when in rome

If you're actually reading this, I congratulate you because that means you made it through my billion and a half pictures (in no particular chronological order).  In my defense, I took over 300 in Rome so narrowing it down was tough.  First of all, let me just say that Rome was not what I expected exactly, but it was amazing.  We left for the Gatwick Airport at 2:30 AM and everything went pretty smoothly (except for the part where we were at the wrong gate so we ran like crazy people to where we were supposed to board and made it just in time to stand in the back of the boarding line).

Our "Bed and Breakfast" was basically a sketchy apartment.  There were two bedrooms, a hallway, a bathroom with a toilet that didn't flush, and a really dirty, tiny, dark kitchen with 50-year-old corn flakes and dishes with no dish soap provided.  We got a room with four beds.  This just means that you couldn't even walk across it--it was easier to do an awkward sideways shuffle between the beds.  Two American guys were staying in the room next door and they introduced themselves the first day and invited us to dinner, but we'd just eaten and we weren't convinced that they weren't serial killers yet, so we said no thanks and slept with the door locked that night.  (Turns out they were really nice guys from USC living in Spain for a year on a study abroad, and as far as we know neither of them have ever killed anyone).

The first day we walked around the city and saw lots of buildings that were really impressive but not clearly labeled, so I have no idea what they were.  We did see the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon and at least I recognized those.  Apparently if you throw a coin into the fountain, you're sure to return to Rome someday.  I'm just hoping that I return in the summer because it was really cold there.

The food was (mostly) incredible.  We lived on a steady diet of pizza, pasta, and gelato for the entire time we were there.  We did have a breakfast supplied every morning by the B&B.  I wasn't impressed.  And in case you were wondering, that is in fact pre-packaged toast in my breakfast picture above.  It's basically a giant crouton, no joke.  However, the stracciatella gelato and pasta bolognese that I ate more than made up for it.

On Thursday, we went to the Vatican via the Metro.  It wasn't too crazy except for a guy getting a little too friendly on the bus.  They don't believe in personal space here (or for that matter, not touching other people's thighs).  Not the best part of my day.  The Vatican Museum is huge--we heard that it's over 5 miles long--and they have the most amazing collection of artifacts that I've ever seen.  I can't even attempt to describe how many sculptures there were.  Every ceiling was incredible, so I now have a collection of like five thousand ceiling pictures.  And the highlight at the end of the museum is the Sistine Chapel.  It actually wasn't as large as I was expecting, but to see it in real life was great.  It doesn't feel at all like a church.  It's basically just a big room full of tourists and every five minutes or so the security guys clap their hands and yell, "Quiet!" and then what I'm guessing is that same thing in Italian.  (Notice that English is first even in Italy.  Universal language).  After the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, we went to St. Peter's Basilica.  I loved it.  We got to see Michelangelo's Pieta (check it out here because they won't let you get close enough to take a decent picture).  We also saw a statue of Peter.  The story is that you can rub his feet for luck, so over the years so many people have rubbed it that his toes are actually rubbed smooth.  It looks like he's wearing slippers or something because the ends of his feet are worn away.  I did feel a little irreverent though because the entire time we were there I kept thinking about Angels and Demons.  Example: there's a beautiful staircase surrounded by candles in St. Peter's and instead of just admiring it all I thought was, "That's where the Camerlengo lit himself on fire!"  So apparently my staircase appreciation is severely lacking.

We randomly met up with a few people from another BYU London Centre group that went to Rome (it's a small world after all) and also our roommates from the B&B (even smaller world).  So, of course, we got gelato with the London Centre people and ate it on the steps of the Vatican (amazing!!) and then later ate dinner and went to the Trevi Fountain with our apartment mates.  We may or may not have eaten gelato for the second time that day at the fountain.  I've officially had enough calories to last me for the rest of the month.  (This was after the Metro Police made us get off the bus and pay a fine for not scanning our tickets in the ticket machine, which of course we didn't know we had to do because we don't read Italian and have never ridden the Metro.  But that's a story in itself.  I'm sure he just pocketed that money--Italy's basically a third-world country pretending to be a first.  It's the European Mexico, complete with cops that take bribes).  And of course, since we're in Italy, we got invited back to a guy's apartment and yelled at by every man in the city.  Everywhere we went we heard, "Bella!  Bella!"  Highlight of the night: random Italian guys pulling up in a sports car and trying to get us to get in and go somewhere with them.  Yeah right.  As Ashley said, "That wouldn't even be Taken, that would be Given."

