When in Rome...ITALIA - Fall Break Part II

ROME DAY 4
So Brett and I hopped a plane in the early afternoon for Rome. We were up in Barcelona early in the morning and out the door from our wonderful hostel toward the airport, no problemo. Basically, airport food is expensive…I’m sure everyone already knew this, but when you are on the go a lot, sometimes it’s the only alternative though. So whether it was a sandwich here, a coke there, basically I was replenished enough, and we boarded our plane, wrote in our journals, and caught an hour shut eye, then touched down in the Roma Fucimini airport by about 4ish.

We took a train to the central station in Rome, and walked 4-5 blocks, and checked in at the Yellow Hostel, and Brett and I straight away decided we were going to get authentic Italian food. So by about 5 or 6 o’clock, we walked all the way down the stairs and next door to a pizzeria and I ordered the lasagna. It was scrumptulescent. Afterwards, Brett and I decided that we had a little time to do some explore for our first night, so we walked about 20 minutes through new Rome down to the Coliseum to see it at night. That was epic. It’s gorgeous at night, and people just drive by it along the road, as if it’s in their way to their destination, that’s crazy, it’s the freakin’ Coliseum we’re talking about here, a huge chunk of history, centuries old, and it’s just another right turn for the crazy Italian drivers…oh well, as a history buff and true tourist, I can appreciate it for what it is though.

Anyhow, we were wiped out for sure, so we caught a metro back to our hostel and called it an early night, we had to get up early for our adventures in the next few days for sure!

ROME/FLORENCE DAY 5
Up early again, Brett and I got ready, and we checked out of the Yellow Hostel. We caught a metro to the Vatican City, and were going to climb to the top of St. Pauls Basilica, but there was a huge crowd of a thousand or so there, and the church was closed, so we decided to go see the Vatican Museum instead, and the Sistine Chapel, but oh wait, of course, long line there too. So Brett and I were in a conundrum…what to do? So we walked back into the crowd of 1000 some people in the center of Vatican City, pushed our way to the front of the crowd, and find some chairs. We randomly run into our friend Jen Scotto, who’s actually studying with us in London from Elon, but she happened to be in Italia, and Rome at the same time as us, so that was crazy to see a familiar face without planning it ahead of time, but it was still very comforting…small world eh?

Well the reason of course there was a crowd…in case you haven’t seen the photos already, was because the POPE was speaking! Crazy right? Basically three times a week, the Pope speaks, and delivers a short sermon to all of the pilgrims that travel to see him there. He speaks 5 different languages fluently, and it’s pretty incredible, not gonna lie. Even if you’re not very religious, it’s still pretty cool to be that close to someone who is titled “his holiness.” Anyhow, when he enters the city, he rides in this car, something like the Pope-Mobile or something, and gets to get close to the crowd. Of course Brett, Jen, and I all jumped on our chairs, moved forward, and were about 10 feet from the guy, so that was at least a once in a lifetime experience I suppose, not bad for a group of 3 poor college kids who got in and somehow found front row seats.

Anyhow, after the Pope’s speech in English (I got it all on tape)…Brett and I grabbed paninis on the go, and bolted for the train station.

We hopped a train for Florence, and journaled some more along the way, it’s a great time to write in your journal if you normally aren’t the “journaling” type like myself, but anyhow, the Italian countryside is so scenic and beautiful, it’s quite the trip. But I’ll fast forward you into our first steps in Florence itself.

Welcome to the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence, Italy. Artists thrive here, photographers envy it, and sculpters…well they do whatever they do best. Regardless, Brett and I wandered the streets with all our bags for quite some time looking for our hostel that was called “the Eurostudent Hostel”…fitting eh? Anyways, we walk past this restaurant that is supposed to be next door to our place, and we find this small little door, by itself, with a number of buzzers on the side of it. One small buzzer says “Eurostudent” and I look at Brett, and wonder what kinda place we actually set ourselves up with, but either way, we climb 5 flights of stairs, and a guy opens the door to the Eurostudent, he’s short, very Italian, has a half buttoned shirt with a super hairy chest, and introduces himself with a thick accent as “Franco.” Little did I know this character was probably going to be one of the best parts of my experience for Fall Break.

