Life in Limbo: Day 12, 13 & 14: Roman Weekend

This weekend was full of highs, lows and surprises! Both Friday and Saturday were spent in Rome, and it was quite the adventure.

I'll start with The Lows:

The rain on Friday.
No train tickets on Saturday.
The confusion during The Ancient Rome Scavenger Hunt.

Then The Highs:

American food at the Hard Rock Cafe.
Fountain Diet Coke ON ICE.
Cannoli at Cafe Grecco.
THE COLOSSEUM PUB CRAWL Saturday night!

The Surprises:

Navigating Rome and the Subway fairly flawlessly!

So you can see, this weekend was all over the place!! Here's a brief summary of what our days looked like: Friday morning we woke up and a bunch of the group caught the 10:20 train from Albano to Rome. When we got to the train station, I only had eyes for McDonalds and their fountain drinks. So a few girls who were renting a hotel for the weekend, went ahead of us to check in and the rest went and got a drink at MickyD's. It was fabulous -- I've never been so thankful for ice in my entire life. I think its interesting that it took me 2 weeks to really miss ice... I don't realize how good we have it in the States. Anyways, after the group all met back up and rode the subway to the Colosseum, where we got off to begin our Ancient Rome Scavenger Hunt. Ok, I'll explain--one of our assignments is to answer some questions about ancient Roman buildings, and then come and take pictures of them to prove that we saw them. These sights include The Colosseum, The Pantheon, The Capitoline Museum, and many more. So we answered the questions the night before and found pictures of what they looked like so that it would make the process faster on Friday. Wrong! Things in the pictures were not as they seemed in real life, so when we got to the Roman Forum and had to distinguish which was the temple of Ceasar and which was the temple of Vesta.. it got difficult. And to add to the confusion, it statrted to rain. So you can imagine how frustrated we were that we were in Rome, walking around in the rain, trying to find structures that didn't match up to our pictures. Well, this went on for about 3 hours, and come 2:00, we were all starving and ready for lunch. So we popped into the nearest cafe and were pleasantly surprised with a delicious lunch! Tortellini with ham and cream. Yumm-o, as Rachel Ray would say! After lunch we had one last picture for the assignment--the Tiber River, which just so happens to be on the edge of the city. We figured since we had pasta for lunch, we had plenty of energy to get us to the Tiber. We made it, took a picture (it was a disgusting river--very dirty) and then broke off into littler groups for our fun time in Rome! Most of us went shopping on Via del Corso and most people had great success. I resisted in purchasing impulse items, which is a very big growth step towards shopping maturity for Sara Kate. Cheers! For dinner on Friday night it ended up being just Kasi and I, and we were determined to get some American food. We were absolutely famished from our walking around afternoon, and all that we had eyes for was The Hard Rock Cafe. Yes, you may laugh at this. Earlier in the afternoon we had gotten its address from some girls that were planning to go there for lunch, and we thought it was close to Via del Corso... wrong. We had to traipse halfway across Rome to get to the restaurant, but we didn't care because we wanted it that bad. When there's a will, there's a way. We sat down for dinner at the Hard Rock and immediately felt at home. English speaking waiters, American families having dinner and a cheeseburger on the menu. After two weeks of straight pasta and pizza--you should have seen our eyes when the waiter brought us our meal. I could have jumped up and hugged him when I saw him walk out of the kitchen. Kasi and I both ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke ON ICE. Heaven!! You better bet I got that Coke refilled as many times as possible... and a to go cup. Our waiter directed us towards the nearest Metro (subway) stop, so after we got our Cokes to go, we headed that way. The Metro took us to the train station, where we ran into the rest of the group, and we all got on the 9:06 train to Albano. Each one of us fell right into our beds and immediately passed out from exhaustion.

