Its nice to start with a picture especially one as awesome as the one above, but this picture is actually not from something that happens on Saturday or Sunday (It actually happens on Monday, so look forward to when I write my post on about Monday). (And thank you, I am awesome at jumping). This picture is from when we hiked, and yes I mean hiked, to the top of St. Peters Basilica (Also this took multiple attempts, and yes we did look like fools trying to achieve this photo)
Saturday, January 22nd
One of the best beginnings to a Saturday is sleeping late, and that is of course how this Saturday began. Sleeping late is one of my favorite hobbies, especially after a long week of school, so that is just what I did. I will go ahead and tell you this day is a lot of me just laying around. After I woke up, I went to the store with one of my roommates and we stocked up on some food. One of the things that I have learned about shopping here is that I have access to some of the best meat and cheeses, and they are all at very cheap prices. Needless to say we stocked up on meat, cheeses, and bread, and my lunch consisted of an amazing sandwich. After lunch (because it was still kind of rainy outside) I decided to watch a movie on my new favorite website. And although it may not be the most legal website, I was able to watch, what I think is the best movie of the year, The King's Speech. It was quite possibly the best movie I have seen all year.
After I was done lying around, we decided to try to head down to the city center to get some books from the American bookstore (books for our classes, not for personal reading). After a little bit of wandering around downtown Rome, we decided to eat at one of my favorite restaurants any where in the world. We ate the fine eating establishment of McDonalds. The McDonalds we ate at also happens to be the first McDonalds to be put in Italy.
This was by far the nicest McDonalds that I have ever been to. It was two stories with different stations for coffee and dessert. It was also the most expensive I have ever been to as well. It was almost ten dollars, but the chicken nuggets that I had were very tasty. I had a sprite and some fries with very little salt on them. My first thought, which is a very American thought, was to salt my fries, but I did not have access to salt like I do in the United States. The McDonalds was very crowded and I was surprised to see that so many Italians wanted to eat at McDonalds (also none of them were overweight, so it was a very different experience than any McDonalds I have ever been to in the United States).
After we finished at McDonalds (also another surprise was that the grease, or lack there of, did not decimate my stomach like it would in the United States) we headed back to our apartment. I ended Saturday by watching a movie on my computer, and heading to bed early, because we had plans to get up early the next day to go to the flea market.
Sunday, January 23rd
To begin the Sunday, a couple of us woke up early to go to a massive flea market that is only held on Sundays. (by the way, when I say massive, I mean massive). After some searching, we finally found the flea market. (it was in a part of town that we normally don't go to). We entered the flea market around 11:30 and we didnt leave until around 1:30 (partially because we were with two girls, and as I learned, shopping with girls takes forever, because they literally stopped at almost every stand). At the end of our flea market tour, I ended up with one purchase. I bought a nice heavy jacket for 15 euros (which is like 20 dollars). Ill point it out if it is ever in a picture that I post on here, but needless to say it was an amazing buy and I have since received many compliments on it.
After we left, we wandered towards where we thought the city center was (this was where we needed to catch our bus back), but it ended up taking us much longer than expected. We ended up passing by one of the historic tourist monuments in Rome. Although I had never heard of it, it was the mouth of the statue that Audrey Hepburn stuck her hand in in Roman Holiday. The superstition has something to do with lying and your hand getting eaten, and obviously my hand came out scot-free, so I think that means I am not a liar (I would appreciate no comments about the previous statement). On the way back, we stopped at a cafe for some cappuccinos. After we drank them we found out the cost was 3 euros a piece (normally they are less than a euro) Also just so you know, a euro is almost equal to a dollar and a half. Needless to say, we were not very happy. After we were done at the cafe, we went to a shop down the road and I picked up an amazing Roma sweatshirt, which can be seen in the picture at the top of the page.
Once we finally made it back to our apartment (you would be surprised at how difficult it is to navigate the city bus system) we stopped to have a quick lunch/early dinner (at the end of the night, we were planning on going to an Irish pub to watch the Packers play the Bears, where we would eventually get dinner). We stopped at, of course, our favorite local restaurant, Stuzzico! I had, what is to date, my best meal in Rome. I had a white lasagna. It was a lasagna with a cheese sauce filled with peas and sausage. It was truly amazing and I will hopefully be able to recreate it when I return home. After Stuzzico, I took a small break before we headed out to Scholars, a local Irish pub that shows American sporting events. Every other American who cared about the NFL games was also there at this pub, because it is one of the very few places to catch an American sporting event. Luckily one of my roommates was able to finagle us a small booth/room which had a private TV. The bar was packed to capacity and we just sat in our nice room, it was a very cool experience. I had a chicken sandwich. and some chips, which were surprisingly good (I am very happy when I get to have a significant portion of meat, which is not very often in Rome hence why I was so excited about the chicken nuggets at McDonalds). After the game, we took a cab back to our apartment (the buses shut down around midnight, and we have yet to discern how to use the night bus). When we got back we called it a night because we had class early on Monday (some people were going to stay for the second game, but the games start fairly late here so none of the people I live with stayed).
So until tomorrow!
Ciao!
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