innsbruck, austria

Sorry for the delay in updates! I know you all live to read my blog [cough, cough], so I'm sorry that I was in absentia all weekend. You probably know that I spent Friday and Saturday in the beautiful Austrian city of Innsbruck, located in the western Tyrolean region. My journey started as many do at the Santa Maria Novella train station here in Florence.

Me and my friend, Mary. Our train departed at 9:49 PM and we rode north through the night.

We arrived, obviously exhausted, around 4:30 AM in Innsbruck. We spent over an hour just hanging out in the train station, waiting for the buses to start running so that we could catch the D line to our hostel, located on the other side of town. After boarding, we realized that the driver of the bus spoke absolutely no English, and I restored to gesturing and holding up fingers to purchase bus tickets. We were dropped off close to our hostel, and found it with ease.

Unfortunately, we were not supposed to arrive at the hostel until after 9 AM. But what were we to do? It's not like anything was open at 6 AM, and it was certainly too cold for us to just plop down and wait...so we entered the hostel. Like a sign from the gods, the door was unlocked, and we stepped into a waiting room where a little doorbell said "Ring if you need a room." So I rang it. I was greeted by a disheveled and bewildered Austrian woman, who scolded me for taking a train that arrived so early. I'm fairly certain that I was called crazy and inconsiderate, and after many apologies on my part and a lot of ranting on her part, we were given the key to a room where we proceeded to pass out until around 9:30 AM.

The hostel was really cute.

Fortunately, the woman was in a much better mood when we returned for official check in around 9:30. She gave us a map and told us to head to the historical city center to find some pastries for breakfast.

In the daylight, we were amazed by all that we had missed in the early morning darkness: the Alps! They were HUGE and surrounded the city on all sides like massive stone walls. Throughout the entire weekend, I was awed by them.

And did I mention it was COLD? Those are icicles on the metal bars.


The town itself was adorable, all stereotypically Austrian and quaint.

It seemed like every corner was a photo op. This is me on the Innbrucke, the bridge over the River Inn that gave the town its name.

We spent the better part of the first morning just walking around, looking for one of the elusive authentic Austrian cafes that the hostel woman had assured us would be in no short supply. We finally caved to our hunger and settled for what was obviously a chain restaurant, as we had seen one on nearly every corner. Have no fear, however. We each ordered a sandwich that filled us up for HOURS. We ended up skipping lunch simply because we weren't hungry. After fueling up, we walked around the historical center of town.

The Triumphforte, built by Empress Maria Theresia.

More Alpage.

This statue was outside of the Fernandeum, a museum that we didn't get to go into. Of course I made time to parody its statue, however.

Emperor Maximilian I's Golden Roof.

After walking around for a bit, we decided to into the Golden Roof museum, where we paid only 2 euro to enter and get an audio tour! Sweet! It was really interesting. I managed to not get sleepy until the VERY end, despite my lack of sleep. The Golden Roof was built by Maximillian in the 15th century in order to impress all who entered Innsbruck, which was the center of his territory. Where the roof is now located used to be the part of town one would see first when entering. The roof itself isn't made of pure gold; the shingles are made of copper and then covered in gold plating.

The historical district.

We decided that our next move would be to head towards the Schloss Ambras, or Ambras Castle, located on the outskirts of town. Our main issue was figuring out how to get there. Though Innsbruck is small, this distance didn't exactly look walkable. After following some faulty instructions by a misguided but trying-to-be-helpful souveneir seller, we managed to nab a bus map and I figured out that we needed to catch the Sightseer bus...now if only we could find one of its stops!

Sweet success!

The Sightseer was one of those buses that allows you to kind of hop on and off at will, so we jumped off at the Bergeisel stop, right before the Ambras. It is the site of the ski jump stadium used in the 1985 Olympics that were held in Innsbruck. It's also got a GREAT view of the entire city.

Olympic rings.

The entire city!

The bus took a little longer than expected to return, but we did make it to Schloss Ambras eventually...

This is the main castle. There were seveal other smaller buildings around it.

History lesson: Schloss Ambras is actually a medeival castle that was refurbished by Archduke Ferdinand II for his wife, Phillippine Wesler. Because Phillippine was not considered of lower status than appropriate for an Archduke, she and her two sons were not allowed to live together in the main castle within the city. The two sons were also stripped of their hereditary rights.

