So I have decided to pick up another minor. Along with my business and political science minor I have decided to add Roman History to the list. Sorry mom and dad I am staying a little bit longer in the good ol' state of Oklahoma! As soon as I stepped foot off the train in the Rome Train Station and spotted the McDonald's I knew I was going to love this city! Rolling our luggage across the town trying to find our hostel for the last time was a little nostalgic. Wait, who am I kidding no it was not. But it was sad to think that Rome was our last stop before heading back home. Now we had done great this whole trip without losing or forgetting anything. But can a trip really go that smooth? NO WAY! I do not care who you are something small or large will usually always get forgotten! So in this case it was not just a book or a jacket, it was a passport. Yes, Kelly Bass left her passport in Florence. Sorry Mrs. Bass your daughter may not be coming home as planned after all! Thank goodness we had to show our passports before checking into our hostel because it would have been a different story if she showed up at the airport without it. But luckily the people at our hostel were so great and helped.
They told us to go to TNT. Which essentially is where they send someone to go get whatever you left behind. For all we know this guy could have picked up Kelly's passport and started selling it on the black market. Sounds a little sketchy sending someone to fetch your things, but oh well we had no choice. So we went to this place and what do you know they do not speak English, only Italian. We tried to communicate and were like She. Left. Her. Passport. In. Florence. The guy says, "Oh in Australia?" Hmm Australia, Florence, yeah I can see how those two are similar. So we had to resort back to or hostel and they helped us, or Kelly, every step of the way. It looks like she would be able to go home after all, or hopefully! The passport was supposed to arrive the next afternoon, one day before our flight leaves to go home. Keep your fingers crossed!..
After the morning adventure it was time to eat. Now I ate the best pizza I have ever had in my life right across the street from our hostel called Yellow! MMM mmm mmm! It was delicious! With our bellies happy we decided with only two days in Rome and so much to see it was time to get after it! We went on a walking tour. Now this was the best decision we made the whole trip and probably why I enjoyed Rome so much.
Our hostel advertised this walking tour called Roming Rome. It was for about 4 hours and it would take you to the Colloseum, the Pantheon, Jewish Ghetto, Circus Maximus, Palantine Hill, etc. If we had visited each of these sights by ourselves we would have done what I would call the ooo-ahh walk. We would have seen the building ooed and ahhed and then gone to the next. We would have missed out on all the fun facts or history that we got to hear! We got to hear the history of everything! I mean I have so much information about Rome in my head right now that my brain does not know how to organize it! I was just eating it up wanting more and more and more! Did you know that the Pantheon still today, no one knows how it was built? I think that is pretty crazy! Or that the Emperor Nero (he was a crazy man) built this huge mansion and inside his mansion he had this lake. And what do you need in a lake a boat. And how did he pull this boat, with 1000 swans? Yes pretty crazy! I think what made this walking tour so great though was that our guide was young. He studied Roman History and college and moved to Rome only 4 years ago. Now I am not sure what you are suppose to do with a major in Roman History, but I guess that is why he is here, right?
The next day we were loving the walking tours so much that well we decided to go on another. This time to the Vatican! Now unfortunately for us we missed the pope by one day. He was coming to Rome on Wednesday and that was the day we were leaving to go home! How neat would it have been to see him! Oh well.
But we got to see the Vatican, St. Peter's Basilica (which is the biggest Christian church in the world), and the Sistine Chapel. You are not allowed to take pictures in the Sistine Chapel but no worries Taylor snuck a few! In the Vatican Museum there are a lot of rooms such as a candelabra room and a map room. In the map room, or the Gallery of Maps, there were these huge painted maps along the walls of the regions of Italy, which were painted in the 1580s. In 2004 the maps were tested to see how accurate they were. They were 94% accurate and Venice was 99% accurate. How crazy is that! Also in the Vatican they have Nero's bathtub that is made of the most pristine marble. So on these two walking tours that we took our guides also took us to the restaurants were the locals eat. You know I love feeling like a local! So on our Vatican tour we went to the best sandwich shop I had ever been to! Better than Which Which, better than Quizno's! See we were getting all the perks. If you can not tell I loved the walking tours! If you plan on going to Rome that is definitely the way to see the town. I swear you will go away wanting to add a minor too!
Oh and if you were worried, Kelly's passport came and she made it home safe and sound just as planned! Well, except her luggage getting lost, but that is nothing compared to the passport!
Our European Adventure was finally over and it was a bittersweet feeling.
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