When in Rome

Two weeks ago we got the week off to go basically wherever we pleased. A bunch of us took off to Rome. Besides the food, gelato, sights, pretty language, GOOD looking men- it was way too much fun and one of the most amazing cities I will ever see!

After getting home from Paris, I thought for sure I was done with leaving at 3 in the morning. Ha yeah right, we had to be out the door at 2:30 on Wednesday. Such a joke! Getting to Rome was a little more difficult than we all thought. We had to hop on a normal city bus for twenty minutes, then on to a charter bus for an hour and a half, and then finally on to a two hour plane ride. Super fun. The airline we flew was called Ryan Air. Let's just say that because their flights are so cheap, they make their money by screwing everyone over; in anyway possible. As we got to the airport, Blake and Emily realized that they didn't have their tickets. This is a problem because the airline won't let you print your ticket out up to four hours before your flight. You pay forty pounds if you have to do so. As they went to fix their problems the rest of us got checked in and had about a half hour to get to our gate. Not to be rude, only honest, we've got some major stress cases in our group. They were freakin out about Emily and Blake. Haha hysterical. Finally Ashley, Sharon, Kaylee, and I said just got through security and we will meet up as soon as the other two can come through. Well problem number two: Blake had purchased his ticket for the day before.. hahaha. Such a sucker, bless his heart! Luckily Em was able to brown-nose her way through and get her ticket. We left Blake behind with a phone and his problem hoping that he could get out on the next flight. Problem number three: security. I've never met such stingy/rude people in my liiiife! Luckily I just left all of my liquids at the bottom of my bag because they threw away all of the other girls stuff. Ashley got yelled at for having too big of a zip lock. We were all livid. Finally we got through security and only had less than ten minutes to get to our gate. At the time we didn't see that our gate was twelve minutes away......haha. Kaylee was behind us arguing with the dude about all of her liquid crap and so we just left her. We started sprinting towards our gate. Of course in the middle of our dead sprint some random chick grabs me and tells me I need to weigh my bag. She came out of no where! Haha so unreal. I tried not to argue and luckily my bag wasn't over the limit. I continued sprinting and right when we got to the gate of course they hadn't even started boarding!!!! Ah. We all collapsed, out of breath and started laughing our heads off. Just stressful. Haha then right as I was going to turn back to see if Kaylee had made it, she burst through the door. I've never seen such a worried look on somebody's face before. She saw us and immediately began sobbing. Hahaha. By this time it was only six in the morning. 


As we started turning our boarding passes in, they made you stick your bags in some metal container to make sure it fit the size requirements. Ughh. Come my turn, I was stressin because I knew it was going to be a tight fit. I tried to get past it but since they are sticklers the lady made me put it all the way in. HA. I was shoving it and using every bit of strength that I had to get the dumb thing to squeeze in. I don't know how but it ended up fitting. Haha super lucky. You can only imagine my happiness at this point.... I wasn't havin it haha.  Turns out our flight was only 50% full so we could sit wherever we wanted. Ashley and I went to the clear back and got our own rows. Oh and let's talk about how the bins above to store your luggage were HUGE. Bigger than the airlines at home! I could have slept up in there haha. We were all ticked that they made such a big deal about our bags after seeing that. So Ash and I were just chatting during the "how to put your seatbelt on lecture" and one of the flight attendants comes up to us and goes, "be quiet, and pay attention." HAhaha. Seriously?!? I thought I was going to die. Ryan Air is a JOKE.


We crashed and slept the whole flight. Flying into Rome was beautiful it's so big, green, and tons of cool buildings. Ah! We flew in to the airport called Ciampiano. Once we we got off the plane we got in line to exchange money. It took forever because there were 5 Asian men trying to communicate with the lady at the desk. Funny part is we saw them three different times throughout the trip haha too funny.
We then grabbed a taxi to our hotel which was a half hour away. We stayed at the Crowne Plaza just outside the city. Our hotel was so great. Just a bit of an upgrade from Hotel de Hollande. The front desk people took great care of us.. free internet, extra toiletries, basically whatever we needed. Being an american girl can be a great thing in Europe. We loved Marco and the other guy who worked the desk haha.

Once we got to our room we took a nap. We were exhausted and I couldn't function any longer. After we woke up me, Ash, Em, and Jaynann all took the bus into the city. After hopping off the bus we walked into the first place we saw for lunch due to our empty stomachs. Okay this will explain my chubby cheeks in all my pictures..... the food was unreal. I'll never be able to enjoy pasta anywhere else haha. The food was seriously incredible. We then grabbed our first gelato down the street! In Rome-eating gelato. I was loooving it way too much. The people were so warm and sweet there which made it ten times better.

The rest of our afternoon consisted of walking downtown and seeing a sight literally everywhere you looked it seemed like! It was unreal. The first big thing we came across was the Monument. It was gorgeous. Only a bit down the street was the Colosseum and the Arch de Constantine. Holy crap. I was blown away with what I saw. We've been learning about all of this stuff so it made it all that much better. I can't even explain how cool it was to be right in front of the Colosseum. Crazy to think that all of these places, statues, and monuments are still standing today! We had planned to meet everyone at five at the Colosseum because not everyone was staying at the same hotel. Haha little did we know how naive we were. These dudes came up and started dressing us up in their Gladiator gear and taking pictures with our cameras... then wanted five euros from us all after hahaha. That didn't happen but we gave them a little bit and ran away. "Mamma mia" is what the dude said when we all wouldn't pay him. At least we got some priceless pics!

