looking at my passport or anything - so different from the US. I went to the sign that said Taxi and some guy came up to take me to his taxi. I was scared. My mom ALWAYS warns me about Natalie Holloway and that kept running through my head as he took me to this really nice Mercedes without any indication that it was a taxi on the outside. Grreeeaaattt. I think he could tell I was nervous and thought that it was sketchy. So I climed in anyways and away we went. 65 euros later, yes thats right I payed about $100 for a cab ride! WHAT?! I think it was one of those luxery cabs because there is no way that the ride was long enough to cost 65 euros! Guess thats what you get when you travel by yourself to a country where you don´t know the language at all. The ride was awful too! There are absolutly no road rules in Italy apparently. The stupid driver was weaving in an out of lanes and in between cars and speeding up and stopping abrubtly. It was ridiculous. Not only was I scared for my life, I was scared that I was going to throw up everything that I ate for free during the day all over this nice, clean Mercedes. Finally we made it to the hostal, I was ridiculously car sick. My head was spinning. I went and checked in and was sooo happy to meet up with Kate, Christine and Amy (girls from school, two from my sorority). It was so nice to see faces I knew, especially after a week like I had had. So we got ready and headed to Kiki and Mallory´s apartment for dinner - aww they cooked for us! When we got there, it was like a scene from a love movie, minus the gorgeous guy and insert Kiki. We ran towards each other and gave each other the biggest hug. I missed her sooo much! It was better than hugging a gorgeous guy, at least at that point. When we are both old, single, and living together with our dog I will be wishing I had a gorgeous guy instead of Kiki - hehe just kidding Kikers! After getting passed the out of control strict security gaurds that gaurd their aprtment building we ate dinner. It was nice, two of their guy friends made the pasta, Mallory made bruchette and tomato and Motzerella salad and of course Kiki brought the desert, gelato and candy. Nice. So after dinner we went out in Roma! So cool, we went to a few little bars and then home for the night. Oh and by the way, my camera broke. Imagine that?! One more thing to add to the list. It was nothing I did, I took a picture and went to turn it off and the lens wouldn´t go back in. Of course not! I mean why would something work right for me? Whatever, I was in Rome, with Kiki. I didn´t quite make it back to the hostal but I did get to spend the night with Kiki in her apartment after a stealth operation of sneaking me past the security guards.

The next day we were all pretty tired so we didn´t really get going until around 1:30. We had lunch at a kabob place. So good! It was meat, onions, tomato, lettuce wraped up in a thin pita shell with spicy chili sauce and this cucumber mayo. Delicious. Followed by some amazing gelato. Yes, this was my first authentic, Italian gelato and it was amazing. I was hooked, which is a bad, bad thing. We first went to the Colleseum. I can´t even put into words what I felt when I saw it. It was overwhelming and made me feel small in a good way. I just kept thinking - "holy crap, this is the Colleseum, where everything basically started." I kept having that thought the whole time I was in Rome, seeing all the ruins. Soooo cool. After walking around and through the Colloseum, we walked to the Trevi fountain. I was super excited about this because I hoped by throwing in a coin my luck would turn around. I followed the correct proceedure, at least what I was told was the correct proceedure - taking the coin in your right hand and throwing it over your left shoulder in the the fountain. After that we walked to see the Spanish steps. I don´t know the significance of them but I always hear people talking about them.... After the steps we headed back to the hostal to get a quick nap and then go to dinner. We were all exhausted! It had been a long night followed by a long day of walking.

We ate dinner at a place close to Kiki´s apartment. The bruchette I ordered was amazing, the ravioli, not so much. And there were literally only 8 ravioli noodles on my plate. We had to sit in the smoking section because there were too many of us so we were all pretty uncomfortable and wanted to leave as soon as we could. So even though I was still hungry after my 8 noodles, we left. We decided to just go back to the hostal and call it an early night since we were so tired. But on the way back to the hostal, the three girls and I decided we were still hungry and wanted some real Italian pizza. I fell in love with that too! It was soooo good! I love the extremly thin crust. I went to bed feeling happy and fat that night. It was amazing.

On Sunday we left the hostal by 10 and met up with Kiki and Mallory. We headed to the Forum. It was amazing, once again I had that overall feeling of "Oh my gosh. This is where civiliaztion and everything started." The Forum is the main part of ancient Rome where all the trade and commerce happened. It was so cool to see. I also saw Cesar Agustos´tomb. After the Forum we walked and got lunch and then went to see the Pantheon. That was cool too. The art on the inside was insane. Undescriable. After that we went to the Plazza del Cmapidoglio. Its a plazza that has a lot of history that I don´t really remember.. haha other than Michealangelo was the architect/designer and he designed it so that it kind of plays a trick on your eyes to make it appear as the plazza is a perfect square but it really isn´t. And also all the people wanted everything to look uniformed but the middle windows in two of the buildings are triangles on the top and the others are all rounded - so he made a mistake but the buildings are still gorgeous. It was a good mistake aparently. After that the girls from Florence had to leave to catch the train back and so we said good bye and we went back to Kiki´s apartment to sneak me. We took a nap and then decided when we woke up, since I didn´t get to see the Vatican or St. Peters Square on Friday like we had originally planned (Stupid air travel.) we would go see it at night and have dinner somewhere around there. (Like I really needed to eat more, I feel like all I did this weekend was eat!) So we went to St. Peters square and it was amazing at night. The night was gorgeous. (Bella Note in Italian. I know a little...) It was all lit up and I think I enjoyed it more than I would have during the day. It put a whole different perspective on the square. I was a little disapointed that I didn´t get to see the Cistiene Chapel but I decided this weekend that when I get married (IF I get married...) I want to go to Rome, Paris and Venice for my honneymoon. So I´ll get another chance, hopefully. We stopped at the Kabob place agian for dinner (SO GOOD!) then we decided that I needed gelato one more time before I left, even though we had it earlier that day. (FATTIES!) We went to the best place that serves gelato and each got the same size, but a different guy filled mine than did Kiki´s and Mallory´s and they got way more than I did, I was mad. So I went and bought another one. It was a smaller size! Don´t worry! I´m not that fat... ok... maybe I am...With smiles on our faces and extremely full tummys, we went back to the apartment and watched a movie and went to bed...

Unfortunately I had to leave the love of my life on Monday morning. But oh well, after seeing Kiki and spending the weekend with her in Rome, I felt really rejuvinated after the week I had.

Anyways, that was my weekend in Roma. I loved it so much and I can´t wait to get the chance to go back. It was absolutely amazing. I would love to upload pictures for you all, but oh wait, thats right I don´t have a camera, nor do I have a computer to upload them to! My life is wonderful...I will get them uploaded as soon as I can and I´m going to try to start a snapfish account so I can upload more than just a few pictures like I do on here.

-Cioa.