Roaming Rome with Romans

Hi everyone!!!! After leaving Venice, Ally and I made our way to Rome. The ride was incredibly boring because neither of us had anything to do... I couldn't read because I'd get sick, and also we didn't bring our iPods because we didn't have anyway of charging it without bring my computer. Hence we had no way of entertaining ourselves. To make things worse, we ended up sitting in different areas, because we didn't buy two tickets together... after multiple attempts to try to sit together, I just had to go sit all by myself and looked out the window.
However, a really funny thing happened to me when I sitting alone, and bored out of my mind. The guy next to me happened to be watching a Woody Allen movie, and I didn't want to be rude and be all up in his grill, so i tried to watch it out of the corner of my eyes... then he caught me and offered to share and I said, no it's not a big deal. But then eventually he put on the English subtitles for me. But yeah, like Tram would say, I was being super American and all in his space, but in my defense... I was bored... nothing to do, and I'm sure most people would have looked, and I couldn't help laughing because there were funny moments. Anyone, in the end my new friend, is Angelo and he happened to be coming from Venice also and going to Rome. He offered to give us a tour of the city, so I made a friend on the train... weird, but it really made Rome a very interesting trip.
After getting off the train, we went to our hostel, which was close to the train station, but that was probably the only good thing about it. Unlike Ally I don't exaggerate as much, but this by far was the worst place we've ever stayed in, and we both decided we can't ever do this again. We definitely didn't spend much time in the hostel. Our first night we walked around Rome. Although it was my second time to Rome, I never got to see Rome at night, and it was really beautiful, although I was scared for my life because Romans don't seem to be very good drivers.
For our first official day in Rome, we went to the Colesseo, Roman Forum, and a whole bunch of other stuff. The Colesseo was cool, but the inside to me was not as interesting, I liked the outside better. I think Ally and I have watched way too many Hollywood movies with the Colesso and we had a different image in mind. The Forum was like it was 2 years ago. Ally really liked the Tomb of the Fallen Soliders which was in the Venice Square, but I personally perfer "Valle de los caidos" in Madrid better. But either way, it is still an amazing building. Later in the day we met up with Angelo and he gave us the official tour. I prefer having a tour guide, because that means I don't have to read the map and figure out where we're going, I just follow.
However, a funny thing about having a tour guide, is that Ally and I usually don't listen, we just like looking at the building and momuents, and rarely question about the history. Of course Angelo, had to know every single thing about Rome and we felt a little uncultured next to him. We walked all of Rome basically with Angelo that afternoon, night him telling us everything and us partically listening. However, give us a credit because now we can distinguish between St. Peter and St. Paul. Near the end we went on a search for food, and it seemed that everything was closed, and it was really funny when we were all tired, and our legs were sore, but finally we managed to find pizza... and all was right in the world again.
The following day, we went to the Vatican and it seemed that everyone else decided to do that too. Although it was my second time to St. Peter's Basilica, it's still one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life. Angelo says that St. Mark's is better than St. Peter's but I'm going to say... I don't think so. It's hard to capture the essence of the basilica, it's incredibily incredible. Like Ally said, you can't look at any other churches in the same way after seeing this one. Since I did not climb the domb last time I was in Rome, Ally and I decided to do so, but we decided to be cheap and save a few euros and walk all the way up. Let me just say... we were the only people not to take the elevator up. We walked over 500 steps up the dome. There were red stairs, white stairs, narrow, wide... all types of stairs, you name it, we climbed it. I thought I was going to die because it was a lot of stairs... I'm weak and lazy. However, we made it. The view was incredible although there were lots of people around. Because nothing can be higher than the Basilica, being at the top gave us a beautiful view of Rome. It was worth the ridiculous climb to see the view. The Vatican museum was also a wonderful sight. To be honest, Ally and I are probably not the most "museumy" people, but the Sistine Chapel is amazing, and the Raphael things aren't shabby either. After seeing what Michelangelo has done by the time he's like 23, 24, I'm like what have I done with my life? Where are my sculptures and paintings? i should stop sitting in my piso and watching "sin Tetas no hay paraiso" and start painting or something.
After our trip to the Vatican we took a short break and met up with Angelo for our second day of seeing Rome. We went to dinner at this restaurant that was really famous, but right now I don't remember why... don't tell him I said that though. The food in Italy was okay, I didn't find it to be spectacular, but it's better than the options in Spain (sorry...). Either way after dinner we went over to Angelo's sister, Alessandra's apartment. We met her friends and we all went out for this fiesta, which I'm still not quite sure what it was. There were tons of people in the streets, and it was crowded everywhere. It was nice to have friends and people to hang out with on our travels. We usually just have each other, so it was a nice change.
All in all, when I think about Rome, I think of all the history and all the cool things they have there. You could be walking and see some modern buildings and out of no where pops the Trevi fountain or something ridiculous like that. You just don't see things like that in Seattle. Also the buses here are out of control, if you don't like being touched by random people, don't ride the bus in Rome. Although I like Rome, I think after two visits, I'm pretty Romed out.
Although I enjoy traveling, and seeing new places, after my time in Rome, I really started missing being in Huelva, not because huelva is better, but because now I see Spain as my home. Even if it's not "home, home", it's still a place where I have my own place to put my things, I'm not living out of a suitcase or in our case a backpack. I started to really miss Spain... but we still have two more cities to go before we get back. I guess it's the cold that makes me think of crazy stuff as missing Huelva.
Okay, that was Rome, hope everyone enjoys the pictures, we have more, but it's impossible to post them all.

Besitos,
Ngoc :)