Strangest Thing in Rome

The next day was Sunday, and it was very interesting. With most of the Roman sights checked off (thanks to Kara's excellent planning skills). We decided to reserve Sunday for shopping, museums, and whatever else. So some of the girls wanted to go to Trastevere - a "shopping" place for young Romans. Right, well I think we saw about 2 stores. But we did have an excellent pizza lunch. It was like SplashTown pizza. (For those of you who think I'm crazy or don't know what I'm talking about -- SplashTown is a water park in Houston. I'm not sure if the pizza is actually that good or if it's only good after you play in the sun all day as a teeny-boper, but either way, I rave about it). This was better. And of course we had bruchetta again.

Then we decided to leave Trastevere, and Sam wanted to go to this "trendy shopping area for young Romans" (Can you tell this wasn't in Kara's Rome travel book? You guessed right! Sam saw it online or something.) This trendy area was a glorified... flee market. So we took one look, laughed, and walked a long way to get a taxi. We finally found cab back to City Center, and we were all wearing on each others nerves :) When we arrived at the main shopping street, without actually saying it, we decided to break into pairs and just meet up at the museum we had reserved for the afternoon. Kara and I went to the Four Rivers fountain. I just loved it. It is huge and depicts 4 massive statues representing the 4 greatest rivers discovered at the time. It also has an armadillo statue in it!!

So here comes the strange part: Kara and I took a cab to the the Borghese Museum. The guy was nuts! Absolutely crazy driver - honking, almost hitting pedestrians, and driving on the wrong side of the street. We were kind of laughing until he pulled to the front of the Museum and said "That will be 17 euro." This is an absolute JOKE. From one side of Rome to the other, you would pay max. 9 euro. This was not nearly that far. AND I had been watching the meter right before we arrived - It said 7 euro about 2 minutes ago. But of course, he had now turned it off. So I started arguing with him (he spoke English fairly well). I was so mad and relentless, trying everything under the sun. It was ridiculous. We should have just given him a ten and gotten out. But he was kinda freaking us out. So eventually, we paid the 17 euro and got out cursing to ourselves. To top it off, he dropped us off SO far from the museum entrance. We were angry!

We arrived at the museum and had to wait until 5 PM to go in. It is a very serious schedule with rigid rules. It was very nice. My favorites were Bernini's David statue (which acts instead of thinks like Michelangelo's does) and his Fire of Rome painting. After the museum, I bought a painting of the Trevi Fountain near the subway. I LOVE IT. And I will display it proudly in my new apartment. I bargained with the artist and got him down a bit. All in all, it is totally worth it.

So that night we ate at local restaurant near the apartment. We were exhausted so the 15 minute walk was perfect. It is a 30 euro meal and includes 5 courses and wine. It was like a family owned Chinese restaurant we see in the U.S. There was fan fare and crazy food.
Round 1: 2 types of bread, grilled vegetables, oysters, mussels, clams, sardines, fried sea bass, calamari, salmon, octopus, prawns, and sword fish.
Round 2: rice with prawn cream and 2 types of pasta (for each person)
Round 3: steak or fish
Round 4: fluffy cream cake
Round 5: giant fruit tray
[Round 6: deadly limoncello digestivo]

And GUESS WHO came to sit at the table next to us? THE CAB DRIVER who ripped us off!! I couldn't make this up if I tried. Same look, same spiky hair, same cologne!! We were freaking out!!! And dying laughing! He was with some girl, and we immediately started scheming up ways to ruin his night... charge a 17 euro bottle of wine to his tab? Have Kristie pretend to be is girlfriend? Spill wine on him? (I'm kidding we wouldn't have done that one). But when it looked like he knew all the waiters and the owner, we chickened out. We settled on asking him to take our picture in the middle of his dinner. I'm not sure if he recognized us, because he probably does that to people all day long. But it was funny anyway.

We headed back to the apartment a bit later than we had anticipated. We took our sweet time with the free wine and funny atmosphere. We were off to the airport at 7:30 AM Monday morning and arrived in Alcala around 1:30 PM to hear that our school field trip was canceled. But that was okay because I needed to study big time!

Interesting fact: The Italians love that signature "limoncello" shot - the "digestivo" which you get at the end of nice meals... Let's just say ...Limoncellos are not my thing. sickest.

P.S. - the test went well Tuesday (today).