The Eurostudent was actually an amazing hostel, it was small and intimate, but the rooms were large, each with about 6-7 beds, and we had a nice bathroom, and kitchen area as well. Franco checked us in, gave us keys, and then pointed out all the places to go in Florence if we only had one day to do so. It was awesome, we really lucked out by picking friendly places with a lot of very helpful people that owned them. So Brett and I decided to waste no time, so we threw our stuff down and peaced out down onto the Florence streets to explore. We first went to the museum where Michelangelo’s “David” is…which was 10 Euro ($15), but it was so worth it. Michelangelo had so much of an impact on Italy and all of its artwork, it was unreal, and David is actually like probably some 15ft tall, with the base included, and so perfectly sculpted. It sounds cliché to say something like that, but until you’re there, walking around the base and just admiring the fact that anyone could put so much detail into a depiction of someone, is incredible. So that was worth the cost. The other artwork in the museum wasn’t quite as extravagant as we expected, but seeing the David was so unbelievably great.

Next, we hit up the cathedral of Santa Maria (familiar right?) which is also known for its dome…or the “Duomo”. Brett and I took on the 436 some steps to the top (steps was also a very reoccurring theme for our trip) where we stayed for about 45 minutes to catch the sunset over Florence. Romantic huh? Haha, anyways, Florence is absolutely GORGEOUS. The capitals were necessary there because there really isn’t another way to describe the splendor of the city of Florence, from the mountain line on the horizon perfectly fading into the river that sinks into the middle of the city that sits still in a freeze frame of beauty. (That was probably a little overkill, but it sounded really good at the time). Even so, I’m not sure if my pictures will truly do it justice, but at sunset, the city just lights up. It’s so unlike other cities, where there is an older part from the past, and then an industrial side, everything in Florence has been kept the same, similar architecture, style, everything is just beautiful, and even that doesn’t do it complete justice. You really CAN understand why artists and sculptors fell in love with a place like Florence centuries ago.

So after that experience, Brett and I headed back to our hostel and the Eurostudent, and Franco was cooking the hostel dinner. It was included in our price, which was unreal, and Franco sent us on a trip to the store for wine, where he gave us 10 empty bottles, and told us to fill them up. In Italy, Florence especially, the wine is on tap from gargantuan bottles, I’d never seen something like that before, but it was a pretty cool site to see regardless. So the other guys that came with us, all took our bottles back to Franco, where he had finished cooking an amazing pasta dish in mozzarella with meatballs mixed in. It was absolutely epic. The food was so good and we tried Franco’s favorite wine, which was delicious as well. Then, Franco wanted to go out for a night on the town in Florence, so our entire hostel (mind you there were about 15 of us, crammed around one small dinner table designed for 6 getting to know each other and laughing and sharing stories) followed Franco and Tommy, the other owner of the Eurostudent to their favorite pub, and then later to a techno club.

I sat at the bar talking to Tommy, who was 50 years old, lived in Italy for 30 years and speaks 3 different languages. He was a native of Sweeden, and goes back every month to visit his family there, as he is still a bachelor in Florence. I’ve never met a more genuine person that was so thoroughly interested in hearing about me and my stories, and I was so amazed by a person who works in a hostel for a living, cooks for himself, is multilingual and just meets so many interesting characters for a living. It was great. So after a lot of laughs, jokes, and a little bit of the local football highlights, we headed to a club that had the typical light up dance floor and smoke machines, we met some more friends through our Australian roommates and we even ran into a few of our Elon friends that study with us in London, and happened to be in Florence for the night! How crazy is that? Once again, small world. Then we called it a night after a while, because of course, I still had quite the trip ahead of me.

FLORENCE/ROME DAY 6
Brett and I were up in the morning, and went adventuring through the rest of Florence, we went to Ponche Vechio (spelling?) which is essentially “Old Bridge” I’m pretty sure, because it’s one of the oldest and most beautiful bridges that goes through Florence. We hit a few more of the amazing plazas, saw more statues and art, and then we knew we needed to get back to Rome, so we were soon enough back on a train by lunch time toward Rome again. After our journal time, and a recap of our wonderful time with Franco and the gang we met at the Eurostudent (we got a photo-op with Franco, I’m sure you’ll be able to tell which one he is) we finally arrived back in Roma and were back checking in again at the Yellow Hostel.

