Don't go!

We started our morning by getting dressed, going to eat breakfast in the breakfast room, and then getting the last of our stuff together.  As we were starting to get our stuff together to leave the room, I could not help but cry!  I did NOT want my momma to leave!  We then went down stairs and I had to explain the lady that I was not leaving, but just taking them to the train station, and finally a guy helped her understand.  So, we walked to the train station and waited on Nick.  While I was excited for him to arrive, it meant my momma had to leave, and I was NOT okay with this!

Waiting at Termini...

So, we waited near their train, and then when we saw Nick, I started walking towards him!  He picked me up and twirled me around!  I saw my momma taking a pictures, but I do not have it yet!  I thought that was so sweet of him, but I was not surprised!  :)

So then we talked for a few minutes, and then took their stuff to the train and put it on.  I stood and talked to my momma for a bit, and then the train was getting ready to leave, so I let her go sit down!  I immediately lost it!  Nick was so sweet to hug me and comfort me, but I still did not want her to leave.   The train took a little longer to leave, but we did not risk getting on or off the train!  My momma took our picture as we stood waiting on it to leave.  When it pulled away I wanted to chase after it...but, we watched it go, and then headed off to the hotel to get my stuf!  It's a really good thing that I had Nick and Rome to distract me because otherwise I would have been a hot frickin' mess!

We had to give them Nick's passport and then we went upstairs to get my bags and such!  NIck ate the breakfast stuff I nabbed for him at breakfast.  Then we went downstairs and I paid for the room, and we were off to Andrea's apartment!  It was a beautiful walk.  We walked up the stairs at her apartment, and her building is really nice!  We dropped our stuff, used the bathroom, decided on our plan to get to the catacombs.  We decided that we had to walk back to Termini to take one of the subway train; my first time on the Roman subway, so naturally I took a picture!

My favorite thing about Nick is that we have fun all of the time.  Even when we are just walking around and doing "nothing", we are having fun!  It is so easy to be with him.  So, that being said, we had fun just journeying to where we ended up!  So, Nick bought our tickets, we waited, took the A track, and when we got off the train we asked for directions to the buses we thought we needed!  Then, we realized that we had just over an hour before the catacombs closed, and Nick said that we had come out at the Appian Way, the original road into Rome.

We saw some things we were now interested in seeing, so we put off the catacombs.  Nick realized that the big church we were staring at was the church he has been wanting to see, St. John Lateran.  This is the official church of Rome I think; not St. Peter's.  We walked to see a little more of the wall around Rome, and then turned back to see the church.  Nick was so excited, and it was fun to see him excited; it was infectious!

Nick laughing!!

The church itself was GORGEOUS!! I loved the statues of the apostles; Peter's had the keys!!  We looked at a poster of the Popes, and I finally got to see a picture of my favorite pope, Pope Clementine XII (not his real name...but it's the name I have given him!!).

 

At this point we were hungry and ready to find something for lunch!  When we picked a direction to walk in, we quickly realized that we had walked all the way to the station, taken a train, and ended up just up the street from the apartment...well, like a 10ish minute walk....umm...OOPS! We found a restaurant that had some things on the menu that appealed to us, so we went in!  It was rather empty, and thus we were obviously the Americans here!  We sat down, Nick spilled water...haha...we ordered some brosaola, the meat we discovered last weekend in Rome, and then split some penne arrabbiata, which is a "spicy" penne.  Nick also dropped his knife...it wasn't his day! ;)  We had a wonderful lunch full of conversation, laughter, and joy!  It was a good thing that we were the only ones in the restaurant for a while because we were laughing so much!  When we got up to leave, and I had to leave quickly because suddenly there was an overwhelming fish smell, it had become colder outside! 

After lunch, we stopped by the apartment, because we had to walk right past it, and I tried to lighten my purse load!  Also, it’s always nice to use a clean bathroom…I won’t lie!  

Our first stop was the big white building.  Nick had never been inside, so we went!  It is a huge building and quite beautiful!  We saw the tomb of the unknown soldier, some Italian flags, and went to the outside area to get some views of Rome!  We stood there for a while being silly, which is always fun! 

An (or the most) inefficient way to re-do a road...

Nick and his "man bag" aka y purse

 

 

 When we headed back out, it was to go to Tiffany to pick up my bracelet.  We took the route that took us by the Spanish Steps, because we figured if we would somehow hit all of the other major landmarks while walking around, this one should not be left out!  Though to be fair, Tiffany is located near the bottom of the steps!  Anyway, we went to Tiffany, picked up my bracelet, and I was so excited to have it back!  While I trust Tiffany with my jewelry 100% of the time, I never like leaving my jewelry there!  

After Tiffany, we started making our way towards the castle/Vatican.  We walked along the river and just enjoyed the view and the company!  We seem to be making Roman habits; I’m okay with that.  How many people can say, “yeah, most of our dates were in Rome…walking along the river..going to the castle…etc!!”  Every time I think about this, it makes me smile!  More so than that, “where did you meet?”  Rome…and dated in Italy…and traveled in Italy!  I can handle this!  I do loooooove to travel! 

Today we walked past Piazza Marcello again, and I practically shoved Nick across the street.  I HAD to get his picture under the sign!  I knew that Erin and April would REALLY get the significance, but I wanted a picture that would have the caption, "MY MARCELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I FINALLY FOUND HIM...his name is Nick Crown!"  So, I had him stand while I took this, and I explained a little bit, but it was mainly for Erin and April! Erin later told me that she almost cried when she saw it on facebook!

