Dia 31: il Forum e Trastevere

CIAO!
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.

(Care Bear and I at breakfast)

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.

 (yummy fresh water EVERYWHERE!)

 (it was a high-low dress kind of day)

 (I joined the #selfnation even on my big ass tourist camera!)

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. 

 (it's about to be a what? a BOTELLON!)

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. 

 (I want to relive this moment AHORA)

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

Dia 30: il Musei Vaticani e la Fontana di Trevi

Ciao!

Did you now Ciao means both hello and goodbye? Just like Aloha! Que guay. 

Alright, this morning we were up around 9am and after we got all beautiful for the day, we went down to ReBasilico to have our free breakfast. Lucky us, breakfast was a yummy croissant and a cappuccino! We felt very European. 

Then we walked to the metro station and rode it to the Vatican.  We did not have an official tour of the Vatican Museum, so this meant we got to just wander around and marvel at all its awesomeness. Everything in the museum was so amazing. We started by walking through several rooms dedicated to ancient egyptian artwork and MUMMIES!!! One of the tombs was open and I saw an embalmed mummy! Can you believe it STILL hasn't completely decomposed? SOO CRAY! This is the first dead person I've ever seen in my life. I can check it off my bucket list.

After the Egyptian room we walked into a corridor that was full of marble sculptures and you already know what this means: time to mimic the crap out of these bad boys!!! Several thousand mimicking photos later, we decided we had paid enough hommage to these beautiful pieces of art. En serio, I do have an appreciation for the sculptures, but let's be real, after several hundred statues you get a little desensitized to their amazingness and thus it is IMPERATIVE to take silly pictures to liven it up a little.

Following the crowds, we ended up in the outdoor center plaza of the museum that had this massive rotating gold ball. I have no idea what this object was, but it was super pretty so I was into it. After a great photoshoot with this mysterious ball, we headed back indoors to continue exploring the museum.

We continued to be completely amazed by all of the artwork. There were tons and tons of statues in every room and insanely detailed frescoes everywhere. We entered into a specific corridor that took my breath away because of all the beautiful frescoes on the ceiling. To be honest, I also thought that i was the Sistine Chapel. Oh no, that was like 2 hours later down the road.

(the ceiling that took my breath away)

 (this is a ceiling also)

 (frescoes for days!)

As we kept walking, we also passed by these massive tapestries that had various Biblical scenes on them. They were pretty bad ass, mainly because they were HUGE.

I personally prefer frescoes over the tapestries. We saw so many famous frescoes and sadly I did not know much about them because I've never taken a Roman Art History class, but a few of my friends had so they were filling in the some of the blanks for me. 

The frescoes were so realistic that at first glance, I legit thought this statue was a real life statue and not a painting of one.

Finally, after following a million and one signs pointing towards the Sistine Chapel, we ended up surrounded in all of its glory. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take pictures inside, so I don't have a photos. Nonetheless, it was so incredible. Definitely worth the hype. LITERALLY every inch of the walls and ceilings were painted. EVERY INCH. The bottom portion of the walls were painted as if they were covered by curtains, which for a while, I thought that it really was curtains on the wall. Also, it was pretty bad ass that I got to personally look up and see the famous image of man reaching out to touch God's hand. That was one of my favorites. I it nearly impossible to believe that one man alone painted all of it not only for its sheer immensity of the room covered in paint but the incredible detail in every single element of the paintings. It's crazy to think that I've actually been to the Sistine Chapel. 

 
After the Sistine Chapel, we left the museum and headed to St Peter's Square to check out the Basilica. The square was, like all famous landmarks in Rome, quite incredible. Every surrounded structure was adorned with massive statues on the roofs and the Basilica was mondo. We coudln't go inside because we didn't have tickets, but at this point it was already 3pm and we hadn't eaten since 10am (and it wasn't even a big breakfast to hold us over) so we were becoming quite hungry.

We had heard good things about the food along the river, so we headed in that direction. After walking in the stagnant heat for about a mile we found an information desk that informed us that the nearest area of restaurants was another 20 minute walk from where we are. Considering we were so hungry we were  about to eat eachother, we settled for eating at a restuarant that was close to the Vatican (which meant more expensive). We all ordered pizzas, mine had this proscuitto like meat on top. It was tasty, but the pizza from ReBasilico the day before was better.