We quickly dropped our bags, locked up our stuff and actually jumped back on the metro toward Vatican city again, because we still needed to conquer St. Paul’s Basilica. So, about 30 minutes later, and 500+ steps later (reoccurring theme remember?) we were at the top of the Basilica and overlooking the amazing site of Rome as it stands today, and guess what…another sunset to top it all off. The weather was absolutely impeccable our entire trip, we got super lucky. We took in the sites for a while, I got my typical 450 pictures I take every time we go anywhere with a view, and then we toured the inside of the church for a while as well. We saw more of Michelangelo’s sculptures, including the Virgin Mary and Jesus, which FUN FACT: that’s the only statue that he actually inscribed his name on…I think that’s cool. And at about six o’clock, we got some more paninis and headed back to the hostel to regroup.

That night, Brett and I met up at the Coliseum with two of our Elon friends from London, Chelsea Anderson and Tiffany Giannandrea for dinner (Brett and I just had this absolutely delicious dessert which was basically a waffle bowl, with crème/ice cream-esk stuff in it, and filled with strawberries…ahhhhhh so amazing) and then headed back to their flat for the night. Tiff and Chels, had this unreal Spanish-looking Flat to themselves that was very modern, but it overlooked the Coliseum!!!!! I was so jealous, but we just shared our life stories, talked about religion, life, politics, the whole shebang, and then Brett and I headed back to our hostel for the evening. It was a great low-key evening filled with friends, and we had a blast doing it.

ROME DAY 7
So Brett and I once again hit up Vatican City on our third official day in Rome. We still had to check off the Vatican Museum/Sistine Chapel from our list of tourist spots, so we were sped through the line and straight to the student ticket window within a matter of a few minutes. The Vatican museum is huge, it has plenty of galleries to look at, from a gallery of muses (basically mugshots, but statues and such), gallery of tapestries, and a gallery of ancient maps. Of course there are a ton of religious paintings and such, and I got the pleasure of seeing Rafael’s “Transfiguration” which was pretty incredible as well. (Kelsey: you can Wikipedia it to see what it looks like). After about 30 straight minutes of speed walking the place, we finally came to the end of the museum, which as a finale, is Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel. I don’t really know what I thought it was going to be like, but the actual place is incredible, it’s so intricate, detailed, and there’s definitely a reason it took Mikey 15 years to actually complete it. FUN FACT: Michelangelo was actually not originally supposed to be the painter of the Sistine Chapel, the Pope consulted Rafael and other top-notch painters of the day to do it, but they were all too busy with their own works that as a joke all of the painters suggested Michelangelo to do it…because they thought it would ruin his career, since he was a sculptor, and had never painted before, but if the Pope asked him to do something, he’d have to do it…Surprisingly enough, even though it took him 15 years, it’s obviously one of Michelangelo’s most famous works, all because of some stuck up other painters who tried to ruin him.

Anyways, after our trip to the Vatican for the final time (PS: the Vatican is actually is own country…governs itself and is recognized in Italy as a separate nation), Brett and I found a local sandwich shop and we had Pork and Herb paninis that were quite heavenly. Then we made our way to the Plaza Novella, which is where we were meeting up with our tour guide, to take a walking tour of Ancient Rome.

There was a student rally/protest outside one of the government buildings while we were eating our gelato ice cream and listening to street musicians and waiting on our tour, which was an interesting site to see, because it was something different, but there were lots of kids chanting and yelling and fighting for change, basically because I think the government had shifted power and were going to be putting a damper on Education policy.

Anyways, when our tour started, we definitely were in for a treat. Our tour guide started off taking us past of course all the major sites, but the amount of information she had was just unreal. For instance, the Plaza Novella that we started in, which is now a plaza with lots of stores, shops, restaurants etc, was actually in Ancient Rome, a giant stadium used for military training and entertainment as well, but later converted after ancient times, to the plaza that is now there today.

We then made our way through the streets of Rome, saw one of the intact column structures that used to hold up a temple, but now is partially the side of the Bank of Rome. It’s interesting to see how old and new collide, and how much history is preserved in the city that is so rich and has so many centuries of it all around. Of course, our first big stop, was absolutely crazy though, and was the Pantheon. Now, the Pantheon, in Ancient Rome was used as essentially a Universal Place of Worship, kinda like a non-denominational or universal church today. It was designed for people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, to freely come and worship whoever or whatever they wanted to. FUN FACT: Surprisingly enough, the Pantheon’s dome is actually larger than St. Paul’s Basilica, although it’s not as tall. The dimensions of the Pantheon are perfect. It is exactly 127 ft from each side of the dome to the other, and the dome is also perfectly 127ft from the floor to the top of the dome, making it a “perfect” sanctuary to worship the Gods in. It has a large hole in the ceiling as a window to the heavens and when it rains, it has holes in the floor that help to drain out the precipitation that comes in. Crazy stuff.

