Ti amo, Roma!

My weekend in Rome was absolutely spectacular. We went as a group on Friday. My group toured the Vatican museum. I did not see the Pope. Everything was very beautiful though. I enjoyed the different sculptures. The famous paintings were mostly frescoes. Raphaelàs Scuola di Atene and the Sistine chapel. The Sistine chapel is amazing! It is a giant room full of painting. Not just the ceilings, but the walls too. They have an announcement that asks everyone to be quiet and not take pictures. Guards walk around asking people to put away their cameras and saying SHHHhhhhhhhhh! We joked about if they have to audition for the job interview.. who can Shh the loudest. We went out the wrong door and got kicked out of the museum. Oops! But we had finished the tour anyway. We went to see Basilica St Pietro. It was also incredible. The ceilings were so tall and everything was immaculately decorated with lots of mosaics. There was a deceased pope or cardinal of some sort on display. I didn't look too long, but snapped a picture and read a sign, referring to the "remains." We also marched up to the top and walked around a dome with more mosaics. It was too high for me, and my heart skipped a beat every time I looked down, with only a hand rail and little fence. Yikes! When we went to look for lunch, it was cold and rainy. Vendors tried to sell us umbrellas. However, the slight rain did not faze us and we proceeded to get gelato anyways. I had Pinochio.. hazelnut and nutella with lots of little hazelnuts in it. They absolutely love hazelnut here.. nocciola everything! So delicious.

We met up with the group to get our stuff off the bus and begin our journey to the hotel all the way across town. Moira and I headed off to the metro. We first thought maybe it was an above-ground metro and tried to get on the bus. After this momentary mishap, we continued on. Turns out the tickets are the same. 1 euro gets you anywhere in Rome. We were nervous to go in, because everyone warned us several times to watch out in Rome.. pickpockets everywhere. But it was not like everyone had said. We felt safe. The metro dropped us off at the Termini (train station) and we walked a few blocks to the hotel. We stayed at Hotel Giada, no known relation to the food network star. Our friends, who had cabbed it over, were there waiting for us. We followed the reccomendation of the man at the front desk for dinner and I had Minestrone soup. Compared to the soup that I"m used to, this soup had less flavour but was very fresh.

That"s all for now. More Rome to come. I will try to upload some pictures before class in half an hour. Ciao!