when in rome

i never knew the real joys of travelling until i came to england this past semester. so far, it's been a blast! a few bumps along the way, but for the most part, i'm having the time of my life. this said from a hostel in the heart of rome.

so much has happened in the last few days, having travelled from charlbury to london to rome. so i'll give a brief recap of some of the more interesting bits

thursday
-playing gin and cheat on the train to london while the man beside us tried to get his morning nap
-sitting in parliament at the house of commons while some members of government talked about the unlawful investigation of a government man for terrorism
-going on the london eye and then to the tower of london with my dad while he was here
-dinner at a french bistro in the heart of london, then a post-modern play that should have been thrown into the garbage and then burned
-staying the night at the ISH

friday
-crappy eggs and good pastries at the ISH
-tubing it to the globe theatre, well, the reconstructed version in a new spot. still amazing
-walking the streets with sharon, jodi, heather and ree to see london bridge - still standing - and tower bridge, plus a cathedral or two and ship called the Hinde, then spending what seemed like the whole day travelling on the tube
-going to westminster abbey only to find out tourist hours had ended, but then finding out the evensong was RIGHT NOW and that we could go for free - best part of my trip so far
-st. paul's cathedral at night with the bell chiming eight
-buckingham palace where we lay on the steps out front and thought about the queen, then ree dreamed that james was a cloud...
-collapsing after walking for 12 hours at mcdonalds where we have never enjoyed bigmacs as much
-seeing jodi and sharon off to edinburough and feeling so sad about not seeing them for a week
-taking the "easybus" for 2 pounds and entertaining our 10 year seasoned driver
-making a fort on the floor of the london luton airport and sleeping with gabi and megan until we could check in
-realizing that the lady from ryanair i talked to was apparently on crack because i could NOT take my purse on for free and that in fact i had to pay 12 pounds to check my bag.... not cool
-getting the full "are you sure you're not carrying a weapon" search from a very unfunny female security guard at the airport while the 3 girls laughed at my very unamused face
-boarding our nofrills aircraft only to find out that it was pretty much a bright blue and yellow windup plane... but it got us there!

saturday
-being woken up by rebecca to see the alps below
-taking the bus then tube to the rome termini station then finding our hostel, hostel eden, where we had to pray a little because of the sketchiness
-taking the 15 euro tour bus around rome to get our bearings, using our 2 day unlimited ticket the same day and doing it again, but this time checking out roman life instead of roman sights
-tomato and cheese sandwiches from the supermarket, where we didn't know you have to a. weigh one tomato and b. pay for a bag. oh well
-having a pigeon poop on my arm and then having a fit... and then making ree wipe it off
-the Santa Maria basilica.. forget england.. italians know where it's at!
-passing out in our sketchy hostel before 8 and waking up at 8 the next day, refreshed

sunday
-having our packaged croissant breakfast at our sketchy hostel, then taking some in our bags for snacks, and then wrestling with an ill-informed cleaning man about getting our 10 euro key deposit back.. which we did
-exploring on foot to find our second hostel, only for ree to realize that 157 was in fact a mini mart, only for me to realize that the number was 159 and ciao bella was two doors down
-finding some unbelievable sights, museums and churches on our way to our bus stop
-taking our tour bus for the third time to the colosseum and palatine, exploring, then having a picnic lunch on the grass in front of the colosseum with the pigeons
-hopping back on the bus to the vatican, where we saw the apostle peter's tomb, michelangelo's pieta and some of the most beautiful art i have EVER seen.. and then somehow missing the sistine chapel, and the pope speaking at lunch. we missed that too. oh well, there is always today!
-walking all the way from the vatican across the city along the tiber, amongst endless great value in REAL dolce and gabbana and REAL dior sunglasses.. it was hard to resist
-watching a crazy woman scream periodically then attack a female tourist
-meeting a nice american girl and then going out for pizza and pasta with her
-getting a strawberry and wildberry gelato then sitting on the spanish steps while italian men seranaded us all night, and then meeting some crazy indonesians who are going to add us to facebook... hilarious
-happily making our way back to our safe and secure home, ciao bella

so for now, the places we have seen remain somewhat of a mystery... we've seen so many famous things in so little time. but pictures will come so i can prove it. for now, pray for us as we find hostel number three and then plan our journey to florence and beyond.

ciao!