So Kaitlin and I are currently in Rome, and it is the last of our 7 wonderful (and sunny!) days in Italy. I'll give a bit of description now because we are at the hostel with a few hours to spare before heading to the airport for London again. I'll update this a bit more when I can look at my journal and remember a few more things, but we ate a lot of pizza and pasta and had gelato every day! Its okay we worked it off by walking everywhere! Amazing food, spectacular sights, and sun were the highlights of our trip I think.

We began our spring break in Venice and by chance arrived during Carnevale. We got to Venice Treviso airport very late at night and took a taxi to our hostel, B and B Dolce Vita Treviso. It was a very nice place where Kaitlin and I shared a double bed, had our own bathroom, and the breakfast was wonderful. It was also very easy to get to the main city centre as the bus to the train station stopped just outside the hostel. It took us about a half hour from the train station to get into Venice, and from there we took a water boat (vaporetto) to Piazza San Marco. This is the main area of Carnevale, and there were some pretty incredible costumes and masks that people we wearing. Kaitlin and I got our own Venice, handmade masks. It was great to be a part of it all. Then, we took a walking tour of the alleyways of Venice, learning a few stories of the history. The guide was nice and funny, interacted a lot with a little boy from the US, Zane, whose Aunt and Uncle Kaitin and I were talking with. They are here for 5 years working at an army base in Italy. After the tour, we mostly walked around the area. We went into San Marco, took pictures on the Ponte di Rialto (also where I got the charm for my bracelet, a gondola of course), took pictures of costumed people, and relaxed. We did splurge a little bit on a gondola ride along the canals. It may be a tourist trap thing to do, but we had a good time and got some nice pictures. Later on that night, we took the train to Florence.

In Florence, we stayed at another nice hostel just 10 minutes walk from the station, so no taxi this time, which was nice. It was called Ciao Hostel, and the people were very nice and helpful and everything was clean, no breakfast provided was the down side. We arrived at the hostel late at night, so we slept and in the morning went to the main area of Florence, just a 15 minute walk from the hostel. Our first stop was the largest museum of Renaissance art in the world, the Uffitzi Gallery. There we say the paintings The Birth of Venus and Primavera by Botticelli, both of which I was really struck by. It was a huge collection, and, because it was Renaissance work, most were of Mary and Jesus, obviously, which did get a bit repetitive after a while. The paintings were beautiful, but these two paintings were gorgeous to me because they were so different from the rest. Still, the gallery was fantastic. Afterward, we went to the Ponte Vecchio and the Duomo, which is part of the St. Mary del Fiore Basilica and was built by Brunelleschi during the Renaissance. The dome was a huge engineering feet of the time, and has some incredible paintings on it. The Basilica itself is also very intricately done in pink, white, and green marble. The Duomo was one of my favorite things we saw on this trip. We climbed all 463 steps to the top of the dome, with no lift, and saw the most breathtaking view I've ever seen. The hills of Italy, all the terracotta roves, and the Campanile tower at the Basilica as well. It was gorgeous. We had more time, so we spent a few hours walking around San Lorenzo market. After a full day spent in Florence, we went back to the hostel where the receptionist recommended a cute, very Italian pizzeria, not a tourist location at all! It was called Jacopino, and it was great to have a real experience in Italy, and the food was great (Tortellini!! YUM!).

The next day, our first stop was the Accademia Gallery to see the statue of David by Michelangelo (which is the charm I got for Florence). The statue was amazing and HUGE! It even captured detail as small as the veins in David's hand. The description of it said something I found interesting: Michelangelo did not sculpt David in the traditional position holding Goliath's head, instead he is sculpted holding his sling, showing the triumph of his intellect, not his strength, over Goliath. The gallery was also interesting because it contained a whole section about the music of the Renaissance where you could see and listen to the old instruments. A brief history: the Medici family revived the art, architecture, and music in Florence which is the reason Florence was the major city in the Renaissance period. We spent a few minutes sitting outside in the sun after going to the gallery, and then we went back to San Lorenzo market, and I bought my first ever leather jacket. I also haggled for the first time and got the price down to 110 euros plus tailoring of the sleeves that were a bit too long. It's really soft leather, and it's a really gorgeous and flattering jacket if I do say so myself. After collecting our things at the hostel, we got to the train station for our 4 hour trip to Rome (4 hours because we took a cheaper non express train, it would have been more like 2 if we had).

