La Citta Eterna

Buongiorno!

So this post might be mostly pictures just because there are no words for some of the things we saw in Rome this last weekend. Just lettin' ya know now.

We left Florence at 7 on Friday morning, and arrived in Rome a few hours later. Right away we were whisked away on tours of the city. Of course we didn't see everything that first day because the city is massive, but we did see a lot. And our tour guide Giacomo, or Jack as he told us to call him, was the greatest!!


First, we made our way to the Spanish Steps:




These steps are called the Spanish Steps because the Spanish ambassador used to live at the top of them. At the very top is a church, and at the base (not pictured) is a fountain.

It was really cool to see. There were a lot of steps.








Next we made our way over to the Trevi Fountain:

So this fountain is fed by aqueducts which are underground- this is how it is all over the city.  Who knew?!

I'm assuming most people, like me, think that the god at the top of the fountain is Poseidon, but ah ha! it is not. It is Oceanus, god of fresh water. On either side, I'm not sure if you can tell, are two horses- one wild, representing the wild water and currents, and one calm, representing the calm waters.




This fountain is very big, but honestly, it was a little anticlimactic- I think just because you hear so much about it. It was still beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I think I was just expecting to be blown away by it, and I wasn't.

No biggie though, I still threw a coin in!

But, bad thing is, I forgot to make a wish!! Ahh! That's ok though. I silently made one in my head a couple hours later. So the myth with that is, if you throw it with your right hand over your left shoulder, you can make a wish. Or you can face the fountain and toss a coin in, which means you will return to Rome someday. All these coins are gathered at the end of the day and donated to charities around the city, which is pretty cool. 

Next we walked through this building, called the Galleria (I think?), which had beautiful stained glass ceilings, out to another piazza. On one side was a governmental building where the officials stay. In the middle was a very elaborately carved column. This is what it looks like up close:

 Really cool. Now I have to be honest, I completely forgot what this column is and why it was built. I know, terrible. But it's still cool!

After that we walked over a block or two to the Pantheon:

The funny thing about everything in Italy is all these famous monuments and buildings are just kinda there mixed in with everyday life. Like surrounding the piazza in front of the Pantheon are restaurants, always full of people. It's just so unbelievable that Italians are just so used to it that its just another building to them.

The inside of the Pantheon was really cool too. The floors are all sloped downwards towards the doors (the original doors, probably 1/2 a foot thick- and these doors had to be carved to fit the cutout perfectly, and it does! go romans), so that the rain that comes from the eye leaves the building.

Now the eye was built in because otherwise the weight of the dome would have overpowered it and collapsed inward. The grooves within the dome also helped with that.








After the Pantheon, we made our way over to the Piazza Navona:

This is a really big piazza with three fountains. The one in the middle (that you can kind of see) represents each of the four seasons. The other two on either end of the piazza are, I'm pretty sure, both of Poseidon.

What our tour guide told us was that in Roman times, water would just pour from the aqueducts into the square, so in the summer days, the Romans would just walk along in the water to cool down. Then they build the fountains so it would stop.



Next we slowly walked to our hotel, and this is what we saw on the way:

This area is where Roman buildings used to stand. A lot of the buildings today are built on the foundations from the Romans.

Anyway, this is where they believe is about the area where Caesar was killed. dun dun duun….

This is pretty cool- you can kinda see in this picture that the orangish building is curved. That is because it is built on the foundations of an old amphitheater that used to stand!










So we got to our hotel, checked in, and then my roommates and I went to get some food because we were starving! We walked around a little and found this little cafe. It was so nice, we got to sit outside and people watch. The food was also amazing! I had Spaghetti alla Bolognese (meat sauce), Allie had Spaghetti alla Carbonara (bacohn), Grace had Penne with a zucchini cream (yum), and Kelsey had Pasta with tomatoes. It was delicious!

The next day, we met up with Jack again to visit the Castello d'Angelo and Basilica di San Pietro.

The Castello d'Angelo was very cool. Now lemme see if I remember all this. At first it was built to be a tomb for Emperor Hadrian (I wanna say). Then centuries later, it was converted into a palace/fortress. I don't remember the order, but anyway, the most important part of it is that it has a tunnel leading from it to the Vatican. This was so that the Pope could run to the Castello if there was an invasion. This Castello housed tons of soldiers, and pretty nice rooms for the Pope. [I think it was a papal residence too. Yes- it was. Sorry this is so messed up]

This is the view from the, let's say, 2nd "floor" of the Castello. You can see the Basilica in the distance, and from the bottom right corner you can see the tunnel (I guess it's more of an aqueduct-looking thing) that goes to the Vatican. That is what the Pope would use to escape in case of invasion. I thought it was so cool that it was still perfectly intact.










