Roman Holiday - Part 2

 Day 4 of our trip started a little later as we were able to sleep in just a little bit - until 9:30.  We got breakfast at the hotel as usual and then headed to the tourism office to get some information.  While at the tourism office, it started raining and so we decided to go back to the hotel to change to more appropriate "rainwear" clothes.  Then we were off again to visit the Forum.  It is the area right by the Colosseum and basically just a "big pile of rocks."  It was really neat to see though and we were all pretty interested in it and tried to imagine what it was like when it was original.  It's was also so interesting to know we were walking around ancient ruins that have survived the test of time for such a long period of time.  The above picture is one of the buildings from the Forum. 

 This is one of my favorite pictures because of the view of the ruins as well as the gorgeous clouds! 

 Another cloud picture that I love!

 View of the Colosseum through the arch.

 Me with the Colosseum in the background!  (Thanks Allegra for the nice hair-do!!)

Below is my lunch from Day 4.  I had cannelloni.It was absolutely delicious!!  It was pasta noodles filled with meat and tomato sauce.

 After our late lunch we headed to check out whatever other monuments/museums we could find. The above picture shows medals from WWI in a war museum that we stumbled across.

 This is a picture of the hugeeee monument to Vittorio Emmanuele II.  He was a King at some point (I think the 1800s??)

For dinner that night we went to the grocery store and got chips, bread, salami, cheese, and Sprite.  Between all of us we ate a pretty filling dinner for only $1.70 a piece.

The next day we visited the Spanish steps again to take pictures during the day.  As you can tell it was pretty crowded, but at least I got a picture of me on the steps.

 And a group picture at the Trevi fountain during the day.  It was hard to get pictures of stuff during the day because it literally started getting dark at 4:30pm.  So if we wanted pictures with daylight we had to be there pretty early during the day.

 And me at the Trevi Fountain. 

 And the Pantheon.  Too bad they were doing restoration on it.  But it was still really awesome to see.

 A nativity scene inside the Pantheon.  It was completely carved out of wood.  It was gorgeous!

 Me in the Pantheon!

That afternoon we trekked up to Villa Bourghese.  After having a bit of trouble finding it (including getting out of the metro stop in the middle of nowhere), we finally found the park and spent a wonderful afternoon exploring.  We rented a six person "bike-vehicle-thingy-ma-bob" and had quite the adventure riding through the park.  There were some scary parts where I definitely thought we were going to run someone over, but it was really fun.  The above picture is a view of the city from the park.

And a group picture of us on the bike.  Tooooo funny. :)

The end to our last night in Rome was rather rough.  We went to dinner at a wayyyy overpriced, absolutely horrible restaurant.  The canned Coke products were FIVE EURO a piece.  And the 8 euro pizza that some ordered was a microwaveable pizza that looked absolutely horrible.  I'm soooo glad that I didn't waste my money on any food at that restaurant.  I ate back at the hotel. 

Once we got back to the hotel we got a call from the guys from our program that one of the guys had an allergic reaction (he is very allergic to milk/dairy products).  I went to the front desk of the hotel to ask for directions to the hospital that they told us to meet them at and the guy at the front desk did not even look up at me.  He just said "I don't understand you," "I don't speak English."  When he was very clearly speaking to me in English.  He was being incredibly rude and even though I said hospital in both English and Spanish he pretended to not understand me.  I headed back to the room to get the other girls and when we all headed out he called us over and "suddenly" understood the word hospital.  What a jerk.  Anyways, he gave us directions, which turned out to be terrible so we had to keep asking people.  When we got to the hospital, the guys called us back and said that they had wound up taking him to a different hospital in the ambulance.  So we grabbed a taxi and headed to that hospital.  Upon arriving we found out how severe the reaction was and waited for news from the doctors.  All I could do was pray.  I was talking to Shannon afterward about it and she said that she was praying the whole time too.  I don't know how people that don't believe handle situations like those.  After what seemed like forever, we found out that he was okay.  He was released later that night and we all headed to bed soon after since we had to get up and head to the airport the next day for our flight back to Sevilla.  Shannon and I talked about how exciting it will be in TEN DAYS when we get to finally walk into an airport with people waiting to see us!  Can't wait!! :)