I was really fascinated by the museum inside. There were a lot of portraits of Phillippine and her sons, as well as the Archduke's second wife, his niece, Anna Caterina Gonzaga and the daughters that she bore Ferdinand. Further into the museum was the chapel, which obviously held a fair amount of religious art.

Ferdinand's family tree.

Random interlude: there are a lot of random crucifixes in Innsbruck. Just throwing that out there.

As I mentioned before, Mary and I never really got hungry for lunch, so when we were done with the Schloss around 5 PM, we were both STARVING [and cold!]. We headed back to the hostel to pile on some more layers and to get a dinner recommendation out of the hostel owners. They directed us to the restaurant right next to the Golden Roof, called Gasthaus Goldenes Dachl [The Golden Roof Restaurant, essentially]. I was expecting it to be really touristy, but I was pleasantly surprised!

I ordered Bauerngrostl, a Tyrolean specialty with potatoes, some kind of pork, parsley, and a fried egg. It was warm, hearty, and DELICIOUS. Exactly what my exhausted tummy wanted.

Rationalizing that we had walked ALL DAY without lunch and that Austria was known for its sweet strudels and fruits, we each guiltlessly ordered a dessert, and were not disappointed.

My apple strudel, with a kind of cream sauce. Heaven on a plate.

Though we may be college students, I think that anyone would be completely wiped after touring a city all day on less than 4 hours of sleep. We headed back to the hostel, each took a glorious hot shower, and settled into bed with our iPods...before 9 o'clock. Ha. It was worth it. We awoke well-rested and ready to check out of the hostel at 8:45 AM...and realized that it was SNOWING outside! We were out the door and searching for breakfast by 9:30. Of course, all of the cafes we had seen close to the hostel were CLOSED. Don't ask me why; it was 9:45 on a Saturday morning: prime breakfasttime.

Doing the Austrian thing with my leopard print umbrella in the snow.

We returned to our trusty breakfast spot of the previous morning, Der Backer Reutz, which we decided was the Starbucks of Austria...one on every corner! We ordered sandwiches again and decided that we should go big or GO HOME...so we split an apple/cheese pastry:

Feeling confident in our newly-mastered bus skills, we took one up into the mountains to see the Alpenzoo! Unfortunately, it turns out my beloved Steve Madden boots are NOT snow boots and have absolutely no grip on the bottom. I managed to claw my way, slipping and sliding, up to the zoo entrance, terrified of what was going to happen when I had to go back down.

I may or may not have broken some bush branches in my desperate attempts to stay on my feet. Don't blame me! They should install a rail, in my opinion.

We had a great time at the zoo. In spite of the heavy snow, most of the animals were still out and about, or at least visible in their cages (except for the terrarium animals, like snakes, but they always suck). I just wish that the animal descriptions had had English translations.

Probably not exactly what the horns were meant for.

Elch!

That owl had a dead mouse in its claws. Ew.

Braunbar! [Brown bear].

After the zoo, we were pretty much done with outside-time. It was cold, our hair was wet, and we were ready for some warm indoors action. We first choose the Bell Museum, and again caught a bus to take us there. When we arrived, however, it was CLOSED, so we waited another 30 minutes to catch another bus back to the center of town, where we discovered the best museum ever: the Tyrolean folk art museum! Through this museum, we also had access to the Hofkirche, or Court Church, the main church of Tyrol back in Maximilian's day. They also gave us a coupon to get any drink at the museum for 1 euro. SUH-WEET.

We spent the better part of 2 hours touring the museum, learning about life in 14th and 15th century Austria. I thought most of it was pretty cool, though I did get bored in this exhibit dedicated solely to the different kinds of parlours that were seen in people's homes. HUH?

After that, we were ready to see the Hofkirche!

This tomb was actually designed by Emperor Maximilian I for himself, before his death. However, it took more than 100 years to be completed, and he was obviously buried somewhere else before its completion. Maximilan was never moved, and remains buried elsewhere in Austria, but his tomb remains an elaborate reminder of his great political legacy. [Also, a little-known fact: at the time of his death, Maximilian had all of his teeth removed, his head shaved, and his body covered in lime and ash. Apparently this was how he wanted to appear before God. What a strange, strange man.]

