Today has been the best day yet! We didn’t really have that many obligations to fulfill for our orientation just to register for our permit to stay and give our credit card for a cell phone. The time between the two we headed out to find somewhere to eat and walked around in a circle and ended up eating really close to the school. After our last thing most of the girls headed back for a cat nap. Kerry and I decided to just get a shot of caffeine and head out to see some of Roma.
We went to a really cute coffee shop right by the school. We quickly found out that you order and pay for your coffee at the register then take your receipt to the counter and give it to them to make. After you are finished eating, or drinking, you are supposed to take it back to the counter for them. It’s different, and it’s interesting to get used to.
We headed out to find the Vatican. Turns out it was super easy to find. We just followed the river up and take a left. We ended up meeting up with another SAI student and going there with him. We took lots of pictures and looked around the front. We didn’t want to pay for a tour that day, so we decided to see if we could find the Vatican. We walked outside of St. Peter’s Square and followed the wall until we found an opening. We tried to walk in but the guard looked at us and laughed and said that there was no way we could get in, basically at least. So we continued around the wall and after awhile, we came to the entrance of the museum. Once again we didn’t want to pay, you can get in free on the last Sunday of the month. We still thought there might be another entrance to the Vatican so we continued to follow the wall….and we followed it around corner after corner…thinking that there would be something around the next corner. That was a totally false assumption. Ridiculous, we walked for close to an hour. It was absolutely insane, and soon enough there was St. Peters again. We had walked ALL the way around Vatican City! We were absolutely beat. Since we had done so much work, we went to a cute café and ordered dessert which was super expensive (6 Euro) but AMAZING! After that it was nearly time for the JCU events for the evening so we headed back to campus. We went on a “gelato tour.” It took us on our first trip across the river and we went through the American Bar and shopping area. It also took us to the Pantheon and that was really neat, but the interior was definitely not what I expected. I hadn’t done much research so that was not too unusual. We stopped at one gelato shop, but then headed back to meet up with more students for the “Apertivo” It was an event set up by SAI for students to get to know each other and eat FREE food! It was fun and after that we headed home. On the way some of the girls wanted to stop for wine and desserts so we found a little restaurant that Kristina had suggested and I ordered Tiramisu. My first official Italian piece. It was really good, not extremely different from Martinelli’s but there definitely was a change. We finished the walk back up to the apartment. I got on the internet checked on things, and meanwhile Kerry had googled our trip to the Vatican and around the wall and found out we walked 10.7 km. That was crazy! That didn’t even count our trip around before lunch and the gelato tour we probably walked about 10 miles. So that’s how Italians stay skinny with all the pasta and desserts….
Here's a video clip of our adventure! :)
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