Rome, Italy

Our second stop was Rome, Italy. I had 5 nights and 6 days there, but to be honest, you can never have enough time in Rome.

We arrived in the afternoon of March 20, myself along with the 4 guys from Tennessee. We found it amazing that in a matter of a 2 hour flight we were going to be in a completely different country, with a different culture and language. It was so cool. When we arrived, we searched for our hostel first to get settled in. We finally found The Two Ducks Hostel and made our way to our room. When we got to our room we realized there were a couple small bags,so we were sharing the room with one other person.

We decided to take a walk around the hostel. Within a matter of 5 minutes we had arrived up something amazing. In the first night alone, we stumbled upon the President's house, with the Vatican in the distance. We also wandered upon Trevi Fountain, where there was a massive crowd. Rome is so gorgeous at night when all the big buildings and monuments are lit up. I have never seen such a pretty city at night. We headed back to our hostel to meet our roomate for the next couple nights, a man from Bangladesh. He snored like a frieght train, so most of us got absolutely no sleep the first night. For the rest of the time being, we all moved our mattresses into the kitchen to sleep. I think our roommate 'Furook' caught on, but he was a nice guy, and we got along when we he was awake. So it all worked out, he got to snore and we got to sleep haha.

The second day we headed for Vatican City. It was Sunday, so we thought it would be the most exciting day to see the area. We ended up staying for noon mass, which was in Italian, but so cool. The Basilica is amazing, like no other church. The outside is huge and has the big dome. The inside is just stunning, very intricate and beautiful. We headed out late afternoon, and there was a marathon going on that day. Rome would definitely be an amazing city to run a marathon in.

The following day we dedicated to the Coliseum. When we arrived in Rome, we all chip in one euro and bought a guide book. We designated one of the guys, Ryan, to be the tour guide for Rome. So as we were walking around the Coliseum he would tell us all about it, which was really helpful to know exactly what we were looking at and what it truly meant. The Coliseum was so cool. We spent about 2 or 3 hours inside. We spent the rest of the day looking at all the ruins around it, which were amazing. I learned a lot about the history of the area, which is so neat.

The next day I, along with 2 of the guys, sight saw around the hostel area, just checking out churches and fountains and anything else we stumbled upon. We eventually made our way to the Panthenon, which was cool. It was really nice on the inside. Unfortunately the outside was half way under construction so it was a little disappointing, but the inside definitely made up for it. After this day, two of the guys, Ryan and Darren headed out to Turkey for a few days. Bobby and Ryan Post had one more day, which was Bobby's birthday. We spent Bobby's birthday just kind of aimlessly wandering, which when you are in Rome you will most definitely find something neat that way. Our friend, Joe, arrived that day as well so we got him settled into the hostel.

The last day in Rome, Joe and I went to Sistine chapel, which was so amazing. It was just so cool to actually get to see all the paintings by the most famous artists in the world, and they were all so gorgeous. We started to head back gather our luggage and got rather lost for about 2 hours, which is not hard to do in Rome we discovered. We headed back in the direction of Vatican City to collect our bearings, and there were tons of people outside the basilica chanting and dancing around and we had no idea what was happening. We had to head off, but later we found out that we were pretty sure the Pope was coming out that day. We headed off to spend the night in the Rome airport before flying to Malta early in the morning.

Rome was so amazing, day and night. Oh yeah, we ate pizza and gelati almost everyday, it was soo good! Because we took no public transportation while in the city, I now understand the saying that Rome was not built in a day.