Love in Italy

Ciao, Ciao from Italy!

I am sitting on the train from Florence to Venice writing this blog, drinking a bottle of wine. The train ride is about 2 hours long; it is giving me time to catch up on my postcards and this blog that I feel like I am neglecting.  So much to talk about!  Rome was amazing; it was exactly how I have always pictured it.  The Coliseum was fantastic and by far my favorite attraction in Rome. We also went to see the Trevi Fountain, which is equally as amazing. The Pantheon and the Sistine Chapel will never be forgotten. I will explain more in detail about each of those later in this blog.

I want to start from the beginning.

The flight from Dublin to Rome was about 3 hours long; I was able to sleep a little which I feel like I haven’t gotten much of during our entire trip thus far, we have always been on the go.  When we landed in Rome there was a car waiting to pick us up to take us to the Hotel, but we weren’t able to get to the car right away because it literally took us 2 HOURS to get our luggage off the plane, it was the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in my entire life, I was almost ready to just leave without my luggage.  When we finally got our luggage we were taken to the Hotel and we were able to freshen up and head out to our first Piazza of the trip. Italy is full of Piazza’s. The Piazza’s are full of restaurants, statues and fountains. The Piazza that we went to was called the Piazza de Navona, we had our first official Italian meal and a bottle of wine, and I have to say that it was amazing. The pasta here is so fresh and the Italian wine is to die for.  We have had a bottle of wine every night since our first night in Italy, it’s been great!  I have never had so much pasta and pizza in my entire life.  On our first day in Rome we pretty much crossed a lot of things off our list. The Pantheon was free to get into, which was surprising to us because everywhere else we went required some sort of payment or dress code. The Pantheon was incredible and is said to be one of the most beautiful architectural structures in Rome.  The Pantheon was first built to a temple of all the gods in ancient Rome.

There were so many people in Rome; I am talking millions of people.  This was absolute culture shock for me. When we were in Ireland it was easy because everyone spoke English, It was easy to get around and there weren’t as many people, Rome was entirely different and especially humbling for me (Thank you Tami.) The Trevi Fountain was breathtaking. I could sit there for hours admiring the Fountain. The Trevi Fountain was finished in 1762.

Vatican City…was Interesting. Of course there was a line to get into Vatican City as well as a security checkpoint; I guess the Pope is a pretty special person to protect? (This is obviously a joke).   Vatican City is home to the Sistine Chapel as well as St. Peters Cathedral. The Sistine Chapel was amazing and definitely not what I imagined it would be. I was thinking that it would be a round dome; something that you just walk into and BAM it’s right in front of you. No, it was an obstacle course, about an hour into the maze, I was beginning to think that it didn’t even exist and it was just an illusion. The entire Chapel was basically a museum filled with ornate statues that were possessions to some of the most prestigious people in Roman history. The paintings were oil paintings on the walls of the Chapel so beautifully painted it brought a tear to my eye.  There is no possible way that I could fully describe the Sistine Chapel to you in a way that would even bring it justice. There were no pictures allowed inside the actually chapel, but I was allowed to take some pictures beforehand. I will put them up on Facebook as soon as I can.

St. Peter’s Basilica was spectacular, but for those of you who know me, knows that I am not a religious person at all. I will only bring this up once; I believe in God, but the idea of an organized religion is so ridiculous to me, because of all the rules and structures. This is my own opinion. There was a dress code to get into St. Peters Cathedral (which is just a church that holds masses and confessions just like any other Catholic Church in existence). I was appalled by this, obviously mine and Gary’s attire was satisfactory to enter the Cathedral, but there was this girl in front of us that was with a larger group of people and she was denied entrance.  She was wearing a cardigan sweater over a dress that was probably about 2-3 inches above her knees and was told that she could not enter the house of worship which should accept anyone and everyone regardless of what they are wearing, this really upset me as you can see.  Did you know that St Peters Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world? Neither did I.

The Coliseum was one of my favorite things. There is so much history in one architectural building it was spectacular.  There were of course, millions of people waiting in line to see it, but it was well worth it.

OMG there is so much to talk about!  Venice was our favorite city! So gorgeous and so old it’s beautiful, there is really no other way to put it.

Gary and I are now living in Spain, actually living in Barcelona, Spain! It has been really hard for me.  We take the subway to class in the morning.  For those of you who don’t know, Gary and I are doing the CELTA program to get certified to teach English as a second language, basically anywhere in the world.  It is a month long program, and we just finished day two and I am already exhausted.  We are teaching actual students who come to learn English; it is a pretty intense course. 

I will update as soon as I can.

Ciao!