That black figure on top of the tomb is Maximilian, kneeling. Slightly narcissistic, this man.

Hofkirche courtyard.

The entrance to the museum.

I wanted to climb the city tower, but it closed at 5 PM and we got there too late :[

One last shot of the city center.

This was the main bus stop, Marktplatz, that we came to know and love/hate.

We killed a little more time souveneir shopping before heading to dinner at Gossers, a restaurant that had been recommended to us by a woman we'd met on the train to Innsbruck. We never got her name, but we'll call her Greta. She told us that this place would have great Austrian food and was located in the Rathaus Galerien, which meant nothing to me at the time. It turned out to be a gigantic Austrian mall, and Gossers turned out to be the equivalent of a Chili's or an Applebee's. Slightly different feel that what I had been expected, but again, with no lunch, I wasn't in much of a mood to protest.

I ordered the beef goulash with bread dumpling, and Mary ordered cheese spratzl, which Greta had personally recommended. I wasn't wowed, by my dish, but it was again, hearty and filling. We decided to split dessert, a giant cheese strudel this time.

The weekend had so far been very relaxed and unstressful, exactly what I had wanted out of my Austrian adventure. At this point, it was dark and cold, so we decided to catch yet another bus back to the hostel to pick up our luggage, after which we planned to sit down in a pub and have a beer before our train departed at 11:05 PM.

This plan went seriously awry. I, obviously overconfident after less than two days of bus-catching, made the executive decision that the D/E line was the same as the D line, which we had taken to our hostel the previous morning. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. After about 10 minutes, I realized that we were on a completely different route, headed way, way north of Innsbruck, up into the mountains. By the time we realized where we were headed, it was too late to jump off.

We reassured ourselves that the bus would eventually turn around and head back to Innsbruck. However, we had had a previous experience with a bus that had stopped, and the bus driver had told us it was the last stop and made us get off. We sat on the bus, terrified of what would happen if the driver suddenly stopped the bus in one of the tiny towns we were driving through, and told us that this was the end of the line. Visions of freezing to death in a town called Rum or Absam were dancing in my head; equally terrifying ideas about missing our train were screaming through my brain.

After we'd been on the bus for an hour with no sign that we would turn around any time soon, Mary got up the courage to ask the driver if we would EVER go back to Innsbruck. Fortunately, the answer was yes, and half of my nightmares faded away. But as time ticked by, I was still afraid that we'd miss our train; after all, we still had to return to the hostel, grab our stuff, and get back to the train station hopefully before 11:05. After nearly two hours on the Bus of Terror, we got off back where we started at Marktplatz.

We were overjoyed, to say the least.

We had just enough time to practically RUN up to the hostel, and then speedwalk all the way back across town to the train station, where, after all of our panic, our train had been delayed by 20 minutes. Typical.

A little crazed, but happy more than anything to be on the train.

I slept most of the way back to Florence, where we arrived around 6:30 AM. I collapsed in my bed upon my return, and spent the rest of the day just uploading photos, watching TV, doing laundry, and grocery shopping. All of my Innsbruck photos have been added to the photobucket for your viewing pleasure (link in the sidebar).

My roommates and I experimented this evening in the making of ribollita, a typical Tuscan soup, which I will share in my post tomorrow.

thursday top ten.

I'm aware that I skipped my last Thursday top ten [whoops]....my only excuse is that I was busy thinking about packing for Rome. And today, I COULD use the excuse that I'm busy thinking about AUSTRIA, but I'll suck it up, and be a good little blogger :]

Top Ten Things I Miss About America

1. Certain brands of certain foods. Like Fiber One granola bars, Kashi cereal, Quaker oatmeal, Laughing cow cheese....now don't get me wrong: Italy has it's own share of brands that I'm going to miss when I get back to American (Nice Morning by Kellogg, anyone?), but I definitely have had a Fiber-One-bar-shaped hole in my heart ever since I arrived.

2. Driving. STRANGE. I never thought I'd miss having to gas up the old Honda, but I DO! It gave me the freedom to come and go as I please, and though I can walk *most* places in Florence, it gets a little iffy when I have to go all the way across the city. Though I must say, the US should institute a better train system. I'd take a train over my car any day.

