A New Year...a dance in the rain

Well, the first few hours of 2013 were amazing.

So, we ate a late(r) breakfast at the hotel and then slowly got ready to head out for the day!  Most things were closed, so we just started walking.  We walked towards the Spanish Steps again, and found Tiffany!  As we came down the Spanish Steps, we could hear music playing, and found that a band was finishing a show (like instrumental band...clarinets, etc.).

The piazza below was so crowded, and the band members had funny hats!! What little we heard of their "concert" was really good!  I had never seen the one in Rome, and I had been soo close the first time in Rome without even knowing it.  They were closed today, so we knew we would have to go back another day; we had determined that my bracelet was a bit too big, and so we needed to have it made smaller.

Then we just started walking around and we made our way through the expensive shops, making wrong pronunciations out of the names for fun!  It seems silly, but we had fun!  We walked along the river and found that the castle was also closed!  It was getting close to lunch time, and we were walking near the Vatican, so we decided to grab a sandwich near there!  They were just simple sandwiches, but they were good!  It was a somewhat touristy place, but it worked.  The people piratically refused to speak Italian to us; even when I asked for the bathroom in Italian, he answered me in English...oh well, at least I tried! Then we made our way to Campo di Fiori because Nick had been talking about it since I met him, and I had never seen it!

We missed the market hours, but we did see the place where the University of Washington has offices.  We also stopped and watched a few guys play the guitar!  We just took our time walking through the city and enjoying the sites!

We walked through Piazza Navona where we discovered a huge fair going on.

 There were sooo many people and so much candy and games and stuffed animal type things.  We found candied apples, candy canes (3 euros for 2 candy canes...that's like $6 for two candy canes...they are like $0.49 a BOX at home...crazy people!!), and much more.

We saw a lot of witches, but could not figure out why!  It was like a huge sugar festival going on!  We also went inside the church in the piazza and it was BEAUTIFUL! Though, I have yet to find a church in Italy that is not beautiful!  We tried to go to my favorite store in Rome, which is in Piazza Navona (where I bought my wax seal last year), but it was closed!

As we walked, we found more and more churches to go in; they seemed to be the only thing open today!

However, I did not mind because as I said, they are all so beautiful!  When we left one church, I really wanted a picture of the front of it, and so I had to cross the street.  Nick got a huge laugh out of videoing me crossing the street "Cosentine" style, which is when you do not use the cross walk and you just go when there are no cars coming.   You take a few steps out...look...wait...and when nothing is coming, you run!  The video really is funny, and I'll try to post it when I get it.  He was laughing so hard at me!  He's so cute!  However, I got the picture I wanted!!! 

So, at this point in our "lazy" day, we had seen:
Spanish Steps, Tiffany, walked along the river, Castel Sant'Angelo, St. Peter's, Campo di Fiori, Piazza Navona, churches, etc.  It was not a lazy day at all!  We were exhausted, so we decided to head back to the hotel to rest, and then we would go to "Nick's restaurant" for dinner!  We never did get to meet up with Mattea, but they were busy seeing things, and it took them 2 hours to get to their hotel this morning, and two more bottles of wine!  Haha!!


So, when we made it out for dinner, we went to Nick's place.  They were excited to see us (we stopped by yesterday to tell them we would be there for dinner the next night!).  They are so sweet to him, and then to me as well!  They said it was a shame that I was with him though! Haha...they were just kidding!!  So, we sat down in the back, where the real people sit, and ordered wine and food!  We had red wine, bread, and olive oil.  Nick even had some vinegar with his bread that he thought was flavored olive oil until he had me try it and I gagged like no other.  YUCK! Silly boy!  So, I ordered orecchiette, which is small "ear shaped" pasta which is native to Mattea's region of Italy!  Nick had the gnocchi that Mattea had the first time we all went!  The food was amazing, and we ended up shutting the restaurant down!  We sat there and drank our wine and talked for like 2 1/2 hours; it was amazing!! They even brought us some free "dessert", which was some free amaro, which is a dessert liquore; it basically tastes like Goldschlager (which I probably spelled wrong).  Anyway, we left as they were closing, and it was starting to rain.  We made it back to the hotel without getting to wet!

Once upstairs, Nick made the comment that he had wanted to dance outside on the balcony, but now it was raining.  So, I told him the story about the Alabama Softball National Championship game, and how they danced in the rain, and then went on to win the game, and thus the championship!  I also told him at Sarah Mason's shirt that said it, and he said, "well, let's go dance in the rain!"

So, that's exactly what we did!  He set up the music and speakers where we could hear it, and we danced in the rain.  It was so much fun!  We did not get SOAKING wet, but it was still raining pretty heavily, enough that my hair was pretty wet!  It was amazing though, and so much fun...so spontaneous...and so unlike me to be willing to get wet AT ALL in my clothes!  I would not have traded it for anything in the world though!  So, in the spirit of Alabama softball, Rome, and an amazing night...we danced in the rain! 

Thus, I'd say that the first DAY of the New Year was equally amazing as the first few hours!!