First post on Italy: Rome

First things first, sorry for the delay in the first update.  This is the first time I’ve had wireless access, so this first post will be pretty long. I’ll try to do more frequent, less text-heavy updates in the future.

We left for Rome on Monday, January 12 from SFO on a United flight to Frankfurt. We landed in Frankfurt on time, at 9:55am, and our connecting flight to Rome departed at 10:55am. What I wasn’t aware of, however, is that apparently Frankfurt is the biggest airport in Europe (as I was told), and we literally had to sprint from gate to gate and through customs to get to our plane; we got on at 10:45 and I was covered in sweat. But, by the time we arrived in Rome I was too excited to care.

While in Rome, we stayed with some of my family in an apartment complex near Tiburtina station. On the family tree, they are the cousins of my grandfather, but they treated us as if we were their own children. We ate like a kings for a week, and my cousin Luana (I consider her more of an aunt) even took us around Rome on our own personal tour, and we got to see just about the whole city. Some photo highlights:

At the Coliseum.

Domus Augustus, Foro Romano

In front of the Pantheon (crowded because there are 700 masses there a day, I swear)

In front of the Piazza di Spagna

At the top of the Spanish steps.

From the top of that Castle across the Tevere. I forget what it's called.

AMDG. I had to. St. Ignatius of Loyola at the Vatican Museum.

In the courtyard at the Vatican Museum. Yes, Dad, I've been going to museums.

I didn't know that my brother flew to Rome, became a Vatican Guard, and was working on the same day I was visiting St. Peter's Basilica! He wouldn't talk to me, though. Screw you, P Sir.

At the track-type-thing in Villa Borghese. Villa Borghese has to be one of the (if not the) most picturesque, peaceful, and well-preserved park I've ever visited.