When in Rome...

Seriously...where did April go?!? I have so much to catch up on! I just had to look at my pictures to jog my memory, and realized I still have to write about Rome, Florence, Lagos, Semana Santa in Sevilla, and Morocco! But better late than never, right??
ROME…there is so much history in that city and sites to see that it is overwhelming! (also don’t think I have ever climbed that many steps in my life) Here are some of the main sites that I got the chance to visit…
Colosseum- all I can say is wow... this place is enormous! I felt like I was in the movie Gladiator the whole time. And I still can’t believe they could build something that enormous in 80AD without any machines
Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill- I’ve seen roman ruins before, but seeing them in Rome for some reason made everything way better. Ha. These ruins are what’s left of the homes and palaces of the first inhabitants of Rome. Also saw some of the most beautiful gardens… we walked to the top of this one hill that was supposed to have the best view of the city… and of course my camera died just as I was about to snap a shot.
Trevi Fountain- I woke up extra early on the last day we were in Rome to make sure I could see this. I feel repetitive saying this but I just can’t put into words how enormous and impressive it is. There is a legend that if you throw a coin in you are guaranteed to return to Rome. If you throw in another it will lead to a new romance and a third guarantees either a marriage or a divorce. (I only threw in 1, so don’t worry Ross ha) I heard that over 3000 Euro get thrown into the fountain daily!
Pantheon- A classic Roman temple from 27 BC…We actually never got a chance to go in because there were about a million small children running around and waiting in line for class trips, but I saw the outside of it. ha.

Vatican Museums- In Vatican City, these museums have such a huge collection of artwork collected by the Roman Catholic Church. Gallery after gallery after gallery…. Definitely the longest building I’ve ever been to. (Over 7 ½ miles of hallways are filled with artwork!). It was so hard to focus because everything was so detailed and every inch of the building was covered with something to look at; the walls, ceilings and floors were artwork themselves… you could have spent your whole life in this place before you noticed every detail. I was also really surprised at the amount of mythology in the Vatican Museum, with Roman gods and goddesses all over the place. Towards the end of the museum there was a really cool collection of modern religious art.

Sistine Chapel- A must see is Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, along with countless other paintings of his. They wouldn’t allow anyone to take pictures but everyone was sneaking pictures so that little rule was kind of pointless. I snapped one but it’s not that good :(

Me outside of St. Peter's Basilica... waiting in line

St. Peter’s Basilica- This came in two parts… the inside of it and the top of it. This is the Christian cathedral with the largest interior in the world, and can hold up to 60,000 people! I felt like a tiny ant (basically everything in Rome makes you feel tiny…well except the people). Then we climbed 551 “steps” to the top of the dome. These steps were actually a very tight and spiraled ramp with really tiny steps that were just really slanted. I actually got dizzy at one point and had to stop for a second. (after we ran up the steps trying to get away from on oncoming stampede of teenage boys). Maneuvering to the top was completely worth ever step though…The view from the top of the basilica was breathtaking! The weather was beautiful and we could see all of Vatican City and Rome below us in every direction.
I definitely got a lot of main attraction sightseeing done, but also just walking around the city was continuous “sightseeing.” (This blog entry is more or less so that I don’t forget what I saw and did, so I apologize for how boring it is. Ha) We stayed at this little hostel right on the edge of the city, but still good location, called “The Yellow.” (http://www.yellowhostel.com/tour.php) It was really clean and cute considering how much we paid for it, and we shared the room this really talkative couple from Australia who were backpacking through Europe. It was interesting to hear about a completely different traveling experience than what I am doing this semester. One night for dinner we went to this little restaurant that was right down the street from The Yellow, and it looked really cute from the outside… but little did we know what we were getting ourselves into. Basically the whole restaurant was empty but they sat us next to this really awkward family from England. They barely were talking to each other, the little girl had blood all over her face from a bloody nose earlier that day (don’t know why she didn’t want to clean it) and the mom had this giant buckteeth. Also the waiters were so creepy and kept blowing us kisses and the pasta was barely cooked and the pizza had no sauce. It made the whole dining experience quite…unique. The following night we had an amazing dinner though so it made up for it. ha. Alright, well I think I covered mostly everything that is important… more to come soon!!