Roma.

Day Nine (Thursday):

After classes and around 8:00pm, we got to the train station in Alba early to validate our train tickets (we don't know why we have to do this--we just know we do) and waited in the cold for the train. When the train showed up it was pretty disappointing: short and small and dirty. It was just a commuter train, though--a 1.5 hour ride to Asti to change trains to Rome. Inside the train, the air was heavy and stuffy. I felt a little like I was suffocating but still managed to quickly fall asleep.

On the train to Asti

We got to Asti and had an hour wait before our train to Rome arrived. When it did come, we found our car and our compartment but someone was sleeping inside so we had to find a conductor to kick him out. Apparently people can get away with that stuff here. It's an awful train system but I'll talk about that later... It was a cozy compartment for the 6 of us (6 seats) but we all popped pills and went to sleep. Despite the pills, we were awoken around eight times in the 7 hour ride: twice for ticket check and about 6 times because people felt like opening our compartment door and looking around...

Day Ten (Friday):

We got in to Rome around 6am and went to our hostel via walking to check in and drop off our bags. We couldn't get into our rooms until 3pm, though, so we went out on the town without stopping. We wanted to watch the sun rise so we headed down Via Nationale and ended up at the Imperial Forum. It was incredible to see such history like that right in front of us, practically littering the streets. We walked past the Colosseum and then went into and Irish pub for an "American" breakfast because we were starving and needed more than a croissant and an espresso... I had eggs, French fries (breakfast food?) and coffee. Then we walked back to the Colosseum and bought a Roma Pass for 23 euro which got us into 2 archeological sites or museums as well as free public transportation for three days (turned out to be perfect for us!).

Imperial Forum

Colosseum!

We used our first Roma Pass on the Colosseum, buying an additional 8 euro tour that also included a tour of Paletine Hill/Roman Forum (not to be confused with the Imperial Forum). It was a good deal and we saw so much! The pictures describe more than I possibly can but both the Colosseum and Paletine Hill were amazing. I think I liked the Hill more because of all the greenery and ruins. Plus, the Colosseum is more photographed. Exhausted from all our walking (must have been miles), we took the Metro back to our hostel to relax/nap.

Inside the Colosseum.

On Paletine Hill.

After napping for a while and showering, we headed to the laundromat nearby for some much-needed internet time (15 minutes free from our hostel) and then to dinner at a cheap place nearby that I found in a guide book Kt left me. It was a little ristorante that had cheap pizza and pasta. Everyone else got pizza but I got some fettuccine. Then we took the Metro to the Spanish Steps and got lost many times trying to find them since Kate and Kiki were a little drunk (had bought a bottle of wine from the supermarket earlier and put it in water bottles for portability) and decided to guide us...in the wrong direction. It became a frustrating too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen sort of thing. Eventually we found the Steps and marveled and photographed. Then we headed towards the Trevi Fountain and got gelato (which wasn't very good--I should know, I had gelato nearly every day we were in Rome). The fountain was absolutely AMAZING. My pictures don't do it justice since my camera is awful but I tried. Words cannot describe the beauty of the carvings' intricate detail. It was, by far, my favorite thing in Rome--then Paletine Hill. After the fountain we quickly headed back to the hostel for bed and exhausted sleep. I think we ended up being awake for 30-some hours. Ugh.

Trevi Fountain at night.

Day Eleven (Saturday):

We woke up late the next morning and didn't set out until around noon. It was raining and we knew it would rain for most of the day so we decided to visit another museum. We got breakfast across the street from our hostel (cappuccino and croissant for 1 euro) and then headed towards the train station to go to two parts of the Museo Nationale Romano. Our feet were killing us so after the second museum we Metro-ed back to the Colosseum for panini from a cart and then went back to the hostel to rest while the rain died out.

Sculpture in the Museo Nationale Romano.

