First of all, the whole time we were in Rome, I counted the number of nuns/sisters in habits that I saw. My total count was 63! And we only spent about 3-4 hours in Vatican City. I can't imagine what my count could be over the ten day trip to Rome for Christmas! It made me really happt to count the sisters and all my friends were helping me out--but, have no fear, I am the best at sighting habits and veils! :)
Anyway, the trip started early Thursday morning; we ate breakfast, packed our lunches, and headed to the bus that was chartered to take us down to Rome. 3-4ish hours later we arrived in Rome. We had a little time to unpack and get settled. I roomed with Laura and Diana. It was a great situation...and the hotel was just like an American hotel, which was quite pleasing! (Towels in the room, bathroom/shower in the room...)
Then, we headed out to meet our guides for the Roman Forum and Coliseum. The tour lasted about 3 hours and we learned all about the ancient, ancient, ancient city of Rome. It was so weird to think I was standing on the same ground that people stood on and rode their chariots on so many thousands of years ago. After the tour of the Forum, the guides took us to the Coliseum and told us a bit about it; then we were free to go. Diana and I ran around the Coliseum taking pictures and looking at it. It was such a strange place....gladiators....human sacrafices...all that crazy gross stuff! I have a picture of me in the Coliseum and I'm smiling...I realized later when I saw it that it is kinda weird to smile there but oh well! Anyway, at 4:30 we met Professor Mariotti at the Arch of Constantine (after getting gelato!) for a little walking tour back toward the hotel. The hotel was by the Theatre of Pompey, which meant nothing to me in terms of geography so I figured I should take advantage of Professor Mariotti's sense of direction in Rome. Per usual, the tour was informative and filled with facts (most of which I can't remember anymore..but it was great nonetheless!).
After adventures back near the hotel to the Fountain of the River Gods we headed to supper. I think there were 6 of us and we ate at outside at a restaurant in some Piazza so that we could people watch. I had a delicious noodle with crushed red pepper (apparently a specialty of Rome); I loved it so much since, evidently, Tuscany doesn't know spicy...and I like spicy! Anyway, after supper we got some wine and ran into some architechture students. Then, a group of about 8 of us found a random bench connected to a building in a random piazza and drank our wine and took some pictures. It wasn't until the next morning on our way to Vatican City that we found out we were drinking wine and "chilling" literally on the steps of the French Embassy...whoops! :)
After our French Embassy encounter we headed back to the hotel for bed. Early Friday morning we set off for our hike to Vatican City. It was a twenty minute or half hour walk and we were there staring at THE VATICAN! It was quite a sight...needless to say my "nun count" shot up from about 9 to 43 in the next few hours. We were told a bit about the structures and what we would see (we had already had 3 hours of in-class lecture on this) and then set loose in the Vatican Museum. I won't go into terrible detail about what I saw, but I do have a couple funny stories:
1) I went through the Museums with Diana and we decided to go to the Sistine Chapel prior to the stanze (rooms) of Raphael. The Sistine is supposed to be the last part of your tour and you can't get back to other parts of the museum....oops! Anyway, we needed to get back in and went and talked and smiled to the guards who let us sneak up the stairs you can only go down "because we were nice"...anyway, we felt pretty cool.
2) When we finished our exploration of the Raphael Stanze and got a decently-priced espresso (how Italian do I sound?) we went back to the Sistine. We were told we had to leave out the door on the left because it will put us right at St. Peter's. Well, that door is reserved for tour groups, but we were told to, whatever we do, get through that door. If you go out the other door you have to walk around the whole country, literally, and then go through security again. Well, the door was shut and there was a mean looking guard by it. So, what do Diana and I do? We blend in with a tour group. A tour group, of Asains! It was funny. The tour guide came and asked us in Italian where we were going, etc. We thought he was going to yell at us but he was super nice and said (in Italian), "Oh yeah, you're going the right way..." That whole situation made me giggle quite a bit!
After this we went through the crypt where a bunch of popes are buried, including John Paul the Great. It was cool to see....Anyway....
3) St. Peter's treasury. It cost 4 Euro to get in and I figured I would go with Maggie and Phil in December and she decided she didn't need to go in. We ran into our friends Ryan and Katie near there and they were also debating paying to get in. Diana and I decided to buy postcards. She walked up to the checkout and said in Italian, "I think I have 5." Well, he corrected her and told her she needed the subjunctive form or something and we started talking. He asked us where we were from and questions like that. Upon hearing we were from WI he says, "Oh, 'That 70s Show" and got really excited because he likes that show. Anyway, others were approaching the checkout and he says, "Do you want to go into the museum for free?" And we say, "What? huh?" Then he told us to wait a minute. After he helped the other customers he asked his question again and upon answering in the affirmative, he took us and told his buddy to let us in for free! It was great!
(I think Diana and I might make a good pair because we got a free bus ride in Oslo too. We like to think it's because we're cute!)
Anyway, after the museum and a walk around St. Peter's we had to get going to make it to the Music Park. It's a newer construction of three huge concert halls that we got a tour of. It was alright and cool to see. The best part was the extremely comfortable chairs. I wanted to steal some for the classroom here at the villa.
I'm going to continue the post from Roma in another post so as to encourage people to read it....it's a little long now....
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