The end of a great trip!

Well I am safely back in Granada, curled up in bed with a full belly of senoras food. The trip was amazing, Thursday we went to the coliseum and roman forum and palatine hill, learned about the foundation of rome and the she-wolf that suckled the twins Remus and Romulus, sons of Mars, God of war and the virgin daughter of another ruler. Then we headed over to dinner at our favorite pizza place and refleja-ed for a few hours before going to see Trevi Fountain at night, which was huge and beautiful. Then we got Gelato at a nice family run place that we ended up visiting a few more times. I loved their dark chocolate and lemon flavors although I also tried chocolate chip, mint, vanilla and orange chocolate. Then we found our way back to the hostel, although Rome is very difficult to master in terms of directions, and also very hilly.

Friday we got up to go to Vatican city, saw St. Peter's Basilica first which was huge and FREE might I add, full of embellished ceilings and statues. Then we walked around the huge wall surrounding the vatican museums and got in to see some very old tapestries and paintings before finally seeing the Sistine Chapel, painted ceiling by Michael Angelo which was amazing. No pictures or video allowed, although I may have snuck a short clip in there. Afterwards we had lunch which ended up being well below par, but was made better when we walked back to Trevi fountain to have gelato again. It took almost an hour to walk from the hostel to Vatican city, so most of our day was spent walking and viewing things we didn't really know the names of.

Saturday we checked out of our hostel at 1030am and with all the free crissonts we could fit in Claire's bag, walked to the Spanish steps and along a few streets to a plaza where a supposed carnival was going to take place. Apparently this did not occur until much later as we arrived at set up time and had to make our way back to the train station. We stopped at tourist shops and an internet cafe before arriving at the bus stop to the airport. Our fourth flight that night was fine to Madrid, but I couldn't sleep. I assumed we would be camping out at gate D62 or whatever again, but it turns out that was only a special treat we got last week and we had to sit in chairs in the cafeteria for four hours until Ryanair opened up and would give us our stamps. Then we got to the gate, waited another hour and a half before our hour long flight to Granada. We got our trusty taxi driver to take us home and then we crawled into bed around 8am, only awaking for la comida at 230pm. All in all it was a great trip, we saw some amazing stuff and learned a lot about traveling and what you can really get by doing, like not showering for 5 days or planning your water intake around times when you would be near a bathroom that wasn't in a disgusting hostel. We got to embrace the cold weather outside of Chicago and feel the burn of pure exhaustion, but we also got to savor 5 euro pizza and 330ml cokes before a stop at a gelato place. I only wish I could share the experience with my friends and family in real time!