Roma, Roma, Roma

I think it is safe to say that we were all incredibly excited to be arriving in Rome for 4 days of adventuring and gelato eating. Our group had sort of split up when leaving Naples so we got into Termini station at about 8:30pm giving us plenty of time to see some of Rome's most famous sights illumnated for the evening. We made the short walk from the station to our hostel where we checked in quickly. Upon entering our room, Mike and I could only laugh at the cascade of hard liquor and beer bottles that scattered the floor - it seemed as if we had some rowdy roomates who had been around for a few days.

Our first destination was the incredible Treviso Fountain although it probably took us much longer to get there than it should have thanks to Rome's lack of city structure. On the way, we were confronted by a fellow American from Ohio currently living in Greece and were delighted to get to know him for a bit on our walk. Masterfully lit up, the fountain quite literally is a jaw dropping sight. Of course we took a barrage of pictures and then followed suit with tradition which says that if you throw in one coin you will return to rome and if you throw in two that you will fall in love there. With the exception of Party Jon, we all tossed in a single piece of change.

On the way from the fountain to the Coloseum we were randomly and abrubtly flagged down by a random driver who asked us where we were from (since it was obvious that we were not locals). We told him America greatly exciting him and then more specifically that we were from Chicago since nobody really knows where Wisconsin is anyway. His immediate reaction to our description was "yes America, I love it!...Chicago, yes....50 Cent, 50 Cent!" and then he drove off as quickly as he came. The Coloseum was equally brilliant with its soft yellow glow. Like has happened to me so many times on this trip, it really took a while for the realization that I was actually standing in Rome at the Coloseum to set in. At about midnight we decided that enough pictures had been taken and it was time to head home in the shadiest possible way. Of course, we ventured through the same park the next day and it was rather pleasant but at night it left us paranoid.

We planned on hitting the sheets early but our plans changed dramatically when those mysterious roomates of ours turned out to be a group of Germans from Bavaria on holiday. They were seated around a table, decked out in full traditional Leiderhosen with about 3 bottles of vodka open, beer bottles scattered about and a hookah. They immediately asked us to join and we simply couldn't say no. We played thumper and shared some comical cross cultural conversations while they insisted that we drink as much of their alcohol as we could. Needless to say it was about 4:30am before the desk manager of the hostel came in and shut the party down because it was disturbing other guests!

Day two brought us, and some girls we met up with who are also studyign in London, back to the Coloseum for a proper tour. For me, being inside and reading about the events that took place there really sparked my imagination. I kept picturing what it would be like to fill the giant arena with 55,000 screaming Romans who were watching men fight bears, tigers and, on a bad day, other men. In the first 100 days when the Coloseum was open and event was thrown every day free of charge to Roman citizens and after those days over 9,000 animals were killed NOT including people! Following the Coloseum we traveled to the Roman Forum. It is the largest collection of ruins in the city and was the area where all of the major commerce, religious and buerocratic functions took place in Rome. The size, scale, and brilliance of what remains only leaves you to imagine what once stood. (Another fun fact about many ancient buildings is that, at the height of their existance, many of them were painted vibrant colors which have just faded away over 2000 years leaving the white marble that we see!) Looking down on the Forumn stands Palatine hill, a place also filled with ruins of gardens that shed light onto a society long deceased. If I remember correctly it is Palatine Hill where the city of Rome was supposedly founded according to the tale of the brothers Romulus and Remis. For the evening we enjoyed an authentic Italian dinner and then proceeded to indulge ourselves in 20 gigantic jugs of wine which, despite only costing 9 Euro a piece, we could not finish between the 6 of us. During the attempt to finish these jugs I learned that wine should not be consumed at the pace of beer - it seems fine and dandy when your drinking but after about an hour or two you realize that you have actually consumed twice the amount of alcohol. Just a thought :)

Day number three in Rome took us out of Italy into the Vatican (it is actually its own country with a seperate currency and post system). Having seen St. Paul's in London and the Duomo in Florence, I incorrectly imagined that St. Peter's would be about the same. On the contrary, the level of gradeur both inside and outside of the basillica completely takes your breath away. No detail was left unperfected by the marvel of 16th century engineering. Without 2,000 words it is rather impossible to properly describe the inside of the church so I will leave that to future pictures. As for the outside, it seemed to dwarf its aforementioned cousins. It was also fun to replay the Eurotrip scene in my head and figure out where exactly Scottie came out of to confess his love to Mika haha. Later in the day we would also climb to the top of the dome to view out over the vast expanses of Rome and its 7 hills.

Going backwards a bit, our first trip of the day involved the lengthy line at the Vatican Museum. Of course we took shifts in line in order to get Gelato from one of the most notable places in Rome - it helped a great deal to pass the time. The Vatican Museum holds so many important works of Renaissance art that, by the end of our 4 hour trek through its halls we were all completely exhausted. Only the Louvre seemed to have even more mental stimulation. Although a lot of the works went over our heads since none of us really study art history, we all followed our self apointed guide, Julian, with his Rick Steve's book so we could learn about the importance of what we were seeing. For me, actually seeing Raphael's famous "School of Athens" and, as the grande finale, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel was an amazing experince. I probably spent almost 30 min gazing at both of those works, taking in all the fine details and noting the ways in which they revolutionized art. A long day of learning only leads to a desire to drink afterwords so we all caught dinner, a few bottles of wine and headed to "The Drunken Ship" for cheap pichers of beer and to watch the Barcelona football match. One more gelato run on the way home capped a great day.

For my final day in Rome I met up with my friend Lucas from Madison to stay with him for the night before I had to catch my 16 hour ferry from Italy to Greece. He gave me a tour of some of the less touristy places in Rome for which I was very greatful. It takes some time to get to know a city like those who have lived there for a while and I definitely never wouldve stumbled upon the places he showed me by myself. Original plans to see the Roma game fell through but we still had a solid day and it was good to catch up and share stories from our travels. We returned to the place we had eaten dinner the previous two nights because, unknown to us, it was the favorite place to eat of study abroad students in Rome. Small world. For the first time since arriving I got a decent night's sleep before the long travel day I had ahead. I was actually sort of excited to have a relaxing journey on a train then ferry. Turns out however that, even 5000 miles away from home, I still cannot escape my rotten luck.....(intended cliffhanger haha).

Anyways, I am currently in the process of trying to get back to London thanks to Iceland and its wonderful volcano. I will save the whole story for a future entry but it has been an absolutely ridiculous experience so far! As of now my goal is to get to Paris by Thursday 4/22 at 2pm when I have a coach booked to head up to London. Keeping those positive vibes and fingers crossed :)

More about Greece soon and hope everyone in Europe is getting home safely and those in the Staters are content not to be stuck away from home haha. My story about how I got back from Iceland is an epic so stay tuned :)

Cheers,
Patrick