made it to the Coloseeum

Our final day in Florence came as if we were in the Eastern Time zone. Upon finishing the last blog post, I tried to fall asleep in my full-body coverage, while fighting the heat of the room without open windows. There was a handful of mosquitos still remaining in our room that I was trying to bat away in the darkness, and I couldn’t even think about falling asleep to music as I wouldn’t know when the bugs were near my face. Unfortunately, 5:30AM rolled around and I was frustrated beyond believe. I opened the window, put in my headphones, and had no idea what to expect.

On the hike towards the Piazza Michaelangelo in Florence, Italy.

When I woke up, I had 10 mosquito bites on my face, ranging from my forehead down to my checks and neck. There were three bites on each hand, and my feet were swollen right above the sock line, proof that those mosquitos found every open ounce of skin and bashed on some Nate O. I slept in until 11:30AM and looked over as Bethany was also covered in bites. You can actually see where the covers ended around her shoulders, as a line of bites leads to her neck. Unfortunately, her pains didn’t end there as she couldn’t move her neck left or right and was almost in tears from it. At this point, we both had reached a new level of exhaustion, stress, and uncertainty about the remainder of the trip. We packed up our bags, backpacked to the terminal, and hopped the first train we saw for Rome. A little research would have landed us on the express train that only took an hour, but our laziness turned into a 3.5 hours adventure, which was still lovely thanks to the scenery of mountains, towns, and beautiful weather.

my face got destroyed by mosquitos in Florence.

We arrived in Rome around 5:00PM and grabbed a bite to eat before heading to our home. By this time, my face was incredibly swollen and I felt as though I had the chicken pox amidst the largest city in Italy. My embarrassment was clearly shown, but we arrived to our house to find an absolutely beautiful space, thanks to Venere.com. The owner spoke little English, but I resorted on what I had learned in Florence to converse. She welcomed us with a local bottle of Chianti for “Mr. and Mrs. Okuley” and showed us around the 2 bedroom space. Having our own space, a fridge, and no bugs was an amazing feeling (we’re so picky aren’t we?) After dropping off our bags, we grabbed my day pack and headed out towards the Collosseum, which is only a few minutes away from our house. Locals were cleaning up for Festa Della Repubblica, the national holiday of Rome celebrating the republic after the fall of Fascism. Earlier in the day there had been a large parade and a speech given by the President.  We walked around and took an early peak at the Roman Forum, Palentin Hill, and some of the other areas of Old Rome. It was mind-blowing. After a few hours of “Rome-ing”we made it to a grocery store then met up with Evan (a CMF Video Manager) and Amy, who were in Rome for their honeymoon. We found a small but popular restaurant and enjoyed a late dinner together that wrapped up around 11PM with gelato nearby. It’s always fun to see familiar faces on the other side of the world.

Tomorrow we are heading out to see the Colloseeum in its entirety as well as Palentin Hill, the Roman Forum, and maybe the Pantheon. There is so much to see and soak up here, but it’s also a struggle for both of us as we tend to gravitate away from the touristy sites in order to encourage adventure. I haven’t seen any large hills leading to bodies of water, so we’ll see if there is any room for freestyle walking or aggressive hopscotch.