Roma, Italia Part 1

First of all, I won't be able to blog as much as I would like. Currently My laptop is next to the door and has to remain exactly where it is, otherwise I loose my signal. LAME. For now I'm posting just text, later I will post images when I'm done processing them in Lightroom.

It has been over a year sine I last traveled overseas. Since quitting my job in Saugatuck, my stress level has gone down and so has my bank account. My parents were nice enough to help finance some of my travel expenses back to the Eternal City aka Roma. Flying in wasn't too bad. Was I tired...yeah. I managed to pull a 20 minute nap on the flight to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Rome I slept for an hour. I was drinking a few glasses of wine (complimentary on international flights) and ate a few meals and some cheap cheap coffee too. When I got off the plane I headed straight from Leonardo Fumicino (FCO) airport to Termini where my hostel is at. It was a 30 minute train ride over to the hostel.

My hostel cost about 216 Euro = $300USD. At least I get a free Italian breakfast which is a cappuccino (no coffee shop in the US comes close) and a croissant. It's enough to get by until a heavy lunch, and a lite dinner with gelato and a cafe latte in between.

I give credit to Mary for googling my hostel (grazie!) because I ended up getting lost when its literally right outside Termini....what an idiot I was. The first night I took it easy and didn't travel to Campo. Sorry JCU crew! First thing I did was go to the tobacci store, bought a bus ticket, a lighter, and a small pack of cigarettes for 5.20 Euro. Forgot there are smaller packs of cigarettes. I'll admit, its a dumb and pointless act to do, but when you're in Rome and want to fit in with the Romans, you smoke haha. No way do I want to be viewed as an American tourist.

However I'm not viewed as an American tourist, but Korean or Chinese/Japanese. Thank you for all the italians assuming I speak any of those languages. English, Spanish, and a little Italian. PS to the guy that was behind me in the store for talking smack about me. He was surprised I knew what he said...jerk haha

So a lot of you I'm sure are wondering why I'm back in Rome. in brief, I quit my job and life is too short to complain and worry. So why NOT go to Rome?

TOP Five things I love Roma

1. Waking up and getting my Italian breakfast and the horns and ambulances...haha
2. Vino, Suppli, and pizza...enough said
3. The fountains to get nice cold acqua...SO GODO
4. Long history behind the City
5. The hospitality of Italians

All I plan on doing while I'm here is very basic. Yeah I will go to the different Piazzas and the tourist areas but I've already seen those...ALOT. Remind you I was here for 7 weeks last year and I saw every major site everyday. Although I'll now try avoding being a snob about it. Most of you I know have never been here and would LOVE to be. So go buy your ticket NOW on delta for under $900, save about $300 TOPS for a stay in a hostel for a week and maybe $300 on food depending if you want to eat at a restaurant or make your own food. I've been going to the market to buy fruit, some lunchmeat and oh you can't forget gelato either!!!