Italia!

So this weekend I went to Italy with Alex, another PRESHCO student. We had a BLAST except for some minor transportation issues that resulted in us living in airports for a couple of days, eating way too much junk food and not sleeping. But other than that, we had a great weekend! We stayed at a hostel in Rome that was close to the train station, and since we got the "Roma Pass," we could take the metro as many times as we wanted for free within 3 days. In addition, we got free entry to the Colosseum, Forum, and Palantine Hill, all of which were really cool. Our tour guide for the Colosseum was less than entertaining...he kept pointing out really inappropriate things and making bad jokes. Here's me with a gladiator outside the Colosseum!



After we saw the Colosseum we were supposed to follow the same guide to the Forum, but we hadn't eaten lunch yet so we ditched the group and found a restaurant nearby that had really good pizza. After lunch we went back to the Forum to try to meet up with another group, but it didn't seem like there were any, so we walked around by ourselves, with the help of Rick Steves. We stayed in the forum until it closed, and then we went back to the hostel, where they had a pasta party! We got pesto that was quite delicious. After dinner, we saw the Spanish Steps, Trevvi Fountain, and we ate our first gelato of the trip! Unfortunately, in our eagerness for gelato, we went to a chain restaurant where only half of the ice cream was gelato and the other half was just regular sorbet. It was still pretty good though.

The next day, we took the fast train to Florence for the day! We went to the Accademia and saw David, which is bigger and far more impressive than I had ever imagined. The sculpture room was also pretty cool-hundreds of plaster sculptures that served as the rough draft before the actual stone or cement statue was created. We had lunch at Za-Za's, a really delicious restaurant that I have now been to three times in my life! I ate gnocci and a caprese salad, which were absolutely delicious! After lunch, we went to the duomo, which is the big cathedral in the center of the city. We elected not to climb the dome even though it was an option, because we were planning on climbing St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican the next day! After the duomo, we walked for miles and miles down by the river, crossing back and forth until we got to the Ponte Vecchio. We also went to Vivoli for gelato, which is one of the best (if not the best) gelato places in Florence :-D

On Sunday, we got up early to go to the Vatican, but not nearly as early as we probably should have. The line for the Vatican Museum (Sistene Chapel, etc) was 3 1/2 hours long and it went all the way from the entrance of the museum to St. Peter's Square! At first we weren't planning on doing a guided tour, but when we realized that the tours get to skip the line, (and since admission was free anyway since it was the last Sunday of the month so all we had to pay for was the tour) we decided to join a tour group. Definitely one of the best decisions we made on the trip. Our tour guide's name was Mateo, and he was excellent! He really knew his stuff and he was really passionate about it. I actually learned a lot that I definitely would not have learned if we had gone by ourselves. The museum was really cool in general, but of course the most amazing thing was the Sistene Chapel. They say that you aren't allowed to take photos in there but EVERYONE does-and some people even leave the flash on! Scandalous! What is perhaps most impressive about the Sistene Chapel is that Michelangelo wasn't even a painter-he was a sculptor! He had never painted anything before in his life! And since he was painting a fresco, there was literally ZERO room for error, because if you have to fix one spot, everything around it will be ruined. In fact, Michelangelo only made one error in the whole damn thing-in the first panel he painted, he made the people too small. What a travesty! So anyway, in addition to the Vatican Museum, we also went in St. Peter's Basilica AND climbed the dome! Check out this picture that I took from the very top: you can see all of Rome!



Later on, we went to the Pantheon and on our way we stopped for gelato. We saw this gelato place that was very crowded, so we assumed it must be good, so we went in. It was definitely the best gelato I have ever had in my entire life. Later on, we learned that the place we had been to was Giolitti, the oldest and most famous gelato place in all of Rome! Sweet!

And now the nightmare begins! The next morning we made it to the airport with plenty of time to catch our flight. Our flight was supposed to leave at 10:15, and we were at the gate by 9. Our tickets said that the flight was leaving at 10:15, but the board said 10:40, so we assumed that there was a slight delay, so we sat there, waiting for them to call our flight. At 10:15 we still hadn't boarded, so I went to ask the woman at the counter what time the flight would be boarding. Her response? The flight left 5 minutes ago! Aaaaaaaaah! Not only did they not announce the flight, we did not see any people lining up to get on the plane! It was probably because all of them missed the flight as well-I know of at least 20 people who were in the same situation as us, and all of them were very angry. So we had to find a new flight home. Easyjet only had one other flight to Madrid that day, and it was completely full, so we had to find a different airline and pay for a whole new ticket. We ended up with Vueling, and the plane wasn't scheduled to leave until 8:45 pm, nearly 12 hours later than our intended departure time. So what did we do? We sat. In the airport. All. Day. Long. When our plane finally left, we arrived in Madrid at 11:30 pm. Of course, there are no buses or trains at that hour, so we sat in Madrid's airport. All. Night. Long. At 6 am, when the metro opened, we left the airport and went to the train station, where we got on the first train we could get back to Córdoba! Oh man. We were traveling for over 24 hours straight. I'm so glad to be back in Córdoba again!