One More Visit to Rome

Today marks the one-week anniversary of my return home from Florence. 

While I originally planned on writing a blog on how I spent my first week home, I ultimately decided against that when I realized that I've mostly just been sleeping and reading. The latter because I still want to accomplish my one-book-a-week goal and the former because jet lag is incredibly awful and horribly hard to overcome. But I'm trying. So, instead of re-counting the very few things I've done since I've been home - I'll recount my last (and favorite) trip to Rome of the year.  The day before I left school, I went to Rome with a few family members, my cool uncle and his even cooler wife. First we met up to have breakfast, but because I couldn't think of anywhere nice to eat breakfast, we ended up eating in the McDonald's in the train station. Honestly, I wasn't too mad at that at all. The McDonald's in Italy are much better than the McDonald's at home. I don't what it is (probably the better health codes standards) but European McDonald's are just better. Later, after a nice train ride, we emerged on the streets of Rome and (confusedly, at first) made our way to the Colosseum. That journey started a little rocky when the GPS wouldn't function on our phones, but once that was eventually settled, we were able to make our way to the ancient arena.  Though I had toured the arena, my family had not so we went inside for a visit. It was pretty much the same as my last visit, just a little dustier with a little more construction going on. Once we went to both levels, we crossed the street and took a walk through the Ancient City (because the tickets covered entrance to both, so why not).  Then, my uncle had an epiphany. He wanted to walk to the Vatican (even though he isn't Catholic, it was starting the rain, and the Vatican was a 55-minute walk away). But I think it had more to do with the new sneakers he bought which made him feel like he was "walking on clouds". So we headed off for the Vatican.  But because I wasn't walking on clouds (nor was his wife), the rain was beginning to pick up, and my allergies were attacking with no mercy - we stopped for a quick lunch in a little resturant.

It was so good!! And a much needed pick me up. After lunch, we continued our trek to the Vatican... which we only stayed at for about 5 minutes before turning around and making the hour long walk back to the train station.  When we got back to the train station, we were about 3 hours early for our train and we weren't able to catch an earlier one, so we decided to grab dinner at a little restaurant in the station - Ham Holy Burger.  Very likely the best burger I had during my entire stay in Italy. The house sauce was so good!! We had to give it a 5-star rating on Yelp. 

Once we finished up, we rode the train home (with a brief delay that honestly made me a little nervous - trains stopping suddenly gives me flashbacks of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) and made one last stop to Amorino for one last gelato. Though I originally planned to go out of the box and try new flavors, seeing as it was my last night in Florence, I decided to go with tradition and got strawberry, almond, and a mango macaron.  On our way to the bus stop that would take me back to campus, we walked past the Duomo one last time and I couldn't help by take a picture to commoreate the moment. 

For a last walk in Florence to end the semester, it was pretty memorable. And for a last day in Italy to end an era, it was pretty great.