Week 11: My Roman Holiday

11/4/2019 - Monday I spent most of my time at class. For my visual merchandising class, we went on a field trip to various stores to analyze their visual merchandising and store layouts.

11/5/2019 - Tuesday was spent working on homework, and trying to get everything done before the weekend.

11/6/2019 - I went to dinner with my friends on Wednesday. I got a Bolognese made with chicken, instead of the typical beef or pork. It was actually really good. I still have yet to find a bad meal in Florence.

11/7/2019 - Thursday I had class, and then packed for my trip to Rome this weekend. It’s my first solo trip, so we will see how it goes. I think it could be nice to have the freedom to do what I want the entire weekend. I know my sister has done it, and it’s becoming quite popular. Hannah did a solo trip over fall break to Ireland, and she loved it. The only issue is who’s going to take my pictures??

11/8/2019 - I woke up to catch my train to Rome at about 7am on Friday. I finally got to Rome around 10:30. I dropped off my luggage at the hostel I was staying at and headed out for the day. Since it was the closest to me, I went to see the Colosseum first. I have been to Rome before for a little bit about 9 years ago and saw many of the ancient ruins before, but I wanted to see them all again, since I was pretty young at the time. It’s pretty amazing that the Colosseum was built in 70AD, just like all the ancient ruins in Rome. Unfortunately, it poured for a majority of the day, but I did get a selfie with the Colosseum and my umbrella. I also found some lady to take my picture, but I guess she was feeling “artsy” or something because it’s a bit crooked. Next I was starving, so I went for lunch at a cute little wine bar near the Colosseum (and when I say little I mean it had 5 tables total). I got the meatballs, which was the first time I have had meatballs in Italy. Even though I know they aren’t technically Italian, they were literally amazing. Next I kept walking towards the city center and passed the Roman Forum. It’s the city center of ancient Rome, and basically where most of the ruins are located. Just a little ways up the road is Il Vittoriano, which is a large monument to the first king of Italy. It’s literally like the largest and most outrageous memorial I’ve ever seen for a king, but I guess it’s Rome. I remember not liking it very much as a kid because I thought it was boring, but it’s actually quite beautiful. I climbed to the top to get a view over the city and part of the Roman Forum. After that, I headed to the Trevi Fountain, which is my favorite thing in Rome. It’s always crowded, but it’s quite beautiful. I love how bright blue the water is in all of the fountains in Rome. Once again, my random photographer wasn’t the best, but it works. Supposedly, if you throw a coin over your left shoulder into the fountain, you will return to Rome It worked last time so I thought I would try it again. Apparently you are supposed to throw it with your right hand, though, and I threw it with my left. I guess we will have to wait and see if it still worked. Just a short walk away was the Pantheon. This is also a crazy old building. I learned it used to be a place for every religion to come, no matter what God you believed in. I thought that was a pretty cool idea, and it was started so many years ago in the Roman empire. It was later changed to a Catholic church as a gift to the pope. It’s also still one of the largest domes in Europe. Next I headed to the Spanish steps. On the way there, I came across the quite expensive shopping (I swear it’s fate, I always stumble upon luxury fashion stores). Some of them were quite special though, like the original Fendi and Valentino stores. Just before sunset, I reached the steps and climbed to the top. It was another amazing view of the city. Plus, it had stopped raining and the sun was shining through a bit. After that, it was getting close to dinner time, so I wandered over towards Campo de’ Fiori. This was the area where I had to meet for my night tour I was going on. I thought, since dinner normally takes so long, I should set aside 2 hours. After a very long time of me being indecisive, I found a place to eat. I got some truffle pasta, which is just what I wanted, and Tiramisu for dessert. This was like the biggest tiramisu ever, of course when I’m the only one eating. Also, this was the fastest meal I have ever been served in Italy, of course when I’m trying to take a long time. I just stalled and stalled so much waiters thought something was wrong (oops). Finally, I had stalled long enough to go to the meeting spot for the tour. I decided to do a night tour so I could still do something in Rome at night, without having to walk around alone. First we went to the Piazza Navona, which has 3 beautiful fountains. The guide explained the fountain in the middle, and how it represented each of the 4 continents Rome had discovered. Next we headed to the Pantheon to learn about it and see it lit up at night. Afterwards, we headed to the Trevi fountain again, and it was just as pretty at night. To end the tour, we walked to the Spanish steps, and from there I got a taxi home because it started down-pouring. I literally could barely move. Turns out I officially beat my record for most steps in a day since I have been abroad. I got over 32,000, which is even more than Paris. Makes sense why I couldn’t feel my body at this point.

