March 19th I must have SUCKER written on my forehead.

Stu's View:
Well, the end of days for me. The morning broke bright and early. We were up and at em to get back to the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine chapel and other pieces. Of course, we needed to stop and get some breakfast at the shop we had perused the day before. Morgan opted for the same sugar coated donut, I tried a pastry turnover, and then we were on our way!!
As we were walking Morgan proceeded to tell me where the line had started the last time she had been there. It was LITTERALLY 3 blocks away from the entrance! We kept rounding corners, and I kept expecting to see the door, but we just kept on walking. Unbeknownst to us, the museum actually was closed for a feast day. But, after hearing about Morgan’s experience I wasn’t too overly disappointed. From there we proceeded to return to make our way back to Morgan’s apartment, doing some souvenir shopping along the way. It was fun to peruse the shops and find items for different friends and family. I did make some nice finds as well! Hopefully then enjoy them, if nothing else I’ve got enough pictures to talk a lecture.
From the apartment we made our way back towards Morgan school to search for the North American University of Rome, where a friend of my family was studying to be ordained. Matt has been in Rome for 4 years now, and we had made contact to meet and, after a quick tour around the campus, were going to eat some lunch. Unfortunately, both Morgan and I thought we knew where we were headed, it became painfully evident that we didn’t. After another 45 minutes of lost wandering, multiple directions, and some pretty skylines, we did finally make it to the school a full 30 minutes later than intended.
But it was great to see Matt! His campus is beautiful, and HUGE. Nestled right in the heart of the city, a stones throw from the Vatican. It was absolutely fantastic. After a quick tour of both the campus and their church, we walked down the street to a small pasta place for a quick lunch. It was great to get to share with Matt and catch up on both families back in Tyler. Morgan also made a great contact for the rest of her trip in Rome.
My pasta was delicious; I had to try the scrambled eggs pasta. And I was pleasantly surprised by the dish. It was absolutely terrific! Matt also order some stuff olive appetizers that also were incredibly scrumptious. Matt then had to run to prepare for his weekend retreat, but not before telling Morgan and I where we could find some fantastic gelato.
We then set out to find the gelato shop, doing a little shopping along the way. We continued to look down multiple side streets before finally finding the shop in question. Here comes the sucker punch. After getting our delicious gelato, we proceeded to sit outside and eat our ice cream. Suddenly, a very pushy man approaches, claiming to have no money, and wanting gelato. I told him I didn’t have any change, and actually offered him some of mine. He persisted, and instead of shutting him down, I just handed him a 10 euro, and he left me alone. After, I finally realize just how much money I had given him, and about 30 different ways I could have handled the situation. Unfortunately, it was much too late for that. Yup, I’m a pushover sometimes…take it or leave it.
From there, Morgan and I proceeded to shop our way to the beautiful park near piazza del popolo. Once there, we searched for Segways, before giving up and lounging by a beautiful fountain as the sun set. OH! We had purchased candy as well! I had had a jelly bean craving the entire trip, and while they were much harder jelly beans, we were successful in finding them. We of course had to sample a wide variety of other candy selections, but we continued to sample by the fountain, until they were gone.
After a wonderfully relaxing walk, we decided to find the Hard Rock Café, to try to get some good ol’ grease in the system before I left. HOOFTA! After 2 bus rides, and a 45 minute walk, we found the café packed, with a 2 hour waiting period. SCREW THAT! Especially in the city with so many different tasty cafés. We opted to find a quiet place near the B&B where we could eat and simple wander back to bed. Again, we swung and missed. The first place we ate were serving drinks, but after 30 minutes it became evident that they were no longer serving food. After the Hard Rock incident, we were now up to 2 strikes. But we managed to find a quaint place across the road, still serving with fantastic service, and delicious desserts! We had some more delicious pasta, and finished the night splitting some gelato!
It was a great way to wind down the trip! From there, we walked back through a light rain, and returned to the B&B. Morgan proceeded to work on her blog while I frantically packed before turning in for the night!
It was a wonderful day, filled with food, friends, and beautiful sights! It will definitely have to make a return trip at some point to continue to fill my Rome repertoire in future years. It was just a little while longer before I began my trek back home.
As an aside, for anyone I didn’t get a souvenir for, it was because the pushy man suckered the sucker. Just an FYI. ;)
Ciao!
