MONDAY, MAY 10th,
We checked into our permanent room today. We have the most fantastic view from our front window! We look out over the Piazza Navona, and we have a fairly good aerial view of the surrounding Rome area. Check it out:
This is the view from my window. That’s right, be jealous.
So, I’m pretty excited about the room because of the view and the set-up. We got hooked up here! Anyway, I probably won’t be able to post like everyday, but I’ve been keeping a journal of a sort in a word document saved on my computer, so I’ll just post a lot of days all in one entry. Tonight, we’re planning on going to the Spanish Steps, which I’ll write about in the next entry. Below is everything that I did this past weekend:
SUNDAY, MAY 9TH
Today I experienced my first European soccer game! We saw online that there was an AS Roma game today at 3, and we decided to go for it, despite not having tickets, despite not knowing how to get to the stadium, despite never using the Rome public transport system before, despite not speaking Italian…But we were successful!! It was a long journey, we walked to about 5 different bus stops in order to find the correct one that would take us to the stadium, but we finally found a bunch of other kids with AS Roma jerseys on, so we decided to follow them to the stadium! We had to scalp tickets from some guy outside the stadium, and we weren’t sure if they were real tickets or not, but it turned out that he did in fact sell us legitimate tickets, and we got in! Let me say, IT WAS AWESOME. The game was the most intense sporting event I had ever been to. I think it came mostly from the crowd – American sports fans should take notes from these European soccer fans. They screamed literally the entire time – It was just as loud as a Penn State football game, but for the entire time, even during the half. And, not once did they ever boo their own team. When the team wasn’t playing well, the fans only screamed louder and even more supportive of their guys.
The game was played in the Olympic Stadium slightly outside the city, and the place was packed! There were a lot of AS Roma fans. After the game had ended, all of the fans stayed and sang a bunch of songs, and almost nobody left the stadium immediately. It was a much different experience than any American sports game that I had been to.
After the game, we grabbed some dinner at an Irish pub (Yes, I know I’m in Italy, give me a break) on the way back to our hotel. We also stopped for gelato (Again!), which I think I’m going to have every day while I’m here. Tomorrow, I check in to my permanent place, so I think I’m going to get some sleep now.
Ciao!
SATURDAY, MAY 8TH
Today was the first day of our adventure in Rome. And oh, what an adventure we had today! We landed in slightly late, but the drivers we had arranged to pick us up at the airport had waited for us! So, we met up with them easily enough – nobody had any baggage problems, and we left with a very good impression of the Rome airport. Our driver, Francesco, was quite humorous, and even though he did not speak too much English, he made us laugh the entire way into the city. Francesco dropped us off at where our “hotel” was supposed to be, so we paid him and he went on his way. After we went through the door that he pointed to us, inside was another gated door, which looked like it housed residential housing? So, we were very confused for about a half an hour, before we figured it all out. We had to check the addresses of the letters inside the mailbox to make sure we were at the right place. It matched the addresses we had for the bed and breakfast we had booked, so we decided to just knock on some doors. It turned out that the bed and breakfast was just owned by some woman who lived on the floor above, and she just rented out the rooms for some side profit. It was somewhat of a shady deal, but we FINALLY got into the room and the room, even though it wasn’t large by any means, was alright for what we intended on using it for. I was staying with my friends Devon, Nick, Matt, Abby, and Amanda. The room was kind of split up into 2 rooms, so the girls are going to stay in one room tonight, while the guys get to split the bigger room 4 ways. It will certainly be tight, but manageable.
After we booked in and dropped off our bags, Rome was ours for the taking! We met up with our friends Pat and Mike, and we got some Pizza for lunch! It was somewhat of a touristy place, so it wasn’t too great, but we were all starving from the plane ride, so it tasted good enough! We then went on a HUGE walking tour of Rome. And I mean HUGE. I can’t name all of the places that we went today, partly because I literally can’t (I don’t really know what a lot of these places are called), and partly because we went to too many places to list. You can see a lot of the places we went today by the pictures that I posted in this entry. Today we did a lot of silly things, and I guess we truly were the “dumb, ignorant American tourists”. However, we’ll get that out of our system eventually, and I have faith that we’ll be able to blend right into the culture by the end of the trip.
I already noticed a lot of differences between Rome and American cities. The first difference is what I would call a city. When I think of city, I immediately think of skyscrapers and busy streets. Rome has busy streets, but the tallest buildings here are only about 5 stories tall. The difference originates from the building materials that were used in building each city. Roman buildings, which are much older than any city building made in the States, are almost entirely made out of load-bearing masonry walls. This limits their height if the walls are to remain a reasonable width. The newer steel buildings that we see in America can support much more weight without getting too much thicker.
At the end of the night we went out and found the BEST gelato place ever. They had literally every flavor you could dream of, and we knew it was the best gelato place because we asked our cab driver which place was the best. I had an orange gelato, and it was delicious. I think I’m going to set a goal to try every flavor in that store by the time I leave.
So now I am SO beat from the jet lag (I have been awake for 48 hours now) and walking around in Rome. It was a great first day, and I have already found out that I AM GOING TO HAVE AN AWESOME TIME IN ROME THIS SUMMER. So I’m going to bed now, and I’ll write again tomorrow!
Location: Via del Pantheon 57, Rome, Italy
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Daniel….I am so happy for you. Looks like you are having an amazing time. Your photography and written descriptions are beautiful.
Your correct– your going to have ” AN AWESOME TIME IN ROME THIS SUMMER”
I look forward to your next posting…
DAnieL! i’m glad to hear you thought of me and made pizza your first food choice. I enjoyed thinking about the gelato’s as well haha, !~ oh and the soccer experience sounds awesome, im extremely jealous about that, and that track looks spectac
DAnieL! i’m glad to hear you thought of me and made pizza your first food choice. I enjoyed thinking about the gelato’s as well haha, !~
DAN! im so excited ur doing ur blog so i can stalk u across the atlantic ocean. love ur pics! Hope ur having an awesome time. And how does their pizza compair to redifers? lol
DAN!! Here I am commenting away. Your pictures are wonderful! It sounds like you are having a fantastic time so far. I am so very jealous of the view from your bedroom window. I love your action packed blog posts, TELL ME EVERYTHING! Since I am in West Wyoming, Pa this will be my main source of entertainment. I am so excited for you.
-kp