Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect 150.42 Euro

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DISCLAIMER: For the record, this blog entry was written before I went to Florence.

I don't understand how a currency that reminds me of Monopoly Money can be so much stronger than the dollar. The exchange rate is laughable. Everything here seems cheap because you can get lunch for like 5 Euro. But then you remember that's really like 7 dollars and all you're getting is a piece of pizza and a small fanta. Today I ordered what I thought was sausage pizza. It was actually hot dog and sauerkraut pizza. Turns out that whoever thought to put hot dogs and sauerkraut on a pizza isn't very bright. It's not good.

Hands down, the highlight of this week has been the group dinner that a few of us organized on Monday night. There has been some drama among the girls, none of us really know or understand what it's about, but the bottom line is that we needed a little break from them after having spent a week straight hearing about their problems. So, all the guys decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner because we were all craving an old-fashioned American hamburger. Well, much to our surprise, the wait was over 2 hours long. So, we said forget it and, determined to get that burger, walked 2.5 kilometers to the nearest McDonalds to chow down on the most delicious, most expensive Big Mac any of us had ever experienced. Funny thing about McDonalds is that in Europe, it's more expensive than a lamb dinner at the restaurant around the corner from the hotel. I paid 10 Euro for a Big Mac, fries, and Chicken McNuggets. I'm pretty sure that in the States it would cost less than 3 dollars. But, it was worth every cent. You should have seen the utter joy on all of our faces as we enjoyed the first meal in over a week that didn't have noodles or tomato sauce as one of the primary ingredients.

Food is becoming a big issue for all of us. A lot of the conversations center around our first meal upon returning to the states. My plan right now is to get a burger in the Montreal Airport during my layover, and then when I land in Los Angeles eat at the first Mexican restaurant my Mom and I see.

I leave for Florence tomorrow... I'll have plenty of pictures of that for you all on Monday. I think we are hitting up all the big museums and important monuments on Friday, and then going to Pisa to climb the leaning tower on Saturday morning. But, as exciting as all of this is, I'm just happy to get out of Rome.

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