3. Measuring cups/kitchen utensils in general. We've had to get a little creative when cooking here, since we literally have no way of measuring any ingredients ("Oh yeah, I used an empty Nutella jar full the last time I made that. It worked great!"). That also means no baking if the batter doesn't come pre-prepped in a bag. Sad day.

4. Everyone is going to absolutely crucify me for this but...the weather! WHAT IS UP WITH THIS ALL-DAY RAIN? I adore Florida thunderstorms because they come, and go, and that is the end of it. Here, you wake up, and it drizzles from dawn until dusk. Talk about a bummer! It makes me want to sleep all. day. long. (which I kind of did yesterday. Whoops!)

5. Campus. I'm not surprised at this one; there are few things I love in Gainesville more than the feeling of being on campus at school, sitting in the Hub with Starbucks and a gooooood book.

6. Free water at restaurants. For real, I literally pay about 2 euro at every restaurant to get a drink. Half the time I order wine, just because it is the same price as water.

7. Long showers. Dear Lord, I will never, ever take a shower (or a BATH for that matter!) for granted again, if you could only just allow me a shower more than 3 minutes long here. Thank you. Amen.

8. Television. We literally have not turned ours on once since we got here, and though I've been using the internet to keep up with my shows, I have had to find other ways to occupy myself when I need veg time. This is not always a bad thing, but more often than not, it leads to bad things like naptime instead of good things like exploring-Florence time. I'm working on it. Also include in this section, all of my TV-on-DVD. I've resorted to watching clips of FRIENDS on youtube to assuage the cravings.

9. My friends. DUH. Who didn't see that coming? I love my roommates and I've met some cool people here, but they all think my football obsession is weird :[ And before we met, they all thought I was some sort of sorority biddy just because I heart Florida. Only you guys truly understand me and the cult that is the Gator Nation.

10. The fam. Oh, I know you're getting teary-eyed! I literally have not spent more than a week at home since Christmas break of my freshman year of college. I take so much for granted being able to zip home for a weekend when I want to living in Gainesville. Being here just makes me appreciate all that my family does for me (even when my siblings are too busy to acknowledge that I'm there).

That's all, ladies and gents....It is almost 6 PM here, and my train for Innsbruck leaves at 9:38 PM. We will arrive in Austria SUPERMADCRAZY early (4:31 AM, what what?), drop our stuff off at the hostel, and then wait for a breakfast place to open, I guess? Haha. Then we will spend Friday and Saturday there before catching another overnight train back at 11:05 PM, arriving in Firenze at 6:18 AM. What a whirlwind!

Me, Laura, and KJ also just booked our spring break hostels! We are going to be in Dublin for three nights, March 19 - 21, then we're splitting off for a night. They are headed to Galway, while I'll be going to visit the lovely Jenny in Belfast, Northern Ireland on March 22. We'll meet back at the airport to head to London for two nights from the 23 - 24, then take an overnight boat to Amsterdam on March 25, where I will be until Monday, March 29. Again, wow.

Expect an awesome update sometime Sunday afternoon, after I've spent all day paying back my sleep deficit. I'm totally stoked for Austria...it's supposed to snow on Saturday, so I've got my excited face on!

inspiration, courtesy of san miniato al monte.

So today, my writing class convened at San Miniato al Monte, a church located WAY above Florence, up above even the Piazzale Michaelangelo. I fully underestimated how much time it would take to get there, so I came huffing and puffing up the steps of the church about 10 minutes late...fortunately, class hadn't started yet.

It really blows my mind that I have CLASS in insane places with views this, though:

I decided that today, in spirit of blog diversification, I would share what I wrote during class! The prompt was fairly free ("write a response to this place") so...yeah. Enjoy my creativity!

When I finally reached my destination after enduring a long and arduous climb to the top of Florence, I was rewarded with a breathtaking view of the city, sprawling like a lazy giant as far as the mountains and river would allow. My eyes danced over red-brown roofs and past the sights that I had become accustomed to over the past five weeks. Thought beautiful, the city seems remote and untouchable, as though it could not possibly be the same city that I have now called home for over a month. Standing in front of the gleaming façade of San Miniato al Monte and looking onto Florence, a city I know as intimate, cozy, and cramped at times, I am overwhelmed by the realization of how much I don’t know her and by how many secrets she is obviously still keeping.