After the meal, we decided to head back to the metro. En route to the metro, we stopped in at a gelato place and I got THE BEST GELATO EVER!!! I got a cone of half hazelnut and half dark chocolate. OH MY LANTA!!!!! It was so rich and creamy and velvety and every other positive description you can think of when it comes to desserts. Best 2.50 euors ever spent right there. 

The other girls wanted to get Granita (Italian ice... but nothing like the Luigi stuff we have in the US) so we stopped in a different shop a little way down. They ordered lemon flavored Granita and I tried it... and I love it, so I ordered a cup of it for myself. For comparison purposes, it was very similar to a lemon flavored slushie. Better than anything 7/11 could ever possibly make though. THEN, after I was basically ready to be rolled out the door from all the food and sweets, we got on the metro and rode it to the Colosseum stop so that we could go take the 2nd portion of the tour we had paid for (The Forum portion).

Cassie and Rachel had to go to the bus station to figure out how they were going to transport themselves from Rome to the Ciampino Airport the next morning to catch their 6am flight to Paris. We decided that the 6 of us would wait outside the Colosseum for them and then we'd all finish our tour together. Sadly, but not really all that sadly, we ended up waiting outside the Colosseum for an hour for them. Honestly, having the opportunity to have an hour long photoshoot of the Colosseum hardly constitutes as waiting. I could go and just sit outside the Colosseum any day and keep taking photos like these:

By the time that Cassie and Rachel had arrived, the last tour of the day had already ended so we decided we'd walk down to see the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain instead. What a terrible alternative right? As we walked through the city, we passed by the lovely Wedding Cake again. I'm still completely enchanted by this building. We saw signs pointing towards the Pantheon and decided to go there first before the Trevi. To get to the Pantheon, you have to walk down all these quaint little side streets which are full of restaurants with outdoor seating. We quickly decided that we would be returning to this area to have dinner.

We arrived at the Pantheon and it too was massive. The Pantheon is the best preserved piece of Ancient Roman architecture in all of Rome. This structure was once a house of pagan worship, but has since been claimed by the Catholic Church. It was cool beans, but it was hard to be super amazed by it after we had just spent ~4 hours inside the Vatican Museum. Claro, it was still awesome and impressive.

After the Pantheon we headed to the Trevi Fountain. On our way, Rachel was stopped by a guy working at one of those restaurants in those quaint streets. He said that if the 8 of us came back to eat dinner there he would make us a deal we couldn't refuse, which would include: a free bottle of wine for every 2 people, a glass of champagne, free water, free bread and an appetizer and main course for each person all for 10 euros. We were instantly hooked by this deal and promised that we'd return after we visited the Trevi Fountain.

After navigating through more quaint roads, we finally arrived at the magnificent Trevi Fountain. This was my 2nd favorite Roman landmark, a close second to the Colosseum. You can hardly call this massive thing a "fountain". It was more like Niagara Falls covered in ancient roman statues. It was HUGE. I feel as though my pictures have to speak for themselves even though clearly it doesn't do it justice.

One of the traditions associated with the Trevi is that you have to have 3 different coins that add up to less than 1 euro and you use each of them to make a wish: one for the present, one for the future and one for a loved-one. My loved one was little baby Brandoli :) After you make each wish you have to throw a coin from your right hand over your left shoulder. Once you've made all three of your wishes you turn around and read out loud this phrase written in Italian: "PERFECIT BENEDICTUS XIV PONT. MAX." which translates to "Benedict XIV Pontifex Maximus made perfect". Then your wishes will come true!

After I made my wishes, we sat on the steps that lead down to the fountain and just people watched and stared at the Trevi mesmerized by its beauty. A newly wed couple walked down and took pictures in front of the fountain and everyone cleared an open space for them and then clapped. It was an older couple and they were precious!

Then we headed back to that restaurant when that guy had promised us everything under the sun all for 10 euros. When we got back he gave us all kisses on the cheek and then looked at Esteban and said "If I were you, do you know what I would do with all these lovely ladies? I would shower with all of them". hahahahah did I mention that the Italians are VERY sexually agressive?? This is just the beginning of that. 

