The End of a Beginning

Well, here begins my last post of this incredible adventure. I can't believe it's over! What an amazing experience I've had and what an incredible opportunity this has been!

I just wanted to summarize the last two weeks, because a surprising amount happened...the weekend of August 4th-5th I got to hang out in Geneva, which was a nice break from all the traveling I did the two weekends before that. Saturday was a pretty lazy day - I woke up around noon, having stayed up pretty late on Friday night. I decided with a couple others in my REU group to head down to downtown Geneva for the Fete de Geneve, a festival that went from July 19 - August 12. We had heard that there were supposed to be fireworks at night, and so decided to check it out. The Geneva Festival is the biggest festival of the year (obviously, since it takes up almost a month of the year...), and there were things to do EVERYWHERE. There were food vendors, carnival rides (including those stupid spinning teacups), carnival games...you name it. All of it took up at least three miles along the shore of the lake, basically spanning the entirety of downtown Geneva. Lights and carnival rides decorating the shoreline - it was quite a sight to see. We wandered around for a while, and then the fireworks began. And not only in Geneva, oh no. Fireworks appeared around the entire lake above the trees and buildings, all around. It was so beautiful! Shortly after, however, we returned to CERN in preparation for a sort-of early day.

Fireworks with the Jet d'Eau lit up

On the first Sunday of every month, there are several museums in Geneva that are free. So, naturally, I had to go. How could I pass up free stuff in Geneva, the most expensive city in Europe?! The first stop was the Art History Museum. There were many artifacts from ancient Rome and Europe, along with some from ancient Greece. I saw many paintings that were all beautiful, but unfortunately the wing that had all of the musical instruments was closed that day for some reason. Ah well, it was time to head to the Natural History Museum anyway. But, unfortunately (again), the most interesting wing was closed. So we were able to check out the fish, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates, but were unable to see Lucy (the most preserved human being ever found) and the minerals. So overall, it was a disappointment, but I'm not sure if every "free day" is like that. Hopefully that was just a fluke thing...Next on our list was the Botanical Gardens - we mainly wanted to see all the poisonous plants. The Botanical Gardens were very beautiful, and I wish I had gotten there earlier - I would have liked to go there in the evenings to relax or something because it was incredibly peaceful there. I always enjoy visiting parks, and this visit was no different. We made a lap around the Gardens, but then headed back to CERN to relax for the evening.

The first half of the week was pretty uneventful, besides for trying to gather together a final presentation (I could not believe that it was the FINAL presentation that I was preparing) and doing other random work. OH I almost forgot - on Tuesday (at least, I think it was Tuesday...I'm actually writing this a week after the fact) I got to take a tour of ISOLDE, which is the nuclear physics research experiment at CERN. They have several different experiments there, with only one able to run at a time, but it was cool to see all the things they are still researching in nuclear physics. The tour lasted about an hour and 15 minutes, but then it was back to work.

Thursday was the day of reckoning, Judgment Day...ok, not really, but I had been nervous about this presentation all week. The first presentation in the group started at 2, I went at 3:40, the last one ended at 5:30...yup, that's right, 3.5 hours of presentations. I was going crazy by the end of it. Don't get me wrong, everyone's projects were really cool and each person presented their work really well, but I have issues sitting still for that long with no breaks. I was pretty happy when we were able to get up and walk around. We took a group picture in front of the bubble chamber (a previous generation of particle detectors) before heading to a restaurant literally on the shoreline of Lake Geneva for a last group dinner. I don't even want to know how much the meal cost, but it was a very expensive restaurant and there were at least 25 of us there...your guess is as good as mine. Our appetizer consisted of white fish on top of some delicious type of cracker, pike rolled up in...something (not quite sure what haha), bread and butter, and cured beef. The main course was fried perch with French fries, and the dessert was our choice. I had a lemon merengue thing on a thin cookie, but I should have gotten the chocolate mousse that a couple others got - my lemon merengue was delicious but the mousse could not be beat. The whole meal was absolutely delicious and was a perfect way to finish off the program. To top it all off, we got to watch the lake grow dark as the sun set behind us - Mont Blanc was a gorgeous shade of orange at one point, and I couldn't look away from it. It was about that point that I realized how much I was going to miss having such easy access to a view like that...but I knew I'd be back someday.

Friday was spent finishing up anything I needed to do in preparation of leaving CERN - getting files from my work computer, turning in keys and ID's, etc etc. But the second half of the day was spent doing fun things, aka heading downtown to complete my souvenir collection and get the last of the gifts for my family. Chris and I ended up meeting a couple others downtown, and they told us about an awesome food market that they had just stopped at, so of course I wanted to check it out. I got bread and cheese for under 6 francs (awesome!) so that ended up being a pretty good dinner. We returned to CERN and sat on the patio for a while, eventually joining up with some others who were saying farewells as well. There was a group who wanted to do some last exploring around CERN and since I hadn't been around much of the site, I decided to join. Except we weren't exploring aboveground...yup, underneath CERN is a vast labyrinth of tunnels leading basically everywhere on site, and they all criss-cross and overlap with signs every so often telling you which building you are heading toward. Our destination was what has been dubbed the "Summer Student Temple" but it's essentially just a dead-end room of one of the tunnels, and the walls have been signed by many of the students who have found it. I was able to sign my name with a piece of salmon-colored chalk. That whole excursion took at least two hours, and it had been late when we first set out. I returned to my room exhausted.

