Just woke up after sleeping 14 hours last night. This following three days in which I slept only ten. Life's been a bit crazy. I just wanted to give this a bit of closure, and reflect upon the end of my trip. If only for my own benefit, as my parents now know that I haven't been beaten, killed, or converted to some obscure gypsy cult (though I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted).
Leaving off from where I last posted found me in Firenze and Roma (Florence and Rome for those of you who don't parli italiano).
Just a sidebar: if you haven't noticed by now I insert really lame jokes parenthetically. Please feel free to skip over these, as they only serve to fulfill a personal desire to be considered a witty writer.
So Florence. Wow. I think there were about a ten thousand times that I thought, "This is ridiculously beautiful" (and fifteen times I thought "holy crap this is expensive" and then one time I thought "I wonder how long a pigeon would sit on my shoulder") I think Italy, in general, is one of those places I would take a girl to woo her romantically. My best memory will be sitting up on an edge in Piazza Michelangelo. In front of me the sun was setting over Ponte Vecchio, I could see the Duomo marking the center of Florence, and thousands of red roofs radiating from the center like the spokes of a bike wheel. Truly quintessential Tuscany.
In Florence I also met some awesome fellow backpackers who I got to know all to well (i hate goodbyes) over the four days I was there. There were some awesome nights drinking cheap wine, chatting about life (in Montreal, Germany, South Africa, and Wisconsin), and swapping tales from the road. Well as said earlier it was hard to say goodbye after such a short time, but I hopped on the train and rolled on over to Rome.
I had a number of hours to kill before my hostel was available to settle into, so I dropped off my pack and mapless (I'm an idiot) took off to explore. Other than the colosseum, and the trevi fountain I had no idea as to what was actually in Rome at this time, but I would wander for a block or so and come upon something amazing (a piazza or palazzo). I just didn't expect to be this wowed after three weeks of traveling. Needless to say I was quite hopelessly lost by the time the sun started to set. By the time I got back to my hostel sidebar: if anyone is staying in Rome check out Hotel Des Artistes. Cheap rooms, lots of clean showers, awesome staff, one of those really cool old lifts where you have to close the wire doors and you can see out as you move, and a rooftop garden. end sidebar: people were already chilling in the common room doing the prerequisite where you from bla bla. At this hostel I shared a room with a couple of Irish girls, and some Bostonian MBA students (not Harvard). Excitingly, I also got to practice my German with the other residents, eight German university graduates. The next day and a half I did the required Roman sites, but my favorite was going out on the town with everyone the following night. Spoke some German, saw Rome from the very top at midnight, splashed in Trevi Fountain at two in the morning, and spent three hours on the Spanish Stairs. Rome is just that much more amazing when you subtract the tourists.
