Extension of 1st blog

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Sooooo, adding on to the last blog i wrote...

ahh yes, the restaurant! So yeah this cute little place in Trastevere was adoarble. And its really cool because instead of there always being water on your table, theres wine! Granted you have to pay for it but its definitely cheaper than the water here. its awesome. So then yeah after that we wandered around and took pictures and went home. I had a real rough hungover morning so we just went home afterwards. But it was a hassle let me tell you. Its so hard to navigate around this place because most locals dont use the bus routes (they just drive like psychos on their vespas) so if you have to ask them a question about the buses they usually dont know or have a hard time of telling us. So for the first few days weve used cabs :/

So then the next day was Friday. This day we mostly just did orientation stuff :/ which is helpful but also very boring. But at night we set out on a trek to the Vatican..however we did not end up there. Instead we took the bus and ended up finding the Spanish Steps and the Trevi fountain. They are literally in a 5min walking distance from eachother. The city the surrounds the Spanish Stepts is soooo unbelivabley pretty. Its obvious that its a great place to shop but the streets and stores are very Europe-y. You definitely dont feel like your in America.

We ate gelto before we got to the spanish steps. Gelato is ice cream and i promise its the best thing you will ever eat and im not even a big ice cream person. However, you can fall into tourist traps and end up paying more then you should..which happened to us but it was fine because it was stilll delicious! There is no gelato in the states that is true gelato so eating it out here is a must!

We got the Spanish steps and were immediately mesmerized. There were a bunch of people there just lounging around- and alot of lovers. Its kinda obnoxious how many people in Europe are all PDA about everything, but thats just their way of life i guess! But yeah we all took alot of pictures and then we all bought a beer and drank on the steps. It was so peaceful and relaxing 😊

Then we decided to head in the direction of the Trevi fountain. This didnt take us that long to find because fortunately we ran into a bunch of other kids who were studying abroad (not at loyola) and they were headed in the direction. As soon as we walked up we were bombarded with men asking if we wanted to buy flowers, or wine openers or offering to take our picture..all basically stunts and trying to get our money. It was extrememly annoying and were here during the off season..i cant imagine what it must be like during peak. But anyways the weather was nice so we were out there for a bit. We threw some coins in and the old tradition is to wish that you will return to Roma 😊 then we decided it was time to head back..and we of course got lost. At first it was fun getting lost because it wasnt to late, but then it got cold..and i got tired..and it was kinda sucky!

However as we were walking we stumbled onto a HUGE square and had no idea what it was. Apparently, we stubmled onto the Piazza del Popolo..i didnt kno what this was at the time but i guess its a huge sight to see in Rome and we just stumbled upon it! it definitely was gorgoeus tho. Here was where Ali befriended a Canadian man who then gave us a map. we left after staying there for awhile but of course, we didnt get home for at least another hour bc we were walking around and eventually said screw it and bought a taxi home.

Then the next day was Saturday. On saturday we had a leture on the Roman Forum, ate at the mensa (cafeteria), and then took the buses down to the roman forum and the colosseum! This was all paid for by the school as part as our orientation. We got down to the Roman Forum and got to wander around for an hour and half before we had to meet up to go to the colosseum. we had to meet up and enter as groups because the school purchased group tickets for us and if we didnt enter all together then we had to pay seperately. but i didnt mind bc it saved us money and while we were in places we didnt have to stay together. but yes the roman forum is probably one of my favorite things that ive seen so far. its so cool. the only way to describe it is as a huge park with a bunch of ruins in it. you could walk around for hours and keep discovering new things. and it has GORGEOUS views of the surrounding city. there were alot of locals there just sitting there reading or playing music...the music was nice bc it set a sort of om-bee-ance (cant spell).

After and hour and half we met at the front walked out and over to the colosseum. unfortunately, they closed early and we werent able to get in. See in europe, life is driven by happiness and not how much money you could make. they ended up closing 15 minutes early simply because they wanted to. however, in the united states, no business would close early like that if it meant that they would lose money. so hopefully loyola will reimburse us so we can still see it for free! but also around the colosseum there are a bunch of guys dressed up as gladiators who you have to pay to take a picture with. rumor has it that they are all ex convicts and its the only job they can get now. its funny to think that they used to be in prison and now they are wearing tights and sandals pretending to be gladiators haha

ill post more later, time to go to a meeting 😊

Thanks for reading!

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