Saturday the 11th was the final day of Fete de Geneve, so I went downtown with about six other people from my REU group to hang out and just enjoy our last day in Geneva. Actually, we were hardly downtown at all...we took a bus to the parks located north of the city and walked along the lake for two or three hours, stopping a few times to take in the view and take some pictures. At one point we stopped for a good hour, playing cards in the shade and just talking. Unfortunately, there was not enough space to throw a Frisbee...sad day. We split up into different groups at that point, and I went with the group that walked back toward Geneva. We made it to the edge of all the carnival rides and started to search for some food. We came across a surprisingly good deal (for Geneva at least) - a giant hamburger with fries for 13 francs. We caved and bought burgers, and started back towards the parks in search of a spot to sit to watch the fireworks. We found a spot, but realized that we were 2 hours early...whoops. So I played nine games of Egyptian Rat Screw, or ERS for short. Don't ask me how it got that name, I have no idea. This game is all about reflexes, and it's very rare to win only with the luck of the cards you're given to start with. But anyway, those nine games kept us occupied until the fireworks started at 10pm.

I can't describe to you how spectacular these fireworks were. I felt like I was seeing fireworks for the first time again. I had never seen anything like it. They covered a huge portion of the sky, and were separated into different segments, each probably 5 minutes or so long. Each ended with a pseudo-finale, getting progressively more intense. There were a couple of these pseudo-finales in the middle that were just like finales I had seen in the US, so I thought that the show would end there, but the streetlights never came back on and the show continued thirty seconds later. I found myself wondering how big the real finale would actually be...I was in for a treat. When the real finale started, I pulled out my camera and recorded the whole thing. I was sort of overwhelmed at how spectacular and impressive this show was. It was almost as light as day because of the fireworks that were exploding every quarter-second. To really understand, you just need to watch this video I took of it. I promise I will upload it to my picture page soon. But the bottom line is that this was by far the best fireworks show I had ever seen, and I very highly doubt anything will ever match it. Finally it was time to return to CERN, which apparently everyone else in Geneva was doing as well because the tram was filled to the brim. I honestly don't think another person could have been packed into it. I was uncomfortably close to people I didn't know, and the tram was that crowded all the way to CERN (which was the last stop on the route). At long last I stepped out into fresh air after the stuffy air of the tram.

Next on the agenda was laying in the grass with some other summer students to watch the Perseids meteor shower. I have the worst luck back home in Michigan when it comes to meteor showers or any other astronomical phenomena - it always seems to be too cloudy to see anything. So I was very excited to see some meteors! I laid in the grass for a while and counted 5 meteors streaking across the sky. Then I joined some of the U of M REU group members who hadn't left yet for a final glass of champaign to celebrate a fantastic summer filled with all sorts of adventures. We enjoyed each other's company until about 2:30am, but then it was time to finish packing and go to sleep. I had a pretty early day on Sunday.

Kevin, Alex, and I were all on the same flight from Geneva to Washington DC, so we decided to meet up and travel to the airport together. We arrived and immediately jumped in the long line for the United Airlines check counters. Pretty soon, we saw some of our REU friends whose flight had been cancelled the day before - they were taking a flight scheduled for an hour before ours. I can't imagine having a flight like that cancelled. A small one out of Flint Airport, sure, but I didn't think trans-Atlantic flights ever really got cancelled...that same flight from Friday had been cancelled as well! But luckily ours was not, and everything went smoothly for the nine hour flight to Washington DC. I tried to sleep during that flight, to no avail, and so stepped into America in a bit of a daze, having only gotten three hours of sleep the night before. My body felt like it was 9pm, but it was only 3pm in DC, and I was struggling a bit. Kevin and I said goodbye to Alex first since his parents were picking him up from that airport, but we had connecting flights to catch. We made it through customs without a hitch, and went to our gates only to find Victor (one the people whose flight had been cancelled on Saturday) waiting at Kevin's gate for the same plane! How crazy! I stayed with them until 4pm, since my plane was scheduled to board at 4:25. Well, 4:25 came and went, and so did the departure time of 4:55. The guy came over the speaker and announced that they had not been given maintenance clearance yet and that wasn't expected for at least 25 minutes. And he kept saying that every 25 minutes until 6:10, when he said that "Your new expected departure time is 6:35...or 7:00. I'm gonna go with 7:00. Just wait." And sure enough at 7:00 he came on again and said, "We have finally been given maintenance clearance! I told you all it would be at 7:00...and now we're just waiting for the captain - not quite sure where he is." We  FINALLY pulled out of the gate around 7:30, getting me back to Detroit just before 9pm. Thank the Lord, I was almost home. I can't believe my luck with traveling, although I am extremely thankful that none of my weekend travels had any issues and that the only issue of the summer happened in my own country.

Andrew picked me up at the airport, and I was in even more of a daze after that whole ordeal. He helped me find my suitcases in baggage claim, and then I was truly on the home stretch. I couldn't wait to get home! When we finally made it, I gave my parents giant hugs, and then it honestly felt like I had never left. How strange is that? I am so happy I got the opportunity to have such an incredible summer, and I am so thankful for all the experiences I was able to have, both work and travel related. I learned so much about French and Swiss culture since that was where I lived, but I also got little tastes of the cultures of the places I visited too. I would repeat this experience in a heartbeat! I still can't believe it's over, but it's now time to move on to the next event in my life. The Spartan Marching Band begins practice in less than a week, and I could not be more excited to be one of the leaders of this incredible group! Thank you to everyone who made this incredible summer possible! It's been a pleasure blogging for you!

