Mi Vida en España: Glimpses of my life in Spain: Italia! Rome and Assisi

I made it to Italy!!! A dream come true :)
The weekend of May 5-8 (Thursday-Sunday) I went on a trip to Rome with a day trip from there to Assisi with my roommate, Grace. It was an amazing trip - just perfect! We didn´t have much time to plan before we left - such as specifics of what we wanted to do. This turned out to be okay because we did decide that we didn´t want to be rushed and running around the whole time, trying to get everything done. We wanted to take our time, enjoy the city, just enjoy being there and soak it all in. I think we did a good job at seeing things, but also just enjoying it all. The first day we walked a lot of the city seeing Plaza Navona, the Pantheon, St. Ignazio church, and Templo Adriano. We tossed our coins in the Trevi Fountain which means we will be coming back :) It´s amazing how refreshing the fountain was even though there were so many people there - the power of water. The Spanish Steps were probably one of my favorite places of the day - they were just so beautiful. We got gelato on the way home (their form of ice cream which is creamy and absolutely delicious!) Being the ice cream lovers that we are, we decided that we would have gelato every day :) It´s just a must when you are in Italy.

We very much enjoyed the dining in Italy. Every meal we tried something new - either pasta or pizza...mostly pasta. We made sure we tried branching out and usually it was a great success. Every restaurante felt so special to. The environment and spirit of Rome is so much fun and fulfilling. We thought of many words to describe Rome/Italy such as precious, beautiful, classic, has character, and romantic.

The second day we went to Vatican city. We went to the Vatican museums first - the line was very long, but moved relatively quickly. The museum were very vast and full of so much to see! There were many sculptures and painting, a map room, and so much. It was very interesting. We also saw the Sistine Chapel!!! It´s so crazy to say that. As my mom told me, it does seem smaller then you think it is going to be, but it is still quite amazing when you think about all the work that had to be done to complete it! After the museums and Sistine chapel we stopped for lunch. We were able to eat outside (as we did many times) because the weather was great the whole weekend! After lunch we went to the Bisiclia. WOW - it was so big, it just kept going in every direction. We made sure we sent a postcard from the Vatican post office so that we can say we sent something from the post office in the smallest city. :)
Our next stop was the Colosseum. We had looked up the hours online and it wasn't suppose to close until 7. We got there at 4:30 and then saw a sign that said "Today, May 6th we will close at 1:00" SUPER BUMMER! Of course this was the only day we had time to go....at least we were able to see the outside and we peaked in through openings to see what we could of the inside. We did check out some of the Roman ruins that were nearby.
We explored Rome a little by night this second night - we returned to Plaza Navona and enjoyed the street performers, the art, and the fountain. Just walking the streets was fun and beautiful - the character of Rome is wonderful!

Saturday we had a day-trip planned to Assisi - the hometown of St. Francis. SUCH a precious and beautiful town. It is a small/old town, but still very intact. There were flowers perfectly randomly placed on the walls and outsides of buildings, the views were amazing, and the spirit of the village was fresh and alive. We thoroughly enjoyed just walking around and soaking up the place. There was some sort of festival going on, but we never found out what it was because the information booth was closed...though many people were dressed up in medieval attire and I think it had something to do with the coming of spring. We visited the Basilica´s of St. Clare and St. Francis along with their crypes. Both were very beautiful. St. Francis´Basilica is unique in the fact that the ceilings are lower than many I´ve seen and the walls are covered in paintings...it had a very homey and comforting feel yet it was still very large. Assisi treated us well with beautiful sites, good food, energy, and a couple funny stories including that the men in Assisi loved us! When we stopped to take a picture they offered to take a picture for us and jumped in the picture as well!
The train ride home was fun as we met a women from Italy who sat across from us. Between her Italian and the little Spanish and English she spoke and our Spanish and English, we were able to have a conversation. We also had a funny interaction with a man from Peru. He kept speaking Italian to us and we kept speaking Spanish until he figured out that we couldn´t speak or understand Italian very well, but he couldn´t understand out Spanish...it was very weird.

Saturday night we went out for my birthday (which was Sunday). We found a cute little restaurante, ordered some yummy pasta, and some white wine. I´ve always said I was going to have a class of wine served to me on my birthday by some cute Italian waiter...well, the cute Italian waiter didn´t really happen (older gentleman :) ) and when we tried to order half a glass for each of us...we got half a liter :) Oh well...it still happened and it was in Italy! :)

Sunday morning we woke up early and checked out to leave for a different part of Rome (about an hour bus ride from the center) to a church where a friend of mom, LeeAnn, works with the priest don Carlo. We attended mass there at 10, visited the mountain town of Frascati, and had a lovely birthday lunch with don Carlo, LeAnn, don Carlo´s sister, another nun, and his fully present/funny mother who is 108 years old! I had various fun surprises this day for my birthday. First of all, when I got there don Carlo busted out of his office singing "Happy Birthday" to me in Italian carrying a rose that was bought compliments of my family back home . Then, at the end of the mass (which was an AMAZING mass by the way...full of singing and participation - something I´ve missed!) during the closing song don Carlo was going around to people with birthdays and we were singing...well LeeAnn pulled Grace and I up to the front and I was introduced and song to :) Then, at lunch I was sang to two more times...once when I got there and once when they gave me the cake they had for me and the bouquet of chocolate eggs for my gift. The meal was phenomenal - homemade pasta, chicken, eggplant, and bread sticks. We laughed and talked and it felt just like the Italian family meals you see in the movies. The cake they got for me was in the form of a dove and is only available around Easter time. It was such a pleasant day and a birthday to remember!! Italy did not let me down at all!

The birthday celebrations didn´t end for me there. I had to do a little something in Sevilla and well. There happened to be fireworks that night so I went to those with friends and went out with some of my friends afterwards. A 21st birthday in two different countries with many fun experiences...nothing can beat that!

Pictures!!