We just got back from our first weekend trip and we decided to go to Roma! Oh my gosh it was so fantastic; definitely my 2 favorite days so far. First we had to take this little trolley-like system called the funicular down to the Orvieto train station and from there we took a train to the Rome Termini. We got there at night and found our hostel quickly because it was literally 5 minutes from the Termini. I had never been in a hostel before and it was an interesting experience. Our hostel was actually a lot nicer than I thought it was going to be. Anna and I had a 4 person room with 2 other random travelers. We didn’t talk to them but it seemed like they were an Oriental couple from France. The whole group of us (about 15 people) didn’t know where to go so we asked this man who owned a shop down the street. He told us there was one around the corner and he would show us. This place was a fat joke. It was a restaurant with a bar in the back and they had rave lights but were playing grease songs. Bizarre. After that we decided to take a cab to a discoteca called Art Café because my friend Kevin told us it was a huge hotspot and everyone decided to trust me because we didn’t know anywhere else to go. Once we got there it was apparent that Italian men dress wayyy differently than our American men do when they go out. Almost every guy had on nice pants and shoes with a button down shirt. Most of them had ties and some of them even had jackets or vests with it. I was seriously just staring at all of the greatly dressed people. A group of us decided to just go in while the other group waited for a couple more of our friends. Once we went in I got my coat checked (I was really excited) for 5 euro! Yikes, that should have been my first guess that this place was going to be posh. I met everyone else in there and they ordered drinks and found out it was 15 euro for ONE DRINK with NO specials or beer. We literally died. We all paid for one because we wanted to at least have something to drink! I had the bartender make me something special because I figured it might as well be good for that much (and it was). The bartenders were SO attractive, like every one of them. There were beautiful people everywhere so we decided to conquer the dance floor. I was wearing new heels so my feet hurt SO bad by the end of the night. Meanwhile, some of our friends weren’t dressed for the dress code (so posh!) so they went somewhere else but we all had a great time at Art Café so thanks Kevin!
The next morning Anna and I went down to the bar next door and got a cappuccino with our food vouchers from the hostel. It was SO good and I don’t even really like coffee. Next we found everyone and I grabbed a map and we were off. We literally walked all over Rome; my feet are still throbbing while I’m writing this. Those Italians have seriously tough feet. I decided to volunteer as Tour Guide Barbie and we set off for the Coliseum. It was only about 15 minutes from the hostel and it was amazing. We took lots of pictures and tried to peek inside. We didn’t pay to go inside but I was just happy to see it. There are TONS of street venders (kind of like Mexico) and they all try to get you to buy things from them. Apparently it’s illegal because when the polizia comes around they all yell to each other and book it out of there. One guy didn’t get the memo and the polizia ran after him but he got away. It was funny but we kind of felt bad. Next we decided to go to the Trevi Fountain. On the way there we saw lots of other buildings and remains of forts from the Romans. We passed by a HUGE monument/castle for some guy none of us had ever heard of but it was beautiful. At that point we took a lunch break for some sausage pizza (yumm) and then got back on the road. Tour Guide Barbie got a little lost but we eventually found our way to Trevi Fountain. We were all ecstatic. The fountain is very serene and kind of has a hint of magic in the air from all of the stories you’ve heard about it and how hopeful every person is after they throw their coin in the fountain (by holding the coin in your right hand and throwing it over your left shoulder). We all took pictures of ourselves throwing our coins and then got some delicious gelato. I have recently become obsessed with truffles and so I had tartufo (truffles) and stracciatella (like chocolate chip) flavors. Did you know you can do SO much with truffle oil?? It’s insane. They have truffle sauce in pasta at like every restaurant. I’m going to have to ship back hundreds of jars of it back to America. Anyway….after the Trevi Fountain I bought some cute watercolors of sights in Rome and asked her where I could find Gucci from where we were (This shouldn’t shock any of you). She told us it was by the Spanish Steps so we went there first and drank water from this fountain in front of it (A lot of people where doing it so we figured it was lucky or something..we really could have used a tour guide or something because we didn’t really understand the significance of things, we just took pictures of them because we knew they were a big deal. I plan on googling a lot later). After the Spanish Steps it was fashion time. The boys were in pain but they dealt with it. First I saw Dior, Missoni and Yves Saint Laurent and I DIED. I almost was salivating. Everyone I was with probably thought I had some kind of serious psychological issue but you can’t help what you fall in love with. So then there it was: Gucci. I of course took a picture in front and then browsed. I found a nice bag for 595 euro and bought it. Just kidding! But that might happen eventually…depending on how little I want to eat my last month here. We kept walking…ooing and ahhing as we went down the street and then after much debate and confusion and exhaustion, we decided to walk to the Vatican. By this time my feet were basically numb. We were SO glad that we kept going because it was absolutely amazing. First we had to go through body scanners and then we continued inside. The inside was immaculate. There were beautiful statues and paintings everywhere. We saw some priests come in and bless themselves with holy water and that was really cool to watch. Just going into the Vatican felt like a religious experience that I’ve never felt before. You can just feel the awe of everyone in the room when they look around at all of the beauty and think about all of the important things that have happened there. There was mass going on for the actual people that lived there but it was mostly blocked so we couldn’t see much. After the Vatican we took the metro back to the Termini. There was a big rugby game between Italy and Ireland and of course it finished right when we were on the metro and tons of sweaty men got onto the metro and smooshed up against us like sardines. They were all wearing ridiculous hats in their countries colors. Don’t ask me who won; I was too exhausted to ask. When we got back to the Termini we saw McDonalds and all instantly knew that was what dinner was going to be. I had chicken mcnuggets and fries; SO good. We are so obviously American. They charged for ketchup though and we didn’t like that. We sat in our hostel for about 30 minutes and then decided to get ready to go out. I don’t know how we made it out because all of our feet were screaming but everyone always finds the strength to go out on the town. This time, the boys found a pub crawl to go to and basically we just had to meet up at the Coliseum and then the club promoters would bring us to 2 pubs and then one last large discoteca for 10 euro. Well according to my memory…we didn’t go to any pubs, we only went to discotecas but that was fine with me. We had such a great time dancing with all of our friends and with new friends too. I met this precious French couple and I told them Anna and I were going to hang out with them when we visit Paris. After we went to the 2nd discoteca there was only a hand full of us left that because everyone else was too tired and went home. It was 4:30am and the club was still raging. Lord only knows when that placed actually closed. Europeans really know how to have a good time. We took a free bus back to our hostel and went to sleep! The second night our French couple was gone and the front desk guy said we had an Irish guy but we never met him because he was gone when we were there and left while we were asleep. Finally this morning Anna and I got another cappuccino and found our friends and we took the train back to Orvieto. This weekend was SO amazing but it made Anna and I glad for our little village. There is no way we could keep up with the discoteca crowd every weekend but we definitely plan on going back for more!
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