Spanish hospitals but more importantly, ITALY!

So I gave in. I went to the hospital. My señora was very, very concerned about me, so my director pretty much told me I should go, so off to the Spanish hospital my director and I went! I ran to the taxi when it came to pick me up (even though I am dying of a serious illness, duh), and arrived at the hospital quickly. No one there spoke English, so a big shout out to Lay (my director) for translating a lot of things (I understood a lot, but I felt as though hospital lingo was not something I wanted to mess up). The doctor examined me for five minutes, and said I had a virus that he sees in a lot of foreigners when they visit Granada. Oh boy, aren't I lucky? Anyways, they asked if I wanted a shot to get rid of the stomach discomfort, and I obviously said yes (I was in pain).  I expected a shot in my arm, like normal procedure. When the doctor (who was carrying an Adidas soccer bag to store his medicine in) told me to stand up, I realized I was wrong........let's just say it wasn't in my arm.

Anywho, they gave me lots of meds which added up to a grand total of 26 euro.  All hail the Spanish health system!

The taxi driver who drove my director and I back was hilarious.  I was wondering why he was so interested to know about the United States (Granada-ians don't normally care), and why I could understand him so clearly, and then I found out he was indeed NOT Spanish.  Peruvian, actually.  We had a nice conversation about how Spain has "no snow, no rain, and no jobs." It's true, unfortunately.  Then he said it snowed "A LOT!!" last winter in Granada. I laughed and asked, "How much?" He said..."Oh my, it covered the whole street and lasted for 2 hours!" ..........okay. Well, I told him that the snow was up to my neck last year in Connecticut.  His eyes widened. He could not believe it. Silly people from warm climates!

Soooo I guess now I'll write about Italy. This is going to be long, so I suppose I'll divide it into different posts. We'll start with the first day.

Day 1 & 2-Rome: Hannah and I departed Granada en route to Madrid on an 8 AM bus in order to make our late afternoon/early evening flight to Rome.  The bus from Granada to Madrid takes five hours plus a 40 minute metro ride to the airport, so we allowed extra time.  We flew Ryanair, and Hannah warned me that Ryanair is kind of the worst/corniest/weirdest airline ever.  My response was, "Who is Ryan?" Me and my dumb comments...

It actually wasn't that bad, in reality.  They were strict about bag size, but I only brought my backpack, so I was okay.  Hannah was right about the corny-ness.  When Ryanair lands they play a weird airhorn sound and announce "Welcome to your destination, another on time flight provided by Ryanair, the most on time airline in Europe!"  Too bad they list their arrival times as much later than they actually are...Oh Ryanair, always trying to make yourself look good.

So we landed in Rome safe and sound, and headed towards our hostel.  Kathleen and Taylor stayed there last year when they went to Rome, and said it was fine, so I trusted them.  As I climbed the 7 flights of stairs up the hostel, I cursed them the entire time.  Luckily, the hostel owner was very nice, spoke great English, and gave us our room. I signed up for a 4 bed room, thinking it would be nice to meet other young travelers.  Boy, was I wrong.  The hostel said they had a forty year old age limit, and a week long stay policy, but it seemed as though our roommate fell into neither category.  He seemed to be all moved in, and was certainly over forty.  He was an Egyptian drifter type, said he lived in Germany now.  Who knows though.  He ended up being harmless in the end, but it was definitely an interesting and sketchy experience.  I slept with my passport, wallet, and iPhone under my pillow.

The first night we went to a great restaurant right near our hostel.  We ate in the basement, complete with a piano and an older Italian man playing music the entire time.  The whole restaurant was beautifully decorated, and it seemed like it was from the movies.  I loved every second of it, and my spaghetti was delicious!

When we woke up the next day, we were feeling very adventurous and were determined to see all the sights in Rome.  Off to the Colosseum we went! It was cool to see all of the old architecture and ruins, since I had always read about them in my history books.  I'm not really big on ancient history, but at least now I can say I've been there.  We also saw the Roman Forum, the Pantheon (I didn't know this was in Rome-I thought it was in Greece. But that's apparently the Parthenon. Woops. Promise I am a history major, really.), the Spanish Steps (which were way too crowded and we didn't even venture up them), and finally, the Trevi Fountain. Whew, that tired me out just writing it down! Jen Brown, my good friend from Simsbury, was in Rome too, and we agreed to meet at the Trevi Fountain at three.  What we didn't realize was that the Trevi Fountain is a very very crowded place. After much searching, I spotted Jen in the crowd and SPRINTED towards her.  We embraced, yelled, and yelled some more, drawing the attention of pretty much everybody around us.  It was so awesome to see her, and how often can you say that you ate gelato at the Trevi Fountain with a childhood friend?

Most delicious gelato I had on the trip!

Later that night, I met up with Lindsay and her family because they were all in Rome too! Thanks to Mr. Robbins for buying us dinner. I had my first pizza. It was great. It was also good to see Lindsay and her whole family (Minus Danielle), because I love seeing familiar faces in unfamiliar countries!

Hannah and I had plans to go out for a few drinks at the end of the day, but once we returned to the hostel, we climbed into our beds and fell asleep by 10:30.  Hey, we had a long day! 

I'll write about the rest of Italy later, as my stomach is being all cranky and I need to lie down.  Hasta luego!

Lauren