Rome. (Part 1)

In my last post 3 weeks ago I talked about the amazing opportunity I had to go to the beautiful city of Rome with some of my family.

Well, now that I have been back for 2 weeks, I feel it is time to post about it.

(It's been a super crazy 2 weeks.)

Anyways, the adventure started really days before I even left.

Things were crazy getting me packed to leave the country and Olivia packed to spend a week with ma.

But we did it!

Wednesday morning Michael dropped Olivia and I off at the LAX airport.

It is such a busy airport so the drop off seriously happened in a matter of seconds, leaving no time for tears.

Don't worry they came later.

Olivia and I ate lunch and hopped on our short flight to SLC.

She was an angel until the very last 10 minutes of the flight when we were descending.

She was definitely mad about having to turn her DVD player off and I don't think she liked the feeling of going down cause she started freaking out.

If it weren't for my crazy bad motion sickness I would have been totally fine with this but within 2 minutes of the freak out I was literally holding on to her while she was screaming and flailing her arms about meanwhile dry heaving into the convenient barf bag.

Thank you Delta.

It was awful to say the least.

But we made it.

We had to wait at the airport for a while because my mom was running behind.

Usually this would be no big deal but it gave me a little too much quiet time to think about what I was about to do.

Leave my precious girl for almost 6 days.

So, I started bawling right in the middle of the airport.

And we aren't talking just a few streaming tears, it was the full on mascara running down your face kind of sobbing.

After about an hour of this my mom, the twins, and Harrison finally arrived.

Olivia completely flipped out with excitement. 

(It had been 3 weeks since she had seen them.)

Emerson and I had to quickly check in our baggage and head up to security.

So there wasn't a lot of time to talk.

I tried to hug baby girl but she wouldn't even let me touch her.

She was so very excited to be with the twins.

So I waved bye bye completely sobbing.

And seriously had the hardest time walking around the corner.

Emerson and I grabbed a little dinner and a few snacks since we would be on the plane for about 10 hours. 

(It was a direct flight to Paris.)

I drugged myself with 4 Ibuprofen, Sudafed, half a Phenergan and Dramamine.

(I had been congested and didn't want to take any chance of having my ears hurt.)

So I was drugged.

But not drugged enough to sleep great sadly.

I have the hardest time sleeping on planes.

The plane ride went fine.

I think I spent a little too much time thinking about how much I missed Michael and baby girl.

Alright moving on!

Wednesday May 2nd

 Here we are on the plane.

This was sometime in the middle of the night.

Oh just a little side note about planes.

An airplane bathroom has got to be in my top 5 scariest places to be.

Despite the fact that it is just gross how many people use them, when you flush them it is seriously so loud and it sucks the water out so fast I get scared I am going to get sucked out too.

I'm not even kidding.

But on a long flight like this it is nearly impossible not to use them.

So I was forced to use it twice and it was absolutely awful.

Oh and this might be so bad to say but I always get the weirdest urges to just jump out of the plane.

I have no idea what it is because I am not suicidal.

It is just the strangest feeling.

I really hope I am not the only one out there that feels this way.

Please someone be crazy with me.

Thursday May 3rd

We arrived at the Paris airport around noon their time. (3 am our time.)

We had a little bit of time there to find some yummy chocolate and these ginormous lollipops.

Our flight to Rome was a little under 2 hours.

When we got there we picked up our luggage and went outside to wait for my dad.

As we were sitting on the curb seriously half asleep this man whooshed past me and grabbed my backpack right in front of me.

Emerson immediately jumped up and started chasing him.

But, a short second later the man stopped and busted up laughing.

That man was my dad.

Oh my gosh, seriously my heart was beating so fast I very easily could have had a heart attack right then and there.

Holy cow.

Okay, so we got a taxi and drove about 1 hour to the apartment we were staying at.

Chris (my dad's business partner) and Sophia were there waiting for us.

It was seriously the cutest apartment ever.

There were 3 bedrooms, a big living room/dining room, a little sitting room, 2 bathrooms, and a kitchen.

Sophia and I unpacked, I tried to get myself to look somewhat decent, and then we were off to pick up some groceries.

