Roman Holiday

Early Tuesday morning Lindsay headed to the train station with me as I began my journey south and she continued to Prague and Berlin. I took a nice train ride to Rome - where I met up with Cait! It was so so nice to see a familiar face. She was with another friend from high school, Becky, so we had coffee with Becky before she continued her Euro-trip as well. Cait and I headed back to her adorable apartment, which she shares with 3 American girls and one Italian student. We cooked pasta and made incredible caprese salad. The next morning Cait didn't have class so took me to her favorite piazza, the Pantheon, Spanish Steps (photo on the right), and we had sandwiches by the Trevi Fountain (photo on the left). We took a quick break in a park which use to be an old villa called Villa Borghese. A bottle of wine later, we sat in the sun, and began our way back across town. We met up with a friend of Cait’s from the program to have what Cait claimed to be the best carbonara ever. The restaurant was located in the old Jewish Quarter, which was a really cute area. Oh, and she was right about the pasta. We had drinks afterwards (and people watched, of course) in a huge piazza covered with restaurants and bars, frequented by Americans.

Thursday Cait took me to Vatican City, but had an Italian quiz, so I walked around the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel alone. It was a beautiful day, but there were tons and tons of people. The Vatican Museums are a bit like the Louvre, it is completely impossible to do everything without feeling completely overwhelmed. I did another Rick Steves tour of the Sistine Chapel, which was amazing. I learned so much and even snuck a photo of Michelangelo’s Day of Judgment, the painting on the wall that completes his murals of the history of the world. It was very cool, and doing an audio tour is the only way to go. I continued wandering around, including grabbing a peek of the Raphael rooms, which included School of Athens, and just as amazing. I grabbed a quick gelato before meeting Cait for a tour of St. Peter’s. We entered the wrong way and found ourselves in the basement, where the tombs of past Popes were held. There were many people praying and standing around the tomb of Pope John Paul II. We then found our way upstairs and began yet another Rick Steves. St. Peter’s is massive and incredible. It was hard to see everything because of mass and all of the people (of course I choose to go to Rome on the highest Catholic holiday). The tour ended with Michelangelo’s Pieta, which was very cool, and Rick had a lot to say about it which helped our understanding of the entire statue. It is the only signed piece of Michelangelo’s. We left Vatican City and headed to Cait’s favorite neighborhood called Trestevere. Note: Every person who works at St. Peter’s is male, younger then thirty, and among the most beautiful men I have ever seen in my life. Trestevere was really cute, and we were able to walk around the river on our way there. We had a quick drink at an outdoor bar which was really cool. On our way home to go grocery shopping, we got lazy and stopped for dinner. We went home at a reasonable hour as we had a full day of traveling ahead of us …