The final part of our Italy trip led us to Rome. Getting the train from Florence to Rome was so easy and nice, especially when compared to the Pisa-Florence train debacle. The hotel we were staying at wasn’t too far from the train station so it only took us about 10 minutes to walk to our hotel. The only sucky part was that it was raining and holding your umbrella while lugging around your suitcase in the tiny Roma streets is no cake walk. We made it to our hotel without getting lost! Shocking for me and Diana.

When we went to check-in, the receptionist informed us that our room wasn’t ready, which wasn’t all that surprising since we were early so we decided to wait in the lobby. While we were in the lobby, we asked about the wifi. The receptionist proceeded to tell us that since our room was upstairs, we wouldn’t have wifi since wifi was only available on the first floor. She said that since we wrote that we preferred 3 single beds when we booked, they gave us the room upstairs. My friend from Maryland still hadn’t arrived in Rome yet, but Diana and I made the executive decision that we would be willing to forgo the 3 single beds in exchange for wifi. You have to understand that Diana and I pretty much didn’t have wifi while in Florence because our hostel’s wifi was complete and utter crap. There was no way we were dealing with no wifi. So instead of each of us having our own single bed, our room consisted of 1 single bed and a double bed. However, the single and the double were smack dab next to each other…so, essentially, it was just one giant bed:

Emily had the “single” bed while Diana and I shared the double. It actually wasn’t so bad…and totally worth having wifi over.

Once we got our things settled in the room, Diana and I took off to explore Roma a bit. We quickly realized that crossing the street is a very scary affair in Rome. In Spain, I don’t mind crossing the street even if there’s no crosswalk because most Spaniards stop to let you pass. In Italy, however, there was no way Diana and I would cross a street without a crosswalk. They drive like maniacs! Exploring had to wait a little, though, because our hunger was our main priority. We ended up eating at a small little restaurant near our place (I can’t remember the name for the life of me) and it was pretty good. We were also able to satisfy our coffee fix there, which is always a good thing. We ended up wandering around and just seeing where we ended up. We walked to the Trevi Fountain, the pantheon, and while we said we weren’t going to walk very far…we somehow ended up at the Vatican. I didn’t even believe Diana when she said that I was looking at St.Peter’s Basilica. I was in actual denial that we walked all that way. We took some pictures and then proceeded to the metro because we decided there was no way in hell we were making the walk back to our hotel.

Once we arrived back to our hotel, we were pretty exhausted and just wanted to go eat. Diana had done some research on TripAdvisor and read about a restaurant near us called Mamma Angela’s. We walked over and it ended up being an excellent choice. Our food was delicious! The service is pretty great, too. It’s obvious that the waiters know a lot of the clientele are toursits and really want them to leave with a great impression of the restaurant. There was a slight (hilarious) misunderstanding between Diana and our waiter, which I won’t write on here but it made my evening. Don’t worry, though, karma came back to bite me for making fun of Diana’s embarrassment. But that happens later on in our travel. But, if you’re ever in Rome, I highly recommend Mamma Angela’s. The food is AMAZING (best pasta and tiramisu) and the waiters are incredibly nice and friendly.

Day 2 had been established as our “picture day” because it was suppose to be the day with the nicest weather. Our first stop was the Trevi Fountain:

Of course, things never quite work out as planned and when we went over to the Colosseum…it was closed for Good Friday. We proceeded to keep walking about and ended up at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where Diana ended up sitting on the steps and getting whistled at by one of the carabinieri. You can’t tell that well in the pic, but Diana is sitting on the steps:

And this is the sign we noticed after getting reprimanded by the carabinieri: Oops. We proceeded to wandered over to the Spanish Steps and chilled there for awhile. We ended up sitting down at the terrace of a random restaurant and getting some food (Again, I can’t remember the name of the place). And I spent most of the time staring at a chauffeur that was sitting in a car outside the restaurant because, well, he was nice eye candy. After finishing our meal, we ended up calling it a night and heading back to our hotel for the evening.

The next day, after eating breakfast, we made our way to the coliseum. The line was ridiculously long! We actually couldn’t find the end of it. Luckily, there were some people promoting a tour that would allow you to cut the line, so we jumped at the opportunity. It was kind of nice having the tour and it also included a tour of Palatine Hill afterwards. Here are some pics from it:

That sums up Saturday. The next day was Easter Sunday. Being me and Diana, our main goal for this day was finding some yummy food to eat. After some deliberation, we ended up deciding to return to Mamma Angela’s. Now, I should explain that the misunderstanding between Diana and the waiter had the waiter thinking that Diana had a crush on him, which was not the case. So we were a little embarrassed to be returning, but we hoped that the waiter wouldn’t be working that day…no luck. As soon as we walked into the establishment, our former waiter greeted us and said “Welcome Back!” So obviously he remembered us. He sat us down and we started to look at the menu to decide what we wanted. A few minutes later, the waiter returns with two glasses and says, “Champagne on the house!” and proceeds to our each of us a glass. He was very attentive throughout the evening and when he brought out the Tiramisu I’d ordered for desert…he’d made a whipped cream heart on it. How the tables turned from Diana to me, I will never know. Also, we definitely weren’t charged for the coffees we ordered and we were also given shots of limoncello on the house after we finished.

Later that evening, we caught up with my cousin who was in Italy studying abroad for his master’s. He gave us a nice tour around different locations and then we headed back to our hotel (much later than we had originally planned) and started to get ready for our flight…which was at 7 a.m. This meant having to wake up at 3 a.m. so we could take the bus that would get us to the airport. We ended up going to bed around 1, so we were functioning on 2 hours of sleep. Oh and did I mention that we then had a 7 hour lay over in Barcelona before finally flying home to Madrid? Yeah, we wanted to kill ourselves. I’m pretty sure I was asleep before the plane took off in Italy and I also napped in the airport in Barcelona. Oh and we had work the next day. Never. Again.

Italy has probably been my favorite trip during my time in Europe. I loved the sites and the food! I’d definitely love to make a return trip…preferably when it’s warmer so I can hit up some beaches.

Sorry that this post was so overdue! I’ve been crazy busy getting all my paperwork together for my return to the states for the summer and with the end of the year shenanigans at school. I’ll be writing another post discussing my NIE rewnewal and my autorización de regreso process. That should be up sometime tomorrow. Then on Wednesday, I’m off to the states! Can’t believe I’m so close to seeing my family!

¡Hablamos Pronto!