The City of Loovvveeee

No but really...Europe has considerably more PDA than the US does, and Paris was no different. Although, I suppose it is quite romantic to kiss your girlfriend by the river with a view of Paris in the background.

Anyway, as you must have guessed, my final big trip for the summer was to beautiful Paris, France (but don't worry, I will still post one or two more times as this experience comes to a close). This was not quite as long a trip as Rome, but it was close. I was able to attend the Summer Student Lectures at CERN on Friday morning and meet with my advisor one last time before she went on holiday for the remainder of my stay. Soon, though, it was time to catch the TGV high speed train to Paris! Of course, not before running with massive backpacks in an attempt to make the tram that would take us from CERN to the train station...thankfully we made it. But we were quite sweaty and I'm pretty sure everyone around us was giving us strange looks. We didn't care, we were going to PARIS!

We found our train in plenty of time, and met up with one of our group member's mom and sister who were in town and would be accompanying us to Paris. However, we were all in different cars since we actually had to have reservations for this train, meaning you were assigned a seat. I settled back to enjoy the ride. At first, the TGV was going as fast (slow?) as any normal train, with stops too close together to gain too much speed. I started reading my book and began to doze, and when I woke up we were flying at a comfortable 140mph. In Michigan, I can't stand driving through farmland because it's so flat and takes such a long time to get through. But in France and on this train, the farmland was located on gently rolling hills (much more pleasing to my eye) and it was flying by. There was a totally new scene out the window every 15 seconds or so, so I didn't get tired of the view. Also, in the fifteen minutes since I had woken up, we had gone from clear blue skies to clouds to dark skies spitting rain. It was unbelievable how fast the scenery changed!

The train ride took a total of 3 hours, a very enjoyable ride. We made our way to our hostel, which seemed to be located in a less touristy part of the city. We dropped off our stuff, and started wandering to find food. We eventually stopped at a small crepe shop (this is how I know we were in a less touristy part - the place was tiny and he made our crepes fresh, no premade wraps), where I ordered a panini and a Nutella crepe. Delicious! We then headed to Hotel de Ville so we wouldn't waste a whole evening in Paris.

To our surprise, when we came aboveground from the Metro we noticed a giant screen set up in the square in front of Hotel de Ville. And what was it showing? Why, the Olympic Opening Ceremonies of course! YES!! I wouldn't miss it after all!! So we sat and watched the 2012 opening ceremony, leaving when they started presenting the countries to wander across the river to Notre Dame and around that area. We were at least 3/4 miles away when we heard an enormous roar coming from Hotel de Ville: France had been announced. We continued wandering, with the intention of making it back for the announcement of the United States. We did, and don't worry, we let the whole square know who we were supporting, along with a surprisingly large fraction of the other people present. But then it was time to return to the hostel for bed.

Saturday morning began at Saint Chapel, located on the same island as Notre Dame. We met up with Kevin's mom and sister again, then went into the chapel. The lower chapel was beautiful, with a statue of Mary at one end, but it was nothing compared to the upper chapel. All of the walls (and I mean ALL of them) were entirely stained glass from about ten feet from the floor on up. There were 14 main panels (I believe...don't quote me on that), each depicting different stories from the Bible. There was also a rose-shaped window that depicted Judgement Day from the book of Revelations; in my opinion it was the most beautiful window of them all. We stayed and took it all in for a while, then headed to Notre Dame for our next stop of the day.

Notre Dame is one of the most impressive cathedrals I've seen, after La Sagrada Familia and St. Peter's Basilica. It's two main towers loom over a square, and you can't tell just how big it is until you look at it from the side (it's huge, by the way). We waited for one last person to join our group before heading into the cathedral. I don't want to say "There are no words" again because I feel like I've been saying that all summer, but there really aren't. Every trip I've been on this summer, I've seen incredible architecture and there just simply aren't words to describe any of it. The best I can do is try to take pictures that are good enough to capture some of what I'm seeing. But to really understand, you just have to go there.

After Notre Dame, we took a short walk to Jardin du Luxembourg, the home of the Medici family after they were kicked out of Italy. I'm pretty sure they wanted to make whoever kicked them out jealous because they built a gigantic mansion and a beautiful yard/giant garden as their new home. The only thing that tainted this place was the view of a nasty modern skyscraper poking out above the trees. Now really, why did they think it was a good idea to build a skyscraper right in the middle of the old part of Paris? Yes, there is a newer part with more modern buildings, but this skyscraper really isn't close to that...I don't know, apparently all the Parisians hate it and I can definitely see why. Anyway...we spent about an hour walking around the garden, admiring the mansion, the pond with a fountain, the flowers, the palm trees...yes, palm trees in Paris. No, they are not native - apparently they are brought from further south every year. Can you imagine having that job?

Next on the agenda was a walk through Montmartre. Thankfully Kevin's mom had brought a guidebook, so we were able to follow a walking tour up to the crest of the hill. Montmartre is actually a village, and many famous artists used to live there (not so much anymore...too expensive, too many tourists, blah blah blah). As we were walking, we were gradually making our way up the hill, occasionally catching an awesome view of the city when we crossed a street. We started our walk at Moulin Rouge, and then went on to see the house of Vincent Van Gogh, the building where Picasso did some of his work, and several other cool things that I can't remember right now. Our walk ended at the Basilica Sacre-Coeur, the highest point in Paris and thus having an impressive view of all of Paris:

Another added bonus of this basilica was the random guy down the steps a ways who was juggling a soccer ball like he was a pro. He was spinning in circles on a 2ft x 2ft square post, crouching, even climbing a lightpost...all without the soccer ball touching the ground. He had control of it the whole time! Needless to say, he attracted quite a crowd and received tons of applause when he was done. We then toured the inside of Sacre-Coeur (unfortunately we couldn't take pictures...), which was incredible by the way, and then sat outside and admired the view for a while. Eventually we all decided we were starving and went back down the hill to eat.

