Dana has arrived for the week!! I can’t believe I got to have one of my besties in Rome with me, even if only for 10 days. I was so pumped to see her that I ran down the street squealing as soon as she was in sight! The Italians passing by thought we were crazy, but of course we didn’t care because we were too excited to see one another!
So Dana and I headed out to see the first voting on the next Pope. It was raining in the beginning so many people had their umbrellas up while waiting in anticipation.
As people began to get off of work, the square filled up more and more as 7pm rolled around (when the first smoke was supposed to be released). It was so crazy and awesome to see so many people from different countries all in one compacted space.
So I was super happy that we managed to get a front row view of the whole event (especially because of me being vertically challenged, it would have been hard to see otherwise)! Pictured here though, is one of the screens they had up front that displayed a close up view of the pipe that the smoke was going to be coming out of.
The first smoke that came out was black. Everybody was excited at first because it was a light grey before the black actually reached the air. Looking up at the roof though, the pipe was a lot smaller than expected considering all the hype that was driven around it. So in order for you to see where exactly it was I circled the pipe with the black smoke coming out of it. Yes, I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see when the white smoke was finally released, but still I felt sort of accomplished to just be able to witness any of these events at all.
Later on in the week I took Dana up to the lookout point in Villa Borghese. I had not previously had the opportunity to go there myself, and it was so cool to see the view of Piazza del Popolo from above. In fact you could even see the Vatican far off in the distance!
On our way back down the hill, we came across this awesome little area tucked back in. It was cool because it not only had some ruins and super green grass, but it was also semi-excluded. I figured that this would now be my new favorite place to go if I just needed some time to myself to relax.
So I finally made my way over to the Trevi Fountain after being here for almost 3 months! The area around it was extremely crowded because there were so many tourists visiting here that week.
Made my first wish in the fountain! 🙂
Some of us students attended the Roma soccer game on Sunday night. It was so much fun to put on the Roma soccer team’s colors and cheer for our city! The Italians around us got so into the game, that it wasn’t hard at all to join them.