Rome and Florence

So now i'm about to tell you about the weekend long adventure the 9 of us took to Rome and Florence. First of all, we figured it was cheaper to take an overnight train, so that's what we did. Second of all, we also opted not to go with the beds because they were 20 extra euro, we figured we'd be sleeping anyway.... so to make this long weekend story short ill start from the beginning.
We leave the apartment around 1pm, go to the train station, get our tickets stamped, and wait around a while for the train... meanwhile me and Chelsea go buy a bottle of wine and kill it before we went on . i also got lots of snacks for the trip. so we all get on the train in our designated seats (the trains have like 6 seater booths) me, chel, lucero, and tara get in our 4 seats and we're happy. we're ready to pass out and wake up in Roma. But, oh wait slight problem! The lady at the ticket booth so kindly booked our tickets for the NEXT day, even when I specifically remember pointing on a calender to her the correct date, but anyway, we ALL ended up seat less... all 9 of us... so we all start to sit in the hallway until the conductor told us about some seats that were open. Luckily we got in them and ended up sleeping with some random people, who ended up being very nice. Two of them were around our age, one was in medical school and the other was in the Army, both Italians. It's very interesting meeting new people on trains. There is a lot of time for conversation, that's for sure.


ROMA FINALLY! So we get to the terminal and figure out the metro right away. it helped that Amanda had gone down to Rome the weekend before because otherwise i would have been very confused. our hotel is right by the train station, but when we get there at 8am, they tell us the rooms won't be ready until 2pm... so we all just decided to pass out in the lobby. eventually they opened at least one room and the 9 of us sprawled out and slept until 1pm.

After the big sleepover we decide to venture out into the city. Rome is SO beautiful. I fell in love immediately. It's so warm, there are palm trees everywhere and the view is unreal. We decided to take one of those tour buses where you sit on the top. best idea ever. we got to see everything by just sitting down. we got off and saw the Colosseum and some other things and also got invited to do a few pub crawls whiich we did luckily...but before the pup crawl we got some pasteries that weree amazing looking and tasting, the only problem was the service there... terrible. Then that night the pub crawl happend, which may or may not be appropriate for this blog so i'm leaving that part out (no need to thank me mike and kathy :)

The next day we got back on the red bus and went to see the Vadican City. Amazing, amazing, amazing. I felt very fortunate to be where I was. We found this tour guide (well actually he found us), and he ended up being awesome! I hate tours and I hate listening and standing around, but for 5 euro this guy was great. We saw everything in the Vadican and the chapel. it was beautiful. After that he recomended us to an amazing resturant where we had the best food ever. and lots of wine and lemonchello yumm. we checked out campo de fiore after dinner but everyone was too full to party so we called it a night and woke up for Firenze....

So we take the train to Florence, get to the hotel, and it's pouring rain. pouring. we get some food, i'm wearing my poncho, we try and get another tour bus but its too expensive and Florence is small so we just walked to the market. We all split up and me and chel walked around for a while aimlessly. basically I found a map and we just walked and walked. Florence was very pretty but I wish I had more time there. After the day we went back, drank some vino, got some terrible chinese, and go sing some karaoke. good time. go to sleep, wake up for venice.
we get to the station to go back home to venice.. home haha.... anyway the train ride was hell again, we has to wait for abour 4 hours for the train to come... we played cards forever waiting, and when we got on the train people were in our seats bitching and it took a while for them to leave. they hate americans in italy.
anyway, after all of this I feel like i'm leaving too many things a mess at home, just hope it doesnt blow up when i get back....


"even if you can't speak the language, your heart will speak"