ROMA!

We get to Rome in the most disgustingly hot train known to man. Thankfully, our hostel was just down the road (we made a quick payphone call from the train station). When we got to The Yellow (our hostel) and were checking in, a boy was asking about the opera at the desk downstairs. We got our room keys and went upstairs. One of our roommates (Rich) was there and we all hit it off quickly. The kid from downstairs (we later learn his name is Dave) opens the door and is a character from the first second. We throw stories back and forth and decide to go on the pub crawl that night as a group...as "Team Chestari" (don´t ask)...but Rich had the fabulous idea that we wouldn´t have to pay. So we trusted our new friend and followed his lead.

What made this particular pub crawl so cool is that it started off with an hour walking tour. Our tour guides were young and absolutely hilarious. First stop was Piazza Barberini, where the Triton fountain is, but also, as highlighted in our tour, the Bee Fountain, known for being Bernini´s slap in the face to Pope Urban. Basically, the pope envied Bernini and his freedom to be a little famous playboy (he was one of the most famous and talented sculptors of his time), and asked him to create a small, simple, sculpted fountain much below Bernini´s talents. Well, Bernini insulted by this, dug up some dirt on the pope´s family, and designed a fountain as a tribute to Pope Urban´s "less than honorable" neice...in other words, the fountain looks like a woman´s legs spread eagle, with the pope´s family symbol (the bee) where the clitoris would be...and even better, the water pouring out of the fountain makes it look like she is peeing on the streets of Rome. I guess you could say Bernini was a little pissed.

Next stop...the Spanish Steps. They were cool, but they were steps - the most important thing about them is that they´re a great place for guys to hang out and pick up girls. If you are interested, check out this website to find out the history.

Last but not least, the Trevi Fountain. If we regretted one thing about Rome, it would be that we didn´t just spend hours staring at the incredible beauty of this fountain. The main idea is to throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain. This is said to ensure that you will return someday to Rome and if you throw TWO coins, you will fall in love in Rome. We each threw one over our shoulders. We don´t need any Italian men falling in love with us...they do that without the coins. What we never would have known about the fountain, or even recognized, is the window in the upper right hand corner, which is not really a window at all, but rather cement, painted to look like a window. That window is the basis of a really interesting ghost story. Long story short, the young playboy of a son to the family who owned the mansion on which the fountain was built, was found dead in the fountain. The pope declared it a suicide, even though the man´s fingernails were bent back and showed signs of struggle. He was a nuissance to the family, thus suicide was an easy scapegoat. After years of people claiming they saw the ghost of this man falling out of the window, the window was finally boarded up and then cemented over and painted to look like a window. To this day, no one is allowed in that particular room.

We ran into the Panheon on our way. Rich was right. We didn´t have to pay for the pub crawl. We just sort of followed along, and drank when we could. After the walking tour is when the real drinking began. We went to three bars as well on this pub crawl (pretty standard). We actually got the opportunity to do a lot of dancing and Team Chestari grew really tight bonds. Lots of drinking, dancing and laughs followed throughout the night and Team Chestari grew. Ben was added and so were Caitlin and Joey, who spent the next few days with us. David only became funnier and more interesting as the night went on. We knew we would keep in touch with these people much longer than our stay in Rome allowed.

The night continued in a "Polish bar," which wasn´t Polish at all...David deemed it as such when he thought the bartender looked Polish. The hat photo shoot with Ashley is partly shown here, but went on for about 10 more pictures. And the night didn´t end there. Back at the hostel, events included a pillow fight, chocolate wafers on the piazza (our own private balcony), David skateboarding in the security bin, David´s toe injury compliments of drunk Ashley (but don´t worry, David had a bleach pen to save the day haha), and many more laughs.

The next day it was decided it was time to venture into Vatican City. We knew we were there when we reached St. Peter´s Square, a place we both knew well thanks to Dan Brown´s Angels and Demons. After cooling off at the fountain (very hot day to be sight-seeing) we got in line to see St. Peter´s Basilica. Thankfully the line moved quite quickly, and we were inside in the air conditioned church in no time.

After walking through hallways filled with the most ornate tombs of late popes, we made it into the actual church. You couldn´t take the whole thing at once...it was far too detailed and beautiful...not to mention, the church is one of the most influential places in the entire Catholic religion, so the experience of being there was humbling in itself. But after about an hour of exploring the different alcoves and chapels, and especially "St. Peter´s Tomb" we were ready to make our way over to Michelangelo´s Sistine Chapel...another extremely well known beauty of Vatican City.

So much for not taking pictures at Sistine Chapel. We were there for about 15 minutes, snapping shot after shot, BEFORE the announcement came on informing us that we were not allowed to speak or take pictures...quite a challenge for us. Good thing we had already taken 50 pictures and a five-minute video by that point. It really is amazing. Somehow a photograph of the artwork can´t capture the beauty of being surrounded by it...left, right, above, behind...all around. To see something painted in the 15th century and it still looks look brand new stops you in your tracks.

That evening, Team Chestari decided it was time for an authentic Italian meal...translation: two hours of eating, drinking wine, talking, and relaxing. That´s exactly what we did.

We made our way to an Italian Pizzeria. We sampled white wine, zucchini flowers, mozerella balls, potato croquettes, and pizzas of all kinds. You don´t understand how great it is to sit at a table and relax and talk without the waitor throwing the bill on the table, hurrying you out the door. It is just a normal thing to have dinners lasting hours at a time.

After dinner, we walked down to the Tiber river for a festival of sorts. On our way, we ran into tons of vendors, a singing performance and gelato stands everywhere. We decided it was time for a different kind of photo shoot...HATS! There are tons of photos of us in hats of all colors, shapes and sizes, but we decided this one is probably the best one to show you guys.












The nex part of the evening we found extremely enjoyable. We grabbed a table by the side of the Tiber River adorned with pillows to sit on atop a wall overlooking the bright lights reflecting on the water. We drank some more wine and had really great discussions with Caitlin and Joey...and of course David.

We didn´t have much time the next day since we were heading to Florence, but there was no way we could leave Rome without seeing the Coliseum. We were lucky that David had already taken the tour and along with getting us to the front of the line quickly, he gave us some pretty interesting tid bits along the way...our own personal tour guide of sorts. Thus ends our stop in Rome...but we both decided it would not be the last time we would come to this gorgeous city.