This past weekend I went to Rome with Momoko, my friend from Japan who lives in the dorms with me. Our trip started out like many other weekend trips, an early train to save money but also keep you extremely tired and cold. It was raining when we left (of course, it is Milan after all) and got to Rome around 11. We booked a hostel near the train station because we knew there was going to be a metro strike in Rome on Friday. We found the hostel and dropped off our bags.
This is when the trip got a little interesting. We had to walk to the city center and it wasn't exactly the nicest neighborhood. It just seemed like a gross version of Milan. At one point it was even so windy that a tree branch fell out of a really tall tree and crashed into the car five feet in front of us. It was seriously like some All-state insurance commercial where that would happen and then that guy would be like, "having a bad day? call all-state" or something like that. Very stereotypical of someone's bad day. Then we had to walk through Rome's Chinatown or something and finally Momo said, "WHERE IS ROME?!" We had yet to see any beautiful fountains or ruins like we had been led to believe existed in Rome.
After finally stumbling upon a church, we went in and it was very beautiful and then we promptly left after one of the security guys came up to me with a large cloth that looked like gauze telling me to wrap it around my legs because I was wearing shorts. We decided to stop in a cafe to get a coffee for some energy, where we were asked FOUR times if we really wanted to drink our coffee standing at the bar instead of sitting down (because obviously we are tourists and only real Italians do that) and then they double charged me for a coffee. At this point Rome was not living up to any expectations.
Finally we found the Colosseum. It was a long line and we finally got in, although I'm not much of a fan for ruins so it wasn't the coolest part of the trip. Then we went to the Forum and when we were trying to exit it was almost impossible because there was a concert going on and all the entrances and walkways were blocked off in the most inefficient way (another Italian way of life, urgh).
After that we decided to go to the Trevi fountain, and this is when I fell in love with Rome. It was so beautiful and way better than I imagined. Afterwards we walked to the Pantheon and then along the Tiber and then ended up in Piazza Navona, one of my favorite places of the trip. There were artists selling their beautiful paintings of Italian landscapes everywhere, if only I had enough money to buy one! Someday... Then we ended up in a cute little restaurant where we ate outside and had a nice little candle that kept blowing out in the wind and our waiter probably relit it twelve times. After that we went back to Trevi and hung out before taking a cab back to the hostel. (Metro strikes = expensive ripoff cabs FYI, but what can you do when you gotta avoid the ghetto at night).
When we got to our hostel there was a man in our room even though we had specifically booked (and paid a bit more for) a female dorm. So Momo showed them our reservation and he moved.
The next day we went to Vatican city and went into St. Peter's basilica. Then we discovered that the museum was going to be free on Sunday so we decided to do that the next day. We went along to Piazza Spagna and saw the steps but it started raining so we went in and got some tiramisu from Pompi, I got banana chocolate. Rome definitely has delish tiramisu! Then we tried to go to the museum of pasta, but we couldn't find it and it was pouring so we stopped in a restaurant for wine because...
After the rain let up we moved along to Villa Borghese, a beautiful park in Rome. We rented bikes there and it was so beautiful and lovely we were like little kids on their birthday riding around on those bikes! Only 4 euro for one hour. We also decided that we were going to cave in and go to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner because sometimes when in Rome you are homesick and although the Romans might not do it we wanted to eat buffalo sauce and brownies. After dinner we met up with Larisa at the Trevi but everyone was so exhausted that we went back to our hostels. There was a man in our room AGAIN, but this time we didn't kick him out because he was already tucked away in bed. He was from Sweden and had actually been to St. Louis! I kept psyching myself out about him because I was thinking he was going to be like one of the evil dudes from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (set in Sweden) but I finally fell asleep after brain mapping out how to attack him if he was really like Bjurman or something. Sorry for the book references for those of you misfortunate souls who haven't read that book yet (go read it! It's awesome). This guy was actually very nice though I just was freaking myself out.
Sunday we woke up, checked out and then went to the Vatican museum. Everything was very beautiful but it was also so overwhelming! Then we went to get a picture by sticking our hands in the mouth of truth. We talked with a very nice couple from Georgia. Then we had a few hours before our train so we decided to walk to Travestere and get something to eat. We found a really cheap place and got HUGE wines on accident ;). Our waiter was very Italian and nice and it was the perfect ending to our Roman holiday.
Our train was late but overall it was a great great weekend with new friends and new adventures! I'm really glad I did finally make it to Rome after several failed attempts!
Collage by Momo:
Ciao for now!
