When In Rome!

Why hello, strangers! It has been exactly two weeks since I have had enough (free) time with a computer to write to you and I have so much to tell! I have decided to split it up into three sections so that this one isn't miles long. The last time I updated you we spent the night at this great hostel in Florence, but since they were completely booked for the next night of our stay in Florence we moved to a different location on the complete opposite end of the city. The hostel was cheap, but we had a three-bedroom, private room so we can't complain! That night we took a bus into the city to do a bit of shopping and grab something to eat (pizza/pasta and gelato, of course)!

While at our hostel in Cinque Terre, I acquired a book, Eat, Pray, Love by Liz Gilbert. For those of you who haven't read the book or viewed the movie it is an autobiographic story about a middle-aged woman who, in order to become closer to God and a more well-balanced person, travels to Italy, India and Indonesia. She travels for an entire year; spending four months in each location. I began reading this book on our train from Florence to Rome on that Wednesday morning. The reason I am telling you about this book is that our journey to Rome coincided quite perfectly with me reading about Liz's own move to Rome. Therefore through the book I was able to discover some interesting facts about the city I was just arriving in, the best gelatarias and some helpful (and not so helpful) words in Italian. Like Gilbert, I was fully embracing the Italian culture and really trying to learn some Italian. It is nice that because of the similar Latin roots of Spanish and Italian, there are words that look, sound and mean familiar things to me because of my knowledge of Spanish. However, not all of the words are the same so there definitely is some work to do, but I really enjoy learning new languages. I see it as a tribute to that country's values and history, and it really kills me to see how much English has filtered its presence into each of the countries that I have visited. I understand the practicality of it, but I can't help but focus more on the loss of culture.

Anyway, after settling into our first of three hostels on Wednesday afternoon we realized that we had five days to see Rome so we'd better get started. We headed straight to the Colosseum because it seemed closest. We purchased a two-day pass that allowed us into the Colosseum and across the street, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum for 12 euros. It was euros well spent, however we have since discovered that because of our Spanish visas we are technically considered residents of the European Union and therefore eligible for free admittance into most historical museums such as the Roman Colosseum. Being the poor college students that we are, we were disappointed at this lost opportunity and loss of crucial cash, but like I said, the Colosseum was sweet! While we were waiting for our guided tour (which I wouldn't recommend doing since it wasn't long or that informative) we ran into two Johnnies from our Spain group and their girlfriends. We were all so happy to see each other and this encounter really made me miss my family that I left only one short week ago! It was nice to see them and even though we were only a week into our travels we had already many stories to share! After chatting for about ten minutes we had to go because our tour was starting and during our tour, there was another American student in our group. We had her take a picture of us and found out that she goes to Gustavus in Minnesota and has been studying in London, what a small world! We invited her along with us for the rest of our evening as we visited Palatine Hill and Roman Forum. After walking around some pretty cool Roman ruins for about three hours, one gets pretty hungry (especially if the last meal one had was breakfast at 9 o'clock in morning...poor college students, remember!) so we stopped at a restaurant on a pretty side street for some pasta and since Ashley was traveling alone we invited her along as well. She was great company and had some wonderful advice for our upcoming stay in London.

On Thursday we headed bright and early to Vatican City. This day we had another run in with students from CSBSJU however this one was planned. Amy, who studied abroad with us in Spain, had been traveling with two girls from the Cork, Ireland program and were fortunate enough to get tickets for mass in the Basilica that morning. We met them after church and then while waiting in line to purchase tickets for the Vatican Museum (visas not utilized, once again) and the Sistine Chapel (where the smoke comes from when electing a new pope) we unexpectedly ran into two other girls, Ali and Maria, from the Cork program. We were two for two in our run-ins in Rome so far and so to celebrate we went to grab some pizza while we waited for our tour to start.

We entered the museum at 2:30 and walked around for the next two hours. There were a lot of Roman statues and really old sculptures, but as I have mentioned before after my very much history-intensived semester I have really grown to love learning about history. I think much of it has to do with being able to vaguely remember what happened in each century in one country and be able to effectively compare it to the events that happened in other countries in order to better understand the history of the world altogether, it's quite fascinating really and that's certainly something I never thought that I would ever think. If I knew what was to occur after walking through these museums, I really don't think that I could have contained my excitement. Amy took us to what would be one of my favorite parts of Rome, Giolitti. Giolitti, modestly stated, has THE MOST AMAZING GELATO in the world! It's situated in a somewhat inconspicuous place and if you are to ever visit Rome, it is most certainly crucial that you find this wonderful establishment, consult as many Rick Steve's as you need, or random locals roaming the streets, or even other tourists exploring the city, etc. I assure you, you won't be disappointed. And, I should probably get some sort of reimbursement for all of the advertising that I have done for this gelato shop, but seriously people, go!

After devouring my three scoops of chocolate fondente, Italian opera, pear-flavored gelato and sinfully delicious homemade whipped cream, we went and found the Trevi Fountain. Before the fountain we said goodbye to Maria and Ali after they invited us to stay with them when we visit Ireland in the coming weeks. We were so excited for some more time with Bennie and Johnnies and especially a free bed! We spent a few hours at Trevi witnessing far too much PDA and pictures of people wishing for love by tossing a euro coin over their left shoulder. I did wish for love, but was clearly not thinking when I thought of my wish and then clearly not thinking, tossed my one-cent-er straight over my head. I really hate being superstitious sometimes because I was pretty frustrated that I forgot arguably the most important part (besides the wish) of this ritual, hopefully I didn't screw this one up for good! Our nights while traveling have been pretty low-key, meaning we don't go out and drink much. This is because we jam-pack our days that the thought of staying up past 10 o'clock pm sounds dreadfully impossible. After Trevi, we went home to our hostel to sleep off the day's activities and prepared for the next day's adventures!

