maravillosa madrid: la città eterna

Roma, Roma, Roma. I'm finally back in Madrid, but I can't tell you how much I don't want to be. To tell the truth, I was finished with Rome, but it's the north of Spain that I absolutely love - Florence, Tuscany, Venice...especially Venice.

Rome. I had a great time for sure, but probably not as fun as the others. My trip was an emotional up and down roller coaster. While I was there, a few of us took a day trip to Florence, and that was absolutely amazing. Looking back at it all, on one side I was glad I went to Rome again...but on the other, I wish I hadn't gone. You'll see in my blog posts. Prepare yourself because I'm going to tell you everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly. It won't be a happy-go-lucky blog post because that's not what the trip was. I'll start from the beginning.

Day 1 - May 5th, 2012

The day started off at night. Our flight left at 7am, so we had to meet at Plaza de la Cibeles, which had a night bus that would take us straight to the airport since the Metro and cercanias aren't open yet. I had slept 4 hour the night before. Like I said before, finals week messed up my sleeping schedule so that now I have no problem staying up until 4am. I woke up at 2am, made sure I had everything, made myself some soup and watched Roman Holiday - to prepare myself for Rome :) I gave Ariel a wake-up call at 3:35am since he has a LOT of trouble waking up in the morning. We were supposed to meet at the Plaza at 4:50am because would leave at 5:10. Nikki and I had woken up really early and were ready. The trouble was, we started talking and didn't notice the time. We ended up leaving at 4:40 and almost ran to Sol. From there we had planned to walk to the plaza, but it was still a 15 minute walk. While we were walking to Sol, it started to rain, and we were like OF COURSE and were super cranky. We had no choice but to catch a cab from Sol to the Plaza, which took 5-8 minutes. We ran to the bus and - hey look, it's full. We saw Ariel inside and watched him as he drove away. Luckily, there was another bus that would leave right after.

We got to the airport VERY quickly, and had at least an hour to spare. On the plane, everyone was all excited about Rome and couldn't wait to get there. Almost every minute on that flight, I was filled with worry. After the whole incident with my fake plane ticket to Paris, I was afraid that the apartment would be fake. We would be homeless and it would be my fault. We got there without a problem, and I sent Daniela (the landlady) a text and a call. No one answered or replied. She had told us that we could get to the apartment by taxi for 45 euros split between us. It turned out to be 90. We found a shuttle that would take us straight to the apartment for 15 euros each, which would be the cheapest we could get. Still no word from Daniela.

For most of the ride there, everyone was talking and laughing, and I sat in the front with the driver since I had all the info. I wanted to cry and I felt like I wanted to throw up. I felt so nauseous. I started to do that thing where I withdraw into myself, not talking or looking at anyone. Then I realized I should probably pray. I did, and 5 minutes later I got a text from Daniela asking if we had landed. Turns out, she had never received any of my messages or missed calls for some reason, but she was nice enough to contact us first. After that, the ride was more relaxing. The driver was taking another American couple to the center of Rome, so we got a nice ride literally all over the city. Once I saw my first glimpse of the ruins and the Colosseum, I had the widest smile on my face. It felt like I was seeing an old friend again. I remembered everything, and I was so excited to be back. The driver was really nice and gave us a little history about everything.

Then we headed to our apartment in Trastevere, which is an area that is not touristy, where actual real Italian people live. We drove and drove...and drove. I realized, our apartment was FAR. I started to feel sick again. I hadn't realized that it was SO far from the center where everything is. I started to panic a little. We got out, and I met Daniela and her husband. Once I saw his face, I smiled. He was one of those jumpy, quirky, smiley type people that gets really excited about things, and his wife is one of the sweetest people ever. They showed us to our apartment. It was on the first floor and very colorful. The first thing I thought when I walked in was, It smells. I don't know if it was a really bad cleaner or what, but it smelled. Before this, we had stayed in really nice, modern apartments that were fairly cheap and in the center of everything. This apartment was average, VERY cheap for Rome, but was super far from everything. I put on a smile, but inside I was worried that the apartment wouldn't be good enough for them, that they were expecting something super nice when it wasn't.

In the end, it turned out okay because since we weren't in the tourist area, everything around us was dirt cheap. There was literally no night life, so we saved money that way I guess. Also, there was a bus a couple blocks up the hill that had 2 buses - one would take us directly to Piazza Venezia (in the center of everything), and one that would take us directly to the Vatican - so that was super convenient. The only thing was that by 7 or 8pm, literally everything on the street was closed, so if we wanted to buy juice or food at night, nothing was open. I was just happy because it cost 19 euros a night to stay in our apt, whereas in the first one Ariel had found, we would have paid 27 euros a night. His was right next to the Vatican, which would have been amazing, but we saved 24 euros per person, so that's good.