11/9/2019 - On Saturday, I had a food tour to meet up for in Campo de’ Fiori again at 10:30am. I pretty much headed right there from the hostel. It was actually nice in the morning, so I decided to walk 60 minutes to get there. It was quite a long walk, but it’s easiest to get around Rome by walking. You also can see so many things while you walk. In the morning, there is a small market in Campo de’ Fiori where they sell food and flowers. I walked around there for a bit before meeting up for the tour. To start, we sampled a couple of sauces, oils, and vinegars from the market. It was fun sampling many different types of things, including a balsamic as old as me. Next, we tried various different types of limoncello. It was a lot of shots to be taking at 11am, but I survived. I surprisingly like the pistachio limoncello the best, even though I don’t normally like pistachios (or limoncello for that matter). After that, we headed to a famous Forno in Rome, which is a type of bakery. We got to sample some traditional Roman pizza, not to be confused with Neapolitan pizza (which is more like US pizza). The first was the typical margherita pizza, with mozzarella, tomato sauce, and oil (originally without basil). It’s named after Queen Margherita, who was loved by the Italians. The next was the most popular type in Rome, Pizza Rosso. It is just oil and tomato sauce, but surprisingly good. I think I liked it better than even the Margherita. Next we tried Suppi, which is specific to Rome. It is basically a deep fried rice ball. There are similar street foods to them in other parts of Italy, like Arancini, but they don’t have rice typically. Anyone outside of Rome doesn’t like Suppi, but the Romans love it. The one we tried was rice, cheese and tomato sauce. I thought it was really good, and a nice comfort food. After we finished there, we walked to the Jewish Ghetto of Rome. We tried a fried zucchini flower with cheese and anchovies. I was a bit nervous to try this because I hate anchovies. I tried it, though, and it wasn’t bad. It actually probably would have been my favorite thing, if it weren’t for the anchovies. The guide said you can order without anchovies and ricotta cheese instead to give it the same salty flavor (the picture of it is the fried thing that kind of looks like a chicken nugget with a little bit of green on it). Then we went to basically a small fast food pasta place. They actually make all of their pasta and sauces fresh that day (I wish we had fast food like that). We tried a red sauce, which the guide said is technically a carbonara, just with tomatoes (traditional in Rome). We also tried some butter and cheese ravioli, which you could tell was handmade. Also, there was a meat platter with salami and prosciutto. Sadly, I couldn’t eat as much pasta as I would have liked to, since I was filling up. To finish the tour, we got Gelato at a place where it is handmade in the shop each day. They had so many flavors, and I tried a couple, like peppermint, but ended up picking stracciatella of course. It was super good. After the tour, I went off on my own again. I wasn’t originally going to go see the Vatican, since I remember it pretty well from last time, but then felt I should as long as I’m here. So I walked there and got a couple of pictures (and a not so great selfie again). There were a bunch of chairs set up, so I was wondering if it was for Sunday mass already or if there was an event. The weather was starting to get bad again, so I kept moving to the area of Trastevere. I visited a church I had been recommended to see called Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevere. It was a traditional Roman church, with gold everywhere. The ceiling was really something. I then walked back across the river to Capitoline hill. From there I got to see another part of the Roman Forum and get even closer. Like I said, the weather was getting bad, so I decided to go into the museum in Palazzo Venezia. I believe this is also the building Mussolini had his office in. When I finished that, I still had a little bit of time, so I decided to head back to the shopping area. On my way there, I actually found a great and affordable shopping street. It had a lot of cute boutiques specific to Rome. I didn’t buy a lot, just a lip gloss and necklace. Then it was pretty much time for me to head back to the hostel to pick up my stuff and catch my train. I went to the cab stand I was at the other night, but there was a line and no cabs in sight. I was getting major flashbacks to Milan (yikes). So I tried to use the taxi app, which works a lot like Uber. I got out of line (a mistake), and called a cab on the app. I waited for a while, but it never found me a cab. I decided to head back to a different cab stand on the other side of the piazza I was in. The line on this side was longer, so I started to freak out a little bit at this point. I was not about to have another Milan situation. Finally, I had a good idea. There was a metro station near by, and even though the metro in Rome is not big and doesn’t go most places, it went back to my hostel. I quickly hopped on that and made it back in time. I headed to the train station on the tram, and turns out my train was delayed. This was probably a good thing though, so I could get something to eat. I made it home and went passed out from exhaustion (60,000 total steps between Friday and Saturday, FYI).

11/10/2019 - Sunday was spent catching up on homework for tomorrow and writing this blog. And not walking, because I'm still so exhausted.