Semana Santa in Roma!!

Ok, so, here we go! Nine days in Italy was the most incredible way to spend my Easter Week! The first hostel I stayed at in Rome was a hit, but at first I was a bit wary. When I arrived, I started walking (around dusk) to my hostel. I quickly noticed that I hadn´t seen a white person for a very long time, and I came to realize that I was in some sort of immigrant neighborhood and all the people walking on the sidewalks were you men in groups of two or three. Let´s just say in a brand-new city, with all my luggage, and being a girl, alone, its a little unnerving. I finally arrived to the hostel which was run by these Sri Lankan guys who were a little older. They luckily spoke English very well and after I payed and checked in, the man told me to follow the other man to my room. Well, as most hostels and hotels go, this would mean walking upstairs or down a hall or something, but the guy led me out to the street. I looked around kind of skeptically, assuming this is where he lead me down a dark alley to kill me and take all my stuff. However, as I´m still alive and typing this, he only led me to the building next door where they had several rooms. When I got inside and the people all seemed relatively normal, I unloaded my stuff and went to get some dinner. I walked as fast as I could to get to a more touristy area to find some food. I had started reading The Hunger Games Trilogy on the plane and was already hooked so I sat down at a nice restaurant, order some gniochi in a four cheese sauce and relaxed from a day of traveling. When I got back, I met the girls staying in my room and it was two German girls and a Japanese girl, and everyone was really nice.  We all ended up hanging out for awhile, and I realized how fast you can meet people and a trip alone does have to actually be a trip alone. It was a great start to the trip.

So, Sunday morning, I woke up early and was excited to see some things. It was almost nine in the morning and my first stop was none other than the Colosseum! I was pumped walking there and taking pictures along the way. I was going down some steps to get to the entrance and was taking some pictures. However, these steps weren´t marked well and separated by awkward distances so, while I was taking pictures, I bit the dust. It was the most embarrassing thing ever! I twisted my ankle so bad that I couldn´t stand up so I quickly sat on the step and pretended to look at the Colosseum as if I were just taking in the view, but really, it hurt so bad I was just trying no to cry. It started swelling almost immediately. Some paramedics strolled over and asked if I was doing ok. I quickly brushed them off, smiling and saying that o ya I was fine. They then asked if I could walk, and I sounded a lot more reassuring than I felt. After another ten minutes of sitting there looking like a dork, I sucked it up and shuffled to the Colosseum. You can now see pictures of the swelling timeline to give you a better idea. I´m sure it´s just what you always hoped to see. P.S. Excuse the dirt; the ruins areas I visited were very dusty.

I had downloaded several Rick Steves´ Travel Guides for the places I knew I would be going. I had one for the Colosseum, and it made everything around me so much more interesting. I then shuffled over to the Palatine and the Roman Forum. The Palatine is a neighborhood of ruins where the rich people of ancient times, such as Domitian, built their houses. The Roman Forum is the location of the ruins from the main market of the ancient city. The audioguide explained what used to be there, and it was incredible the things that were built that long ago. That city would be impressive now, and I wish it were still there to see it up and running.  Later in the afternoon, I visited the neighborhood of Trastevere, and I explored some churches, ate a great meal of the real pasta with carbonara and headed back to my hostel for some RICE for my ankle. 

