This was one of my first weekends in Rome without a huge amount of homework to do, and I think I really took advantage of it. I will try to give you the play by play, but I am tired so if my details start to dwindle please forgive me! Alright....here we goFriday:
On Friday we had a group tour of the Roman Forum. Our tour ended up being about three hours long but we have a brilliant tour guide which made it a lot of fun. The guide was an architect so he spent a lot of time helping us visually reconstruct what the ruins would have looked like when they were complete. Considering the complicated history of Roman rule, he did a great job of breaking the history down into periods and laying out the major changes in rulers which therefore changed the architecture. The strangest thing about this tour was that our guide looked a lot like dad! He even dressed like dad. But all that really did was make me more excited to show you all around what he showed me.
From the Forum we walked up to the Palatine Hill. The Palatine Hill is an area that was settled beginning in the founding of Rome. It is also an area with ancient palace ruins, so it was very fun to walk around and see the contrasts in living spaces between the people and the elite. After this part of the tour we were starving, but because the area is SO touristy the cafes and restaurants were so expensive that we convinced ourselves to check out the Colosseum and then head home for lunch. One good thing to know is that the ticket for the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill also gets you into the Colosseum, so its a good idea to just make a whole day out of it!
After all of that we headed home and I took a long nap. It was a wonderful but very tiring morning/afternoon. That evening a group of us decided we needed a break from Italian food so we went on an adventure to find an Indian restaurant that had gotten a good review. After a few wrong turns we managed to find the place and it was wonderful! The food was so delicious and it was great to explore a new part of the city along the way. The restaurant was right in the neighborhood of the Vatican so on our walk home we stopped by just to see what the Vatican was like at night. It was beautiful to see the whole thing lit up and we found these really neat viewing points of the Piazza. We stopped to get gelato at our favorite place on the way home and then just went right to bed.
Saturday:
Saturday morning Danya and I woke up very determined to go for a run. We woke up around 9 and it seemed like no one else was up so we quietly left and walked to the Borghese Gardens. The Gardens are about a 15 minute walk north of where we live, so even though it is a bit of a walk it was totally worth it. The park itself is beautiful! You walk up a huge set up stairs to get in and immediately see an amazing view of Rome, then you continue into the park and see hundreds of people just hanging out. Whether riding bikes, sitting around, or walking their dogs, this is definitely the Roman equivalent to Central Park, and I missed Central Park! Our run was very plesant. There is an area that looks a lot like an ancient track, although I have no idea how ancient it actually is, and we ran for a while and then headed home.
After we came home and did work for a while a large group of us went to this store called MAS. Mas is an everything discount store...but when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. It was one of the most insane stores I have ever seen. It was 5 floors of just crap, the kind of place where if you need something for really cheap its perfect, but otherwise you kind of just want to scream "get me out of here!!" I am glad that I went though, because I have heard it reffered to as a right of passage into living in Rome. Good to know about, but I would happily not go back.
That evening Danya and I made dinner, and just did some work and went to bed, a good end to a long day.
Sunday:
Today was a long and kind of intense day, but I am feeling good now which is nice. This morning we woke up and went to a good coffee place (although not our favorite because our favorite is closed during the weekends.) After coffee we worked for a while and then decided to take a walk and explore the Jewish quarter. The Jewish quarter is quite small and it wasn't the best idea to explore it on a Sunday because a lot of the stores were closed, but it was fun. We happened upon some ruins and realized we live a lot closer to some things than we thought. I have realized that just wandering around helps me understand the layout of the city better than when I try to figure it out with a map. So, we walked around that area for an hour or so and then walked in and out of a few churches. Walking in and out of churches here is so fun because they are always so surprising. Some are more decorated than others but it is fun just to check them and out. We headed home after exploring and did some work until we had to go to Fam Din.
Fam. Din. tonight was amazing. We went to a tiny actual hole in the wall place in Trastevere that I highly recommend. Here is a link to a NY times article about the place:
http://travel.nytimes.com/
The food was amazing, and the setting itself was just so fun, it was truely an experience eating there. Afterwards we stopped to get gelato on our way home and now I am finishing up work and getting ready for bed. It was a jam packed weekend filled with lots of new experiences, all of which I am glad I can so easily tell you about via this blog. However, I think now it is time for me to slow things down a bit and go to bed.
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