we woke up early day two (luckily, our only rainy day) to meet chris's friend janet by the colosseum. she's studying at uc rome right now and i owe half the greatness of my trip to her expert tour guiding skills. we would have been lost/confused/doing lame things if she weren't there to point us in the right direction and tell us about the neatest roman things. so janet, if you're reading, GRAZIE!
anyway, we bought our roma pass and zoomed past a huge line into the colosseum. this was one of my fave parts of rome because it let me daydream about being in ancient roman society...knowing me, i'd be up in the nosebleed section, where the peasants sat, but whatev. i'd still be at the colosseum.
apres ca...i mean, after that (when i get back, please excuse my franglais...it's become a habit to mumble french words when i don't know what to say), we had lunch. i had a delicious lasagna...mmmm italian food. once we were done, we had one thing on our minds: gelato. pretty much the whole trip, our conversations consisted of three things: figuring out directions, talking about gelato, and talking about christmas. mal, aka mrs. claus, obviously had a lot to do with this. we walked down the street to frigidarium. even though there were only about 16 flavors to choose from, i was overwhelmed. the only thing that consoled me was the fact that we'd be enjoying at least 7 more gelatos (2 times/day), so i'd have plenty of time to try all the flavors. for my first combo, i had classic peanut butter and banana...and ohmigod, i love gelato. from my first bite, i knew i'd be eating too much of the stuff and gaining weight. i reassured myself that we'd be walking a million more miles so i'd be working all the gelato off, but i really didn't need another reason to eat the gelato. god, that stuff was delicious.
we wandered down to the pantheon with our umbrellas in hand and were minorly upset to find that it was closed. but no matter, there were plenty other sights to see and more time to get back to the pantheon tomorrow. so then we walked to the spanish steps, where chris and i drank from the fountain (after we waited in like behind 3 little kids, of course). i'm gonna be really honest with you right now...i have no idea why the spanish steps are famous. in the autumn/winter, when they don't have those flowers on them, they're so ordinary that i wouldn't have been able to tell if they were anything special.
we got back to the colosseum when janet decided she needed to get home to get out of her heels (heels on cobblestone? not for me, thanks), so she left us to roam on our own. we wanted some coffee, so we went into a place called, "coming out." yes, it's a gay bar/café. the waiter was friendly (as were many of the italians we met...maybe it's because their language sounds happy) and we were having a good time chatting with him. he seemed pretty gay, but we didn't think much of it...after all, we are in a place called, "coming out." BUT when i went back to the bathroom, he calls me back to the kitchen and hands me a slip of paper. as i start to open it, he goes, "no no no! my friends and i are going to a club tomorrow night. maybe we can get a cup of coffee. you have my number." wow, thanks, gay sam, but your a boy and i'm not...why are you giving me your number?
hostel allesandro downtown (which always had this fresh, welcoming shit scent wafting down the halls) offered free pasta weeknights at 7pm, so we hurried back to catch that. as we were enjoying our surprisingly yummy pasta, i looked up to see a familiar face sitting next to us. "mike?" i asked. holy geezis, it was mike from budapest, who i met at oktoberfest. he's the guy who blacked out and came to in a moving cab 150 euro poorer! i told maddy, mal and chris about him, and now he's here! small freaking world. we ate dinner and chatted with him, and he ended up joining us for the rest of his time in rome. good times were had by all :-D
after that, we needed (yeah, needed) to get another gelato, so we went to piazza nuovo and found blue ice, a gelateria recommended by some friend. i had my fave combo there--chocolate, cinnamon and cappucino. cinnamon was def my fave flavor, and with the cappucino, it tasted just like starbucks at christmas. mmmmmm.
satisfied by gelato #2, we headed back to the hostel and were greeted by wet bathrooms and poop smell. the ny girls, who were now in their rightful beds in our room, came home hours later at something like 4 am (i dunno, i was sleeping and probably snoring). but it was beginning to feel more like home and...well, now i miss it.
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