I LOVE ROMA.
This is still by far my favorite city in the world. I am seriously so so blessed that God let me come back to Rome so soon after I left and I was able to reconnect with almost all of the friends I made while I was there in the spring/summer (except of course all my American SP friends who I wish could have been with me!). I even got to stay with my friend Francesca's family and they spoiled us rotten… seriously some of the greatest hosts ever.
:: we finally remembered to take a picture with Francesca's family the night before we left ::
But let me start from the beginning.
On Friday I turned in that paper (I finished it BEFORE midnight Thursday night. I know, you can be impressed) and finished packing (now you can finished being impressed and say "what was she doing packing the day of for a week long trip?"). Then at 3:00 we started our long day of travel by catching the train from Differdange to Luxembourg City where we caught a bus to the Frankfurt-Hahn airport in Germany. We got there about two hours early to get through security and all that, and then our roughly an hour and a half flight left at 8:00. Now here's where it gets interesting. We told Francesca we would get to Termini (Rome's central train station) around 11 at night because our flight landed around 9:30 and we had bought tickets for a 10:30 bus into the city. All of my Roman friends' numbers were safely in my cell phone, but as you know, you have to turn off your cell phone on an airplane. When I turned on my phone when we landed, I just guessed at my PIN number for awhile to unlock it - even though I had a piece of paper tucked under the battery with the number on it. What I didn't know was that after a certain amount of incorrect guesses, the SIM card locks itself up. So now we have ZERO numbers and no way to call Francesca, and we were on our way to Termini, which is in one of the most dangerous areas of Rome at night. Awesome. So we wandered all around Termini station for awhile and by the grace of God found an internet cafe where I was able to look up my friend Pietro's phone number. Aunna called him and it turned out that he was actually at Termini with Francesca because she had gotten scared walking around trying to find us! Ahh I was so relieved when we met up with them! Francesca's little sister Giulia was with them also and she spoke really good English. After we loaded our bags in her car, we got stuck in the parking lot because the parking ticket didn't work for some reason and then got stopped by some cops on the way home who were doing random driving documents checks (or that's what I gathered anyways). So it was an interesting night. Apparently Pietro had been all ready for bed before he came so props to him for being such a gentleman. I have good friends.
We CRASHED when we got back to Francesca's! Haha. But they still served us delicious leftover food before that. We were okay with that.
On Saturday morning we woke up and met the rest of Francesca's family. Her mom made us caffe and cornetti for breakfast, along with some chocolate cookie crackers and Ringo cookie snack bars. It was so good. And here comes something really exciting. We got to take showers and USE A REAL HAIR DRYER. WITH A DIFFUSER. Haha. I haven't really mentioned this on the blog obviously, but my little hair dryer I have in Lux is really a travel hair dryer and it systematically destroys my hair with its insane heat settings. Francesca saw it and was like "oh no, use mine" and I was so happy. My hair was so curly.
Once we were all cute and ready for Rome, Francesca showed us the 80 express bus that would take us down to the center. We did a whirlwind tour of the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Sant Eustachio (favorite cappuccino of all life), random pizza place, Giolitti (apple and cinnamon is still incredible), all the way up Corso with a stop in H&M and Vertecchi, Spanish Steps, Piazza del Popolo, and Villa Borghese. I really liked wandering in Villa Borghese because it was much more relaxing without the World Cup madness going on there… and it was SUCH a beautiful day. It must have been high 70s or low 80s. So great. Then I tried to cut back and show Aunna the Wedding Cake (Vittoriano), but my shortcut was a colossal failure. We ended up seeing some cool old stuff… We took pictures to ask my friends but we never really figured out what it all was. We ended up stumbling upon Termini (look at a map of Rome; this is hilarious since we were trying to get to Vittoriano), which was perfect because I knew how to get back to Francesca's house from there… although we did have a bit of an adventure on the bus trying to figure out which was her exact stop.