The next day, I went to the Vatican. I was getting ready for the day and discussing my plans with the German girls and I met a new girl who was an American. She said that she also wanted to go to the Vatican and asked if she could tag along. She seemed a little quirky, but I thought, what the heck, why not? Well, this girl, I found out, had been in the peace corps in a little village in Africa for two years which was pretty cool. What was not cool was that she never, never, never, and did I mention never, stopped talking about it.  We met some really nice Australian ladies in line and I loved talking to them, but, as many of you know, I get really embarrassed for other people so when this other girl wouldn´t just shut up, I was dying. As we entered the Vatican, after waiting in line for a good hour, she burst out into song in her African language, and I almost dove into the bushes to avoid people staring. Don´t worry; I controlled myself and still attempted to make pleasant conversation. Just so you know, to get to the Sistine Chapel, you have to go through all of the Vatican museums which ends up being like a mile of museum walking and fighting the crowed who after about two rooms couldn´t really care less about the museum and just wants to get to the end. Well, my ear was about to fall off about 3/4 of the way through. I say my chance to escape. There was a bathroom and I was separated from the talking girl and the Australian ladies. So, I went to wait in the line for the bathroom slightly hiding behind a wall so that the passersby wouldn´t see me. However, within five minutes I hear a familiar voice screaming in my ear and asking if this was the bathroom line. She had found me. But, after I went into my stall I got out there as fast as I could and took off straight to the Sistine Chapel where thankfully there were huge crowds and it would be about impossible to find someone. I find a nice seat along the edge where I listened to Rick Steve´s explain the masterpieces in peace. I felt bad for the ditch, but then I remembered that I travel alone for a reason.  St. Paul´s Basilica is an amazing sight. It is the biggest cathedral in the world, but being so large it doesn´t have a single effect on the depths of its grandeur.  It´s actually designed to look not as big as it is so even though you know that the place is really big, it feels homey.  After leaving the vatican, I had some amazing pizza and gelato. Pizza, gelato and pasta were the obvious recurring themes of my week. Every ice cream flavor and every set of pizza toppings seemed to be the best I´d ever had, and pasta can never disappoint me.  Many times, I had more than one serving of gelato a day and I only tried the same flavor twice on the last day when, after having tried about a zillion flavors through the rest of the week, I knew my favorites.  Those consisted of...kiwi, chocolate mousse and nutella! When I got back to the hostel that night, the German girls asked how it went with the American at the Vatican. I explained the situation, and they both said they would´ve put money on the fact that I couldn´t handle her through the whole Vatican. They also ¨joked¨ that she was probably going to kill me in my sleep for ditching her. Luckily, when she arrived, we both discussed the size of those crowds and the difficulty of staying together. 
On Tuesday, I visited the catacombs outside of Rome where the Christians martyrs had been buried when burials weren´t allowed in the city walls. It was pretty interesting, but my favorite place of the day and what ended up being my usual hangout spot was the Trevi Fountain. I didn´t throw a coin in, however, because I heard those people are suckers and you´ve got to make your own luck in this world. :) Sorry that quote still gets me every time.
Wednesday morning, I hoped a train to Pisa where the weather was a little dreary, but I met with another Au Pair who lives in my town, Tiffany. I was waiting for her to arrive so I went for a jog, and luckily my ankle didn´t hurt at all. Despite what most tourist websites say, Pisa really only is good for seeing the tower. After you take a couple of pictures of the yourself pushing it over or holding it up, you´ve got the idea. However, as we were spending the night there, we had a great meal at a little Spaghetteria we found down a random little street and had a good ol´time.
Thursday, was the first day in Florence. We went to the Accademia Museum to see Michelangelo´s statue of David which is seriously impressive.  It´s absolutly huge and the detail of his body is incredible. We saw the outsides of all of Florences main churches, but we only stepped inside a few of them because many had entrance fees and, after Rome, I had seen enough churches for awhile. We decided to go to a random place on the map not knowing what it was, and we were pleasantly surprised to find it was an incredible plaza on top of hill from where you could see all of Florence. It just so happened to be about time for sunset and there were bands playing music so we just sat back and took in the incredible views and enjoyed some music.

Tiffany went to Rome on Friday, but I was still set to be there a couple of days longer. We went to an awesome food market and watched a booth making pasta in the back. It was packed with the locals and meat counters that leave little to the imagination as far as what the animal looked like before they killed it considering most of the heads were still on. Nevertheless, it was a really cool site to see. I spent awhile at a church in the afternoon because it was Good Friday, and there is really only so much sightseeing you can do in one week without some good long breaks. 
On Saturday, I knew I had seen enough of Florence, and if I didn´t do something exciting I would just end up sitting and doing nothing all day. I did the most touristy thing I´ve ever done, and I ended up really loving it. I went on a tour of Tuscany where you paid 55€ and they took you four different sites. Right away on the bus, I met this awesome lady named Stephanie from Salt Lake City and we hung out all day taking pictures and talking. She was traveling alont too so it worked out really well. We first went to San Gimignano which is a little walled city on a hill with AMAZING views of the Tuscan countryside. Everything you can imagine probably doesn´t add up to how beautiful it is especially being spring and all.  This little city had a bunch of towers from Medieval times when the rich families would compete for who had the tallest tower as a house.  They gave us an hour to walk around which was plenty because it was quite small. I bought a sandwich from a lady who was cutting the meat right off the pig butt. You don´t get any fresher than that I guess. It was awesome by the way.

