Today we got up early - 7.45am and got ready to go. We were going to leave at 8.30 and go to the market, but Dani needed to work on some Italian homework for class today so we didn't leave until 9 and skipped going to the market. We set off for the day. We had a full list of things to see and do before Danielle had class at 1.45. We started our day off at the 24-hour bakery. I got this croissant thing with whipped cream in one side of it and chocolate in the middle. It was really big and tasted so good. (see picture) Next we walked to the metro and Danielle had to talk to the guy so that I could buy a ticket. Then on to my first ride on the metro or subway here. It wasn't too exciting. Our first sightseeing was the Spanish Steps. These were cool but the only drawback was they were doing construction on the building at the top so it didn't make for very good pictures. We were standing at the top and I was taking pictures of the rest of the steps and this guy asked me if I was from England (well sort of?) and I tried to just ignore him but he taped me on the shoulder and would not stop talking to me. He also guessed that I was Irish and a couple of other places. He took my hand and put this string around my finger and started tying knots like a friendship bracelet and told me to make three wishes. He went back and did a bunch of wrapping of the string and stuff. It was really interesting to watch. The whole time he was asking me tons of questions and I was a little overwhelmed. He even asked me how many boyfriends I had assuming that I had more than 1. He finished his whole thing put it on my wrist, wrapped it around a few times. Danielle was like you are going to have to pay for that.... (I'm thinking I don't want to, I didn't come up to you) He said something to me about a million dollars and I just laughed then he said five and I told him that I had only one euro and needed to get to a cash machine. He finally walked away and left me alone. I got a cool bracelet out of the deal though!!!!! We went inside and saw the church that was pretty. We started back down the steps and I was talking to Danielle saying we should get someone to take our picture. A guy walking past overheard and said two seconds later 'should I take a picture of you' we were like 'ok'. That was really nice. So for every creep you meet there is a nice person. The Spanish Steps are just a bunch of steps so there wasn't too much to see and such so we continued on. Our next stop was Trevi Fountain. This was a really pretty fountain. I have learned that there are churches and fountains everywhere!!!! This was a pretty big one though and quite famous. The annoying part was these guys that kept walking up to us with these little animals that you could mold into any shape (hard to explain) I think being there for 5 minutes we were approached at least 10 times!!! They were really rude too. Next stop the Pantheon. We took the long way here because we walked in the wrong direction after the Trevi Fountain, so we had to backtrack a little. But we found some cute shops along the way and stopped in those so that was fun. The Pantheon was really cool. There is a large dome with a huge hole in the top with nothing covering it. Danielle was telling me that if it rains, there is a drain in the floor right beneath the hole. I wanted it to rain so I could see...but only for a few minutes and then it could stop again. Probably the coolest part about the Pantheon was Rafael's grave. There were lots of people taking pictures of that. I think its kind of morbid, but did it once, because when in Rome, you have to do everything because who knows when you are coming back. The pillars in the front were really big so I took a picture of those. Our next tourist attraction was the Piazza Novana. That is another thing I have learned about Rome is that everything is a Piazza. Different times we have been walking and Danielle says to me, this is Piazza this, or Piazza that. This was where there used to be chariot races so its a huge oval shape with one large fountain in the middle in front of the church and then two smaller ones at the ends. I like looking at the different fountains here in Rome, they are neat. Next we headed towards an area called campo and just wandered among the markets and such. It was interesting. It was 1pm and we were finished with our list for the morning and headed towards school. We came across a watch shop and mine had died a few weeks ago. I got a red and yellow watch that says forza roma on it. It was pretty cheap. But it is so cool. We were near school and went to Danielle's favorite pizza place. It was really good. We had extra time so we went to school early so that she could check her email and such before class. She went to class and I went to the computer lab. I had brought my camera cord with me and uploaded some photos from this morning and worked on journals for a little bit. Then it was time to go. We wanted a snack and headed back towards campo to get Nutella crepes. They were so good. Danielle is all about the food here, but it is sooo good. We had about two and a half hours so we decided to check out the Castel Sant' Angelo. It was a little bit of a walk there but it was fun crossing