Italia--

Hello everyone,

I just returned from a Friday-Monday trip to Rome with my study abroad program! It was absolutely incredible and I definitely want to return to Italy at some point in the future, since everything I did in Rome was so rushed this weekend to fit it all in. This is going to be a reaaaaallly long post, sorry, but there are a lot of pictures! :)

The Pantheon, Friday night

Viernes/Friday

We did not get to our hotel (we took a plane, and then a bus from the airport) until around 5 or 6 p.m., so there was not time to go to any tours or anything the first night. So what we did was walk around and explore! We went to the Piazza Navona, a famous plaza that is near the Roma nightlife and a ton of restaurants. Then, I had an absolutely amazing dinner at this little restaurant, and my whole dish of pasta was only 6.50 euro!

Spaghetti a la carbonara (it has eggs, bacon and cheese in it and is delightful) with Chianti wine

After dinner, we of course got gelato (the best invention in the world), and then we strolled over to the beautiful Trevi Fountain. This is the fountain that you drop a coin in to ensure you'll return to Rome.

My friend Sarah and I throwing our coins in

Trevi Fountain :)

We tried to find the Roman nightlife, but everything closes pretty early and we never found a bar or anything to go to. So I just spent the rest of the night hanging out at our hotel and at the hotel of an Irish couple we met that was also vacationing in Rome, Jessika and T.

Sábado/Saturday
Saturday was the crazy-busy day of my Rome trip. It was the only full day I had in Rome, so my friend Sarah and went to the Colosseum, the Imperial Forums/Palatine Hill, the Vatican, and even to Mass at St. Peter's Basilica all before collapsing of tiredness! :)

Me inside the Colosseum

View from outside of the Colosseum

A very small part of the Roman Forum, where there is sooo much history and old buildings!

Just one of the many absolutely breathtaking paintings in the Vatican Museums. Even the ceilings were awe-inspiring, and I'm not really even an art person. The Sistine Chapel was beautiful, too, with the work of Michelangelo covering the ceiling. However, you're not allowed to take photos in the Sistine Chapel so you'll just have to trust me that it was awesome!

St. Peter's Basilica, in the area where they hold Mass. It was so huge (the largest in the world) that there was no way to photograph all of it. I went to Mass, and it was in Italian with a really great choir. It was an awesome experience to say the least.

After our insane day of sightseeing, I went to a couple of bars with my friends (we finally found some, although they were really overpriced) and then called it a night.

Left to right: Sarah, Shannon, Claire, Carol, me, Jessika

Domingo/ Sunday

Sunday was wonderful, I went on a day trip by bus to Pompeii with two friends. We got picked up from our hotel and then taken to Naples then Pompeii on a charter bus, and were given a two-hour tour of the Pompeii ruins (if you forgot your history, Pompeii was an ancient city where everyone died from asphyxiation after Mt. Vesuvius erupted, but it was really well preserved under the ashes).

The bodies were decomposed when found, but they poured concrete in the holes in the ashes and were able to recreate what many of the people looked like when they died. You can see that this man was trying not to inhale. There was also a pregnant lady and a dog, it was the saddest part for me.

The city was absolutely phenomenal- I knew it was an actual city, but to see and be able to go inside the houses, the bar (below), the bakery, the jail, even the brothel, was fascinating!

Can I get you a drink?

Finally, we returned to Roma and met up with some API friends for our last dinner- pizza at a famous place that we somehow showed up at when there was no line, and then of course a gelato to finish off the night. This was essentially the end of our Roma trip, since we had to leave our hotel at 7 a.m. on Monday to catch our flight back to Spain!

My pizza had a fried egg in the middle, and sausage, artichoke hearts, mushrooms.. YUM 

GELATO=love
I had two flavors together, the one on the top left (blackberry with cream) and the top middle (cream with NUTELLA). So delicious, and only 2 euro!

<3 Haley