When in Rommaaa... it snows.

So this weekend was very interesting. I had a early morning field trip on the day we were leaving and I was freezing more than I ever have been in my life. Our train was leaving Florence at 7:15 pm. My friend Morgan told me that she was already there and it wasn't even worth going. However, we all said we'll just go and see because we payed for the train and hostel. When we got to the train station it said all the trains to Rome were canceled but ours wasn't even on the board. Once it got up there it was delayed 50 minutes. We had to bring our confirmation number to print out the tickets but no one told me so I tried to used my friends data plan to look it up and instead I just broke her phone. I texted my friend from my Italian phone who was at her apartment to look it up for me, she saved me because by the time I finally got it the train was here.

Trying to entertain ourselves on the train.

off we go to our first weekend trip. 

POOOOHH<3

We already knew it was going to be a long train ride because we choose the cheaper train that takes double the time aka the "slow train". We were supposed to leave at 7:15 and get there at 10:40 but instead we didn't leave till 8:00 pm and got there at 3:30 am. At first we were moving okay because in Florence it wasn't snowing. As we got more toward Rome it started slowing down and we didn't know what was going on. The conductor told us that the tracks have frozen and we needed to stop. Every 20 minutes we stopped for an hour and the lights would go out and the train would just stop. I felt like I was in a horror movie. Everyone was complaining the whole way but I liked bonding with everyone. After a while it was annoying but we got through it.

Once we got there we didn't even know where our hostel was and no cabs were working. There was a foot of snow on the ground and the cops wouldn't even stop for us. We walked for a half hour then finally got there at 4 am. I got many 4 hours of sleep before we got a wake up call and some breakfast stuff brought to our room before we went to our appointment to see the Vatican Museum.

The snow made it look really pretty but the ground was very icy and my feet were frozen. I was already wearing three pairs of socks but it wasn't helping. The actual museum had awesome paintings. The fresco's were so bright and beautiful. This was the first time I actually got to see and relate to the things I was seeing to what I was learning in class. The Sistine chapel was absolutely amazing and on high patrol. There were so many guards yelling "NO PHOTOS". Everyone was trying to sneak them on their iPhone without flash.

St. Peter's Square

The classic group shot. 

Then we got some lunch and I was craving a nice salad. I have been having too many carbs it's making my stomach feel so fat. I got a nice cobb salad and some bruschetta to share. After we walked to the Spanish steps which were death. They were all iced over and everyone was falling. They were beautiful but I really wish it was sunny or at least not icy. Once we finished slipping everyone we went right to the  Trevi Fountain. That was also blocked off so you couldn't go down close. We all had to throw coins from up top. Mine didn't even make it in. I did find out that if you throw one coin you come back to Rome, if you throw two you will fall in love in Rome, and if you throw three you will get married in Rome. I guess none of the above will happen for me.

Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain

Threw in a coin and missed so sad. 

At this point we were all exhausted and headed back to the hostel to shower after a day of hitting three major landmarks of Rome. I did miss out on actually going through St. Peter's because the line was three hours long. I did stand in St. Peter's square though which was beautiful.

That night Col, Taylor, Brit, and I met up with Col's friend who is studying abroad in Rome. They took us to a nice restaurant. I ended up getting pizza like usual because I get sick of pasta. The wine we bought was the best wine I've had yet. After we met up with all of her friend's in the Rome program and they took us to a bar. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet a bunch of new people, all American though. They said they were going to try to visit us in Florence!

After another night of 4 hours of sleep we had to get up to go to our reservation to see the Colosseum. We get there and it's closed. Had to take pictures and pretend we saw it just from the outside. Hopefully we can get our money back. There was a radio station outside asking us how we felt about being in Rome during a historic storm since it hasn't snowed since 1986 in Rome and this is the first time the Colosseum has ever been closed. Glad we made history.... hope I eventually see it.

We switched our train from 7pm to 1pm and hoped we actually made it home in less than 8 hours this time. We ended up getting  a cart to ourselves and then two American guys from Indiana were lost and just sat with us. They were really nice and the trip flew by because we all talked the whole time. We said we'd all meet up and go out sometime.

I was back in Florence by 5pm so we had time to shower and get ready for the Superbowl game at Red Garter. I was excited we had a few hours to relax. I was mad I had no Giants apparel to wear so I just wore navy and some eyeliner for face paint (being creative). Out of the 8 of us only two were Giants fan and I was hoping for the pull through. The game was awesome to watch with 300 people. It was intense and the Giants pulled through with another win. Superbowl 42 repeat!

Sucked getting back to my bed at 4:30 am and I knew I was going to have another shitty night sleep.
Thursday= 6 hours
Friday= 4 hours
Saturday= 4 and a half hours
Sunday = 5 hours

I don't know how I survived classes today as well as buying some new shoes :)

Now I'm going to catch up on all of my work and get all my blogging and journalling (if that's a word) done and go to bed early. Hoping for more than 8 hours of sleep tonight.