Italy Trip – Day 2 – Romans Suck Less and the walking tour of Rome

Day two began with a trip down memory lane. We headed to where I studied in Rome, Temple University! It was still just as awesome as always. Here I am at the gates.

Here is the building! Yes Temple has it's own campus. I know very cool!

Then we headed to my favorite gallery in all of the world, Villa Borghese. Bernini Statues galore up in that place! It really was so amazing to go back there.

I would like to buy this house please.

After our tour, no pictures because no cameras are allowed, we hung out and had lunch in the park around the Villa.

I was kinda obsessed with this tree for some reason, I took like 10 pics of it so I thought it was blog worthy.

We then headed over to the Pantheon for the afternoon. Mr. A really did not know much about this place. So we did a free tour on our iPods from Rick Steves. It was a great way to learn all about this place. I have to say it was super crowded though and kind of annoying to actually go in because you we just being pushed around.

But we did get a picture of the dome, which was unreal. Did you know it does not rain in there? (It does, but Romans say it does not) Also did you know that it was once a pagan temple. See you learn something everyday.

That night we did the walking tour of Rom a-la Rick Steves. WE walked by the wedding cake, which was tolerable at night.

Then started in the Jewish Ghetto. They had a big flower market, I was very tempted.

Then we walked to the Piazza Navona, witht he four rivers statues in the middle. This is in lots of movies, most recently "Angels and Demons".

Art festival going on around the Piazza. We then had dinner on the piazza. It was actually a terrible meal but great atmosphere.

Mr. A drinking wine on the square. He loved all the wine... so did I.

We then walked back by the Pantheon at night, and it was so pretty and quiet now.

We then walked over to the Trevi Fountain, and had a cappuccino.

Obligatory shot of the gingers in front of the fountain.

It was a nice day in Rome. Very few run ins with crazy Romans and very little fighting. This obviously will change as time goes on, while on vacation with one person... Next up Vatican.

Ginger Supremacists

We are both gingers, I tell Mr. A I want ginger babies all the time, English people in Rome said I was offensive when I called Mr. A a ginger...

Yea, when we do have kids we are totally going to be these people:

Italy Trip – Day 1 – Romans Suck

Seriously. Let me start off by giving you a little background. Back in college I studied in Rome and my roommate, Kate and I developed a pretty strong opinion about Romans in general. They are rude, and pushy and many are constantly trying to rip you off in some way. I am not just making a snap judgment based on Mr. A and my time in Rome this time. Upon arrival in Rome after almost 24 hours of travel I was yet again quickly reminded that Romans… really do suck.

The hubs and I headed out of the airport terminal and were quickly duped into buying a phone card, only to later realize the phones now have pay by credit card directly on the phone… so yea we did not need that. Then we needed to change money, the first place just flat out would not do it for Mr. A just because and the second tried to rip him off on the conversion rate. This was all going on while I was in three lines to buy a train ticket to the city. After getting to the front of the line, oh yea the lady just would not take my bank card, not because they did not take them but because it was going to take too long. SERIOUSLY. After quickly snapping back into my Romans-suck-so-be-a-bitch armor I told the lady she had to take my card and got fussy and all of a sudden BAM she handed me the tickets. Y’all this was before we even left the airport…

Knowing that Roman cab drivers will try to rip you off I told Mr. A we should just take the subway; it is only 1 euro and was right by the flat we were renting. Perfect, cheap and easy. Well we get to Termini and again the ripping off begins. I go to buy our tickets, all while wearing my special bitch armor, and lo and behold the gypsy people are there trying to beg for money from me because they pressed a button on the machine that I used. I promptly said no and got yelled at in Italian. Awesome start to this trip right?

Well after a brief and scary trip on the subway we walked to apartment and had our minds blown. We stayed in a neighborhood that backed up to the forum. It was UNREAL. The street we stayed on had cobblestone and was over 600 year old with ivy growing all around you. It was like you walked into a whole other city. I quickly relaxed and realized I was going to have a much different experience this time around. Romans may suck, but at least the building we were staying in was amazing!

Here are some pictures of our newly renovated 100 euro a night flat: 

Our bilding

The living room

Kitchen

Eating area

Window to the courtyard

Bathroom

I loved this ceiling... it was over 600 years old.

 Awesome right? I know! We even did a bit of food shopping. It was so nice to have a quiet place to escape the chaos that was Rome.

After settling in Mr. A convinced me that we should not nap, even though I had not slept in 24 hours, so we headed out to start to get the lay of the land. Here is a shot of what was at the end of our street:

Old shit at the end of our street!

