Rome Trip Part I: the Cultural Highlights
So... I'm back!!! Eight days seems like nothing, but after six days you start to realize that if your friends aren't there with you, eight days can be a long, long time.
I guess it's a little too much to tell in one post, so I'm going to stalk you with my stories twice :) besides, there are some pictures that I want to show you, but M. and S. haven't sent them yet. Anyways, I present you the cultural part of our Rome trip!
On our first day, we flew to Rome. Most people didin't count it as a day, ssince we went to the airport at 2.30 pm and arrived at the monastery where we slept in Rome at 9 pm. So we didn't do anything that day except for sitting in a plane and watching A Very Potter Sequel with M. Nothing cultural so far, but I can show you the pic of the airplane, which I'm totally gonna do even though I know that no one cares.
Yay, our amazing plane :) Seriously, flying with people who've never flown before is funny.
So we arrived in Rome in the evening. It was dark, but we saw illuminated buildings and monuments everywhere. When we looked out of our window we saw something 'big and important'. After two minutes in Rome I started calling every building I saw 'a big and important building', because I had no idea what I was looking at.
The next morning we woke up to this amazing view (though my camera kinda ruined it):
It was really impressive to see those angels on top of that building emerging out of the fog. Then, after staring at this for way too long, we went to Vatican City! It was also our first encounter with Italian traffic and it was scary as shit. Literally everyone and everything tried to kill us out on those streets. It's a miracle that my entire class survived the walk to the Vatican.
Yup, that's me in front of that big and important building in Vatican City. It was our first full day in Rome and we climbed way too many stairs. We climbed the St. Peter and some staircase that Bernini made and more stairs that I don't even remember. After that we went to the Vatican Museum where we almost got kicked out because our teachers couldn't prove that we were a school group. Luckily M., S. and I had our schoolcards with us. In that museum we saw the Sixtine Chapel, which was crowded and we weren't able to enjoy it very much, because our feet hurt like hell.
On our second day we visited the Forum Romanum, which was pretty cool and way bigger than expected. On our way to the Forum we came past the big and important building we could see from our window. I still don't know what it was for, but it looked even better in daylight.
After that morning the Visiting of the Churches began and thus everything became a blur. The first church you visit will be remembered, but after a while you can't tell one from another anymore. I'm just going to skip past all those churches. They were really impressive and stuff, but if I can't even remember their names I'm not going to try to describe them, because I know I can't. Except for the Pantheon, but that's just because the Pantheon became our favorite place to hang out in the evenings.
We heard a tourguide tell a group of baffled tourists that you could draw an imaginary circle in this building. Really? You're not kidding? Is it true that you can draw a circle in a freaking dome? I honestly didn't know that interesting little fact.
So, churches and museums. I learned a lot. I learned that E. totally screwed up my brain, because I was making bad jokes about penises all the time, which I've never done before. It was kinda embarassing, but at some point I couldn't help myself. Especially not when I saw a statue of a woman with a dick, while all the male statues in the room had their man-parts removed. That's just wrong. I swear there must be a room somewhere in Rome filled with the dicks of all those statues, because it's a little too coincidental that none of the male statues had a dick.
Anyway, moving on. There were some more churches and museums and then... the Trevi fountain! We fond it by accident. There was this huge mob of people (not the mob, a mob) all trying to push forward, so we got curious and when we had pushed ourselves forward far enough, we found ourselves at the Trevi fountain.
One of the very few pictures in which I look close to normal :P
So we threw a coin in the fountain and made a wish, you know, all those cliche tourist stuff. I usually try to act like a local, but I couldn't resist acting like a tourist this time. And yes, I am wearing an 'I <3 Rome' hoodie.
The absolute highlight of the trip for me was the day we went to Pompei and the Vesuvius. I'd expected more of Pompei, but it was still awesome. The Vesuvius was down right amazing. We clinbed the volcano and M. and I wrote our names on some kind of information panel that clearly wasn't meant for people to write their names on it.
It was so amazing to be on top of that volcano and look down on clouds and... well, I guess you have to be there, since I can't properly describe it.
In the last two days we went to the Ara Pacis and some kind of castle-like thingy and... the Colosseum! I'd been looking forward to that for ages, but sadly it rained...
M. and I walked around with glum faces, but at least we walked around, most people stayed inside and didn't even look at the Colosseum. We took some pictures, but they look a little stupid since we couldn't smile anymore; we were too tired.
And then... we went back. I was glad we went back, I couldn't stay with some of those people for another minute. I even thanked all the ancient gods for giving me a chair next to strangers on the plane; I finally had some rest.
Rome was totally awesome. I definitely want to go there again. And next time, I'm going on my own, so I won't have to act as if I like people :P
2 Fellow Ramblers
So cool! It looks like you had a lot of fun! I wish I could have gone!
ReplyDeletexo
Sanya
theonelostshipblog.blogspot.com
*Symphony of jealous groaning*
ReplyDeleteIt's always been my dream to visit Rome.. It looks like you had an awesome time :)
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