Back in Italy :')

Okay grr sorry wix deleted half of my post for some reason so sorry if this seems disjointed ill edit it later and re-add the pics grrr...

We have made it back to italia!! Kyra and I got in on the 1st and have been sleeping at the apartment of her friend who used to work in Boston. Very grateful to her for letting us crash at her place :')) even tho i am back in Rome with my enemies, the Italians.

On Thursday the 2nd it was Italian Republic Day, so Kyra's friend had the day off and we went out exploring. To be honest, for the past few days I have been visiting a lot of places we visited last time around, but it has been fun to do it with a new friend and perspective, plus see some stuff we didnt get to see. We missed the national parade but apparently the holiday is mostly just to celebrate the military so I dont really mind that I missed it lol. It was cool though, we walked around afterward and they had put a huge italian flag on the side of the collosseum!!

On the 3rd, we met up with Kyra's other friends from D.C. who happened to be on a family vacation in Italy at the same time. We had sushi at this place near the Spanish Steps (they served us salmon with pistachio on it, they really put that stuff in everything), and then in the evening we tried to go out for aperitivo but we got kicked out of a restaurant for not ordering enough food!! Anyway, I was disappointed but not as shocked as Kyra and her friends, I think I just expect Italians to be kinda mean at this point...definitely not much has changed since last time. I just don't get why it was such as issue for us to share a pizza, I feel as though that is common even in Italy, but this guy was not having it.

Anyway, after that, though, we went out in Trastevere for drinks and tiramisu. It was really fun to hang out for the day with them because they had just finished travelling around Italy and had travelled elsewhere in Europe too. I'm not very well-travelled so it's cool to get other people's advice -- one of Kyra's friends said she loved Lisbon too!

On the 4th, we did our day at the Vatican. In the morning we went to St Peter's Basilica and climbed all the way up to the Dome. It was 500 steps :O and the higher you went up the more narrow it got. Us and the Europeans were sweating by the end, but the view was definitely worth it :') but by the end of that trek, my dogs were Howling let me tell you. Afterward we had a tour of the Vatican Museums. I'm glad I got to enjoy the rooms more since I was not sicky this time, though it was a hot day that day so I was definitely sweating quite a bit (also no one wears masks here anymore, even on the trains, so I have been stressing a bit and was wearing a mask which did not help the sweat). The museums were really beautiful so I was glad to see it with Kyra.

Then yesterday, we had incredible luck!! We tried to go to the Pantheon but we needed reservations to get in, so we decided to go to the Colosseum instead. I was feeling pretty stressed because I remembered how expensive joining a tour group/skip the line could be and we hadn't been able to book a ticket online. But when we arrived we learned that because it was the first sunday of the month, the Colosseum/Forum were free!! So we got to walk around in there and Kyra got to have the full Rome experience.

All in all, Rome was exactly as I remember. I had Pompi, boba, and cacio e pepe and people were not very nice :') Kyra agrees that Italians are rude but we are not letting that get us down too much. Now that I can expect it, I think it's a little better, though I do still get bummed out when strangers are rude hehe.

Anyway, we left Rome today and travelled to Florence! It was a stressful journey, because we were supposed to leave from Termini at 12, so we got there an hour early, only to see that our train wasn't listed on the board. We asked a trenitalia employee and she told us that they had moved the departure station to Tiburtina instead. We were shocked! I've never heard of a train having its whole station changed lol. And I hate tiburtina grr. She told us there was a free shuttle but we couldn't find it and we were stressing about missing the train since it was in less than a hour, so we just took the metro. Then, when we got to Tiburtina, our train still wasn't listed. We asked the guy and he kept saying that it would appear eventually, but it was like 10 minutes before our train. Eventually the board told us the train was 50 minutes delayed (some other trains were delayed by over 100 minutes, and there were cancellations left and right). We got only eventually and made it to Florence in no time but it was stressful. Rachel was right about Italian trains.

Anyway, long post, enjoy the piccies. I've been enjoying Italian food (and drinks 😉) more this time around I think, and I'm having fun hanging out with Kyra. Ciao for now xoxo