What I love most about Italy is the gelato, fo sho. I mean, you literally can’t go wrong with gelato…it’s always freaking delicious. I have never met a gelato cone I did not like (assuming I picked the flavors lol). And while Gelato Fiasco in Brunswick is fan-freaking-tastic, it really can’t quite compete with real Italian gelato.
All we wanted when we got off the train was to shower and rest, cause sleeping on a moving train is rather difficult. Sadly we couldn’t check in for a looooooong time so we sadly and slowly wandered around looking for gelato. In our true lazy fashion, our first gelato was at the train station, but it was really good AND cheap. Finally, we got to check in. The lady was leading us to our room, and we kinda expected to be up one floor or something, but she led us outside! And then around the corner…and down the block…we were worried a bit that we were living in a completely different building lol. Ended up being a random apartment in the same building, but on the other side as the desk…slightly inconvenient as there was no WiFi in our room.
Brittany gave us a super awesome walking tour of the city (she’d been there already) including the Coliseum and the Pantheon. It’s so cool seeing everything cause it’s mostly really well preserved even though it’s unbelievably old. Also I love the movie ‘Gladiator’ and I was totally imagining all the scenes as I walked around—I can’t help it I’m too geeky! And Brit also showed us the two best gelato places in Rome…we obvs got cones at both haha. The first one was freaking huge (love it) and the second was all-natural, so no cones. Both were good but I def prefer the first one because I got more gelato lol. The second shop was right next to the Trevi Fountain, sadly a huge tourist spot. Ronnie seemed to be quite the attraction, as several of those creepy guys who sell crap toys kept coming up to her to chat her up lol. One greeted her with ‘Diamond, Diamond,’ which was freaking hilarious. Well, we enjoyed it lots…I’m not sure if Ronnie did as much haha.
Brit is a slave driver when it comes to sightseeing, so she lead us on an all-day walk around the next day. But, of course, first we headed to the Vatican! Many know about my secret dream to become Pope solely to be allowed to see what’s in the Vatican Library and the Pope’s Vault. Seriously, I just like knowing secrets. Well, since it was Holy Week we got into St. Peter’s Basilica for free woooo. Again, I’m not much for churches but the elaborate decorations were really quite stunning. There were carvings of a bunch of Popes in little niches, and lots of beautiful frescoes everywhere. The creepiest part about the Basilica was the dead Popes embalmed in wax to preserve them. They were in glass coffins so EVERYONE could enjoy their presence…EEK. I’m not that scared of dead bodies or anything, but some of these guys had been dead a long time and were looking a little…green and wrinkled…gross.
When one is at the Vatican, one MUST visit the Sistine Chapel. It’s like a prereq before leaving that country. Well the thing is, first you have to go through the Vatican Museum, or at least we did because certain Classics majors wanted to :P There are signs in each loooooooooooooooong corridor telling you how many more exhibits until the Chapel. Well, those damn signs lied to us, because sometimes there were two stops left, then all of the sudden there were six. Annoying, but finally we made it to the grand finale! Sadly, no pictures were allowed, but I’m such a rebel and sneakily took them anyway haha. Like I’d miss the chance to photograph the Sistine Chapel.
So what I’ve realized after all this time traveling is that we plan mealtimes poorly. We always assume we can find food, and then by the time we think of it we’re already freaking starving, and none of us are very pleasant at that point. Yeah, we really needed to start planning ahead. The rest of the day was just kinda walking around and trying to use our pass for lots of things. We went out for a nice dinner that night…had to have delish pasta before leaving Rome!!
To end our tour we pretended to be Robert Langdon while running through the Castel Sant’Angelo haha, just like in Angels and Demons! We totally found the secret hiding place, btw, though sadly not the passage to the Vatican :( We were def hoping the Pope would show when we were in the city since it was Holy Week, but sadly no such luck. I almost wish we’d stayed for Easter, except apparently everythinggggggg is closed, no surprise. I suppose if I were Catholic it might have been worth it, but I think I’m glad we got out when we did.
Hilarious story—so one of the receptionists at our hotel, named Ali, started chatting with us while we were down in the lobby using the Internet. It was kinda weird at first cause we couldn’t understand him, but then things got interesting…oh boy did they get interesting. He brought out wine for us (opened it in front of us, nbd) and basically told us that they have so much wine in the basement they won’t care at all. So here we are, chatting with this rather friendly, slightly off-beat guy, drinking wine, in Rome. Suddenly, we’re talking about his family (he has a daughter with this Dutch lady, but she was ‘an animal’ who didn’t have human emotions, so he kicked her out), when he’s like ‘I sell children.’ Wait, what?! We all kinda have the same look of WHAT THE EFFFFF on our faces, and honestly have no idea how to answer that. He goes on to explain that he runs an adoption agency, but it’s still a bit sketch, especially when he tells us about his three daughters that he’s ‘bought.’ So we’re weirded out, but at the same time totally intrigued, and since there were 4 of us we just sat and listend, enthralled and horrified. But then he starts telling us about how he snuck into Pakistan, I think, got caught by the army, escaped by stabbing a guy, got shot in the back, but made it over the border. So at this point we’re kinda thinking he’s making this all up to see our reactions, which I must admit were rather priceless (mostly to the selling babies part). I cannot even describe everything that happened here…I’ll wait til I come home haha but this is a pretty good teaser, though things def got stranger (if possible). So yeah, after 3 bottles of wine and many many crazy things, we went to bed, ready to head to the Vatican (this was the 2nd night we were there). Basically, this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I cannot believe happened, and that I hope never happens again. Also, he wants to be FB friends so we can support his campaign to eliminate war. He be craaaaaaaazy. Oh people, how you amuse me.
Slán go fóill!
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