While we were originally planning our European Frolick as we have grown accustomed to calling it, we planned to travel to Greece and Bari, Italy. To make a long and somewhat confusing story short, we therefore, only had two nights in Rome. When we found out it didn't really make sense to go to Greece because we didn't really have enough time, we added another day onto Rome. Then we decided why not spend five days in Rome? So we added another two nights. All of this scheduling and reorganizing of our trip meant that we had a total of three hostels booked in Rome alone and Friday morning we needed to switch. So after checking out of our hostel, we stopped at an internet cafe to feed our internet addictions and update our family and friends via facebook and email and then we set out to find one of the most unpleasant parts of our vacation thus far: Hotel Volturno. We should have known by the name that it wasn't going to be the most enjoyable experience, but we are all for adventure so we simply rolled with the punches. Another problem about this place was that in order to save money, we booked this hotel for two people instead of three thinking it was like other hotels where the three of us could walk in with no problem and then share a queen-sized bed. (We couldn't have been more wrong). Still upon check-in, we had Michelle wait in nearby shops and markets while Libby and I brought our stuff in. Well this hotel wasn't like other hotels, in fact it was on a whole different hotel spectrum. First of all, we needed to buzz the front desk which looked like someone's home office only because it was located right next to their living room and kitchen. After buzzing to enter the building, we needed to ring their doorbell and walk right past the family/owner who lived there as we marched our way into our rather tiny, hardly-enough-room-for-two-people room. Needless to say, I did not want to stay there.

After checking in and leaving our stuff there, we left a message for one of the Corksters, Ali (who we ran into the day before) because she was staying in her Italian cousin's friend's apartment and we knew she was going to be alone that night. We thought, maybe she would want some company? The thought of missing out on a night at Hotel Volturno didn't upset us in the least. So while we waited for her to respond to our text, we visited the Spanish Steps, making sure to stop for lunch and gelato and speaking Spanish the whole way of course in honor of the Spanish Steps. We hung out there for about an hour and then Ali responded! She said she would be happy to host us. We practically ran back to the Hotel to grab our stuff and grabbed the next bus to this apartment which happens to cost 500,000 euro per square meter! It was gorgeous (of course pictures to follow)! In order to save some euros, we went to a grocery store for dinner and made a fabulously grand meal of spaghetti and meal balls, salad, baguette,  and wine where we finally were able to control the portion sizes! And of course, the evening ended with a necessary run to that neighborhood's gelato shop. We averaged two cones a day, when in Rome, right?!

The next morning we made another splendid meal of scrambled eggs and muffins and then set out to find our third and final hostel of Rome. This one was small, but very trendy and fun. And to be technical, it was actually a Bed and Breakfast so we were served breakfast in bed the next two mornings! We spent Saturday checking out the Basilica (we couldn't tour the tower of the church which was closed because of Easter), The Pantheon, Trevi Fountain again with our other fellow Bennie, Spain study-abroaders, Katie and Alexa. We were four for four in run-ins in Rome and loving it! We showed them the awesome gelato place and proudly demonstrated the "Bennies Be Hungry" slogan that has somewhat unsurprisingly stuck to the the reputations of many College of St. Benedict students for obvious reasons...we like to eat. Some people take offense, I simply think it's hilarious. After hanging out with those two for the day, we went back to our hostel for a complete meal of cheese and crackers, showered and met them at Scholars Bar for what we thought would be a fun night of drinking and singing Kareoke, none of which I did because we had the wrong night for Kareoke, how disappointing! Instead we went home and got another great, full night of sleep.

We woke up the next morning, Easter, as wonderfully observant, practicing Catholics and went to church! We had to research English-speaking church services, but it was worth it because we found a nice church not too far from our hostel. We originally planned on attended the Basilica's service, but because of the reputably slow postal services of both Italy and Spain we did not receive our tickets in time. It was a bummer, but we knew going into this trip that not everything would go our way and we must roll with the punches otherwise we would let the unfortunate parts of the trip get the best of us and we didn't want that to happen. It turns out that our fellow observant and practicing Catholic, John Kerry, discovered this very same church and had attended the service directly before ours which is sort of a fun fact! It sounded like we just missed him, I don't know what I will do without his autograph.

After church, we met up with Alexa and Katie, Katie and Katee (who we lovingly referred to as Alexa and the KKK) for Easter brunch and spent the day with them. We brought the other Katies back to Giolitti's and hung out at Trevi which just happens to be in a convenient location and a fun place to just hang out, shop and people watch (mainly make-out sessions, but it is Italy, folks). Because we needed to catch a rather early train to Venice, we decided to head back to our hostel a bit early to pack and sleep for the city of love awaited our arrival the very next day!

Hindsight is a great thing, and something that we have and will have even more of upon our arrival to the US on May 15. We now know especially, that one night in Venice in combination with the salary of a college student, isn't the best decision and spending only one night in Switzerland just does not do that country the justice it deserves. Anyway, when arriving in Venice I realized instantly that I would want to come back... mostly because I needed more money! Gondola rides alone are 80€ for 45 minutes! Even without the conversion to dollars that's a steep price! So needless to say, Venice was great and remarkably beautiful, but it has definitely warranted a return visit in my book. We stayed on the island, Lido, which is about an hour ferry ride from the train station. In order to get anywhere in Venice one must take a ferry, boat taxi, gondola, etc. The art there was phenomenal and if for no other reason, I would love to return someday to buy some art because it was all so pretty!

Ok I must go explore my current city which you will be lucky to read about in a few days. I will write more today about Switzerland, Paris and London as we have accomplished much in the last week! Gotta run!