The guys name was Ahmado and he quickly sat us down at a long table on the street for us to dine at. As promised, he brought us each a glass of champagne and then a bottle of wine for every two people! Cara and I shared a bottle of red wine.

Then we got our free water and bread (neither of these things are ever free in Europe). For an appetizer I picked an anitpasti plate of cured meats and different cheeses. YUMMO! For dinner I ordered the lasgna. Everything was soooooooooooo good!!!!!

Seeing as it was Cara's birthday that night at midnight we decided to see if we could milk this guy for all he was worth and asked if she could have a free dessert for her birthday. Then, the greatest thing ever happened. He replied: "I will bring her a birthday dessert if she gives me a kiss." WE ALL FREAKED OUT!!! We were squealing like little piglets with excitement. Clearly, we peer pressured Cara to death demanding she do it. While all of this was happening, Ahmado walked away saying he had to get the dessert ready. Cara was hilariously nervous and we even people at nearby tables were turning around and had cameras out ready to take pictures. It was becoming quite the spectacle and Cara was nervously laughing. It was awesome. Finally, after MUCH suspense of him coming back several times to the table and talking to us, when he brought the cake they KISSED and then we sang her happy birthday and she blew out the candles! What a great way to turn 20!!!! BONUS POINTS: the cake was soooooo dank. It was a chocolate lava cake and it was heavenly. This was BY FAR the best dining experience we could have ever asked for.

 (this picture truly says it all hahah)

(please notice the Asians poised with their cameras all watching and laughing)

After that little escapade we left a generous tip and then went on our merry way to go buy bottles of wine to drink as a pregame before having our first night out on the town in Rome. We brought the bottles back to our hostel and drank them dry before we headed out. Another UF Study Abroad group was visiting Rome that weekend, so 5 of the people in our group went to a bar to meet up with them. Cara, Courtney and I decided to go to a part of town called Trastevere because we had heard that this was a more authentic area where the Italians all went out at night.

(we passed the Wedding Cake lit up at night on our way home from dinner)

>> Reminder, I don't have an iphone at this point and I'm sure as hell not going to bring my big tourist camera out to the bars, therefore I don't have any pictures to document this night

We hailed a cab and were dropped off into the heart of what appeared to be a massive street party. It in fact was not a street party but just everyone drinking in the streets outside of the bars where they had purchased them. We went in and bought these giant bottles of Peroni beer and then proceeded to meander the streets in search of some handsome Italian men to chat with. 

Ironically, the first people we met were from Florida and were UCF grads. We chatted with them for a little but then moved on because we are not trying to meet Americans on our Italian vacation. Soon afterwards we met a group of 4 Italian boys. One of them was actually half Italian and half Spanish so we immediately started talking to him because the language barrier of speaking broken English with Italians was getting rather frustrating. He was also GORGEOUS. We chatted with them for a little bit, but when the gorgeous half Spanish one walked away to go talk to another friend, we realized it no longer was vale la pena so we moved on to another bar. 
Here I ordered a beer that tasted like mustard and cost way more than I expected. Since everyone was drinking in the street, I just brought my glass along and we wandered down another street where we saw more people congregated.

Oh lord. This encounter was priceless. Here we met a group of 6 Italian men. Some of them were pretty handsome. However, they were all the most sexually aggressive men on the damn planet. The one that was attempting to "claim" me did not know A SINGLE WORD in English so he proceeded to just speak rapid fire Italian at me even though it was regardless that I had no idea what he was saying. Half of these guys had sleeves of tattoos and crazy hair cuts and piercings. They were an edgy group, but nonetheless we were intrigued. The guy that didn't know English kept speaking to me and then pointing at his crotch.  According to his few friends that actually spoke some English, this guy was telling me that he had a big package. hahahaha We were cracking up at all of this insanity. We couldn't believe how forward they were. 

A little while later, a different group of girls showed up and they became momentarily distracted and we used this as our chance to escape. As we were walking back towards where the cabs were all parked, an Italian guy named David came up and started talking to me. He chatted with me for a little bit in semi broken english and then when I went to depart he went in for a goodbye kiss.... so I obliged. When in Rome?

We hopped in another cab, got home around 3am and PTFO.

Ciao!
Raquel