Italia

July 5th 2009!!! Bonjourno!!!!!! Happy Belated Birthday America! Ok everyone I have soooo many stories to tell about Italia! Which is my new favorite country. I haven’t had anytime to write on this thing and I don’t even know where to begin. But here goes my attempt to tell you about the best five days of my life!
We pulled into Italy on July 1st into a port/city called CIVITAVECCHIA!! Now lets try to pronounce this: SIV-IT-TA-VEK-EE-YA…take a second to practice….ok moving on….as soon as we got there I got off the shipped and hopped on the first train to ROMA!!!!!! Omg I love Rome, I seriously seriously seriously love Rome! We took an hour train ride, that was probably the most crowded train I have ever been on in my whole life, I stood the whole time, but it was worth it. When we got to Rome, I was immediately in love. There were so many different types of people and food and shops and everyone was dressed soooooooo nice!!! I loooooooooooooooooove Italian fashion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! well, not everyone was dressed so nice, I saw some ridiculous outfits hahahaha, but overall it was so nice to look at all that Rome had to offer.
Because my roommate and I are the least organized people alive, we didn’t have a hotel or hostel booked before we got to Rome, so we kinda figured we would just wander around until we found one. Soooo, we just started to walk, with aaaall our stuff on our backs. The streets of Rome are amazing. Its so strange to see modern shops and stores and restaurants intertwined with ancient ruins that I have read about and seen pictures of in all the stupid history books I’ve had to read. Of course, or first stop was food. We had some extremely good pizza at this little hole in the wall place and then…..my favorite thing in the entire universe……GELATO. THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING EVER INVENTED. ITS BETTER THAN THE LIGHT BULB, THE AIR PLANE, SLICED BREAD, EVERYTHING! Its Italian ice cream, but I swear it has to be made with special ingredients from God. I ate so much gelato in Rome its actually embarrassing. This stuff come in every single color, flavor, size, smell, everything. Omg I love that stuff. After that we walked towards the Colosseum. I almost passed out when I saw it. You don’t even realize that these ancient ruins will just pop up out of no where. I was literally walking down a street that had stores selling flags and shoes and all these random things, then I turn the corner and BAM! The freakin Colosseum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im still in shock that I saw it. I know so many people that have seen it while on vacation or something but its soooo different to study these places in such detail, take test on the information, dissect the history behind the structures, learn who built it, who was in power while it was built, how much it cost, why it was destroyed, then go see it. I cant put it into words, but its just incredible. The place is huuuugue. I can only imagine how immaculate it was before it was destroyed. We walked around the whole area around the colosseum and saw all the ruins and palaces in the area. It was crazy. People literally lived in apartments across the street from the colosseum. There view out their window EVERY SINGLE DAY is the Colosseum… I thought I was cool because I live on Broad Street in Philly….guess that’s out the window. We went the Roman Forum which is still sp preserved. It started raining and it was so cool to be stuck under a 3000 year old ruin while it pouring down rain. After we left there, when the rain stopped, the most dreadful thing in the world happened. MY CAMERA DIED. It just died on me. Shut off and did not turn back on. At all. I could have cried in the middle of the piazza. But luckily I had my phone so I got some shots on there. We walked all around Rome, we saw the gorgeous Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, all this cool stuff.
After about 12 hours of being homeless we finally found this run down, beat up hotel called Hotel Michigan. I walk in and the guy just looks at me and says nothing. So I look at him for a little and then the phone rings and he answers it. So I stand there while he has a wonderful conversation for about 7 minutes, clearly any other time I would have left the building, but my feet were throbbing, I was exhausted and everyone was half a second from passing out on the couches in the lobby. So finally he gets off the phone and says “Prego?’ I think that means what do you want, thank you, hello, goodbye, your welcome and something else in Italian because they say it for everything. So I responded, “ Can I sleep here?!” I was irritated by that point, like why else would I be standing at the desk at 1 in the morning. Anyway, he tells us the price for 4 people for one night in a double room. He said 100 euros, I said can I see the room…he said….ok…so we followed him back to the room. He opened the door and I almost burst out laughing. I asked him again the price for the room and he said 100 euros….i said….how about 80? He said……ok. Hahaha. I think he was drunk but whatever. So let me tell you about this room. The window faced a wall. Not one piece of furniture matched. There were three beds in the room all hard as rock. HARD AS ROCK. The closet door was hanging off the hinges and the best part………….the BATHROOM! The shower was nothing more than a hose with a shower head attached to the end with a drain on the floor. There was no tub or curtain and the shower was 5 inches from the shower so you could use the bathroom and shower all at the same time is that’s what your into. There was a fan in there that turned on when you turned on the light and it sounded like 1000 old men snoring. Needless to say this room was amazing. We had the best sleep ever and laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.

The next day grace and I left our other two friends while they went to see the leaning tower of Pisa. We went off to the Vatican. I really cant put into words how beautiful the Vatican is. I really really cant describe it. The art I saw was magnificent. The architect of each room was spectacular. Skipping all that stuff…let me get to my favorite part. The SISTINE CHAPEL. OMG IT WAS GORGEOUS BREATHTAKING AMAZING SPECTACULAR STUPENDOUS SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPEALIDOIOUS ADAKJDHKAJSHDKJASKHASKJFHAKSFAK! I was in shock. The room was huge every inch of the place was covered in beauty from floor to ceiling. I cant believe a human created such magnificence. I almost got arrested by Vatican Police because I was taking pictures but I sweet talked my way out of the whole jail in a foreign country thing. I advise everyone to try to go to Rome before they die, at least once. After seeing all that cool stuff we went to St. Peters Basilica. The largest church in the entire world. It was ridiculous. Every inch of this place had an angel or a saint or a picture or some type of ornate detail. I think I could literally spend weeks inside that place in order to see everything in there. Gorgeous. The nuns were singing when I walked in and I almost cried. It sounded so beautiful and it echoed throughout the entire church. I really wanted to see the pope but we were too late for mass. As we were we leaving, we walked to the main doors in the lobby area and the sky started turning all grey and it started thundering and lightening. I really think it was the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard. Then all of a sudden it started pouring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like hard core rain. But the sun was still peeking through the clouds. Then, the most magnificent sight I could have possibly seen happened while I was standing at the door. It started hailing! The hail was the size of baseballs. It was ……I cant describe it. It was just amazing. All of Saint Peters Square cleared out. There wasn’t one single person to be seen. It was amazing. I watched a hail storm in St Peters Basilica in July. It was unreal. I cant really write anymore…it has taken me almost 3 days to write this. I’ve been really busy. But ill try to stay on top of this blog thing a little better…im getting complaints.  Ill be in Croatia tomorrow. They are known for having the most beautiful beaches in the world. So im pumped.
Omg omg omg I almost forgot to tell you about CAPRI! The most gorgeous island I’ve ever been to. I feel like everything is the most something I’ve ever seen or been to or heard or whatever. But its ok. I loved Capri. It was beautiful. I’m moving there when I become a millionaire. And I will be a millionaire. Basically Italy rocked. Bye everyone. More after Croatia.