Reliving the movie Taken.

Today was a total nightmare. Never go into downtown Rome with 4 BYU girls who are trying to meet Italian men. Total nightmare... I have never felt so much like mommy before in my life. Our professor left us to do our own thing around 12 today, so we had 10 hours to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day. Four of us girls decided that we wanted to wander around the streets of Rome, and just get a taste of Italy. It started off great. We ate pizza at a little resteraunt and got fed bottled water and extra bread. We were told by the owner that he wanted us to eat there again haha. After that, we decided to get off at Flaminio and go see the fountains and to go do some shopping. There were 2 girls that were with me, that were obsessed with coming home with an Italian boyfriend. We stopped every 5 minutes to get a picture with a random man and to talk to him with the little Italian that we knew. ( i have only seen about 3 cute Italian men over here, and I think they were in their 40's. The old men are...... *phew* so beautiful. It's like Brad Pitt got a makeover and a face lift. They look so good). Anyways, I was ok with it at first because we made sure they looked somewhat normal. We continued to walk around the shops, and stopped off at H&M to do some shopping. They came out with bags and bags, and I made sure I didnt touch anything. I knew I would buy something if I tried anything on, so I did a good job. As we were continuing on our walk, I saw a man selling scarves and jewelry on the side of the road. They were so beautiful. I bought 2 scarves that I just could not stop looking at. That is the end of my suveniers, but it was so worth it.

One of the girls in my group worked at an internship for an Italian high end store. I think it was called Roberto Cavali? Anyways, she wanted to visit him, so we traveled up and down so many alleyways to try to find her friend. We didn't realize what time it was getting, and the streets were getting really crowded and it was getting dark. We would lose eachother every once and a while and I was getting sick to my stomach. I was not ok being in Rome after like 6 o' clock.

We decided to give up, and started taking our pictures by random places. One of the girls would talk to every boy we met. She started talking to these boys who asked us where we were sleeping that night, and I had to tell them to leave her alone and I dragged her away. I think she was mad at me. The other girl got bumped into, and I watched a man grab her purse zipper to open it. I yelled at the girl and I saved her life too. Then, we had a man in a motorcycle ask us if we wanted a ride, and the girls started to talk back. I was seriously stressed at this point, so I grabbed the blonde's arm, and I told him no. We started walking, and he was at the top of the street again asking us. I shook my hand and kept walking. Then a third time, he was at the top of the street and he had gotten off his motorcycle. I grabbed Kate's arm, and I pulled her into the street so we would have to cross. I was so scared, and I wanted out of Rome so bad. Now, I am home and everyone is ok. I am so glad I was able to listen to promptings and could figure things out.

Anyways, hopefully tomorrow is good too haha. We got to see the coluseam today and the Forum in the morning which was pretty cool. The Coluseum is HUGE! I got to see how how they lifted the animals up onto the stage, and all the decorations that were covering the building. It would have been a really pretty place. I learned that most of the slaves they used to battle eachother were Jews. AFter the gladiators would fight, they would have 2 slaves battle to the death in honor of the guy who left his life. Pretty weird huh?

Anyways, that was the end of my crazy Roman day.