Okay you might not be able to tell in this picture but the carts are so tiny.

And they are really hard to push because the wheels don't just move forward and back, they move side to side.

So Emerson mostly had to push it because we just weren't strong enough.

They had some of the most interesting foods.

I know I was seriously exhausted but as were were walking down the isles I was like, "seriously why do they sell so many different kinds of dog biscuits?"

Emerson and Sophia looked at me like I was the stupidest person ever and went on to tell me that they were different kinds of cookies and crackers.

Dumb moment #1 right there.

 Nutella is of course huge here. 

Literally.

 After picking up groceries we walked about half a mile up the street and got our very first view of the Colosseum.

It was amazing.

 Because we were all starving especially Emerson and I we stopped at a restaurant on a cute little street right next to the Colosseum.

Sophia and I had our first tastes of the famous Margherita pizza and Bruschetta.

It was really good.

One weird thing about the restaurants is you can't have water for free.

You have to buy big bottles of it.

And they have 2 different menus. One for the outside (more expensive), and one for the inside.
Oh and their portions are a lot smaller than the portions they serve at American restaurants.

All very excited to touch the Colosseum.

(It was closed and late but no worries we went back!)

At the very first Gelato place we saw we decided to get some.

We were all thrilled to try it and were definitely not disappointed.

Throughout the trip, I tried lemon, chocolate, dark chocolate, nutella, and pistachio.

They had way more flavors than that, but I am such a sucker for chocolate I mostly got that every time.

As we walked around more we noticed that there are places everywhere that sell Gelato. 

Some were better than others you could always see people walking around with their cone or cup of this yummy stuff.

I'm really missing Gelato right now.

We then walked down the street only to find the one and only Trevi fountain. 

Legend has it that if you toss a coin over your shoulder into the fountain  you will return to Rome one day.

I hope this is true!

Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II and the tomb of the unknown soldier. There are always 2 guards standing in front -24 hours a day.

(The top of it kind of reminds people of a wedding cake especially when you are looking at it from a distance.)

Dumb moment #2:

As we were walking behind the monument we saw a similar statue to the one above up high on a pole.

As we approached and were all looking at it, (Keep in mind it was dark and small) I was like "oh my gosh look how cute baby piggies sucking their mommy pig."

You wouldn't believe the look I got from Steve (a friend of my dads who spends lots of time in Rome and was helping us find the "hot" spots for shooting).

Once I found out what this statue represented and that is was like the most famous statue/story of Rome, I was quite embarrassed.

At least we all got some good laughs out of it.

 I think I should have studied my history a bit better before coming:)

Well that about wrapped it up for the night, we did not get back to our place until like 2 in the morning.

So we were all exhausted.

I decided it would be good if I took a shower.

However it didn't take long to realize that #1 there was no shower curtain, and #2 it wasn't really even a shower. There was a little sprayer connected to the tub that you could lift up and hold over your body.

This made showering extremely difficult and awkward.

I don't know how they do it.

I now see why they don't shower every day.

I certainly didn't want to.

Friday, May 4th

We all slept in until 11:00 that morning.

But quickly got ready for another exciting day!

The Spanish steps.

The longest and widest steps in Europe.

It was a bit crowded in this area but there were gorgeous pink flowers all over the steps. 

And right in front of me are a few very famous designer shops such as Prada, Armani, Gucci, Valentino, Burberry and of course many more.

It was fun to look but definitely did not buy a single thing.

This fun little fountain ("Fountain of the Old Boat") was made to look like a sunken boat and was right in the middle of the cute cobblestone street.

Right after I got this picture we noticed a lady come up and fill her water bottle up right in this fountain.

That might be just a bit gross, just sayin.

Sophia and I bought a pair of sunglasses here, and tried some roasted walnuts that were like 1 euro a piece. 

And they weren't even that good.

Oh and my dad filmed Sophia getting her fortune told by a guy on the side of the street.

That was interesting.

The courtyard inside the Vatican museum.

This was some sort of random transformer ball that slowly rotated.

Sunglasses picture!

Touring the museum. 

You can't see it but the view behind us is breathtaking.

A very long hall of statues.

 The ceilings and walls were covered in beautiful paintings.

