When in Rome...

I don't even know where to begin for this adventure... I am completely out of it today as I am trying to go to classes. I was only gone for three days. It was just a very packed, fast-paced weekend.

Friday morning we got up early and caught the train to Rome, arriving there about 1:00 in the afternoon. First thing we did, headed towards the Colosseum. It was so amazing to actually see. I really was in awe. We all took a tour of the Colosseum as well as the Roman Ruins and wandered the grounds. All the history and all the amazing structures. It really was a different feeling, sitting on actual ruins on the grounds and thinking about things... So worth it. Pictures don't do it justice.

Saturday we saw the Vatican, sixteenth chapel, and other religious aspects of Rome. Even just walking through the Vatican it took nearly two hours. That place is huge and there are so many statues and structures, I was a bit overwhelmed and couldn't handle anymore by the time I neared the end. The walls, the ceilings, the floors, the statues and artwork. It's almost like you have to go through at least three times, once looking down, next time looking forward and the other time looking up. It is so much to try to take in all at once.

We also hung out on the Spanish Steps for a while, a must do when you go to Italy. Even though the high season is over with, Rome was still full of lots of people. Tourists everywhere. I left thinking I knew some Italian, can kind of converse the necessities and did not use Italian once. Everyone spoke English and honestly, I barely heard any Italian, until a grumpy gelato man got upset with me being an American, as he is speaking English to me. He mentioned something about if I can speak any Italian after I asked what a kind was, so I was like okay, and started speaking some of the little Italian I know that we were taught to order Gelato and he continued to speak English back to me. He was pegging me as that "stupid American" and I think was just having a bad day.

I have also fallen in love with southern Italy. The pizza seems better, the gelato is better, the weather is warmer. I was in t-shirts and jeans and would get hot walking around. Now I am back north and wearing sweatshirts. (I know it’s not as cold as back in MN with the snow, haha)It was a perfect weekend getaway and I basically only ate Gelato and Pizza. I just couldn’t get enough of either. The bread also was different, and I enjoyed it more as well. It really is interesting how different northern and southern Italy are. My Italian professor tries to teach us both ways of speaking Italian (As they use different words in the different areas, not including all the different dialects) and gives us a quick overview of where we will hear what words, so we all were prepared for it.

We had some interesting run-ins with pickpocketers on the metro. There were three ladies with babies when we got on the metro Sunday morning (The metro was packed and some people couldn’t hold onto anything). They would just bump into people and of course others would assume oh, they are just falling trying to hold onto their kids… Well the lady sitting down next to me got my attention and was trying to converse with me saying they were pick pocketing and they did it to the man next to me. It took a while to get it through because I didn’t know if she was saying if they got me and I was like no, they couldn’t, I have nothing in my pockets and my purse is still zipped and closed… But I finally got it all figured out and tried getting the man’s attention but I think he realized what was happening (the ladies were on the other side of him than me. As I was trying to get his attention he turned the other way and put his hand is his pocket, so hopefully he figured it out but I had to get off at that stop.

I told everyone else I was with what was going on, they were right next to the ladies and were like UGH! I didn’t even think of that. One lady fell into me and grabbed my arm but I just let it slip my mind what was happening. Everyone made sure they still had everything, and everyone did. We all know to watch our belongings really close and are always clenching our purses and have eyes on each others things when on public transportation and the such. There was no one around to tell anything to to try to track the ladies down so we just had to go on our day.

The sick part of it is that we walked a lot of Rome for about 4 hours and then got on the tram later on, and who is on our car again?! Two of the same ladies, with the same babies. Poor, poor kids. They did not get nice looks from us, as we all glared at them and they knew we knew what they were up to. They kept trying to get off our car and onto another section but there wasn’t room so they just had to deal with us and weren’t really attempting anything.

They finally managed to get off our section of our tram but then ended up getting off at the same stop as us, again, and went directly over to the tram going the other direction. I was so angered by them… The babies were still tiny, prob only a few months old. Not a good place for kids to be all day… We mentioned this in International Marketing as we also talk about our travels and talk about what products and how to enter the markets where we visited and our professor told us how the larger cities actually have baby/kid rentals so the kids may not have even been their own. They can rent a baby for a day and then at the end of the day, the person in charge goes and collects all the babies and kids again…

The metros in Rome also aren’t very well developed... They get packed. One time, when we went into the metro, not realizing it was so busy or we would have walked, we got on the escalator going down and about half way down we realize people were not moving away from the bottom of the escalator and well... The people on the escalator can’t stop... So there was the domino effect at the bottom. This poor older lady behind me had some dilemmas as we were piling together but luckily we were there to help her get her balance and make it safely off the escalator. It was such a messy pile up.

Even though we came back with some interesting stories, Rome was still amazing. You just have to overlook the beggers (That will use any deformity or idea possible to get money) and really just focus on what is around.