Morgan's Say:
Stu's last real day in Roma. We woke up at a decent time knowing that the Vatican museums are so expansive that they take hours to cover. We ate the breakfast the woman running the B&B set up for us: hard rolls and coffee. It was sweet that she even offered as Italians just don't eat breakfast. She grilled my roll for me and there was even butter and jam. She set out milk for our coffee, which we drank by itself, this threw her off and she almost poured the coffee into our full milk glasses. Whoops. Neither Stu or I drink coffee, but she made this just for us. We felt obligated to drink it, and figured it couldn't hurt our energy for the day either. we drowned it with sugar and milk and managed to finish our cups. We walked past St. Peter's square to the Vatican museum entrance, only to discover they were closed for St. Joseph's feast day. I felt terrible. The Sistine Chapel is a big deal (no matter how disenchanted I was with it ) and this was his only chance to see it. We decided to explore the building and breathtaking views of Piazza Venezia until it was time to meet Matt. Matt is a deacon from Tyler (Stu's hometown) studying in the American Seminary in Rome to become a priest. The plan was to meet him at noon at the seminary so he could give us a tour, and then we would go for lunch. I knew where the school was (just behind my own) so we headed to the AUR for a bathroom break (coffee had kicked in :S) and to check student life for backup directions. The woman's directions made absolutely no sense to me so we went the way I knew...and discovered that the school I was thinking of was an Art Academy, uh oh. We immediately began to follow Student Life Woman's directions in hope that we would arrive on time. We asked two police officers on the way, and kind of understood their directions, after some minor indecision we found a seminary. the doorman didn't speak English but kindly showed us a beautiful chapel. Beautiful, but not what we were looking for. I don't know what Stu said to him, but the man finally asked North American? and gave us new directions after our resounding yes. we were close... and late. We later discovered we had found the Ukrainian seminary, whoops. When we finally found where we needed to be, Matt (whose name is super easy to remember because he looks just like Matt Damon, awesome) was waiting for us. He was incredibly gracious about our lateness, and gave us a tour of their fantastically large and beautiful campus. We saw the chapel decorated with amazing modern murals, and the spectacular view from the top of the building. Matt took us to one of his favorite restaurants for lunch and told us we were allowed to eat meat because of the feast day. He ordered olives stuffed with sausage and then deep fried, as an appetizer (they were amazing!!) and basically treated us to lunch because he had to leave early, so he just left ash with us. Before he left he recommended his favorite gelato place, and we exchanged emails so I can hopefully start going to Catholic Mass instead of my English non denominational church. It was wonderful to meet him, and a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Almost as soon as Stu and I left the restaurant I became ill, but we stopped to get gelato (at Matt's place) in hopes that it would pass. The gelato was amazing, but I still felt terrible. We went back to the apartment and I took a nap while Stu stayed up to make sure I didn't sleep over half an hour. I felt much better after resting so we stopped by Tiber Island to put our lock on the bridge and throw the keys in the river. I was in a pretty spectacular mood after that. We then decided to walk down Via del Corso to Piazza del Poppolo with souvenir shopping and stops for candy along the way. We reached the Park above Popolo just before sunset and lingered for a while before deciding to split an appetizer and some drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe for our last meal together. I didn't know where the Hard Rock was, but I knew it was vaguely in the termini station area. We took a bus to termini and started to ask for directions, no one knew what we were talking about and every time we said cafe they pointed to the nearest bar (cafe). We started to walk in the direction opposite of which we had come to see if we could find signs. The neighborhood made me uneasy, and we eventually stopped in a bar/ pastry shop to ask for directions. As soon as we said cafe she told us we were in a cafe. As we shook our heads in frustration she called over the other man who worked there. It turned out he was an Englishman and gave us excellent directions. I was very relieved. After a twenty minute walk we found the Hard Rock and they told us it was t two hour wait. ( When Becca went they told her the same think and it ended up being only twenty minutes) After putting our names down the host told us we could come back in an hour for our buzzer, no thanks. Stu was all in favor of eating in the area (he needed a restroom) I was all in favor of getting back to a neighborhood I knew. We ended up going to a restaurant on the same road as our B&B It was a super cute building and we ordered drinks first. Stu wanted a margarita but they were out of tequila so he had a white lady, I had a strawberry daiquiri. The drinks were very strong and I was waiting for food to eat with it; Except the waitress wasn't coming back to take our order. When she finally came back she explained the kitchen was mostly closed, so we left, angry. I left half of my drink because it was too strong for me to be able to drink and stay awake for any extended period of time. We found a different restaurant that was very fast, efficient and cheap. I had a cheese omelet and it was delicious. We split a slice of lemon cake and then gelato as well. One of the flavors we got was cherry, and it was just like eating a cherry pop-tart, amazing!! Stu had to repack all his things and shower still so I wrote a to do/ check list for Saturday in my desperate attempt to stay awake. I managed until two seconds after Stu came back in the room, and that was the best I could do.