Rome

Day 1
Annie and I had most of this first day to ourselves because we decided to fly to Rome and get in around 2pm instead of wasting an entire day on the trains like the rest of the group and getting in around 9:30pm. Once we arrived, and made our way to the hostel (in an area I won't be recommending because it isn't near anything except for 1 metro stop that only takes you to the outer parts of the city) we dove out the door again to find a good Italian lunch. Power by a recommendation from the hostel worker, we dined at a hole in the wall, almost cafeteria style pizzeria with pastas and veggies. Then together we trekked on out to the marvelous Spanish Steps (which we learned were a peace offering from the French so then the Spanish and the French would be nice to each other if only on Italy). From there we wandered around the city, map in hand, in search of good Gelato. We learned that when going to a gelateria, the first thing to check out is the banana flavor... because if it is bright yellow then it's fake which means the others are fake... if it's banana colored, light brown/cream-ish, and all the gelatos are in metal bins instead of plastic, then that shows that they use all real fruits and that they are fresh! After I decided upon a delicious lemon and banana cone and Annie got a tasty frutti de bosco and mango cone, we licked our way to the Piazza de Navarro to see one of the many Egyptian obilisks, a fountain, and many paintings being sold on the sidewalk. Figuring we'd like to get showered back at the hostel before 7 other sweaty roommates showed up to take over, we headed back and got cleaned up/ read our books while waiting for the others to arrive. When the finally showed up we ended up back at the pizzaria we were at for lunch but this time for dinner and then we all collapsed early, preparing for a full morning of touring the next day.
Day 2
7am the next morning we were picked up by a minivan and taken to the entrance of the Vatican City. 6ish years ago I came to Italy with my family and in Rome we had an amazing tour with the best guide we've ever had, Ludovica, so in preparation for our time in Rome for Eurotrip I contacted her and arranged to have 2 half days of tour for the group thanks to my parents extreme generosity. So we met up with Ludovica's daughter, Flaminia, who is a wonderful lady and brought everything to life just as Ludovica did. I was surprised at how much I had forgotten from my last visit so I wrote everything down that I learned in the Vatican. So I am just going to make a separate post just about the Vatican, so keep checking for that post and my Florence post that will be up as soon as I leave the city (that is where I am right now while writting this post). After the Vatican at St Peter's Cathedral we got a very nice lunch and some delicious gelato, re-visited the Piazza de Navarro with the rest of the group, and then headed back to the hostel to take a very needed nap and get cleaned up before dinner. We got a bit to eat that wasn't amazing but then turn our night around when visiting the outside of the Coliseum and the Trevi Fountain (making our wishes by throwing a coin with our right hand over our left shoulder, hoping to come back to Rome again.
Day 3
On our final day we were with a tour guide named Tony who started us out at the Forum were we stopped above it with a great view and learned so many interesting stories about what happened there all those years ago. Afterward he took us to a place that not many tourists get to see, an orange orchard that looks out over the entire city, the most amazing view. He told us that that is where Danny Divito likes to go with his Italian sandwiches every time he comes to Italy, so cool! From there we saw the embassy to the Vatican of the smallest country in the world (which no is no the Vatican), called the Knights of Malta, it is actually just 1 building but it has its own passport and currency and everything! At this embassy you cannot go into it but you can look through the key hole and see a straight pathway of a vine garden that overlooks the dome of St Peter's Cathedral, so from that point you can see THREE countries... Knights of Malta, Vatican City and Italy! After that we stopped at the Circus Maximus before visiting a small old church that has that big Truth Stone from 'Roman Holiday' (let legend is that if you put you hand in its mouth and tell a lie then you get bitten, and the guy in Roman Holiday puts his hand in and tells a lie and pretends to get his hand bitten off by putting it up the sleeve of his jacket, scarring the character that Audrey Hepburn played, thus making this stone famous. For no other reason is this stone famous). Inside this church, the floor tiling contains this rare/ very expensive purple stone that is found in many Roman churches that today, one 6x6in x 2mm tile is worth 1.5 thousand dollars!!! From there we saw a fountain created by a student of Bernini and then the statue of Moses that Michael Angelo made for Pope Judias. He was supposed to made a huge square with 20 double life sized statues on each side (total=80) but only completed the one because he worked so slow and funding got pulled. His students made the other statues that surround Moses at this monument. The differences between Michel Angelo's Moses and all the others is remarkable. Near the end of our tour we visited a church that was build on top of another church that was build on top of an ancient Pegan equivalent of a church. Only recently did they discover this so they are still excavating and it is so amazing. For lunch we stopped at a restaurant referred to as "Mickey's" which is a popular favorite for American college students as well as our young tour guide, Tony. This guy, Mickey, is so amazing that the US ambassador in Italy gave him as a gift access to this military channel that almost nobody is allowed access to, to put in his bar/restaurant so he could show American football games to the people there. This gift was a thanks for all the help and guidance Mickey has given to American students over the years!! To top off our already full stomaches we stopped at a gelateria that has over 100 different flavors to satisfy your sweet tooth! Before the day ended we swing by the panthenon on the way to the train station to head to Florence.