When in Rome, do what the Romans do!

This great quote was used every five seconds. Now, I'm not really sure what exactly Alaina meant by saying that we need to do what the Romans do (since she thinks that this is a common quote everyone uses), but it kind of gives you an insight to all of the funny things I got to hear her say. I'm sure the girls at the bank can appreciate this as well :) Alaina was also EXTREMELY confused at the euro system. She just didn't understand how it could be different than the dollar. Also, she loved to break out in an English accent (since we were in London and all) about every other conversation we had.

So as you can tell just by my little introduction, Alaina and I had a great time in Rome! Sure, we fought to the point of no return at least once a day, but in minutes we were best friends again laughing non stop. It was great to travel with Alaina. Other than her, my family, and my two closest friends can I ever really be myself and show my bad side when I'm frustrated or my weird goofy self when I choose to be. I don't think I've laughed so much the entire time I was in Spain as I did with Alaina.

The first day in Rome, we literally hit EVERYTHING! We heard the Vatican was a half day affair and since we didn't get started in Rome until 2:30, we decided to hit as much as possible on Monday. Here are pictures from the major sites we hit on Monday!

Alaina posing in the Piazza del Popolo (A little disappointing because of all of the construction going on!)

The Spanish Steps! Beginning of the Via Condotti, the street with the best stores ever! Dior, Burberry, Gucci, LV, Armani, Jimmy Chu.

Alaina and I at the Piazza de Venizia

Trevi Fountain. Prettiest fountain ever!

Colosseum!

Roman Forum. A huge area of ruins near the Colosseum

Pantheon

Piazza Navona

We seriously did all of these sites in one afternoon! Although Rome is big, a lot of the main sites are reall pretty close to each other. There are two metro lines, but they are horrible! For a capital city so populated and big, I've never heard of it only having 2 metro lines. Paris, London, Madrid and other big cities I've visited have all had at least 10 lines. Also, the metros in Rome were always SO crowded. I mean, I really don't like crowds anyways, but being packed into the metro like sardines really wasn't the most enjoyable thing

Speaking of crowds, I just have to comment that Rome was the most crowded city I have ever been to. I've been to famous Paris, London for the wedding of the century, and still haven't ever seen anything like it. No matter where you went in the city, you were behind loads of people on the streets, all walking really really slow and not letting you get by. The Italians are no different than the rest of the Europeans who literally have no clue that you are trying to pass them or that they're in your way or if they just cut you off. It's quite frustrating, especially in a big crowd.

We went to bed pretty early our first night since we hadn't slept for 38 hours, but woke up Tuesday morning refreshed and ready to hit the streets. When we got off the metro near the Vatican City, we were stopped by tour guides who were advertising a tour of the Vatican for 40 euro. At first we were like no way, but to get into the museums with an audio tape, it costs 26 euro, so actually 14 euro for a tour guide who was great, took us through everything, explained all parts and areas of the painting in the sistine chapel and made sure to hit the important paintings and sculptures in the Vatican museums. I'm really glad we signed up for it because the Vatican museum is HUGE! It's only 2nd in size to the Louvre in Paris and would've been first if Napoleon wouldn't have stolen artifacts from the museum in Rome. It's so big that if you were to spend 5 min on every object in the Vatican museums, you would be in there for 7 years!

The Vatican museum is host to the famous Sistine Chapel. It was so gorgeous and mind blowing, but kind of frustrating because you literally only had 3 minutes in there. The guards were moving everyone out almost as soon as you got in and also kept yelling at people to be quiet. I didn't take any pictures because it was prohibited, but it was definitely something everyone needs to see!

Even the Pope gets the Baby Schabe feeling :)

Vatican City. Smallest Country in the world! 

St. Peter's Basilica. Gorgeous!

The big fortress that used to guard the Vatican City

We then headed to the beautiful Villa Borghese, which is a huge, heart shaped park that used to be some man (named Borghese's) estate. We started at one end of the park and headed to the opposite end where we were searching for the Museo e Galleria Borghese that is housed in the old Borghese Villa. I had read about it in my handy dandy travel book, but wasn't informed that it was "pre-booking" only. The tickets were sold out for this museum until Friday, 4 days in advance! I've never heard of a museum being prebook only and was really surprised at how popular it must be. Alaina had really wanted to go in because she had taken an art class last fall and had learned about many of the artists (Bernini, Carvagio, Raphael, etc) and their sculptures and paintings featured in the Borghese museum. We were a little bummed since we had walked all the way there, but for me, once you've seen one museum you've seen them all. However, luck was on Alaina's side because some lady from Seatle came up to us as we wre leaving and said she had two extra tickets if we'd like them for free (20 euro value!) So we said yes and went into the museum, saw the big artists Alaina wanted to see then headed to dinner.

view from the park

pretty cool shaped park!

There wasn't much variation to what we ate in Italy, but no matter what, it was all delicious. Pizza, pasta, pizza, and gelato was our main diet. We ate different kinds of pizza every time and loved them all. Our favorite was Capriccio that had eggs, artichoke, mushrooms, bacon, ham and olives loaded onto it. We got that kind probably 4 times.

We were happy with every meal except the lunch after the tour of the Vatican. We split a pizza (10 euro) and got two soft drinks. Most of the time, a can of coke (NEVER any refills in europe) is about 2.50 each, so we weren't planning on anything expensive. When I got the bill and saw we owed 28 dollars (when it should have been closer to 15) I was appalled. The cans of coke cost 5 euro each and the man charged us EACH 3 euros for 1 basket of rolls (which all the other places gave it to you for free) and a 2 euro service charge. I asked the waiter if it was correct and he said yes. We were pretty frustrated and upset, but we had already eaten and there really wasn't much we could do. We learned our lesson and next time will make sure to ask for the prices of everything!

At the end of the day, we headed back to the coolest hostel ever (with a restaurant and bar on the bottom floor), The Yellow and met our really cool roomates. I love traveling because you meet so many cool people .There were two guys from Singapore (did you know the official language there is English!??!) who were traveling for 5 months, a 30 year old man who was already divorced, a 20 year old guy from Alabaaama, and a girl from New Zealand.

All in all Rome was such a great city! It was definitely a city I wish I could have spent more time in, but with only 2 days, I think Alaina and I were champs at seeing everything we did. I loved how there is SOO much history and background that is still standing thousands of years old and then modern things sitting right by it. Rome is just a really neat mix of old and new and it was the perfect city to start off my trip with Alaina!