From Rome to London

So the last time I posted, it was Wednesday and I was on my way to the Roman Forum, which wasn't all that interesting to me. There were lots of ruins from the ancient Roman Empire, but it was hard for me to imagine what the buildings would have looked like so many years ago. Plus, it was raining again as we were going through the ruins, so it was difficult to hold my umbrella and take notes.

On Wednesday night, we were invited over to my friend Megan's apartment for a "family dinner." Megan and her roommates decided to cook grilled chicken salad with bruschetta (pronounced brusketta- the che or chi makes the "k" sound in Italian) as an appetizer. As the guests, Shelby, Kelly and I brought bottles of wine and a tart for dessert. It was really nice to cook dinner and eat together, just like at home. One of Megan's roommates, Katie, is Italian, and she made her family's bruschetta recipe- it was my favorite part of the meal!

Thursday was very relaxing for me, as I was preparing for my weekend trip to London. I took a walk/jog in the park with Megan, went to Italian class, and then went to a mama and papa restaurant by the Pantheon with about 27 other students from AUR. It was by far the best meal I've had so far and fun to socialize with all those people! I had freshly made pasta with tomato meat sauce and bruschetta as an appetizer again. Of course, I tried the red house wine and we had gelato for dessert. I tried banana and chocolate gelato and it was sooooo good. Of course, Shelby had just chocolate gelato, but I think she might have me hooked on this chocolate ice cream addiction. :)

I got up SUPER early- like 5 AM on Friday morning to make sure we arrived at the airport on time. I was traveling to London with Andy Chen, the other student from Robert Morris studying in Rome, but we were going to the Ciampino Airport in Rome with my roommate, Kelly, since she was flying to Madrid to spend the weekend with her boyfriend. So let me tell you the journey it took for us to arrive at one of the smaller airports in Rome:

Step 1: Take bus to the tram.

Step 2: Take the tram to Largo Argentina (that place where all the cats live by the ancient

ruins)

Step 3: From Largo Argentina, take the bus to Termini Station (biggest train station in

Rome)

Step 4: Take the train to Ciampino

Step 5: From the train station in Ciampino, take a shuttle bus to the Ciampino airport.

Whew! So that was quite a trip- it takes a little over an hour and a lot of patience waiting for public transportation just to get to the airport to wait for our flight. So there was more waiting...We finally boarded our Ryanair plane, and we took off right on schedule at 10:10 AM. We arrived in London a little after noon, but I forgot that there was a one-hour time difference between Rome and London. We passed through customs easily (I now have a Stansted stamp in my passport to prove that I was in London!) and then discovered we had to take an HOUR shuttle bus to get to the center of the city to check into our hostel. I didn't think getting to and from these airports would be this much work, but it was a great learning experience.