We woke up this morning and went down to ReBasilico to have our lovely free breakfast again. This time we got NUTELLA CROISSANTS!!!!!! #winning They were sooooo dank, and claro we had a cappuccino como siempre.
We then headed back towards the Wedding Cake/Colosseum/Forum area to find our tour guide so we could get a tour of the Forum. This makes it 3 days in a row that I've gone to the Colosseum... deff not complaining.
We couldn't find our actual tour guide, but we talked to another guy who said we could just jump in on his tour no problem. People in Italy are so accommodating!! It's amazing.
Aqui tengo una lista de los hechos del Forum:
- The forum is located on top of Palentine Hill which is 1 of the 7 legendary hills of Rome
- 500 years of roman emperors lived here
- Romulus is the original name of the city
- Constructed 19 centuries ago for Emperor Domitian
- 1st emperor of the Roman Empire was Augustus Cesar
- It was built for Emperor Domitian
- It took 10 years to build the Forum
- Sadly, Domitian's wife killed him 4 years after Forum was built
- This was Muselini's summer residence
- There are 3 symbols of Rome: SPQR, the she wolf and two brothers, and an eagle with open wings
- The original palace was 5 stories
- Originally the Romans used IIII to mean the number, whereas now it is IV
- Basilicas were originally built as banks and are all now used as churches
- Cesar was killed in the circus of Pompeius and his ashes are kept in the Forum
- During the renaissance, the romans used the Forum as a quarry to build other structures
Overall, the Forum was quite impressive but sadly not too much remains of what was once there.
After the tour we decided to hop on a tram to go to the Trastevere area because Sara had been recommended a pizza place in that part of town. Well we didn't know which tram to get on and OF COURSE we figured it out just as the correct tram was driving away. Therefore, we had to wait for 30 minutes for the next one to come by. However, we waited in front of the Colosseum, so again, no complaining.
Finally, dying from hunger, we hop on the tram and realize that the stops are not labeled or announced and thus we are just riding blindly through Rome. Fortunately, someone on the tram at least knew one word of English to tell us that this was the last stop before it turns around to repeat the route. After a wild goose chase looking for this restaurant and asking random passerbys where to go and getting maps of the area drawn on napkins from waiters, we arrived at this pizza place to find out it was closed because it was 330pm and they close in between lunch and dinner. QUE BUENO. Pero no pasa nada because a great Italian restaurant named Regine’s was right next door so we just popped over there to eat lunch. We all ordered pizza for lunch and I got a mozzarella and tomato pizza with ricotta stuffed crust OH EM GEE. I loved it! Ricotta stuff crust is a totes genius idea and I will be attempting that later on my own.
After that we ran to catch a tram and just hopped on it figuring we'd rather get on the wrong tram and then just get off at the next stop worst case scenario. We saw that the tram went to an area called Argentina and we had NO IDEA where that was. The 6 of us were riding a tram headed to some unknown destination and no one around us spoke English. Potential recipe for disaster. THANK HEAVENS, by some awesome magic we ended up getting on the tram that stops at the wedding cake!!!! We rejoiced our good fortune… legit I was jumping up and down and chanting Wedding Cake because I was so excited. Then Esteban and I walked back to the Trevi to get some souvenirs and take another look. Snapped another photo. I love this damn fountain soooo much.
We met back up with the girls at the hostel and opened a bottle of white wine to get ready for our awesome evening out on the town! Then I totally brought the wine bottle onto the street because I wasn't about to waste it!!! We headed out to meet up with Maggie's cousin, Claire, at the wedding cake. Claire has been studying in Rome since January and now has a job with the Vatican writing newspaper articles, I need to find a job like this in Sevilla. Anywho, we were SO RELIEVED to have a “tour guide” which meant we wouldn’t have to A) think about where we wanted to go or B) get lost a thousand times over.
We decided to head towards the Trastevere area because Claire said that this is the one part of Rome that is still exactly how it was during the ancient roman times… and it has all the good food and night life. On our way, we passed by the ancient ruins where Julius Cesar was assassinated. Unfortunately, this area has not been well preserved and so it’s completely run down and infested with stray cats. People call it the “cat sanctuary”. We also got to walk across the bridge and it was at sunset so it was beautiful! You could even see the top of St Peter’s Basilica, so they quickly snapped a few pictures. Sadly, I wasn’t carrying my massive tourist camera so I don’t have any pictures from this night (because reminder, I am phoneless).
Our first stop was an ice cream place that also sold canolis. There, we had THE BEST CANOLI in the effing world. I don’t even like cannolis but ohhhhh lord it was da bomb. This place also sold REAL granita (Italian ice) that you scoop out of tins like ice cream and clearly, I had to get this as well. We decided that since our lunch was so late in the day, we’d just have dessert and alcohol for dinner ☺ I got half fragola and half limone granita which resulted in a delicious frozen strawberry lemonade experience.
Then we walked into a plaza and saw TONS of people in the street. There were restaurants everywhere, people sitting on the steps of a fountain in the center and street performers. It was a really cool scene. We headed to a bar a short walk away from the plaza because they had happy hour cocktails, I ended up getting two Long Islands. We walked back to the piazza and sat on the steps of the fountain and people watched. We sat there as the sun was setting and had 1st row seats to all the cool dancers and fire breathing street performers.
Then we walked back to the cocktail place to get more cheap drinks. Here, a girl said something to me in Spanish as we were waiting in line so I asked her where she was from and when she said Sevilla, we all freaked out. We ended up immediately asking each other a million questions about where we live, why we were in Rome, what are we doing in Sevilla etc. Her name was Marta and she was so nice and cute. She told us to go outside and meet her friends. Courtney and I went out and chatted with them for a bit and they told us we had good Spanish accents. Honestly, that compliment never gets old! We talked about the different cities we’ve visited and they gave us more suggestions of bars and places to go in Sevilla. Finally we exchanged Facebook names in hopes of finding each other and going out together next weekend.
We the wandered around and suddenly I realized that we were at the exact street that me Cara and Courtney had been to before. I went into a little shop and bought a tall beer to carry as we walked around the streets. We ended up meeting a bunch of French guys from Bordeaux who were having a bachelor party. They were all wearing the same shirt and the actual bachelor was wearing a gladiator costume. They asked Courtney and I to give the bachelor kisses on the cheek in a photo. Right before they snapped the picture, the guy lifted up his gladiator skirt and flashed his D for the photo. hahahaha. I'm sure that will make for a beautiful memory.
Then we just hung out in the street talking to random people. I met a guy named Louik who was from Switzerland. He was suuuper tall and he told me his height in centimeters which meant nothing to me at the time. He kept practicing his American accent on me which was hilarious, he would just mock certain phrases I said . I guess now I know what it's like when I imitate a British accent to someone. I found out that Switzerland doesn't have it's own language, so instead their official languages are French, German and Italian. Cray right??? I was chatting it up with Mr. Swiss Cheese... I just made that nickname up now... till about 3am.
Shockingly, the tram was still running that late at night so we quickly hopped on it and rode it to Argentina! On the tram I was bombarded by this group of 8 Italian guys all telling me I was so beautiful and one was begging to kiss me. I figured... why not? So I kissed him. When in Rome?
Obviously, once I kissed one of them, they ALL begged me to kiss them. It was quite a hilarious scene "No, don't kiss him, kiss me first". I kissed 1 more of these crazy guys and then ran away with the girls and walked back to the hostel.
Again, another crazy and amazing day in Rome.
Ciao,
Raquel
Another fun day for your memory bank! =)
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