Roman Holiday

Two conversations that occurred when my mother called on Thursday--

Mom: I'm going to meet Grandma at the Olive Garden on Powerline in a few minutes.
Me: Oh, that sucks. I'm in Rome.

Mom: It's raining here.
Me: Oh, really? I'm in Rome.

I went to Rome for literally 48 hours and could not have had more fun. I was initially supposed to stay in Rome for just one night and continue on to Venice but it was just way too expensive and complicated so I switched my return flight to be from Ciampino and decided to shove a week's worth of sightseeing into just under two days and it actually worked fairly well. It was my first time in Italy and going to some places doesn't faze me but it was just mind-blowing to realize that I was actually in Italy and oh hey, there's a 2000-year-old Colosseum on the bus route and there's the pope and no big deal or anything.

This was also the first trip in which I essentially traveled by myself. Jesse and I went together, same flight and same hostel, but due to complications beyond my control we were apart for around a day and a half. The hostel was outrageously social so I hung out with two guys from Dallas on Thursday who were in town for spring break and then an amazing girl from Canada who was backpacking through Europe. Traveling by oneself is a strange sensation. On one hand, the freedom is incredible - no waiting for others to make up their minds, no compromising, just doing whatever you want. On the other hand, it can be lonely and if you're not good with maps like I am, it can be incredibly frustrating. If anything, though, it proved that I can do this for the two days in Scandinavia, so that's a plus.

On Thursday, I bonded with my roommates from Texas (as the only girl in the room, I kind of ran shit... just saying). We went to the Spanish Steps (where I had flashbacks from my mom's Europe journal-- AmEx is still just around the corner), the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, and the Forum. I can't really go into individual detail about each thing but I'm just blown away by how ancient everything is. I love London and Paris for their histories but they really just can't compare to a city that is actually thousands of years old. I also don't know if Romans are totally nonchalant about living in Rome because I'm sure after a while the thrill of walking by the Colosseum dissipates but I was completely in awe.

I headed to the Vatican afterward and went in the wrong direction a few times, but once I got there it was beautiful and old and kind of smaller than I expected but it was still very cool. Honestly, I prefer Notre Dame but that's just me. That night I took a night tour operated by the hostel, so I saw some of the same sights again and that was okay, I guess, but at least there was context involved.

There was a five-hour mass transit strike scheduled for Friday so I was out of the hostel REALLY early to beat the shutdown and of course the only thing I saw closed was the metro, so whatever. I navigated my way to the former Jewish Ghetto and stayed on the tram over the Tiber River. Walked through Trastevere back to the Jewish Quarter and toured the Jewish Museum and the synagogue. The Jewish Museum was interesting because Rome has the oldest Jewish community in Europe (they arrived in 161 B.C.) and while there aren't many artifacts from that era, they were fairly solid up until 1943 for obvious reasons. The synagogue was gorgeous, though- very Mediterranean and colorful but security was freakishly intense when I was going in- the questioning was akin to boarding an El Al flight.

While walking back to Via Nazionale, the main shopping street, I kind of wound up in the middle a massive anti-Berlusconi protest run jointly by a trade union, a student group, and, of course, the Communist group. Not going to lie but I kind of felt like a war photographer with my point-and-shoot camera. Don't try to convince me otherwise. The protest started near the Vittoriano (a huge white building known as the "wedding cake) so I checked out the exhibit inside. Because clearly visiting Auschwitz a week ago didn't depress me enough, I checked out their massive Auschwitz exhibit and, true to form, was depressed again. I rectified that by going shopping, and because I'm trying to buy a book from every place I go, I wound up with a biography of Cleopatra. Being a history major gives me leeway to be a huge nerd.

At this point it was around 2 p.m. and the only major thing left on my list to see was the Pantheon. I actually successfully navigated my way over with the hostel's map and my joyrides on Roman public transportation, was surrounded by southern Americans, and hung out inside and read Let's Go Europe to kill some time. Unfortunately it feels like all of Europe is under construction because it's not quite tourist season but I hope the officials know they're killing all my pictures. Okay. Cool. Also, I loved being mistaken for an actual Italian even though I can barely speak the language; the odd thing is that now that I'm back in Prague, the first thing to come to mind is "me scuzi" instead of its Czech equivalent. That shit doesn't really fly here because I think the Czech people have the same disdain for Italian tourists that they had for the Soviets in 1968.

After that I went back to the hostel with the intent to read a little and wound up drinking three happy-hour glasses of wine and scarfing pizza with Neigele from Canada and I loved every second of it. Stumbled onto the bus to Ciampino, bought Italian fast food to bring back to Prague (Mr. Panino is EXCELLENT), and somehow managed to retrieve Tory from the airport minus his belongings. Tory traveled from the airport to my dorm in a t-shirt, sweatpants and dress shoes. It was 20 degrees outside. Go Tory.