Roma / Rome - Day 1 - Part 6 - Europe Trip

“No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention.  Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day.  This is all practice.” 
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

Ok.  I should apologize for not getting back to this sooner.  I know it's been a month and a half, but more life changing experiences happen almost every week in my life lately.  After my trip to Cali I know where I want to live, San Diego.  I backbacked through all the best cities for free crashing on couches I found on couchsurfing.org.  If I were to tell you to do one thing right now, it's sign up for that website, it'll expand your world in ways you never thought possible!  :)  I went to San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, and Tijuana, MX for free for 12 days, and you can too.

Other happenings in my life include not being able to find a new roommate, which is going to cost me a lot of money in rent.  I didn't want to give up my place in MT Adams, but the universe has bigger things for me, so I'll be putting my notice in on my apartment, and move out by March.  As luck would have it, I have a friend closing on a house offering me dirt cheap rent for the duration of my stay in Cincy...funny how these things work themselves out when you worry so much and enjoy the ride.  So, the last thing I need to do is find a job.  I've built my resume up more than any person I've met over the past 7 years, so this won't be an issue.  San Diego beaches here I fucking come!!!   Also, if you've ever wanted to make a big change in your life but have been too hesitant or afraid of being alone, I want you to read this post by my friend, a Cincy native who  made her first scary trip out of a 10 year marriage and the best job in the country to find happiness, and found more than I could've hoped for her in Hawaii of all places this year.  http://chroniclesofriddikulus.blogspot.com

The Colosseum

Onto Roma, Italia day 1!!!  Now that I got my rant about my American ignorance of the public transport system abroad, let's go onto the city.  I stayed at the hostel The Yellow which, as all good hostels do, supply you with a map of all the big toursity shit to go see.  This is a life saver I found out later in my trip since you are in Europe, with no GPS and not everyone speaks English...ok, that's only part true.  Did you know that Rome was founded by the legendary twins Romulus and Remus in 753BC?  Turns out the story goes they were sentenced to death as babies, were saved by a she wolf, and years later they made their own 2 cities founded on where they thought they were born.  This pissed the other brother off so much he killed his Remus.  The city needed women, so they invited everyone from the surrounding country, at which the men of the city abducted all the women in what is known as the Rape of the Sabine Women...yup, the more you know.  Hahaha!  What?  

Old ruins from the Colosseum. 

The Colosseum was just amazing!  It is just a marvel of human creation!  When you walk in, it feels like a football stadium, but it's all made out of stone.  I've been to the Packers Stadium and the Bengals, and you don't get THIS feeling where your jaw drops.  This is a 2000 year old structure that held some of the most violent events of history.  This is a  place that held gladiators fighting to the death against criminals and wildlife.  At one point, it could hold up to 50,000 people. The Colosseum was used to kill 9000 gladiators and 10,000 animals in a 117 day killing spree.  There are even paths underground so that this could be made into a navel warfare event.  Awesome!  

Part of the Roman Forum, or kind of like a market, religious area, etc.

Look what I found on Palatino hill!  So random

America!  Fuck ya!!!  ;-)

Everything in Rome is gigantic, and historic, and breath taking.  It also turns out that Rome, is the most American city I've ever seen in Europe.  They speak better English there than in England, so you know it's a huge tourst area for Americans, Australians, Canadians, and well, the rest of the fucking world.  Hahaha!  When you see all of the signs in English, and the waiters don't have Italian accents at all, you know it's not an authentic Italian city anymore.  

Oh, and there was a dance club in the hostel's basement
where I met some of the coolest friends in the world!

Roma / Rome - Colosseum - Part 5 - Europe Trip

Colosseum is fucking massive!

The original plans for the Colosseum.  

So on today's episode, I let you know how ignorant I am as an American traveler.  On June 11th, I traveled from Naples, Italy to Rome or Roma via the metro.  Now, seeing as I have absolutely no experience with trains because we just don't use them here much, I had no idea what to expect.  I mean, NO IDEA, like even how to buy a ticket and if my credit card would work.  Turns out my credit card does NOT work at most train stations which led to many not so funny stories.  It also turns out I brought the WRONG check card with all of my cash in my bank account so I had to transfer funds from one bank to another.  Then, it took 1 week to transfer those funds, so when I did I thought I had enough for my trip.  To top it off, my check card also didn't want to work at some of the ATM's.  This led to another funny story of why I didn't make it to Amsterdam's red light district!  Fuck my life right?

