ROMA!

Thursday
The week after Munich, I had some classes and studying to do, but on Thursday Asher and I left early in the morning to go to ROME! We boarded a train in Grenoble around 9:25 and it wasn't going to be until about 6 pm that evening before we got the the Eternal City. I only had to pay about 20€ to go by train with my Eurorail pass which I booked very, very far in advance. Unfortunately for Asher, he had to pay a pretty penny to ride the train with me. In all honesty, it sounds terrible to take three different trains through France and Italy for most of a day, but it was really nice and went by super fast. The first train was from Grenoble to Chambery, the second from Chambery to Torino (Turin in English), and the then from Torino to Rome. The train out of Chambery, where we left France and entered Italy, was most certainly the most fun because it went through the Alps. However, about half of the ride was through tunnels. Asher took some great photos of the countryside and of the mountains which I may post later.

Maria, my friend who is an architecture student in Grenoble and who is from Moldova, was also on the train to Chambery and then on the one to Torino. She just happened to have an assigned seat right next to Asher, so out of the kindness of her heart, she traded seats with me. She had just finished her exams and was headed home for a couple of weeks. With several languages under her belt and a big personality, she is a bit of a handful and someone you really can't miss or forget.

Around 6 pm, we arrived in the Termini train station in the exact center of Rome. Of course, everything was already very touristy with men asking me to buy all sorts of pins, keychains, scarves, and other things I didn't need. This was cute and exciting at first, so many colors, so many people, and such a huge train station, but this feeling would change by the end of the trip. We eventually found our way to a fancy pizzeria that was relatively close to Termini. It was a really nice place, the waiter taught us a bit of Italian, and we ordered pizza, of course. The food was excellent, though didn't measure up to a Chicago or New York style pizza.

This is Asher's wonderful cappuccino. The waiter set it down saying "You likey da flowwar?" The accent was cute.

After dinner, Asher and I experienced the small, cramped, and inefficient metro. The metro has only two lines so it is obviously the simplest and easiest to understand, but this is also the downside. It only has two lines and only goes certain places because the metro can only exist where there are not precious Roman ruins. It makes sense, but it makes for a terrible metro system, if you can even call it a system.

The hostel was MILES away. It was actually a camp site on the outskirts of Rome. The bungalow was cute, but the staff was not helpful and rude most of the time. Walking there at night was also a perfect example of a time where one is glad to be with a guy. Rome was already proving to be an interesting place, but we were so excited to be there and to see Jasmine, Ben and other GLS students the next day!!

Friday
Friday was absolutely brilliant because we got to meet Jasmine and Ben for lunch and then have them show us around the city. We took a shuttle from the hostel to the Vatican and then took our trusty 6€ map to find the Argentina bus stop where Jas and Ben met us. I was really glad to see Ben; he is having a great time studying abroad in Rome and an even better time traveling so it was really nice to talk. After going to a market with spices, jewelry, wine stoppers, and all sort of pasta (including US dollar shaped pasta, tulip shaped, and um... male body part shaped), we went to eat lunch at a great place named Rossopomodora. This was the best pizza I had in Rome, it was really simply, just cheese, but had the best flavor and texture in the world.

Obviously, we found a logistics bus with the GLS acronym and just happened to catch the perfect picture before it zoomed away.

Anyway, lunch was great because of the great food and my sparkling water, but it was even better to talk to Jasmine and Ben. I really, really enjoy talking to others about their study abroad experiences, and if I could, I would study abroad in every place in order to get a feel of each place. Ben is also a CEA student but he goes to a CEA school where he really just takes culture classes with only a few other Americans, he lives in an apartment with crazy party guys, but he is still loving traveling. He goes to so many Italian cities and recently went to London with our GLS friend Katie who is studying in a very small town in Switzerland. Just hearing others talk, though, makes me so glad to be in France going to a great business school. Ben and Jasmine are sick of Rome right about now, so I'm glad I'm in a place that I'm not completely over yet.

This day was absolutely perfect after lunch. We let Jasmine walk us around and show us the sites. The highlights were the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Colosseum of course, the Roman Forum, the hundreds of fountains, and all the many obelisks (only 8 of 13 are actually Egyptian) in the city.

The Pantheon. It's a great, ridiculous building that I'll talk about in my next post because we went into the church on Saturday.

Piazza Navona. This plaza makes me really happy because it was featured in Angels and Demons as one of the Altars of Science! It was historically a place for games in ancient Rome a lot like the Roman Forum and is only about two miles away. The Fountain of the Four Rivers by Bernini is in the center of the plaza and is where Robert Langdon almost died! There are two other fountains in the square including the Fountain of Neptune, and there are many, many more monuments and statues in the square.

Emanuele II Monument. It's probably one of the most recent monuments built in Rome since it was erected around 1930 to commemorate the unification of Italy. Basically, Emanuele II was the first king of Italy and joined all of the Italian states in 1861. Italy is now celebrating 150 years of well... being Italian.

The Roman Forum. This was the center of ancient Roman public life and was the center of Rome. It was a place for debates, elections, gladiator matches, criminal trails, etc. It's located in a small valley between Palatine and Capitoline Hills, and the Colosseum is just down the street.

Colosseum. Hopefully, I don't have to explain this one, but I will say the it was the largest Roman theater ever built and it is an absolute miracle that it still survives today. After lunch, we met up with two GLS students from the 2013 class, Margaret and Emily. They just finished their internships in London and are only about a week away from flying back to the US. I had never met them before and got a funny impression.

Trevi Fountain. It's the largest Baroque fountain in the city and possibly the most famous fountain in the world. It honestly famous because of the legend behind it, but it should be famous for being the end point of a major Roman aqueduct used to bring water into the city. It was restored as a major meeting place and joined three roads. Bernini sketched the rough draft the the fountain as it's seen today, but it wasn't actually carried out by him. Legend says that if you throw a coin into the fountain with your right hand over your left shoulder, you'll swiftly return to Rome. If you thrown two coins in the same fashion, you'll fall in love in Rome. I threw a two cent coin in, not sure what that means.

The Spanish Steps. These steps link two very famous plazas and hold the church of Trinita dei Monti at the top. The steps are the widest in Europe and very pretty with all of the flowers. In the lower plaze, the Piazza di Spagna there is a charming boat fountain called, in English, the Fountain of the Old Boat, but much more lovely in Italian, the Fontana della Barcaccia. It's by Bernini's father, which is interesting. The steps were totally crowded with people so we didn't even attempt to climb then, so we toured the adjacent street with Dior, Bvlgari, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton. Probably a good move.

The day ended with a romantic, Italian meal of pasta and red wine. Goodnight, Rome.