Ciao Roma! Due

I have much more pictures and stories to share from our trip! My posts have been a little delayed because I have been under the weather. Yes, Spain has finally embraced Spring, which feels a lot like summer. I think the change in temperature gave A and I mild colds. As I try to get on the mends, here are some more highlights from Rome!

Whenever we traveled into the city center, we had to take the metro. It's only 2 lines and the cars are covered with graffiti, like this one.



Makes the New York City subway look pristine. I also have to put up the amazing warning signs on the metro. I find them hilarious.



When you're in downtown Rome, you can't miss all of the ruins splayed out in the area. Some of the cousins informed us about one site where they were planning to build something and discovered more ancient ruins, which they didn't want to remove. It's amazing that a large amount of the pieces are in tact. We were lucky enough to be in Rome fr "Culture Week" so admission was free.



These are pictures of the Roman Forum. In the one below, you'll notice a group of people dressed up in costume. I was really hoping it was one of those history tours like the ones in the U.S. when you tour with a colonial period person. However, the characters in these photos look quite spiritless.







From the ruins, you aren't far from the Roman Coliseum. I have seen this a few times, but it is always an awesome sight. It dates back to the 1st century AD.



We decided to have an overpriced drink by the Roman Coliseum. Hey, you only live once.

One of the other important items we saw was the Bernini sculpture called The Ecstasy of St. Teresa in the St. Mary of Victory Church. The church is small compared to other religious edifices, but it contains an immense amount of art!



Here's a picture of the interior of the church.



And here is the famous sculpture.



I wished I had had more time in this church; it was so packed with statues and paintings that you had to allot yourself some time to actually peruse through the building.

After that, we headed over to St. Peter in Chains church where Michelangelo's Moses sculpture decorates the tomb of a pope. He carved this statue out of one block of marble.



A told me an interesting story about this sculpture. While Michelangelo chisled away at this statue, he was determined to make it life-like. In anger, he hit the statue on the knee exclaiming, "why don't you speak?!" Apparently, there's a scar where he struck the statue.



That was the end of our Rome visit. We got packed on Monday only to see the news that the Iceland volcano ash covered most of Europe. We received an email stating that our flight was cancelled! The email had a hyperlink directing us to book another flight, but it didn't work. The email stated we could call, but there was no phone number! We decided to go to the airport and try to handle things there. The ticketing desk told us we wouldn't be able to get another flight until next Saturday or Sunday! We decided to get a refund on our tickets and try to return to Madrid through cheap trains or buses. As the ticketing agent tried to process our request, he discovered that our flight indeed was leaving today! We looked at him perpelexed and he explained that they cancel all the flights and then start them up again if the airspace is safe. Though I was mentally cursing at this man, wondering how in the world we were supposed to know that when we were given the impression we had no flight home, I was releived to see our flight on the board. Unfortunately, many people were stranded at the airport. Here's a picture of the departure board. Granted, this was a small airport, you can see that the majority of flights were cancelled.



We have some more travel plans happening in the near future, so come back soon!