I woke up first (for the guys, we were in two different rooms) around 7:45. I took a shower the night before so I could just meet up with Steph in order to make plans for the day. I headed over to the main part of the hostel for the breakfast while everyone else got ready for the day. After eating, we headed out on a very similar route to the day before. Steph missed out on the repubblica/church so we showed her them and headed between the two buildings south west. Two of the ladies were not ready and called us, so we had to wait for them and had to walk back in the direction of the repubblica. We ended up finding them and walked in a tunnel (I was being silly and talking about an ocean being above us… you know how I can be (in reality it was another street)).

After some turns and etc, we got lost but ended up finding a column. We wanted to find the Pantheon again before we made it to the Vatican because we didn’t get inside the night before and had a “scheduled” visit for the Vatican museum @ 12:30. As you can see from the pictures (or you will) we walked down some smaller streets passed some markets and eventually found the pantheon again. This time we got to go inside… what a work of art. It was SO BIG! Tommy and I literally stared at the top for 5 minutes straight. We were amazed to see the top was open and that there was a drainage system. Also, Raphael (Santi) was buried in here and we saw his tomb. Some seriously cool stuff! On ward! We passed again sant aganese again. Looked nicer with blue skies! And the beautiful modern a rt…

Before we reached Vatican City, we stopped at Castel Sant Angelo around 11:15. We split up, due a challenge to reach the top first… I’d like to say I won… Not sure if it was fair :p but we were tourists and took pictures from the top and then decided it was time to head towards the days destination.

Vatican. Museum was first. On the main drive, tommy and them stopped for some food, I didn’t eat anything until 5 or 6. Too excited I guess! But ya, we had to ask how to get to the museum because it wasn’t accessible from the front. After some more walking, we found the line and got to pass it because we already HAD OUR TICKETS! It was pretty cool to pass 100’s of people. Once inside, we split up (we all have our own priorities) and I had enough of some people hehe. After 3 hours in the Vatican we sat around and drank water and I had a candy bar/soda. I made are on the patio with a puddle while the sun dried it up.. fun stuff!

We headed out, some people wanted to meet up, I wasn’t really up for that. We ran into them anyway and they wanted to get ice cream and I wasn’t in the mood… so I went to St. Peters by myself. While I was on line waiting to enter the basilica, I saw someone whose face was oddly familiar, Lafayette familiar. Anyway, I go inside after waiting on line for 20-30 minutes. Once in I literally cried. Everything was absolutely perfect and better than I could have wished for. I kept wishing I was religious so that I could understand why or how this was built…

I walked around and looked at all of the statues and saw the work of Raphael (whose body is in the Pantheon). I also noticed there was a mass going on from the back side of the altar and we couldn’t see anything over there due to gates blocking us off. So… when everyone got to the basilica, I asked if we could attend mass and they said yes. It was in Italian so I had no idea what was going on so I just stared out the interior. Amazing.  To our right and about 5 rows up was the girl I saw in line that looked familiar. I pointed her our and Gabby(a girl studying @ SLU with us from Laf) said that it was her roommate from Lafayette! Weird?! Not the biggest coincidence because they were planning on meeting in Florence Italy in 2 days anyway.. but still wicked weird.

I left the mass early to get to the top before we would get kicked out. Here’s the deal. I head over to find a friend, I can’t find her so I head out to find the way to the top. I find it and arrive around 5:35. Its closed.. the sign says 6! So I sit there and this family comes and tells there story. ‘One of them came and found it, went to get the rest of the family and when they came back it was closed..’ We waited and begged! It didn’t work. So.. I made a white lie and said that my family was ahead of me and I wanted to try and catch up.. No bueno. Didn’t help. I walked to the exit hoping I’d find a way up but I didn’t….. Back to the entrance. Its maybe 5:45 now. We continue to beg. And he makes a deal that if the line passed a certain point, he’d let us go. Luckily, a camp couldn’t go and was turned around causing the link to nearly disappear! Victory! The only issues was we had to take the elevator and pay an extra 2 euros.. I was okay with it. I needed to get to the top! Long story short, I can probably fill you in more in person… I get to the elevator and I was asked to get off with 2 other people for weight. That was okay… the people who got off said something in English, so I said I guess you win some and you lose some. And they asked what that meant.. So I just explained it.. Idk I thought it was pretty simple. Any who, the 2 girls were from NY(young teen at most. Rob/Tsa age) and they were visiting with their mom from Russia. They seemed pretty nice and smart, but they made fun of me for not being fluent in Spanish… whatever!! Haha. I got to the top and got to walk on the inside of the dome. It was amazing, hard for photos because of the fence.. I didn’t stay to long because I wanted to get to the top. After a million stairs, I make it to the top. WHAT A SITE! You can see everything for miles… I ended up asking one of the girls to take a picture of me and she was okay with it. But when she took the first picture, she said “I suggest you smile with your mouth shut” and I played it cool and let it slide.. but the nerve! Anywho, I ended up getting kicked off for being there too late…

After the dome I headed to get the gelato that everyone was talking about. AND BOY WAS IT GOOD! Then I went on a walk by myself to the things I hadn’t seen yet that we walked past. I found Villa Medici, which was… eh. Than I headed towards the Hostel hoping I’d  make it to the free food, but I didn’t. My camera died on the last photo, luckily it happened than cause apparently soldiers in a jeep were heading my way cause I hopped a small fence… and I don’t know any Italian… I got back to our room and it was about 9:30 so I just went on an adventure.  I stopped at a random place and picked two random things for dinner. (Fried rice/mozzarella/and sauce was soooooo good!!!!) I ended up walking to the classical area, finding the coliseum and all the stuff near it on the map. I returned about 1145. And Went straight to bed..