Inside the Sistine chapel.

In the middle of the ceiling is the famous "God and Adam touching fingers" section of the paintings,

painted by Michelangelo.

It took him 4 years to paint the ceiling of the chapel. 

It was so beautiful and quite amazing.

This fun staircase is found inside the museum leading in and out of it.

It is actually 2 staircases intertwined.

Another small courtyard.

A little view of St. Peter's Square and Basilica.

We ate lunch here.

This is one of the most famous bridges in Rome built in 239 A.D.

A large number of Pilgrams made their way across it to St. Peters.

The angels on top were sculpted by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini.

We got to this bridge at the perfect time of day because if you look closely you can see its reflection in the Tiber River.

It was stunning and looked just like something you would find in a storybook.

(You might be able to see it better in the picture above.) 

 

The crew spent a lot of time on this bridge  (I don't know what it is called) shooting this breathtaking view.

We're talking from like 5:00-10:00 pm.

So Emerson, Sophia, and me decided to venture off and find the main shopping street, Via del Corso.

Sophia and I were determined to find an H&M.

And we did! Yay!

It was pretty late and  the shops were all closing so we didn't get to spend much time shopping.

But we definitely found ourselves some yummy Gelato on our way back.
 

 Here are some gorgeous scenic views taken by Emerson's iphone.

St. Peter's Basilica and Ponte Sant'angelo in the background.

We finally made our way to dinner.

We ate under a tent that night.

Most of us tried calzones.

Except my dad, he wanted sea food.

So he got some creepy squid things.

You can tell we had fun playing with them.

So, like many other major cities in the world Rome is full of little sales guys that try their very hardest to get you to buy whatever it is that they are selling.

(No offense but usually it is stupid.)

Apparently they are allowed to come into restaurants, so tonight a guy came in selling these little animals that sing and dance.

I'm so mad I didn't get a picture but they seriously were the funniest things.

We were laughing our heads off.

In fact we were laughing so hard that not only was everyone in the restaurant looking at us in complete awe that we would find something so stupid hilarious, but we just couldn't resist buying one of them.

Sophia and I also bought ourselves some cute Torquoise rings along that street.

(Look for it in future pictures!)

At around 2 in the morning we headed for home.

 Still in awe that we had spent the entire day in this wonderful city.

Stay tuned for more!

Rome. (Part 2)

Saturday May 5th

Before I continue on with the day I wanted to write down a few details about the food.

For breakfast each morning we had a combination of the following:  bowl of cereal, fruit, yogurt, juice or bread with nutella. 

I thought the yogurt was kind of gross, the cereal was normal just in itty bitty boxes, the juice was amazing, and the milk was very creamy and slightly warm.

But it was still pretty good.

For lunch we had sandwiches, (Just cheese and meat), chips, fruit, and cookies.

Throughout the day we would stop for treats, mostly Gelato.

 (I talk more about the dinners each day.)

Oh and every night we would come home and take some biscuits and spread them with a lot of nutella and enjoy that and a warm glass of milk!

All in all the food was pretty good.

Mostly just the Gelato!

And one other thing, we walked EVERYWHERE.

Taking occasional buses and taxis.

 You wouldn't believe how sore our feet got, oh my gosh.

But it was good exercise and we definitely got a feel for the city.

Today, we planned on spending most of the day at the Colosseum.

(Keep in mind we were here to tour like crazy but mostly to get footage of the most famous things as well as the coolest looking shots. So some days my dad and Chris spent the entire day at one place just moving around to different angles and waiting for the sunset and stuff.)

Like many other major cities in the world Rome has tons and tons of street sellers.
They are everywhere.
 You would not believe how many times we were approached by these sellers.

It was crazy.

One thing they sold that we liked is this laser that can shoot like 5 kilometers. 

It is crazy how bright it is and how far it can go.

Oh and it is so strong if you even shine it on a bird it will go tumbling down.

I'm not even kidding.

(Thank you Chris for the demonstration!)

Anyway, the sellers absolutely love to bargain, and so do we so we made a contest out of it to see who could get it for the cheapest.

The sellers were mostly trying to sell them for 15-25 euros.