:: it worked twice already! so I'm officially going back to Rome ::
That night, we went with Francesca to meet up with Pietro and Anna to watch the Roma vs. Inter soccer game at a pizzeria. They weren't being too loud about the game because they were all cheering for Inter and obviously everyone else in the room was cheering for Roma. Pietro is obligated to hate Rome because he cheers for Lazio, another sort of rival team based in Rome, and Francesca's whole family cheers for Inter. Giulia had like… a shrine to Inter in her room! It was great. Anyways, they were all pretty mad when Roma won at the last moment. I ended up not seeing much of the match because the TV screens were too small but it was okay because I got to catch up with everyone. And it was pizza. Even though I spent a good portion of dinner defending American food, I was really glad to be eating Italian pizza again. We also had some good bruschetta and meat kebob sticks that I apparently couldn't eat the "right way". I was mercilessly made fun of for trying to take them off with my fingers because I couldn't bite them hard enough… After that Pietro took us to his favorite pub and I still crack myself up just thinking about it. This bar had a serious identity crisis. It was a Titanic-themed Irish pub with Texan decorations that played a mix of country music, Irish music, and what I'm pretty sure was a Blues Brothers soundtrack ripped illegally from the movie.
Seriously, doesn't that just kill you? Oh man. I can't believe I forgot to take pictures of it.
On Sunday we slept in and then met up with my friend Davide for lunch. We met up by the Spanish Steps, but ended up taking a cab over to Trastevere to get lunch. It's so pretty over there! I had really good cacio e pepe… And hanging out with Davide is such a riot. He had actually been at the Roma-Inter match the night before and he kept breaking out into Roma songs. He took us to Piazza Navona after lunch, which was really cool because I didn't see it over the summer. Then we got Della Palma gelato, which he claimed was better than Giolitti but I'm not convinced.
:: mmmmm gelato. we got it every day and were teased ::
I was so so so so full at this point. Italian food just fills me up! But we continued on to see the Vittoriano, or the Wedding Cake, (finally) and climbed to the top. I'm pretty sure its a memorial to Vittorio Emanuele, one of their kings, or something like that. Then Davide wanted to look in some stores so we went up Corso again and ended up in Piazza del Popolo. After laying around there for awhile, we caught a cab over to San Giovanni. I was almost asleep in the cab when we got there haha. It was nice to go in San Giovanni, because I had walked past this church all summer whenever I caught the bus, but I never went in it. It was very pretty inside… the ceilings were made of real gold. Craziness. By then we were all exhausted so Aunna and I headed back to Francesca's for dinner. They're from southern Italy and they eat super late, but even though we didn't eat until around 10:00 it was okay because I was still so full from lunch. And this was a good meal. Francesca's mom made amatriciana (I think), which I had all the time over the summer but it had never been this good. After pasta, we had some pork with fruit on it and mushrooms on the side, and it was all so good. I don't even usually like mushrooms. We had been planning to go do something that night (we weren't really sure what…) but after dinner was finished we were so full and tired we decided to just call it a night.
On Monday we woke up somewhat early to go to the Colosseum and the Roman forum. It hasn't changed. Still cool. After that we beasted the bus system to find my friend Giovanni's new apartment to have lunch. He had two roommates who I don't think I've met before and they made us delicious rice with zucca (pumpkin) sauce on it. Giovanni even had olive oil from his family's farm to put on it. It was so good! This is a reoccurring theme in Rome. We were so spoiled when it came to food. Anyways, it was great to catch up with Giovanni. I got to randomly teach him a little swing dancing, which was funny. Almost fell down doing a dip, so we stopped there. Haha. We talked about movies for a little bit too, and apparently everyone in Italy has seen more movies than me. Not surprisingly, Giovanni is into indy-esque film festival type films… But I did a little PR for Inception because it just came out in Italy and everyone should see it… and man that's just such a good movie. They also had this really weird wall decoration/statue right when you come in to the apartment who they had dressed up and named Pumba.