We had the day totally to ourselves on Saturday, so we took it leisurely. We woke up, got going and planned to get on the 1:20 train to Rome. Well, turns out, we learned the hard way that most Tabacchis (convenience stores that sell train/bus tickets) don't sell train tickets on Saturday... we were lucky enough to run into an English-speaking lady that noticed the confusion on our faces and helped us. She suggested we take the bus instead because we probably wouldn't have luck with the train, so that's what we did. The bus dropped us off at the last Metro stop, so from there we had to get on the Metro and take that to our final destination. It felt like an episode of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Once we finally got to where we wanted to go, we basically just shopped and walked around all day. A highlight would have to be the Cannoli I ordered at Cafe Grecco (a famous cafe on Via Condotti). It was fabulousssssss! For dinner on Saturday, we (Anna Curl and I) met up with the other girls that were staying in Rome for the weekend and had dinner. We went to some random restaurant near the Colosseum. The food was great but the wait staff was a disappointment. Oh well! Nothing could have ruined our night because we were about to do the Colosseum Pub Crawl!! One of the girls here, Shellie, had reserved for 15 of us to do the Pub Crawl on Saturday... it was hysterical!! When we walked up to the meeting point the guy asked (and this is a direct quote), "Are you here for the party?" What great night doesn't start out with that phrase? That got us pumped. The Pub Crawl started out with an hour down in the cellar of a restaurant where they gave us pizza and all of the group mingled. There were people from all over--West Virginia, Canada, New Jersey, Kansas, Australia... everywhere! And since there were so many of our group, everyone just called us the Auburn Girls. President Gouge would have been so proud. So after that hour of interesting conversations, they led us to our first pub. When we were walking there, we were walking right next to the Colosseum. This is when it occurred to me, "We're not just walking down College St. right now.. we're in Rome walking past the Colosseum and Roman Forum." How awesome is that? It was a pretty phenomenal moment. The night was so much fun!! I throughly enjoyed the Pub Crawl and would highly recommend it to anyone doing this type of trip.

We didn't get in until late Saturday, so sleeping in on Sunday was a must. Actually, staying in my bed all day Sunday was a must. My body hated me for putting it through the torture of walking at least 13 miles in 3 days, so it deserved some rest. I literally didn't see the outside or get out of my pajamas until dinner. I know that sounds pitiful, but its the truth. So for dinner on Sunday, a group of us walked to the Chinese restaurant and then got gelato. Can you tell we were rebelling against pasta this weekend? Anyways, it was a fabulous weekend in Rome and I hope to go back many more times during my stay in Ariccia!! I'm excited for this up-coming week. Its our third week here and I can't believe that... it's scaring me how fast the time is flying!

Here are some pictures from this weekend (sorry, there are a lot!)

Diet Coke on ice...... there's no comparison.

The Arch of Constantine. See how massive it is? Unbelievable.

The Colosseum! It reminded us all of the movie The Gladiator, so we've decided that we're going to have to have a Roman movie night one night and watch it.

We were so afraid that we were going to have to wait in the hour and a half long line to get into the Colosseum, but then someone told us if we had the Roma pass (which we did) then we could by pass the line. Thanks Cinzia for the Roma pass--it literally saved us!!

Inside the Colosseum. Its hard to imagine all of the stuff that went on in this one building. Gladiator duels, naval ship battles, public beheadings... so gruesome in such a gorgeous building.

I'm supposed to have a sword in my hand in this picture.. its awkward. Sorry!

And the rain began to fall..... whats a good scavenger hunt without confusion, rain and open-toe sandals in the mud?

The Roman Forum!

The sculpture of Romulous and Remus being raised by a she-wolf (the two brothers were supposedly the founders of Rome). This is in the Capitoline Museum.

We had 3 scavenger hunt answers in the Capitoline Museum, but it took us forever to find them. Things to remember: the first floor in Italy is the second floor in America. If you ask Italians where a cabinet is (we had to find this cabinet of ancient coins), they think you mean the bathroom--it doesn't matter if you ask 4 different museum guides, they will send you towards the bathroom.