 Inside we saw prisons and old cannons, and even an area where they would line people up against a way to shoot them. As we went up the winding stairs, we saw the Pope's rooms, which were marvelously decorated. Inside was even the Pope's treasure room. Yes. A treasure room. The case for the gold was build inside of the room so that it could be built too big to fit through the door.

The view from the top was absolutely amazing. You could see all of Rome. Here is a picture under the angel (which was put there in memory of some miracle that occurred during a battle):

This angel isn't the original- the original is in a courtyard on the 2nd floor. It had to be taken down because it was in bad shape from all the weather and age.

Goodness that was painful.
My apologies. Really.

Next we walked over to Vatican City! Ooolala

Now this was absolutely amazing as well. 

Fun facts:

- This square can hold 500,000 people.

- The measurement from the top of the cupola to the bottom of the dome is the same as from the bottom of the dome to the ground. It doesn't seem like it, but it is.

- The statues on the Basilica and the walls surrounding the square are 45 feet tall.

- There are two bells, one on the upper left and the other on the upper right. The one on the left (looking straight at it) keeps local time. The one on the right keeps the time in Jerusalem.

We had to wait in line to get into the Basilica di San Pietro, and as we walked to the end, it seemed as if it would take an hour to get through the line! Surprisingly, it only took about 15 minutes. As we were in line, Jack was telling us the most important thing to notice when we go in is not the size, but the dimensions. Lemme explain….

I said before that the measurements from the top to bottom of the dome are the same as top to bottom of the church. Well, inside the church, you can kind of see in this picture, are letters around the top, just above the arches. You can faintly see some in the middle of this picture, inside the base of the dome. They are the words that Jesus said to Peter. Each letter is 6 feet tall. Yeah. Six feet tall.
The builders used 3 tons of solid gold to decorate everything.

I mean this church was literally breathtaking.

Here are just some pictures so you can see:

I mean this place…it's absolutely amazing!

We also saw Michaelangelo's Pieta:

This blew my mind. First off I didn't even know this was located inside the Basilica, and also, this is Michaelangelo's Pieta. What? Amazing. It is absolutely stunning.









We also saw John Paul II's tomb.

There are no words.

After the Basilica, we went to the Vatican Museum. This was insanely cool. There was just so much to see. It definitely blew Florence's Uffizi out of the water. Our main objective here was to see the Sistine Chapel before it closed, so we just walked through what seemed like the entire museum in order to see it. We did see some cool things along the way like the hall of maps, and fantastic frescoes and paintings. The chapel itself was not what I expected. It wasn't bad or anything, it was just different. The paintings were amazing, and being able to see the famous part where the fingers almost touch was so cool. It was amazing to be able to actually see and feel the Renaissance atmosphere in there. It was just amazing.

On our way back to our hotel, we ran into one of my friends from Creighton, Lauren, who came to Florence a couple weeks ago. It was really lucky that we ran into her because I had forgotten my phone back in Florence, so meeting up with her was going to be difficult. But it all worked out!

We spend the rest of the day just walking around, window shopping, and seeing the sights. That night we went to dinner at a restaurant that was in the shadow of the Pantheon- it was even more amazing at night.

yay!

At dinner, accompanying dessert they gave us this wine called Sexy Wine. It was SO good- it was a strawberry wine that was sweet and light and just perfect!

The next day was our last day, and before we left for Florence, we visited the Colosseum. 

This was probably my favorite sight to see in Rome. It was so much more than I expected. I was literally speechless during our tour. 

Did you know that the Colosseum only took 10 years to build? 

Did you know that they used no mortar between the stones? 

Did you know that before building it they excavated 60 feet into the ground? 

Did you know that every inch of the building was covered in marble? 

Did you know that the Romans were the first to invent canopies which they had spread over the top of the entire Colosseum and could either push forward or pull off depending on the weather?

As Jack explained different parts of the building, we were all just in awe. 

Now my camera died after that picture above, so these pictures are due credit to my roommate Allie. Please enjoy the breathtaking Colosseum, because there are no words to describe just how fantastic it is:

I mean can you just imagine that during the Roman times? Everything is covered in white marble. The floors are maneuvered to move so that animals and gladiators could join the fighting. If it's a hot day, a canopy would just be pulled to cover you.

I just cannot imagine it, but I'm sure it was amazing. And I wish I could have been there to see it!


So that was my weekend. It really was a fantastic and breathtaking weekend.
Bacio

Weekend Travels

Ciao ciao!

So last week was my first week of classes, but I don't wanna talk about that.
This past weekend, I went to Pisa and Venice for the Carnevale!

-Pisa: I, along with my roommates and a couple of friends, took the short train ride over to the famous city of Pisa. It's really nice just how easy it is to get around Italy. They have a fantastic train system and the tickets are pretty cheap. Our tickets to Pisa were 7€ each way, which is great!

