Roma, and not just the tomato!

And she's back from her week-long hiatus!  You'll have to forgive me but I've just had no time to update you all on my life and travels.  It was my last week of classes out here in Barcelona which meant handing in 4 compositions, 1 essay, 2 oral presentations, and 1 exam.  To be fair, I didn't study for anything so that didn't eat into my time but I wasn't getting any sleep and I still had to work for my internship.  But I'm complaining!  I'm finally done and I'm most grateful for my classes and my professor, Josep María, but more on that later.

Destinación: Roma, Italia.

First was the dilemma as to whether or not to go the weekend of July 1st when all the stores would go on sale.  I couldn't care less but the other Diana really did but we ultimately decided that the sales would still be there when we got back and the only other weekend we had left was the weekend of July 8th when we had only two days because of finals on that Friday.

Second was the plane tickets.  Tickets were supposed to be just 107 euro but prices jumped up 10 euro in just one day and then my debit card wasn't working on the site.  By the time I bought them with the help of the magical help of a certain Emily, the price had jumped up to 143 euro.  It gets worse.

Third was that there were no more decent hostels left.  It would be more worth it to just get a hotel.  So that's what we did.

Fourth, and this is the real zinger, I got to the airport only to discover that the ticket was under Diana V and not Diana Choi.  Excuse me but how many people do you know with one letter for a last name?  Not wanting to risk them not letting me on the plane, I had to change the name on my flight, price tag 353 euro.  The thing is that when I tried checking in online with my confirmation number, my name came up at Diana Choi and then it stopped working so I went to the counter when I got the airport at 4:30 am last Friday.  But then my debit card wasn't working so D.Lee had to lend me the money on her credit card.  

In spite of everything, I got on my flight and about two hours later, we had landed in Rome.  Our friend Courtney was coming with us too but because our coordination was so off, we ended up taking two different flights on different airlines to different airports.  So diana and I got on a Leonardo Express train that goes straight to Termini train station, which is comparable to New York's Grand Central.  

On the train

The three of us met at our hotel and I checked in for two people and snuck Courtney in.  They had the pull-out bed made anyway and I didn't feel like adding 25 euro a night onto the bill.  So we hopped up to our room and there it was: paradise.

The pull-out bed
The love of Courtney's life

The King
The love of my life

Yes, it's very European for all the hotels to have bidets in addition to toilets

With the exception of the few days I spent at the Hotel Arts with my parents here in Barcelona, I haven't had air-conditioning since summer 2010, haven't had a down pillow or feather bed in over six weeks, and my shower floods from hair build-up (that doesn't belong to me) in the drain, and so it's no surprise with what great ease I fell in love with our hotel room.  It was clean, cool, comfy...I didn't want to leave.


But we had a lot to see and a lot to eat so it was drop our things and go.


Our hotel is centrally located just 5 minutes from Termini station walking and another 20 minutes walking uphill from the Coliseum and Roman Forum.  But first things first, a "snack".

Suppli: saffron risotto with ragú filled with cheese and deep fried
in a neat little package

I had a suppli while I waited for my pizza that was cut in half and assembled like a sandwich.  The crust was thin, the toppings not overwhelming but full of flavor.  What more could a hungry girl ask for?  It was a weekend of great food, our snacks turning into small meals and our meals increasing in quantity and frequency.  


Rome is living history.  Everything is antiquated in a very classy way, everything has its secrets and a past that is uniquely its own.  On our walk down to the coliseum, there was a set of old stone steps leading up to an old stone building covered with ivy with an arch in it.  It reminded me of a place Cinderella may have run through trying to get home before the clock struck midnight.  What purpose it really served I'll never know and that's okay.  More excuse for my imagination to run wild.

And ah, the Coliseum alas.  My first impressions of the Coliseum were (1) as the setting for "The Gladiator", one of those movies I watched repeatedly and my family's favorite DVD to either show off our movie entertainment system or to test if it was even working in the first place and (2) in a nifty little reference book my sister Christine got for me on her high-school art history trip to Italy.  Each photo had a plastic sheet over it with an illustration of what the Coliseum used to look like in its prime so that I could superimpose the historical image over the current one; my sister knows her nerdy little sister very well.

 My first glimpse

In 2011, I had a new mission to see the Coliseum.  My sister Catherine and I are on a multi-year quest to conquer every new world wonder in the next few years.  We saw the Taj Mahal and Macchu Picchu together while the Great Wall was tackled separately and she had seen the Coliseum on her own upon graduating from Barnard.  So I had to catch up.