Wherever we go, we always look for the value menus, like a main course plus dessert and drink for ten euros for example. Since Montmartre is a very touristy area, we weren't so fortunate as to find something for 10 euros, but we did find a good deal for about 14. Here is where I had authentic French onion soup (yum!) and lamb for the first time. It was pretty good! At this point, we had finished our entire itinerary for the day, so for our evening activity we decided to check out the Eiffel Tower.

I never realized how beautiful a giant mass of metal could be. The Eiffel Tower is located almost right on the Seine River, and there are no buildings around it, so it just towers over the surrounding trees. The sun was hitting it at a perfect angle so it took on a nice orangey-brown glow. We had gotten off one stop early from the Metro on purpose so we could walk and enjoy the river. We ended up hanging out at the Eiffel Tower for quite a while, staying until after it had gotten dark and the tower had lit up. But there was a surprise in store (for me...I'm not sure how many of the others knew about this). At 10pm, the tower suddenly started sparkling - thousands of light bulbs placed all over the tower start flickering on and off for five minutes on the hour every hour after 10pm (not sure til how late...). I was sort of mesmorized for those five minutes...after we had finished looking at the tower, we went across the street for crepes, but then returned to the hostel for the day.

On Sunday, we met up with the full group at the Louvre at 9:30am after getting croissants and coffee for breakfast. We proceeded to take pictures in front of the famous glass pyramid, which is apparently directly above the bones of Mary Magdalene according to The Da Vinci Code...haha just kidding. Before long, we were entering the museum and making our way to the Mona Lisa to beat the crowds. I guess we were sort of successful since there were still massive crowds there throughout the day, but the crowd we dealt with was considerably smaller. I honestly have no idea why this painting is so famous - it's so small! However I just read on the internet that it once hung in Napolean's bedchambers, and it was stolen from the Louvre when that was said to be impossible and that at one point during that whole thing Picasso was accused of stealing it. So it gained some popularity there, and then its popularity added to its popularity and now no one knows why it's so popular - it just IS. So of course we had to see it. However, after the Mona Lisa we all split up into groups of two or three. I was with Aditi, and we started the "Masterpieces Tour" from her audioguide. We walked around for nearly two hours, hitting many of the masterpieces in the Louvre including Winged Victory, Venus, and the Coronation of Napolean. Then I went off on my own to tour all of the Egyptian art. Everyone reunited between 2:30 and 3, and we set off down Champs d'Elysses.

Champs d'Elysses is probably the most famous street in Paris, where everything is ridiculously expensive. It's a gigantic tourist trap essentially, but there are a couple palaces and cool things to see along the way, like the US Embassy. We didn't actually stop at many of those cool places though, instead just walking down the couple kilometers of the busy street and ending up at Arc de Triomphe. I know this famous arc because this is where the Tour de France ends. It was built to honor those who fought in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was inspired by the Arch of Titus in Rome (hey, I saw that! They definitely have some similarities). We went through an underground tunnel to bypass the busy roundabout it stands in the middle of and see the arc up close. Like much of the architecture I've seen while I've been in Europe, it was very impressive. Underneath it was a torch and flowers that are apparently changed at 6pm everyday, and they were just starting that ceremony as we left to go to the Eiffel Tower for the second time. In fact, we passed the military members carrying the flowers and flags heading to the Arc.

We made our way to the Eiffel Tower again, where we met up with two of my friends from the States who were in Paris that weekend as well. It was so good to see them again! Unfortunately, our plans of climbing the tower with them were postponed (and eventually canceled) because of the rain that wasn't supposed to happen at all that day. How annoying! But we were able get dinner as a big, happy group at an excellent restaurant a little ways away. Afterwards, we headed back to the Eiffel Tower for crepes while we waited for it to light up and sparkle. At that point, KC and Erica decided not to climb the tower with us and to do it a different day. However, that was the rest of the group's last chance, so we were climbing the tower if it killed us! Let me tell you, it was WELL worth 3.50 euros.

We (of course) took the stairs up the Eiffel Tower, but you can't go all way to the top without taking the elevator. But I've actually heard that the second level is better than the top, because the top is almost TOO high. but anyway, we got to the first level and walked around for a while. It was threatening rain again, but Paris is beautiful at night so it made any threat worth it. Just as we were about to ascend to the second level, it started downpouring. And I mean a torrential downpour. The best part? The Eiffel Tower is only metal supports - no glass windows or anything, unless you go into the restaurant on the first level. So we took shelter where we could, but then just decided to go for it. Thankfully the staircase we needed was on the far side of the tower from where the wind was blowing, so we were pretty protected from the rain. After 669 stairs, we came out to the entirety of Paris laid at our feet, beautifully decorated in lights. We could see the building under which Napoleon is buried, Sacre-Coeur way in the distance, the ferris wheel on Champs d'Elysses, Arc de Triomphe, river tour boats putzing along...oh and don't forget that nasty skyscraper that doesn't fit in. We could see that too. If you looked straight up, you could see the remainder of the Eiffel Tower looming over you. Quite a sight. There were a couple cool things that happened while we were up there. One, Kevin noticed that as the spotlight on top of the Eiffel Tower went around, it reflected off a different skyscraper in the distance, and if you followed it you could see the brief flash of light. Awesome! Two, we were up there at 11pm. Remember what happens on the hour? Yup, all of a sudden everything was flashing around us. I took a couple videos of both of these events, check 'em out on the picture page! We stayed up there for a while longer, but then headed down and back to the hostel.