Trajan's market right at the end of our street.

To the left the Colosseum...

To the right the wedding cake...

Yea that’s the forum… amazing. So we walked around and did the wedding cake monument, Trajan’s Colum and Market, and a bit of other wondering. We then headed to the baths of Dioclecian and Piazza Republica: 

Pizza Republica

We then promptly realized we needed to take a nap. So we went back to the apartment and passed out for 3 hours. It was glorious. Here are some pictures from that first day of touring:

Trajan's column

Love the flag here

Mr. A found his "good" fanta

We walked by this on our way home every night. Unreal.

That night we went to dinner off of Via del Corso and walked up to Piazza Del Popolo and had a bottle of wine and gelato. Perfect end to a hectic and yet wonderful first day back in the eternal city.

Sunset over Rome

Piazza by our building

Piazza del Popolo

Wine and my love...

We walked by the Trevi fountain on our way home. More on this later.

And the Spanish steps.

 As a side note, because I love food and baking so much I am going to be putting together a whole separate set of blog posts about the food we had. Don’t worry you will get to hear all about the black truffle handmade pasta that we liked the bowls after… we keep it classy in Italy.

I will take my foot out of my mouth now...

Mr. A informed last night that no matter what my intentions were with a recent blog post about babies was I should never had said it. It came off wrong, rude and selfish and you know what as much as I hate to admit it he is right.You all do not write your blogs to entertain me, you write them to tell your story. I hope you can accept my sincere apologies.

I have since taken it down, so if you don't know what I am talking about then good and if you do and were hurt I am sorry. Really, I never meant to come off like that. I hope you all can understand it was an honest mistake.

Thanks for (hopefully) still loving me even with my lack of self control.

Now back to my regular posts...

Coming up, pictures from our trip... here is a sneak peak:

Positano Italy!

View from our balcony...

Fall baking awesomeness!

This weekend I baked a bunch of items for Mr. A's office. I decided to go with a fall theme. I also decided to make all weight watchers items. I was hoping his coworkers would appreciate a healthy and yummy snack and not stab me for tricking them into eating something healthy.

I started off with banana pumpkin bread, from skinnytaste.com. This bread was amazing and I think anyone would like it. Not too pumpkin-y either.

Then I made low fat, low points, pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. These cupcakes were more like pumpkin bread with cream cheese, but they were super yummy! They were also from skinnytaste.com.

I then made a sweet treat hat I am totally going to make for me niece and nephew's birthdayween party coming up. Ghost cookies! They are super cute and super easy to make. I think everyone liked them too! Also from skinnytaste.com.

Please excuse my dirty oven, oh the shame.

Aren't these too cute!?

After a hard night of baking harry was pooped...

 The hubs and I are trying to watch our waste lines because since we have been back from vacation we have been eating like beasts! So here is to healthy and fun fall themed treats!

Like a good bottle of wine...

Italy just gets better with age.

We just got back from our amazing 2 week trip to Italy and I am jet lagged beyond belief. No joke I fell asleep while reading one of my 247 emails this morning. BUT with that being said, we had a total blast on our vacation (holiday if you are European, or fancy, apparently I am neither). Updates and gratuitous bragging about fabulousness is soon to come. I know you are pumped.

In the mean time I am going back to bed.

Italy Travel Style

In preperation for my trip to Italy I have been learing a lot about how my husband and I travel together. We have been on lots of trips together, but honestly never this long and never this complicated! So we have been chatting a lot about expecations.

When I studied in Rome with my bestie Katie D (now Mrs. S!) she and I tended to do the cheap route with everthing and it always worked out. We just would wander and take everything in. We felt you would learn more about a city if you just sat on a piazza and drank some wine and people watched. That is my type of good time. Don't get me wrong, I love to sight see but only on my time and only if it works in with my wine drinking... don't judge.

Anyway, I am excited to say that it sounds like Mr. A is the same way! We plan on doing a tour during the day and then just relaxing at night with a bottle of wine, dinner and people watching. I want to really take in Italy and not just see it through musueums!

So in case you care here is our plan:

Day 1 - 4 we will be in Rome. I plan on doing all the major sights and also eating lots of great food.

Day 5-8 we will be in Sorrento. I plan to head to Pompeii and Capri and then drink wine and eat lots of food.

Day 8-11 we will be in Positano. We plan on doing nothing. Possibly taking a cruise at night along the coast. We are having dinner at Le Sirenuse. SO pumped!

Then back to Rome to head home the next day :(

I can't wait to see everything again! Katie D, I will say "Hi" to our home for us!