I do not know the name or origin of one particularly impressive bell tower, rising arrogantly, close to the banks of the murky Arno River. Normally, the Duomo is my favorite Florentine monument; however, in this moment he Duomo’s enormity, its insistent and pervasive presence in the cityscape only serves as a reminder that I have yet to climb the 400 steps to its top. And my eye searches the banks of the Arno for Cascine Park, and when I see it, I am in full awareness of the fact that I have barely penetrated its outermost reaches.

The cobblestone streets I know well enough to gripe about are invisible. The heckling, harassing salesmen of the San Lorenzo market are silent, unable to annoy me from my current height. The wind that perpetually whistles through the too-narrow streets falls still up here as I bathe in the warm sunlight reflecting off the church. Everything that I thought I knew has vanished. Florence is a mysterious woman, seducing you with her obvious beauty, knowing that her true wonder is only seen from a distance. In this moment, I feel that I will always be at a distance; I feel that I have barely begun to tap the tree of this city’s wonders. Up here, Florence laughs at me, daring me to call her my own.

I am more than happy to escape this crisis of self as I walk behind the church at my teacher’s instruction. What other secrets does San Miniato hold for me? I am told that there is a cemetery here, but as I round the corner, I see anything but. The tombstones and crosses rise up like rigid flowers in the strangest of all gardens. In other spots, they are more reminiscent of stoic, emotionless soldiers, guarding the remains that they watch. This juxtaposition of beauty and utility is only the beginning, as I walk further into the sacred plot.

This cemetery can only be described as beautiful, not at all like those at home, completely darkened by the rotting shade of the old oak trees. Here, with the bright sun and chirping birds, I must look closer to understand the melancholy feeling that, in spite of the beautiful weather and lyrical music, permeates the air, completely tangible. Beyond the uniform whiteness of the tombstones and the family tombs that resemble exotic churches in miniature, the raves tell a story that chills me, even as I am swathed in sunlight.

Names of what I can only guess are husbands and wives are eternally separated by their birth and death dates, which are now all that defines them, along with the occasional sentence of poetry or prayer. Sadder still are the lonely names of children, who don’t even merit inscription, as though their lives were too short or too sad to inspire it. I wonder who these people are, and as I notice the fresh flowers that adorn many of them, who the people that still love them are today.

I may never know anything more about these people beyond what their burial sites reveal. I can, however, get to know the city that they lived in, the city they called home. I can try to unearth its many treasures, though judging from the view off San Miniato’s hill, that would take much longer than the 3 months that I have left. Despite this, I resolve to try my best, taking inspiration from the souls of the dead around me. Though my time in Florence may be short, I do not envy these souls resting atop this hill, forever taunted by the changing panorama and all that they had allowed to remain unseen in their own city.

roma: what a whirlwind.

Let me just start by saying...RO-MA RO-MA-MA! Just kidding. But we did do a lot of Lady GaGa singing this weekend.

I'm always a little overwhelmed about how to begin on these long weekend recaps when I don't get to do updates day by day AS I'm experiencing everything. To be honest, Rome just felt like a whirlwind. I loved it, but I never really felt like I was THERE, you know what I mean? Anyway, the trip started at 7 AM on Friday morning, when I was on my way to the bus...and realized that I'd forgotten my passport, which API had expressly asked us to bring (that we didn't end up needing...annoying!). So Sam and I both ran back to the apartment, up the hellstairs, and then back to the bus, where we got some of the WORST seats, all the way in the back. Oh, well.

I slept most of the way, after putting my headphones in. We arrived in Rome around 11 AM, and were herded off the bus, divided into groups, and sent off onto the most impromptu and unexplained tours, ever. I could hardly hear the guide, but I was having a good time just being there and seeing everything. We started in the Piazza di Spagna, where we saw...

the Spanish Steps.

Then we headed to the Trevi Fountain, where I, of course, took the cheesy shot of me throwing my coin in.

The fountain itself.

The Pantheon was also on our route.


The Piazza Navona.

Haha, the guide wanted to show us this statue really badly, but when we got to it, it had been covered for some reason. Apparently, back in the old days (technical term), when people weren't allowed to speak out against the Roman government, people would come in the night and write on these statues all over the city whatever they were thinking about, and then other people would write in response on other statues...so the statues were "talking" to each other!

