Land of the Pizza, Pasta and Gelato!

This weekend my friend Amy and I took a random weekend trip to Rome!  Although it rained practically our entire trip, it was a great experience overall!  We had decided from the start to cover the main things, but take our time and not plan on seeing everything so we were not rushed.  However, I feel like we successfully covered the city.

It seems like we can never go anywhere without meeting some questionable people… and our first encounter this time was on the bus from Granada to Malaga.  The seats we sat in were across the aisle from each other, and each of us had a man on the other side.  While we were chatting, both of the men would occasionally (and very blatantly) look-no, STARE- at us.  We never really figured out why they were staring at us, but we suspect it was because we were speaking English.

When we finally arrived in Rome we went directly to our hostel.  There we met Lucas, the very knowledgeable guy in the lobby.  He suggested that we try this place, La Capitale, for dinner.  We decided to take him up on this offer.  La Capitale is a family-owned restaurant with traditional Italian fare.  Amy had ravoli and I ordered pasta with tomato sauce.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the sauce was actually quite spicy, something we hardly ever get in Granada.  This was probably my favorite meal of the whole trip!

The next day we went to the coliseum.  Because we bought these passes for 2 free museums and discounted prices, we decided to do a tour of the coliseum.  We thought the tour wasn’t really necessary, but it was informative and pointed out some of the facts you wouldn’t know if you didn’t have the tour.  And on top of that, it was funny to listen to our tour guide, Tiberio, over-pronunciate most English words.  After the inside of the coliseum, we continued our tour with the Roman Forum.  The Roman Forum is where Julius Caesar is buried, and where the ancient Romans held essentially all of their daily public activities.  After the tour we attempted to go to the Pantheon but it was closed, so we just got pictures from the outside and left.

The last full day we were in Rome we went to the Vatican City.  It was quite the experience waiting to get into the museum of the Vatican.  It was raining and the man behind us seemed to like to rest his umbrella on Amy’s umbrella; along with the people selling umbrellas and “jump the line” passes.  If you don’t believe how close this guy was, here’s the picture to prove it!

Once we were inside the museum, there was pretty much people everywhere.  Amy and I were both surprised that it was more art things, because we thought it would be more historical information about the Vatican City.  At the beginning it was very strange because there were ancient Egyptian mummies and other artifacts.  That was really weird, because the Egyptian’s had multiple gods, and this was a place of holiness in the Christian religion. Finally we arrived at the Sistine Chapel, and there were so many people, you could hardly move!  In the chapel there are signs that say taking pictures is not allowed.  Apparently no one in the chapel saw that sign, but after taking a few pictures (including one of the sign that prohibited it) a security guard walked up to me and told me that if I was going to take pictures, at least do it without flash.

Most of this trip consisted of walking around in rain and seeing interesting sites but not wanting to take pictures in order to avoid getting completely soaked.  However, I do wish I was able to take better pictures.  As I said earlier, somehow we are unable to avoid sketchy people while traveling, and on the way back to Granada we encountered the second round.  These people were necessarily sketchy, just seemed to have had a little whiff of what I call “crazy gas” before boarding the plane.  The people in the row across from us were a couple, a woman who was very skinny and the man, who had a belly that poked out of his shirt.  Maybe these people weren’t crazy, maybe just entitled.  But since I was in the aisle seat, I got a very close up view of said belly, along with ALL of their shopping bags being dropped on my arm.  The people sitting behind us would constantly laugh, but it sounded more like a cackle so Amy and I were trying to figure out what was going on back there.  The last implication of consumption of the “crazy gas” came when we were about to land.  The pilot must have had some too because the plane dropped what felt like 10 feet and everyone on the plane gasped.  When we finally landed safely, everyone began to clap.  This had also happened when we landed in Rome, and I told Amy that I wish everyone would clap when I did my job correctly, but this time I couldn’t help but join in.

Now that we are safely back in Granada, classes have resumed as normal (unfortunately) and this weekend we have an olive oil tasting, which I am excited for!  Stay tuned for the next update!

Tesla