Rome, if you want to! (and I know you do!)

I've done nothing over the last few weeks but whinge and moan about my language course. And I've forgotten to write about Rome - the best part of my trip BY FAR.

Photos from Rome can be found here. Pictures to go with the story!

The problem is that it feels like it was so long ago and there was so much stuff that happened that what I'm going to do is just write about it in dot points, because I know that no matter what I write I will never be eloquent enough to capture every perfect (and awkward) thing that happened to me.

- I took a train from Florence to Rome and found myself sitting next to a nun whilst I was wearing a strappy dress and reading Angels and Demons. "Come si dici, 'You're going to Hell,' in Italiano?" So shameful, but mostly because I was reading that tripe. ;)

- To add to my shame, I got to Rome and had no plan on what to do. I couldn't check into the hostel yet so I left m luggage there and headed into the blistering sun, looking for somewhere to eat lunch. Instead I noticed there were those open top buses waiting at the station so I ignored my inner travel snob, paid and hopped on. Things that aren't a good idea - leaving your hat in your suitcase, wearing a strappy dress and sitting on an open top bus for two hours in 37 degree weather. Burn baby, burn.

- My first glimpse of The Colosseum. Oh. My. God. This is one of those moments that I wished I wasn't travelling alone. That's a moment where I would have loved to have turned to someone and squealed. Instead I settled for wriggling around in my seat and having an inner squeal. Maybe a small audible one too.

- Spending a day exploring the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Would love to do this again when it's not painfully hot. As it was, by the time I had spent several hours in the Colosseum and Palatine Hill, I could barely muster the energy to wander the Forum properly. I was just trying to find a bit of shade.

- On my third day I started speaking to someone at breakfast who introduced me to her roomie named Catherine who was from Sydney and also Filippino. She was going to Vatican City that day so I invited myself alone (as one does) and explored St. Peter's Square and St. Peter's Basillica with her. Things that one shouldn't do: read Angels and Demons just before going to Rome. Seriously, I bought it because my English language book options were limited and I thought it was fitting to read something about Rome, but then everywhere in Rome I kept having Robert Langdon moments, or finding that I knew random trivia about the stuff I was looking at that I learnt from Dan Brown. Argh. So I'm there in St. Peter's Square thinking to myself, Oh yes, those are the Swisse Guards. Their uniforms were designed by Michelangelo. And there's the obelisk from that scene in the book where... Yep. Lame. But I also do love lame trivia. Like, did you know that the marble in St. Peter's is taken from the Colosseum? Yeah. Mmmhmm. I am so lame. Anyway, the museums were closed that day so we couldn't go. We ended up walking past Castel Sant'Angelo (another Langdon moment. GRRR) and to Piazza Navona where we had a lovely lunch and THE BEST GELATO OF MY LIFE. It was the size of my head. And it was only 2Euro. Freaking awesome. We also stopped by La Bocca della Verita`, or, the Mouth of Truth, and I put my hand in all Audrey-like and came out with it still intact. Because I am the epitome of virtue and never tell lies! Or, it's a -dare I say it?- FAKE! I'm gonna go with the virtuous line.

- How to follow up an awesome day: have one of the best nights of the trip! Met up with Catherine in the evening to have some drinks and dinner. Shared a bottle of wine, got a wee bit drunk, met some American girls (who make a comeback in the next evening - another great night), then went to the Trevi Fountain to see it all lit up. So did all the other tourists in the world. Not that atmospheric, but such an amazing fountain. HUGE. So beautiful. Then onto find the Colosseum to see it all lit up. On the way we were walking behind an Irish couple, and we soon all realised we were headed to the same place and we were all lost together, so we joined forces and found the Colossuem. How do you lose the Colosseum?? It's so bloody big! And AMAZING AT NIGHT. God. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. Anyway, the Irish couple were newlyweds on their honeymoon and the husband shouts us all beer and we end up drinking at chatting (at the Colosseum!) until about 1:30am. It was seriously just perfect. PERFECT.

- So I was supposed to be going to Pompeii the next day, but my alarm didn't go off. Thanks, alarm. So instead I went to the Villa Borghese gardens and to the Galleria Borghese. I have to recommend the Galleria to EVERYONE. It's filled with some of the most amazing Bernini scupltures (except stupid Langdon has ruined all things Bernini for me). Make sure you book ahead of time though because you can't just show up - you have to make a reservation. I then, managing at the same time to give myself the world's biggest bruise, made my way to the Spanish Steps. Didn't walk up them - what, am I crazy??? 40 degree heat and a bazillion steps? No thanks. I did see that there was a Shelley/Keats museum next to the steps and resolved to go back there on my last day.

- Went to the Vatican Museums. So good. Audio guide died two rooms before the Sistine Chapel. WHAT? That was the whole reason for me buying the damned thing. Grr. Had to settle for reading the tiny description in my travel guide. Oh yes, that's right. I bought a travel guide for Rome. And I carried with with me. It was one of those Frommer's Rome Day by Day. I highly recommend it. By this point in my trip I had no sense of tourist-snobbery left in me. And I also got a refund for the audio guide. I felt bad about that - I only wanted a partial refund but instead they gave me a whole one... Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that the Vatican can afford it. I've given lots of money over the years when those baskets come around in Church. (Which makes me think (and we all know I'm not a big fan of the "thinking") - surely if you're Catholic you should be allowed into all parts of the Vatican for free. Yes, St. Peter's is free, but the whole place should be free. The atefacts in those museums were plundered with monetary help from my Catholic ancestors! Surely I'm entitled to look at them for free. And so what if I'm an atheist? I don't have a certificate that says I'm an atheist, but I do have one that says I'm Catholic! Jews have that Law of Return thing for Israel, surely there should be some free ticket option for Catholics going to Vatican City. I'm just saying.)