There was also a market area called Campo di Fiore, and this little truck in there just amused me.

Flower stand in the market.

After the tour, we were all WIPED, so we checked into the hotel and I crashed for about an hour. I was ready to go after that, though, so while Gillian and Sam napped some more, Marissa and I went out for a walk. We stumbled upon a cute little bakery with the most DELICIOUS looking pastries, so of course we had to stop. I thought this was a cannoli, but I was wrong...still good, though.

We walked toward the Tiber River (Tevere, in Italian) and stumbled upon the isola in the middle of the river.

The sidewalk to the Isola was really pretty.

On the bridge, we came upon a man making copper jewelry by hand. I bought a copper ring from him from 6 euro. Pretty sweet.


Later that night, after Sam and Gillian had joined us, we went to an exhibit in the Piazza Cancelleria of drawings and remakes of Leonardo da Vinci's works.

The exhibit was very interactive, and interesting.

Water shoes! Remember, from the movie Ever After?

That night, we went in search of this mysterious restaurant where Gillian's parents had eaten while they were in Rome. After we made it all the way across town to where their hotel was, we found out that it was a lunch restaurant. Fortunately, Gillian had another trick up her sleeve. She took us to a restaurant on top of a building on a terrace, so we had a view off. The food was definitely good, but I wasn't totally WOWED. Apparently, when we were leaving, the waiter told my roommate Sam that I was beautiful, haha. We were totally exhausted at this point, so we retired to the hotel with a bottle of wine and just relaxed.

The next morning, we woke up super early to take advantage of the hotel breakfast without having to wait in a super long line. After breakfast, we were taken on a tour of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

Look! That's me in front of St. Peter's, with The Jacket on (in spite of the ridiculous this-is-so-not-February heat).

There was all kinds of crazy art in the Basilica. It was beautiful, but a bit too ornate and overdone for my taste...but I guess that is the Baroque style. Me and my roommates just felt that it is a little hypocritical for Catholics to espouse the philosophy of living humbly and serving the Lord and then to have this enormous church full of priceless art and extreme wealth...but maybe that's just my cynicism about Catholicism talking.

Statue of St. Peter, and the line of Catholics waiting to touch his feet.

After the tour of St. Peter's, we were taken to the Castel of San Angelo, where the pope went in the past in case of emergency, for protection. The castle itself was pretty fascinating, but by this point, I was SO hot, sweaty, and thirsty that I could barely pay attention to the guide. I needed a restaurant, and fast.

This was the view from San Angelo's onto the city of Rome. Pretty inspiring.

After grabbing lunch at a salad bar that API had recommended in the Vatican area, we realized that none of us knew where the Sistine Chapel was. If you had asked me, I would have told you that it was in St. Peter's....so wrong. We guessed that it HAD to be in the Vatican museum, because there was just nowhere else on the map that it could possibly be. Fortunately, we were correct. Most of us thought that we would buy a ticket, walk in, and be able to go directly to the Chapel....wrong again. We walked through hall upon hall of art, and honestly, by the end, I was just walking without even looking. I had come to see the Sistine, dammit, and that was what I wanted to see! I was especially enraged after the final room was full of MODERN art...talk about a non sequitr! Some of the art, though, was pretty incredible. The photo below is Raphael's School of Athens, which is immensely famous, my roommate Marissa explained to me.

There were all sorts of tease-y signs like this, making us *think* that we were about to finally see the Sistine Chapel, but every time we just walked into another art-filled room. I think it was Gillian who said, "I feel like I'm going to need someone to tell me when we're finally there." There was a lot of "Are we there yet?" -ing and we were all relieved to finally get there. I snagged a seat on one of the benches along the walls, and honestly, almost fell asleep looking at the ceiling. I don't have a lot of religious education background, so a lot of the pictures didn't really make sense to me, but it was still pretty incredible that one man had painted the entire thing...solo. Also incredible were the guards in the room...but incredible in an inappropriate way! They kept shushing the crowd so loudly that their shushes would ECHO. They must have had some serious lungs of steel, but it was definitely a mood killer. And talk about hypocritical. I've always had a problem with shushers, though. Do you really expect huge groups of tourists to enter this hugely famous chapel and remain entirely silent for upwards of twenty minutes? You, sir, are kidding yourself if you do.

