Roma

So here I am in Rome and I am loving every minute of it! We arrived yesterday at what I like to refer to as heaven in cabin form. Honestly, when you are used to showering in a room that either has the toilet and the shower as one spot or showering in a spot that is about the size of a tin can it is truly amazing to be able to shower in a bathroom that not only has a proper size shower (the same size as an ensuite...) but it has a toilet that HAS a toilet seat AND there is even a sink with some counter space!! It is a miracle I swear. Anyways we really are in wonderful cabins though, they have the cutest little dutch doors where the top half opens up, HUGE windows everywhere, a little loft with two beds, and then two more beds on the main floor off the kitchen, and when I say kitchen I really just mean a sink and a little camping stove type thing and also a mini fridge! So needless to say we were really excited when we saw what they looked like. However we did not get to see them until about 930 in the evening because, when we left Florence, we drove to Rome in about 5 hours, we had a one hour or so stop at a service station on the way and then we got to Rome and had things to do immediately, so we had a bit of free time and then after that we had a guided walking tour of the Roman Forum and then the Colusseum (which we got to skip the line for, which was awesome!) and then we did another walking tour with our tour manager, so we saw the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and also the spanish steps, I can not remember the proper name. So that was a really wonderful day. Got up this morning which I have to admit was pretty difficult, cuz those beds are super comfy, had a breakfast that ACTUALLY tasted like real breakfast, toast that was perfect, cold milk and no stupid eggs. There were fried ham and cheese sandwiches for brekfast today, though I skipped that and went for the cereal, toast and orange. Anyways, today was an afternoon of Rome, all free time so we started off by going to Vatican City and went in to see the Cistine Chapel which was amazing and only 8 euro actually since there was a student rate, yay! So that took us about two hours and then afterwards we went to see the Scala Santa which are the stairs that Jesus himself climbed when he was being condemmed by someone...I cant actually remember who..but either way that was kind of cool and then we navigated our way over to the Colusseum so that from there we could try and find the S. Pietro something, something, because its this little church that houses the chains that were used to bind St. Peter when he was being held prisoner so that was really cool to see! After that me and Jaimie managed to get home vie the metro and then a train and then a shuttle bus, but we found our stops and everything so that was awesome since I have no directional skills whatsoever (just ask Curtis) and also when we were on our final train we were sitting across from a little Italian man and we were looking at our metro map to check how many stops we had to go and then we were just chit chatting and he put a little map of Rome over it, so that we would have one I guess haha, and then he didnt do anything after that for a bit, but then he noticed my necklace which has a music note on it and asked me something in Italian about music so I just said I like music haha and then out of nowhere he pulls out his wallet and starts rummaging through it, obviously looking for something so we just sat there and waited and then he pulls out this little picture and I dont even know how old it was, but it was of him when he was young as a Marine, and then he goes rummaging again and pulls out another picture of the men he was stationed with I suppose, standing in front of the Colusseum. Im not really sure why he felt like showing us but it was really cute, kind of a highlight of my day. Anyways, its almost dinner time and I am definitely starving so Im going to go and see when that will be!

Cheers!
-Holly