Roma! Ciao!

Hi, so it's our last night in Rome now as I write to you and it's been a busy three days. Our first day we arrived on the high speed train into Rome having left behind our beloved Florence. We found our hostel and it proved to be the most unusual one we have stayed at so far. Our hostel is owned by a man named Francesco and he seems extremely chilled, he told us our three roommates were out but two were from Chile and one from America. We decided for an easy first day to go see the Trevi Fountain and so we set out into what was vastly seeming an unbearable heat. We checked out the fountain and threw a penny backward into it which is meant to bring you back to Rome again if you want it :) We then went for dinner in a really good restaurant recommended by our chum the Let's Go Western Europe Guide. In this restaurant we witnessed a scene where we literally felt Ashton Kutcher was going to jump out and shout "PUNK'D" because we were seated near two little American boys eating dinner in a fairly nice restaurant who proceeded to ask for bread, go demand more bread, ask for their own pizza cutter, ask if they could take home the water since they had to pay for it and ask the waiter if the tip was included. Insane. We went back to our hostel pretty early that night because of pure exhaustion to discover our roommates weren't home and they didn't arrive back at all that night (which we later found out was due to being on a pub crawl that became extended lol). The following morning we got up and headed out fairly early to the Ancient City to see the Forum Romanum on the Palatine Hill and the Colosseum. We went to the Forum Romanum first and it was really cool to see the House of Augustus etc but annoyingly we didn't have a tour guide and there weren't many signs so it was hard to know what was what. We went to the Colosseum and signed up for a tour of both places there. The Colosseum tour was really good and was led by a funny Italian man but unfortunately we couldn't go on the Forum Romanum part of the tour because our ticket wouldn't work twice. We then came back to our hostel where we ate and I had a nap (lol). Our roommates still weren't there so we thought maybe they were passed out in a gutter somewhere haha. We went out again to go see Colosseum all lit up at night and went for a walk in the Domus Aurea park that Nero set up. We went for dinner and gelatos and then came back to our hostel where we finally met our wandering roommates who were very nice. One of them taught me swear words in Spanish, unfortunately due to my lack of linguistic ability I cannot remember any of them. Today we got up early to go to Vatican City. We queued for quite a while to get into the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapels but they were very impressive. We went for lunch in kind of a gross touristy restaurant nearby because it was easier not to leave the area and we were starved so we then went to St Peter's Basilica. The church was huge and stunning but my favourite part was sitting afterwards with Jess and Sonni watching the underdressed people get denied entry by the guards. So fun. One girl tried covering her shoulders with toilet paper. We came back to our hostel and napped again haha (but to be fair we'd been up really late the night before hanging out with our roommates this time! we aren't grannies!) and then went to a restaurant near the river Tiber that Sonni found using the Let's Go guide. My salad was amazing but the toilets in the restaurant were gross beyond words. We walked down and took photos by the Tiber and then journied back to our hostel and got gelatos on the way. We just met our new roommate Victor from Brazil who joins our new two American girl roommates to make up the six beds in our room. That's about all I have to blog to you about now, I'd better let the others on the computer. I'll write again from Vienna, dreading going on the night train tomorrow night :(

xoox