When in Rome...

In April I had the chance to go to Rome for a few days with a few other missionaries. It was a long weekend and we got some people to cover our duties so we could enjoy Italian food for 5 days before we had to return to miserable school food. Without any problems we arrived in Rome at 11:30 pm and had to take a taxi to our hotel. For some reason I can never seem to book hotels with easy access to the airport or metro stations. This trip was no exception. Though our hotel was very nice for what we paid, we were in the middle of a business district / ghetto. So "Rome" was a 20 minute journey away. The hotel didn't have a shuttle service, but did have a car that we could book to take us to the nearest metro stop.
When we arrived at the hotel after a long day of traveling we were all so excited to fall back into a cloud of pillows and down comforters, instead we fell back on a concrete slab and nearly broke all of our backs simultaneously.

Our first day out on the town was Friday. We had a tour booked at the Coliseum. Though it was nice to hear a little of the history of such a fantastic piece of history, I will admit I was taking pictures and simply admiring it more than listening to our guide. After seeing the coliseum we needed food. Something we were looking forward to since landing. Though the tourist office was unable to give food advice they hinted at a restaurant down the road. So we stopped at the first place we saw and devoured fantastic pizza and pasta; though my dish was a little cold. Then we ventured out to the rest of the touristy sites in town. The Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, and some of the bigger plazas along the way. At the Spanish Steps there was a festival of some sort and an outdoor concert.

I was stoked to see the Kony campaign still hanging around in Rome :)

Getting back to the hotel was a little bit of a gamble. The hotel's car would only take us to the metro station. Getting back was up to us. So we hoped on the bus that we had seen drive by our hotel hoping it would take us there as well and not the other direction. After what seemed like the longest bus ride of my life, through the ghetto no less, we saw our hotel out the window. After a long day of walking we returned to our rock hard beds.

The next day was our tour of Vatican City. We had planned on grabbing a bite to eat before our tour at 1:30 but the bus took so long to pick us up we didn't have time. Besides, we wanted to see about adding something to our tour. Once inside we found a cafeteria which we though would save the day. Instead we found the most wretched pizza on the face of the earth. You'd think in Italy we might have pizza that is at least homemade, not a frozen pita bread with tomato paste smeared around in unappetizing clumps. But after our failed attempt at satisfying our hunger we entered the Vatican museums. Some of the rooms and artifacts were indeed interesting, but our main purpose there was the Sistine chapel.

After walking all through the museums and seeing the Sistine and St. Peters we decided it was time to relax a little. We got some real food and headed back to the hotel for some pool time.

On Sunday we decided to find a market. One of the girls read that there was a big market in the Trastevere district of Rome... Whatever that meant. So we set out in search of the big market. But of course on Sunday the buses run different, so we had to get on a bus we had never been on, running a route we had never seen, and our only instructions were it stops near the metro. That last bit scared me. Near is a relative term. As it turns out we missed our stop. But the bus driver said that the bus eventually stopped where we needed to go. After another long bus trip we arrived at yet another Roman ghetto and began walking. After walking for a half an hour we decided to turn around. By the time we figured out which way to go we decided the markets were going to be closed and we gave up searching. We headed back to the hotel defeated. After getting up early to catch the bustle of the market, sitting for so long on a bus, and then walking so much we were beat. Since we had already seen everything we wanted to see we headed back to hotel.

Monday was our last day. The forecast was for rain. Since we didn't really pack for rainy weather we figured we would just go to the mall since we didn't want to just wander around in the rain. When we woke up, I noticed the weather looked promising. So I told the others I was going to take all of my camera gear and go on a hike. They decided the weather didn't look promising enough. So they went to the mall and I headed off into Rome. I wound up walking just under 7 km (4.5 miles). I had the greatest time! There was no rain the whole day, and by 12 o'clock it was sunny and warm. I was really able to just walk around the back streets of Rome and take as long as I wanted setting up a shot. The best pictures I have of Rome came from that 6 hour journey. This is some of what I got:

SPQR is the Latin abbreviation for "The Senate and People of Rome"
it is written, carved, and engraved everywhere.

We had a great trip!