Roman Holiday

- March 11, 2020

Once upon a time I went on a Contiki trip across Europe. I'm unjustifiably terrible at staying up-to-date with my blogging. One day I will catch up, but today is not that day. Today you get to read about my adventures on December 2, 2018. On this day the tour group left our hostel at 7:30am to check out the Forum and Colosseum.

Our visit coincided with the first Sunday of the month, which meant entry was free. Travel is one of my biggest passions in life. An even bigger passion for me is free travel, so this was a happy coincidence.

We did need to show our tickets quite a bit. I actually can't remember this detail, so it must've been important enough to include in my notes, but not significant enough to still scar me over a year later. Another strange detail that made it into my notes (but I do recall this) was that the toilets had no seats. I've been to public toilets with no lids. Cool, whatever. But I've never hovered over a public toilet where the seat has completely vanished. I guess it eliminates the possibility of people getting pee on the toilet seat.

Anyway, back to the ancient architecture.

It was super impressive.

The sun making an appearance on our wintry European trip was also super impressive.

I'm not so sure our singing was super impressive. Meagan was reminded of the scene from Shrek which takes place in the Colosseum. Naturally we all decided to sing part of Bad Reputation.

Rome is notorious for its pick pockets, so as a preventative measure I did a little front-packing, as opposed to the standard backpacking.

The metro was a tight squeeze, but we made it through to the Vatican.

We arrived with enough time to see the Pope.

He was on a balcony so high up, and my eyesight isn't the best, so it could've been anybody talking to us.

We Rome-d the charming streets.

Our next stop was the Spanish Steps.

We look pretty rebellious, considering the fine you could receive if you sit on the steps. We didn't give a damn about our bad reputation.

Ok... our visit was actually before the law fining tourists for sitting on the steps was announced.

I also climbed the stairs and sat at the top of them too.

It definitely wasn't a complete struggle for me to sit down. I'm always so graceful.

For lunch I opted for the pasta carbonara at Delizioso. I’d feel weird if I didn’t include at least one pasta photo in my post about Italy.

I also requested "Uno aperol spritz". I was quickly becoming fluent in Italian.

Here we had all the time in the world.

Pompi was our next stop for dessert. I ordered a Rocher and Mont Blanc.

"How many spoons?" Asked the server.

"Umm.. just one," I smiled. The chocolate, cream, meringue and hazelnut spread was a delicious party in my mouth that nobody else was invited to.