A Country Within

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So it turns out that there are nice parts of Rome; you just have to be in the right area. A lot of where we were today was relatively nice; however, we spent most of our day heading in the general direction of Vatican City. By the way, I visited another country today, just because I could.

On our way to the Holy See, we hit every non-Ancient City landmark you could name: Trevi Fountain (under restoration and only partially viewable...we're not having the best luck here), the Spanish Steps (where I took pictures with a guy dressed as a gladiator), Piazza Del Popolo (People's Square), Mausoleo Augosto (basically an old mausoleum), Palazzo di Giustizzia (Huge Palace of Justice), and Castel Sant'Angelo. AFTER the Holy See, we found the Fone Acqua Paola (a better view than Trevi Fountain), the Pantheon (Romans could build. Well.), Piazza Navona, and Tempio Adriano. We really covered all the bases.



The Vatican itself was also quite impressive. Although we had to wait in line for a while, we did eventually make it to the cupola of the dome, which offered amazing views. It also spit us out into the church of the Vatican, which was absolutely glorious. So many statues and side-chapels and things; you couldn't really keep up with them all. It also has one statue by Michelangelo when he was 23. Casual. I need to learn how to sculpt in the next 2 years.



Before we went out for dinner, I went on a run around the park near our hostel, which was actually really nice. It took me by the zoo and along some nice dirt paths around the edge. We then headed down into the Trastevere Quarter, which is a bit like the South End of Boston, only a few years behind: used to be super sketchy, but is now improving. We found an amazing back-road place, which we wholly enjoyed. Although Samii did get an entire fish (head, teeth, and all) for her meal, which was a little bit shocking. But rather amusing as well. On our way back, we found a bar on the island in the middle of the Tiber, where you could drink Roman-style: reclining on pillows. That was pretty cool, I'm not going to lie.



Tomorrow we head off to see the Ancient City and then are planning to head to the Catacombs, which we couldn't make today do to timing. We'll have to crash pretty early, due to an early flight out of an airport 45 minutes away. And then we meet up with everyone else in London to start the home stretch of the Eurotrip!

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