:: seriously, what is this thing? ::
After spending the afternoon with Giovanni and his roommates, Aunna and I headed over to La Sapienza to meet up with Pietro, who had recently finished an exam, and Francesca, who was studying there. (I forgot to mention that Pietro had two exams while we were in Rome and managed to get good grades on both of them while still hanging out with us at night.) After figuring out dinner plans, Aunna and I left them to keep studying and went to get gelato at my favorite gelateria in San Lorenzo where we stayed this summer. San Lorenzo is about the same… I recognized some of the old men who hung out in front of the Salvation Army and got a caffe at Patos for kicks and giggles. We ended up getting dinner in San Lorenzo with Licia, Francesca, and Pietro at a restaurant that I remembered for it's great pasta (for those of you who were there - the place on the way to La Sapienza that had seafood but where we got to eat three pasta dishes buffet style for like 9 euro). And the owner recognized me! I had only been in there two times, but both times were with large groups of American girls so I guess we were memorable… I like that man. Andrea met up with us after dinner and we went to get granita, which I think is Sicilian ice (kind of like an icee but thicker and better). I'm glad I finally got to see Andrea because he had been working or something silly like that all weekend and couldn't hang out. Psh lame.
I seriously love hanging out with these people. Even during the long stretches of conversation when I don't understand exactly what's being said, I start laughing because they're just so funny. How did I meet such fun people? (I hesitate to say cool, because let's be serious… its Andrea and Pietro… ;] ) Anyways, thanks God.
On Tuesday, our last day in Rome, we decided to sleep in. We got lunch with Beth Ann and Alyssa, two of the long-term Crusade staff in Rome, and it was so nice to catch up. I was really encouraged to talk to them, especially about how ministry in Rome is going. They're slowly getting their new Stint team due to some delays in support and I think a few more long-term staff have come on board. Praise God that he's bringing more people into Rome. :] Hopefully I'll be with them in a few years! After delicious pizza, Aunna and I went down to see the Vatican museum. The line was mercifully shorter than when I went over the summer. Thank you Jesus. I could not have handled that again. I actually enjoyed the museum a bit more than last time as well because we were a little more free to wander with less people (two versus 30-something) and without the free vatican sunday crowd. We also climbed to the top of the dome on St. Peters Basilica, which I had never done before. And by climbed, I mean we opted to take the elevator halfway and climb only what was absolutely necessary (still more than 300 steps). The view was beautiful!
:: you could see almost all of Rome ::
After exploring St. Peter for a little bit, we got gelato at Old Bridge, a really good gelato place near the Vatican. Mmm. We finished that in time to head over to Piazza Bologna to meet Pietro, Andrea, Francesca, and Licia for aperitivo. Aperitivo is something like Italian happy hour, but the basic gist is that you get a drink and an all you can eat buffet of "appetizers" for something like 6-8 euro and it's a nice way to hang out with people - especially when one of your friends has an exam the next day and can't stay out late. Now, when I say appetizers, I mean random pizza slices, pasta, veggies, and all that delicious stuff. We ended up at a place near Pietro's apartment where, I dare say, we witnessed a miracle - Pietro found parking on his street. I really liked the place we went… It was artsy and modern looking, even though I'm pretty sure Pietro called it gaudy (the conversation was a little confusing; I'll spare you the details). It was the only night I remembered to take pictures, but lots of people were there so it worked out. :] Highlights of conversation included Pietro's insistence that Francesca was in love with him (we all determined it was the other way around) and my proper usage of the phrase "li mortacci tua" when Pietro was making fun of me not being able to speak Italian. They came to the general consensus that it's too inconvenient for me not to know Italian when they're telling so many hilarious jokes, so I guess I'll have to work on that. I was so sad when we all had to leave… but Aunna and I were getting up at 5:00 to catch a train to Milan and everyone else had to study or something. After saying all our goodbyes, we headed back to Francesca's house just in time for dinner at 9:30! Haha, but this was seriously incredible. Francesca's mom made lasagna. Oh. My. Lord. It was delicious. It was so delicious.
:: my wonderful friends... I miss them already ::
So that was Rome. As you may have noticed, I love this city. I love these people. I am so freaking blessed that I got to come here again. I will be going back as soon as possible. As for the rest of Italy… I'm tired. I'll write that later.
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