ITALY

ITALY
here are some highlights:
Train ride 14 hours to rome; beautiful as we went through the alps long challenge to sleep definitely an adventure
Got off said a prayer found hostel actually bed and breakfast nicer than we expected that was a relief, left on foot walked toward colosseum there it was ruins along the way really cool! We went inside with thousands of other tourists walked around almost the whole thing. Took pictures
Walked farther saw tons of roman ruins
Made it to center of town split Mckay and I got Italian Gelato –yummy!!
Saw pantheon – it’s a super old building!
Ran up and down little Italian streets in and out of churches
Ate Italian Pizza, more gelato, saw the Fountain that is really famous again with thousands of other tourist.
It was fun to hear so much English and we talked with a few groups and met people from all over the states. It was nice to get a little piece of home, knowing that they had been in the USA only a few days before going to Italy. It is pretty crazy thinking that I have been out of the US for now about a month and a half! It was fun to be in a different culture though. The Italian language barrier was a challenge sometimes, especially in Rome because not very many people speak English there. I spoke to some people in German saying “Nein, danke” or “entschuldigung” instead of “Gratzi” and ‘Escuzi’. In one shop I asked the cashier how to count to ten in Italian, and she said them twice, but by the time I walked out the door I already forgot ☺. It is similar in many ways to Spanish, but with a distinct Italian rhythm in the pronunciation of the words.
We went to dinner that first night and ate some authentic Italian pasta. YUM! It was pretty funny because as the waitress asked us what we would like to eat, Kari immediately responded in German, and then the lady started speaking German back! What are the chances that this lady would also know German!! That was an excitement! We had a great time trying to stand out from all the American tourists by speaking in German to each other as we traveled. Every time I heard other people speaking German, I got really excited and whispered to Kari, Heather, and McKay ‘They’re speaking German!!’ When we were in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican city, I approached two ladies who were speaking German and asked them (in German) where they were from. I don’t remember where they said they were from, but it was just fun to be able to use my German.
Sunday morning, we went into a small Museum with paintings that were hundreds of years old. It was nice to walk through and to see the different styles of art through the different centuries. After that, we tried to find the church building that was south of the city, but we did not give ourselves enough time to find it because we got lost, so we just turned back around and went to the Vatican city. I did not know this before, but the Vatican City is its own country and is actually the smallest country in the world. Again there were thousands of tourists. We went inside St. Peter’s Basilica – a massive church; one that beats out all the other churches that I have seen, and I have seen a lot of churches! No wonder, it’s where the pope is!
We tried to see the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo painted the ceiling, but we found out that it was closed on Sunday. ( we were going to go on Saturday, but someone told us that it would be open on Sunday… oh well, I guess I’ll just have to go back again someday ☺)
We left Rome around 7 pm and made it to Florence around 9 pm. We decided to go straight to our hostel, it was about a 3 minute walk from the train station- great location!! I was really nervous about this place, because it actually was a hostel, with shared facilities, and it looked a bit sketch to me. I was worried because we were going to be staying there for two nights. Luckily, Heather and Kari had a great attitude about it and they were not worried at all, so I just trusted their judgment. It turned out to be totally fine. We were really blessed our entire trip with no problems at all in Italy!