When in Rome...

A good friend once asked me the following: "In Rome, do you think they say, 'When in America'?" This weekend, I found out firsthand that sadly, the answer is "no."

On Friday after class, I took the bus with 2 other girls on my program directly to Rome. The bus ride brought back horrible memories of my first time navigating the bus system from Rome to Siena right after I had been traveling for almost 24 hours. This time was so different...I can't believe that happened just 3 weeks ago. It feels like so long ago!

Anyway, we made it to our hostel. I had never stayed in a hostel before so I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that we were staying at a place called Alice in Wonderland B&B and that the place had received good ratings on hostelworld.com. I was so excited to have a room to put all of my stuff down, but immediately after we walked in, we were notified that the place had overbooked us. Panic ensued, but ultimately the hostel sent us to another "hostel" located nearby.

I say "hostel" with quotation marks because this place was definitely more like a host family. The 3 of us ended up in the guestroom of their house. They were so nice and helpful and it actually turned out better for us because the location (middle of Chinatown) was much closer to all of the sights.

We spent Friday afternoon and night walking around the northern part of the city, which consisted of the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Piazza del Popolo. Although everyone always talks about the Spanish Steps, I honestly don't understand the hype. They're...steps.

The Trevi Fountain, on the other hand, was incredible. It's so much bigger than I had expected and going at night was a great decision because the lighting from the fountain made it look even more stunning. The saying goes that if you throw 3 coins from your right hand over your left shoulder, you're either a. supposed to get married; b. supposed to get divorced; or c. supposed to return to Rome one day...I'm guessing I read an amalgamation of all the different superstitions.

I also thought that the Piazza del Popolo was worth visiting. It's a huge square that contains a giant Egyptian obelisk at its center. The obelisk itself dates back to the 10th century BC and was brought to Rome by Augustus. It was originally placed in the Circus Maximus but was then moved to the Piazza in the 1500s. The rest of the Piazza was constructed in the 1500s and was used for various purposes, the last of which was public executions. People stopped doing that in the mid-1800s though :)

On a related note, I noticed throughout my time in Rome how much Egypt had an influence on Roman architecture and art because of Rome's conquest of Egypt under Augustus. It's so strange to still see that influence even today. Egyptian influence is everywhere here, not just in the Piazza del Popolo. The Vatican is another place that was (unexpectedly) enormously abundant in Egyptian references.

my friend, Becca, and me in front of the Colosseum and the Piazza del Popolo

The next day was spent at the Vatican doing the Vatican museums, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Pantheon, etc. etc. My personal favorites were seeing the inside of St. Peter's (basically a marble palace) and the Sistine Chapel.

We then went back to the high fashion street where we window shopped and ate dinner, checked out the nightlife, and then passed out. The food in Rome wasn't really notable. I'm not sure if this was because we didn't really know where the good restaurants were, or perhaps because Rome just isn't a food city. It's definitely an industrial and modern place. Besides all of the historical surroundings, Rome is not one of those Italian cities fixated on preserving their culture and I wouldn't call any of the food I ate there "traditional Italian"...they pretty much cater to what the tourists expect traditional Italian to be.

Sunday was GORGEOUS -- it made up for the previous 2 days of crappy weather and was the perfect time to see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. We didn't go inside either because of time constraints, but apparently there isn't much to see in the Colosseum anyway. The Roman Forum, however, was something I would definitely pay the price of admission to go into and explore.

All in all, the trip was great and we made it back to Siena by the late afternoon. I can't believe it's already the 2nd week of classes!