ROMA

After the wretched suffering of the sleeper train we finally arrived at the Termini train station in Rome. We found our hostel, the Sandy Hostel. It seemed a little sketchy at first. We walked in a big blueish door and up it seemed like a million flights of stairs. But it actually turned out to be pretty good. The first night I was in a room without Candice and Michelle, with 3 strangers. I met the boy first, he was about my age and with him was his mom and sister. So that turned out good! I was grateful it wasn't some crazies!! They were so nice to me and they gave us their tour bus passes to use the next day because they were leaving.

The first site in Rome we saw was the Pantheon. It was pretty darn cool. Before we went in we had our first gelato, and it was AMAZING!! It was actually the best we had in all our time spent in Rome.

Eating delicious gelato outside the Pantheon. I had pistachio and hazlenut... mmm heavenly :)

Michelle and I in front of the Pantheon

We had time and some energy for one more event that night, so we went to the Museo Nazionale Romano....LAME. It really wasn't that cool. The cool stuff it did have was fake, they had copies of all the famous works.

We went around finding funny things to make up for the lameness and wasted money

We had a really good dinner. We ate outside and listened to accordian players (they are EVERYWHERE), and our waiter was awesome.


This was our appetizer, caprese, and it was soo yummy!

DAY 2
We got up bright and early to go to Vatican City. We saw it all... the museum, sistine chapel, St. Peters Basilica, and we picked the day of the big mass so we saw the Pope! We were waiting in line for St. Peters Basilica and we met a girl, Liz, from east LA who was there by herself and she became our friend!

The Pope!

Inside the basilica- it was so huge and beautiful

The dome of the basilica is behind us

We hiked to the top of the basilica, the Vatican city is behind me. It was a pretty cool view.

When we were through at the Vatican, we took our free tour bus passes and rode the bus for 2 1/2 hours. It was a pretty cool way to see a lot of things.

We went to the Spanish Steps, and I kinda think they are overrated... We got there and then left because it wasn't much to see. I know we did miss the month of may when all the beautiful flowers are there, so maybe that's why. Our new roommate, Giovanni from South Africa, wanted us to go with him to check out the night life at the Spanish steps... we didn't take the invite. So maybe that's cooler...haha!

The Spanish Steps are behind us...not much to see hu?

The Trevi Fountains were pretty dang cool to see

DAY 3
We went to the Coloseum which was AWESOME! We took about a billion pictures! We also went to the Roman Forum. We totally spotted a mormon family there! We kinda stalked them to try to find out! haha There were 2 boys that looked about our age and their parents. We found out that they are from Utah and just picked up their twin boys from their missions! They picked up one from France and then came to Rome and picked up the other one.

Part of the Roman Forum

We went to the San Callisto Catacombs which were really cool! We didn't really know exactly where we were going, but we met a family who was going to the same place and also didn't really know the way either! So the blind was leading the blind! But we made it!! Yay! We couldn't take pictures in the catacombs which was a bummer, so we just got outside pics. After the catacombs we waited for quite a while for the bus on the Appian Way- one of the earliest important roads in Rome.

Beautiful scenery outside the catacombs

Just chillin on the Appian Way...


We loved all of the columns everywhere we went!


1...2...3... JUMP

Top left, bottom middle, and right middle: Santorini Sunset
Bottom left: Base of Eiffel Tower
Top middle: Roman Forum
Top right: Colosseum
Bottom right: Highest point in Santorini