Roming Home

July 15th

So yes, I've been dating these, sorry. It just helps me keep track because most of them are stored as notes on my phone til wifi becomes available. Anyways, here goes! 

Harry. Potter. 
So wonderful. I have very few words, and will keep most of them to myself for those of you who will be delayed like I thought I would be. But it was definitely the end of an era. It made me sad to think about the ending of my childhood. But, I know that as soon as I get back there is an HP marathon waiting for me, and another trip to see the last one (at least one). And I have them all on DVD so really they will never leave. How wonderful again! 

Ok. So yes. We spent a night in Rome watching Harry Potter. It was a nice break though because we've been so busy and running non-stop and it's kind of a nice reminder of the closeness of home and of rest. So it was great. Plus, I love Harry Potter and it brought me all kinds of joy to see it before it was released in the states :)

After HP, I went straight to bed, hoping to be alive for today. Thankfully, I was! And though my nose/head is still a mess with congestion, the lecture was still interesting. And it gave me inspiration for my paper, of which I managed to crank out about 75 percent of it after class and before our afternoon tour. 

We were lucky enough to have the same wordy tour guide as in the Vatican today, but it was ok. I mainly just enjoyed wandering around the Roman Forum and the Colosseum while pretending to listen to his voice through my headset. Ps you definitely don't look like a tourist with those headsets on and the walker talkie looking thing hanging around your neck. 

Anyways. The Roman Forum and the Colosseum were pretty sweet. Not so much on the tour guides stories, but still way cool to see. 
Not too much exciting happened after the tour - I think I sweated more on the metro ride home than the whole tour. Then we attempted to find wifi to finish our papers. I managed to crank it out and finish in time for dinner. After dinner and some gelato, I headed straight to bed to get some rest. 

Thankfully, the rest helped and j felt a bit more clear headed the following morning. Which was good because I had my final that morning. Not that it required much brain power, but in case it had. 

The afternoon was quite busy - exploring some Roman sites like the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon (so absolutely wonderful), and many a churches. And let's not forget to mention that there is a wonderful gelato shop near he Pantheon, which about 150 flavors to choose from. Oh, no big deal, just the best gelato ever. Yes, we have pictures of the inside, don't worry! Haha, it was super exciting. There were even mousse flavors. I had Mars bar mousse and a flavor called something isabella that looked like vanilla and raspberry. I don't know what it truly was. Other than delicious. Oh. And they had giant cookies on a stick with the Pope's face on them. Yep, pictures are coming of that, too! Hahaha. 

In all our wandering, after the gelato was safely consumed, we ended up in what I believe must be the shopping district - so naturally we took advantage. It was only fitting though, since it was our last day and we still had some cash to spare. Plus, my backpack wasn't packed to bursting yet so obviously I needed to find a few more things to bring home. Yes, I was successful! And no, I didn't go broke, yay me! 

In the evening, our whole group (I'm pretty sure it was all 43 of us) met in a square for goodbye drinks. It was a little bittersweet and there were more than plenty of hugs shared, as well as stories, and a few more laughs with Steve and each other. Afterwards, a lot of us made one more trip to the Trevi Fountain - to see it at night and to make sure we made our wishes. It was definitely the perfect way to end the trip. 

Well, other than the fact that the adventures left me packing in the middle of the night and getting maybe two hours of sleep before waking up to be out of the hotel for 3:45 am. That, and our first flight to Frankfurt was more than a little rough. It didn't help that the check in desks were beyond behind schedule and a crazy mess. They finally realized we needed to check our bags when we only had ten minutes before boarding. Then there was a nice sprint to security, where we cut and made it through about two minutes after boarding was scheduled to start. I say scheduled because we definitely waited in another line when we got to our gate because of technical difficulties... Like no seating arrangements. Good times! 

Anyways, we made it through that and safely to our second, and last flight home in just enough time to load up on snacks. It's nap time for me soon now - they're about to serve our meal, then my neck pillow and I are off to oblivion. Only 9 or so hours til touchdown on Texas! That's enough for a night's sleep :) 
Lucy