Touring Rome Again

Once again we (Joana, Nicole, Corina and I) did not wake up early enough to do what we had planned--to go to Porta Portese, the largest flea market in Rome. It's only open on Sundays but you can buy EVERYTHING there from socks to cars to houses. From what we studied during my summer Italian class it sounds amazing but of course, you have to get there early. Instead, we took another tour of Rome with our friend Jackie in search of a different market.

We started out walking towards what we thought was the market but we ended up at the Spanish steps again. It's amazing how every street leads to either an incredible fountain, church, piazza, or an ancient monument. Since Jackie hadn't seen the steps yet we took pictures and stopped to fill up our water bottles. While we were there we ran into some guys from IES so we took advantage of seeing friendly faces. If Rome is such a big city, who do we manage to always run into someone we know?! Finally, we climbed the steps and ended up in a park overlooking the city. It was magnificent. I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

We wandered around for a while looking for this market and after asking a few people how to get there we realized the market wasn't where we had originally thought. We thought it was near the Villa Borghese when in reality it was quite a walk away. Thankfully though we were able to walk through this nice park with children roller blading, families taking walks, and couples laying out in the grass. It was definitely my favorite part of the day. Everything was so relaxed and everyone was happy. Even the babies were happy I don't think I heard one cry the whole time we were in the park. Finally we made it to the market but it was mostly closed down by the time we got there so there were few options to choose from. I did not get anything but Jackie bartered and bought a long, black dress.

We ate a quick snack of pizza before heading home. As always, I forgot to take a picture of the pizza  because I was too hungry to wait. One day I will finally get a picture of true, Italian pizza!

This week I have definitely learned that if I plan on taking the bus, I better be at the bus stop 45 minutes before I actually need to be on the bus. I know I wrote about this yesterday but somehow we always get to the bus stop 5 minutes after the last bus as left so we end up waiting half an hour or so for the next bus to arrive. It's just a fact of life in Italy but thankfully our neighborhood bus stop is right outside a gelateria. If nothing else, I can have some gelato while I wait for my bus to not come.

Here are my pictures from today:
Touring Rome Again