We left Barcelona and headed to Rome. We were excited, Rome was going to be our city. We had a much easier time navigating to the airport and from the airport to our next hotel.
When we arrived at the hotel we were greeted by Stefano, the most adorable concierge. He helped us with our luggage and gave us a map of all the places we should check out before handing us our room key and taking us upstairs. Blair and I just barely fit into the elevator with our carry ons which was quite a sight. Once we made it to our floor we had our first challenge of finding the room. You think it would be easy since there were only four doors in the hallway but we had no clue which one was ours. Stefano met us up there and showed us how to navigate to our room (it was through a kitchen area through a second door). We threw down our stuff and ventured out.
At this point you would think getting out of the hotel would be easy. As we ventured downstairs we pushed open the door,unfortunately it did not open. We searched everywhere for a way to get out but had no luck. Instead of breaking the door we kindly asked Stefano how to get out. He showed us what we thought was the light switch. In reality it was the unlock button to open the door.
After a quick lunch we walked to the Trevi Fountain (later to be deemed our favorite spot in Rome) and then to the Spanish steps. It was so hot that we decided to freshen up and head to the Ice Bar. Once arriving at Ice Bar (literally a bar made completely out of ice) we were told that we should wait an hour before entering because it wasn't busy and once leaving you would have to pay to re-enter. We already had plans for later that night so we decided to go anyways. Little did we know that when they said "not busy" they actually meant 100% empty. We had our own private VIP party for a while and then went to meet up with other tourists for the pub crawl at the Colosseum. We waited at the Colosseum for a while but couldn't find the pub crawl anywhere so we decided to stop and talk to some girls standing near by. Turns out they were waiting for the pub crawl as well. After about 30 minutes we all decided to head to another spot that our new Swedish friends knew about.
We got to the Spanish steps and were stopped by a group of guys who asked if we would like to join their "Ladies Night" crawl so we followed them to the first bar. The Highlander as they called it was a great time. The drinks were flowing, the music was playing, and the drinking games were just beginning. Blair participated in an all female beer chugging contest and then we both join in on our new favorite game called the Dirty Canadian, where you have to move a can of beer all the way up your partners pant leg and down the other side where they then must chug the entire beer. Sadly neither of us won but we are determined to win the next time should we get the opportunity to play again. Blair went to use the restroom as we were about to leave but I didn't want to leave without her so went I went to go find her, much to my surprise she was in the gents restroom. She didn't realize it at the time but I informed her of it when she came out. From the highlander, we headed to the next bar where we were greeted with shots. We really had to use the restroom after drinking so much but the line was too long so instead of waiting we thought it was best to use the men's room again. We hung out there for a little bit where us Americans were the hit of the party! This is also where our sweet polka dotted bow glasses made their appearance. Everyone loved our glasses,some even had the opportunity to wear the glasses. We didn't realize it at the time but these glasses would become our signature piece in the pub crawl. Later I was sitting down at one end of the bar talking to this nice Australian when I looked over and realized Blair was laying on the bar. Not really sure what was going on, I went over to find Blair with chocolate and salt on her belly and a lime in her mouth. It took about 30 seconds for the bartender to find someone to take a shot from Blair. In reality Blair thought they were asking her to play another drinking game so she gladly volunteered.
We headed to our last bar, Mood. This was more of a dance club. The rest of the night consisted of dancing, dancing, making friends, and more dancing. We forgot to mention that throughout the night besides being the hit of the pub crawl we were now best friends with everyone that worked for the pub crawl company. Jill and I realized it was getting late (2:30am) and us Americans needed to get to bed. One of the guys who worked for the company, Liam, so graciously volunteered to walk us home. Earlier in the night I (Blair) figured it would be a great idea to whip out my highlighted map in the bar; I wanted to know exactly where we were. Liam informed me he lived two streets over from where we were staying. This was perfect! He took us to all the amazing sights on our walk home. We stopped to take a photo-shoot at the Trevi Fountain. As we continued our walk home we gave Liam our phone number (Stefano gave us a phone to use while in Rome) and dropped him off on the way. He also informed us that his apartment building was highlighted on our map. Stefano highlighted all the important sights and must have realized we would meet someone and need to know where they lived. We said our goodbyes and told Liam to call us tomorrow. Finally we made our way home (at about 3am) and called it a night.
Day 5
Before we talk about day 5, let me tell you a little bit about our lovely phone Stefano gave us. This phone is very small and very old. It is one of those Nokia phones that has snake on it. It's very hard to type on because you have to click each number a certain amount of times based on the letter you are trying to get to (for example to get to the letter c you need to hit 2 3times). This makes texting a lot harder. When I turned on our phone I noticed it said TIM as the banner. I turned to Jill and told her Tim must have had this phone last, thinking nothing of it. Later in the night we would find out TIM is a telephone company (similar to T-Mobile or Verizon), not the name of the last person that used our phone.
Because we were out so late the night before we didn't wake up until about 11:30, however once we were dressed we were determined to go to all the touristy sights. We got on the metro and made our way to the Sistine Chapel. It was amazing to see, the artwork was gorgeous. We then moved on to the Vatican where we tried to cut to the front of the line. The security guard caught us and told us we had to go to the end so we politely obeyed until he wasn't looking and then cut again. Our trip inside was short but sweet. We missed a total of 5 phone calls on our phone, mainly because we have no idea how to use it. We then made our way back to the hotel so that we could freshen up and have dinner.
The restaurant we went to was a suggestion from family back home. The food was amazing. We had the sweetest waiter and the hostess loved us, she even pitched Blair's cheeks. After dinner we swung by the Spanish Steps in hopes of getting wifi. Instead we ran into our pub crawl friends who tried so hard to convince us to go out with them. After politely telling them we would try to meet up later we headed toward the Coliseum to meet our Swedish friends.
We went to a local Irish pub (scholars lounge) and had a drink while enjoying soccer,basketball, and baseball on the tv. Jill and I learned a lot about soccer from our Swedish friends, and in return we taught them about baseball (although they had to watch a frustrating Tiger loss). We decided it was time for a different bar. We tried to find a club suggested by our friends, but when we got lost and couldn't find it we decided to head to the club from the night before. We knew that in Europe people liked to go out late but we figured that since it was midnight we would be ok to head to the club. Once again we were wrong. We walked in to find out no one else was there! We hung out in the bathroom for a few minutes until heading out on the dance floor to get the night started. As the night continued a few more people showed up at the club.
It's always flattering when someone tries to dance with you, however the boys that tried to dance with us were soooooooo annoying!! They constantly asked if they could buy us shots (the answer was always no) and wouldn't leave us alone. One of the boys even went as far as buying shots after we told him we didn't want them. We really tried to tell them politely but by the 15th time it was annoying. Jill finally turned to them and said as bluntly as possible, "we don't want anything from you go away!" I still don't think they got the hint. We tried to get a hold of our bar crawl friends, but had no luck. Instead we danced a little longer and then ventured back home.
On the way we stopped at our favorite Rome site, the Trevi Fountain. We took more pictures, threw more money into the fountain and then headed home.
To get back to our hotel you need to walk through a few alleys and up a steep hill. About half way up the hill our phone starting ringing (this was exciting). It was Liam. He was trying to meet up with us to take us to the bar crawl. He went as far as leaving the bar to meet up with us and try to persuade us in person. Sorry Liam you're too late! It's time for us to go to bed. We said goodnight to Liam and actually headed home. Our plan was to leave for Florence the next morning.
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