ROME.

I am not going to lie. When I arrived in Rome I acted like a small child on their first visit to Wonderland. I was hyper and excited, and insisted immediately after we left our things at our hostel that we go straight to the Colosseum. Where I proceeded to run around yelling for a while in pure excitement. Once I calmed down a bit, I took several pictures... of the same exact thing (as you will notice if you have seen my facebook albums for Rome. I apologize for being redundant, but at the same time, can you really blame me? It's fucking Rome).
And just because I love love the Colosseum so much, here's another:


Anywhoo, this wave of general excitement carried on for quite a few days, until finally, towards the end of the week, the excitement level sort of crashed (as it naturally has to), similar to when a kid is coming off of a sugar high (and imagine a week-long sugar high). What intensified this experience to the optimum level was that we were there during Cultural Week, which for us was more than we ever could have ever asked. Everything was free... all week. All the museums and sites (excluding the Vatican, since they are their own country and blah blah blah). So how could we not see everything? It was a bit exhausting, but we managed to cram it all in (challenging, because Rome is just so full of... stuff).
Michael and I are both really big fans of the HBO show Rome, so this was... a very special and geeky experience for both of us. Walking through the Roman forum, checking out the place where Caesar was murdered (the real place, not the fictious location as written by Shakespeare) and seeing the Senate (Michael took a piece of the building with him) was all really fascinating for us Roman history nerds.
There isn't much more I can say about Rome without sounding like a huge nerd, so um... I'll stop now. Seeing some beagle sitings along the way during our stay in this magical city was icing on the cake. We also explored life on the other side of the Tiber River (Trastavere), which was lovely and full of delicious food. This is the area that most "real" Romans live in (and I don't blame them, it's really nice and a good escape from all of the general tourism). We ate at what is known across Rome as the best pizzeria in town (it was), and also at a fancy little bar that specializes in serving delicious shots from chocolate shot glasses which you consume while you take the shot. It was both delicious and very, very challenging, as it was too much for our mouthes to handle and tended to be very messy. Anyway, I think Rome has been the highlight for me of Italy so far (maybe even of the whole trip), and I definitely can't wait to come back here... maybe for a longer term stay next time.