Roma

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? Well , I did my best. Arriving at our ¨house¨we realized that this company had done some very decietful things with their advertising and what we thought was going to be a chateau turned out to be a shack. What was supposed to be a fold out queen bed was a piece of wood with a single piece of foam on top, and the porch was about as big as the whole place. Not only was the shack small and poorly made, but the location was horrible, we realized we were probably going to have to take a cab into the town every day and night.
Since I was the one tagging along on their vacation I decided to leave and find a hostal for myself so that the girls wouldnt have to share a bed. My friends thought I was a little crazy to do so, but I left early the next morning to navigate the train and metro by myself, find a hostal and check myself in. It was so exciting to be honest being on my own in such a city finding my own way, I had the sensation that the whole world was at my fingertips. After checking in I headed to the Colosseo. My phone was out of money and what I hadnt planned for was that I couldnt recharge it in Italy. Therefore, I was without any possible communication to my friends and the only thing I knew was that they may also be going to the Colosseo that morning. I very luckily found them and we took a tour of the Colosseo and Roman Forum, ate some delicious Italian pasta, saw the Circo Massimo at night and a cute Italian coffee shop for some drinks afterwards. The next day I visited the Vatican Museum early in the morning, got myself some gelato, not to be confused with ¨ge la do¨ (if you speak Italian you know what I am saying), visited Basilica de San Pietro, and took a nap. Later my friends and I met up for Pub Crawl, which is a organized bar hop that includes all you can drink beer, all you can eat pizza, an opportunity to meet travelers from around the world, and the most exciting of course, a free t-shirt to be your testimony that you were there, because you most likely won´t remember it.
The next day I saw the Spanish Steps, made a wish in Trevi fountain, ate more gelato, walked around the Jewish Ghetto, visited the Pantheon, and ended at Circo Massimo again. It was much prettier during the day, this park where the Romans raced chariots. The sun put a beautiful happy roman glow on all the Italians lounging and playing music and futbol in the park. I was in heaven. I later met up with two gals from my hostal for a trip down to the part of Rome that is not on the tourist maps! It was so exciting, we had very vague directions but the lure of an ¨authentic Italian scene¨ so we wandered and found a delightful Italian bar perfect for people watching as we could sit outside in the warm weather. To our delight there were no tourists to watch, we were surrounded by Italian, not English, and a group of entertaining friends sat at the table next to us playing guitar and singing. We sat for hours just absorbing the Italian wine, food, music, beautiful people and beautiful architecture. If all of Rome was like this neighborhood I would move there in a heartbeat, but sadly, Rome will always be a place full of foreigners. I did decide on this trip though, that after I learn German I am going to focus on Italian, and hopefully spend some time living there, because I completely fell in love with everything Italy. I already can understand about 30 percent of Italian as well because it is so similar to Spanish, so it should be relatively easy to learn.