On Friday we went to the Colosseum and the Forum.  Unfortunately it snowed that day, and Italy hasn't seen snow since 1986, so the city had a panic attack and closed everything.  Gotta love non-refundable 22 Euro tickets (and the fact that there weren't even any employees at the Colosseum.  They just put up a sign on the door that said "Colosseum closed because of weather.")  It was really disappointing, but at least we got to see the outside.  So we decided to walk to Piazza del Popolo in the freezing cold rain/snow and I discovered that my boots have holes, because my socks were soaked.  Every time I took a step, icy water gushed out.  Needless to say, we were miserable.  But finally we checked out of our B&B and said goodbye to the owner (who at first hated us but by the end called us "my Americans" and told us if we came back we'd get a discount), then bought bus tickets back to the Fiumicino airport.

We got there at 5:30 and boarded our plane at 8:15.  Two really funny British guys sat behind us and made the flight interesting (even though their jokes were probably a little inappropriate).  To the side of us there was an old couple that had been married for almost 50 years, and in front of them was a group of old women that the older man called the "Golden Girls."  It was like something out of a movie.  They were really friendly and great and gave us an in-depth analysis of British "sweets" (candy), past and present.  We had to wait in a queue for the de-icer because there was only one at the entire airport.  It finally made it to our plane and did one wing, then the captain announced that the airport had closed.  Apparently you can only have 30 minutes maximum between de-icing and take off or you have to do it again, so they stopped de-icing and told us that the airport should reopen in half an hour.  And in the meantime, the plane was getting really hot because they had to turn off the air conditioning during the process.  The guy behind me was fanning us and he said, "Maybe if we all keep doing this--" and then the old guy next to us finished, "--We'll take off!"  And then they kept us entertained with basically a comedy routine that made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt.  Half an hour later, the pilot announced the same thing--the airport was still closed but would reopen in half an hour (and so on and so forth).  Finally the airport said it would open soon for real, so they began the de-icing process again.  And again, the captain got on the speaker and said, "We have some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that the airport is open.  The bad news is that the de-icer just broke after de-icing only one of our wings."  So we had to wait for a de-icer to come from another airport.  And if you've never waited for that, you can just take my word that it takes forever.  Finally we got one, de-iced the plane, and were able to take off--five hours after we boarded.

The flight was only two hours, but when we got back to the Gatwick Airport the Gatwick Express, which took us out to the tube and finally home, was closed.  So the nice old British couple were very worried about us and told us several times to stay in the airport where it was safe.  We really appreciated their concern.  And one of the guys behind us offered to let us stay in his guest bedroom, which was only 5 minutes from the airport.  We declined, but he still gave us his card and told us to call if we were in the airport for too long and he'd come get us.  We ended up waiting in the airport for two hours, then finally caught the Gatwick Express and the tube home.  All in all, we hadn't slept for 24 hours, so when we got back to the Centre we crawled up the 66 (million?) stairs and kind of flopped into bed.

Rome wasn't exactly what I expected, and things didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped, but I loved it.  I loved the experience of learning how to deal with unforeseen events and how to not let little problems ruin my day.  I loved the Italian people and their friendliness and fire (they're FURIOUS and then they're HAPPY!!  Just like that).  And I loved gaining the confidence to travel to places I don't know and talk to people who speak languages I don't speak and just get outside of my comfort zone.

And if you made it through this ridiculously long blog post, don't worry.  I probably won't write anything in this blog ever again because I met my word goal for my entire blog about three thousand words ago.  Just expect pictures from here on out.  You're welcome.