Suzie has a blog...: All Roads Lead to ROME!

Okay, my week got super crazy and I haven't had any time to sit and blog again! Sorry about that! Let's see, I think I left off in Morocco. On Sunday, July 18th we found ourselves back in an airport headed to Rome. We arrived in the evening and then had to take a taxi to our hotel (which was outside of Rome). We were staying in Rome for a conference called Transform 2010. It took maybe a little less then an hour to get to the city of Pomezia. We ate dinner in the hotel and then pretty much went to bed! Monday, we didn't have to be checked into the conference until later in the evening... so we had our one and only day off to explore Rome! We met with some other friends that were also at the conference and set out to find the bus stop. After asking lots of people, and backtracking a bit we found the bus stop and waited... when the bus finally did get there, the driver told us that he would charge us 7 euros for one way, but if we went into the store they would only charge us 2 euros. Being on a tight budget we decided to go for the cheaper fare. So, we all managed to get round trip bus tickets and then waited again for the next bus! The bus ride took us to the underground, and that took us into Rome! My first European underground experience! Yeah!

When we got into Rome, we all decided we were pretty hungry. What do you eat for your first meal in Rome? Pizza of course! I think I had the best pizza of the whole trip here! Very yummy! The other really cool think about Rome (and most of Italy it would seem) is there are really cool drinking water fountains everywhere! They are just running all the time, and they have the best tasting ice cold water coming out of it! It was so nice not to have to buy water all the time! Plus it was over 100 degrees outside and not much shade! So, we were always looking for those fountains!

After we ate lunch, we started walking toward Trevi Fountain. I have seen pictures of this before, but was so shocked at how big it was! REALLY big! So, after walking around and looking at that for a bit, we decided to move on. I can't even tell you all the buildings we saw, because I don't know what they were. It was really cool to be in a city where just about everything was older then the country we live in! We kept walking, and saw ruins of ancient Rome (which the boys enjoyed trying to imagine what it would have been like to live there!) and then we walked more... and then came to the Coliseum! I have always wanted to see the Coliseum! We didn't actually go inside and tour it (that darn budget again!), but it was fun to walk around and look at it! I heard that really only like 2 Christians actually died there, that there is another coliseum where they killed the Christians... don't know if that is true or not. After we saw this we were SUPER hot and sweaty and decided to start making our way back to the hotel. I know, we didn't see the Vatican, or St. Peters, or the Spanish Steps or tons of other stuff... but I am okay with that. I am happy I got to walk around a bit and did enjoy what I did see! Maybe someday I will go back and explore the rest of it, preferably not in the middle of summer when it is soooo hot and crowded! Here are some pics!