Coliseum; Florence Train Cancelled; Mexican Food

Wow it was a crazy day. We got up super early today because we had to meet at the Coliseum this morning for class instead of at the Campo de Fiori. Normally we could just take the bus, but due to the strike the buses were going to stop running after 8:30 AM so we had to make sure we made the buses and had all of our stuff with us to go to the train station because it would be impossible to go home. So we lugged our backpacks with us to the Campo de Fiori, left them at school, and then booked it on over to the Roman Forum for a tour. Our tour was awesome! We got to see all of the Roman Forum, the Palatine, and the Coliseum, plus had a guide (Ruggero) who actually knew the history he was talking about. At one point he let us wander around the Barberini palace ruins and around the Palatine hill. Some of us girls wandered around and at one point we found a door that was left unlocked leading into one of the ancient buildings. The building was so cool on the inside! But someone that worked there came after us and kicked us out very quickly. She seemed to be yelling something about the door being closed, but clearly if we could get in then it was open. Apparently the tours of that building didn't start til later. We saw a ton of stray cats around the area too. Rome has a huge problem with stray cats, but at the same time have a ton of laws protecting them so they just wander around the historic district. After our tour for the day we decided to go grab our stuff and some lunch before walking to Termini train station (since the buses weren't working). Lunch was delicious. I had tortellini with prosciutto in a cream sauce. Lunch took a little overly long though (as it tends to do in Italy) and we ended up to have to practically run to the train station. We were about half way there when we realized there was no way we would all make it on time by walking. So half the girls grabbed a taxi and we kept running until the next taxi came along. Once we finally found a taxi for ourselves we discovered we had run much farther than we had realized and were almost there. Finally we've all raced and sweated our way to the train station only to discover our train ticket confirmation codes don't work no matter how many times we enter them to get our tickets. Lovely. And after that we learned our train had been cancelled due to the strike (all of the trains to Florence were still running except of course for ours because we were taking the longer much cheaper and less direct route. Ugh. Yay for being cheap). Luckily our tickets will work at the same time on another Friday so we will probably go next weekend. So we essentially had run all the way across town, only to discover it was pointless. So we took a taxi back to the Campo de Fiori and walked the rest of the way home. After a much needed break for our feet, a couple of us decided to get gelato at the "Old Bear" Gelateria. They're gelato was the best I've had here in Rome. It was creamy and sweet and cheap and utterly fantastic. I had Cioccolato, Nutella, e Fragola (strawberry) with whipped cream and it was only 2 euros! Awesome. Then back home for another break, where I caught up on my Grey's Anatomy (the musical episode was actually quite fantastically written fyi). Dinnertime came upon us so we decided to look for something new and we went out for Mexican food.
Mexican food in Italy is not that great, which I feel is to be expected. But the atmosphere was fun. We all ordered Strawberry Margaritas and they were utterly disgusting. I had two sips and just couldn't drink any more because they had been mixed extremely strong and tasted just like cough medicine. Yuck. The waiters made up for the crappy food and gross drinks. At one point one of them grabbed me and pulled me to the center of the room to Salsa dance with him. Totally fun. Then for the rest of the night they were walking by and screwing with our table. I even got to wear a sombrero. Then one of them came around and made shooters for our entire table. So gross, but I drank two. I still don't see why people like that stuff! Then they made all of us dance and then one of the waiters declared that it was my birthday and that therefore I had to compete in a race with a bunch of other birthday girls drinking a cup of Sangria out of a super long straw using no hands. I definitely did not win, but the Sangria tasted much better than any of the other stuff they gave us. It was a crazy night, and the other girls decided to go out dancing afterwards, but 4 of us decided it was time to head home to go to sleep.

So that was how we made up I guess for missing our train to Florence. Tomorrow we're going to explore the Castel di Sant'Angelo and Sunday we're going to go to a flea market. There is still a lot to do in Rome! Buonanotte.