Rome Feb. 6 (Fri)

I’ve completely run out of clean clothes, so I am wearing one of the shirts I bought yesterday. Last night two Canadian girls checked into our room and, not going to lie, they, or their stuff, smells. We slept with the window open and it got better. Oh, and Mitch vaulted into bed and broke the top bunk he had been sleeping on, ha ha ha! It was pretty hilarious, so he had to move to the bunk underneath mine. When we woke up this morning mystery man, whom we nicknamed “Sucio” (dirty) for obvious reasons, was back sleeping in an open bunk. He had shown up yesterday morning and no one had heard him come in during the night and we never saw him during the day. Armondo, one of the guys working at the hostel, told us that he is a guy nicknamed Nazi by the fellow workers that was let go from the hostel because he hit on girls too much. Great! Good to know this person was sleeping in the same room as us for two nights!
We got bread and fruit again for breakfast. Mom, I don’t know what I am going to do when I get home and don’t have fresh bread every day! Then we walked to the Vatican City area and were bombarded by people offering tours. The best way to shut someone up is to tell them you’ve already seen it or you’ve already bought it. We walked past the Vatican and St. Peter’s to a bridge over the River Tiber and got an awesome view of the Castel Sant’ Angelo. Then we walked back by the Vatican down Via Ottaviano to the Metro Station (this was the Metro closest to the hostel that we finally found). We took the metro from there to the Spagna station, which was right next to the Spanish Steps, enormous! While the girls and I were just sitting on the steps a large group of Italian boys, about age 15 or so, came up around us and took a group picture, so we were definitely in their pictures! We could tell they did this on purpose because the few girls in their group got up and left while the boys got closer to us; the girls were just laughing at them. We took lots of pictures on the different levels of the steps.
After the Spanish Steps we walked down Via Condotti, which runs into Via del Corso, where Armondo told us shopping would be. Apparently Via Condotti was where the expensive stores were. We passed Dior, Gucci, Armani, Prada, Fendi, Hermes, and Valentino. When we got to Via del Corso we found a few stores that we could actually afford to walk into. As we continued walking we passed through Plazzo Colonna and saw a large obelisk with intricate engravings wrapped all the way up around it; I remember studying this at some point but couldn’t remember its name. We kept walking and found the Pantheon; Cassandra wanted to take a picture with some shady looking men dressed in Roman attire but decided not too when they wanted to charge her for it. We went inside, because it is free, and it was just as I expected, very round, coffered ceiling and a whole in the middle. Unfortunately, it was raining (big surprise, right?) so in the very center of the Pantheon was a large puddle from the whole in the roof. Inside was the tomb of the first king of Italy and the tomb of Raphael!
After the Pantheon we had lunch at a nearby restaurant: bruscetta, pizza with spicy sausage, and coke. Then, of course, we found a gelato place, but this one had chocolate covered cones with nuts! From Via del Corso we took a side street, Via delle Muratte, to get to the Fontana di Trevi. It was a huge gorgeous fountain where you’re suppose to throw a coin in over your shoulder and make a wish. After making our wish and tossing in our coins we located Via del Tritone to walk to the Fontana del Tritone. This fountain was not as exciting as the last one, but still pretty. The metro was right next to the fountain, so we took that to the Ottaviano stop near our hostel. On the metro there was a boy playing the accordion and he had a little boy with him, probably his little brother. He was so cute, but he almost fell over when the metro turned! I gave them a Euro before we got off the train. There are so many homeless people in Rome, it’s sad, and so unlike Granada where I haven’t seen any.
For dinner we finally ate out at a restaurant at the correct time! We went back to the Pizzaria Restaurant we went to the first night in Rome at about 8:30pm, after stopping to buy fruit for breakfast tomorrow, and there were tons of people there! I wanted to be adventurous and order something that was not pizza, so I ordered something that I though was pasta and had the word “scampi” in it. I though it would be a pretty safe bet. Um, when it came out is was not pasta. It actually looked like a Rice-a-Roni meal with a little mini lobster. It was still really good, even though it wasn’t what I expected. We got our last gelato in Rome after dinner at the place by the Vatican we went to yesterday. This place was my favorite gelato place we’ve been to because it’s the cheapest and they had whipped cream! I got a cone with chocolate, caramel, and cherry flavors, yum! I’ve definitely loved the food in Rome, even if I haven’t like the dirty city itself too much.
Tomorrow we are planning on leaving the hostel really early (between 4:30-4:45am). We have to walk a few blocks to the nearest metro station, then take the metro to the Termini Station and find the train that will take us directly to the airport. The first train runs at 5:52am and we are going to try to make that one. The flight isn’t until about 9am, but it is better to be earlier, especially since we’re in a different country.