Home at last

No more Italian blog post titles, it just doesn't feel right in America.
Well, I'm home, as you may have noticed.
Rome was quite the experience. Though the crowds were a bit much for my tastes, and I found myself missing Florence more than once, there was so much to see. Much of the stuff in Florence was stuff I knew about from taking Art History and being an art enthusiast in general, but in Rome, the stuff we saw was what had been forced through pop culture and ingrained in our minds since we were children. The Colosseum, The Sistine Chapel, etc.

The first day, we took a bus, arriving a little before 1pm, and did a basic walking tour around Rome, stopping in a bunch of small churches and cathedrals along the way. My favorite was the Santa Maria sopra Minerva, wherein lay the bodies of Saint Catherine (sans head) and Fra Angelico. I bought a rosary there for my sister, and a monk blessed it for me. It was a very neat to see. We ended at a Bernini fountain depicting personifications of four rivers, and taxied back to the hotel. The next day we went to the Vatican, which, while housing some of the most famous art of the Western world, was absolute hell to walk through. I am truly glad I went and can say I've seen what is housed there, I will never go again. That evening, and the evening after, we ate at the restaurant where Alfredo was invented, which was pretty cool. The next day, we walked around Rome some more. First, we walked through the ancient markets, now just ruins, which was by far my favorite part of the Rome experience. Then, we saw Trajan's column, and then the outside of the Colosseum. A small group of us went to the Bourgeoisie palace to see statues by Bernini along with other great art of the time. There was a statue by Bernini of Apollo and Daphne which I absolutely adored. I was astonished by his ability to sculpt such fragile looking parts of the statue so perfectly; roots stretching out from her toes, thin leaves from her fingers, tendrils of her marble hair appearing to blow back in the wind. It was incredible to say at the least. After the second Alfredo dinner that night, we walked back, detouring through the Spanish Steps. The next day, it was bright and early off to the airport.

The flights home went well, even though we missed a flight, I think it ended up being a good thing. We hand planned for half of us to get a flight from Montreal to Toronto at 5 and the other half at 6, but with our flight from Rome landing in Montreal at 5:30, there was no time for either. We ended up all catching a flight to Toronto together at 7, and still catching our original flight to Pittsburgh. After a reunion with my mother and sister, during which I fell into fits of this strange hysterical laughter and sobbing at the same time (it's quite unlike me, I can assure you), we went to a hotel where I happily fell asleep at what felt to me in Italian time like 7am, but was really 1.

After spending the next day and night in Pittsburgh, where I had the most amazing Indian food as my first meal back in America, we left the next day at 10am back for Baltimore (stopping of course for a big American breakfast), and arrived back around 5:30pm, safe and sound.

Now I say goodbye to this blog, at least until next time I go to Italy, if I am so lucky.

Ciao!