Our first destination on the other side of the river was the “Old Bridge Gelateria”, which is the place we took my momma and Barbara last week!  We started having to speed up our walk just a bit so that we would have time to eat our gelato and then get to the castle for our sunset date on the top of it.  It was not looking very sunny, but nonetheless we wanted to be there!  This time at the gelato shop I got “cookies” and then the same amazing caramel I had last week!  The cookies one was really good! Nick got hazelnut and…caramel maybe?  It was so yummy, and he even got whipped cream on his!  Sneaky boy thought he could be silly in a picture, and I would not notice.   

Once we finished our gelato, we started making our way towards the castle.  
 

Let’s hear it for the museum cards that Fulbright gave us!!  A free date at the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome…yes please!  We were laughing as we tried to get to the top because we have now come to the castle 3 times together, and have yet to succeed in taking the same path to the top!  Today was the worst because we kept getting turned around!  I suppose the person who designed it probably did some of this on purpose!  Once we reached the top though, we claimed a bench (well, ½ of the bench), and sat there for about an hour and a half. 

We watched a girl doing dancer poses with the Vatican behind her, and just had so much fun!  The sunset did not really happen like we wanted, but it was still not raining, not too terribly cold (until the sun went down), and we can have fun just sitting!  This hour and a half is probably one of my favorite periods of time I have spent with Nick!  We took some pictures, talked about meaningless things, talked about important things, laughed endlessly, joked around, did some people watching, and enjoyed our time on top of the world…I mean castle!  It was even relatively empty up there, so at some moments, it felt like we were the only ones in Rome that knew about this great view!  At one point I could not but glance continuously over my shoulder because as the sun went down, the lights of Rome came on!  The street lights, and I got to see St. Peter’s (Vatican) lit up at night!

 

 

 It was gorgeous!  At this point it had become quite windy and cold, so we took pictures of St. Peter’s at night, and then decided to head down!  I was frozen to the bone now, but had not fully realized it because we had been somewhat huddled together as not to be too cold!  

We were not really hungry, and so Nick suggested that we walk towards Piazza Navona, and perhaps we could go back to my favorite store!  I told him that I probably would not be buying anything, but we could go look around.  Then I decided that maybe I would buy myself something; a treat for my birthday! 

On our walk, we stopped in this AH’MAZING bookstore that had used books and a café with couches, etc.  The atmosphere was really close to STRAND in NYC, but Italian!  We looked around or a bit, and warmed up!  This store was so cool, and I think I would have a hard time staying away from it if I lived in Rome!  Before we made it to the store, we scoped out a few possible places to eat later, and one guy saw us looking at the menu and was being sweet to tell us what was best, and he was impressed with Nick’s Italian!  He gave us a card, and encouraged us to come back! 

When we went in the “Made in Italy” store, he immediately insisted that I show him the wax that I loved so much last week!  I hesitated because I did not want him to buy me any more birthday presents!  He had already given me my t-shirt from the market in Seattle, which had a fish on it…don’t ask!  However, he quickly figured out which wax it was, and then had the guy wrap it up!  I was busy looking around at everything, and trying to decide what I MIGHT buy myself, when he came up and told me that he wanted me to pick out a journal; one of the Italian leather ones I had been looking at last week!  I resisted for as long as I could, but then gave in and chose this gorgeous crimson one!  I tried to tell him that he did NOT have to do this, but he insisted that because it was my birthday (well, this was our celebration because he could not be there on Wednesday) he had to get me a gift!  He is so sweet, kind, generous, giving, and all around wonderful!  I have to admit, the journal is GORGEOUS and I DO love it!  The guy even told us that you can get refills at Papyrus, which we have in the States.  Yay!  So, I picked out the pages with lines so that my writing would be neater, and then we were off!  

At this point, I was only a little hungry, but really wanted to go inside, and to a bathroom! We went back towards the restaurants we saw, and decided on CYBO, the place we had the card from!  The guy was excited and told the waiter that we were his “friends” and we had a card.  Tonight we were the early-bird Americans (we got there around 7 p.m.) and had the whole restaurant to ourselves for a while!  They put us at a table near the window, and so we were able to “people-watch”.  They brought us some prosecco with pomegranate in it.  

Nick ordered a bottle of Chianti wine, and then we ordered our food! 

Being the Americans that we are, we only ordered pasta dishes!  Nick had some sort of spaghetti that sounded, and was, amazing! I ordered ravioli that had ricotta cheese, a few nuts, and then it was served in a spinach sauce…words cannot describe how good it was!   The bread and olive oil were really good at this place too, which always makes me happy!  The wine was delicious, and the conversation even better!  When I got up to go to the bathroom, Nick was sneaky and told them that we were celebrating my birthday!  So, not too long after I came back, they brought out this cake thing with a huge sparkler in it!  Thank goodness they did NOT sing, but they were sweet and wished me a happy birthday!  

 All together, Nick and I sat there for about 2 ½ hours talking, laughing, eating, drinking our wine, and just enjoying our night in Rome together!  He never fails to make me feel like a princess!  

So, when we decided it was time to leave, Nick checked the map on his phone, and saw that the path to Andrea’s apartment would take us right past the Coliseum “at night”; something I have been dying to see!!!!!!!!!  We stopped to take pictures, and I even tried a jumping picture, from a ledge that was too high, and I am sure I’ll pay for that later!  For once in this entire time I’ve known Nick, he was the one that was searching for a bathroom; I gave him my “disease!!”  So, once we took some pictures, we started walking to Andrea’s apartment! 

 

We stayed up and talked for a bit, but then naturally, sleep was next.  It had been a long, sad, wonderful, fun, amazing, exciting, beautiful day in Roma, Italia!