Rome-Ing Around

ROME-ING AROUND

We arrived in Rome after an uneventful train ride from Florence and found our hostel pretty easily. We stayed at ‘The Yellow’ – a notorious party hostel – and were checked into our room, which of course was on the 5^th floor. You’ll never guess who we saw in the lobby snorting coke off the ground… COKE GUY FROM FLORENCE!! (just kidding he wasn’t snorting coke but he was there). We made it a rule at the beginning of our trip to never take the elevator and so we climbed up the 5 flights of stairs with our massive packs and sweatily arrived in our 6-bed female dorm. We were so stoked to be in a female dorm because chicks don’t snore, right?? We thought so too, until we met Deirdre.

Enter shit people you meet in hostels #2 – Canadian born Deirdre who immediately on our arrival told us how much she hated Rome because she had no mates and was lonely. She then pretty much asked herself out to dinner after asking us if ‘we were fun to hang out with’ and if ‘we wanted to take a Canadian gal under our wings’. She seemed really sweet, if a bit forward so we asked her to dinner with us. Now she had assumed friendship. The next thing she told us was that she really needed to ‘take a crap’ and that her thighs were chaffed. Great. Oh, and she also snored.

Anyway, we went out to have dinner and meet up with Rosie’s friend Emma, who we were going out with that night. We had probably the shittest dinner possible, with uncooked pasta and still frozen cannelloni… and wine that tasted like it had gone sour. Being us though, we didn’t complain just dealt with it and got drunk. Our rooms had a strict ‘no food or alochol’ rule but being the BADASSES we were we drank for a bit in there anyway with Emma… Deirdre decided this was too much for her and went to sleep early. We on the other hand ventured out to the clubs. One of the supposed ‘best clubs in Rome’ was about a 20min walk away so we headed in that direction only to find out this club was closed all year except for Summer… so we were told to go to the King’s Cross of Rome, Testaccio. We went into a club called l’Alibi which seemed cool and stayed there till about 6am when we decided to head home. The next day we found out that it was actually a gay bar, and the only reason there seemed to be boys paying attention to us was because Friday’s were ‘hetero nights’. All in all it was an epic night except no sleep from our Snorlax days and all night long drinking led to me being very sick the next day.

That didn’t stop me however, as ‘when in Rome’ you have to suck it up and get it on with it. So after we had slept off the majority of our hangovers we took a walk to the beautiful and very busy Trevi Fountain. After battling to get through the throngs of people we managed to get a photo by the water and throw our coins in to make a wish. On our way home we saw what was supposed to be a traditional gladiator chilling on his phone to his gal, “Hey baby, I like your boobs, Col-i-see-um??” – ha ha ohhhhh that was Rosie’s joke not mine, I swear!! 

Throwing coins into the Trevi Fountain

Day Three we decided to tackle the big guns and make our way to the Colosseum and the Forum. My advice for anyone going to Rome and wanting to do the Forum is to GET A TOUR GUIDE because it’s just a bunch of half crumbled buildings and we had no clue where we were or what any of them meant. It was pretty anyway though. The Colosseum was epic and so beautiful and well preserved. Just down the street we had amazing gelato as well, probably the best in Italy – Strawberry Nutella, Hazlenut Nutella and Nutella flavours – we died. We also got amazing pizza! Usually around touristy areas the food is shit so we were pretty impressed with the Colosseum and it’s surroundings to say the least.

 Walking around the Forum

 

Headless statues at the Forum

 Coll-i-see-um

 Epic roast veggie pizza

 Incredible gelato with a view of the Forum

 Inside the Colloseum

For our final day in Rome we visited the Vatican. To say it was busy was a massive understatement. There was a line hundreds of metres long to get into the Sistine Chapel, so we settled for taking photos out the front because we aren’t the most religious of folks. We were thoroughly impressed with all the Pope merchandise though, and came home with great novelty postcards and lighters for the fam. That last night we had the best homemade dessert – one was a traditional Roman dessert with biscuit, cream, and all sorts of other amazing goodness, and also Panna Cotta, which was delicious as always!

 Line to get into the Vatican

 

Being an angel outside the Vatican

 We both loved Rome but it was super hot and I was very sick, and we both were craving the water and the ocean. As much as I love big cities I am definitely a water baby at heart and don’t feel right if I’m not near the ocean so I was very much looking forward to getting to Greece and the water. Our next stop was Naples and I shall have that post coming up soon! 

xx Andie