ROMA!

(**disclaimer... i KNOW i need to blog about my job, the apartment, London, and Brussels...but i figured since i'm in the mood, and i just got back, that i'd go ahead and blog out of order...other blogs to come soon!)

I'm in love. It was love at first sight.

Lance and I scored cheap tickets to Rome through this awesome airline called Ryan air...sometimes they have tickets starting at 7 euros!

**heather and celeste, this next part made me think of y'all!**

We left work a little early to catch our flight out of chareloi. I We had to catch a train that took us from Brussels to Chareloi- which takes about an hour. It has several stops, and at one, a lady and her friend got on. One sat right next to me, the other sat next to lance, so they were sitting across from each other, make sense? Anyway, they started signing to each other!! I didn't interrupt them, but at the very end, one of them got off, the other stayed on, so I tapped her on the shoulder and signed, “do you understand american sign language?” it was SO COOL! I am SO rusty on my sign language, but it was really neat to use what I remembered. It was a little difficult to try and communicate through broken sign language, me speaking ASL, her speaking French Sign Language, but through finger spelling and common signs we had a relatively successful conversation. People in the train car were all staring, but it was still a cool experience.

We made it to the airport with an hour to spare...however. I printed out our boarding passes, however – printed them out like two hours before we left.... We got to the ticket counter and she informed us that we had only printed out our return tickets. Turns out that you have to print out your boarding passes like 5 hours ahead of your flight time otherwise you have to pay 40 EUROS each.... I guess i found out the hard way why ryan air is able to offer tickets for so cheap.

Our flight was scheduled to be a 2 hour flight, but we landed 30 mins early! We then took the train into the center of Rome where we were to meet our Sicilian friend,Andrea, who was going to pick us up.

We had about 20 minutes to kill and we were both starving so we found a little hole in the wall pizza place. The guy behind the counter had the THICKEST Italian accent, so when he tried to expain to us what pizzas he had, it sounded like gibberish. Lance picked out one that looked the best. The guy weighed the pizza, threw it back into the brick oven, then we chowed down. Seriously so good. It turns out the pizza was foccacia bread, cheese, and shredded potatoes. And it was heavenly. Mmmmmmm

So we finally met up with Andrea, and the first thing he did a take us to a sicilian bakery, and bought us pistachio canoliki and vanilla canolos....ohhhhh my gosh. I can't describe how amazing these things are. They are this cinnamon somewhat hard shell with sugar and a cream filling. Soooooo good.

Andrea then took us around town and we somehow ended up at a place where one of his friends was, which just sos happened to be a venue where Laura Veirs was playing! Shes my new foundnfavorite artist and I about died. We hung out there for a while, then andrea showed us around the part of Rome where he lives. When he went to park, he cousldnt find a place on the street so he parked on the sidewalk! And that is completely acceptable to do here, apparently. Haha. And when people drive here, the only real rule is green means go, red means stop-but if it's safe to go hurry and go.ha ha it's sooo crazy. It's lances kind of driving, actually, he loves it.

So we went back to Andreas and he cooked us a real, Sicilian pasta dish. Ok. This was even better than any previous said food. I'll share the recipe... But seriously. So delicious. I feel so lucky!

We all crashed and the next day lance and I set out to disc of Rome. After our experiences with London and Paris, we decided there was just too much to see with not enough time, so we bit the bullet and bought tour bus tickets, which actually wasn't as expensive as I thought they'd be. I feel like it was money very well spent. You get on the tour bus,they give you headphones, you plug them into the jack, and as you go around the city, this very nice Brit gives you an audio tour of history of each street and monument you pass. On top of that you can get on and off at 18 different locations, with a bus that comes to each stop every 15 minutes. So that gave us the ability to get off and explore whenever we wanted to for however long we wanted to.

Rome was so warm. I'd say it was a solid 65 degrees outside – Lance was in shorts! This proved to make a VERY pleasant experience – especially being on the top of a tour bus.

Since I know explaining sight seeing isn't as exciting through words, i'll just bullet point the highlights of the bus tour:

*THE COLOSSEUM. When we were dropped off here, it gave me chills. The place is as incredible in person as one might imagine. I've always wanted to see the place in real life, and to be able to touch and explore it was so surreal. Imagining the history that took place here was a little disturbing, but still such an incredible experience, truly.

*St. Peter's Basilica – This is the alleged burial place of Peter. This place was very ornate and over-the-top, with multiple chapels with statues, gold, marble – the works.

*The Vatican – Lance and I found out at 3:35 that the Vatican closed for touring at 4:00, and from St Peter's Basilica the walk was about 30 minutes – so we walk-ran to make it on time. They charged us 30 euros total to go in, but we both decided this one time it was appropriate to spend the money. Again, this place gave me chills. We toured as much as we could, and at the very end, the kicker, the Sistine Chapel...I've studied the Sistine Chapel multiple times throughout my life, and I've always tried to picture what it was like. I never thought I'd ever have the opportunity to see it, let alone BASK in it! Complete silence was required and no photography (but I managed to take a video...whoops..is that disrespectful?) but I sat in awe, thinking of Michelangelo standing (yes, that's correct; he did not lie on his back) with his neck craned back, painting this incredible ceiling (reluctantly). After taking humanities courses, painting courses, drawing courses and the sculpting course, my capacity to appreciate this work was much larger – therefore this experience was exponentially more meaningful to me.

*Gelato TWICE.

*Italian Pizza – thin crust (Settebellos Style)

**We saw most of the rest of the heavy-hitters in rome (minus the fountain) – and it was amazing. I've always been fascinated by the Romans, their culture, the architecture, the rise and fall of the empire – all of it. I can't believe I had the opportunity to walk to streets and imagine the Roman Soldiers, doin their thing.

We finally made our way back to Andrea's house. He promptly asked us if we were hungry, and took us about 45 minutes away to his friend's Pizzeria – who was born and raised in Rome. The pizza is SO amazing. Thick, hand made crust, sloppy red sauce, and piled on toppings. YUM. (Katherine, it sounds yuck, but it was SO tasty, I promise. Much better than any $5 pizza, I promise that. Hahah). I have to say the food we ate while in Rome (ha!) was BY FAR some of the best food i've ever had.

The next day we woke up at 6, flagged down a taxi, and flew home -exhausted.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but we explored it in one! HAHA, i'm so clever. hahahahaha
(sorry for the lack of pictures. see FB for a more extensive view of rome)