Italy Day 1 - Arriving, Rome, The Forum and The Colosseum

Day 1 of my trip to Italy kicked off last Thursday at 3 in the morning! It was not particularly fun, but because I had to be at school by 4, it was necessary. I had already packed the night before so all that was left to do was to pack my various chargers and electricals.

I went to school and met up with my two friends, Alice and Leah (remember those names, they're quite important within this trip!). In total, there was 28 people going on the trip including 2 teachers. We got on the coach, waved goodbye and set off for Heathrow airport.

Upon arriving, we checked in and went through security. I was very excited because it was the first time I had gone on a plane without my family, and I actually got to hold my own passport without my dad snatching it out of my hand the minute we got on the plane! It's the little things in life isn't it?

We then had a little free time to roam about the airport. Bear in mind this was about 5/6 in the morning, so I took great pleasure in texting all my friends to wake them up! I then did something a little crazy. When wandering around we *stumbled* into the makeup section, and went into MAC. I've never been into MAC before, and so I got a little excited and might have ended up accidently, through no fault of my own, mistakenly purchased a lipstick! It happens, I'm only human! It's in the colour Vegas Volt, which is a beautiful bright coral pink and I don't think I've ever loved something so much!

We then boarded our 2 and a half our flight to Rome, during which my friends and I occupied ourselves by using a 5 way earphone splitter and recording countless numbers of silent music videos. To say we got a few weird looks on the plane would be a bit of an understatement!

When we landed it was probably about 11am in Rome, because they are an hour ahead. After a quick change and sun cream up in the airport, we headed straight out into the city.










Some initial photos of Rome I took off the coach:

We then got off of the coach and trailed round the city for what felt like hours looking for somewhere to eat lunch. By this point we had all been up for a good 9 hours (give or take), hadn't eaten apart from a small croissant on the plane, and were a group of teenagers who had been shoved out into the heat of the day. There were some bad moods to say the least.

In the end, half of the group went to a small pizza place in an alley, but it wasn't big enough for all of us, so myself and the other half of the group went and sampled the local cuisine in a good old McDonalds. Chicken Nuggets are Italian aren't they?

After we had all been fed and watered and were feeling a little less hangry (hungry and angry), we ventured forth into the sun once more. I think it was about 28 degrees, and we had come from temperatures less than half that, so it was a bit of a change.

We met up with our tour guide, and went round the Ancient Roman Forum (forum btw, means square, like the square of a city, something that we found out days later).

I have to say that this was probably my least favourite part of the whole trip. Not because it was bad, just because we were so tired, and I had used up all my energy being over excited at 4 in the morning. I also wasn't wearing the best shoes - they were relatively new and when I had tried to wear them in they gave me blisters. After a while I could barely walk because my feet were hurting so badly. Luckily, I had put my good trainers in my backpack so I was able to change, but I did end up with bruises all over my feet.

The other reason I didn't enjoy was because I got so hot. There was one point, where I became so overheated and tired, I felt really dizzy and sick and thought I might faint - I didn't! But it wasn't fun.

It might be bad that after several hours of touring the Forum I didn't really learn anything or take anything in, but I did get some nice pictures!

We then went to the Colosseum, which was much better. The heat of the day had begun to wear off, and I was feeling much better in my comfy trainers. We also got to sit inside where it was cool while our tour guide talked to us for a while about the Colosseum.

We went around the whole thing, and I thought it was really really beautiful, and quite a bit bigger than I imagined. It was incredible to be in one of the most famous buildings in the world.

Nevertheless, it was a relief when we finally got back on the coach and made our way to the hotel.

It was probably about a 45 minute drive to the hotel, and I'm pretty sure I was asleep for most of it, along with the majority of the group.

The hotel was actually really nice when we got to it. It had the most important thing for a group of teenagers: free wifi. It was a little unfortunate because my friends and I were in a group of 3, and all of the rooms were for groups of 4, so we had to split up. I shared a room with Alice and two other girls that I didn't really know, and Leah was in a room with some other lovely girls.

After a quick shower, we headed off to dinner, so this cute (and oh-so tumblr) restaurant about 3 minutes up the road, where we had some lovely pasta ina tomato sauce for a starter, veel with these potato thingys for a main, and this creamy desert thing. It was very nice.

By the time we had finished that, we had all been up for about 17 hours, so there wasn't much objection when we were told that we were just going back to the hotel. Alice and I went to visit Leah in her room, before I fell asleep at about 10pm English time.