When in Rome...

I went to Rome this past weekend, and let me tell you, it was absolutely amazing!  At first when we got there on Friday, I really wasn't impressed and was like this is lame.  There are a lot of beggars and people trying to get your money and whatnot.  But then on Saturday when we did a tour of the city, it was just unbelievable.

On friday we got there at around five o'clock.  My buddy Chris, Chris' friend John(the guy that we stayed with), and I went out to dinner to some pizza place that's supposedly one of the best pizza places in all of Rome.  The pizza was amazing!  I mean it was thin crust so not like Chicago style deep dish, but the sauce was delicious.  You could definitely tell that everything on it was fresh, and it wasn't filled with preservatives and whatnot.  We also drank 2 bottles of red wine between the 3 of us, usually I'm not the biggest fan of red wine, but it was really good. So then after dinner we went and got gelato, which of course was really good.  I got Stracciotella(sp?) which is basically like vanilla chocolate chip, and then a scoop of caramel. Then we went to this place called Scholars, which was an Irish pub and drank some Guinness.  There was an Italian cover band playing there that we watched and they played a bunch of classic American songs, but they were pretty good.  We were there for a good while, and then we went to another bar, until it closed at 2am, then we walked back to the apartment in the rain, haha.

Saturday was our big sightseeing day.  We woke up around 10.  We went to Vatican city, went through the Sistine museum, which also has the Sistine Chapel in it.  It was super cool to see all of the paintings that I've grown up only seeing in history books, and the whole time I was thinking...uhh the ACTUAL painting is RIGHT in front of me!...Nuts.  Then we went into St. Peter's Cathedral which is the largest church in the world.  It was MASSIVE!  It would take you at least 5 minutes to walk from one side to the other.  Pretty crazy, and there were so many things in there.  Chris' friend John who was showing us around was a blast.  He has been to Rome 11 times, so he was a really good tour guide, he knew all the ins and outs of the city, and all these cool stories and whatnot.

After the Cathedral we went to the Spanish steps, and then out to lunch.  This lunch we had was basically legendary.  We ordered one of those appetizer plates that has a little bit of everything, so things like sundried tomatoes, cheese, spinache, cucumbers, zuchini, very good.  Then I got cheese filled tortelini which was amazing.  We all ate bread and drank two bottles of red wine.  Then after lunch at the same cafe we went out on the front porch, drank gin and tonics, and smoked cuban cigars.  Basically heaven.  John loves to play the guitar, and was trying to convince this old guy on the street right next to the cafe that was playing and singing italian songs to let John play a song, he kept saying no.  Finally John was like, I WILL PAY YOU TO USE YOUR GUITAR, so the guy gave it to him.  He played a Bob Dylan song and sang and everyone around was watching and clapping and stuff, which got the street performer mad, so after he was done playing the song, the guy left, hahaha.  Then we all had a small glass of this stuff called Grappa, which is an italian liquor that is basically straight grain alcohol, it's 120 proof.  They only give you about an ounce and a half, and you just sip on it.  So after we were done there, we had a good buzz goin and went and saw the Pantheon, which was cool, and then the Trevi fountain, which I got to make some wishes in.  Next, we went and saw the Coliseum, didn't get to go inside, but it was still pretty cool from the outside.  After that we went out to dinner, got some more pizza, drank some more wine, smoked another cuban cigar.  haha life is good.  We were back in our apartment by midnight because we had to wake up so early for our flight back.

I won't be traveling anywhere this weekend, however next weekend is when our 10 day break starts.  Both of my parents are coming, and I'm very excited to see them.  They're flying into Paris Thursday morning, and I will be meeting them in Paris Thursday evening.  We will be spending a few days in Paris, then going to London, then back to Brussels for a few days.  Not sure if everyone else has heard, but there's a lot of unrest in Paris at the moment as the government tries to pass legislation to raise the retirement age by two years.  People are in the streets protesting and rioting.  They're set to vote on the legislation today, so hopefully by next Thursday things calm down a bit.  Also, there have been a few terrorist warnings/threats against Paris and London, so hopefully things go smoothly and we don't run into any trouble!