Rome - 1st Night, Spanish Steps

Rome was a nice change of pace from the business center of Milano. Not only were there historic pieces of stone everywhere you looked, not to mention millions of swarming tourists of every dimension, but the main sites and points of interest were all within walking distance from my hostel or a short metro ride away.

The first day I arrived off the train and called the place I wanted to stay at to discover that it was totally booked. The lady was able to give me another name and number of a place that she said was close by. It turned out to be a hostel and I must have called the number four or five times for directions before I finally reached the door. The lady kept telling me it was right around the corner and was sooo easy!, but I wanted her to try getting off a metro and stumbling around a random square in the middle of a random city with a heavy backback on a hot day before telling me how easy it was! Anyhow, I finally found the place and walked inside. Quite a surpirse to find myself inside what looked to be, could it be, a place smaller than a dorm room? And just as smelly too. Not sure how many rooms she had total there - but I saw three and each had between 8 to 6 beds (bunk beds). There were two tiny batyhrooms at the end of the hall. For twenty euros a night they did provide fresh sheets (you had to put them on your bed) and a towel for the shower if you did not have one. At first I was more than a little disappointed to find that I would be sleeping in a smelly room with four other boys (there was also another girl thankfully).

Turned out to be a lot of fun though. In the first hour there I met two boys from Canada and they told me it was a great way to meet young people traveling and doing the same types of things as me. After walking out to the sqaure and buying some fresh fruit at a corner stand I returned to find my bunkmates getting ready to go out for the night. They were from Germany and invited me to go see a few sites with them before heading to the Spanish Steps, a favorite hangout place at night.

After taking showers we took the metro around to a few places, took some photos and them headed over to the Spanish Steps. It was a gorgeous warm night, perfect for enjoying the outdoors with friends, especially in a gorgeous location like Rome. When we arrived, the Spanish Steps were already filled with hundreds of people, eating, drinking, singing along to guitar players and just hanging out and chatting with nearby neighbors. It was really a global melting pot of people. Not only did we meet another group of Germans, but also some girls from California as well as a couple from Austria.

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