Roma! Roma!

This weekend, I went to Rome with my roommates and stayed with our bud Shelby, who is studying there for the semester. It was such a blessing to have her as our personal city guide and to have a free place to stay…thank you so much Shelby! I love you!

Honestly, I could go on for a long time about what happened/what we saw/what we did in Rome. Lists are easier…here are my Rome highlights:

1. The train ride!! The ride from Firenze to Roma was beautiful and so relaxing. I would do it again just for the ride.
2. Supli. If you didn’t know, traditional Roman food includes a lot of fried goodies. Supli are little fried rice balls with tomato sauce and cheese that are dipped in raw eggs, covered in breadcrumbs, and deep-fried. Not exactly healthy, but delicious.
3. Pantheon, Four Rivers Fountain, the Roman Forum, Vittorio Emanuele, Colosseum, etc.
4. The Roman bus system. Not incredibly reliable, if you ask me, but definitely an adventure.
5. The Vatican. Alex and I went by ourselves to the Vatican Museum and saw the things you have to see: the Sistine Chapel, the Raphael rooms, the tapestries, etc. Everywhere we looked, it was beautiful. Unfortunately, the insane amount of people that were crammed in that place made it almost hard to enjoy those things.
6. Trevi Fountain. My favorite part! I’m not really sure why I liked it so much, but it was kind of magical at night. I threw in a couple coins, including an extra that I promised for a friend. I guess that means I’m going back to Rome!

7. Gelato. Oh. My. Goodness. The amount of gelato I got for 2 Euro at this place by the Vatican blew my mind. It was probably sinful to eat that much gelato at one time, but I did. Twice. Three flavors in fantastic cone. We walked over and finished devouring our gelato in St. Peter’s Square. Does it get any better?

8. [Speaking of that…] St. Peter’s. We never made it in to St. Peter’s Basilica because there was a lot going on there this weekend. On Saturday, the Basilica was closed because new Cardinals were being inaugurated. (we watched that happen while we ate our gelato). We did go back to St. Peter’s Square twice, though. On Sunday, Alex and I saw some of the morning service on the big screens in the Square. After the service was over, the Pope popped out of a window and blessed the crowd! I’m not Catholic, but it was still a great experience.

9. Missing our train. The bus system let us down and, after waiting for our bus to show up for over twenty minutes, we finally got on and made it to the train station. Thanks to the delay, however, we missed our train. This was after running—bags in hand—through the train station to the furthest possible track (no exaggeration) that the station has. We realized later, though, that it was kind of a blessing in disguise. In the rush, there’s no way we would have remembered to validate our tickets before getting on the train. If we had made it, we would have each had to pay 60 Euro fines! In the end, we made it home to Florence safely a few hours later.

After a weekend in Rome [which is incredibly beautiful, don’t get me wrong], coming back to Florence really was like coming home. I actually missed it while we were gone. Looking back on my first day here—the exhaustion, the overwhelming feeling of being lost, the confusion about where to buy food, the realization that I was pretty much alone in another country—it is strange to see how much things have changed. The city that I was once so afraid of is now a place that I think of as home. Even though I miss so many people back in the US, I do love it here. It took a long weekend away to realize that.



“And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” Genesis 28:15