rome, italy :: ciao bella

Roma, Italia.

there's really no way i can describe how incredible this city is, nor do fotos come even close to capturing its beauty. before i arrived, my picture of rome was a really old city and the colloseum.

i've seen pictures, and i've been studying roman art, literature and history for as long as i've been able to read, but until you see it first hand, you will never know how powerful the city is.

my flight came in at night and had to walk from the metro to my friend's flat. it was cold, and im not a fan of flying especially when i have to sit next to smelly person and get stared at for an hour straight by loud obnoxious italian soccer fans, so i was just a bit annoyed and antsy to see my amiga. the directions she gave me to get to her place were not good (sorry milene) and for those who know me, my sense of direction is off, and my instincts usually fail me when i need to make a decision... so i walked the wrong way, naturally. at this point i felt like my brother cameron because i was without a cell phone and i did not write my friend's number down before i left. not even a payphone could help me. i wasn't scared yet, just more irritated. so anyways, the reason i decided to go the way i did was because i saw big arches in a wall in the distance. turns out it wasn't such a bad decision on my part because i walked myself 10 min out of the way and ended up in St. Peter's square right out side Vatican City. QUE BUENO! it was so neat. so i asked a police man for directions. i used my spanish. they dont speak spanish in italy. so i just did the point method and i absolutely did not understand his italian. at the end of the night, i finally found her apartment and all was well. that was thursday night.

on friday, my friend had an excursion with her program and she had to go see some churches outside of rome with her class... so with a 2 maps, my camera and rick steve's tour rome book(if you dont know who rick steve's is, he is amazing and you need to watch the travel channel more often) , i set off to see piazza navona, the pantheon, trevi fountain and spanish steps.

piazza (plaza) navona...it was difficult to get to because the workers of public transportion were on strike and the police were blocking off roads left and right but i finally just walked with the parade and they took me straight to the plaza. plaza navona used to host roman "games" but was mainly used as a horse track and theatrical performances. now, it just plaza lined with great restaurants, full of various artists/musicians and a great place for people watching. the protestors were being lead by a big pick up truck blasting bob marley. italians are strange.

{{ piazza navona }}

next stop for me was the pantheon: a temple dedicated to all the gods. there are more then one pantheons in the world, but the roman pantheon is pretty unique architecturally. from the front you can really only see the columns that support the huge structure, but from the side or if you go in, you can see how cool it is. there is a huge dome on top, which used to be the world's largest concrete dome, now its just the world's largest un-reinforced concrete dome, (haha). a perfect 43.3 meter sphere can fit in the dome, thats really big, and really perfect...so after admiring the greatness of the pantheon, rick steve's told me about a cheap pizza place around the corner, so i went and had a silly lunch with an awkward german lady who ate a lot of pizza. side note: when i was choosing my pizza, i just pointed and the guy automatically asked where i was from. i thought about telling him barcelona, but rarely do that so i said california. (europeans think its funny that we say california instead of america or the united states, it just sounds better and then they think LA instead of george bush or guns)....and he freaked out, and said some words in english but couldnt understand him through his italian accent and i just stood there staring then he went in the back and handed me a bunch of pictures of him in front of the golden gate bridge.. it was cool that he shared them with me but i mean, i wasn't that thrilled..then i thought about it and realized if i was in cali and i met someone from spain/bcn, id probably get way too excited and tell them my life story of me over here... so lunch was good and then i headed off to see the trevi fountain.

{{ the pantheon }}

ok, one of my favorite part of the trips was my next stop: fontana di trevi: TREVI FOUNTAIN. this is one of those things you have to see in person. pictures are pretty, but seeing it is awesome. its more of an experience. maybe its just because i like water so much, but this is the largest fountain in rome, and its looks and sounds so beautiful. its uncomfortably crowded with tourists, beggers and people trying to sell you really annoying toys but you have to spend a little bit of time marveling at its greatness. originally it was built at the end of an aqueduct to supply water to the romans. it is SO COOl! so after making my way through the people i found a seat down on the lower level and became the designated picture taker for couples and groups of people and i did that for a good 45 min just people watching and thinking of what my wish would be...everyone has to toss in a coin.. rick steve's told me that its supposed to ensure you a trip back to rome, but i wanted mine to be special. so while i was contimplating, i got talking to a guy on my right who was traveling around europe by himself for 3 months...so 45 min turned into about 2 hours of speaking spanish with this man from mexico city and i realized the sun was going down so i had to get going to meet my friend. i made my wish (only 1...the next night i dragged my other friend emily back to see the fountain at night, even more incredible, i really just could not get enough of it. side note: a few weeks ago, someone poured red paint into the fountain so now theres police everywhere.

