July 2

First, a little birthday shout-out is in order. Happy Birthday Jeff! I’m so glad we got to celebrate you before I left. You are amazing and you make my heart go pitter-patter! Thanks for getting me to Park City, Midway, and the airport! MYC! xoxo

After 30 + hours we arrived in Rome and made our way to the hotel, to our beds, barely to the shower, and off to the Coliseum. A few random thoughts… Italian public restrooms smell different (and not in a good way), cars are extremely small and I fear for their lives (crazy drivers) and mine, and if you love sandwiches, well you are in the right place! See, I’ve already been educated and within only hours of being here.  Educational is what this trip is!

Off to the Coliseum! As soon as we jumped off the metro and walked up and out of the station… BAM… there it was! Right in front of our eyes. This is where everything started to set in.  I’m in Europe.  We got some pictures just before the storm.  A literal storm. The kind with big clouds, lots of liquid, and hail the size of small pebbles! The rain came down and an hour later the sun came up. We all laughed as we got drenched and started to get to know each other as we huddled up next to one another for cover. An umbrella salesman came by and of course I was like, “yes! How much?” and it broke within seconds of owning it. Really a blessing in disguise because the nice Italian saw my plight and gave me another umbrella. A rainbow one! Woo woo.

We regrouped and hiked up a small hill to get to the Museum Capitallini. We were able to take a self-guided tour as the sun started to fall. There are breathtaking views of Rome from the windows of this museum of sculptures. What a great first day. Couldn’t have been better!

Ate dinner at none other than the Hard Rock café. Our server had quite the personality and definitely kept us entertained. There are a lot of neat people on this trip… can’t wait to get to know everyone and soak in as much as I can in the next five weeks!