I was in such a rush to the airport but somehow I wafted through my vast sea of confusion and made it with more than enough time. Checkin process was very self-service. You check in on a wee monito and then scan your bag before sending it off through the conveyer belt. When I went through security though I got the frisking of my life. Definitely the most action I've gotten in a long while.
Rome! I slept almost the whole way to Rome, with a lucky window seat snag. Customs here was even faster than in Denmark because I literally just did not get checked. No passport control whatsoever. Baggage claim was also way faster. My bag was coming out by the time I got to the turnstile. Win. After getting a few euros I went to take a bus into Rome termini, about a 50 minute ride. I hopped on a 5euro coach bus and ended up talking the whole time to a girl from nj who's been studying abroad here. She gave me some tips about places to go and we talked about the absurd preprofessionalism in America, but i somehow never got her name (she got off at a different stop anyway)
Well here we go for some tense-changing because I'm now finishing up that bus ride. We passed the coliseum a few minutes ago which was pretty cool and from what I can tell from the rainy outdoors that is currently Rome, looks like an interesting city, albeit way fewer bikes. I'll write more when I have more to say.
Alright, yeah, so I got horrifically lost when I left the train station drop off point. Like, off into the rainy wrong direction. I wandered for ages before finally entering a hotel and asking for help. Maybe a half hour later, a full 23 minutes of rain walking longer than the Google-maps suggested travel time, I made it to the yellow. One of the best hostels I've ever stayed in, so if you go to Rome, the yellow is the move. Fucking awesome. I never met my roommates (or I have? Idk. I may have whilst blacked out) but I was in a 6 person room as the third person. Muchly space.
After dropping off my stuff quickly I headed down to the hostel bar to make friends. Instantly I started talking to this great chick, Julia. British girl, wandering around post masters in psychological research methods. She shared her chips with me as I began to guzzle beers. I then met Kevin who had been working at the yellow a bit ago and kinda randomly living in Rome for the past nine weeks. He's from Texas.
Party traveled downstairs for some beer pong. Kevin and I were the best undefeated, though occasionally defeated team for that night and the next.
That night I stayed in the hostel but met a rotating crew of amazing people. This Aussie chick Bonnie was really fun as well as dandrew, the wonderful combination of Daniel and Andrew, a duo traveling from Minnesota. Even though I was fully ignorant as to where Minnesota was, we were able to still get on. Andrew dj'd spotify from my work phone for the start of the night.
My switch from beer to bottles of red wine pretty accurately described the level up or the night. Soon the beer pong table had to go and the room filled with humans listening to some awesome live music and then a dj set. This girl Nicole sang first and holy shit she was so talented. I got to talking to her afterwards and we'll hopefully join forces back in New York.
My night winded down in a sea of confusion and my next vivid memory was being awoken by the cleaning ladies back in my dorm. They only needed my sheets, and we're cool with me showering after, so no big deal. at this hostel if you oversleep you're supposed to have your picture taken and face some bout of Internet shaming, but for some reason I wasn't on the list of humans to embarrass. Thank god.
I had a hungover, freezing shower and then made my way slowly downstairs to the bar. It was past noon at this point but I was briefly communicating with Kevin over Facebook and found him with Julia and two lovely Turkish girls to go on a wee day adventure. Kevin does bike tours of the city so his tour guide personality took over and it was a day full of facts and history lessons. Such a good find. We started off by getting maybe the best pizza I've ever had. Twas more what j would call a flatbread, but a great personal sized treat that helped cure my pains from the night prior. I got some sort of sliced meat on top of mine. Amazing. - http://www.pinsereroma.com/
Then we ventured towards this cool park, villa borghese and learned a lot through our story telling tour guide. After feeding ducks some Spanish crackers and interacting briefly with a mega duck dinosaur, our party size decreased and it was just me and Kevin. We headed to the Vatican, which j didn't know, but apparently is technically another country. The line to get in through security was quite long and it was pudding down on us the whole time we waited. Once we got into the basilica though it was pretty amazing. We were making jokes the whole time and on our own low-brow adventure, so disrespectful that we were asked to shut up while in a prayer area. All in good fun. Figuring out what the pope was probably up to at the time (definitely having a bath filled with proseco, watching reruns of will and grace) was an absurd activity we took part in. We came out to a dry day and confined onwards towards piazza navona, which we somehow had great difficulty finding. Before we got there though we passed a little rotating street art exhibit that this artist, fausto , created from found objects and rubbish. Little stops with little title cards and funny objects all on a ledge. One of them had a photo of the building behind us with a man standing in front of it. It said 'double take'. When we got to this one we heard a whistle and turned around to see that exact man in front of the building. The artist. By the time we went to look at him again, another whistle sounded and he was by the end of the stretch. It was so cool to chat with him briefly after and thank him for such a lovely bit of art to absorb. His 'business card' came in the form of a small piece of cloth with his name written on it.