Well back to my story. After dropping off our stuff at the apartment, we made our way to Piazza Venezia. We got off the bus and in front of us was the Vittorio Emanuele, and it was GORGEOUS. We were so excited, and it was hitting us that we were in Rome. We walked by the Forum and took lots of pictures. It was absolutely incredible, I was so excited to be back. Next we headed to the Colosseum. I was a little hesitant to pay for something I had already done, but it turned out to be one of my favorite things from the trip. Last time, since we were in a tour group, we had a limited time there. Today, we could take our time. We walked around the Colosseum twice, reading the signs, taking pictures, and just taking it all in - the smell, the feel, the history of the place. It was amazing just being able to stare in silence at everything and just imagine what it was like thousands of years ago, to think of the gladiators and the fights that took place. To think that these people were alive in the time of Jesus. In one word: incredible. I took TONS of pictures of the Colosseum. It was definitely one of my favorite moments from the whole trip.

The only sad thing was that it was the last time that we all went sightseeing as a while group. Like I had mentioned in my last blog post, they all have different ideas of how to sight-see. Nikki was go-go-go and wanted to do lots of things, while Ariel and Alim were walking slowly and taking their time. At one point, Nikki got a little annoyed at how slow they were walking and started walking ahead. She walks incredibly fast, and the others walk incredibly slow. I walk fast-ish, but I take my time because this time around I wanted to take my time. So there we were - Nikki walking ahead, the others walking behind, and me in between them. The whole time I was like, walk with Nikki? Walk with the others? I ended up trying to do both, which frustrated me. After a while though, Nikki decided to break with the group and continue sight-seeing, so she ran off. I didn't want her to go off alone, but I wanted to stay longer in the Colosseum so I stayed with the others. I think I made a good decision because it was super relaxing. Like I said, I came to Rome again to take everything in, not to run around and see absolutely everything because I've already done that. Still, I felt bad that Nikki went of along :/

It was about 1 or 2 then, so Alim, Ariel, Angela, and I decided to get some lunch.. Before the trip, I had researched tasty and inexpensive restaurants in Rome, and one of them happened to be a 5 minute walk from the Colosseum. Because it was down a random alley, it was on the more inexpensive side. I ended up getting ravioli, which was pretty delicious. For the most part, the portions were pretty big, which is surprising. You know how on TV Italians serve a huge heaping plate of delicious pasta? It's a myth. In the touristy area, they serve an itty bitty teeny tiny overpriced portion of pasta. Olive Garden does not equal Italy. Although, Ariel's lasagna was pretty yummy!

After that, we headed to the Pantheon. The thing I love about Rome is that everything is located super close to each other and is within walking distance. On the way there, we passed by the building in Piazza Venezia and saw the building where Mussolini made his speech to the people (yay...), which was kinda cool. We got to the Pantheon, which was SPECTACULAR. Last time I was there I didn't get to go inside, so this time I was pretty happy. We walked inside, sat down in the pews and looked at all the beautiful marble and all the details. It was really nice.

After that we headed to another place on the list I had written down. We walked for about 2 minutes, and around the corner was San Crispino, supposedly the best gelato place in Rome. Let me tell you, it was absolutamente delicioso. I got the cinnamon and ginger flavor (sounds weird, but it was really good) and the whiskey flavored one, which had a cool little tang to it. At about 6 or 7, we started heading home. We had been up since 3 or 4am, so we were pretty exhausted. At the bus stop we saw Nikki, so we all waited together. What we didn't think about was rush hour. There was SO much traffic. What should have taken us 10-20 minutes to get home took us at least an hour. We spend a lot of it at a standstill, waiting for the other cars and the other buses. It was nice just talking to everyone though.

We got back to the apartment and rested when we realized we were hungry. The problem with our area is that since it's the real Italy with no tourists whatsoever, EVERYTHING was closed. The only things open were the flower shop, a fancy Thai restaurant, a Doner Kebap place, and the sex shop vending machines on the corner - random, right? We walked for a little while down the street and discovered a little pizza place. YES. We were all hungry. It was SO much fun because they didn't speak any English at all. I took Italian for 2 quarters my freshman year of college, and although I forgot most of it, I was able to use the limited amount I remembered. It made me SO EXCITED because they understood me! The pizzas were pretty cheap, so we each got a pizza for 5 euros each. We took them back to the apartment and ate half for dinner and saved half for breakfast. To tell the truth, the pizza wasn't that amazing - the crust was kind of terrible - but it filled our tummies.

Overall, it was a great first day in Rome, and I was thrilled to be able to visit this amazing, amazing city for the 2nd time.

You should listen to this :)