Roma

Sept 4


Rome has been an absolute whirlwind. I flew from SFO to Chi-town, Illinois, basically ran to my gate—barely had enough time to go to the bathroom and make three collect calls to my family (all unanswered, thank you very much), then boarded the plane for Italy. One chicken risotto dinner, The Karate Kid, Letters to Juliet, and a breakfast yogurt and banana bread later, we landed in Rome. I made my way to the train, bought a ticket, and squeezed my bag up the stairs of the train. I impressed myself by asking an Italian woman “Dov'e' Via Marsala?”, then walked away confused trying to decrypt her answer. Did “a destra” mean right or left?Leaving the train station the first thing I saw was a well dressed man lounging on the curb with a quarter full bottle of Champagne. I laughed, since it was only 11 am, then decided it was a good omen for the rest of my trip. The five minute walk to my hostel was near impossible. Lugging my suitcase down cobblestone roads, and weaving my way through vespas left me sweaty and embarrassed to meet up with Katelyn, a girl from my Siena program also staying in The Yellow hostel. I checked into The Yellow, which is apparently one of the most popular hostels in our area of Rome for traveling twenty year-olds, then Katelyn helped me exchange my money, and heave my suitcase up to my room. My roommates included a two girls: Karah Cara (from Australia) and Mel (from London), as well as quiet Leonardo (from Brazil) who seemed a bit overwhelmed to be rooming with three other girls. Karah and Mel cracked us up, both of them babbling a mile a minute, and freaking out that they were rooming with two California girls, and that I lived in the OC (“Like the show!” Mel told everyone).
Katelyn, who is also in my Siena program, and I decided to tour the city. We set out expecting only to go to the Scalinata Trinita del Monti (the Spanish Stairs), and the Fontana di Trevi (the Trevi Fountain), but ended up walking for hours, getting lost, and finding our way back (and then getting lost again). We unexpectedly arrived at the Pantheon after making a wrong turn (and were ripped off by two Romans in Gladiator costumes), as well as visited the Campo de Fiori, the Palazzo Montecitorio, multiple ruins, and the Colosseum. We at a delicious dinner at Binario 4, and I got gnocchi de pomodelo (gnocchi in tomato sauce), and Katelyn had tortellini con proscuitto (tortellini with ham). It was absolutely amazing and fresh, and only cost 14 euro total. My gnocchi tasted like a lot of gnocchi that you can get back home, but the sauce was absolutely amazing. You could tell with each bite that they used only the freshest ingredients to make it, using whole fresh tomatoes, not canned. Katelyn's tortellini was amazing. Each bite of tortellini was so tender and fresh we knew without asking that they were made fresh. I was exhausted after sightseeing all day, and realized that I had only slept one hour in the past thirty-six hours, so when we went back to the hostel, I climbed up to my bunk, and crashed instantly.


Sept 5
The next day Katelyn, Karah (Australia), and I decided to have a relaxing beach day in a small town called Sperlonga. We got to the metro station, got lost for about 30 minutes, finally found an information desk, then two minutes later we were on a train and one minute after that the train left the station. The train was packed to full capacity, so we had to sit next to three other girls, who just so happened to be doing the study abroad program in Rome. One went to UCSB, and the other two went to, what do ya know, UCSC. We talked with them throughout the entire train ride, then hung out with them all day at the beach. We went to a horrible cafe that served frozen lasagna and burgers (which were still cold in the center), then went for a swim. The water was incredible. It was warm, but not too warm that it didn't refresh you from the ninety degree weather. We laid out on the beach, which accidentally happened to be a private beach (which we were promptly escorted off of), then walked down to the public beach. We fell asleep in the sun, then (of course) got lost trying to find the bus stop. We got home late, since we had to wait an hour and a half for the train, and after dinner of pizza and salad went straight to bed. Karah and I met our new roommates, two girls from Canada, who told me everything I needed to know about Florence, then we met Katelyn's new roommates Kevin, Mitch, and Garret, whose window was right next to ours.


Sept 6
Our third and last day in Rome we woke up late, scrambled to get packed up and checked out, grabbed some breakfast, then Karah (Australia), Mel (London), our new friends Kevin and Mitch (Seattle), Katelyn and I set off to the Vatican. We got gypped into booking a group tour (complete waste of 35 euro), then set off through the museum. Right before the Sistine Chapel, the group got completely broken up, so Katelyn, Mitch, and I set off to see the rest by ourselves. We went to the basilica and even walked through underground and saw the pope's tombs. I really wanted to go into the crypt even farther below (ahem, Angels and Demons), but apparently that's not allowed for tourists. We were starved so after that we spent about a half hour looking for a cheap place to eat (which there wasn't) so we ended up going back to our hostel, getting pizza a place near by, then spending another hour and a half searching for gelato (which there was none of). As we were eating, Karah and Mel walked down the street, so we were able to say goodbye to them both before we left. We spent a while on the computer looking for directions to our hostel, then noticed the time and realized we had fifteen minutes to run and catch the last bus of the night to Siena. We gathered our stuff, ran, and literally got on the train AS IT WAS STARTING TO PULL AWAY. After about an hour, we got off at the right stop, but then were pointed in the wrong direction of the connecting train to Siena, and accidentally got on a train headed back to Rome. We got off at the next available stop, searched for a way to cross the tracks, then waited for the next train back to our original stop to come. When we arrived in Chiusi we realized that the last train for Siena had already left, and there were no longer buses running. We found a pay phone and spent about an hour trying to figure out how to call our next hotel, and a taxi. All in Italian. We never got a hold of a taxi, but luckily one pulled up front, and even though it was 120 euros, we had no other choice unless we wanted to sleep at the train station (which we contemplated doing). The taxi ride took forever, the taxi driver got lost, it was way more expensive than he said, he didn't know where our hotel was, he wouldn't let us use his phone to call our hotel...we were in tears. We had no more than exactly 120 euros cash, and thought that we were going to have to get out in the middle of no where, and just walk in any direction that had lights coming from it. Finally he pulled over to a payphone, called our hotel himself, figured out where we were going, then drove us to meet the owner of the hotel that would pick us up. When the owner of the hotel came, he was the sweetest man ever. Even though it was midnight and the hotel closed at nine, he and his wife waited up for us, then acted like it was no big favor. Instead of blaming us for getting there so late, he blamed Italy, and how complex they make everything. We drove into Siena and it was absolutely adorable. It truly does look like a medieval town, with skinny cobblestone streets, narrow tall buildings, and flags and lanterns hanging everywhere. We got to our room (which is the tiniest room with the biggest bed that I think I've ever seen), thanked the owner profusely, then finally started to unwind. There was a festival going on down the street that we checked out, but when we got there all there was were about fifty or so twenty year old Italians and foreigners gyrating on each other to a DJ playing Lady Ga-Ga and Usher. We stayed and watched for a while, because after such a long trip we both needed a good laugh, then headed back to our teeny-tiny room to pass out.