End of Day 2.

We’re a ll in the airport (on the non-secure side because we couldn’t check in until 4am…). We group up near a wall and all lay down. I walk back and forth towards the bathroom to use the restroom, bursh my teeth, wash my face, and etc. Shannon, the asian, made herself at home by taking off her shoes and sprawled out across the fllor (surrounding herself by others for security reasons). I read my book for a little and eventually give in and fall asleep(using my book as a pillow). Eventually, 4 am comes across and I find out that people were taking photos of me while I was sleeping…. anyway. We eventually get to our gate (we were cutting it pretty close with the long line that came out of no where because they only had 4 check in counters…).

The flight is sub-par with a pretty rough landing, but I slept through the majority of it anyway. We find our way to the train(which was extremely overpriced) and hop on. It took us about 30-40minutes to get to Rome from the airport. The path there was interesting, wasn’t exactly what I expected from Rome.

So now we’re in ROME. We’re not exactly sure how to get to our hostel (the directions said make a right and head north east, but left was north east…). We eventually find out that we went out the wrong side of the station.. but anyway! As we were leaving the station we were graced with a playstation2/TV combination and than a McDonalds. After circling the station, we find out hostel’s street and run into a friend from Lafayette that is studying in Germany. We chatted for a few minutes and went on out ways because he was heading to Vatican City (he arrived in Rome a day earlier than us). From there, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and decided to get some GRUB. I decided that ‘point and eat’ would be the way for my meals in Rome… for this meal, I was lucky to be graced with some spaghetti and meat (I think it was some sort of bacon). We  took photos, like typical tourists, and ended up getting the meal for 20% off .

Then the adventure began. We had no real plans. It was our first day. Let us conquer what our bodies will allow.

We aimlessly attacked the city’s front. It started out well with an abandoned ‘smart-car-like-car’ that was totaled. We made some jokes about being sustainable(most of us are in a sustainability class). We continued onward and eventually found the Repubblica (Piazza della Repubblica) that has a small (open) structure behind it. I decided to go with the flow and enter the building… boy was it a shocker. Happened to be a large basilica. We probably spent 30-45 min inside just looking at the interior. Big find. 1 for 1 rome.

We decided that making a circle on the map would be our best bet. But.. after walking a block, we saw Santa Maria Maggiore to our left and made another detour. Detour after detour we eventually came across a multitude of small building and eventually made it to San Carl Quatro Fontane. Its a very small church, we got to go in the crypt(very creepy). From there we headed west and found a church(that I still don’t know the name of P4150056.jpg) that I saw in a class last semester. Eventually, we landed at the president’s palace, after we asked what it was. Next on the list was the Trevi Fountain. Beautiful place with lots and lots and lots and LOTS of tourists.

A few churches and a random excursion with Mr. Munson, we landed at Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II. We saw the colloseum in the background, looked pretty small.. we didn’t think it was anything important at first. My legs were also feeling a little tight so i decided to stretch. Apparently thats bad for the monument cause I was asked to stop hehe. No sitting either!

Next off, Pantheon. Of course we saw a handful of churches on the way, but it was getting late (around 6) so we decided no more detours. Except one, Carrefour (a grocery store) to get energy from the lack of sleep at the airport. I got a fanta and a candy bar and rich got a red bull. We made it! It looked like poop from the outside, but its 2000 years old! Who cares! Its the inside that matters!!! However, after taking some touristy photos, we found out that 6:30 was mass time. Therefore, we weren’t getting in today… onward!

Pizza Navona. Once again, we saw other monuments/buildings on the way, but we were aiming for Navona. This Pizza used to have elephants, races, fights, you name it. Sant Agnese was the church located here(I studied it last year). After stopping inside, we made our way towards the river.

We made some small detours and got lost. It started to drizzle as we made out was to Piazza del Popolo for a good view of the city. It was the best view, so far, of the city. From here we made our way towards the Spanish step for an even better view with a beautiful church at the top. (Short, fun story. Tommy had a sandwhich from his senora that was wrapped in tin foil. He made it into a ball and we had a little game where we would place it in one of our hoods and laugh.. like little kids… anyway) AFter the steps, we split into two groups. Rich, shannon and I were at the church when the other group decided to head home. We (mostly me) wanted to ee Viaa Medici for historical purpose.. Shannon was in charge of directions and set us in the wrong direction so we decided to try to make it back to the hostel for ‘free’ pizza at 830. We made it back, before everyone else and got some… pizza.. it wasn’t that filling so we decided to get some desert cause one of our friends didn’t get to rome until 8 anyway and Tommy’s friend’s sister was there too. Tommy, our friend, and tommy’s friend’s sister went to get food while myself and the 2 texans went to find gellatos. AFter no luck, we decide mcflurries were fine… after waiting nearly 30minutes for my half-ass mcflurry, we headed back to find the others but they were gone. After some small chat about where to go the next day, we had lights out and I read my book/listened to my ipod to brace myself for an early morning/day at the Vatican!

just an fyi for you who don’t always back up everything..