So after the Pantheon, we headed for Trevi fountain, which is the largest fountain in Rome, and one of its famous. It’s a tribute to Neptune, God of the Sea, and is absolutely HUGE! It is an urban legend that those who throw a coin in the fountain someday will return to Rome, so I did anyways. Plus Fun Fact: all the money that goes into the fountain a year (Trevi Fountain usually accumulates something crazy like 500,000 Euros (A million US dollars a year)) is actually donated to the Red Cross, so it’s a good cause regardless. Anyhow, after our photo-ops there, we passed the Church of the Apostles, which is where St. Philip and St. James are buried (underneath the main alter, before the church was constructed). Which was so cool for me because once again, I found myself in the precise spot that so much of ancient history just thrived centuries ago.

After that, we saw one of the oldest columns in Rome, which has a statue of St. Peter upon it, and we also saw another large monument, that tributes a number of the Gods, and is called by many different names, of which I can’t remember any right now, but it essentially looked like a bigger and a lot cooler version of the white house, except on an epic scale, and minus the fence. But on the backside of this monument, was one of my favorite of Michelangelo’s pieces, his statue of Marcus Aurelius. Who’s on horseback, and overlooking all of new Rome. Marcus Aurelius was Rome’s longest ruling emperor and Michelangelo actually had so much respect for this leader that he made him face toward what is now “new Rome” today, because he wanted him to always be remembered as the leader who truly ruled over all of Rome. (Don’t you just love my pointless anecdotes?)

Of course, I’m not getting to my favorite and most monumental part of the trip (as far as Rome’s concerned), because on the backside of Marcus Aurelius, was the view that stunned me, put me in a state of shock and awe, and also made my trip to Rome, so worthwhile. Essentially, right as you pass the steps behind Marcus Aurelius, you’re overlooking all of the ruins of Ancient Rome. It’s called the Roman Forum (The Roman word “Forum” meant “Market”), and it’s the remains of the oldest portion of ancient Rome, which is for the most part still completely intact like it was centuries ago.
The greatest part about all of this, was the fact that we had the opportunity to take our tour through the entire Roman Forum, and walk the same streets that Julius Caesar used during his reign. It’s unreal. The remnants and columns of the oldest temple in Rome date back to approximately 497 BC! That’s absolutely outrageous to me, and also extremely epic. We passed the old temple of Venus (now only a few pillars), built during Caesar’s rule, and even saw another temple that if I’m not mistaken has the oldest pair of bronze doors in the world that are completely still intact. Additionally, Fun Fact: The doors on the temple (green in the picture), were the first ever bronze doors built with a self-locking mechanism in them. AND, archeologists recovered the lock to the door, and key, all crafted in Roman times, and get this, the original key, and lock STILL WORK TODAY! That blows my mind.

Regardless, I stood on the place that was Julius Caesar’s final funeral pyre, after his assassination and when he was burned in front of his palace for all of Rome to see. I also saw the remnants of the floors and ruins of his palace, and it’s just so wild to imagine yourself really understanding how amazing of a place and how busy of a city it became in its day. After that, we saw the Arch of Titus (Arc Tito), which tributes Titus when he conquered Jerusalem, and it one of the first times that in Roman architecture a menorah is actually sculpted, because Judaism was still forming at that point in time. Another fun fact: the cobblestone used in the forum is worn on either side of many of the stones, that was due to the amount of carts that used to travel along the paths so frequently in Roman times. Our tour guide said that to have that much wear on large cobblestone rocks like the ones we were walking on, would have taken 10 million carts frequently traveling through back and forth. Pretty enormous numbers for even that day, but further reiterates the fact that Rome was really a centralized and travel oriented point in its time.

Of course, we had to tour the Coliseum for the conclusion of our tour, which was also unbelievable. We walked in, and stood right underneath the ruins of the Emperor’s box, which is just stunning to see the view. We climbed the large stairs to the second level, and spent some time here on our own, because Brett and I were still taking in all of the sites we’d just witnessed, and also the magnitude of the Coliseum inside itself. You can watch movies like Gladiator, or documentaries on the Romans, or anything of the like, but it’s truly amazing to stand on the dirt filled stones that started it all and just imagine what it would have been like to be a part of a culture so vivacious as the Roman one. Now I’m a super nerd and history buff, so I’m probably exaggerating a little too much for many of you, if you’ve even made it to this part of the blog, but either way, the view is unreal, and was the perfect closing ceremony for our adventure through Ancient Rome.

