Rome!

Chao!

This long weekend we decided to go to Rome. Our flight landed on Thursday evening and then we went and checked into our hostel. Friday one of Samantha’s friends, Michael, took us around to four of the main churches in Rome. It was awesome to have him help us find our way around Rome on our first day there. He is doing kind of the same thing that Olivia is doing; he helps students from the University of Dallas when they come over to study abroad. He took us around to see four of the main churches in Rome; Saint Paul Outside the Wall, Saint John Lateran, Saint Mary Major, and Saint Peters Basilica. Each of these churches had unique characteristics to them but they had the same overall architecture. Later that night we went and had our first Italian meal. In Italy there meals are more like events. They have five different courses, the antipasta, primi,secondo, contorno, and dolce. I only had it to the primi before I was beyond stuffed full of pasta. The dinner lasted for almost three hours before we had finished eating.

On Saturday we went to the Vatican and spent the day there. We first climbed up 551 steps to get to the top of the Cupola. It was one of the most amazing views up there, you could see over the entire Vatican area. After spending around an hour up there, we decided to go and visit the Vatican Museum. This was one of the biggest museums that I have ever been in before. They had over 80,000 artifacts from old carriages to De Vinci paintings. It was really interesting to see all of the different artifacts and how different every exhibit was from the other. We spent around four hours just getting through all of the different exhibits. The museum ended in the Sistine Chapel, this was by far the best part of the entire museum. I could not believe that Michael Anglo had painted all of the paintings in the chapel; they were spectacular. We found out that Michael Anglo hired workers to help him paint the chapel but after they went to lunch the first day he locked the door and painted over all of there paintings they had done because he didn’t like there work. This left him to paint the entire chapel on his own.

Sunday we had a busy day doing the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Pantheon, and the Fountain Di Trevi. The Colosseum was where they would do gladiatorial contests and they would let the spectator’s come and watch. Due to an earthquake, half of the top of the Colosseum was destroyed. The Roman Forum is the ruins of the ancient buildings of the city of the Rome. The heat made this not as enjoyable as I would have hoped since it was all outdoors. Next we went to the Pantheon, which is a temple for the gods of Rome. There is a hole in the top of the ceiling that is open to the sky. We ended our day throwing coins while making wishes into the Fountain Di Trevi. This was one of the busiest places we visited, there were people everywhere. After this long day of being all touristy, we had to enjoy some Italian gelato. Everyone is right whenever they say that Italy make the best gelato, it was the best I have ever had.

I really enjoyed visiting Rome but it is a city I don’t think I would ever go back to. It was super touristy and there were people everywhere. Also it was over 90 degrees the entire time we were they’re making it extremely hot.