Keep in mind that our exchange rate is like 30% more than the euro.

So Chris was proud when he got one for $20.

Emerson got one for 15 euros.

And the winners are....

Sophia and I who each got one for 10 euros.

Yep the girls won!

We are pro bargainers I'm telling you.

You should see us in action.

 Chilling outside.

The weather was perfect today.

Here is a cool shot Emerson shot with his Iphone of the inside of the Colosseum.

(You can see Sophia and I in the front corner.)

 Here is the "stage" where they had the gladiatorial contests and public events.

(Mostly where they killed slaves.)

The stage itself is no longer there so what you see behind me is what it looked like under the stage, with all the tunnels where they kept all the wild animals and such.

Pretty crazy and kind of sad.

Apparently it is capable of seating over 50,000 spectators.

Hanging out inside while they film like crazy.

(Don't worry, we helped a ton too.)

We then ate lunch on a little hill right outside the Colosseum.

It was amazing to think about where we were sitting and that right in front of us was this incredible piece of Roman history.

I think I'll always remember lunch that day.

After lunch we decide to venture off again and find that super fun shopping street again.
(Via del Corso.)

As we were heading down, my dad gave us some money and said, "Okay please try not to buy anything stupid."

I'm not kidding when I say that 10 seconds later a seller approached him with this cheap plastic statue thing of a few famous things in Italy.

My dad immediately called out to Emerson saying, "Hey do you want this?"

Haha oh my gosh dad and you tell us not to buy anything stupid.

Very funny, mostly if you were there though.

As we were walking we saw this little line-up of mimes.

These ones were dumb because they didn't even do anything funny.

We even put 1 euro in their little cup and they didn't even move.

Secretly I was glad about this because if one of them would have stood up and come up to me I think I would have peed my pants.

They are kind of freaky looking.

 Aunti Hilary will greatly appreciate this picture.

But we found the famous Accessorize and completely flipped out.

(We love this store and first discovered it in London.)

Another gelato stop.

Hands down this place had the best Gelato.

 Here's another dumb moment.

So we were standing out looking at all the flavors when Sophia pointed to one and asked me how to pronounce it.

I told her, "it is Tiramasu" pretty much how it sounds.

Well, Emerson and I went on to order and as it came to her turn she pointed to it and said, "I will have a scoop of "Tiramusa."

Oh my gosh, that Italian worker got this little smile but was very polite.

Although, I'm sure he was thinking, "stupid Americans."

Haha.

Oh she also called the Colosseum,  "the colossum or colestrum."

Haha when she said that Chris was like "I'm pretty sure that is moms milk or something."

Okay I love you Sophie and your inability to pronounce words.

We were so smart and caught ourselves a bus right back to Colosseum to pick up dad, Chris, and Steve.

(It's harder than you think especially since there are like a million bus stops and buses and everything is in Italian.)
So cheers to us!

 We then ate dinner on this street.

I had spaghetti which was pretty good.

As we were eating here we noticed that the street and people on it were a little different.

I'll just say that as we were leaving we looked up and saw this huge rainbow sign.

Yep.

After we enjoyed more Gelato and some nutella crepes.

What a day!

Sunday May 6th

(A very rainy day)

 Goofing off together in the morning.

I apologize for my butt taking up half the picture haha. 

Most awkward angle.

 Being cute in the rain.

It was seriously pouring.

K this is clever huh?!

 And I apologize but this is hilarious!

Sorry to anyone this might offend.

 Shooting some more in the rain.

Sophia, Emerson, and me were in charge of holding umbrellas over the cameras and gear.

Definitely strengthened my arm muscles this trip.

(Right in front of me is Steve).

The beautiful view.

 Just another beautiful view.

Pictures don't do it justice I promise.

So we are all pretty much drenched, our shoes soaking wet, and we were starving because even though we had packed our lunch we couldn't find anywhere dry to eat it.

So as we were walking around we came to this little cafe.

We decided to go in and try some hot chocolate.

BEST hot chocolate ever.

The guy took scoops of dark chocolate Gelato and melted it completely while mixing it with cream.

Okay there just aren't words.