So we arrived in Pisa at about 11am or a little after. We weren't really sure where to go, but the city is pretty small, so we just started walking down the street in front of us.


The streets are a lot like the ones I walk down everyday in Florence- gorgeous. I am just in love with the Italian architecture. I think the buildings in Pisa though, had a lot more color and variety. You'll see that in another picture. OH- and by the tower were these buildings painted- the only way I can describe it- tuscany. Literally that is the only way I can describe that color. It's in its own color world it's so fantastic.

We just kept walking down the street until we came to a set of old ruins. Now earlier when we looked at the map of Pisa at the train station, we could see that there are remains of the old walls surrounding the city. These ruins that we came upon were right next to part of that wall, and the ruins were one of the old commune buildings.

Here you can kinda see the wall in the background.









So as we walked around these ruins, we turned left and what did we see- the Duomo and Leaning Tower of Pisa!

dun da da daaa!

It was seriously one of the most surreal moments. We were looking at THE Leaning Tower of Pisa. What? This is one of the most widely known buildings in the world, and we were right at the base of it. I could not wrap my mind around it. That's actually how I've felt about a lot that we've seen in Italy. It is just so unbelievable that I am actually in this gorgeous country, looking at these world famous buildings and sights…

Anyway, the closer we got, the more beautiful it was. The green of the grass [and I think it was extra green or something because I have never seen grass that green], made the white marble of the tower and Duomo stick out even more so.

This picture hardly does it justice.
The funny thing about the day was no matter how many pictures we took of the Tower, it just didn't look crooked in the picture! But in reality, it felt like my eyes were playing tricks on me.

This one you can tell better:

That's me!

Here is a panorama of the entrance to the place. [and you can see the amazing tuscan color of the buildings!!]

It's fantastic!!

And of course we had to do the cliche tourist picture of pushing the tower. It's just a necessity. It was really hard though because we had the idea of standing on these rocks/pole things, but the tops were rounded, so you felt like you were gonna fall off the entire time! Here's that picture:

It's not very good, but eh.

It was hilarious because there was just a long line of people "pushing" the tower.


Hee hee….










Sorry one last picture- this one is of the buildings so you can see the colors.

It's a little hard to see, but the colors were fantastic!! Just trust me.

-Now Venice: I took a train out to Venice on Saturday morning to meet two of my good friends from Creighton, and for the Carnevale! 

For those of you who don't know, Carnevale is a two week long festival in Venice leading up to Lent during which people dress up with masks and pretty much party. There are events that go on all day and night like tours of Casanova's house (ahh wish I got to do this) and fancy balls in palaces. This festival has been going on for centuries, and is really one of the coolest things I've seen. Those who have seen "Casanova" know what I'm talkin about. And if you haven't go watch it.

The masks are very common, but those people who get all dressed up like you're supposed to steal the show. The costumes are amazing! Here's kind of an example. I couldn't really get any good pictures.

I mean these costumes were legit.
Absolutely amazing! And in San Marco Square, where all the main events were held, there was a costume contest going on.

Venice really was one of the coolest, strangest, most fascinating places I've ever seen. Although I felt like I couldn't see too much because there were so many people and we had time constraints, it was still a great experience.

The city is gorgeous, and the water is crystal blue. I was actually really surprised to see just how blue and clean it was!

Sadly we weren't able to take a gondola ride, just cause they were too expensive, but I will return and do it! I'm determined! The gondolas too are so nice- they are so sleek and dressed up. I think I would've felt like royalty if we did ride in one. It was funny, because we were looking at these gondolas and canals, and just kept talking about what would happen if the water froze or if something else happened that would prevent them from using the canals. It is just so fascinating that a city is built the way Venice is.

Anywho, sorry I keep going off track. Saturday night we had dinner at a restaurant of pizza and wine. I tell ya, nothing is more perfect than that. And it was delicious of course. As we were finishing and talking we noticed that it started raining outside. Not too much, but a steady sprinkle. By this time it was already 10ish, so we just decided to go back to our hotel, which was outside of the city. As we walk down the confusing streets of Venice, trying to follow the signs to the bus stop, the rain turns to snow. Yes. It snowed. In Venice. I didn't even think it could snow in Venice!! And it was the strangest snow too- they were like tiny balls, almost like hail, but still soft like snowflakes. It was so weird.

But anyway, Venice was beautiful. Sunday afternoon Rachel and I left to come back to Florence (she was staying the night). I showed her around a bit, then we went to a restaurant that I think I might become a regular at [I use that term loosely- I don't eat there every night mama and daddy]. It is fantastic. I just can't even express how amazing it is.

So all in all, the weekend was great! This upcoming weekend my program is taking us on a three day trip to Rome! I'm excited for that- it's going to be beautiful!!

