Our last weekend trip was to Rome (well except when we head back to Munich to fly out). We stayed at the Santa Prassede, also known as the little love nest. We like to call it this especially because Thomas and his sister stayed in one of these rooms too and they are ultra-small, dark, and couply looking and it amuses us. The air conditioning even worked. It was in a pretty central spot and you can traverse all of Rome on foot from here (well except to Vatican City). When we were booking somewhere to stay, all of the places looked pretty grotsky and the reviews were bad. However, we decided the people reviewing them were older and should have been staying at nicer hotels in general and that's probably why they didn't like it. I don't think we've been unhappy with any place we've stayed in Europe, other than the hostel where the Asians lotioned up for long periods of time.
We took the night train to Rome and got in at 9 am. It was too early to check in, so we changed in the bathroom of the hotel and went out to tour the city. As I'm sure I've made clear by now, I hate mass transportation and trains are no exception, but I have to say all-in-all the night train wasn't horrible. We had a sleeper car and it was just Thomas, Katie, Liz, and me, so no random euro-trash. I also slept and didn't feel sick, so I think that has something to do with it. When we were booking the tickets, the lady at the desk kept saying something about Katie having to come back with Thomas to set it all up, but then she told him she could do it without her and we thought we were set. But, per usual, Europe (and especially the Italians) have a way of messing with us and when the ticket-checker came around to collect the tickets, she pointed out that we didn't have a ticket for Katie on the way to Rome, only on the way home. Thomas had paid for it, but she had only printed him out the return ticket. There is nothing worse than being thrown off a train before you reach your destination. I have an inkling it could be even worse on a night train because you never know what creeps are lurking in Bologna (which, by the way, Bologna is supposed to be a 22-year old in a 770-year old's body according to MTV Europe-but we'll never know because we just like hating it). I've been wanting to yell at someone in Europe for awhile. Not like random people, but someone in charge of something having to do with who runs this show; Liz never lets me though. BUT she had already decided that at this point, if they were going to throw Katie off, I could definitely yell. So when she took our Eurail passes (apparently they do that to everyone though) I asked her for her name (a classic American move) and tried to explain to her that this wasn't going to fly. We've decided that the problem in Europe is that there is no supervisor you can complain to. In America, you can always ask for someone's name and number and can complain to someone above them, but it just doesn't work that way in Europe. Anyways, long story short, we woke up in the morning, Katie was still on the train, Thomas didn't have to buy another ticket and we were all good...but it is still the point of the matter.
Day 1: Our first stop in Rome was the Santa Maria Maggiore, a huge church near our hotel. Our tour of the Vatican wasn't till 2:30, so we decided to look around and then head over there by cab. We then went to the Colosseum. Thomas's camera died and I left mine in Innsbruck, but Liz got a ton of pictures of the Colosseum. It was cool seeing how they had half of the floor missing so you could see the tunnels under the floor where they kept the lions (and people-but Frommers says the myth about Christians being fed to the lions here is unfounded.) Then we headed to Vatican city. We had awhile before the tour, so we looked for a place to grab lunch. People stand outside of their restaurants and solicit you with deals like "10 Euro for Lasagna, salad, gelato, and a drink." DON'T let them work you like we did if you find yourself also in this same situation one day. Liz couldn't even finish hers because it was so awful. But to me it tasted like a lean cuisine, which I don't really mind, so I was good. We decided to try somewhere else so Liz could get something better to eat, so we stopped at this little place that had pizzas, salads, snacks, etc. Other than the bathroom being really gross, it was all good until the bill came. For four beers and one TINY pizza, it was 45 Euros. Thats like 55 USD-WHAT the heck. This was a low point in our day. We'd all decided that we hated Rome and would never come back (especially Thomas). But it gets worse...so then we went to the "tour" we had booked for the Vatican. Turns out you pay 40 Euros just to get you past the lines outside and the tour guide doesn't even give you an actual tour; he bounces as soon as you're inside AND to top it all off, there wasn't even a line to skip! If I'm being honest, we were all not impressed with the Vatican/Sistine Chapel/St. Peter's Basilica. But I do get how if you were Italian or Catholic, or even just had a huge interest in religion, it could be moving. Thomas, on the other hand, thinks its a tourist trap and is permanently mad at the Vatican. I'm glad we got to see it though because how often can you say you've been there? Don't worry, Rome gets better. We went to this local eatery around the corner from our hotel for dinner. It was a hole in the wall, but the food was good and the conversation was "over the top fun" (as Thomas once described a movie, haha). At one point during our dinner, Thomas said something sweet to Katie and we almost all cried. He's claiming he didn't almost cry, but he definitely did too. After that, we met the bar crawl at the Spanish Steps and headed to the first stop. The leader of the bar crawl said this was the first time in 3 years that it had rained during a pub crawl, so we are convinced that we bring the rain, since this happened in Prague too. There was lots of free beer and pizza and they took us to this club on the river where there were two swimming pools and an outside DJ. Since Frommers doesn't do his job at telling us about the night life, I would recommend going on the bar crawls in Europe, only because you get to see different bars and otherwise, you never know where people will be hanging out
Day 2: Liz will have to update you on what the group did today, because I did my own thing. It's part of my specific Europe-weary re-charge cycle. I checked out the Pantheon, walked to pick up our bar crawl t-shirts, walked into this huge building that Americans refer to as the "cake" because it looks like a wedding cake, and then sat down at a cafe to eat spaghetti and finish reading my book. I can only tour so much before I'm tired of it, but I really enjoyed just hanging out. I also really like people watching and Europe is the ultimate place to do this. Liz promised she would make a wish in the Trevi fountain for me. Liz was talking to her mom today and her mom said that 40 years ago, she was also making a wish in the Trevi fountain and had talked yesterday with the girl that went with her, so we are hoping that will be us in 40 years. We all met back up at like 5, took naps, and then went to try this wine bar, Trimani wine bar, that Frommers recommended. It was supposed to be a hip bistro-style restaurant that had 30 different wines you could choose from and you could pick certain ones to go with your meal. We started off ordering a plate of cheese, which wasn't so bad. We accidently also ordered a fig desert, thinking it was an appetizer that wasn't bad either. The wine was also good, so it wasn't a total fail. The girls all ordered pasta, but we are convinced our parents could have made it better. My favorite part of the night is when Thomas ordered "salmon with avocado" thinking he was going to get like a filet of salmon with slices of avocado. However, he got a martini glass filled with avocado paste and tiny shredded pieces of salmon on top. He tried to act like he liked it, but I think I laughed for like a good 15 minutes just looking at it. It looked like fancy feast. We were all really tired at this point, so we had a slumber party and tried to find MTV on TV before settling on Jurassic Park and going to bed.
Day 3: Our traveling day was relatively uneventful. We had a slow start-per usual when Daddy is around, but we made all of our trains. We realized that Thomas didn't have an extra day on his Eurail pass, so he spent most of his time dodging the ticket-checkers. He's convinced himself he is a ninja, but we aren't fooled. We came back just in time to hit up club Karwendel and Bar 7 for Katie's last night in town. We already miss her and want her to move to North Carolina to live with us!
We're heading to Munich on either Friday or Saturday and then flying out on Monday-reallyyy do not want to leave, but I think we convinced Thomas to come to Munich with us before he goes to London to fly home. He knows he won't have more fun than with us at the Hoffbrauhaus
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