At last, we decided to catch the metro back to our hostel after grabbing a quick dinner at a local restaurant. We wished that we could have stayed longer, but it was time to get back and start preparing for the way home. In our hostel though we were rooming with two girls that actually were on our original flight from Barcelona to Rome on Tuesday, which was wild because they were also students studying abroad from the states (in Copenhagen though) and had been taking a similar fall break like Brett and I. So on our last evening, Brett and I played cards with these girls and few another friend we had met along the way, and once again, shared cool experiences from all the travels we’ve already had, plus the excitement of where we might go in the future portion of our time here in Europe. It’s always interesting to hear different points of view about studying abroad, and traveling, only because I feel that in America, it’s not as encouraged as it is in for instance the Australian culture, where individuals are expected to dive into the world and experience so many more different cultures and people before they come back home and have a better understanding of who they are and what they want to be. But we stayed up late talking, listening to music, laughing, and overall making some more new friends to hopefully run into later in life and have a moment where we can say…”remember in Rome…” I look forward to that for sure.

So it finally had come to Saturday, the last day of our trip, and we packed up and headed to the airport for our afternoon flight. We got on a British Airways flight at about 1pm, and started the journey home. I journaled a bit and recapped my past few days, and listened to music, just as lunch was being served by the flight attendants. However, right as it’s happening, I look out my window view to see our bird’s eye view of Europe from 34,000 feet up. I was overlooking the Alps as they towered through the cloud line in the afternoon sun and just can’t describe how beautiful this site was. I took some pictures from my window, of the lakes and snow from the peaks that you could see from our view, and how crazy it was to see the clouds just being sliced through by this enormous mountain range, but I must say, it was probably the perfect view to end my fall break experience on. I wanted to just freeze time, stop, and reflect on how gorgeous of a site I just got to experience.

I’m blown away by now at what I’ve seen. I started my fall break with a 30 minute sunset, ended with a view of the Alps, met so many people, had so much good food, had a great time, and had seven of the most sunny days to adventure in. Now, back in London Town, and in my routine, where the clouds seem to overcast the sun more often than not, I just think about how lucky I am to be here. I can’t really explain my gratitude, or like how fortunate I am to be able to talk about these experiences for a lifetime, but I’m excited to keep doing it, and finding new ways to explore and push forward, and maybe tell someone else one day about my time in the middle of nowhere in Florence, where Franco cooked the best food this side of Sicily and that’ll be a story worth telling over and over again.

To wrap up. Finally, you can breathe. Monday/Wednesday were Interning days at Xtreme Information. On one day, I called 200+ companies to verify their contact details and update an old database that hadn’t been touched since probably 1998, so I’m glad that my work is getting put to good use. On the other day, I worked on “The Reel” again, and edited, formatted, and resized hi-resolution photographs that will be used in next month’s edition of our product, as well as formatted the entire template of the brochure as well. It feels really really good to say that I’ve been published multiple times, just as a 20 year old intern with a bit of comm. Experience, and to have tangible results and love what I’m doing. Classes are going well, I’m looking to try to celebrate Halloween over here tomorrow, and although it’s not a huge holiday here, I think our group of Elon kids will make the best of it, if not I’ll dress up as something funny, and find some candy corn or something. I hope that everyone is doing well, will send me updates about their lives, and keep thinkin about me as I travel. It’s getting cold here in London, and snowed the other night, which was the first snow in October in London in about 10 years, so it’s been a monumental, record-breaking experience here thus far, I hope that continues for the duration of my trip for sure.

Next up in my travels include Athens, Greece, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and I’m considering a trip into Switzerland/Germany as part of a backpacking expedition at the end of my semester. Guy Fawkes day is on November 5th here, which is a huge celebration, and just so everyone knows, on last Monday I sent in my absentee ballot through the overnight mail, so when I complain about politics, it’ll be justified, since I actually voted . Anyways, I’m off to get groceries, clean up the Penthouse, and am looking forward to a great weekend. Ciao, Adios, and Cheers! Peace!