Advertisement
Published: June 17th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Colosseum
Not exactly Reggie Bush style, but still pretty cool. My Journey So I made it to Rome safe and sound. The trip wasn't all that bad and I slept on the plane for most of the time, so it went by pretty quickly. The first person who welcomed me to Rome was a transvestite dressed as a cheerleader who was riding on a bus talking over a loud speaker. I'll get into the context of this encounter later.
Once we got into Rome we were greeted by our taxi cab driver who was pretty funny. One of my buddies had gotten into Rome a few minutes earlier than us and apparently the driver was freaking out because our baggage took longer than normal to unload so we didn't meet up with him when we were supposed to. The only English word he said to was "Toronto", since that's where we were flying in from. I don't think he knew much about driving either, which was a little disturbing. We didn't stop at one stop sign, and we were driving on the trolly tracks for a while to avoid the gay pride parade which happened to be taking place that day.
Anyways, when we got to the hotel we checked
Basilica S. Maria
Ugly on the outside, pretty on the inside, just like me. in and unloaded all of our belongings. The room is a little small but it's pretty nice. My main gripe is with the bathroom, which is so absurd that it's borderline comical. We don't have a shower head. Just a bathtub with one of those snake heads that you can hang on a hook on the wall. The problem is we have no hook to hang it on, so you have to hold it the whole time. The second problem is that we have no shower curtain. It's not that big of a deal since if you lock the door no one can walk in on you and see you naked. But wait, there is no door lock... Sadly, for Garrett, he learned the hard way that you should always knock before entering a bathroom that has no shower curtain.
Since we got into Rome at 11:30 am, we still had the whole day to go exploring, which we did. A group of us walked down to the Colosseum, which was actually really cool. Since we are taking a guided tour of it tomorrow (Monday), we didn't pony up the cash to go inside. But we took some cool
Hangin' With A Gipsy
She got the last laugh when she took my wallet. pictures. We also saw a gipsy, although she was just kneeled on the ground chanting and holding out her hands for people to put money into. Here's a picture of me pretending to hold the gipsy.
Anyways, after we had enough of the Colosseum, we decided to stop at a really cool cafe and drink a beer. Then, we walked a few blocks down to where they were having the gay pride rally. It hadn't really kicked off yet but they were playing some U2 over a big speaker. We hung out for a few minutes and then left to go back to the hotel to take a nap. Unfortunately, I picked out the wrong direction to walk, so I ended up walking 45 minutes in the wrong direction. It was a bad mistake.
Once we got back to the hotel we took a nap and then went out to dinner where I ate the best pizza I think I've ever had. After dinner we went to a Mexican-themed discoteca which is right around the corner from the hotel.
Today was also pretty fun, we just walked around and saw some more sights. We went into a
Fountain
Pretty cool. really cool basilica where they had a bunch of awesome statues and things. My favorite was one of St. John the Baptist's head. Here's a picture of it. Also, we went to Piazza di Republica, which was a big center with a fountain. I put my feet in the fountain... it felt dirty.
Well I forgot razors for my face, so I'm off around the corner to a barber shop where they will shave my face for me. I'm a little nervous. If there is any serious bleeding I'll make sure to take pictures.
I hope everyone is doing well, and I'll write again soon.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
-Mineral water is delicious.
-If you bug the hotel receptionist enough at 4:30 A.M. he will let you make a free phone call to the United States.
-It amazes me how the city is built around ancient ruins... There's not like a modern part of the city and then one little strong hold of ruins; the history of the city really permeates throughout.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0256s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
AUnt Melanie
non-member comment
Wonderful
Yes, wonderful to see that you are studying hard and leanring the important things over there - gay pride, where the best pizza is, the disco's and how to finally shave correctly. We are so very proud!