Italia, prego! [Part 1]

Italy, where to even begin! Seeing as how a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to take advantage of that seeing as how a whole week is a bit hard to cover in a blog post. Once again, I set out on another 'travel the world adventure' with my friend, Carly...just another day in the life, ya know. And so Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Spain began with us taking a flight out on Friday night to Rome, Italy. Cue the "Rome if you want to" song...
Once we got situated at the hostel we walked right to the Trevi fountain and made our two coin tosses with the traditional wishes of returning back to the Trevi fountain and one for love. Visit the Trevi fountain? Check.
The weather on Saturday was absolutely beautiful and was perfect for us strolling through the city and stumbling upon sights like the Pantheon, street art markets, our first lunch of pizza (it really is better in Italy!), and some gelato. Let's just say one or both of us had some of this delicious stuff just about every single day.

Pantheon

Sunday consisted of us waking up at the crack of dawn (6am) to head out to battle the hectic crowds, smashed like sardines and pushing and shoving to get into St. Peter's Square and witness Palm Sunday Mass with none other than the new Pope Francis himself. What is my life?! 

Palm Sunday Mass at St. Peter's Square

After the 3 hour mass we made our way to Circus Maximus and the Colosseum. This finally made me feel like I was in Rome, seeing all of these incredible ruins that tell so much history. 

Enjoying yet another round of gelato in front of Circus Maximus 

Monday started off a little less early than our previous 17 hour day with some delicious cappuccinos and Italian pastries before going to the Vatican Museum and seeing the famous Sistine Chapel. It was spectacular. Amidst the crazy amounts of tourists crammed into the chapel, security guards "shushing" people to be quiet, the loud speaker reminding people to not take pictures and be quiet (in 10 different languages), I had to try really hard to block it all out so that I could actually soak it all in. Michelangelo's work is so incredibly detailed, the beautiful paintings cover just about every crevice of the room. I also found it so enlightening to see how the section with God and Adam stretching out their hands toward each other represents humanity to the "t." God is ilustrated as reaching out with all His strength, all that He has and Adam is sprawled out out on his cloud, sitting back so leisurely, his hand barely making the effort to touch the hand of God. Wow...how many times do we find ourselves barely trying when God does so much for us and loves us with every fiber in His being. Powerful stuff, my friends. 

And now for the very best part of Rome (at least in my book!)...our last dinner at this amazing family owned restaurant near our hostel. They say Italy is all about their food and they sure are right! We were treated so well by this family of an elderly couple as the chefs and their daughter as the hostess and definitely given some of the best food of all time. I had bruschetta (which, I just need to add, I don't like tomatoes but this stuff was so addicting!) with fresh, fresh tomatoes, dripping in olive oil and all kinds of garlic and spices...your mouth is just watering reading it, isn't it?! And that was just the beginning. Next up was some delicious ravioli, topped off with home made tiramisu. Needless to say, we were stuffed and shocked to see that we had been there for 2 and a half hours! Between our own talking and interacting with the cute old man, we felt like we had actually gotten one of the best glimpses into Italian life-family, good friends, and food.

Home made tiramisu! I wish I had gotten a picture of that bruschetta though... ;)

Next up, to Florence (and a rather funny/not so funny adventure to be had) we go! Stay tuned for part 2 coming soon!