{{ fontana di trevi }}

{{ my friend emily making a wish }}

i didn't make ever make it to the spanish steps... but i think they are just steps. and i live in spain. so...

the next day, one of my best friends, emily (who is studying abroad for the semester in london) met me, and my other friend milene in rome. we saved the big stuff for saturday because we all wanted to be together to see them. so in the morning we headed over to the vatican because we had planned on getting a spot in line early enough so we could climb to the dome of st. peter's and see the amazing view of the city. BUT st. peter's square was so crowded with people we couldn't even find the line. we were trying to figure out what was going on and we looked up at these huge monitors and realized the POPE was driving around in his mobile blessing people and doing what the pope does. so we climbed up on some cement statue and we saw the pope! it was really incredible actually, and im not catholic, but being surrounded by thousands of believers and watching the pope bless people through god (and i was wearing my st. christopher) was a very religously moving moment. i said a prayer and thought of my grandma and i wish that my family could have been there too. it was just extremely powerful. so after the pope left, there was no way we were going to get into the dome so we decided to go to the colloseum and come back to st peter's in the evening.

{{ pope }}

ok. so the colloseum is rad. and a lot of people go to see it but just to take a picture of the outside and say they've been. totally worth the 11 euro to go inside. i mean, really, its corroding away, but you can still see the angle of the grandstand and whats neat is that the ground where the gladiators fought is gone so you can see the chambers that used to be underneath the arena where they kept the on deck gladiators. sometimes, they would let prisoners challenge the gladiators and if the prisoner won they would be released from jail. if not, they died, so that sucks. we got some good pictures and from the colloseum you can see the forum which is where we went next.

{{ the colloseum }}

so from the colloseum we walked about 400 feet to the forum...which is the original business part of acient rome. there's a lot of ruins (which are just rocks and old cement) nevertheless its pretty weird to walk by the very place caesar was killed. everything was 10x more beautiful too because it was late evening and the leaves on the trees are incredibly colorful.

{ the forum :: where ceasar was killed }}

last stop of the day (actually second to last because we saw trevi fountain again) was back to st. peter's basilica to climb the dome.....we were super excited because my friend milene, who is studying in rome, had not done the climb yet. well we didn't make it in time. but we still went inside and saw st. peter's tomb, a little eery, and a michaelangelo statue and other really amazing artwork/decorations. i tried to go sit in a pew, but the security guard wouldnt let me because he said it was for mass only....i tried to tell him i wanted to go to mass, but he said its in italian why you want to go? so just gave up. side note: theres a sculpture of st. peter (i'll show you ) and it looks like he's giving the peace sign. but i think he always has his fingers up because he holds keys...?? im not sure if thats right, but either way, st. peter is so down.

{{ st. peter's basilica }}

{{ st. peter }}

{{ st. peter's square :: its bigger then you think }}

that pretty much concludes my trip. i had an amazing time.. things i'll miss about rome: pizza and real italian food, the tiber, walking down the street passed the vatican everyday, the bakery thats open 24hrs next to my friends house: 30 cent croissants filled with nutella, AND lastly: gelato: straciatella and chocolate, youre going to die. when my family gets here and we go to florence, im going to make them eat so much gelato because theres nothing like it anywhere at home. my poor mom is sort of lactose too, but its going to happen. things i wont miss: cobblestone roads, my feet are permanently bruised, being blonde hair/blue eyed girl and getting "CIAO BELLA" whispered at you every 5 seconds, and lastly: the police hitting on you too, so creepy.

when i got back to barcelona, and still i just keep telling myself, I WAS IN ROME!!! i cant believe how lucky i am to be able to see all these incredible places. its absolutely unreal. like the john mayer song "3 x 5" , rome is really something you need to see with your own eyes.