Paris, Cyprus and Thessaloniki- 4 weeks of backed up blog posts I have to do. What to do first? I spend too much time thinking about that than actually writing something. Anything at all. Maybe my evening swims by the lighthouse in November? Or my time olive picking? Or my hikes up mountains. I have done so much that I am thankful for during my semester abroad. I can't believe it is almost over!
Rome Day 3… gosh that was so long ago! What did I even do? Good thing we have to take a travel journal class. This was Day 42 of my semester abroad right now we are on Day 76! Time passes so quickly!
The first sentence in my travel journal is "Today was a rough day!" hahaha… Go figure. After having to fight over whether we took the bus or walker 2 hours to our hostel the night before anyone would call it a rough day! We were suppose to leave home at 7:30am and walk the Roman Forum towards the Colosseum. I didn't roll over in bed until 9am and then there were 3 girls rushing around all trying to get ready because we had to check out by 10am.
The first thing we did was walk to the train station to check our bags in to a locker room. The line was soooo long though we would of spent AT LEAST an hour on the line so instead we just decided to walk with our over packed bags… BAD IDEA! Within one hour I wanted the day to be over. We went to the Colosseum and I took a 2 hour break there to sketch. It was nice because tourists would walk past and look at us sitting there with our huge backpacks and sketching. There is a lot more detail I could have put in to the sketch but I think it's pretty nice considering hundreds of people kept walking in front of me.
After the Colosseum we walked through the Roman Forum… At this point we are still miserable, sleepy and aching from the night before so everything is seriously just a pile of old rocks. We have been looking at them all semester so all we wanted to do was get in and out… terrible. I know. But look at these awesome photos I somehow managed to take.
Next we moved on to find the Pantheon. One our way we made a stop at a restaurant and I had seriously the best pasta of my life. It was rigatoni with hard salami and a truffle sauce. I have to make that one day. I don't remember the name of the restaurant or where it is… I'm telling you. This day we weren't into anything so we ate our bellies full and made plans to meet up with our friend Juan, who happens to be doing his semester abroad in Rome. Good thing too because we were planning to crash at his place tonight, since we had a 6am flight the next morning. After that we made our way to an old gothic church- Santa Maria (there are a ton around, but this is the one by the Pantheon.) It contains the fresco of Jesus, depicted as a baby with a man's face, in Mary's arms.
Finally we found the Pantheon! One of the first buildings you will ever learn as an architecture student…. To me it was pretty much an anticlimax. First of all, they wouldn't let you sit anywhere to sketch inside, so I had to take a photo and sketch from that.. pretty much not authentic. And then it was sooooo crowded. I couldn't imagine how crowded it must get in the summer. It was like Universal Studios in the summer. Crazy. Ventilation wasn't good either so I had to leave or else I was going to pass out. This huge bag weighing me down, no water left in my bottle, no bathroom near by… Everything wasn't working for me. So I rushed out and found a spot on the steps of the fountain in front. We sat there pretty long. All too exhausted to make a new plan in our head. Seriously we just sat there staring, not sketching. Until this lady came up to us and asked us to tell her a funny story about our trip abroad. (Apparently she has a blog and she worked in Missouri. She gave me her contact info but I lost it, sad because she was suppose to make a post about us and our funny stories that night.) Of course the highlight story was our post it note sketch hostel! She couldn't believe it so I showed her a photo of the post it note! (If you missed that post the bottom of the right column to my blog for Rome Day 1)
While she was talking I ended up getting distracted by a parade of soldiers. I have no die who they were, why they were there, if it was normal… but I got some pretty cool pictures of them. Do you guys know who they are or what they are for? I was too tired then to find out and I'm just too lazy now to try find out :P
Then we moved on to our last official stop of our Rome trip- Piaza Niavano.
(NOT MY PHOTO)
Looks great doesn't it?! I was so excited to see this plaza. Especially as the sun was setting… One again though I was let down. This part of Rome is just over crowded with tourists!!! I am glad I experienced this now instead of on my honey moon or something. It is just crazy packed here! I couldn't take a step without someone getting in my photo.. I gave up. It was time to find a bed, for all of our sakes. So we called up our friend again and planned to meet at Trastevere…. THIS PLACE IS THE HARDEST LITTLE TOWN TO FIND! We got on a bus going the wrong way… OF COURSE. Good thing this little boy was on the bus and helped us. Poor guy didn't speak a piece of English though so communication was tough. He did set us in another little Piazza though: Campo de' Fiori. During the day this plaza is a flee market and at night it turns into an active square with restaurants and shops. We called Juan again and told him we were lost and to meet us here for a beer. While Julia and Pema had a drink and some snacks I went shopping. Nothing helps to release stress than a new pair of shoes! I got an awesome pair of grey leather boots and a sweater. Just in time too because Paris was FREEZING! By the time i got back Juan was there and we went to Trastevere… Did we walk? Catch a bus? Train?…. I have noooo idea. All I know is it felt like forever before we sat down and had a meal, and went back to his place. We passed out on the floor within minutes and Juan scheduled us a morning taxi at 3:30am to start our trip to Paris.
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