Bella Roma!

Well here I am in beautiful Rome! And it's really quite fantastic... I'm already enchanted by it's charms and unexpected 'surprises' even though this is my barely my first FULL day here...

OK I'm getting ahead of myself.. here's catchup time...

Yesterday I was wrecked. Shattered. Zombie-fied.. y'see I hadn't slept for more than around 3 hours over the previous 48 hours (on account of the last day at work partay, and then getting up at 3am the next day to catch my cheapo Ryanair flight from Dublin to London). Which was all worth it in the end... the whole trip to Italy and back is only gonna cost me around 200 euros including tax. Which is very good considering the season we're in!!
Word

Sittin beside me on the plane over to Italy was an American chappie by the name of Justin. He was doing his best to learn the entire dictionary of Italian slang in one hour, in preparation for any hostile encounters in Italy. It's all good.
It quickly turned out that he and his friend, Mitch, we're gonna be staying at the same hostel as I was, so we all agreed to figure out the cheapest way of getting from the airport to central Roma.
As the flight came in over Rome, we all got our first view of the colosseum and St Peter's basilica. It was amazing!

Mitch and Justin also provided for some good company on the first Roman pizza-beer-fest of my life. It rocked! The night ended up with us heavily inebriated beneath the gigantic colosseum... what a way to go. Oh and we also stuffed ourselves silly in the gelataria with ice cream. Delicious ice cream. Tiramisu and chocalate chip ice cream... oh yes.



On the note of Americans though, Rome is PACKED with them!
(in a similar way that Oz was packed with Japanese)
I even got 'accused' by an Italian of being American (on account of my baseball cap)...

Right well here's a few of my many observations on life Roma-stylee...

Spray paint. Ok, EVERYTHING that doesn't breathe, has some sort of spray paint on it here! It's actually kind of artistic, and it boosts the metro lines no end. Unfortunately it also takes away from a lot of the beautiful buildings around the place.. thankfully classical Roman architecture is left relatively untouched.

Good lookin people. Ok it's like a model photo shoot everywhere here... I dunno what they eat but it certainly can't be pasta and pizza all the time!

Traffic. I was warned about the crazy drivers here and certainly they do like to drive fast and almost hit each other (in fact I saw a police car knock down a vespa in St. Peter's square... which was then followed by a disgruntled motorcyclist dusting himself off, giving a chin-flick gesture and him going on his merry way once again). But the worst thing has to be the 'respect' giving to pedestrians.. or the complete lack thereof. Crossing a zebra crossing is like taking your life into your own hands.. if you're not walking with at least 2 other people, then the cars won't stop for ya. A green man = DRIVE FASTER!

Okily.. well I took the jump-on-jump-off bus tour of Rome today for 12 euros. It's a great way to get around cheaply... Rome isn't as small as people make out so it's nice not to have to walk everywhere.

Today I did an 'overview' tour and spent most of the time checking oot the ancient forum and outside the colosseum. I also ended up in St Peter's before I once again got shattered with exhaustion after an overload of experiences today. A bit like what happened to me when I first went to Las Vegas. I'm now chilling in the hostel and want to get some good rest for tomorrow...

Tomorrow I plan on going IN to the colosseum and the vatican and check out those spanish steps yo.


Me off to get some pasta now.
Pete out.