Rom mit Marlisa

WOW. WOW. WOW. WOW. WOW. WOW. This was all I could really say when I got to Rome. Here were the things that I'd seen in all of my high school history books, written papers about in college, and dreamed about seeing one day. As a history buff, Rome is an absolute playground for me. Being able to hop around from the Colosseum to the Forum to the Sistine Chapel for a few days was heavenly, and also made me realize how absolutely lucky I am to be here, in Europe, with all of these amazing countries and sights so close around me. Spending time with an old friend was so, so nice as well. Here's a pictoral-summary of my weekend. Rom war so schön!!

I arrived in the middle of the day on Saturday, and Marlisa and I grabbed lunch at a really GOOD pizza place called Dar Poeta. My first Italian pizza!! I forgot to take pictures, it was that good. After lunch we both had a siesta (important in Italy) and then headed out for a night walk of the city and aperitivo.

Our first stop was the Parthenon. HELLO IT WAS SO COOL. I mean...............

yeah. AWESOME.

Then Marlisa and her friend Hallie took me around to Piazza Navona, followed by a few churches. There are 240 churches in Rome. in ROME. Alone. Marlisa, who is studying history of Catholicism, has only seen 20. It would be like trying to hunt down every piece of the Wall still standing in Berlin. Not really possible.

The Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona. It's a Bernini.

Marlisa and I in front of the fountain

a pretty church....

Another.... church....

After that, we walked to the Trevi Fountain. It was just... amazing. There really aren't any words to describe it, especially at night. Rome floodlights all of it's "sights" at night, so seeing them at night is just as exciting and beautiful as seeing them during the day.

Throwing some money into the fountain. I'll be back, Roma!

Marlisa and I in front of the fountain

Beautiful, right? Bernini designed it, and his students made it. wooo

After seeing the Fountain we made our way to the Spanish Steps, and climbed all the way to the top. All of my pictures of Rome from the top are really bad, so here's a few of me and Marlisa at the top and on the Steps.



Then we had aperitivo. Aperitivo is this brilliant Italian thing where you go buy an overpriced drink and get a buffet full of really good appetizers and bite sized treats for "free." Here is me eating my first aperitivo:

It was really good.


The next day, Sunday, Marlisa and I had a bit of a lazy day before heading to St. Peter's and the Jewish Ghetto. We went to the biggest flea market in the world, and then ate lunch at a Kosher bakery by her house. I had eggplant parmesan:


Aaaaaaaand then we headed to St. Peter's. Um. It was REALLY cool and beautiful.

Me in Vatican City

The Collonade... another Bernini

San Pietro und mich!

THE DOME. The biggest one. In the entire. world.

More of THE DOME

Once we were finished with San Pietro, we went to the Jewish Ghetto. I'm going to write about it in another post, as it's part of my final project/honors thesis here.

On Monday I visited the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Vatican Museum. I'm just going to show you some pictures, because I really have no words to describe these places. Being in the Colosseum was just... well... Here:






And then the Vatican Museum.







These are about half of the pictures I took in Rome. To see more, head over to my facebook. Rome was just... beautiful. Probably my favorite place that I've visited in Europe thus far, and I'll definitely be back. Thanks so much, Marlisa!