What's great about Rome is that everything is a little treasure.  Even something as big as the Coliseum just appears.  I used the same paper map to navigate the streets and like following a treasure map, when we got to X-marks-the-spot, there it would be.  So while we were walking down Via Cavour, our increasing anticipation for the Coliseum to reveal itself driving us to near anxiety, there it was.  We turned a corner and suddenly there it was, standing in the distance much the same way it's done for nearly the last two thousand years.

The Arch of Constantine off to the right

When we first got in, it was cloudy and rainy and we feared the whole weekend would be wet and dreary.  Little did we know, Rome's Mediterranean sun is as unrelenting as it is on the other side of the sea in Barcelona.  Once the clouds parted and the sun came out, we were struggling for shade and dehydrating like sponges washed up on dry sand.  Like our Puerto Rican mama (our friend Anita who takes care of all of us in one way or another) would say, we were estrogoling (struggling).

Estrogoling

But we got our acts together and trooped on, absorbing everything on our tour that our fried little brains could handle.  I re-learned a lot of what we covered in my sophomore humanities history class in high school.  For example, I re-learned that the Coliseum was originally called the Flavian Amphitheatre and was constructed by Vespasian (a name I remember because I imagine I would rename myself as such if I were a homosexual male: Ve-SPA-sian) and inaugurated by his son, Titus.  Then came a series of very bloody competitions in the arena as you all know.

Dying from thirst, we toured around for only about an hour longer and spent the next hour before our second tour on the Palatine Hill outside the Coliseum.  We needed water so badly I think we would have collapsed if we didn't get out when we did.

The Arch of Constantine up close

We met our new tour guide outside the Coliseum exit, a Brit originally from London who had spent the last five years in Rome and his high school years down under in Australia.  He was still taking his exams to get certified as a tour guide so his tour was gratis (free) with our Coliseum tour.  He was still very knowledgeable.  Score.


We got a little recap of the story of the founding of Rome, starting with the baby twins, Romulus and Remus.  I don't love the Wikipedia version but it gets the idea across.  Something I learned though is that the latin word for prostitute and she-wolf are very closely related so it is very likely that Romulus and Remus were rescued and raised by a prostitute.  The story I'm sure is very different from what really happened but thought it would be impressive.  Anyway, we were taken to the spot that is believed to be the oldest ruins in Rome and the remains of the homes of the original settlers.  Recognizing the historical value of the place, Emperor Domitian built his grand palace around the old ruins and there they are still preserved today.  Don't ask me just how old they are though..I don't remember.  I imagine somewhere around 7-9 millennia years old.  

Rome's "birthplace"

Once our tour was over, Colin asked us if we wanted to come to his tour of the Vatican museums.  We were going in the morning anyway so we told him we would think it over.  In response, he gave us his number, told us we should call him to be our "chaperone for a night out on the town" and circled several hot spots for parties in Rome.  He also stared at Courtney a lot and asked her all these questions during our tour that he then recycled and directed to us D-squared so he wouldn't seem like he was blatantly hitting on her...except he was blatantly hitting on her.  When we told Courtney, she characteristically scrunched up her face and denied it with all the modesty her native Kansas upbringing has taught her so I gave her this much: his teeth were pretty yellow.  Alright then, we wouldn't hang out with Colin the British tour guide.

Onto the Roman Forum.  It was already mid-afternoon and we were exhausted so we figured we could cross through the forum, see the things we needed to see, and then continue onto the rest of the city.  Unfortunately, we sorta got trapped on the other side and needed to climb up some stairs to get out.

Next stop, the Pantheon.  I was itching with excitement.  Professor Joseph Siry, head of the art history department at Wesleyan University and one of my first college professors was a great admirer of ancient Roman architecture.  When I took European Architecture to 1750, we spent a good chunk of time on the Coliseum and the Pantheon etc. most of which I have since forgotten but the Pantheon especially made an impression on me.  It's short and massive with a beautiful dome way advanced for its time.  I always loved that the hole in the ceiling still remains open so that it rains indoors in a beautifully surreal sort of way.  When I first walked in, a bird flew overhead and its shadow passed along the ground and when I looked up, it looked like the fake black cut-out of a bird passing over the oculus.

A portion of the Pantheon's dome

In terms of the exterior, I love the portico and how the columns change from the front to the back.  Actually, scratch that, I love everything about it.  It's old and solid and everything a building should have been.  It's hard not to get excited about it.

We were on a walking tour with our final destination being a gelato place that had been rated on TripAdvisor.com as the best restaurant in Rome.  From the Pantheon, it was a short walk to the Piazza Navona which also opened up from out of nowhere among a bunch of narrow, twisting streets.  There are two fountains on either side of the plaza, the protagonist of the smaller and less popular one (and the one I personally favor) with an impressively clenched ass.

