My First Visitors!!

I can't believe it's been a whole week since I saw my first visitors to Rome! Gwen Dalphon, one of my tennis teammates at Robert Morris, and Kristen Miles, who also attended RMU and was a Freshman Mentor with me, have been backpacking through Europe over the last 1 1/2 months- and Rome was one of the stops on their list! They had arrived in Rome on Saturday when I was still in Capri, and they saw some of the tourist spots (the Roman Forum and the Colosseum) after they checked into their hostel. They even showed me how to navigate the subway system in Rome! Until they came to visit me, I had only taken the bus and the tram for public transportation. The A line is pretty nice, but the B line is really dirty and I wouldn't recommend anyone take it unless they absolutely needed to. Another note about the public transportation here in Rome: Gwen and Kristen have been to numerous European cities and they said this is the most disorganized, chaotic and unreliable public transportation. Great, wish I had known that before I decided to study in Rome. But if that's the only downside to living in Rome, I'll guess I will just suck it up and sometimes wait 30 minutes or so for the bus or tram. Oh, I almost forgot to mention this too: on most public transportation in Europe, they allow pets. I usually don't see people with cats, but there is always a dog on the bus or tram. And Italians don't really keep their dogs on leashes; and, surprisingly, the dogs obey their masters and don't misbehave. There's usually dog droppings on the sidewalks, though, so I always have to watch where I'm walking!

OK, so back to my visitors. I met them at the Arch of Constantine by the Colosseum on Sunday because that's a good meeting spot for people who don't really know the city. We walked from there to the Capitoline Museum, where there are many famous sculptures and artwork. There are many frescoes there, and the massive statue of the emperor Constantine. They only have recovered a huge foot, his head, parts of his hand and parts of his arm with muscular features. There is also a bronze sculpture of the She-Wolf with Romulus and Remus, a statue of Hercules, and a famous bronze sculpture of Marcus Aurelius. From there, we could walk to the Pantheon, which is one of the best preserved ancient buildings in Rome. It was originally a temple and was converted into a church. We went inside and then decided to walk to the Trevi Fountain to throw in a coin for good luck and a return to Rome (and the fountain) someday. We walked back towards the Pantheon, where Robin and Shelby were going to meet us for dinner. I was taking Gwen and Kristen to a small family restaurant where the three of us (along with about 25 other AUR students!) had eaten dinner before. The food was so good I wanted to return. The first time I ate there, I had fresh pasta with bolognese (meat) sauce. This time, I tried the lasagna and it was sooooooo delicious. It didn't have lots of meat in it, definitely more cheese and sauce, but the noodles were so soft and I might go back and order the lasagna again if I have the chance. After dinner, we went back to my apartment so the girls could put up their feet and just relax.

While I went to class all day on Monday, the girls relaxed at my apartment. We re-energized their bodies for Tuesday by cooking dinner and drinking some wine at my place. Then, I decided to take them to the Steeler's bar, La Botticella, where a RMU banner hangs! We had our picture taken underneath the banner and the girls met Giovanni, the owner of the bar. On Tuesday morning, I had to meet for a group project in the center of the city, so the girls met me there after my meeting. After dealing with the transportation system yet again, we finally made our way to the Vatican City- we used the subway system, by the way. As we were exiting the Metro, we were bombarded with deals for tours of the Vatican. We decided to take one for 40 euro, which would show us around the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel, which had many important pieces of artwork by Michelangelo and Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. After about a three and a half hour tour, we finally made our way in the Sistine Chapel, and we weren't even allowed to take pictures inside the chapel! We were also to remain silent and the ceiling painted by Michelangelo was not what I had imagined it to be. For those of you from St. Marys, I pictured it to be a more elaborate ceiling painted like Saint Mary's Church, but it's nothing like that. And since I couldn't take pictures, it's kind of hard to explain. It is amazing that he was able to paint such beautiful artwork on the ceiling! I had to hurry off to my Italian class, so I didn't make it to see St. Peter's Basilica. On the way to my bus stop, I did have some time to walk through St. Peter's Square, with the obelisk in the middle. Vatican Citywas pretty busy on Tuesday because the Pope was having a Papal Audience the next day, which I was unable to attend because of a presentation for my art class. I will return to the Vatican a couple more times, as I want to climb the dome of the basilica, am required to go there for my Art of Rome class, and want to attend the Papal Audience in November. Hopefully next time I won't feel so rushed and won't be so tired from the long walking tour and I'll be able to explore on my own.

Tuesday night, we met up with my friend, Megan and all of her roommates and other friends for her 22nd birthday. Megan really wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe in Rome for a good, American-style cheeseburger. This was another adventure, as the restaurant is tucked back in a corner of Rome. Several people gave us directions beforehand and we still got lost going there. But, we finally made it to the restaurant at around 10:30. We ordered nachos as an appetizer and it came with salsa and cheese and lots of guacomole and it was so good to have some Mexican food, finally! I think I was going through withdrawal. I still miss my Chipotle, but I decided to order a cheeseburger and French fries and they were pretty good. Sorry if I'm making you hungry by reading this, but food is something I always look forward to and the Italians sure know how to enjoy their meals!!

Wednesday was the day of my art class group presentation and so I had to wake up early to be on site and prepared by 9 AM. The girls also woke up early- they decided to go to a fishing/beach town that was about an hour train ride from Rome. It was a gorgeous day and they definitely enjoyed the sunshine while my group and I breezed through our presentation on mosaics in a church. When I got back to my apartment from class that night, they arrived a few hours later and we enjoyed just sitting around, chillaxing and talking. On Thursday morning, it was already time for them to leave! They were leaving for Florence and I went to the train station with them (long story short, I needed a couple express train tickets to Florence so that I could still go on my trip to Prague). We said our good-byes at Termini Stazione (the BIG train station in Roma), and I was so glad that Gwen and Kristen were my first visitors to Rome!!! :)