Oh, blogspot, uploading my pictures in reverse order again.

This is the salad I ordered at Insalata Ricca. The Tropical Salad, with mango, avocado, crab, lobster, sesame seeds, pine nuts, corn, and oil and vinegar dressing. Not AMAZING, but definitely light and fresh like I needed after the ridiculously hot afternoon.

After the Sistine Chapel, we intended to go to this coffee shop near the Pantheon that our tour guide had supposedly told a girl the day before that it had the best ICED coffee in Rome. Now, we have yet to see iced coffee in Italy, so we definitely went to check it out. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The guy looked at me like I had two heads when I asked, so we settled for a cappucino at a different bar on the way back to the hotel.

Roomies on the bridge. Look! It's The Jacket again!

Just a shot of the Tiber.

That evening, after resting at the hotel for a couple of hours, we took API's restaurant recommendation for dinner, again and were very pleasantly surprised! The restaurant was very cozy and intimate, and the waiter was extremely helpful in picking out a bottle of wine for us. I had a pasta dish with fish (forget what kind!) and tomatoes that I was very pleased with. We were very proud of how Italian we were, since we had arrived after 8 PM for dinner instead of at 7ish like we usually do (the Italians eat MUCH later than Americans!) and then sat there, enjoying our wine and just chatting for a long time.

After dinner, Sam and I decided to check out the nightlife in Rome. I'll spare you the gory details, but we went to a bar called Sloppy Sam's (and you can bet that Sam got a lot of mileage out of that) where we met these Scottish guys who were literally wearing kilts. There were a lot of them in town for the weekend rugby game against the Roman team. We got bored around 2 AM, so we headed back to the hotel and crashed.

The next morning, we had to check out by 10 AM, so we got up early for breakfast again, and then packed up our stuff and got out. We only had a little time before we had to be back for the bus tour, and Sam was feeling the effects of the night before, so we just got an espresso at a caffe and mostly just chilled. I did get Marissa to take a shot of me in the Piazza Navona, though, one last time.

Me enjoying my uber-expensive latte. They definitely overcharge you for table service. If you think having to tip 15-20% is a big deal, America, then think again!

Haha, Sam loved this red Vespa.

I was pretty bummed because there was this juice/smoothie bar next door to the hotel that we all really wanted to try. When we got to the bar on Sunday morning, however, it was CLOSED. Of course, when we walked past it again at 12:29 PM, literally 1 minute before we were supposed to be on the bus, it was open. We ran inside, but only Gillian managed to get her smoothie before the API directors told us to get our butts in gear. Sad day.


We went on a very whirlwind bus tour of the sights of Rome before stopping at the Colosseum. It was pretty cold and windy by this point, so it wasn't as great of a sight-seeing day as the day before had been, but it was pretty sweet nonetheless.

Little known fact: Did you know that the women had to watch from the highest level with the slaves because they were prone to falling in love with the hot, muscular Gladiators? Yeah. Also, the thumbs up/thumbs down thing in the movie Gladiator is all wrong. Apparently, giving a thumbs up means that you want the guy to be killed, because the thumbs up represents the sword being out of its sheath. When you do a thumbs down, you wrap your other fist around your thumb, to symbolize it being put away, and giving the man salvation.

Me inside the Colosseum.

Me and Sam on the lowest level, where the animals and Gladiators stayed until they had to go out and fight.

The whole thing was pretty intense. I was quite impressed that it was still standing after 2000+ years, and that we were still allowed to WALK in it.

Yep. I'm a ham. I swear it's genetic.

Just walking down a street in Rome..going to get a cappucino...hey, look, it's THE COLOSSEUM!

The ride home from Rome was uneventful, took us about three and a half hours include a 20 minute stop for food and bathroom break. I definitely had a great time, and the city was quite different than I expected. I had been expecting something dirty, overcrowded, and EXTREMELY touristy, but I got a taste of big city charm with a lot of historical themes woven in. A pleasant surprise, and I definitely enjoyed this weekend much more than my crowded and rushed experience in Venice.

The rest of this week is going to be a blur for sure...I have an essay due tomorrow that I have procrastinated on to the MAX, then a couple more days of classes before I leave on Thursday night for Innsbruck, Austria for the weekend! Stoked!