Italia!

Ohhh Italy, what a weekend. Attempting to say things in Italian: Roma, Firenze, ciao, scuse (spelled wrong, and probably said wrong too, but we had to say excuse me quite a bit) and come si dice were used early and often. There was also a massive overuse of the phrase "when in Rome", but we cut that out after a day or so. I and four other people made the trip, no plans and just a couple days notice on actually booking the trip really turned out well. We showed up at 10pm with no hotel reservations and needless to say little else in the way of concrete plans other than places we wanted to go, and we pulled off the entire thing without a hitch.

Starting in Rome, we got to see the Coliseum both at night and during the day and checked out the forum next door for a bit. Those were my number one spots, which I plan to see again next month actually. Very cool. We went down the street to the Monument/museum of Vittorio Emanuele II, then into a few cathedrals (the Papal Basilica of St Mary and a couple others). We went in the Pantheon which at that moment had a cool cylindrical flow of illuminated rain coming down through the open hole in the roof which was very cool looking. By the way, there are pictures forthcoming of everything I've seen in a day or two on my photobook site/facebook.

Then we got some gelato at the most ridiculous gelato place that exists I'm fairly sure, it had a good 150 interesting and strange flavors. I had a pretty strange combo, different, but good. So afterwards we went on to the Spanish Steps at the Plaza di Spagna and joined the masses of people hanging around there. Lots of cool but very expensive shops lead off for a few blocks away from the steps, so the girls got to buy a couple things here and there. Personally, I made it out of Italy having only bought a tshirt and a cheap watch. No Italian leather shoes unfortunately.

I enjoyed the Trevi Fountain, during the day as well as at night, but I've got to say it was a LOT cooler at night. Very very good place to hang out and enjoy not walking after the LONG day of wandering the streets of Rome. That was actually just day one, so day two brought with it a trip to Florence where we spent the day trying to find a hotel (in light of the conflicting Italian national day last Saturday that had all of the hotels booked up solid) as well as heading to the surrounding hills and seeing the city from above. Florence is a beautiful city, reminding me of a smaller, calmer version of the public beauty that you see here in Barcelona. Although we didn't get to see much at all since we only had an afternoon to spend, we saw enough to know we need to go back.

Sunday's return to Rome was to see the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. The rest of my group got to see more of the sights there than I did because I spent most of the day with two of my friends from school who are on a summer project in Rome, which was SWEET. I didn't expect it to be quite so refreshing to see people from home and share travel stories and just hang out. It was just what I needed.

We ate tons and tons of unbelievably good food and tested out some of the good yet not too steeply priced wine, loving every minute of eating in Italy. I think the food is what I miss the most honestly. Maybe that's because the Spanish cafe-type pastry, small baguette, tapa-appetizer style of eating doesn't fit my American need for large quantities of solid chunks of food at all times. It's strange to me that a trip to Italy would be what made me feel at home.

I didn't see what I saw with as much depth as I wanted, but thus is a trip including two cities in three days. But I can now effectively navigate my way around Rome and know that I want to get to know Florence, so my interest has been sparked to say the least. Amber and I get to head back that way in just over a month, perfect way to end the summer.