When in Rome...

First off-- yes, I know this is the cheesiest title ever. Maybe I should call it Roman Holiday. My creative juices are not running at the moment, but I do want to apologize for the delay in posting! Like I said, the Olympics have taken over my evenings, along with other stuff. I've been put to shame by my fellow bloggers. Your prolific posts have spurred me on!

Zach played his first soccer game today, one of his first in quite a while, and I went to watch. The light was good, and I think i was nominated as team photographer! They won 7-0. Look for pics in the next few posts. :-)

I left off last in Rome after a day in Pompeii. The following day, July 21, Zach and I had one goal in mind before my brothers got in town: LAUNDRY. We left Hotel Smeraldo(Doesn't that sound like it belongs in the movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame?) and set out to look for a laundromat. Out hotel was located near Old Rome, and was a tangled bunch of charming side roads and alleys. Navigating was... interesting. :-)

While Zach examined the map our hotel gave us, I surveyed the scene and took some pics.
This car is way smaller than a Smart Car and really cute!

I'm not exactly sure what this building was, but it's beautiful. It was near our hotel.Another beautiful building during our morning excursion. We did manage to find a laundromat, had some lunch and made it back to the hotel in time to take a taxi to meet my brothers at the airport. The metro system in Rome was not conducive for most of our travel during our time there, so we were glad to take a taxi. We took Jonathan and David back to the hotel to drop their stuff off and took them on a night tour around Rome. Thank you, Rick Steves guidebook for the idea! Our first stop was Campo di Fiori. Zach and I had walked through there that morning and it was an open market. As evening was descending, it turned into this teenage hangout where Italy's cool crowd loitered.

Next, we walked into Piazza Navona, which was this huge area with an obelisk in the middle and artists selling their wares all around. Kind of like Montmarte, only much larger and of course, Italian. Piazza means plaza... not pizza! I think most intersections of roads have a piazza in the middle I felt like calling it pizza at first. Four Rivers Fountain, shown here, was also in the piazza. Each of the spouts represented a major river on the major continents when it was carved. Pretty cool huh?The piazza was so pretty! Rick Steves recommended a gelateria called Tre Scalini. Apparently, they had world-class chocolate desserts, so I just had to try! I had the tartufo--which means "death by chocolate"-- and it was phenomenal.

Our next stop was the Pantheon! SO Roman. I was really excited to see this piece of ancient history. My brother David took this photo. Just pretend all the other tourists aren't there. :-)

After visiting the Pantheon, Zach and I looked for the restaurant we'd picked out for Jonathan and David's first evening in Italy. After some backtracking, we finally found miscellanea. Cheers to Italy!

Next on our tour was Trevi Fountain. Not only was it a tourist spot, but it was also a place where actual Romans hung out. The energy was contagious and we had fun! David and I at Trevi Fountain!

This is some of the sculptures on Trevi Fountain.This is a monument to a man Zach said was also featured in the movie Gladiator. 
Finally we arrived at the Spanish Steps! This is a famous spot in Rome. All these people are Romans and tourists. This is just a random night and all these people were hanging out! This fountain behind us is shaped like a boat.
On our way back to the hotel, we came across Piazza Vernazza. I think this is a monument to Vittorio Emmanuelle-- who we later discovered was the first king of France, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong! Pretty much at least one street and one monument in every Italian town we came across was dedicated to him.And nowww... I present something really cool Zach recognized right by our hotel. Largo Argentina is a "hospice for cats" in ruins... right in the middle of Rome! There are hundreds of cats hanging out there. I think it would be fun to be a cat and live in these ruins. 

We made a friend!

So concludes our night tour. I had to split up my Rome photos, so stay tuned for part II!