Clenched butt = uncomfortable, innocent little girls

La Piazza Navona

And then finally, gelato at Frigadarium.  On a street right off of the plaza is this little gelato store famous for its chocolate sauce that hardens into a shell on top of the gelato.  My expectations were high but the tiramisu and pistachio flavors delivered as I was promised by the many contributors to the gelateria's TripAdvisor page.  

Didn't think out her strategy very well
Resulting in a mess

We were starving after all the walking and stopped in at an outdoor restaurant for a late lunch.  So what if we had dessert first?  Gelato only wetted out appetite for some more pizza.


We stopped at a place specializing in Neopolitan-style pizza with white sauce.  We got half arugula with shavings of Pecorino Romano cheese and the other half with slices of prosciutto accompanied by a bowl of crushed red pepper.

Next, a long walk back to the other side of town...

Kitty napping on a parked motorcycle like he owns the thing
What do I know..he just might

We hit up the Trevi Fountain on the way.  What's amazing is that among these tiny winding streets, you'll suddenly encounter heavy tourist traffic and that's how you know you're fast approaching your destination.  Even with the tourists though, it's hard to pinpoint where they're coming from so with the fountain, I could hear it before I saw it.  


I desperately wanted to jump into the fountain but of course refrained.  A funny little artificial breeze came off the thing and cooled me down for a bit before we continued.

Day 1 came to a rapid close.  We got back to the hotel, showered, and made plans to go out and get dinner but before we knew it, it was the morning of Day 2.  Time for Vatican City.


The only non-foot transportation we would take all weekend was the metro-ride to the Vatican City.  We even walked back.  Colin ended up not taking us but his colleague did and she was quite good.  We wound through the main rooms of the museum with the Sistine Chapel as our final destination.

A giant marble basin made of a rare Egyptian marble whose mines have been exhausted
More expensive than gold per cubic centimeter and the Church has the biggest collection of the stuff in the world

I have very ambiguous feelings toward the Catholic Church as a functioning institution but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate its history.  I always knew it was rich as all heaven (hehe, I was going to say hell) but it was different to see the wealth in person.  And let me tell you, man is it wealthy.

Funny enough, of all things that I could think about, I ended up thinking about things like:
What does the Pope wear to sleep?
What does he eat for breakfast?
Does he exercise?
Has he ever done the sideways boogie?


I guess for being the "holiest man on earth", I wondered what normal human qualities he shared with the rest of us.  

An opulent ceiling

The rooms leading up to the Sistine Chapel were like the rooms of a royal palace, like Versailles perhaps, each one outdoing the last.  Until finally, we heard a hush come over the crowd and we entered the dimly lit but thankfully cool Sistine Chapel.  Photos are technically not allowed although plenty of people take secret photos but I figured there are enough photos on the internet and this is sort of a personal thing I've got going here between me and Michelangelo so I won't ruin this intimate moment with my camera.  I was also thoroughly amused by a couple (boy 15, girl 14) who I originally thought were siblings until they started making out in the chapel.  Way to go guys.


Funny story: in the process of trying to find the Vatican's collection of Rafael's work at the end of our tour, we re-did our tour in its entirety, went through the Sistine Chapel again and then followed the tiny little sign pointing to Rafael's artwork.  Finally, face to face with the School of Athens.

Rafael's "School of Athens"

Next stop, St. Peter's Basilica.  I've seen it in enough pictures to imagine its size but I'm always wrong.  I never expect anything to really be larger than life and then suddenly, hey, I'm feeling like an ant on the floor of a living room.  

Bernin's Baldacchino

St. Peter's dome

Fun fact: Michelangelo, as a sort of a screw you to the church on one hand and out of respect for the traditional Roman gods on the other, he purposefully built the dome just 1 cm smaller than the dome on the Pantheon.  No one found out until it was complete and Michelangelo was already dead.  Hats off to you Mr. Sassy-pants!

Bernini's Throne of St. Peter

Dark little me with Courtney

St. Peter's from the Piazza

I had successfully seen all three of Bernini's works associated with St. Peter's including the giant plaza and so hunger settled in.  I didn't prepare a lot of things for this trip but I did take down some names of popular restaurants like that gelateria and some place called Marco G's.  Only thing was that to get to Marco G's, we would have to walk about half an hour along the river to an area called Trastavere and find it.  We had already traversed Rome yesterday, why not do it again?


Marco G's is a classy little place in a quiet area far away from any serious tourist craziness.  We started with a 4 euro margherita pizza with fresh mozzarella.  Basic in all the best ways.

Pizza

Fried and stuffed zucchini flowers

The inside

Salad of arugula, corn, and cheese

Tiramisu

Panna cotta

Sufficiently full, we walked back across the river and stumbled across some more beautiful glimpses of old Rome.

