Exchange Elective: when in rome

Me and becca managed to find some really cheap flights to go from Barcelona to rome over a weekend to go and visit benny who is studying there. I was very excited to go as I have only ever been to rome for a day and its somewhere I really want to visit but also it had been such a long time since I had seen benny so was exciting to stay with him. We arrived late in the evening so just had a quick drink and a catch up before going to bed. Benny lived in a very typical Italian apartment with the most interesting interior design I have ever seen but it was nice to be able to stay with him and the sofa bed wasn’t too bad once you found a comfortable position.

The next morning when we were all finally ready to go out we went to a little nearly by coffee shop and had a cappuccino and coissant. Which was deliscious! Completely different to how the French do it as it was covered in some sort of lemon sugar and the coffee was the nicest I have ever tasted. We stood at the bar and drank it was it in rome it is a lot cheaper to have things to go which I found really interesting. We then got on a bus and ended to the centre of the city. We only had a short amount of time and so walked round going to all the main things you would want to see. We walked down the Spanish steps, and saw the trevy fountain, tasted the most amazing pizza ever, and then got icecream, went inside st peters bascilca and then climbed to the top! So it was a very busy and full weekend but it was nice to see rome with someone who really knew rome and like we have in Barcelona, benny seems to have really settled in and got to know his way around so it was fun to se his rome with him.

So after a perfect weekend we had the most nightmare journey back to the airport. Somehow between the 3 of us we had massively miscalculated the time it would take us to get to the airport and how long we needed to arrive there before and so we suddenly found ourselves still in the centre of rome, with a 45 minute bus journey an hour before our flight was due to take off with the gate closing way before then! We debated not even trying to make it as it did seem impossible but after looking at the cost of replacement flights we thought it was worth a try. The traffic was on our side and we managed to get to the airport with 10 minutes before we were due to take off. We didn’t even know if they would have boarded and if they would even let us on so we ran through security, becca didn’t even bother putting her shoes back on! And then ran through the terminal to find our gate which was typically the furthest away, so we went running to the gate bags everywhere, completely out of breath to find everyone calming sitting waiting and starring at us. Our flight had been delayed and somehow we had just made it! Red faced we quietly joined the back of the que. I don’t think I have ever felt so relieved.