Roma TOMAAA

Dear Reader(s),

Sorry I haven't blogged about the weekend of 11th-13th November, but I'm on it now.

An extremely early start on Friday 11th November saw me up and ready for the bus to Rome with ESN Modena. It was a trip organised by ESN (Erasmus Student Network) and for 175€ we had 3 days in Rome, all travel included, all tours included, hotel and breakfast included, parties included. Not bad?

The weekend was AWESOME. After a 6 hour bus journey we arrived in Rome and left our bags in the hotel. We went on immediately to find the Colosseum, which was stunning. After that we saw some more sights before the light was gone and we found somewhere for our apperitivi. Dinner and preparation for the first disco then ensued; it was pretty good, far more cosmopolitan than the usual (baluardo) and the music was pretty good. The night ended with our disco bus home straight to our door, at 4.30am.

After minimal sleep we were up for our included breakfast (sugary croissants and coffee machine) and ready for the next day seeing Rome. We saw a lot more sights, including my favourites: Trevi Fountain and the Vatican. The Trevi Fountain is so beautiful, I loved it, and combined with the fact that the weather for the whole weekend was literally perfect (nothing but sun, but still crisp, cold and fresh) meant that photos of the weekend are simply beautiful. The Vatican was amazing, and my only regret of the weekend is that we got the timings wrong and the decision to see the Vatican before the Sistine Chapel meant that we missed the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican was stunning, I made sure that I had photos of the Pope's balcony for Dave (who never says 'yes' but 'does the pope have a balcony?') and despite extremely tired feet we made the most of it and saw the whole thing.

After that we made our way to find a pizza and fanta, followed by shower and disco bus to the second disco, which was AMAZING. Literally the best club I've ever been in. The lights and music and atmosphere was so stunning, I loved every second and didn't even realise the time was passing when people started to leave at 5.30am to get the disco bus home!

Again, only a few hours of sleep later, we were up and sugary-croissant-ing early ready for as much of Rome as we could see in the short time before the bus was due to leave. We saw more sights, mostly piazzas and the like, and then exhaustedly we trooped back to the bus, put our ipods in our ears, and slept the whole way til lunch.

Finally, after the lunch stop, the 3 Italian ESN reps made the weekend Erasmus votes on who was the biggest lad and who was the biggest ladette. I won the title of 'Miss Ubriacana' aka Miss Lad! It was basically because I had taught them all the 'Castle Ranger' chant, and then translated it to fit with being Modenese!

All in all the weekend was AWESOME and extremely tiring. I ended the weekend with a solid 12 hours sleep.

A presto...