snow & sports filled weekend

Spanish steps in the snow

Italian snowman

As I mentioned last time, we had a snow day on Friday. Little did we know how bad it would actually be. Thursday night I stayed at my friend Christina's apartment because we went out with a big group of us. Even that night was bad getting anywhere, so we mostly just stayed at her apartment. I didn't end up getting home until Saturday because we were snowed in all weekend. We got around 6 inches of snow, the most snow Rome has seen in 25 years! It has completely shut down the city because they have no snow plows and don't even salt the roads or sidewalks. It has been a pain trying to get around with the metros freezing and buses not able to drive on the frozen roads. It's hard to even walk on the sidewalks because they're so slippery with ice. On Friday we stayed in all day, then on Saturday we ventured out to get food and go shopping. That night we went to a club near us called Babel and had to walk because the taxis don't even want to drive in the snow. It has been an absolute disaster.

Ryan, Reza, Korey, Alex, and I at the AS Roma vs Inter Milan game

Curva Sud section

As I said before, we got tickets for the AS Roma vs Inter Milan game, one of the things I wanted to do the most while I was here. The game was supposed to be Saturday night, but because no one could get around the city they moved it to Sunday at 3:00. I went with some of the guys in my program and it was SO MUCH FUN. We had to leave our house about 2 hours before the game just to make it over there, but it was fun going on the metro with all the excited Italian fans. I bought a sweatshirt a few days ago, so I was in Roma gear but the guys I went with hadn't bought their scarves yet. We kept getting glared at because the Roma fans thought that we were for Inter Milan. Luckily they were able to buy scarves right when we got close to the stadium.

GOAL!!!!! 

The game was awesome, we had seats on the long side about 15th row up. The atmosphere was so much fun. It made me really miss Clemson football season (even though it just ended not too long ago). The curva sud section is on the short side, and it was absolutely nuts. This is the area with the intense fans that can be very dangerous. The whole area went absolutely insane the entire time during the game. It reminded me of the student sections at home.

Anyway, Roma ended up winning the game 4-0! It was so much fun being there for such a big game when we won by so much. AS Roma won by so much that they actually announced for Inter Milan to wait in the stadium for a police escort to take them out so they would be safe from the fans. It was such a blast!!!

Korey and I outside the soccer stadium in the snow

After the game we went back to an Irish pub for dinner and to get a table early for the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is the one excuse to have an American night for all the study abroad kids, and on top of that we had class cancelled today for class. The game didn't start here until midnight, but to get a table you have to go really early. Watching the game was SO much fun. It was such a nice break from constantly trying to fit in with italian culture. We all got burgers and nachos. I've never seen a place so excited for the national anthem. It was about 200+ american study abroad students all singing along to the national anthem and going absolutely crazy with homesickness. The game didn't end until around 4am so it was an exhausting day, but it was so worth it.

Today everyone slept in really late since we all had such late nights. Then I got up and went to lunch with my friend Monet at a delicious panini place. That's one thing I love about it here - instead of greasy fast food they have pizza and panini places that have different things every day. You get to choose what you want and the size of it, then they weigh it and normally it only costs around 2 euro. Then they heat it up in the oven so it melts all the cheese. It's SO good because it's all made with fresh ingredients!

Vatican with Dana and Sally

After lunch I went to the Vatican (finally) with Dana and Sally. I can't believe it's taken me so long to get there. By the time we got there (after getting a little lost on the metro) the sun was starting to go down, but it was nice because there was no one there. The Vatican is absolutely phenomenal. I always thought the Colosseum was one of the prettiest, most amazing places in Rome but the Vatican definitely tops that. It was so much bigger than I expected and absolutely BEAUTIFUL. It blew me away, and I couldn't believe that it is still being used today. We went inside and walked around then went to dinner close by. I'm going into the museum and stuff with my art history class, so I'm going to wait until then to do that. It was still so awesome just walking around outside though.

Well, it's 12:30am and we have class again tomorrow after 2 days of cancellations so I have to get to bed. That is, if I can make it. The snow is still so thick in places and now the sidewalks have turned into complete ice slabs. Eeek!

Ciao!