Roma, Roma, ma

I got the chance to jump on a flight early Friday afternoon and head to Rome, Italy for the weekend. How often do you get a chance to visit Rome for a weekend? Not very often. The experience was absolutely amazing. I booked a bed in the Peter Pan Hostel (which I don't recommend) for 15 Euro a night. To the right is a view of the room from my top bunk. I ended up with mosquito bites all over my body after one nights sleep. Gross. It was 97 degrees Fahrenheit both days that we were there. The hostel was not air conditioned. Needless to say, the hostel was an experience in and of itself.

Friday night we cruised around town and ended up eating some Italian gelato before we found a restaurant. The gelato was $$$. We finally settled on a place to eat that wasn't too expensive. Expensive, however, is somewhat of a relative term when I exchanged 100 USD for 75 Euro. I ended up ordering Rigatoni which was absolutely delicious. Beers were at least 6 Euro so I decided the tap water would have to suffice for the first night. Here's a picture of the Rigatoni. It doesn't look like much but it sure was delicious.

After dinner we decided to explore a bit and stumbled upon the Colosseum which was absolutely beautiful at night.

The next day we woke up early and had corn flakes with warm milk for breakfast (it was 'free' with the hostel) and headed out to catch a bike tour. We ended up with a company that was decently priced but the guides made the trip well worth it. To the left is a picture of me with my 'whip' aka the bike I rode on all day in the apocalyptic heat. The bike tour was great. We saw everything that I thought only existed in Hollywood - from the Pantheon to the Colosseum to the Vatican. Here comes the hard part - We saw so many things that I can't decide which pictures to post. I'll just put one up of the Pantheon and the Colosseum. Side note: I accidentally deleted my favorite picture of the Pantheon. Wish I still had it. Anyway, here they are:


After we got done with seeing all of the sights Rome has to offer, we sat down for a good 'ol Italian lunch. I ordered a Pizza pie and a liter of house wine. Can't get better than that. We eventually headed back to the hostel and got some rest. Later in the night I decided that I still hadn't received the full Italian experience so I headed out to the bar - by myself. Call me antisocial if you want. I ended up ordering an ice cream bar, a panini sandwich, an espresso shot and a Peroni beer. Quite the combo, eh? I just had to try everything. It was quite the experience sitting in the bar. I sat there for about an hour and a half just talking with the bartender. I was the only one in there. I would say 90% of the other customers came in, ordered a shot of espresso, took it in less than 30 seconds and left. I wanted to savor the experience though. The bar was really more like a gas station - it's hard to explain. Regardless, Rome was an amazing experience. I have over 300 pictures to prove it. I can not wait to show everyone. Lastly, here's a picture of everyone who went on the trip in front of the Vatican. It was a pretty motley crew to say the least.Can not wait for Berlin on Thursday,

Luke