So that's all for now. I might write again soon before Rome to talk about the food, because oi…

Arrivederci!!

ps- sorry for the abundance of pictures, t just think it is the best way to show you what is happening. :)

Sore Feet

Buon giorno!

Whew what a week. There's gonna be a lot of information so brace yourself.
We had our various Orientations all this week. Tuesday we had a morning orientation for our program on the usuals: safety, housing, yadda yadda. Then my roommate Grace (love her, she's so cool) went and walked around the city. We wanted some coffee so we headed to a cafe right next to the Ponte Vecchio, and on the way we ran into Grace's mom who was leaving the day after.

After a delicious cappuccino we headed to the Uffizi, which is a famous, and I wanna say biggest in Italy, art museum.

I was told before coming to Italy that it would take a good day to go through this museum, and I can see why. This thing is HUGE. There are two stories with rooms off to the sides that hold the paintings for specific artists. There was da Vinci, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, and so many more. And if all those weren't enough, you could just stare up at the frescoes on the ceiling in the hallways or the statues lining the walls. I don't think we were allowed to take pictures, but I stole a quick one of the hallway… hee hee

This is what it was all the way down. And at the end of this hallway, you have to turn right to go down another long hallway before you're even done with the second floor!!

It was seriously too much to take in. We stayed for two hours and left because it was just so overwhelming. Grace and I decided we'll go back another time because our program gave us cards that allow us to get into every museum for free!

Later we got lunch at this tiny cafe a block up from the Uffizi, and it was just ridiculous.

When we got back to the hotel, we turned right back around and went on a city tour with the program. By the end of the day, I cannot tell you how good it felt to lay down and not walk. You get some serious walking done in this city. 

The next day, Wednesday, we moved into our apartments!! Ahh so exciting! These apartments are amazing. You always hear the stereotype of tiny European apartments, and I'm sure it's true in most cases, but not in ours. We live with two other girls, Kelsey and Allie (really cool, so chill), and there are two double rooms each with our own private bathrooms, a kitchen, and a living space. Lemme just show you some pictures so you get the idea.

Our front door and entrance:

The are two rooms at the bottom of the stairs, one going left and one right. In the picture above, ours is to the right. 

This is our bedroom:

Yup. It's huge!! And the beds are so comfortable- not like the normal hard italian beds. 

In the hallway that leads to our room are bookshelves which we use to store our many things. And then next to it is our bathroom:

Its not too small. You see a toilet, sink, shower, bede (?), and a warming towel rack. The shower is very small, I feel like I can't turn around without hitting anything, but it works.

Next, down the hallway….

…is our living space...

…next to the kitchen.

Oh and this was Grace's and my first purchase together as roommates:

So yeah, it's really very nice. We lucked out so much! The kitchen comes stocked with all the dishes and cooking supplies, and the girls who lived here before us left us so many things too! We have a stove/oven, dishwasher, and washing machine.
The only bad part of it all is that its on the second floor, which in Italy means there are 6 flights of stairs to get to the second floor. So it's a nice workout every time we come home.



Oh one more picture- this is the view from our living space:

I don't have any pictures of our street right now, but I will definitely take some because it is the cutest street!! We are about 2 blocks from the Duomo, and a block from a collection of restaurants, bars, and shops. It's really the perfect place, and I don't think I could imagine a better area to live in!

We also met the girls who live above us, there are 7 of them (crazy) and there apartment is probably twice as big as ours! It's huge! They're all really nice too.

Later that night we had a group cooking class with the girls above us and two more apartments I think. It was so fun, we made artichoke soufflés, ragu sauce, marinara sauce, gnocchi, and chocolate cake. Oi vei!! It was absolutely delicious!! And it was so cool to be able to make it all from scratch and see how it's done.

So anyway, the rest of the week we had more orientations and tours with the program and with the school. My favorite part is all the benefits we get as students. I mentioned the free museum card, but there are also a list of stores, restaurants, and bars that give us discounts for being students. Last night, I went to a restaurant that gives unlimited free wine to students. It's so cool that we get all these things!

-------

Bleh. I just made my first espresso using the moka we have.
Fail.
I must have done it wrong.
But hey, first time for everything!

So last night was really exciting. Lauren came up from Rome and visited Florence with some friends! We went and got dinner at Trattoria Dante- they have delicious pizza and unlimited free wine! It was so  so good. I got a Fiorentina pizza. It had tomato sauce, sausage, and peppers. Oh my gosh so good!!

mmmmm…..

This is us. :D

Afterwards we walked up to the bridge we were near to see the Ponte Vecchio. Here it is at night!

Gorgeous!

Here's another picture closer because it's kinda hard to see the one above…

Ooolala!

So tomorrow I start classes (finally!), and I'm a little nervous, but it'll be fine. I have Psychology, Marketing, Macroeconomics, and Italian tomorrow. Should be interesting!

Ciao for now!!