When in Rome...

Ok well i just wanted to make that a title at some point. It's amazing how much you feel you can get away with when you say that.

"feel like a glass of wine?" - me
"it's 11:00 am" - Dave
"well, when in Rome..." - me

And that makes it ok. Awesome.

I'm in Rome now, obviously. I suppose that most of my trip has been about getting back to Rome. They say that if you toss a coin into the trevi fountain it ensures your return to the eternal city. Well I'm back baby.

Last time I was here I really loved it. It's an amazing city. It's a weird combination of beautiful architecture and fantastic ruins (coliseum, forum, pantheon) mixed with preserved and newer beautiful things (piazza navona, trevi fountain). It also has a if city feel while still maintaining a small area feel. Don't get me wrong, its not perfect, tourists are fuckin everywhere, street hawkers are something like you've never seen in Rome, and it's generally filled with people. It's still an amazing city.

The first 2 days consisted of most of my sightseeing. Did all the things I've mentioned so far as well as the palatine hill, and some other small things. I had 6 nights so I wasn't in a rush.

Rome really got exciting on my third evening there. I re-met with a buddy from Paris. Can you believe it? I managed to see a guy I had met for 5 days in Paris about 2 months ago. We had just missed each other in Florence and massager we saw each other in Rome. Dave is a big tall Aussie with crazy hair and says things like "he's as mad as a cut snake" he is wonderful.

We went out for drinks and dinner after a tour. By drinks and dinner I mean we found cheap takeout pasta and one euro wine and went and sat in a piazza and drank and ate. It was wonderful.

The next day we went out to find markets. We figured seeing a cool Italian market would be really neat. We went 3 different places and failed at all 3. With no markets to be found we headed back to the hostel to chill out.

That night was amazing. We met up with 5 friends I had made in sorrento and bumped into another guy from Florence all staying at our hostel. My other buddy was coming into town too.

John from cinque terre goes to school in Maastricht (Netherlands) he's a great guy and he and I travelled a couple weeks before. I saw on his facebook that he was bored and wanted to go traveling again. I said "I'm in Rome next weekend, yellow hostel, I'll see you there."
His response was "sounds good"

Can we just take a minute and think about how sweet that is? Going to school in the Netherlands and then traveling to Rome for a weekend? Fuck yes please!

The ten or so of us partied all night and it was absolutely fantastic. One guy gave me 20 euros to go to the store for him as we were all going. With that money he just said "surprise me". Now for those who know me well, you would never make that mistake with me and alcohol. Just stupid. Well with that 20 I got 2 26oz bottles of vodka, 1L of sprite, 1L of orange juice, and 2 bottles of wine. I took one bottle for myself and said the 20 bought the rest. Unfair? No. Surprise, you bought me alcohol.
Thanks Ohio.


I must just mention that i think thus far this has been the most surreal part of my trip. I was sitting at the head of a table today with 10 people that i had met in DIFFERENT cities than rome. Dave was from Paris, John from Cinque Terre, Catherine from Venice, Shane from Florence, Emily, Kristen and Rachel and the girls from Sorrento. It was absolutely surreal and amazing.
End first half of Rome.