- That night I started chatting to two Canadian girls whilst waiting for the two American girls who I was going to dinner with (the ones I met the day before). Turns out these girls were going to Pompeii the next day. I totally invited myself along, seeing as I had already bought my train ticket. The five of us went to dinner in Trastavere, a gorgeous, "authentic" part of Rome. (I'm always very cautious when other travellers and guide books tell you a particular area is "authentic".) But irregardless, the area is beautiful - lots of little laneways and restaurants everywhere, surrounding the main piazza. We went to the BEST restaurant called Da Ivo and had two of the greatest pizzas ever - you can choose from "red" and "white" pizzas (the red ones have a tomato sauce base, the white ones don't. I can't remember what our red pizza was (but I know that it was HEAVEN - I think it was eggplant and something else!), but the white pizza will live forever in the history books. It was - get this - gorgonzola cheese and apple. APPLE! Crazy. We chose it for novelty's sake, but then we took one bite and decided that we were done. This pizza is the food to end all food. The apple was very thinly shaved and the cheese complemented it perfectly. So good. We spent the rest of the night wandering around the River Tiber at the markets and bars set up there. Just another great night.

- Pompeii. First, let me start by saying we began very early. Very. Early. Met a group of bogan guys from Bondi. Why is it that Australian guys travelling overseas seem to need to travel in a uniform of sorts - typical Havs, bordies (Billabong, of course) and navy blue bonds singlet. And they all have the same hair. And they're all very loud. Travel snob returns!! But anyway, there were 8 of these guys altogether, and they were travelling in a group of 30!!! WTF?? Anyway, just wanted to point out that they annoyed me.

- People that also annoyed me: the girls I was with. Note to self: be wary of who you invite yourself along with. This was not the first time in Rome that my being friendly and inviting myself along with someone else backfired on me (note that I didn't mention the other incident. Interesting...). These girls just seemed so normal at first, and I thought it was great that they were classics majors and so were studying Ancient Greece and Rome at uni and so they knew a lot about the time and things like that. I hadn't spent enough time to realise that of course they knew everything in the world about everything, so our audio guide was stupid and pathetic ("Oh my GOD. Is the audio guide explaining to me what a basilica is? I already know what a basilica is! I could tell you what it is in my sleep!"), and they spent a lot of time talking to each other about the architecture of the place ("So they've used doric archways here. Oh, but is that ionic? Surely not!"). I think they were showing off a little in my presence, trying to alert me to the fact that I was a mere pleb. The incident of the day was when they noticed the various stones in the middle of the streets and were wondering what they are and started discussing the possibilities to each other. I had mostly been quiet during their entire showing off but was really confused by their confusion.
Me: Erm, they're stepping stones, aren't they?
Them: What?
Me: You know, stepping stones - so people could cross the roads (the roads are very deep).
Them: That doesn't make any sense.
Me: It makes plenty of sense - the roads are deep so there would have been a lot of dirt and general yuck (speaking like this probably doesn't help my cause in the eyes of the "intellectuals"), and people wouldn't have wanted to step in that so it would have been more hygenic to use the stepping stones to cross.
Them: (smirking) People weren't really that concerned with hygene in those days.
Me: Yeah, but you're not exactly going to want to turn up to someone's place with five inches of sewerage on your clothes. Besides, it's a bit of a climb down onto the road and then back up onto the sidewalk.
Them: But then why are there gaps between the stones? And why were there so many more stones down that street than there are on this street?
Me: The gaps are for carriages and things to get through, I guess, and there are more on that street because that was probably a main street, with lots of businesses and things.
Them: I doubt there were that many carriages. We'll have to ask our professors when we get back home.

PS. I was right, they were wrong, ner ner ner neeeer ner.

But anyway, general notes about Pompeii: So bloody hot. Definately the wrong time of year to go. But amazing to think it was all buried for how many hundreds of years and there's still so much of it there and intact.

- Last day in Rome was a disaster. I basically spent the whole day looking for a dress to wear to Lara's sister's wedding in a couple of day's time. It was lovely of my mother to let me know WITH SO MUCH NOTICE that she hadn't sent the one thing I had asked her to send 2 months previously, and had reminded her to send every week. It was great to find out on my last day in Rome when I wanted to spend it at the Ara Pacis and the Keats/Shelley museum. At least I found out I'd need to buy a new dress (with money I didn't have) after I'd seen the Crypt of the Capuchin Monks. So angry. Decided I'm done with her after a whole bunch of things in the last two months. Way to ruin Rome.

But you can't really ruin Rome because it is just so amazing. When I come home next year I'm starting up my Italian lessons again.

And really, the whole "dot point" thing didn't really work - each dot point is very long. You know me - I don't do "succinct".
Oh, and for those of you without access, here are pretty much all of the photos from my trip so far. I really can't be arsed putting them all on this blog because it's so much effort (seriously, for each picture you add it adds a gap between paragraphs and takes an hour to make it all neat and tidy. And I'm lazy).

London
After London, in Hatfield and Bath
Manchester and Northumberland
Paris
Scotland
Cuneo and Ventimiglia
Firenze
Marcus and Denny's Wedding (with the dress I ended up borrowing from Denny)
Berlin