ROMA!

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Lovely! We have arrived in Roma...and the train ride here wasn't half bad either. We woke up in Napoli and fell asleep in Roma! It was quite nice actually....on our way down to the train we had the sweetest old italian men trying to help us find our way around, because it was obvious with our huge-mongous backpacks that we weren't from their parts. Then after arriving at the station we had the sweetest little old lady help us figure out where to buy tickets. That is onwe thing about Italy, things close and open throughout the day. Anyway, we got to Napoli Centrale and hopped on our train to Roma...the wrong train I might add, I asked them if we were getting on the right train about 3 times....anyway we thought we'd save our Eurail days and just buy a ticket for this leg of the trip...a brilliant idea(Manda and Kirst)...NOT....we ended up having to use a day anyway. Oh well....so the first hostel we had booked in the wee hours of the morning was a campsite outside of Roma. Just our luck, after getting out of the Metro station it started to pour. We were looking for the bus we needed to get on to get to the campground....and for some reason mother nature decided to just bless us with downpour. As we walked along with our big fatty packs, in the pouring rain, I just couldn't hold it in....I started laughing....I mean it was just hilarious...I know I'd be laughing at me if I was an onlooker....so I just laughed at us. It was great splashing through all the puddles. Then after walking 100 meters in the wrong direction(which is where one man had directed us)...we asked another man, who spoke better English, and had to march back the way we came. So we found the bus actually came right to the metro...on the other side. It was jolly good fun though. We arrived at the campsite and found it wasn't half bad....we thought it was going to be a lot worse. Of course after arriving the rain did stop, now that we weren't outside walking anymore! We spent the evening just watching some music videos in the common area of the campground, and turned in early! Today we moved to the next hostel, Ivanhoe, where we will be for the next 3 days....so this was also a place we were a little unsure of....but it turned out to be decent...and very centrally located! The Colosseum is literally around the corner. After checking in and dropping our bags, we went to find some grub...since we hadn't really ate since breakfast the day before! OOPS! We ended up grabbing some yummy italian pasta at a nice little place behind some of the Roman Ruins. Afterwards, we strolled about the streets of Roma. We walked past the Colosseum, around the Arco di Tito, and sat on a little bench in front of the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II. We explored the area a bit and then headed back to the hostel. The rest of the night looks pretty laidback...we plan to go explore the Vatican tomorrow!

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