Last day in Rome, and other such adventures...

Our last day in Ostia, Alyssa and I decided to venture to Rome (by ourselves!!) one last time. So, the night before and the morning of, I organized our metro plan of action for the day (it was a very Megan McSwain thing of me to do...I was proud ;) ). Our first stop was the Coliseum. We waited in the line for about 25 minutes, and it cost us €12 to get in. It was really neat to see everything, and it's a lot smaller than you think it would be (thanks a lot, Gladiator!).

After that, we rode the metro a couple more stops to Santa Maria Maggiore, but before we actually went inside the church, we stopped at a little cafe on a side street headed toward the church. It was the best meal I've had in Italy thus far! We sat on a little table on the sidewalk under a big umbrella while listening to accordion music. It was a beautiful day, we were surrounded by gorgeous Roman buildings with Santa Maria Maggiore right behind us, and we were eating glorious Italian food...it was perfect. The church itself was really gorgeous, and I'll do my best to post some pictures on Facebook later.

From there, we went hunting for Santa Maria della Vittoria, the chapel that houses The Ecstasy of St. Teresa. We found it pretty quickly, and it's a surprisingly small church. It is my favorite church that we've visited in Italy thus far, though, just because it was so beautiful and intimate. We spent a few minutes there, and then boarded the metro for our last stop.

We came upon the Spanish Steps pretty easily, and it's one of those things that isn't necessarily known for its artistic value (although they certainly are a work of art) so much as its historic merit. There were tonnnnns of people everywhere, all over the steps. Alyssa and I made it about halfway up, and then decided to descend the stairs in search of gelato, haha. I tried Nutella, and oh my word, it was absolutely heavenly! I was a sight to see at that moment...I'm a slow eater as some of you know ;) , and so even though I was doing my best to devour this gelato, it was dripping all over me and making a huge mess! haha.

We headed back to the hostel after that, and we were pretty exhausted. Since it was our last night in Ostia, Alyssa, Julie, Nikki, and myself decided to head out for one last dinner. We walked around for a few minutes and didn't really see anything that perked our interest until we came upon this hole-in-the-wall pizza place. We were ushered in by an old Italian man in a bright red sweater, so we felt compelled to enter, haha. It ended up being the worst meal any of us have had thus far! But...what an experience. To begin with, there was no one there, so that was a little discomforting. Then, he didn't really know what we were ordering, so when I asked him if we could go ahead and order, he just brought us all HUUUGE spoons, haha. After a few minutes, we ordered, and after about 45 minutes, we received our food. Alyssa's alfredo was drenched, I mean, DRENCHED, in olive oil. It was gross! And my spaghetti was absolutely saturated with butter. I ended up just dipping my bread it in like a dipping sauce because that's what it tasted like! By the end of it, we were all just ready to escape that place! haha.

So now I am in Florence, and all of us have discovered the wonderful Star Internet Cafe. You don't really realize how interconnected your world is until you're forced to be away from it, and so the internet, as sad as it sounds, has become an even more important part of our lives while we've been over here (in terms of staying connected with those back home). Tomorrow we're headed to the Uffizi Museum, which I'm super pumped to visit, and then beyond that, I'm not sure what this week holds. A group is considering taking a day trip to Pisa on either Friday or Saturday, and I definitely want to take part in that!

So thanks for all your prayers and thoughts and for taking the time to read all of my ramblings. I'll do my best to post some pictures on Facebook, so stay tuned!

- h