We did then find the piazza navona. The architecture in Rome is a serious spectacle. Next stop was the pantheon, which came with a bit of rain. The pantheon is an incredible building, so crazy to see in person. There's an oculus at the top of it and though some rain did fall in, it would end really amazing to see snow drop in from above. Maybe one day. After we stopped for some more pizza at this placed called super pizza. Definitely a different, less 'craft' style, but still delicious. I also tried a rice ball whilst there. The dude at the counter went to hand me the napkins in the display case, and like the standard stupid I am, I played the role of manatee and knocked my fist into the glass. So dumb.
Once we had our fill we went to a nearby church, which I stupidly dubbed the fifteenth chapel. Here the architecture was trumped by the phenomenon of illusion forming frescos on the ceiling that faked the existance of a larger building. Apparently during construction it became clear that the desired arc and some would not be supported, so paint did the trick, and depending on where you were standing the forced perspective led you to believe the building had a shape much different from the truth. I really liked this place. We wandered around a scale model of some non existent church and contemplated the existence of secret passage ways below.
As we ventured towards the layer cake (national building or something. I don't remember the name but was told that it's often nicknamed based on its shape), we side tracked and snuck into an art museum. The ticket lady wasn't looking at all, but by the time we got to the next barrier decided not to continue. I didn't really want to face criminal charges in Italy. Not today at least.
The rain was at it again when we got towards the cake. Apparently the statue at the front of the building has a mustache 2 meters wide. We then continued and checked out trajan's column and the long story spiraling up it as a meticulous relief. One scene in particular, with two men making out post pillage was the highlight.
Our final trek led us to the colosseum and arch of Constantine. The fact that these iconic, amazing structures are just amongst the city still blows my mind and makes Rome such a special city. It was cool to see it in person finally.
We then hopped on a subway and ventured back to the hostel, where beer became the theme of the evening yet again. I was booked for a 1035 train to Venice so only had a few hours for drinks and more beer pong. Similar characters as the night before, plus a really cool girl from Tassie with two architectural tattoos. It was really bittersweet to leave the friends j had made, but Kevin walked me to the train station and I hopped aboard a night train to Venice.
The train was pretty empty, thus pretty great. I was a bit drunk and preparing my space for sleep, with only one other guy in my 4 person couchette cabin. He went out and said his girlfriend was going to come back with him, but they weren't back by the time that I was moved to a different cabin altogether because the lock on the door didn't work. Sweet. All alone for a 7 hour journey. I slept pretty well but was awoken a few ones by the fear of missing the stop at Venice. At 520 we landed, but not before some dude came and brought me a little carton of orange juice and warned me of our impending arrival. The toilet on the train didn't have a toilet seat. Every jinn else was good though. An easy evening.
Now I'm in Venice sitting at the train station, killing time and watching the sun come up. I'll head towards the bus station soonly where Liam should be arriving in about two hours. More adventuring to come!
So far my whole trip has been largely dominated by Americans (weird, I reckon. When I was in Asia I so rarely saw any Americans, and here they seem to be everywhere.). Maybe I'll meet some proper Italians soon.
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