the Tiber and getting pictures of that. Outside the castel there were these guys. One was wearing a gold suit with a mask and the other one was wearing green stuff holding a sword; this guy moved from time to time. The castel was interesting. There were a bunch of rooms with paintings on the walls and ceilings and also rooms with old armour and swords and those were fun to see. Danielle said you could use the thing on top of one of the helmet to scrub your car. She's funny. One of the coolest parts about the castel was the amazing views of the city of Roma. I got some sweet pictures of St. Peters. We also got people to take pictures of us in the amazing view. The castel is circular so you can walk all the way around and see views of the city. It was a fun little excursion for our break during her classes. We got on the bus a little after six to get back to school. The bus was really full and we had to shove our way out and get off. People weren't very good about moving. I got off the bus and turned around to look for Danielle and wait for her and the doors on the bus had closed!!! I guess she wasn't getting off till the next stop. I walked a little bit and recognized a path to the school from earlier and so I know she would come towards me when she got off the bus, so I sat on the steps in front of some monument thing and waited. I only had to wait a few minutes and she was there. We got to school and she hadn't given me a tour yet so she showed me around the library and stuff. It's a pretty small school. And now here I am sitting in the computer lab yet again downloading pictures and working on the journal again. After her class we are going to the hard rock cafe. That should be fun. I am excited!!! So Danielle went to class and I worked on uploading more pictures and writing on some journals. After class we walked to the hard rock café in Rome, but it took forever because Danielle read the map wrong and we took the longer way. We finally made it there a little after nine and much to my disappointment; I had been taking pictures along the way and discovered that my battery was dead. So my first time in a hard rock café and it wasn't captured on camera. We had to sit in the bar for a while, and it was so weird doing that because first I had to think about whether or not I could and realized that I was of age in this country and also in America, but have yet to step into an American bar legally. We sat in the bar for while and finally got our table which, much to our dismay was right by the door so it was cold and then to top things off we got horrible service. It took the waitress forever to come back and get our order and then our food didn't come very fast. We really wanted dessert and ordered this giant brownie sundae that we shared which took a half hour to get after we ordered it and then it took another 20 minutes to get our bill. What a mess. I guess you don't go to hard rock for the service. But I must add that the food was AMAZING. I don't know when the last time I had a cheeseburger and fries was and not to mention the brownie sundae - yum! We left hard rock and it was close to 11:30. We had been there for two and a half hours and didn't know if we could still catch the bus before the night routes started. We were walking along and we were so excited when we spotted it a couple of minutes later. Now we didn't have to walk home which would have been at least 45 minutes. We had been on the bus for a while when Danielle decides to tell me that we had gotten on the wrong bus. When actually we had gotten on the right bus, but needed to get on one going in the other direction. At this point we had been on the bus for about 40 minutes and she had no idea where we were. She went up to the bus driver and tried to ask him in Italian how to get back to the main bus terminal, which is called termini so that we could find the right bus. Originally we got on the bus on the street, but now we needed to get to the station because there we could switch. The bus driver couldn't understand her and then the guy sitting in the front seat just randomly started talking to here in English and told her no way would we take a taxi because we were too far out and it would get too expensive. So at the next stop we got off the bus and crossed the road and waited for the N55. There were a lot of sketchy people on this bus and some of them were quite drunk because at this point it was after 12. These people sitting across from us had a dog. I didn't know you could bring dogs on the bus. Other people were drinking. It was crazy. So we got off at termini (bus station) and had to look for another bus. Danielle got us on another bus and we had to ride that for quite a while also. She guessed as to where we should get off because she wasn't quite sure where we were. She guessed good though because we only had to walk about three blocks, which was really nice. So all in all in took us an hour and a half to get home. If he had taken the right bus, it would only have been about 30 min. Oh well I just got to see more of Rome this way. The sketchy part of Rome that is seeing as how we had gone outside the walls and had to come back in. When we got home I was exhausted and went straight to bed.