Forever young.

I’m leaving today for Brussels and Luxembourg, so here’s a recount of Rome. More on Florence and Venice and photos to come hopefully.

I can’t even begin explain how incredible Spring Break was, how beautiful Rome, Florence and Venice were and just how amazing I felt the entire time. I know I won’t do it justice, but I’ll try. You know those moments that you experience where you are just so happy, so content, so free that you could die at that very moment and be OK with it? Well, that would pretty accurately describe my feelings 24/7 last week.

I woke up Friday morning to Nou Nou knocking on my door, “Katherine, you have to get up! There’s 2 feet of snow on the ground, they’re cancelling flights and there are no trams to the train station or trains to the airport.” CRAP! Slight panic, until I looked outside and saw that Nou Nou’s “2 feet” was more like 3 inches…

I met Lex and Mika at the tram stop and headed to the train station. Successfully bought our 1.70 euro tickets to the airport…not so successfully got off the train. I was stuck—doors closing, whistle sounding, train pulling away from the station stuck—in between the train car and platform, big red suitcase in hand. Pretty epic start to the trip. Luckily, some nice French woman helped pry open the doors as Lex and Mika pulled me out on the other side. Still didn't make it any less embarrassing as the train pulled away and people pressed their faces up to the windows to laugh at me.

I immediately downed a whole pack of Tic Tacs just to get over the traumatic experience that I’d just endured.

Strasbourg airport is ghetto. I mean ghetto. Smaller than the Syracuse airport…if that’s even possible. Our AirFrance flight from Strasbourg to Paris was completely empty, but I was happy.

1. I didn’t have to sit next to any creepers
2. Otto got to sit in the empty seat next to me
3. The flight attendant gave me extra cat nip and stale cookies en route. Yum!
4. We could talk as loud as we freaking wanted.

Flight from CDG to Rome was delayed. Our friend Kelly had taken an earlier flight into Rome to meet one of her friends studying abroad there for her birthday before we got there. Finally successfully made it to the Termini train station in Rome.

Hostel Beautiful awaited us. It took us a little while, walking through the ghetto Chinatown of Rome…but with the help of my handy dandy Crackberry Google Maps app, we made it. So we drug our luggage up two flights of stairs to the check in...where the "s" has been ripped off the sign on the door that now reads "Ho tel beautiful." Lovely. We rang the bell and this big Italian guy let us in, "one second.” He disappears for 10 minutes and the three of us are standing there thinking "What did we get ourselves into?!"

The rooms were nice…plus the manager gave us free pasta and wine. We headed to bed early because we wanted to be up early to see the Coliseum.

The weather was BEAUTIFUL! Sunny, clear, warm. We all knew it was going to be an incredible day. We didn't really know where we were going, but for some reason we were ok with that. In French, you use the verb "flaner" which means to just wander, explore, and see what happens. So we did. All of the sudden we got to the end of the street, I turned to look to the left and shouted "oh my god, there it is!" I think that's how it was supposed to happen. We walked to the Coliseum and just stood in awe for a moment, taking pictures and just taking it in. We were pretty hungry so we found a restaurant nearby and sat outside and had pizza. I could relive that lunch over and over again.

We decided it was worth it to take an English tour of the Coliseum. There were people from Germany, Malta, Sweden, India, Greece...and Minnesota all in our group. At the beginning of the tour we proudly said we were from New York. Our tour guide was obsessed with us...the three young, blond haired, blue-eyed Americans spending their spring break in Rome. Priceless.

We realized how much the three of us were going to stick out in Italy, but we all decided it was completely OK. We are definitely three whitest girls out of the entire program, but we own it. Plus, Lex thinks she's black, so it balances us out. The thing about Italy though is that it's so welcoming…especially compared to France. You don't feel like you have to be quiet and fit in. None of us speak Italian, but we got along just fine. Everyone knew immediately that we were American, but it really didn’t bother me.

Anyway, we totally lived it up on our rated R tour. Our guide pointed out the ancient Roman penises engraved in the walls, made sexual advances on Mika and it was just great overall. Being at the Coliseum, like most things in Rome, is something you can't appreciate unless you're there. It's just indescribable. We finished our tour and then headed over to the Forum. We ditched the group and just explored on our own, which was totally worth it.

The rest of the day and half was just a whirlwind. Seeing the Vatican, climbing to the top of St. Peter’s Basilica during mass, the Trevi fountain, the Spanish Steps…and about a 20 other things that I don’t even know the names of.

This seems to be true of most experiences like this, where words and pictures cannot even explain how amazing it actually is. In all honestly, Rome is probably my favorite city in the world...if course that's what I said the first time I saw Paris...and the first time I saw Amsterdam. So take that with a grain of salt. But for right now, Rome, you're my number one.

I couldn't help but think back to the first time I visited Paris and Nice junior year of high school. I don't think I've ever been so genuinely happy before. I think the best part of it all is that we didn't have a plan at all while we were in Rome…or Florence or Venice for that matter. It was so incredibly hard for me, but so liberating at the same time. We just went with the flow, and honestly, it was amazing.

I think it hit me Saturday night when we were sitting at a cafe having hot chocolate. Let me tell you, Swiss Miss has nothing on Italian hot chocolate. This stuff was pure liquid chocolate. As we were sitting there "Forever Young" by Youth Group came on. We all paused because it was so perfect. It was our anthem. In that moment, that song described it all. There were so many moments like that that I almost can't even believe it…

Standing at the top of the Dome in St. Peter's basilica looking down on mass in the middle of communion with the organs playing, walking down on the main floor past the Pietà, seeing the names of all the popes since the beginning of time carved into the tablet, having a Scottish woman stopping us asking if we were American because she had heard that Bill Clinton had been in the hospital and she wanted to send him a card sending him her best wishes. She asked if we knew his address or where she should send it. We didn't know what to say. It's moments like that that I was truly moved to tears. It was just so indescribable. I know at least a dozen times during this trip I stopped myself—in the street, at St. Peter’s Square, at the Coliseum, at the Piazzle Michelangelo, on top of the Duomo, strolling the streets of Venice—closed my eyes, and said, "Don't ever forget this. Ever."