When in Rome
Trip Start
May 08, 2006
1
72
108
Trip End
Mar 07, 2007
Rome,
Italy
Monday, October 30, 2006
So here i am on the plane. No tv, but good food, and of all the songs to come on the little radio thing you plug into, i get that song "live it up" you know that hey there you with the sad face come back to my place and live it up.... it was a random english song between arabic music. I look out the window at rome, it is so organised and planned it looks like art work from the air.
From the moment i got off the plane everything was different to the world i was just in. I was slammed with clean airports, confectionaries, internet kiosks, and most importantly, beautiful italian girls dressed in beautiful little shorts with beautiful little tops. I was also slammed with expensiveness. The airport train into the city was like 20 bucks oz, then the metro was 2 bucks
a. Police at the Vatican
. A pen i bought cost me 2 nights accomodation in Egypt. Its so bizarre.At the metro station, i saw ads everywhere of girls in Lingerie. It was too much too fast. I couldnt take it. Ive gone from seeing no female body adverts and none of the female body to extreme in your face sexual adverts. Newsagents covered in pornography and too top it off there was anna.
In alexandria i booked my hostel in rome. I booked it for a few reasons, the first was location, 10 mins from vatican, then there was the price, 18 euros, 35 bucks!! a lot but not too much for italy. But most importantly it was the name, Happy Days, i love happy days! You name a hostel happy days, beach boys, mash, hogans heroes, i will be there.
Anyway to get back too it, i arrive at the hostel, a bit of a walk from the station, especially when you walk in the opposite direction. i get there and its only a small hostel, 15 people or so. A little villa type thing. I go in and bang, brittany murphys italian lookalike is working there. A very friendly girl who speaks broken english and for some reason liked to bend over in front of me showing of her behind a lot. I just couldnt take it
b. Swiss Guard
. If i had a beer bottle i would have been peeling the label off. I had to have a cold shower!! Yes harris and marto and that, i remember the old phrase. Before, not during or after. You disgust me harris!I went out, saw the Vatican as the sunset, went inside St peters Basilica. Was amazingingly huge inside. Was wierd you could go ape with pictures too. Felt a bit wierd to be taking a million pics inside a church. At night things got more insanse. After a few slabs of square pizza, (costing me another couple of nights in a egyptian hotel) i go back to the hostel and the owner is there. An Antonio banderas look alike. He knew it too. I wish i got pictures of these guys, but i didnt. I even forget the guys name. It was like ingo or something like that. He took us out for a "Italian dinner". I said i wasnt hungry and went just to hang out. Food came for me anyway. There was fine and stuff. I said antonio knew it and he did, he knew all the facts about the real antonio, height, where he was from etc. He even copied looks and stuff. He was a jerk though. A real womaniser. Touching all the girls, talking himself up. He even got with this 23 year old israeli girl in the toilets. It was real gross, a phillopino called christian went into the bathroom and walked straight back out and said he saw something more than kissing. It was gross, antonio was 43 and she was 23. Ewww. Getting it on in the toilet
c. Inside the Basilica
. They were holding hands on the way back. The hostel was full of philopinos studying in france, a few aussies and dutch.Next day i spent walking around seeing the sites of room. I think i saw all the piazzas in rome. Everything is called a piazza. I dont even know what a piazza is but evertything was called a piazza. I also found where all the obelisks from Egpyt have gone. To Rome!. They are everywhere in room. It also seemed that everything in rome was under construction. Which sucked. Im not going to write about all the beautiful buildings i saw. Except to say that i spent most of 2 days at the train station procrastinating whether to get a eurail pass. When i decided to, i had no money in my account. Then when i went back, i decided not to because i realised i was doing a lot of short trips and could travel cheaper than a 700 dollar pass.
I sat outside the train station a lot. Eating peanut butter. Gypsies came up and hassled me for money. Everyone thinks im italian in Italy. So many italians walk up to me and ask me directions, ask me the time (from my adibas) watch. I wonder why i am so approachable to italians, i look like a bum, unshaven, bad clothes, bad shoes. Why are they coming up to me.
d. Vatican at Night
The next days at the hostel saw a complete change in people staying there. The phillopinos were still there, but everyone left and it became full of americans. A few frat guys, couple of nice girls from new york and a cool 32 year old guy from chicago called mike, who had just been to normandy. He had the same WW2 interests as me, and he also has become a alcoholic. He was drunk every night i saw him. He also had a interesting story about vince vaughaun who came into a night club event he organised. He was talking to him in the urinals and apparently vince vaughan threatned to snap his neck. I love vince vaughan. Mike wanted me to go down the road to get wine with him. I think because he was scared of stories he heard about people getting mugged in rome. I called him a pofter. He was amazed with this word he hadnt heard before. Pofter! He couldnt say it but he loved it. He said (insert american accent) poooooftaaarrrrr. He got it right eventually. Its pronounced poffffta i said. Its his new word and he wouldnt stop using it. Looks like i got accomodation in Chicago now anyway. Might meet vince vaughan in his home town!
Last day in Rome i went to the Vatican musuem. The last sunday of the month is a free day at the museum. Saved 20 bucks. Waited in line for 2 hours while people pushed in. Even the nuns pushed in.
e. Vespas of Rome
Nuns!! Bastards! Went in with Mike, lost mike somewhere in there. They had an egyptian musuem in there. More stolen stuff from Egypt. Was wierd to see stuff i should have seen 5 days ago in the place it was originally from. One statue i saw i even remember seeing the space it was meant to be in luxor. The artwork was extraidonary! So many people there though.I fear that i will have nothing to talk about anymore, its just going to be pretty buildings, pretty statues and pretty girls. No more donkey men... Ahhh ohh well what can you do aye.
So i dont know what i did in rome. I didnt see everything. And the things i did see i saw in a flash. I realised toilets are few and far between in Rome. And wats the deal with paying for toilets again. It was sad to leave the celebrity stunt doubles at the hostel. Especially anna, i think thats maybe why it took me hours to leave the hostel each day and why i didnt really see anything. I cant picture any of rome, its really wierd. Maybe i should of stopped eating mcflurrys and being a perve.
But the best thing about Italy so far is the macdonalds selection...
P.S. im not a pervert.
And thanks for emailing me jess!
The Kit Kat Mcflurry is back baby!!