Whew another long post...one more day left! We got to sleep in on Monday (hooray!), heading to the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery around 10:45am. We stopped at a bakery along the way, where I had the most delicious raspberry tart of my life. Good thing it was 3.60 euros (~$4.40) or I would have bought three or four of them! Anyway...this cemetery is where several famous people are buried, including Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Auguste Compte, Alfred Chopin, and Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (a famous physicist and chemist...woot!). So we spent about two hours wandering around there before heading to Les Invalides, the war museum and where Napoleon's tomb is located.

To hear about how self-centered and cocky Napoleon was and to see it are two totally different things. I was amazed at how many carvings and statues the man had dedicated to himself. I suppose he probably deserved to be demolished by the Russian winter all that time ago. After spending some time at the tomb, we continued to the WWI and WWII museums, where the women spent about an hour and a half walking through and the men spent about two hours. However, at 5pm it was time to leave to make sure we had time for dinner before catching our train back to Geneva. We had our last crepes (I had two...one with ham, cheese, and egg and one with honey) and headed to the station for our 7:11 train.

This trip was an excellent way to round off my travels for the summer! I can hardly believe I have less than two weeks left here - how time flew! I'm so thankful for this incredible opportunity, but I am definitely ready to be back in the States and with my family, friends, and boyfriend. This weekend will be spent relaxing in Geneva (definitely needed after two big weekends of travel) and possibly taking a walking tour to some chocolate shops. The end is in sight - it will be bittersweet, but I know I will be back someday!

La Citta Eterna

Where to start....I've been sitting here for at least a couple minutes just trying to think of how to start the story of this weekend, a four-day adventure in Rome. And I'm coming up blank. There's just no good place to start, so I guess I'll just start at the beginning.

I'm sure many of you know that it has been a life-long dream of mine to travel to Italy - not necessarily Rome even, although that was very high on the list of places I had to go once I finally made it to Italy. So when a couple of my fellow interns suggested an excursion to Rome about a month ago, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. I had purchased a train ticket that was good for ten rides pretty much anywhere in Europe, and I was planning to use that to go somewhere in northern Italy, the only part of Italy to which it was reasonable to take a train. It is not practical to take a train to Rome, so this was the point I decided not to use this ticket and to return it for a refund once I returned to the States. (You can only return the ticket if it has not been used at all)

Ok, enough background. Now to the good stuff! Thursday night I was somewhat busy (with what, I don't really remember since my short-term memory isn't the best), so that resulted in me finally finishing my packing and getting into bed somewhere around 12:30am. Three hours of sleep is enough, right? My alarm went off not-so-bright and early at 3:20am sharp, but I was surprisingly awake. We had had to make a taxi reservation the night before for 4am since our flight was at 6:20 and there were no trams or buses that ran early enough to get us to the airport in time. We arrived at the airport around 4:15am, headed to security...and it wasn't open. What?! We were at the airport so early that security wasn't open?? So we had to wait 15 minutes while they finished cleaning the floors, and I found myself thinking what a miserable job that would be. We waited in the airport until our flight, and then we were off to Rome!

I was a little apprehensive about Friday's activities (not a lot, just a little), because I knew everyone would be dead tired from the early flight and traveling, and Friday was a VERY full day. We arrived at Rome's airport around 7:30 and went to find the train that would take us into the city. We ended up asking the tourist counter, and they told us that there was a shuttle bus that could take us directly to our hostel for slightly cheaper. Eh, why not? We'd get to see more of Rome since we'd actually be driving through the streets, and we'd each save 2 euros. Good deal, right? Well, sort of. It ended up taking longer than the train would have (even including the walking we would have had to do), and this driver was crazy. I think his hands were off the wheel more than they were on it, and Italian drivers are even more aggressive than French and Swiss ones are. So I just closed my eyes and tried to nap a little. The most exciting part of the ride was when we finally got into Rome and were driving right next to the Vatican wall and the enormous line of people waiting to get in the museums. I was immediately glad that we had bought tickets in advance and would be able to skip that line the next day. It was so surreal though! I found myself in disbelief the whole day that I was actually in Rome. It had to be a dream!

We arrived at our hostel, checked in, and immediately went on our way to the Colosseum area to get started on tackling our eventful day. To give you an idea of where we were in Rome, the hostel was about a ten minute walk south of the main train station, and a 15-20 minute walk northwest of the Colosseum. Along the way, we stopped at a small shop for breakfast and water, and ate while we were walking. I think that was one of the most delicious chocolate chip scones I have ever had, and only partly because I was starving. We reached a huge intersection, looked left...and there it was. The Colosseum. Possibly one of the most iconic and impressive structures man had ever built, and it was right down the street. Unbelievable. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) Rome is full of tourists, so we didn't look out of place at all as we immediately pulled out cameras and began snapping pictures. However, that wasn't our first stop for the day.

Me and the Colosseum!

The Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum are all within a two-minute walk from each other and make up the majority of the "ancient" part of Rome. Conveniently, they sell a combined ticket for all three, and you can get this ticket any any of the three venues. We knew the line at the Colosseum would be the longest by far, so we decided to hit the Roman Forum first and skip the line at the Colosseum later. At the last minute, we also signed up for an English guided tour that was happening in less than 10 minutes for only 5 euros more (the next English tour wasn't until 4:30). It couldn't have been more perfect! I was happy because I didn't know much of the history of the Roman Forum and it all would have simply been piles of rubble to me. Really cool piles of rubble, yes, but I got MUCH more out of the experience by signing up for that tour. Our guide was very knowledgable and told us all about how we were standing in the center of ancient Rome, and that those stumps of pillars to our left had once belonged to an ancient basilica or how only stumps remained because later civilzations had dismantled these enormous buildings and used the stone to build their own structures.

Remnants of pillars of an ancient basilica

More ruins in the Roman Forum

I've never been much of a history nut, but when it comes to Rome I could not learn enough. We went through the entirety of the Forum (not a big place, but not exactly small either), with our hour-long tour ending nearly at the entrance to Palatine Hill and thus we decided to end our three venue tour with a bang by hitting the Colosseum last.

On top of Palatine Hill were more beautiful ruins of ancient Rome, along with some breathtaking views of the surrounding city. Since we no longer had our tour guide, it all was sort of just piles of rubble, but it was amazing to think that this stone had been there for thousands of years, and was still there! I very highly doubt that anything we build today will be around two thousand years from now, and that's what makes ancient Rome so impressive. We explored the Hill for about an hour, walking around inside the museum there, which had been built on top of some of the ruins. That's right, there were ancient walls running right through the museum! There were also tons of statues and reconstructed vases that were very cool to see.

However, we all decided that it was time to eat, and headed down the Hill to find the only planned restaurant of the trip, Pizza Forum. Almost every website I had been to had listed this pizzeria as a place we had to eat, so we did. To get there, though, we had to walk around the Colosseum and thus got to take some nice pictures of it and the Arch of Constantine, located directly between the Colosseum and Palatine Hill. We finally made it to the pizzeria and ordered our cheap, woodfire-oven-grilled pizzas. A whole pizza for each of us. (Is your mouth watering yet?) I was fully expecting a long wait for our food, because that's just how they do it in Italy. I had been to an authentic Italian restaurant in Florida once before and so I knew what to expect. I knew there would be at least half an hour for us to sit and chat before our food would come. However, even my patience began to run thin, but thankfully the food came out shortly. And let me tell you, it was delicious! I've never had such good mozzarella cheese. I have also never had such good espresso...I'm not sure how I will be able to go back to the States after this weekend. We spent longer than expected in the restaurant, but came out full and ready to take on the Colosseum.

This post is already long, and I've hardly said anything! Hmm...well anyway, we were able to walk past a long line of people into the Colosseum. We walked through the high-ceilinged hallway around the structure to a staircase that would take us to a balcony overlooking the inside of the Colosseum. I'm still wondering how in the world the Romans were able to build such an impressive building. Below me were the elaborate underground passageways that used to be underneath the arena. At one end, there was a platform covering part of these passageways (I think to show what the arena had looked like all that time ago) and we noticed people walking around on it, but now we think it was just a tour group that was able to go out there, because we weren't able to find the entrance. We walked around for quite a while, poking around the small gift shop and just taking it all in before heading out to Palazza Venezia and the Monument of Vittorio Emmanuele II, a monument to the first king of unified Italy.

The Colosseum from Palatine Hill

Me inside the Colosseum!

We originally planned only to pass through this palazza because we thought we would have to pay to get inside the monument, a huge white building visible from atop any other decently sized building in Rome (more on this later). But it turned out to be free, so of course we had to check it out. We followed the signs to a terrace that overlooked Rome, and in the distance we could see St. Peter's Basilica, not to mention dozens of other domed basilicas. We wandered around the terrace and found ourselves inside a beautiful basilica hall, with some of the most elaborate artwork I have ever seen. Gold tendrils snaked across the ceilings and walls, and every inch that wasn't covered by gold was painted over with various religious depictions. However, the glass chandeliers were what caught my eye the most. There were at least a hundred of them hanging throughout the basilica, and they were beautiful.

Outside the Monument of Vittorio Emanuele II

Inside the basilica

Our next stop was the famous Trevi Fountain, a ten minute or so walk away. The little square it was in was teeming with people, all sitting or standing around the fountain. Apparently one of the traditions when one goes to this fountain is to throw a coin backwards over the shoulder - it mean that you will return to Rome. So, of course, I threw in a coin! And all the coins people throw in are gathered up and used to fund a supermarket that supports the poor of Rome. After throwing our coins in the fountain, we were sucked into a tourist trap (sort of) for dinner. All the restaurants have their waiters outside, flagging people down and trying to make you eat there (well, with so many restaurants all in the same place, who can blame them?). One waiter was making a pretty good case, and it wasn't too expensive so we decided just to eat there. We were all starving anyway. However, our food came out and they weren't the biggest portions I'd ever seen. But everything was very good, and we left content. Another rumor we had heard was that the gelato by the Trevi Fountain was the best in the world, so of course we bought some! (We actually had gelato every day...I am not ashamed one bit). After that, it was on to see the outside of the Pantheon (it had closed by this point) before heading back to the Trevi Fountain to see it lit up.

Trevi Fountain!

Throwing a coin into the fountain

Trevi Fountain lit up at night

The Pantheon was very cool, and again I found myself wondering how it was still standing after all these years. Soon, though, we headed back to the Trevi Fountain for a few minutes, but then began our 40 minute walk back to our hostel to prepare for an early day on Saturday.

