And we're back

I have not been a very committed blogger lately so I'm going to make sure I post every day until Spring Break. Challenge accepted.
  
More on Rome:
After a night of somewhat restless sleep, we were awakened by the fantastic news of a victory over Dook the night before! Nothing will beat the priceless memories of rushing to my bed in Rome two hours before the game began in North Carolina. Proud to be an international Tar Heel.
  
Anyway, we set off on a walking tour of the city that morning which I later learned was pretty ambitious! Rome is a big city and when I looked at our walking course I was impressed at how much ground we covered. We hit the tourist hot spots in under two and a half hours like this:
Navona Square --> The Pantheon --> Trevi Fountain --> Spanish Steps --> Trajan Column --> Piazza Venezia and the Vittoriale.
So basically, it was like traveling through any movie you've ever seen set in Rome. We had a lot of fun on the beautiful morning being tourists and loving it! And, don't worry, we ran into my second South American cultural parade, this time Italian-South Americans! How do I find these things?
    
After the tour we went to a four-course lunch at a restaurant kind of on the outskirts of town. It was pretty good and we got to try some "typical" Roman food, like fried (or grilled? kind of a hybrid actually) vegetables, and penne in a spicy tomato sauce. We were stuffed by the end!
  
Our last Roman adventure was to the Catacombs of St. Domitilla. We got there and it seemed a little kitschy... very touristy for sure! The idea of catacombs is really interesting: these are over ten miles long underground, and 4 or 5 levels deep! Romans would bury their dead here super long ago and the passages are still standing! However interesting it was though, walking through skinny corridors next to places where dead people were/are is REALLY CREEPY. Fortunately, our tour was very short, and we zoomed out of Rome before the soccer game ended to beat the traffic.
  
Overall it was a great trip-- definitely a whirlwind adventure, and very very touristic-- but, I enjoyed Rome much more than I expected and hope to go back someday (I have a coin in the Trevi fountain to ensure it!)
  

Pictures are coming soon! Here's one to get you pumped up for all of them!