Under an old arch

Another perspective of the Roman Forum

The Column of Trajan
Detailed engravings depicting his successful military campaign in present-day Romania

We took no less than five different wrong routes to finally get on the right track back uphill to our hotel.  We couldn't help that there were so many stairs and dead-ends..our map made it seem like we could walk through a corner of the green of the forum which was straight-up wrong.  Let me just say, we walked up and down a couple of hills.


We stopped by at the first pizza place we went to on Day 1 to be greeted by the jolly fat Italian man behind the counter who recognized us.  Courtney got another pizza and I a suppli, both purchases to be questioned later when we were too bloated to move.

Courtney in bed with her pizza

Nevertheless, the bloating went away and we embarked on yet another journey to find pasta.  We'd had our fill of pasta but we couldn't leave Italy without pasta!  So while browsing a menu outside, the proprietor accosted us to come in and just trust us, that we would truly love the home-made macaroni products.


With a bottle of white wine to finish between the three of us and three pasta dishes ordered, we were ready.  I even treated myself to a basic dish of sauteed mushrooms.

My pasta: spaghetti in white sauce with clams

D.Lee's cannelloni stuffed with meat

Courtney's bucatini (straw-like noodles) in meat sauce

An empty bottle of wine and three magically disappeared plates of pasta later, we were ready to move again.  We were on a mission to see the Spanish steps.  When we got to where they were supposed to see, all we saw was the church and then when we looked downhill from its front, there they were.  We had to get down to the bottom for the right effect though. 

The Spanish Steps

Drinking from the biggest, tastiest, messiest, and coldest water fountain
I have ever had the pleasure of drinking from

We passed out too early to see Rome at night the day before so we decided we would track down the Trevi Fountain while we were out.  The city has a different feel at night, more romantic and tranquil and definitely cooler and less exhausting.


I have to say, the fountain is more impressive at night, more intimidating, impressive, and enchanting.  Again, I sat up front to take advantage of that cool faux ocean breeze off the fountain before heading back home.

Trevi Fountain at night

We bought a bottle of pistachio cream liquor the night before to put on ice cream except we never got around to actually opening it.  Once again, we had fallen asleep too early.  But this time we were convinced.  We stumbled into one of the few stores still open, a gelateria, and bought a container big enough for four people filled with vanilla and pistachio gelato plus a can of coke zero to make coke floats.

My favorite fizzy drink: San Pellegrino Aranciata flavored
aka fancy Italian orangina

Back at the hotel:

No pictures of the actual desserts which looked rather unappetizing but it was good.  The cream liquor was definitely more like a syrup than an alcoholic beverage and I was bummed I had no checked baggage to buy more for home.  With our bellies ballooning up and out, we fell asleep.


Our last day in Rome was a little bit sad.  We had only a weekend there but we put so much effort into it, it really meant a lot that we spend our last day wisely.

Breakfast buffet included
Dessert plate

We decided our priority was to back to the gelato place.  It was on the other side of the city but we had taken the city by foot more than twice already so we were prepared to do it again.  On the way, we bumped into a treasure trove of wonder: and Italian specialty food store.

Pasta section

Jams and preserves

Sauces and pickles

Limoncello!

It was hard to leave but I couldn't take any liquids back with me so we eventually did say good bye, no tears shed (but we were close).  

An old Fiat/the original smartcar

We made it back to Frigadarium and I decided I was up for the challenge of a cone this time.  It was surprisingly not as messy as I thought it would be but then again, I'm a strategy master when it comes to eating.

Flavors: yogurt with blackberries and panna cotta

Again, lunch came after dessert but we just got these fun little white-bread sandwiches we saw at this café.  Overpriced but at least it was cute!

Bresaola (Italian cured beef) with mozzarella cheese etc.

By the time we got back, Courtney had to get to the airport for her flight which was a lot earlier than ours and so Diana and I collected our bags from the hotel and planted ourselves in a nearby restaurant for the next two hours.  Desperate for some risotto before leaving, we got a plate to share and spent the next 1.5 hours eating half a spoonful at a time to make it last.  Plus, we had nowhere to go if we finished eating too quickly.  To make time pass more quickly, we only spoke in Spanish.  Impressive to say the least. 

Mushroom risotto = love

Our weekend of eating sadly came to a close and we hopped a train back to the airport.  We were delayed half an hour and ended up walking back into our apartment back in Barcelona past 1 AM but it was worth it.  Yeah, I had an oral presentation in class at 9 AM the next morning but that's what my confidence is for, to give me the balls to just wing it and that I did.


Now, as I've spent the last four hours of my life not napping and instead writing this blog, the sleep deprivation is seriously getting to me now so I'm off to bed at 7:23 PM.  We'll see if I wake up or not.