Day 28 & Day 29: Rome, Italy - Drunk on the Spanish Steps (literally)

On Wednesday, I was sitting at breakfast when a girl sat next to me. I looked over and she looked at me and we both were like, "hey you look familiar." Turns out that she was a girl I had briefly talked to on the train from Nice. She had been on her way to Cinque Terra and I was on my way to Florence. I figured I wouldn't see her again since we'd only talked for the last part of the trip and we were going our own ways. How crazy! She's 26, from Seattle and a hairstylist there. Also traveling alone but she likes it a lot less than I do, it was nice to have someone along though. We were both on our way to Rome so she decided to take the later train with me since I was supposed to meet Julia from Denver at the station. Well, turns out that Julia was super late anyway and didn't even end up coming on our train. Crazy how things work out for themselves.

Our hostels even ended up being like 2 blocks from each other so of course we hung out that night. We seriously walked around for 3 1/2 hours without meaning to, mostly because we were trying to find cafes or restaurants to eat at. In that time though, we managed to walk by the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the big monstrosity, the pantheon, the trevi fountain, and the spanish steps. Wow! It's amazing to see all the ruins just randomly dotting around the city. Seriously, I wonder how many miles we walked. There are people EVERYWHERE though! It's a much bigger city than Florence and much more spread out, it takes about 20 min just to get over to the side of town with all the stuffs. I don't think I like it quite as much but am enjoying all the history and architecture.

After all that effort, we ended up just eating at a restaurant right near my hostel which has a deal with Elizabeth's hostel. The food was GREAT and the staff were so funny. The electricity kept going out and we kept laughing with the Italian guy next to us about it. It rained that night! Mostly sprinkles but rain is rain.

Yesterday (Thursday), we slept in a bit since we were exhausted from the day before. I had my free breakfast than headed over to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. The walk took over an hour but it's a great way to orient yourself in the city which I enjoy. The wait also wasn't that long and we got a student discount, stoked! It was amazing to be in there. The art is beyond fabulous and just as amazing as everyone raves about. The ceiling in the map room was so detailed and every inch of wall space was covered. That's the thing about everywhere... all the ceilings, walls, cabinets, EVERYTHING is frescoed or painted. Not one inch of space is showing. The Sistine Chapel was SO awesome, I love Michaelangelo's work in general, can you imagine craning your neck to create that?! Incredible.

After zooming through most of the museums due to hunger, we went and walked around again for food. But got distracted by shopping, ha ha. Hey I can't help it, I'm tired of my clothes plus I found some stuff I can wear in China too. Stopped by at some food places after and then found a cheap pizzeria. Of course after that, we had to have some gelato! Yummy, gelato.

My friend Ross (from Scotland) and I had been trying to meet up too so I went to check my email at 8:45pm and he wanted to meet at 9pm! Whoops, so I rushed out and we ended up meeting up with Elizabeth at her hostel too. How cool, both my Florence friends in Rome with me! I love when stuff like that works out. I'm still tripped out that you can pretty much meet your friends anywhere in the world.

We decided to do a city walk so we went back to where Elizabeth and I had trekked around all day. Wow, I was tired of that walk! But it ended up being really cool just chilling around. We tried to find some affordable beer but this was quite difficult after 10:30pm as all the supermarkets close at 9pm. There are beer carts charging 4 euro for one of the big bottle of beers, what a ripoff! Plus he wouldn't haggle with us. We debated getting wine instead but we perservered and decided to keep walking. Finally we found a cart that gave us 6 pretty good beers for 3 euro each, what a deal! :-P At that point we were so happy to just have beer, I think it didn't matter. Turns out it was Ross' 22nd birthday at midnight too, so me and Elizabeth wouldn't let him buy beer, he was so embarassed about it.

We headed over to the Spanish Steps after that where it was pretty bumping. There was a group of singers with guitars playing all the American hits... ok mostly Chili Peppers but they did a great cover of 'Wish you were here.' The three of us played a modified version of Kings cup that got really dodgy but fun. Not long after that, we met 3 Italian guys who were SO nice. We were about to get swept off the steps so we moved up above and the guys (one older guy and two guys in their late 20s) bought everyone a bottle of wine to share. Didn't want any money, just sat and talked with us for hours, it was really great fun. Such nice people!! I love Italians, well, for the most part. Their English was really good and it was easy to have fun conversation with them. Carlo is an artist and he was telling me how San Francisco is his favorite city. He's been doing body painting in Rome for 25 years, isn't that nuts?

You know what else was nuts? I was sitting on the Spanish Steps in ROME ITALY with a Scottish boy, an American girl, and three Italian guys. WHAT THE HELL!! One of the coolest and most fun experiences in my life.

It got super cold so we finally headed back around 2:30am. I'm glad Ross was with us because it can get kinda sketchy at night. As we got back to our side of town, I said goodbye to my friends, Ross is headed to Naples and Elizabeth is headed to Greece. So sad, but I know there are more adventures to come. But only for less than 2 weeks!!! Holy shit, that's not very far away. It's crazy because hostel life has become my home life... you go from hostel to hostel, get comfortable with your surroundings and then it's time to leave and do it all over again. It appeals to me not having to stay in one place for very long. I mean, I'll be stoked to come home but it will be strange for a bit.

Anyway, now that I'm solo again this will give me a chance to see some art hopefully, I need to see some Carvaggio!