Quando a Roma!

Quando a Roma, when in Rome.  If you know me at all then you know that I am a "the usual" kind of girl, but I figured, since I'm here, I can make the most of my time being somewhere different by DOING stuff that's different.  Who knows?  Maybe I could turn out a little different too!
So on... Thursday... a few of us went out to explore Rome for the second half of the day after class.  It was definitely the hottest day since we have been here and we had a lot of places not-inside we had to attend.

 Some of the stuff in Rome is just crazy to look at.  You are just hanging out at a gelateria one minute and bam, you are at the Altare della Patria.  It is HUGE and pretty.  It probably one of the newer buildings there, I think it was built early 1900s... don't quote me on that.  ;)

It is amazing how you see things like this below and realize that all that is left of an extravagant place is just 3 columns.  

We went to see the Trevi fountain, this church nearby, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and Campo Di Fiori, and hung out to enjoy the city.  Naturally my new crew of 5 are addicted to shopping... so we went shopping a LOT.  We also passed by the I was told to go shopping at the market in Campo di Fiori, but it closed early (also like I was told), so when we got there, we only had a couple things to look at.  I bought some farfalle pasta that is candy striped.

  Then we were on a mission to the Trevi!  On the way there, we saw this pretty church, Sant'Ignazio Church and one of my classmates sang there two years earlier.  The ceiling in there was kind of amaze.

The Trevi Fountain is surprisingly crowded and there are these random people with cameras (surrounded by tourists with their own cameras, mind you) asking if people want their pictures taken.. "We already have a camera," ...said everyone.  I don't understand how they are going to make money.
Anyway,  I threw a coin into the fountain over my shoulder and the first one means that I will be back in Roma one day!  Horray.  Let's see how true that is.

Next, we arrived at the Pantheon.  There are these traveling books/audio books by Rick Steves that are awesome!  Since there is no talking in the Pantheon, as it is sacred, it is helpful to be sitting in the Pantheon and listen to the history of it on one of the audio downloads about it.  You get fun facts like the columns outside are all one solid piece...?!?! That is insane and most likely cost a fortune! Another thing about Italy/Rome is I feel that almost every sacred place has tombs- someone's remains are in a lot of places.  It is a little morbid to think about, but then again, tombs are to remember the lives of influential people and having them remembered in a sacred place is great- they will not be forgotten.  Still, the immature side of me is creeped out.

There is that gigantihuge hole in the top of the building and I believe it has spiritual meaning about God being present there or something along those lines.  If it rains?  There are actually drains in the floor (which is gorgeous btw) in the middle and along the edges.  It kind of slopes down by the edges and there is a drainage system.  Awesome.  The cool fact about this is that I think this is the building that is just as tall as it is wide, like you could put a huge basketball into it and it would just touch the walls and the ceiling perfectly. 

Here we have Piazza Navona.  It is kinda gorgeous and filled with people and people selling paintings (i bought two) and ristorantes.  There are fountains there, one is Fontana del Moro and another is Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi.  As I look at them, they are much bigger than I thought they would be- who has time to do this?  This makes me think of whether we would have such nice stuff if we took the time to make it beautiful.  I feel like art in our culture is considered to be a "waste of time" and efficiency is much more important.  Things that are rushed don't stand the test of time like the things here do!

Early evening was setting in, so we headed to dinner at this cute little place near piazzo Navona.  I loved it and I got the taglitelle bolognese and it was amaze

My group was tired and wanted to go back and chill, but I figured, quando a roma!  So, I headed back to Piazza Novano and checked out this magician from Australia.  Then I started walking down towards Trastevere, mostly because I wanted to see the water and if there were pretty bridges.  I am pretty sure no one would want to go out with me to grab drinks at night, so I was on my own in Trastevere!  On the way, I went to this little bar to get a drink just before I headed down.  I got a shot of Sambuca (definitely an entire glass of Sambuca, neat) for 4 euros.  After I was done drinking my "shot", I got a Peroni for the road- apparently you can just walk the streets with beer in hand... awesome.  I snapped a pic with my new friend Sal and then I was off over the bridge.

I found a lot of young Italian people at this bar called Friends and hung out w them for a while.  I have a curfew, so I left and I helped this older American couple get back to the other side of the water ( they were makin me look bad being out so late!

What. A. Day.

I sat on the bridge over the river with my Peroni and just enjoyed the fact that I was in Rome and seeing beautiful things.  It was kinda marvelous.  On my walk back home, I snapped some pics of the buildings, this place is fantabulous at night.