There's a McDonalds right across from the Pantheon! [ROME]

Think about the oldest building in the United States...
Maybe...MAYBE four hundred years old...at best...
I walked through buildings and climbed monuments pushing THREE THOUSAND years old in Rome! Building that were built one thousand years before Christ was born! It is absolutely astounding to be alive, in the year 2009, walking on the same stone roads, sipping from the same public fountain, leaning on the same Portland cement wall...that a Roman could have been walking, sipping, or leaning on some two thousand years before me.

So this post is going to be short and sweet...for a number of reasons.
1.)That's how my trip to Rome was...three short, sweet days of seeing everything there is to see in Rome [I'll go through that later]
2.)I'm really behind on my blog and I'm gonna shoot them at you rapid fire here to get caught up before I leave for Spring Break
3.) Its absolutely beautiful outside [mid 60s!] and I wanna go back outside instead of sit here on my computer

So here it is...Rome [short and sweet]

+MUST SEE: The Roman Forum/Imperial Forums [this is where these ancient building are]. Get a tour guide if you can...or at least a book. There is so much to be learned there.

+Our Roman Forum tour guide was one of the highlights of the whole trip. His name was Yan and he was absolutely insane. He started off by introducing himself as a ridiculously fast walker and that if any of us didn't think we could keep up to just quit now. No sooner did he say that, he was gone. Already half way up a set of Roman stairs, basically sprinting. As we sprinted with him he would ask our names, just casually. By the end of our 3 hour tour [nothing like Gilligan's] he and his photographic memory had all 25 of our names memorized. He pointed at each of us in a line and said our names. You could tell he had a photographic memory because when he would lecture, he would do it with his eyes closed, just like he was reading off of his note cards behind his eye lids. He could rattle of dates and names with out pausing to think, he admitted to smoking alot of pot, told us that as Americans we had to watch out for Belgium [where he was from] because they already stole our beer, and bet us a Belgium beer when asking us hard questions. Basically, the best tour guide...ever. And to sum it all up, when leaving, Yan said, "Thats all. I see you...in hell I guess. See you."









+MUST SEE: St. Peter's Basillica. Check out Bernini's Piazza out front. Go inside, see his Baldiquin. See Michelangelo's Pieta. Then climb to the top of the dome. Its even higher than the one here in Florence.









+MUST SEE: The Sistine Chapel. Its a short walk from St. Peters to the Vatican Museum where it is located. They say no pictures and to please be quiet, but every single person was taking pictures and talking as loudly as they please...kinda ruined the moment for me but it is still beautiful.











+MUST SEE: The Pantheon...and grab some lunch at the Mickey-D's right across from it.

+MUST SEE: The Trevi Fountain. Its an amazing sculptural fountain that takes up the entire facade of a building. It depicts the both beautiful and destructive, force of water.











+MUST SEE: The Colosseum. Another space that astounds you with its beauty, its massiveness, and its age. Try to watch Gladiator right before also...it'll get you all jacked up.

+Get dinner at a place called Magnolia near Piazza Navona. Great food and...

=BIRRA OF THE BLOG=
That's right...it can just pop up just like that. Wham! While at Magnolia try one of their specialty beers called Devils Kiss. Its apparently very tough to find but its a Strong Ale brewed somewhere in Scotland. Lord only knows what it was doing in Rome, but it was delicious.

So we did all of that, plus a shit ton more, plus we found enough energy to go out and party a bit at night [go figure]. But what's funny is the smaller simpler things are becoming the most fun and memorable. Quick example: one of the funnest things looking back at Rome [other than Yan the crazy tour guide], was running through the metro not exactly sure if we going the right way, a little buzzed on cheap wine, just laughing at our indecisiveness. We were trying to make it to the colloseum before it closed at 5pm. And the colloseum was amazing, don't get me wrong, I just think it's interesting how a moment like that in the Metro, buried underneath three thousand years of brick foundations and history, a moment like that, just with friends and excitement, no monuments or tourist traps, will stick out in my mind forever.














Footnotes:
+The list above is just the highlights of Rome. There is always more to see/do/experience

+Miss everyone back in the States! Hope all is well!