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Published: October 7th 2008
This is the first city where I spent money for a tour, two actually. I paid for the tour at il colosseo and Palentino. The tour for il colosseo was crap, a very long winded tour guided who kept closing his eyes while he spit out adjective after adjective after adjective after adjective to describe one single aspect. After the second stop, I eventually just started wandering off taking pictures and looking at stuff on my own. I kept the group in sight since I would have to catch up to them later to meet for the tour for Palentine hill. If you get the guide who looks like Bob Euker, ask for the next guide. Fortunately, the next part was led by a different guide - a much better speaker, and a lot more informative. After that tour ended, I was wandering the Forum when I heard "this is a free tour, anyone can join". My ears perked up and I stopped for a session. The guide was putting out some serious facts, and very eloquently. Turns out it was Jason Speihler from Roman Odyssey tours - recommended by the NY Times. Stuck with him to the end and he
told us about his night walk and Vatican tours - unfortunately, not free. The night walk was about 2.5 hrs later, so he recommended some nearby restaurants to check out, mention his name and get a free champagne to start the meal off right. Niceness. I talked him down to the student rate for the tours to save about 5eur for each - which is extra important after seeing the news about the state of the US economy right now. I just joked with him about thinking about enrolling in grad school (no mom, not going to happen), and he pulled me aside as we were walking and told me he'd give me the student rates as long as I kept it quiet. I'm doing the Vatican with him tomorrow, which is my last day in Rome.
After the Vancouver roomies exited, the east coast Canadians rolled in. We all signed up for a pub crawl at the Yellow bar (lounge area for the hostel), but it was canceled because there weren't enough folks. What to do. Beer pong, flip cup, wine night! After a few games of flip cup (out team won the championship 3 of 5, in
a thrilling comeback in the 5th game), and a couple of bottles of house red (solo) I was ready to crawl up to my bed.
I'm getting too old for this stuff.
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manang
non-member comment
keeping it on the dl
good job on keeping the student rate on the dl...shh don't tell anyone (just post it on the world wide web)