After a little bit of rest, we went back out to see the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona. The Pantheon turned out to be a big building (HUGE!) that is now a Basilica. We couldn't go in because there was a service going on. While we were there, we were solicited for a bar crawl going on that night and the girls got really excited. Then we walked over to the Piazza Navona which had three beautiful fountains and nice shops. I bought a little watercolor print at a stand and we went into a little shop for sandwiches. The little man behind the counter also gave us a bag full of small meat pastries for free. Yum! After dinner we hopped on a bus to go back to the hostel.

The girls decided to go on the bar crawl and I decided to hang back because it was expensive (20 euro) and I don't drink...certainly not enough to justify spending 20 euro. It was too much money for basically a night of tagging along so I stayed at the hostel and they went out. I read and listened to music and hung out in the hostel's common room, meeting a girl from Normandy, France and two boys (both named John) from Pennsylvania who are going to school in Turin which is near Alba! They eventually went to go sleep so I went back to my room and did as well. We had an early morning the next day so I didn't feel too bad about not going out.

Day Twelve (Sunday aka The Second Longest Day):

The next morning we took showers for the last time in a while and checked out of the hostel at 10:30, leaving our bags there to pick up later. It was absolutely gorgeous outside so we caught a quick breakfast (American again because we were so hungry and some were hungover) at a nearby ristorante and then headed to the Vatican City--smallest country in the world! We got there right before noon, in time for the Pope's blessing! He was up in his tiny window and talked for a good while in about eight different languages. I'm not religious but it was still fun to see him. Then we went inside St. Peter's Basilica. It was incredibly stunning--lots of statues and carvings and gold and marble. Again, my pictures can show you more than I can describe. We wanted to go to the Cistine Chapel but it was a part of the Vatican Museum and we weren't willing to pay.

Blessed by the Pope.

Inside St. Peter's Basilica.

After visiting the Vatican we did some window shopping on the way to the Crypt which is a part of the Museo Nationale Romano. The Crypt was weird and not fun to look at and the tour was all in Italian so we had no idea what we were looking at. After that we were exhausted so we sat on some steps for an hour before catching a bus back to the hostel where we sat (illegally) in the common room until dinner time.

In the middle of one of the main roads they shut down on Sunday for tourists. Colosseum in the background!

Around 6:30 we headed out for dinner, picking a random Metro stop and walking around until we found a ristorante we could afford. The first stop we got off at was a parking lot so we chose another. We finally found a nice restaurant (almost too nice) and ordered pizza. It was the best pizza I've had so far but I'm sure there will be more to compare it to. After dinner we went back to the hostel and hung out in the common room. I even saw the Johns again!

At 11 we left the hostel and headed to the train station where we found that our train was 20 minutes late. We sat around, ate McDonald's (so expensive!) and eventually got on the train. When we did, our compartment was not only occupied (again!) but one of the seats was wet and sticky...Since there were six of us and six seats, this was a problem. We found a conductor and, after much belaboring to communicate, we eventually got settled into another compartment 5 cars up the train. We quickly fell asleep--only one interruption for ticket-checking!

Day Thirteen (Monday):

Around 7:30 we woke to a winter wonderland. Sometime while we were gone it had snowed in the North and it covered the countryside--definitely a nice thing to wake up to. We got off at Asti to change trains and made our train to Alba by seconds. We got to Alba at 8:45, just in time to rush to class...yay. We had a lecturer come in to teach us about Italy's history. He came in last Thursday, too. It would have been interesting but all he did was read (poorly) from a piece of paper for three hours, skipping around the outline he gave us rather than going in order as would make sense... Needless to say, it was painful.

Afterwards, I skipped lunch to head back to the apartment to unpack and get on the computer where I am now! This afternoon we have Italian and we need to pay attention because we have a quiz tomorrow. We'll probably go out to dinner tonight but we'll mostly take it easy.

Tomorrow we have our cinema class and nothing else special except for the Italian quiz. I'll probably stay in the apartment for most of it. We have recovering to do. Thursday I think we're going to Turin for the day as a part of our Seminar class.

Woo. Long entry. There will be pictures on Facebook accessible via this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=148645&id=504487681&l=a96f99015e