Rome via Brooklyn

454 words, 2 minutes read time.

I predecided that I was going to have a relaxing day, and see where the day takes me. I had a fun interaction, my aunt’s friend from the soviet union lives in italy and happened to be in Rome, and wanted me to bring some stuff back to my aunt. She treated me to a coffee and asked me about my plans, and helped formulate a better plan for my next weekend Sorrento trip. I also asked a few questions about the medical system here, which was interesting to me to see the differences between here and the US.

Then I decided to see if I could go to the Vatican and wander there, but as I got there, there were so many people and police. I walked around, stopped by a church, stopped by many little shops, and walked some more. Then I figured out that there was a mass going on in the Vatican and it’s the day of the jubilee. I feel very lucky to be here on this day, despite the extra people and it being difficult to get around that area. I explored my area more and got a juice before heading back to the apartment, the sun was really getting to me at this point.

Jessica and I had a plan to go see the villa borghese, so we set out to wander. We stopped by a little gallery, then realized that we were going the wrong way ( we tried to just go based on vibes and picked up the wrong ones), but there was a speech/religious thing going on. We stopped by a little store and got dessert, then stopped by the Spanish steps. We then went to look at a pretty street, Via Margutta. Then as we were close to the Villa Borghese, there was a huge concert going on, something with summer hits, so we sat on the steps of a church and listened, and a lot if not all songs were American! We then got some pasta to-go and ate it outside before hopping on a train to meet Isabel, Mazzy, and Isabel’s brother/his friends ( we never got to the villa borghese, we will try again later). We got distracted on the train by some fellow travellers and missed our stop, but it was a happy accident. On our walk we saw not only another concert, but also the Colosseum at night!! It was beautiful and nicely illuminated. We had some drinks and shared stories and went back to the Colosseum, this time all of us. Moral of the story, wandering is the best way to find the interesting things and I had a great and unexpected day!