Whew, ok so that was Day 1. If you're still with me, I'm impressed. Three more days to go! I'll make them shorter, I promise - Day 1 was by far the most eventful and the day that we saw the most. Ok, Saturday morning we woke up around 7 and everyone was alotted about ten minutes in the bathroom since there were six of us and one of it. It kinda sounds like we were ganging up on it, which we kinda were...that poor bathroom...anyway, we went down for our complementary breakfast at 8 sharp, and were there exactly long enough to eat a croissant and drink a coffee but then we were out the door to get to the Vatican museums. Our tickets were for 10am and we did NOT want to be late! You must be there half an hour before your tickets say or your reservation is cancelled. We got there around 9 and were able to laugh at all the people who would be waiting in line for hours while we walked right past them. Ok, we didn't actually laugh, but I honestly don't understand why everyone doesn't get the tickets beforehand. Why would you wait for five hours when you could wait for five minutes?...Maybe there's some drawback I don't know about, but we got right into the museum. And the best part was we didn't even have to wait until ten to get our "real" tickets!

First glimpse of the Vatican walls

We decided to head straight to the Sistine Chapel at the beginning to beat the crowds that would surely come later in the day. We set a fast pace through the museum and made a mental note to go back through those rooms again since we were going too fast to see any of them. We finally reached the Chapel and I was absolutely in awe. I know what makes the Chapel so famous is that every inch is covered in artwork and that the majority of it was painted by Michelangelo, but to hear about it and see it are two totally different things. How could one person paint so much?! And that wasn't even close to the only thing he did. Honestly, the whole Chapel made me feel a little insignificant because it was so marvelous and beautiful and I couldn't hope to ever do anything like that. We stayed in that room for at least half an hour, while the guards shushed everyone periodically and yelled, "No photos!" But finally we had had our fill of the artwork and moved on to the next part of the museum.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

 - creation of man

Judgment Day

I won't bore you by describing every piece of art and every room we went through, but we did spend six hours wandering through the museum. And we didn't even see all of it. I can't believe how big the place is! We stopped for lunch in the cafeteria at one point, where I had gnocchi with pesto, and we ended up back in the Sistine Chapel once more after we revisited the rooms we rushed through. However, the second time we went there made me very sad because the guards were either different or they had stopped caring - everyone was taking pictures with flash, and you could hardly hear yourself think. I was disgusted with how people were blantantly ruining the art (don't you know that flashes ruin paintings?! That's why they just say no photos, period!) and how much noise there was. Now it seemed like a tourist spot, not a sacred chapel. Needless to say, we were only in there long enough to reach the door.

The next stop was St. Peter's Basilica, the thing I was most looking forward to that day. There was a pretty long line for the security check, but it moved surprisingly fast and before long we were walking into the basilica. There are no words that can come close to describing the emotions I felt as I walked in. There are simply no words. It was the biggest, most sacred building I had ever been in, and the artwork cannot be compared to anything else. It was simply amazing, beautiful, incredible...we spent a long while walking around, trying to take everything in but knowing there was no way we would be able to. At the back of the church was the altar area, and in front of that was perhaps the most incredible thing about the basilica. There was a four-posted canopy-looking structure (I'm not sure of the official name for it) standing over a white coffin with crosses on it - the symbol marking the spot directly above what is said to be St. Peter's tomb. Ok, I'm not Catholic, but St. Peter holds meaning for every Christian out there and it was incredible to see this.

Swiss Guard! They're so cool!

In St. Peter's Square

Over the tomb of St. Peter

We had already decided to pay the 5 euros it took to climb to the top of the dome, so once we had had our fill of the inside, we began the long hike up the numerous spiral staircases the got progressively tighter and skinnier as we ascended. At one point we had to go outside to get to the next staircase, and then we were officially inside the dome, conveniently right as Saturday Mass was starting. Soemtime between the time we had left and the time we came out on the inside of the dome, they had cleared all of the tourists out of the basilica (at least as far as I could tell) and the chorus had started singing as the priest walked to the altar. It was quite beautiful. Naturally, we stayed and watched that for a bit, but then it was time to continue to the claustrophobic part of the climb. I'm not claustrophobic myself, but I could definitely see how someone with that phobia would have some serious issues with the last part of the climb. The ceiling began to slant and we hit some really narrow halls and staircases, but finally we came out on the top of the dome. The view was absolutely incredible! St. Peter's Basilica is arguably the tallest structure in all of Rome so we could see EVERYTHING. Even the Monument of Vittorio Emmanule II!! Enjoy the following pictures - it's the only way I can of think of to describe the view.

Looking down on Saturday Mass

View from the top of the dome

St. Peter's Square

Another view from the top of the dome

Whew, almost done with Day 2, I promise. The last thing we did today (besides eat pizza at a delicious restaurant across the river) was walk around the area around Castel Sant'Angelo, a circular shaped castle just down the road from Vatican City. We walked around this structure and walked down by the river, stopping at one place to relax for an hour or so. At one point (I believe it was actually just after we had eaten dinner) we ended up in Piazza Navona without meaning to. It turned out to be a pretty cool experience! A bunch of artists had set up their work around the piazza, and there were some street performers putting on an awesome show. I am still mad at myself for not buying a picture from a spray-paint artist - seriously, though, these pictures looked they had taken him hours to paint with brushes, but in reality it took him about ten minutes using cans of spray paint. Simply amazing. Around 1am we made our way back to the hostel, again about a 40 minute walk away.

