There's No Place Like Rome

Well, I spent 19 straight hours on trains today. And, needless to say, I am thoroughly exhausted.  However, I am STILL going to blog about my fabulous trip to Italy.  Now THAT'S commitment. I may not be coherent, but at least I'm making the effort, right?

Italy is absolutely wonderful. If you haven't been, GO. I absolutely loved it and would go back in a heartbeat....sooooo when you go, let me know, and I'd love to tag along.

Chelsea and I left on Tuesday afternoon for Brussels, where we took a flight to Rome.  in case you didnt know, European flights are SO cheap. So that's awesome.  And the seats inside were yellow, which obviously makes the experience much more cheerful.  AND our plane even had a name: Bye Bye Baby...maybe not the most encouraging thing you want to read as you're boarding the aircraft, but hey, we got there in one piece, right? 

We landed in Rome very late (much later than my parents would've liked). But thankfully, Chelsea and I were with some Baylor boys, so we were not alone (don't worry, Mom and Dad). We soon learned that punctuality is not the Italians' strong suit. An hour later, our bus arrived and dropped us off at our hostel.  Let me rephrase that, it dropped us off in the general area our hostel.  We then spent another thirty minutes wandering around the streets of Rome, searching for our hostel.  We eventually found it but, let's just say, looking for it was not my favorite experience. Note to self: always arrive in Rome during the daylight.

After arriving at our hostel, we did the best we could to get some sleep and rest up for our day ahead. Rome wasn't built in a day, but we did our best to see most of it in a day.  And we did a pretty good job at that, if I do say so myself.

First stop: The Colosseum. 

Ate some delicious "frozen chocolate" right here, outside of the Pantheon...tasted a lot like a Frosty....but obviously MUCH better. Wendy's needs to take some pointers from the Italians.

I didn't want to be rude, but don't you think someone should let them know that they have a giant hole in the roof of their Pantheon...?

National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II

(Not gonna lie, I just had to Google what this was...but it was too pretty NOT to take a picture of it!)

Stopped for some pizza at Piazzo Navona. 

Not a bad view from our lunch table, if I do say so myself.

 I thoroughly enjoyed the mob of children in matching blue hats parade through the streets of Rome. Seriously, God bless the chaperones who led this ginormous group of elementary school kids around the city. It looked like madness...if madness wore a blue hat.

The Vatican

And now I know that if Speech Pathology doesn't work out as a career, I can always move to Rome and become a street performer.  There seems to be a high demand for them there:

....these guys just sat. And they made money. If only all jobs were that easy....

I'd probably pay these guys to follow me around all day.

Trevi Fountain

(thank you Lizzie McGuire Movie, for reminding us to go there)

Makin' a wish at Trevi Fountain

Rome, you were pretty good to us.  But, honestly, if I go back to Italy, I'd probably wouldn't go back to Rome. It's overwhelmingly huge and there are a billion people everywhere. Don't get me wrong, I love the history that is there (I'm quite the Latin nerd actually), but I don't think I could've handled being there longer than a day.   Needless to say,I was ready to catch our train to....Florence!