I arrived into Rome around 11:00 on July 30th. I was very well rested, the champagne, wine, delicious dinner, sleeping pills and upgrade to First Class helped. Once again, my luggage did not make the journey with me. Delta is awful. This time I chose to be bumped to the next available flight (with the upgrade) but there were many angry people freaking out and sounding very similar to how I’m sure I sounded when I wasn’t allowed on my flight back to Seattle in June. Although, I was happy not to have my backpack as I made my way via, train, metro and about 15 minutes of wandering around aimlessly, before I used my best Italian to ask for help/directions from some lady smoking to find my bed and breakfast. Unlike Vancouver and Whistler, you are not seen as a complete loser for smoking here. Once I was settled, since I had nothing with me it didn’t take long, I went to the grocery store, bought a few essential items and my mom arrived shortly after I got back. We just sat around the room and then walked around and ate some pizza later that night.
I’m not sure who says you can’t see Rome in a day, we pretty much did. My mom loaned me some clothes and we walked about a zillion miles that second day. We had out our maps, were stopping at all the tourist places and eating; it was great! While we were wandering around we saw the most hilarious thing, it was these three guys working really hard to carry this massive fish to the restaurant, no, they didn't to through the back entrance, or straight to the kitchen, they went right on through Piazza Navona and then through the outdoor seating area, then they set the thing down while they tried to sort out how they were going to get through the door, it was hilarious!
We had some really delicious gelato, I didn’t like it when I lived in Florence, but now I think it’s one of the greatest foods ever. I love being back in Italy and being able to be here with my mom.
Colosseum
Mom in the Colosseum
Arco de Costantino, which I am convinced is different from when I was here before in 1996, the grassy area in front (which is not there) is where we all "camped". Or, more likely, we all slept out on the streets instead of paying for a hotel room...
Mom and I walking through the Roman Forum
View of the Roman Forum from Capitol Hill
My bags eventually arrived that day, which I really wasn’t expecting after last time, but I was very happy.
The next day I got up and went for a run, I saw another guy running on the street and followed him at a very good stalking distance and he led me to a park. It was nothing special, lots of warning signs in Italian, I know they said danger and I just pretended it was warning me of the rough terrain and kept on going. In the morning we grabbed coffee at the "world's best coffee shop", now, shouldn't that be in Dubai? And then walked through the Vatican Museum, my mom and I did it at the exact same pace, pretty much as fast as possible, I’m lucky she’s not a big museum person, I think it’s great and all, but I can look at everything pretty quickly and feel good about it. We wandered around the city a bit more, found a cute place for lunch, went to see the first McDonalds in Europe, nothing special (… shocking!) then after that we came back to our hotel for our daily siesta and my mid day shower.
View of Vatican City
Mom and I in front of Trevi Fountain
Mom on the Spanish Steps
Cute little cafe
It’s really, really hot;I have just been dripping with sweat. The thing is, while it is hotter and more humid in Dubai, we don’t try to do anything outside, here life just goes on as normal. We didn’t wake up till 7:00pm that evening, so we just got ready real fast and took the metro to Piazza del Popolo, it seemed less touristy, really cute and we had a great dinner and finally some wine. I’m not sure how I’ve been here for so long without having wine, well, I guess it’s only been a few days, but still!
We thought about taking a little day trip today, but considering we haven't made it one day without a siesta, we instead decided to go back and see St. Peter's Basilica, walk through this park and try to go to a museum. I also went back to that same place I ran yesterday, only I went a different way and it was awesome. The views were amazing and there were all these old aqua ducts and well, ancient looking things around. It was also hilly and shaded. Very fun!
The basilica was beautiful.
The walk through the park was gorgeous and the views were amazing!
We wandered down to the Trastevere area and stopping at a little fruit market, it was so great!
I had a minor meltdown due to heat stroke, well, not really (there was definitely a meltdown, but no heatstroke). I was miserable and could not even think straight. I was literally dripping with sweat and freaking out. Nobody else seemed to be in such a frantic state, not that eeryone looked comfortable or anything, but I seriously believe my body cannot handle heat the wame way as other people's. Maybe that's part of prediabetes... We sat and had these huge delicious salads for lunch at this cute place, I felt way better after that. Then we headed over to the National Museum. There was nothing there that was that interesting to me, I'm sure it's a great museum and all, and there were a few cool mosaics, but I'm just not a huge sculpture person. We came back, hung out for a bit, I got my daily mid afternoon shower and then we headed out for dinner. We went to this really cute place
and then came home so that we could get ready to go to Venice in the morning. I am loving every second of this vacation! I am wishing the weather would cool down a bit, but that doesn't seem likely...
No comments:
Post a Comment