Day 1
Marit, Ingvild, Gry and I left my apartment in the middle of the night after NO sleep. We took the train to Oslo:
and then we waited at Gardermoen airport:
before we had another exciting(not) wait in Amsterdam. I'm in a new country, and where do I decide to eat? that's right, burger king. (They didn't have a Mcdonalds). When we arrived in Rome we were all very excited. We were picked up at the airport by our Norwegian guide Astrid and a bus. We drove to our hotel...Nice? No..Ants in the bathroom? yes...Did we care? NO! WE were in ROME for crying out loud! Then we walked around outside, visiting two churches in ten minutes. Not bad. Santa Maria Maggiore was the first one, and it was beyond beautiful. Had I seen it after St. Peters church/St.Peter's Basilica, or whatever it's called in english, I probably would have found it a bit plain, but I was beyond impressed with this church.
We also had a quick look around inside Basilica di Santa Prassede:
Then we (all 33 of us) walked to a restaurant where we had our first meeting with italian food...And all I'll say is this: Be careful what you order! My friends Ingvild and Marit wound up with the pizza...Bottom?bread?and salad, and that's pretty much it. A picture of Ingvild and me at the restaurant:
Day 2
We woke up(Ingvild, Marit, Gry and I share a room) got ready, inhaled breakfast and went to meet the others outside. We walked around all day. It was supposed to rain all week..We ended up being really sunburned. It hurt all over...I love the sun....?Anyway, first we went to find our guide Astrid. She gave us this thing that we hung around our neck, and then there was this other thing that we put in the thing, and then we put it in our ear, and Astrid had a microphone, and so we could all hear her talk, and now I'm realizing that I wouldn't even be able to explain it any better in Norwegian, and isn't that a little sad... Anyway, we saw this ridiculously beautiful, pure white building, it's a monument built in the honor of Victor Emmanuel.
We continued walking, we went through Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills in Rome and where all the important power buisiness stuff goes on. Marit and I on Capitoline Hill, in front of some once-important man on a horse.
We walked on over to the Roman Forum, or Forum Romanum. I could explain what that is, but Wikipedia does it better: Forum Romanum is a small, rectanglar forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. As I understood it, they were the oldest ruins in Rome.
Ingvild, Me, Marit and Gry
We went to lunch at this nice little place:
After lunch we went to the Colosseum, were we went inside to take pictures, and then we bought a couple of souvenirs from one of the billion souvenir stands outside.
We also went to this church, Basilica di San Clemente, were we couldn't take pictures, but I wish I could have taken some. The church was amazing. The church we could see from the ground was built in the 1700 hundreds, if I remember correctly. Underneath it they had found a church from 400 A.D. The one they found under there was from 100 A.D. We got to "go underground" and look at these churches and it was incredible. Especially the oldest one. It had all these cool tiles with patterns. It was probably very beautiful 2000 years ago when it was above ground.
A picture of us outside the church were we all bought sunglasses for three euros:
Some random places:
When we got back to our hotel we were all badly burned by the sun, and exhausted from all the walking. We changed and got ready for dinner. This waiter walked right up to us on the street and "kidnapped" us into the restaurant. The waiter was really funny/weird, he "stole" my camera and went around taking pictures of everybody in the restaurant.
Day 3
We went to the Vatican to see Saint Peters church and Saint Peters square. The church was amazing and unbelievable. It's probably the most impressive building on the planet.
Me and Gry outside the church:
All of us outside the church:
Inside the church
Members of the swiss guard:
St.Peters square:
After being in the Vatican, we went to Castel Sant'Angelo, and we walked across the Sant'Angelo bridge(everyone who have read Angels and Demons by Dan Brown know what I'm talking about)
After this we went to Piazza Navona were we saw the Fountain of the Four Rivers, also described in the book.
Then we walked over to the Pantheon, a 2000 year old building that was turned into a church.
After seeing Pantheon, the whole group went for lunch at this nice restaurant.
Pictures from dinner, we went to the same place as the night before, were we sat outside and had a great time.
Day 4
We got up early to go to Assisi, a small town from the middle ages, two and a half hours away from Rome. Wikipedia: It was the birthplace of St. Francis, who founded the Franciscan religious order in the town in 1208. We went to the church of St. Francis as well, it was great. The city was beautiful, so old, and it just looked like something straight out of a movie. We walked around all day, bought souvenirs and had a disastrous experience at a restaurant where we were almost thrown out because we wore tank tops, and they frown on that.
After a long bus ride home(god bless the Ipod) we got back to the hotel and got ready for dinner. Yes, we went back to the same restaurant as before. The waiter was ignoring us all night, being pissed about Marit and Ingvild(the single ones) rejecting him all night. It was rather funny to watch, and it became funnier and funnier.
Day 5
This day was all about walking around, seing some places, like the spanish steps and the Trevi fountain, the biggest fountain in Rome, not to mention one of the most famous fountains in the world. It was incredibly beautiful!
The Spanish steps are supposed to be beautiful, but all we really saw was a bunch of umbrellas. But it was very colorful, to say the least.
Standing somewhere, looking out over Rome:
As pathetic as it is, after a week of Italian food, we were desperate for some serious junk food, so we went looking for a McDonald's. And find it we did! Big macs are the best!
Now, this was our last night in Rome, and our feet were hurting so bad we could hardly walk, so after a LOT of wandering around Rome, Shopping, and pretending to know how to get home to the hotel, when we finally got home, we were in heaven.
Gry and Marit are celebrating the fact that we can sit down and relax for a couple of hours before dinner:
My souvenirs:
Ingvild getting dressed for dinner, showing off our "tidy" room:
Ingvild wearing one of her souvenirs:
All dressed up:
We went out to eat with the rest of our group, with flowers from the psycho waiter from right across our hotel, who were all of a sudden back to being cheerful. After dinner the four of us went back to "our" restaurant. The waiter quickly left after getting furious with us for not letting any one of the others leave with the creep alone. He was so pissed I decided to act a little unladylike and told him to go to hell as he walked away. (I had a certain warning from a certain Minnesotan ringing in my head, and I didn't like the idea of any of it). So we sat there, letting it sink in. Our trip was over, nobody lost anything, or got hurt by anyone, we were all good. After a while we went upstairs to pack, and get ready for our long trip home the next morning...
And this is what we looked like the next morning:
In Amsterdam again
And finally back in Norway, on the train home
