This past weekend, many of us had the chance to travel to Rome to see the sites. I was particularly excited for this weekend because I turned 21 on Saturday! When we arrived, we realized that our Airbnb was very close to the Colosseum so we couldn’t resist starting out with the major monuments. The Colosseum turned out to be one of my favorite spots in all of Italy. For some reason it was easy to imagine all that had happened there over so many years. The Colosseum had been the site of gruesome acts but also triumphant victories. We were all very impressed with this world wonder. We pushed through the heat and headed off to see the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and Piazza Navona. Getting lost in the streets became one of our favorite pastimes because we would all of a sudden stumble upon these mega-famous ancient artifacts. The next day we saw the Pope at the Vatican. This was such an experience because he gave a sermon outside his window that just reverberated throughout the whole piazza. It was interesting to see thousands of people just silence themselves. We should have planned this day a little better because we neglected to think that the Vatican Museum would be closed on Sunday, but it was. So, no Sistine Chapel for us. Instead, we headed over to the Complesso Del Vittoriano museum to see a Mucha exhibition. The exhibition was a fabulous overveiw of the evolution of his work over the years. Next door, we also stumbled across a Barbie exhibit which turned out to be my favorite. They had just about every single Barbie doll ever made and chronicled her (very tall, thin, and blonde) past. It was interesting to see how long it took Mattel to make her look like a realistic woman. All in all, Rome truly met my highest expectations.
