This week has been anything but easy. My poor parents spent all week in the kitchen cleaning up the mess I made of the spacklig job and painting the walls in their entirety, and cleaning up the trimwork since the previous owners evidentally had never seen a roll of painter's tape before. By the time Billy and I were leaving the house on Friday morning, pretty much everything was finished and the kitchen looks completely different, all thanks to a couple of coats of paint.
Not only is the house in a continual state of repair and remodel, this week, Billy took the Bar exam on Tuesday and Wednesday. He feels pretty confident that he passed and I'm just happy that law school is finally OVER and we can be full adults...again. Sort of. I mean, we are going to Dragoncon over Labor Day weekend, so I don't know how adult that actually makes us...
All of this led up to Friday (which feels a million years ago now). I cleaned up the loose ends from work and we were on our way to the airport with just our backpacks for luggage. The flight was the way most overseas flights are...long, cold, and uncomfortable, but I actually managed to contort myself into a pretzel and get some broken sleep. Poor Billy, I don't think he got any at all.
We landed in Rome, breezed through passport control and Customs and headed to the train station. No lie, we spent probably a total of 10 hours trying to book train tickets ahead of time on the Trenitalia website. We went to the ticket window and instantly got all of our trains booked in less than 10 minutes. Crazy.
We arrived at our hostel to discover than it sucks to not have AC in 94 degree weather. We were so exhausted from the flight that we wanted to just take a hour nap, but it was so hot in our room, that I thought Billy was going to have a heat stroke on me and we were going to have to go home early or something. We pumped him full of Powerade and he recovered well enough for us to strike out on the town a bit.
We started near the Vatican (which comes up on Monday for us) and toured some churches, which were fine, but nothing like Notre Dame or Chartres. Of course, we haven't really gotten to the true Italian masterpieces as we wanted to take today easy, but Rome certainly has a lot to prove. We went by the Pantheon, which would have been much cooler had it remained a pagan temple, but we can say we have seen it, which counts for something. We made a Coke stop in a BK (there is no way I'm eating American food here, which makes Italy better than Britain in that particular respect) for a while to enjoy the AC and then we headed to the Trevi Fountain.
Billy was already prepared to be completely unimpressed by it, and I was expecting a large round marble fountain with animals and people spouting water like you normally see fountains doing. When we got to the Trevi Fountain, we were both a bit stunned by what was before us. It feels like a raging whitewater river just pouring out of a building in the middle of the city...and the sculptures were pretty incredible too. Check one for the Trevi fountain.
Since we were well ahead of schedule today, we decided to go ahead and see what the big deal was about the Spanish Steps. They originally weren't even on our itinerary, but we were close to them and figured, "What the hell?" Indeed, "What the hell?!" is pretty accurate. I don't get it. It's a bunch of steps leading up to a building that isn't all that impressive architecturally. Yet, they were swarming with huge crowds of people like they couldn't get enough of them. Billy likened it to Trafalgar Square (which isn't impressive itself) where people all have to go when they go to London...but it's just really a place for people to meet and be seen. I'll say this, Montmartre serves the same purpose in Paris, but it is 100,000 times cooler and more beautiful than the frickin' Spanish Steps. Come on, Rome, you ruled the world for how long, and the Spanish Steps is the best you can do?!
If the Spanish Steps were disappointing, the street leading up to them were probably the coolest. I'll be the first to admit: I am not a fashionista, nor do I mistake myself for one. I know of designers, but I've never worn/bought designer clothes. If my jeans cost more than $25 I feel like I've been robbed. But we walked down the street that houses all the major designers in Rome: Dolce and Gabana, Feragamo, Gucci, Versace, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Max Mara, Valentino, Yves Saint-Laurent, etc, etc, etc. Window shopping has never been more fun. I told Billy that as ridiculous as the prices are, I would be sorely tempted to buy something, though. Good thing we both know that it wouldn't do me one bit of good to buy clothes or shoes right now, because who knows what my life will be like in the Spring?
But, we're back in the hostel and it has thankfully cooled down into the 60's so we should be able to get sleep tonight, even though the entire hostel is going out on the town tonight and will probably come back in late, juiced up. I don't think Billy and I will notice a single thing.
Tommorow, we're off to see lots of Roman ruins so that should be good day tomorrow!
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