ROMA: Land of the Communists.

Fall break for the lovely ladies at the Abbey was... an adventure. A long, fun, crazy, messy, somewhat spiritual adventure. Good for us. It was SO much of an adventure that I'm going to split up our week long journey into 4 blogs: Rome, then Florence, then Venice, then Nice & Monaco.

I'm also aware that my entries have been rather sporadic over the past few weeks. Tomorrow, if everything goes as planned, I will get my computer back. That means more entries more often. Yayy.

Alright. So. RB came, thank GOD. He stayed for about a week and a half, not long enough if you ask me. We love us some RB, so the entire week was too much fun. We went to museums, an opera, a couple shows, Wagamama's (mmmmm...), the pubs, and FABRIC!! That place is one giant euro-acid trip. He also experienced my first British fish n' chips meal! De-lish. We got some great usage out of our hookah, ANDDD we had a photoshoot on the tube! Can you honestly say that you've ever stepped foot onto an empty tube car... kinda drunk? We had to jump on this rare opportunity, and the results are fantastic. BETTER. That was the night we were supposed to go karaoke-ing, but ended up at some chinese restaurant in the middle of Leichester Square... oops. We also finally toured our area and discovered some gems about the West Hampstead area, such as The Lion and PIZZA EXPRESS!!! My life gets better and better. I don't know how we booked this flat, but we must have done something rulllll amazing in our past lives because this little deal we have is too wonderful. Samantha is sitting next to me with no trousers on.

ROMA.
I feel bad for RB because we bolted out of the door at the last possible minute (The Abbey way) and we left him here to find his way to Gatwick on his own. He's an independent bloke, so I had no worries. Let me just say, I hate ryanair and Luton airport. I can't really complain since it's SOOOOOO cheap, though. As long as it gets me from point A to point B, I'll deal. I was also dying from the worst cold I've had in a long time (total duration: 1.5 weeks), so I was just not in a good place. That all changed, however, once I stepped foot on Roma soil. Fantastic feeling. Overwhelmed with fatigue, we went straight to our hostel and walked right into a communist protest. Picture hundreds upon hundreds of Italian youth, all dressed in red, drinking, dancing, partying and screaming communist chants. It was interesting. Too bad I'm not communist, otherwise I probably would have grabbed a beer. We went on this bus tour and saw most of the Roman sites via a moving vehicle, but the steady driving put me to sleep after the first hour. It was a good place to nap, I would say. Once we got off, I got my period. Yup, I said it. My PERIOD. Sometimes I wonder: there are so many older women who chose not to have babies. That means that they've spent most of their lives having to endure cramps, pms and all that ish... for WHAT??? YOU DON'T HAVE ANY BABIES!! Let's figure this out. Linda. She's 55 years old, child-less of course. She got her period at the ripe age of 13. 55-13x12=504 WASTED PERIODS!!! Absolutely not. I would tell Linda to go get pregnant asap before those 504 periods become utterly useless. What a shame.

So yeah, I got my period. Then we toured Rome by foot. Rome is SO beautiful at night. Everything just glimmers. Miranda and I found a place to grab a beer and we were off to sleep. We woke up early, got dressed up and headed to the Vatican to hopefully attend a mass service; it wasn't open the entire time we were there, only for the mass on Sunday. We waited for a few hours, but we were pretty much at the front of the line. Then, all of a sudden, everyone pulls out their tickets... tickets??? We didn't know we needed tickets to get into the Vatican. We opted to stay in line and maybe beg our way in? About 20 minutes later, a Priest who was standing in front of us eerily turns around and makes direct eye contact with Miranda and asked her if she needed a ticket. She asked for four and out of NOWHERE, we landed tickets. It was creepy, clearly a sign that we were meant to attend the service, which took us by surprise when we figured out it was a canonization service led by the POPE!!! There were hundreds of people there from all over the world, and we were practically front row. I didn't realize how huge it was until I saw it on the news the next night. When the mass was over, we saw the Pantheon and made our way to the train to Florence. Just assume that every 2-3 hours, we inhaled either pasta, pizza, bruscetta or gelato. Of the three cities we went to, Rome had the best food.

My general thoughts on Rome: like I said, amazinggggg food, and soooo many BEAUTIFUL people. I was convinced that all the beautiful people lived in Italy... until I went to France, but thats a concept that will be explained later. I felt like I was thrown into history walking through such an ancient city. I've spent years learning about ancient Rome, and getting to finally go was just... remarkable. The city was remarkable. I also thought it was interesting that we could get by knowing only 7 phrases: Gratzie, Prego, scuzzi, chiao, bonjorno, perfavore and mi dispirache. Literally those were the only Italian words we knew, and we all got by just fine. And again, the beautiful people. WOW.

Also, our hostel wasn't that great.