Day 3 was much more relaxing. Not less walking, but less jam-packed with things to do. We began by walking to the Capitoline Museums, located right by the Colosseum, Roman Forum, etc. Basically next to all the things we did on Friday. This museum was pretty cool because the Vatican had put some of the documents from the Vatican Archives on display there for a limited time, so I got to see all kinds of old documents from emperors, presidents, etc to the pope. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed, but I did manage to snap this one before I knew that:

Proceedings of the trial of Galileo - so cool!

We spent about two hours walking around this museum. There were tons of statues and the remnants of the Temple of Jupiter that used to be there (the museum was built around these remnants, just like at Palatine Hill). There was also a terrace that you could go out on by a coffee shop that gave some nice views of Rome. We actually ended up eating paninis at this coffee shop for lunch. We went through the underground tunnel to explore the other half of the museum, but then it was time to move on to the Spanish Steps.

The Spanish Steps are actually pretty cool - it's a giant, elaborate staircase that leads up to a church (that unfortunately I couldn't go inside because my shorts were not past my knee...ah well, apparently I didn't miss too much). We hung out here for a little while, but before long we had to head to Villa Borghese for our 5pm tickets into the museum there, Galleria Borghese. By this point I was on serious art overload, having walked all through the Vatican museums the previous day and through the Capitoline museums that morning. So I was seeing all the art in Galleria Borghese but not seeing it, if you know what I mean...everything was very cool, don't get me wrong, but I had seen a LOT in the past three days. We finished with that museum about half an hour before our alotted time was up and decided to walk through the park on our way to our next site - Castel Sant'Angelo again. On this walk, we ended up on top of a building/overhang with an awesome view of Piazza del Popolo and beyond.

Looking up the Spanish Steps

Inside Villa Borghese

Looking down at Piazza del Popolo

Eventually, though, we made it to Castel Sant'Angelo. We had discovered the night before that the castle would be open at night until 1am for three months during this summer, and more of the castle would be open to the public during the night hours (including part of the secret passage from the papal chambers to the castle!). There was also a pretty cool jazz concert that was happening that night (wow, this was just an awesome time to go Rome!) so we watched that for an hour before exploring the castle. In addition to seeing that secret passage, we could also check out the dungeons and what was apparently a late pope's bathroom (how nice...the funny part of that was we originally thought it was his tomb. Oops!). So it was actually a good thing we hadn't had time on Saturday to explore the castle! The night exploration was way cooler - we ended up on top of the castle at one point and got to look over Rome as it was lit up at night, quite a beautiful sight. We finished our exploration around 12:30am, and made that same 40 minute walk back to the hostel (by this time, we didn't need a map anymore!).

View from Castel Sant'Angelo at night

Castel Sant'Angelo

Monday began with an exploration of the basilica that was literally visible from our hostel - it completely filled the view at the end of the street and was apparently one of the major basilicas of Rome that lots of tourists went to. It was called "Santa Maria Maggiore." Like the other basilicas we had seen, it had unimaginably beautfiul artwork and also had a similar construction as St. Peter's - it had the same four-posted canopy-looking thing (still don't know the official name of it...) and the same stairway that led to a hallway going somewhere beneath the basilica. It wasn't as big as St. Peter's, but then again nothing is as big as St. Peter's. Santa Maria Maggiore was probably in the running for the second largest basilica in Rome though. We then continued on down the street, intending just to wander but in the general direction of the Pantheon. That's when we came across a market set up in the middle of the street, selling anything you could think of for cheaper than almost anywhere else I've seen in Europe. Headphones, phone chargers, shoes, clothes, toiletries, fruit...you name it, it was probably being sold on this street. I bought some plums for breakfast and we continued on.

The next "stop" in our sort of-random wandering was the Quirinial Palace, the presidential palace of Rome. I thought I had noticed more police than usual in the area! There were guards at every entrance to the palace and several tourists snapping pictures. We stayed for a few minutes but then continued on to the Pantheon

The Pantheon is a circular building that was originally built as a temple to the ancient gods of Rome, but was taken over by the Catholic Church around the 7th century AD and since has been used as a church dedicated to St. Mary. It also happens to be topped by the largest dome in Europe, possibly in the world...and we have no idea how they built it. We would not be able to build a dome like that so large, and if we did, it wouldn't stand for two thousand years. Once again, as had happened a couple times a day for the whole trip, my mind was blown. We were able to enter for free, a nice surprise since I had thought we would have to pay. The top of the dome was open to the elements, and since it had rained that morning the middle of the floor was roped off and quite puddle-like (though it was drying). Every five minutes, an announcement would come on in four or five different languages telling everyone to "Please be quiet. Thank you." 

Me and the Pantheon

Inside the Pantheon

We spent a decent amount of time checking out the Pantheon, but then two of our group decided to take a trip to Frascati, Italy, a short train ride away. The rest of us spent the afternoon stopping inside souvenir stores and just generally wandering around for about 4 hours. We ended up passing through a beautiful little garden with a fountain before walking through a small square with a church on one side. We found a shop to buy our last gelato from before making our way to the train station, where we met the two that had gone to Frascati. We boarded the 6:22 train bound for the airport and said our last goodbyes to Rome.

I can't believe what a fantastic trip this was! I also can't believe how smoothly it went - it was like clockwork (well...except the very end when our plane left 40 minutes late...but I think that was because it had rained again while we waited in the airport). I always know how good my trip was by how many pictures I took...so enjoy my 1000 pictures of beautiful Roma, Italia! Ok ok, not really...I've weeded them down so you don't have to look through all of them. If you stuck with me throughout this entire novel, I am impressed. Check back sometime next week for updates from my final big adventure this weekend!