I'm hot! I'm sweaty! I'm tired!

You are probably wondering where I have been the past few days.  Well, I have been in Rome.  If you know anything about Rome in July, then you know it is extremely hot!  When I looked into my journal from my last Italy trip I found the words, "I'm hot! I'm sweaty! I'm tired!" I believe I may have repeated those words more than once on that trip with my aunt and grandparents, and I still hold them to be absolutely true today.  

Friday night my host family and I had dinner with their friends and their American girl, Chelsey, who is also in the same program I am in.  At dinner we all got to know each other a little better.  The food was amazing as usual.  We had an assortment of seafood appetizers, risotto with clams, and more seafood.  For dessert, we had creme brulee.  Chelsey and I had met up during the week and decided that we would go to Rome.  Our plan was to leave Friday evening and return Sunday, but since the dinner party had been planned we decided to depart early Saturday morning and return Monday.

After a long night of talking and eating, we struggled to get up at 6am.  We walked a few blocks away from where Chelsey was staying and caught the bus to Rome.  (The bus is similar to the bus we take from Baltimore to New York City for the weekend.)  It was extremely convenient.  We got to Rome by 10:45 am and then began our search for our hotel, St. Pietro House.  We got acquainted with the metro system and a lot of people trying to sell tours of the Vatican on our way to the hotel.  It took us about an hour to find the place with nothing but an address, so we are very thankful for the people on the streets that spoke English and helped us out.  When we arrived at the hotel, we found out it really wasn't a hotel.  It was actually an apartment building where the owner of the apartment treated the place like a bed and breakfast.  He actually met us outside the building to show us how to get in.  There were 5 different keys we needed to figure out how to use!  Needless to say, I was a little sketched out at first, but the room ended up being very nice.

After we dropped our things off, we went and grabbed lunch at a little cafe near our "hotel."  When you walked out of the place we were staying, you could see St. Peter's Basillica.  We had tour tickets to see the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel.  I was overwhelmed by how many people were there.  Usually when there are massive crowds, you stand in long lines.  Here in Rome where there are massive crowds, you stand in massive crowds and push through everyone to get ahead of everybody.  I really wasn't feeling the invasion of personal space of the crowds.  After getting over the massive crowds, it was wonderful to see the amazing art and the architecture of the rooms.  Once you get through the Vatican Museum, you enter the Sistine Chapel.  It was absolutely beautiful.  I couldn't take any pictures of it because it was prohibited, so you are going to have to google it yourself :)

Once we finished the tour of the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, we headed over to the Castel Sant Angelo.  It overlooked the river that cuts through Rome.  It was really neat to see a lot of the city from the top.  A lot of art was kept in the Castel, so we were able to enjoy the art and treasures it held.

On our way back to the "hotel" after our seeing the Castel, we noted a sign that said "Remembering Pavarotti" and limited seats available.  We walked into the ticket area to find out what the event was and decided to attend the event.  Before the event we freshened up and dressed up for a little opera event.  Students from Pavarotti's school performed different music pieces.  It was extremely enjoyable.  It was a small event for about 100 people.  There were pictures of Pavarotti's life in the room along with letters written by friends made over the years.  After the music portion of the event was over, you were able to look at the exhibit of pictures and were given a buffet of food and wine.  It was really neat to partake in a little bit of opera.

When the event was over, Chelsey and I decided we would go get some gelato.  Going to get some gelato ended up being about 4 hours of us walking around Rome at night taking in the sights.  We went to Piazza Popolo and continued walking.  We ended up all the way down at the Colosseum, which is not a close walk at all!  Even though it was a long walk, it was really neat to see Rome at night.  When we got to the Colosseum, we found a metro station and took it back to our "hotel."

We rose early Sunday morning, so we could get a full day in of Rome.  We took the hop-on hop-off bus, so we could see as much as possible.  We were able to get on the bus right near the Vatican, and we headed to the Trevi Fountain.

We walked around a bit near the Trevi Fountain and saw the Republica building along with the Library. We grabbed some lunch.  It was the worst lunch I ever had because I couldn't eat it.  I ordered a seafood salad thinking it would be the basic type of seafood--shrimp, tuna, etc.  Boy was I wrong, I had one bite and ended up eating the house bread for my meal.

After lunch we got back on the bus and headed to the Colosseum and Forum.  We waited in line (meaning massive crowds) for the Colosseum for about 45 minutes.  Once we got in we were able to walk around leisurely.  I was thinking to myself that Rome looked very different today than it did 13 years ago.  Things were a lot smaller than I remembered.  Also, there wasn't scaffolding on every building because the last time I was in Rome it seemed like every building was being renovated so you couldn't see the actual buildings.  When we finished with the tour of the Colosseum and Forum, we headed back to the hotel to get out of the heat for the day.  It can be extremely exhausting being in the sun and walking on the hot pavement in Rome.

For dinner we went to the Piazza Navona.  I decided to stay away from the seafood this time around, and I stuck with the pizza instead.  The piazza came alive at night with artists coming out selling their paintings, street performers, and people playing music.  After dinner and a few drinks of sangria, we looked at the paintings and walked around.  On our way back to the hotel there were a lot of vendors selling things, so we strolled along listening to the music and browsing.

My favorite things in Rome--1) Pavarotti Event and 2) Piazza Navona

This morning we woke up to catch the bus home.  Everything went great on the bus ride home until we got to the last stop which was not Civitanova Marche.  Apparently we were supposed to transfer to a different bus at some point along the journey home, but we didn't know.  Luckily for us, the bus driver pointed us in the direction of the train station in Ferma.  We got a ticket for the train that we had to wait an hour for.  The funny thing is that the train ride was only 10 minutes long.  We finally made it safely home to Potenza Picena.  All in all, it was a fun trip!