We met up with the rest of our crew, learning that Blake made it safely, but we still didn't know where he was haha. We ate and headed back to our hotel. We were feeling pretty good for navigating ourselves back to the hotel in the rain and dark... in Rome. The night ended with a super hot shower! :)

Thursday morning rolled around and Ashley, Emily and I decided to sleep in. That hasn't happened for so long. I forgot how good it feels! Haha we were too happy. We headed back into the city once we were ready. Of course first stop: food... and maybe some gelato after. Oh it was really fun finding a nice sized bug in my spaghetti when I had almost finished. Ha we had a good laugh and of course that would happen to me! After we headed straight to the Trevi fountain! This is what I was looking forward to seeing the most. Ahhh! It was gorgeous and just massive. There were tons of people which was annoying but we still made our way up to it and threw in our coins! Following the fountain we went to the Spanish Steps. The view was absolutely beautiful. We caught the sunset which made it even better. These ended up being one of my top favorite sights in Rome. I don't even know why but I was loving just hanging around there. The night life in that area was so upbeat and just fun. Then we headed down the street to go meet up with the others for dinner. As we were on our way down we went down Del Corso street. It's a super long "ritzy" street. Ha it was funny to see the class change. All of the ballers and their wives with Louis bags were all struttin down the street. Loved it. We went to some pizza place for dinner and once again.. amazing. After the group wanted to go see the steps and fountain at nighttime so we went back. It was actually really fun to see them both again in a night setting. Heading back to the hotel after a great night, Ashley would blame me for a salt craving. We ended up getting fries from room service that costed 9 Euros... haha there were like two fries on the plate. Not to mention their "mato mato" sauce... gaggg me. Nothing close to ketchup. We had a good laugh and went to bed!

Friday we got up a bit earlier to catch the shuttle to the Vatican. I don't even know where to begin with this place. So remarkable! Who knew that so much history could be in the smallest area? It also reminded me of the Angels and Demons movie. It was crazy to think they filmed it there! There are so many movies filmed in Rome or based off it that I am stoked to watch when I get home haha. We walked around went into St. Paul's of course and then made our way over to the museum. It was awesome but i'd have to say my favorite thing was the Sistine Chapel. Okay i've never in my life been blown away as much as I was when I saw this room. How Michelangelo had the patience and talent to do that, will never EVER make sense to me. We sat there for a good half hour looking at the whole room. Absolutely amazing! I can't even post pictures because they don't do anything justice. We had a while until we were planning on meeting back up with the group after the Vatican and chapel. So what better way to help time go by than shopping? Dinner was a great spaghetti place. My mouth is watering as I think about it.  We then went to the grocery store to get some fruit. (I was tyring to be healthy haha) On the way back to the shuttle to the hotel we got lost and missed the last one home! So we walked to the other side of the city and took the bus home. Great experience. Ha. When we got back to the hotel, we had a fun experience with the front desk asking for something we needed (tampons) and the man not knowing what we were asking for. Gotta love the language barrier. He finally figured it out and it was hilarious to watch him laugh out of embarrassment. Poor Luigi. We were laughing so hard in the elevator we could barely breathe. Good times!

I guess modest is hottest in other religions too...

Saturday came and went with so many funny memories. We slept in again then went into town to eat at what became our new favorite pizza place. It was so yummy! In the afternoon we went back a little bit early to the hotel. Things were busy and get kind of crazy on the weekend and it was pouring rain so we decided to go swim at the hotel. Problem: no swimsuits. Our solution: Sports bras, tank, and shorts. We ran down to the pool and found out that in order to enter their "Roman Bath" we had to be wearing slippers. We made our way back up to the room to grab our free slippers and robes. They then handed us a key and we had to go through the locker room to enter the pool. As Ashley walked down the steps and into the pool area, she stepped into a pool of water. Apparently there was a shower at the bottom of the stairs and it was mandatory that we shower off before getting in. I was laughing so hard that I then slipped and slid into Ashley. All eyes were now on the loud american idiots, in way cute swimsuits. Whatever. We were then handed shower caps to wear in the pool. This put us over the edge. I was crying. So funny! Everyone had them on. Everyone around the pool had hardly any clothes on but were all rockin the shower caps. Funniest thing ever!  When we went back to the room to find a cockroach on our floor! We made Ashley get it hahaha. She put a cup over it and flushed it down the toilet.  We got dressed and decided to eat at the hotel for dinner so that we didn't have to go out. By getting dressed I mean our "I love Roma" T's, slipper, and jeans. Lookin real good. Haha. The menu was not pricey and we figured it would be good, but we were so wrong. It was the worst meal ever. Other than my diet coke... which ended up being 6 Euros! Sorry Dad. It wasn't funny at the time, but now we get a good laugh out of it. After finishing the worst meal we had on the trip we got directions to the nearest McD's! Ha there we got a CHEAP coke and were feeling much better. Scary how I'm actually enjoying coke on the trip. I guess i'm becoming more like my Mom everyday!

Sunday was our last day. It was beautiful and sunny! We woke up early to get ready and check out of our hotel. After lunch we went to the Pantheon. It is so neat to think this was the first dome built without arch support or any pillar support at all. Back then, people came from miles around to see the Pantheon because it was an architectural phenomenon. Which it really was. Super cool to see! Following that we just shopped along the street and soaked it all up before we had to leave. It was jam packed because their had been some festival and parade earlier in the day. There were people and confetti everywhere! It made the environment that much better. We headed back to the hotel to grab our stored luggage and got a cab. Our driver was insane! You all know that I never get uptight when it comes to driving. I actually prefer crazy, fast drivers. This dude was going 100 miles an hour no joke. 60 KM.. look it up! Haha it was a little crazy but we laughed and loved it at the same time. Of course our flight was jam packed and was delayed for an hour... causing us to miss our bus back into our part of London. We grabbed the next one possible and ended up getting home at three in the morning.

Such a great weekend. Rome has so much to offer and I hope that I will be able to go back someday! Ciao.