When in Rome...

Enjoying Roman Water
In front of the Colosseum with Jordan

In front of Trevi Fountain

The Colosseum

The girls in front of the Roman Forum

Me and Tara at the Vatican

The Vatican

The Campground

Our Bungalo

We spent our first two days of our tour of Italy in Rome. We flew from Gatwick Airport in London to Rome Fiumicino and from there took a taxi to our hostel. When we showed the taxi driver the address to our hostel Plus Roma he said "Oh camping." We didn't know exactly what he meant by this, but we were soon to find out. When we arrived at our hostel which was on the outskirts of Rome we found out that it was not quite a hostel but instead a camp ground where we would be staying in a bungalo (basically a trailer with 2 beds and a bathroom that would shake if someone took a shower or flushed or a toilet or just randomly throughout the night). It was definitely an experience. The staff was really helpful though and gave us a map and directions to where we wanted to go. We went to a cute typical italian restaurant where I had a rice ball (with mozzerella, tomato and beef) and a ham, mozzerella and ricotta calzone. The food was delicious and we couldn't help ourselves from stopping for gelato on the way back, I got chocolate- it was so rich and tasted almost like fudge it was amazing. Then we got a taxi back (because the buses were way to confusing at night and the metro in Rome isn't very extensive because of all the ancient ruins). We went the bar at the camp ground and got a drink and then went to bed (with towels on our pillows ofcourse in case there was lice and unfortuantley without heat).

The next morning we woke up lice free (I hope), and went to Vatican City. It was absolutely beautiful inside. We went to the Sistine Chapel and walked around for a little bit. Unfortunately, we didn't have too much time to spend there because we had a tour at 2 that day. We took the metro from the Vatican to Colosseus and when we got out of the metro station right in front of us was the Colosseum. It was HUGE (hence the name). We went to a near by outdoor restaurant for pizza and then sat outside by the Colosseum until our tour began. The weather was absolutely beautiful. Our tour was of Ancient Rome and was 3 hours long- it was the best tour I've ever been on. Our tour guide was an archeologist and was really knowledgeable and interesting. We went to the Colosseum, the Roman Forums, the Pantheon and Treviy Fountain. They were all really cool and the ancient aspects of the city were so striking. One cool thing about Rome that I learned is the tap water there tastes like bottled water- they have bubblers that are constantly running throughout Rome and the water tastes amazing. After the tour we went to Trastevere (a place with a lot of restaurants) and went to a wine bar and split a bottle of Italian white wine- I never liked white wine before but now i really like it- at the wine bar we ran into a group of CAPA students who were on Spring break there. Then we went to dinner where i had lasagna and garlic and olive oil brushetta and met up with my friend Cara who is studying abroad in Rome. Then we went to Sloppy Sam's at Campo Di Fiori (a place with a lot of bars) which was an American style bar with outdoor seating and we had a drink there and then headed back to the campground for our final night in Rome. The next morning we headed to the train station on our way to Florence...