Anyway we never ended up finding a place to eat our lunch so we ate it standing up underground waiting for the train.

So fun!

 Walking down the Spanish steps.

An in action photo.

Notice me holding the umbrella.

Yep I am really good at it!

They call it Gelati I guess.

 Look how beautiful and yummy.

(This was a smaller place, most places had like 25 different flavors to choose from.)

 Back to the Trevi Fountain to get a few more evening shots.

While were taking this picture a guy next to us had this interesting contraption that had a magnet on the end.

He would just plop it in the water and collect all the coins.

Haha poor guy.

 Pinocchio!

I don't have a picture but we ate dinner in a part of the city that was well known for its food.

We started off with some harder bread topped with pears, cheese, and honey.

It sounds gross, but it was actually really good.

And then I of course had to have the Margherita pizza again.

And it was incredible.

I'm seriously in love with the pizza there.

 The Pantheon.

It is the most preserved of all Roman buildings.

It was first built in 80 AD as a temple to all the ancient Gods of Rome, but after being destroyed by a fire it was rebuilt in 126 AD.

It was then converted to a Christian church and is also a tomb for some well known people.

It was a gorgeous view because of all the lights and the rain just made the ground sparkle like crazy.

That night I called Michael while sitting right under it.

Pretty cool!

While walking back we came across this teeny tiny cutie.

Yep it is real.

I'm curious as to who actually drives it around.

We made it back to the apartment after an entire day in the pouring day.

But the rain didn't stop us.

Even though at times we kind of wanted to go back to the apartment and just play cards, (By we I mean Sophia, Emerson and me haha)

I'm really glad we didn't because the rain that day just made our 3rd day in Rome all the more memorable.

Monday May 6th

(Our last day.)

 The Swiss guards guarding the streets around St. Peter's Basilica.

The Pope lives somewhere right around here.

 Hanging out at St. Peter's square.

We went shopping for a bit and I found Olivia some stunning tights and a cute little bikini.

It's actually too big for her this year sadly.

 After hiking uphill for like an hour we came to this wonderful view.

A lookout to all of Rome.

Chris was planning on spending the rest of the day shooting here.

So the rest of us headed off to climb to the top of St. Peters.

 We of course had to try a cannoli.

The cherry was an interesting twist but it was still very good!

 After what seemed like a million stairs straight up, we made it to the top of St. Peters.

I will admit that I complained a bit during the climb threatening to turn around but I made it, we all did. 

And I'm glad because the view was incredible.

Not our best picture but here we are!

 Inside St. Peters.

My dad touching St. Peter's feet.

The Swiss guards again!

They told us that there were 110 guards guarding the grounds 24/7.

Well, we ended up making our way back up to Chris who was still shooting at the lookout.

Sophia, Emerson, Steve, and me decided to venture off to find a grocery store.

Because all the grocery stores close at 8:00 pm we had no luck.

So after picking up dad and Chris we took a bus back near our apartment and found a cute little restaurant to eat at.

It was actually really good. 

I had bruschetta, cheese stuffed balls, and margherita pizza.

A perfect dinner to finish the trip off.

We went back to the apartment and got all packed up since we would be leaving at 7:00 am that next morning.
The flight to Atlanta was so much fun.
My dad, Sophia, Emerson, and I all sat right in a row.
It was business class so we had a lot of leg room.
We had our own tvs with tons of different movies, tv shows, games, and music.
Of course the food was airplane food and the bathrooms were still freaky.
But we had about as much fun as you can when you fly for 10 straight hours.

After 17 hours of flying I finally made it back to Olivia.

We were so excited to see each other and held hands the entire way home.

I spent the night at my parents and then jumped on another plane that next morning to go back home.

I was so unbelievably excited to see Michael and so was Olivia.

It was one of those things were I was so excited to be home but at the same time was really missing Rome.

I'm grateful to my dad for taking me on this unforgettable trip, and I'm thankful for Sophia, Emerson, Steve, and Chris for making it unbelievably hilarious and fun.

It's one of those things that I look back on and can hardly believe I did all those things, saw all those places.

So just when I start to cry as I remember all the fun unforgettable times and start missing it, I think of this quote, 

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

And that's what I do.