Spring Break!! (story)

Most amazing spring break ever hands down! For two reasons: 1) I finally got to see my mom after being away from her for 2 months!!! 2) Andy surprised me by coming with her!!! Me and one of my roommates took the train up to Rome to spend the first few days there. My mom was waiting for me by the doors to the hotel, and it was great to see her again!! She was so excited she dropped her camera! We got stuff figured out at the front desk and then went up to the room. When she opened the door there was this guy sitting on the couch, and I started thinking "What the hell?? Is this a hostel situation? Do we have to share a room? What is this!?" And then I realized that it was Andy and I was just in shock! That day we went for a walk around the hotel and found the Villa Borghese which is this huge garden (not as big as the Boboli gardens I think). The next day we saw the Trevi fountain, the Pantheon (AMAZING!!!!!), The Piazza Venezia (which all the Romans call "The wedding cake" not sure why), and the Colosseum. Long day, lots of walking, but worth it!! The Trevi Fountain was amazing! Very packed. There was a marathon going on that day and we had to walk into it to get across the street to the fountain. The Pantheon was beyond incredible!!!! And Rapheal's actual tomb was there!!!! (really famous Renissance painter for those of you who have no clue who I'm talking about), this was also where Mom got her very first Gelato! This stuff is the best ice cream you will ever find! I don't care what people tell you, gelato is better. We actually just sort of stumbled upon the Piazza Venezia, it wasn't on our list of things to do that day but we saw it down a road and went toward it, and it was really cool :) After all that we did a tour of the Colosseum! Really awesome place! We found a tour company there and got on the last tour of the day. The next day we did Vatican City. We went with another tour that was given by same company from the Colosseum. With this tour we got to see 3 of the 19 museums that is the Vatican Museums, including Rapheal's School of Athens!!!!!!! (once again, if you are not an art person, you probably don't know what I'm talking about...but it's incredible) After that we went to St. Peter's Square and into St. Peter's Basilica! Michelangelo's Piate is in there!!!!!!! (if you don't know what that is, look it up!!!) I can't believe I actually got to see this statue in person!!! I did a paper on it in my Art History class last year and it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! It rivals the David in beauty to me. We also got to see the Pope's apartment window from the square, but no Pope. Afterwards we went back over to the Colosseum where we were able to get a free tour of the Palatine hill and the Forum with our ticket form the tour of the Colosseum. The Palatine hill is where, legend says, Romulous (the founder of Rome) built his house. Quick run down of the story: Priestess who is supposed to be a virgin gets pregnant. She tells the towns people that they were the children of the gods so that they wouldn't kill her. She gives birth to twin boys, the villagers say that they should send the twins down a river, if they really are the children of the gods, the gods will protect them. Well the children survived and were adopted by a she-wolf (you see symbols of the she-wolf with twin baby boys everywhere in Rome). Once the boys were found by humans they were named Romulous and Remious (don't ask how it's actually spelled). They were taken to have their fortune's told, to know what was instore for them in their future lives, the fortune teller said that one of them will start the greatest town ever known. The boys started fighting about which one it would be, Remious tried to kill Romulous, but Romulous was ready and killed Remious, then he walked out of the valley where he killed his brother and built his house and that was the Palatine hill and the start of Rome. Whew, long story.

After all that, we came back to Florence! We did the Accademia again so that Mom and Andy could see the David. Mom was much more fascinated with the giant naked man than Andy was, hahaha. It was great to see such an amazing statue again! After the museum me and my roommate that was with us in Rome took Mom and Andy around Florence, showing them the sites of the city. The next day we did the San Lorenzo market, Mom got her shopping in! We also were at the fresh food market that is there and all mom wanted while walking around was a carrot, so she bought A carrot. hahahaha. We also got a bunch of dried fruit there too. We went to see Santa Croce after this. An Amazing church that has all these tombs in it. Michelangelo's tomb is in there!!! And Leonardo DaVinci's tomb too! (or just a monument to him, we're not sure) There was also a monument dedicated to Donte, but he couldn't actually be buried there because he had been exiled in his lifetime, so he wasn't allowed to be buried in Florence. After Santa Croce, we went to the Duomo. Mom and my roommate went inside and me and Andy went to climb to the top of the Duomo. Both lines were really long and he didn't really want to go inside anyways, so I said I'd go with him since my roommate didn't want to climb it again and she wanted to go inside. After climbing all those stairs(....Again!) We went into the Baptistry of the Duomo. It's a separate building and you have to pay to get in. Beautiful mosaic ceilings, but a bit expensive actually for what you get in the end. The next we went into the Boboli Gardens in the morning. We explored all of it, much more than what I had seen when I had first gone there. After seeing all of it, we went to the Piazzale Michelanglo for the sunset. We walked up to the San Miniato first and saw the beautiful view of the city as well as went into the church (which was amazing). Then we walked over the the piazzale and I showed Mom the copy of the David so she could get her pictures of it (you can't take pictures of the real one unless you are really really sneaky and her camera is not skeaky). We then waited for sunset. We actually had to wait for a few hours because we went up there so early. The next day, we went to an exhibit about astronomy and Galileo, then we went around to a bunch of different piazzas. On the last day, we went to the Cashina park where we were told that they had a great and cheap market there, me and my roommates have never been there, so we thought we'd try it out. Well it wasn't quite what we were expecting. It was more the type of market for people who live there and it was pouring rain almost the whole time, so it could have been better. After that I made dinner (with help from another roommate) of Shrimp Rissoto.

It was amazing getting to see both Mom and Andy!!!! You guys are the greatest!!! Mom I miss you so much and love you!! All my roommates keep saying "I miss your mom" and "I love your mom" so we all miss you! Andy, you are just too incredible for surpising me like that!! Can't wait to see you both again when I come home!