Once again, we had to stop at a rest area on the way to Rome. And once again, there were no toilet seats on the toilets. That really is annoying! We got to our hotel in Rome around 5 and got right into our rooms to drop our stuff off. Then a big group of us went across the street to the train station to get our Roma Passes, which are passes that get you three days of free public transportation and into your first two museums/archaeological sites free and a discounted ticket at most other ones (excluding the Vatican Museum). Christine and Mike had already bought their tickets online, so we eventually lost them as they tried to find where they had to go to get them. So though I highly recommend buying the Roma Pass, I don't recommend buying them ahead of time! Our group then split further as we disagreed over where to go for dinner. My part of the group (6 of us) went to a little fast pizza place and got some pretty good pizza. Then we hopped on the metro and headed over to the Spanish Steps, which were absolutely beautiful. There were all these flowers! Gorgeous. And I made everyone climb all the way to the top of course. It was really cool. Then we walked over to the Trevi Fountain and threw some coins into it and took pictures. We were actually there when the lights came on! It's really pretty all light up like that. We got some gelato (chocolate) which was really good and took the metro back to the hotel.
The next day Christine, Mike, Rachel, Rachel's friend Abigail, and I headed over to the Colosseum to start our day. We were really far up in line so we got right in before it got crowded and were able to get some good pictures without lots of people in them. It was really cool to see the Colosseum and walk around on it and see the underground area where all the slaves and gladiators and animals were kept before being led up to the arena! Probably my second favorite thing that we did in Rome. Right next to the Colosseum is a big arch that we stopped and took pictures of. I know it has some significance, but I don't remember what Mike said about it. Then we headed right across the way to the Roman Forum, which is absolutely massive! We spent a good long while walking around in there. It was really cool to see, especially when Mike or Rachel (who have studied it) told us the simple version of what things were. Plus they kept looking at the ground for pottery and licking it to see if it was pottery or just dirt/clay. Apparently it's something that you do a lot at a dig site. We split up after the Forum, Rachel and Abigail leaving to do something else, while Christine, Mike and I stayed together. We just ate something from one of the vendors, which wasn't very good, quickly before heading off to try to find Trajan's Market/Forum/Column. It was pretty cool to see, Mike explained some stuff to us and we got some cool pictures. After that we headed to Circus Maximus, which is where they used to do the chariot racing. It's just green-space now. We did see some Harlaxton independent travelers though, which was fun to sit for a bit and talk with them about what we had all done. We then walked to the Bocca della Verita (The Mouth of Truth). It's featured in (I think I have the movie right) Roman Holiday. The legend is that if you stick your hand in the mouth and it's chopped off or whatever you're a liar. We're all ok! Then we walked to the Caracalla Baths, which were absolutely massive! So incredibly tall! And I really liked walking around them. After that we took the metro back to the hotel and I grabbed some food from a market and went back to the room while the two of them went to find another bath that Mike wanted to see. When Christine came back, we turned on the TV for a bit and watched infomercials and took a nap before going out to dinner. We went to this cafeteria place down the road, which was alright, but it took forever to get the check!
