Rome, Italia.

Where do I begin?!?!

First impressions: gorgeous. warm. loud. busy. dirty. artsy. ancient. friendly.
When Rachel and I landed, our coats and sweaters came off! It was a beautiful 18 degrees(er, 68 for us Americans)!! We quickly learned three things about Rome: it's quite dirty, they have no concept of time, and the people are very helpful.

Day one: Saturday

We easily found a bus from the airport to the metro, but waited an extra 45 minutes because it was late on Italian time. We stayed with the nicest Italian lady you'll ever meet(she's on airbnb.com, folks). Her flat was clean and cozy. Plus, we had access to a kitchen. Hello, 50 cent pasta meals!
After we were settled, we bought pizza. Well, we thought we were buying pizza. It ended up being the bread they make pizza on. The guy behind the counter found someone who spoke English and could help us, which was nice. Oh, it was stressful though! It was the first time here in Europe that I haven't been able to communicate at all. Even in Germany, my little bit of Deutsch earned their English. In Italy, they don't speak English generally.

Rachel and I eating breakfast at our airbnb place! Technically this was Sunday. (But I needed a photo for Saturday, sooo.) 

Anyways, enough of the boring logistics.

Day two: Sunday

Sunday morning found us at the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. What a wonderful tour! Our guide communicated so much information about how Rome was first started, why the Forum was so important, and what the different buildings were.

Roman Forum

BAM. Welcome to the Roman world of business. Well, at least when the city was first formed. The Forum was important, because it was where the first vendors gathered and paid taxes for protection. Many didn't like paying taxes for the protection and decided to leave. As soon as they did, however, they were robbed, etc. It was then written into law that the Forum was the only legitimate place of business. For example, if you had any legal document that was signed outside of the Forum, it was not considered binding. All documents had to be signed within the Forum. 

Colosseum! 

 My first thoughts upon seeing the Colosseum in person for the first time? 

INCREDIBLE. Okay, I know that the Colosseum was the slaughtering field for animals and humans alike, but man is it a gorgeous feat of architecture! Each arch had a number (in Roman numerals, of course) and your ticket would have one of those numbers. The poorest of the poor would be given tickets for free and would sit on the uppermost floors. What I didn't know was that these games would last the entire day and included many events. These peasants would be given a bowl at the beginning of the day. On the bottom of the bowl would be written what the peasant could receive at the end of the day. Sometimes they could win a slave, but often it was a type and cut of meat from the slaughter of the animals. Executions, gladiatorial fights and animal hunts were just a few of the dozens of spectacles the Romans expected to be entertained by. 

There were columns everywhere: still standing, fallen down, placed strategically. See the torch? The column heads were all pretty different and the detail was incredible! 

Directly across is the stage where the gladiators could come up onto. Also, that door? 

That's the gate of death. A special entrance reserved as the exit of the deceased.

Palatine Hill

This view is from Palatine Hill, the first hill that started all of Rome. You're seeing the Colosseum in the background and the Arch of Constantine, one of the last three remaining arches out of 37.

In the swanky shopping center of ancient Palatine. Our guide is in the middle wearing glasses. 

This was one of the main streets of Palatine(I think). I do know that of what our guide told us, this street would have been filled with ancient equivalents of Hermès, Tiffany & Co., Dolce and Gabbana, etc. 

After our tour, we tossed a coin in the Trevi Fountain (currently under massive reconstruction), chilled on the Spanish Steps, wandered the streets of Rome, found delicious and cheap pizza, did some touristy shopping and went back to our flat. 

Day three: Monday

Man, did we sleep in a lot! Not sure how I'll be able to get up for breakfast at Bode once we're back, but 9am is a nice time to wake up!

Anyways, lateish starts everyday is fine with us. It was raining a lot on Monday and Tuesday, but that didn't stop us. We hit up the Pantheon, a random church with "Maria" in the name, the Vittoriano Monument, St. Peter in Chains basillica and, of course, wandered around. Here are a few photos. 

St Peter in Chains- Basilica 

The statue in the middle is "Moses" carved by none other than Michelangelo himself. 

The Pantheon(not the Parthenon)

Ruins, Ruins Everywhere

Via Allessandria.

Many rulers of Rome would build altars and mini forums(?) along this via.

 Just a lovely view of Rome. 

I call this one: Vespas.

Day four: Tuesday

We decided to go to a different country on Tuesday. What? Vatican City of course! We had a bit of a time finding the way into this place, but once we did it we couldn't keep our chins off the ground (so to speak. We didn't actually walk around with our jaw scraping the beautiful floors). There were halls and halls of Egyptian artifacts, Ancient Roman artifacts, tapestries, statues, busts, paintings, paintings, paintings! Also, an entire hall devoted to maps of Italy through time! It seems that each Pope had a pet project for this place and that was one of them. Also, the Sistine Chapel. We got to see the Sistine Chapel!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately, because it is still considered a holy place, pictures were not allowed. But, I did get to see Michelangelo's ceiling and it is a sight. So, so beautiful!!!!

The commemorative scarab of Amenhotep III

Mummy box, er, sarcophagus

Little servants of the dead.

self-explanatory

Where they kept the important organs. 

And this, my friends, is ancient e-mail. As in, BEFORE CHRIST e-mail. 

Sorry, super excited about how OLD all of these things are. SO OLD. 

Look! Look! She takes selfies too!! 

Please forgive the near nudity. His pose, though. "Hello, laDIES." 

I can practically hear it coming out of his stone mouth. 

Cool painted map of Italy. 

What the Italians knew of Europe a looong time ago. 

The tapestries were amazing! 

Beautiful floors. 

An uncompleted DaVinci! 

I just loved the use of light and dark in this painting. 

I believe this was King George IV?

Oh, right. St. Peter's basilica. We goggled at this too. 

I was stunned into silence the entire way through. This place was massive. 

Oh, Michelangelo showed up here too. 

Just MASSIVE. Fun fact, the churches in Rome are ugly from the outside, but beautiful on the inside. Basilicas, on the other hand, are ornate inside and out. Also cool fact, though we think of basilicas as churches today, they were originally the town halls of their day. Then Christians supposedly began using them as an evangelical tool and "basilica" became synonymous with "church". Sweet, right?  

We ended the day seeing an old castle and a beautiful view of the Tiber. 

Day Five: Wednesday

Oh, Wednesday. Our last full day in Rome! We saw Piazza Navona, walked the Jewish quarter, got lost(on purpose), found another beautiful area of Rome, and made last minute, planned out touristy purchases. Oh, and drank espresso. For dinner, we finished the bottle of wine we had purchased, ordered a pizza from a person who spoke no English (ended up with a different one because our Italian is so bad... but it was delicious!). Also, another woman was staying that night and she was the sweetest! It was a blessing to hear a little bit about where she's been and what she's doing.

St. Peter's in the distance from a bridge over the Tiber. 

Piazza Navona

Christmassy Colosseum! 

In summary, I loved my time in Rome but felt ready to move on on the last day. Oh, did I mention? We knew we were getting close to our touristy destinations because all of a sudden there would be stalls selling tchotchkes and you'd hear "selfie?" as they tried to sell you camera sticks. That part of Rome I will not miss, nor will I miss the utter lack of any clean bathrooms.
The people were sweet. They were so excited to talk to us, serve us, etc. And they always found a person who spoke English. They were generally sensitive to our needs even if we weren't buying anything.
The city itself is truly a beautiful, ancient city where so much history happened. I understand now why it's called the Eternal City. We were able to see the hub of the Ancient world! Can you believe it?

Roma, thank you for your open arms. Arrivederci!