When in Rome...and There's Nothing Catchy With Barcelona In It

Rome. Rome was awesome. We took an hour train ride from Civitevecchia, our port city into Rome and hopped off as soon as we saw the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. We just walked towards it and sort of stumbled into St. Peter's Square and it felt amazing. It really was so great to be there. Of all of my many adventures abroad (which include this and a trip last year with my sister to Paris and Venice) I've come to learn that Italy is my favorite. I just really like it.

We wondered through the square, went inside the church and then decided it was time to find the Sistine Chapel because we had a lot to do and only a day to do it. The line to get into the Vatican Museum's was SO LONG. And we got there pretty early. It was well worth it to see Michelangelo's depiction of God touching the finger of Adam.

After the Sistine Chapel we got slightly lost and decided the some authentic pizza would probably give us the mental clarity we needed. Not to mention some Fresca Orange (Amber I know you'll be pleased.) Let me tell you a little story about Europe and Fresca. You know how Fresca is nothing more than orange soda that you might as well by the Shasta brand of and give it to the kiddos? Well in Europe its good. Really good. It's kind of like, carbonated orange juice but better than what you're thinking.

Anyway, some thin crust and fresh mozzarella proved to do the trick because we soon found our way to the metro and made a stop at Trevi Fountain. We tossed in some American pennies, more wish for your buck that way, and headed back to the metro for the Colosseum.

The Colosseum was awesome to see. I mean, how often do you get to see something so infamously historic? Unless you're Roman or Egyptian I'd say not very. It was huge and over looking the Roman forum was incredible.

We made our way down to the Roman forum, wandered around a bit and then decided it was probably time to head back to the metro. Just to be sure we caught the boat with time to spare. This was our first official stop after all. Well, when we got back to the station I showed Shawn that Circus Maximus was just one stop farther and we'd never be in Rome again. He agreed to make it a quick trip.

Sure it was nothing more than a field but still, this is where they held chariot races, ya know? Totally cool. Not cool however was hopping back on the metro, taking us to the train station, missing the train to Civitevecchia by 2 minutes and having to wait 40 minutes for the next one which had us running to catch a cab to take us right to the boat because we were supposed to be back on the boat at 6:30 and it was 6:40 and the boat was leaving at 7 with or without us. Holy Stressful. I am glad to report that we made it.

In Barcelona we Gaudi'd it up. After an interesting 40 Euro breakfast at our hotel we set out to see the Sagrada Fagmilia which was so ornate its ridiculous. One might even say its gaudy.

This is one of the doors into Sagrada Fagmilia. I thought it was awesome. We actually took a double decker bus tour of the city which is so stereotypically touristy its ridiculous but it made the day so easy. Just hop off hop on at all the stuff you want to see anyway. Before heading to our next stop we ate at what seemed to be a hip Barcelonian restaurant where I ordered paella and Shawn had some rabbit. Paella was...not as good as I always dreamed it would be. But still, I was in Spain eating Paella so who am I to complain?

Here we are a Park Guell, another of Gaudi's projects. It was originally intended to be a housing area but no one really bought into it so now its pretty much just a park people come to visit. I'm with the mosaic lizard because he's totally dope.

Shawn chilling on one of the benches in the park. They were so beautiful.

After a long day of site seeing I told Shawn that I wanted to see the Torre Agbar because it looked so cool in pictures. Armed with a map we headed there under the Spanish night sky. Imagine our disappointment when the tower came into view and it was not lit up! I was thoroughly disappointed. We decided to eat at a Spanish fast food place and then sort of wandered through an outdoor mall. After all of that our feet were throbbing so we started looking for the nearest Metro stop. As soon as we made our way out of the mall area we were greeted with a brightly lit Torre Agbar. Hallelujah! I was so happy.