Fountain Hopping

I know that I've been seriously slacking on actually putting important information into my journal entries lately and for that I apologize.
BUT.... I do have an interesting tale to update about.

Last night was the six kids first night in Rome. We stayed in the Hostel Yellow near the train station Termini, and it was super hot when we arrived, so everyone showered and rested for the evening the first couple of hours we were hear. But we definitely were dressed and out the door by nine o'clock, ready to eat some authentic Italian food and barter with the multitudes of street vendors that exist in this amazing city.

Our night ended up better than I could have imagined, though. We ate and we walked around, meeting three girls from Chicago, a guy named Chris from Oklahoma, and two girls from the UK, and saw Kristin buy a glass ring from Murano. We also sampled the local nutella cresent rolls, ate some After Eight ice cream cones that were to die for, and sat on the steps with the local teenagers to just hang out and enjoy the night time air. Random guys in cars called the four of us girls over to their windows, trying to ask where we were from and maybe make friends with an American... to which we all, of course, laughed but strongly declined. And then, sometime around midnight, we got on the tram to go back into town. A tram, I might add, that we had no idea where it ran or what the final destination might be... but we figured that it was headed in the right direction. This was right about the time that Markie tried to baptize Courtney in a drinking fountain. It was all very carefree and fun. But on the tram four older British men asked us where we were from (people always marvel at the southern accent) and told us, jokingly, that we were on the tram to Hell. Which was funny, because soon after, the entire tram shut down in the middle of the street and we had to shuffle off into a random Roman street.

Dave and I have been to Rome before, right around this time last year, and I swear I recognized the spot we were in. There were Roman ruin baths about a level below us on the right, with stray cats milling around everywhere, and a kiosk that looked oddly familiar. We were by the Pantheon... I could smell it in the air!

So I went running off. Michael and David were straining to understand a tiny map of the huge city, and Courtney and I really really wanted to see the monument by night, so we just started running. And we ran until we made it to that Plaza with the fountain that is in Dan Brown's book Angels and Demons. And because we were laughing and carrying on and running around already, and because it was on the list of things that Courtney and I made that we aboslutely, 100%, MUST do in Europe, we climbed over the railing and jumped into the fountain. The freaking famous fountain. And we took pictures and splashed around and Markie even grabbed one of the statue's butts.

AND THEN... soaking wet and still laughing, we climbed out before the police patrol could make their way over, and we went down the alley way to find the Pantheon (since that was our original mission after all).. and we found it! After help from a boy from Nevada and two girls from the UK... and there was another fountain, and these four kids from the states were standing around so of course we introduced ourselves, and then invited them to climb in the second fountain. The one in front of the Pantheon. While there were two cops asleep in a cop car right in front of us. It was all very 'Pink Panther' sleuth oh my goodness we're going to jail if we get caught... but it was two girls, one from Harvard and one from Yale, and two boys from Boston University, who needed to live a little.... and I figured that we could be the ones who helped them on their journey to corruption. And fun.

So second fountain conquered, we headed home... soaking wet but completely satisfied... not ready for the night to end but knowing that tomorrow, inevitably, we'd get into some other kind of amusing adventure that would bring about a whole new set of smiles.

And so we went to bed.