Again, we arrived at Rome very late at night and got a taxi to the hostel, Orsa Maggiore for women only. A simple breakfast is provided, as is internet and computers. It is the cleanest and most secure hostel I could ever hope to stay in. We are each given our own locker and key in order to lock up our things during the day. After the first night, we woke up early and went to the Colosseum (the charm I picked for Rome). It is the basis for every single stadium that now exists. It was used built to distract people from daily life and, the government officials hope, to quell rebellion and revolt. All the doors were for a very efficient system of crowd control and spectators had tickets, the same as it is today. It was amazing to stand in something  We got a tour of it which also included a tour of the Forum and Palatine Hill, which is where Mussolini put his home, where the emperors of Rome once lived, and which contains a lot of history of Romulus and Remus. After spending some time looking around the Colosseum, we got some amazing views of Palatine hill and looked around the Forum, learning what everything was with a bit of help from the tour guide (we didn't realize the tour wouldn't actually go into the Forum, just look around it from above) but a lot of help from a postcard in a set Kaitlin got that said what all the ruins were. We saw the temple of the Vestal Virgins and Caesar's Temple. After spending the whole day in that area, we we got on the same bus back to the hostel that we had gotten on in the morning, but did not realize the route went completely in a different direction before going to where we needed to go. We ended up in the dark in some completely unfamiliar area, and the driver shut off the bus and took a break for a half hour before starting up again. We decided just to sit and wait on the bus we knew would eventually go back. It was scary for a bit though. A note about buses in Rome: no one checks tickets, Kaitlin and I paid for 1 bus trip the whole time we were here, but apparently you can get fined if they catch you doing it...oh well.

On the second day, we took a short bus up to the Spanish steps, getting a little lost on the way but going through a gorgeous part in the northern section of the city. We ended up at the top of the steps, so we only had to walk down them, but they were a great sight to see. Our next stop was the Trevi fountain. It was in a lovely, small area, and the fountain itself was quite beautiful. We each threw our coins in, over our right shoulder as we are supposed to, and got lunch and gelato to eat by the fountain. It was very touristy, but still nice to see it and sit outside to eat. We visited the Pantheon next. It was small but beautiful inside, and it contains the grave of Raphael. Close to our bus stop to get back to the hostel is a large, white monument called the Vittoriano, so we stopped at that as well to take a few pictures. Its humongous! We had lunch at McDonalds. I know gross, but we felt like having fries. They play Uno at the McDonalds here instead of Monopoly, which I thought Mom would like. We went back to the hostel to freshen up before going to meet some family that Kaitlin has in Rome. She had never met them, so it was an experience for her. We took the metro to get there, but because we didn't know the stop, we took the bus practically to the terminal at the end of the line. It took about an hour to figure out where we were supposed to go, but we made it to their house safely finally! Carolina is an old, very kind woman who speaks very little English. Silvana and Christina are her daughters and their English is very good. The entire family moved back to Italy when the girls were about 13 years old. We met Christina's sons and husband as well. They were all very nice. We ate pizza and fresh prosciutto, salami, and mozzarella and a little chocolate too. We were so fully. As all Italians do, they encouraged us to keep eating and eating. It was a great evening, and Kaitlin was happy to have met her family. I got points from Carolina for being Italian and lost them again because I'm not Catholic. She was really funny. She told us when we were leaving that she'd kill us if we didn't know Italian the next time we went back. After kissing everyone on both cheeks (they really do that here!), Christina was nice enough to bring us back to the hostel.

On Ash Wednesday, by coincidence, we spent the entire day at the Vatican. First, we heard the Pope's address, which was supposed to be a ticketed event, but we sort of snuck in...without knowing we were doing it. We sat less than 40 feet away from Pope Benedict XVI, and he was incredible. At 80 something, he addressed the audience and the world in about 6 languages. I can't even believe he did that. Afterward, we went to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel (breathtaking, how could Michelangelo do all that in one lifetime!). We then went to St. Peter's Basilica and saw the Pieta, which I had learned about in school and didn't know would be displayed there. We also attended mass at the Basilica and got our ashes. The service was completely in Latin and very ornate. We got programs to keeps. Overall, the day was a once in a lifetime experience. Afterward, we went to the Trastavere Piazza for dinner. There were tons of restaurants there, but we chose La Scaletta, a great and inexpensive restaurant. We shared a pizza, got gnocchi, and a liter of vino! We stuffed our faces and were a little tipsy walking home on the cobblestone roads, but it was a fantastic meal and very fun. Probably the best day we had on the trip.

Today, we walked A LOT! We did some things that they recommended to us. First, we went to St. Angelo's Castle and saw some gorgeous views of the Vatican and Rome. It was Emperor Hadrian's moratorium but in the 1500s was made into a fort. I have to look up some more history of it, but inside it contained Italian war artifacts and weaponry. Very interesting place. Sorry I don't know a lot of the history. We then took a stop at the Piazza del Popolo and walked down to what they described last night as the White House of Italy, the Quirinale. We had lunch and gelato and walked around a bit more before heading back to the hostel to get situated before dinner and our flight back home at around 10pm.  The photos are up now, check the photos page and read the descriptions for more details. It was a fantastic trip! Ciao!