Vacation Pt. 1

Hello fair peoples that read this blog. Katie is writing this one but we are both contributing together for the next few blog updates. We apologize for our absence but as you can see from the title and as you may have been aware from alternative forms of interactions, we were on vacation! Yay vacation! The time of rest and retreat from the daily lives of school and Parisian life. Wait, that’s not what we did.
No we decided we were going to traipse all over Italy. And a little in Spain. So now we’re going to tell you all (not all, but most probably) about that delightful (sometimes not) experience.

 

We left from Paris on Thursday night for Rome. The other Katie darling was absent, choosing instead to venture to the capitol of pot and prostitution, ahem I mean Amsterdam on an optional school trip. We arrived late that night to the fair city of Rome, exhausted and slightly panicked because we had no idea how to get to our hotel. But we managed to find our way through the grace of an understanding Italian taxi lady.

 

Meanwhile! In Amsterdam, Katie was being propositioned by a strange French student also on the trip. There was not complete comprehension, but it ended with a surprise kiss on the stairs. Colonel Mustard. On the stairs. With a ham and cheese sandwich.

 

While in Rome we explored the Coliseum, ate a slice of glorious pizza from a metro kiosk, and then wandered through the Roman Forum. We attempted to view the Spanish Steps. Meaning that we arrived, looked at the hordes of people already occupying them, turned around and got gelati. That happened a lot actually. We tried to do something, it flopped, and then we had gelati. Then after a bit more wandering through back alleys, we came upon the Four Fountains and the Trevi Fountain, which was spectacular even through the hordes. We both tossed a coin in while the other took a picture to document. Rachael looked really nice in hers, very excited and pleased with herself. Of course mine came out like a goober and I’m hoping that evidence was promptly erased.

Our last stop of the day was the Pantheon where I think Rachael would have moved in if she’d been given the option. It was a pretty amazing space though with a hole in the top to let in a beam of sunlight. There was also an automated voice that would come on every five minutes or so telling everyone to be silent in like eight different languages. Yet they were still ignored.

In between all of the sightseeing we did a bit of shopping. The back alleys of Rome really have the best shops, very interesting and eclectic. There was a woodshop and a ceramics clock boutique that Rachael would have bought out if she had unlimited sources of money. There was a lot of agony before she finally succumbed to the siren call (the next day—she held out for 20 hours or so, so we’re quite proud of her.) All for the investment of the future, so we can’t feel too guilty. And it’s pretty :D

 

The next day we had grand plans to hit the Vatican Museums and then trot down to the train station to buy tickets to Pompeii. So we found the entrance and wandered in (Yay reduced student tickets!) where we were amazed by beautiful/interesting artifacts of ages past. It had every kind of art genre in some form represented, a great place for museum junkies.

There was a great tragedy though….

We were approaching the end of the museum route, rushing a bit because we didn’t want to miss the train to Pompeii. The whole time we’d been following signs to the Sistine Chapel: the grand goal for this museum venture. We arrived. Rachael admired and took a moment to fully take in the glory.

I was confused. Rachael and I walked out into a strange sad gray hallway whereupon I say

“Wow this is weird. I thought we were getting close (to the Sistine Chapel) but I guess we still have a ways.”

“Katie…we were just in it.”
“What?! I thought that was the antechamber!”

“Nooo…did you not hear the people saying ‘Silence, this is a sacred place’? ‘The creation of Adam’ was right in the middle of everything.”

“…Dammit…”

 

So that required some grieving time, but not too long after we were on our way to the train station. Where we encountered another sadness.

Through various inconsistencies and unfortunate happenings, the train tickets ended up being too expensive to swing. We got in line to talk to someone about this, to see if there was a cheaper option. But it was a “Take a number” kind of line.

The line of neverending sadness. We waited for an hour, during which we acquired more pizza. It was not good pizza. Well as good. Rachael says it was because it was a kabob place, and if we have learned one thing in Paris, it’s not to trust the kabob places. I guess that holds true for kabob places anywhere.

So we got some gelati and then went on a consolation shopping spree through Rome. This would be the time that Rachael purchased her flamingo sweater dress. There are many other happy things, but you will know them in more detail at a later date (like Christmas!)

We caught a train to Florence the next morning and we shall cover that experience in the next post. A toute à l’heure!
P.S. Photos to come soon <3