The next day we took the metro to the Vatican and waited in line for the Vatican Museum. We spent hours inside the museum! It was awesome! My favorite thing in Rome! There was so much stuff! And paintings everywhere! We got to see the Sistine Chapel too, which was cool. We were really hungry by the time we finished the permanent collection in the museum, so even though we would've liked to see the Fabergé eggs and the Aboriginal collection, we left the museum and went across the street to a restaurant for lunch. The fettuccine alfredo was absolutely amazing! We then proceeded to circumnavigate Vatican City when we went the wrong way to find the plaza that everyone knows as the Vatican. We eventually found it and took plenty of pictures of it and all the things out for the Beatification of Pope John Paul II, which was going to take place on May 1, hence the 3 million Polish people that were arriving in Rome while we were there. We got in line to go into St. Peter's Basilica and Mike and I got into a fight with a Spanish guy when he cut us in line and proceeded to let 20 kids in front of him. The basilica is absolutely amazing. Once we walked in there, we instantly understood why people hate Catholics. It is so elaborate and the wealth is so evident! We spent a fair bit of time walking around in there and looking at everything. By then, we were pretty Vatican-ed out, so we left and started walking to the next set of Roman spots on Mike's list. The first was the castle that houses Hadrian's Tomb. We didn't go in, just walked past it and took some pictures. We then crossed the river and walked to the glass building that houses the Ara Pacis (Arch of Peace) and took pictures of it through the windows. Then it was a walk down to the Pantheon, which we did go inside. It's a basilica now, so the inside looks different than it originally did. But it was really cool to see nonetheless! The hole in the top is really neat. We then walked to Piazza Navona to see the Fountain of the Four Rivers (and the Egyptian obelisk located in it). Mike wanted to see it because of the obelisk. I wanted to see it because the fountain features in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, which was exciting! We then walked to the Spanish Steps, in part because they hadn't seen them yet, and partly because that's where the nearest metro station was. We took the metro back to the hotel for a rest. Christine and I watched MTV in Italian. We went out to dinner at a restaurant near the Trevi Fountain. I had some really good 4-cheese gnocchi and we had a bottle of white wine. We were about to ask for the check because we had finished the wine and water off when the waiter brought an opened bottle of wine over and poured us each another glass! We're guessing they just needed to get rid of it, because he didn't charge us for it! We left him an extra tip because he was really nice. We ended up having to walk all the way back to the hotel because the metro line stopped running at 9. Good thing we had a map!
Our last day in Rome, we attempted to go out to Tivoli to this villa and gardens that Christine really wanted to see. So we took the metro out to one of the last stops and got on a bus to Tivoli. After we were on the bus for awhile, another set of tourists asked us if we knew where to get off, and we didn't exactly and an old Italian man behind us heard our conversation and told us to get off at the next stop. So we did and walked a mile or so to where we though we were supposed to go. Once we got inside we realized that it wasn't where we wanted to go, but Hadrian's Villa instead. The old guy had apparently misunderstood where we had wanted to go. Although a little disappointed, we stayed there anyways. I didn't really care, so I still thoroughly enjoyed it there! It was really cool because it was really big and we actually were able to walk on some of the ruins, which you don't always get to do. And Mike was able to tell us stories about Hadrian and his Greek lover boy, which was interesting. We had to walk over a mile back to the main road and find a bus stop and wait for the bus. The bus eventually took us to a metro station and we got to get on that and go back to our hotel stop. We immediately went across the street to a restaurant and got pizza (which was really good!) and gelato (chocolate and yummy) because it was 2 and we were starving! Then we walked back to the hotel and sat in the lobby and watched the highlights of the Royal Wedding, laughing every time they showed a good shot of William's bald spot. Around 5 we got all of our luggage and headed out to where the coach was going to pick us up. We had to wait a bit, then we got on the coach and headed to the airport. The plane was awesome! For some reason we had really roomy seats and we could just not get over this fact! Our plane got into Heathrow around 10 and we finally got through customs, got our bags, and made the transfer to terminal 3 around 11. Our luggage from Harlaxton arrived around 11:30 and we formed a line to get if off the van faster. Then Alana, Anna, and I shared a van to the hotel that we were all staying at and I checked in and got some much needed sleep before my flight back to the States the next morning. And gelato count for Rome=3, Italy=14. Definitely got a lot of that stuff! And since Hogwarts looks like ruins to Muggles, I wonder how many of those Roman ruins that I visited were actually wizarding schools!
So, obviously, I am now back in the States. And I am glad to be home! I absolutely loved my semester at Harlaxton College and would recommend it to anybody and everybody. Studying abroad is an amazing experience and I think everyone should try to find a way to do it, if not for a semester, then at least for a summer. As I am home now, this is my last post. I hope you all enjoyed sharing my experiences abroad! I certainly enjoyed sharing them with you!
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