The next stop was Siena and we went on a guided tour of that city because it was a bit bigger. I´ve found that places are so much more exciting when someone explains to you why you should care and look beyond just another building. After Siena, we went to a tiny little fortress on top of a hill. Only 50 people actually live there and it´s a fully walled city and again, being on a hill, had some amazing views. The last stop of the day was a farm in Chianti where we spent some time doing a wine tasting. I liked the cheese and olive oils the best though and it was super fun and something I never would have done on my own.  It was also a good chance to sit and talk to some really interesting people. Also, I forgot to mention, the tour was half in English and half in Spanish so they could get more people on one trip which was a little annoying at times because I felt like they kept repeating themselves. But, it provided an opportunity to speak some Spanish during my trip too. 

On Sunday, I went back to Rome because my flight home was from Rome but not until Monday.  I went to my hostel and no one was there. I was a bit frustrated at first because I had been walking for a really long time to get there, and when I called to ask them how I get inside the guy told me in really poor English that he was eating and I would have to wait an hour. I sat there for an hour in a tired and cranky mood since I just been on a train for four hours, but when they reminded me it was Easter and they went to eat with their families, I let it go and cheered up a bit. However, when I got inside this hostel I was a bit shocked. The bathroom was more like a camper bathroom and the toilet seat was so cracked it was almost non-existent, and it smelled so bad I could hardly breath. I later found out that smell was their offered shampoo scent.  But, the most shocking thing of all was their resident who was staying there for a couple of months. At first, I wondered if it he was supposed to be some kind of joke to get a reaction out of me, but later I realized he just liked to look that way. It was this Italian guy about the size of my little sister. He had thick, blond hair extentions stretching to his waist, and eyeliner covering his entire eyes from the sides of his hairline to the middle of his nasal bone. Also, the skin-tight leather jeans added to the ensamble. I wasn´t sure if he was trying to look like a cross-dresser or a rockstar or what. I got back to the hostel at around 7:30 because after eating pizza and gelato at the Trevi Fountain I didn´t have anything else to do so I thought I´d just read for awhile and then get to bed early. Well, I decided to make conversation with the really weird guy because the last thing you want in a hostel is the weird person to know that you think they´re weird because what if he was actually crazy and stole all my stuff because I looked at him weird or something. It turns out he is (in his own words) a rockstar, and moving to LA in a month or two to pursue his rockstar dreams. Unfortunately, he was staying in my room which also happened to be his prep room. He was starting to get ready to go out for the night. He came in the room with his shirt off to reveal all his tattoos. My favorite was probably the words Bon Jovi tattooed across his stomach over some really ugly design. He put the mirror in the middle of the room and proceeded with what is probably his nightly routine.  He did some arm excercises which aren´t really working for him followed by reapplication of his eyeline. I kid you not he stood there and shaved his chest in front of me then straighted his real hair follwed by brushing and untangling his hair extensions. He then changed to a new pair of tight leather pants (right in the middle of the room also) and pulled on his leather boots finishing it off with a thick cheetah print band around his forehead. This whole ¨transformation¨ took seriously two hours with his rock music blaring in the background. I´ve never seen anything like it in my life. I breathed huge sigh of relief when two French girls and two Polish guys came in and they were all pretty normal. 

It was an overall amazing trip, and I never stopped eating. It would be interesting to know how many calories I took in over the week, but even if I did know, I wouldn´t have given back one scoop of gelato. The spare tire is totally worth it and, with the family gone this week, I´ll probably lose it because I´m too lazy to cook. However, whipping up a batch of homemade cinnamon rolls was probably not a good start to Operation Bathing Suit Season.