Random Californian I met.  

It's tall too. 

Huge marble gladiators.  

I think the one thing that saved my life is that I had friends from Naples already before I went there.  That's why I booked my ticket to Naples, Italy, because I had someone to tell me about the area.  Once I was there, I had 6 weeks to travel, random number I know, but I had a few drinks when I booked.  He had me buy the Lonely Planet  guide on Italy.  If you ever travel BUY A TRAVEL GUIDE, or you may end up stranded or dead or raped I don't know, just buy one of these.  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy  My travel from Napoli to Roma cost me a total of 22 Euro and took 2 hours.  I would have thought that this would cost a lot more.  This is dirt cheap in my mind, to get from one major city to another is cheap in Europe and so easy!  On my trip I had time to wind down and go through my guide to write down what to do for the 4 days I would be in Rome.  I had my hostel in Naples, Hostel of the Sun, book me a hostel in Rome called the Yellow.  Apparently, this place is known through out the world as a huge party place with a hundred people staying every night.

It's like a giant football field, but 2000 years old.  

Everything in Rome is giant sized!

The Yellow is a half mile walk from the Roma Termini train station but it was a beautiful sunny day with 80+ degree weather.  That's the best part of Italy, there are no clouds.  When I had my transfer in London from Heathrow to Gatwick airports, it was COLD as shit and cloudy both times I went through.  Italy is sunny and cloudless, not too windy, and not humid.  I mean, I was sweating my ass off with my gigantic backpack but once I got it off, it was very nice weather.  Rome is inland, whereas Naples was on the Mediterranean sea.

Next time I'll post pictures about the Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatino, and other awesome things.

Europe 2012 - week 1

I am sitting in my hostel, The Yellow, in Roma, Italia writing this.  This is the short version and cannot possibly describe fully what I’ve seen or done or how it’s changed me. 

This is the first post I’m doing that isn’t only about food.  I’ve been asked to give updates on my 6 week European walkabout.  I’m sitting here waiting for laundry t be done in Roma, Italia.  After leaving my job, I booked a very expensive non-refundable plane ticket to Naples, Italy or Napoli as they call it with 3 days notice.  I have never been abroad mind you and that took some alcoholic persuasion to do.  I’ll be honest with you, I was scared shitless about traveling alone.  I’ve never been out of the country and I don’t know exactly what I was waiting for…but it never came.  I have never been in a better position in life to do this seeing as I’m unmarried, have no kids, have no mortgage, have no job but lots of open offers and grad school is out for the summer.  As my friend from Napoli has said, we can die of cancer tomorrow, so why am I sitting on a savings account?  You cannot change the inevitable future, and leaving a big house to no one is a pretty shitty future.  So instead, I’ve chosen to make memories that will last a lifetime.  I booked 6 weeks in Europe with a return flight out of Napoli on July 17^th.  This was not a good idea, seeing as I’m not going to be anywhere near Napoli at the end.  I’ll figure that out later though. 

My trip started with getting together with 2 friends from Napoli, a German, and a Cincinnati friend and going over the lonely planet guide I was told to get.  This travel guide is like the bible to me here.  It has everything from maps, train guides and prices, metro info, hostels, food, language tips, and random tidbits like Roma was founded on a scene including the raping of the women from a nearby city…weird I know!  We went over places to see in Italy as well as Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Spain.  I have nothing set in stone, no reservations to stay anywhere, and I am just wandering from city to city getting a feel for them.  I am learning from other people who have traveled my road about how long to stay in these cities, new cities, hostels, prices, great areas I’ve never heard of, etc.  I don’t like putting myself in a box and giving a definite timeline on shit to see and places to stay.  I think that ruins the experience because you start to worry too much about getting things done.  I am making a rough checklist from my guide book, but I’m not going to be angry if I randomly meet cute girls and take a boat ride in a park instead of going to a priceless museum (note: this actually happened). 

My friend was nice enough to let me use his Italian cell phone which has come in handy.  He and his girlfriend even contacted their friends in Napoli so that I could meet them, which has made this trip less of a touristy thing and I got more of a feel for what the natives are like, what they think about other cities, unemployment, etc.  My friend set me up with a bed and breakfast for 2 days, and then he said I can make my own decision if I wanted to stay there more or find a hostel.  My B&B was 50 euro, which is pricey for 6 weeks.  Hostels on the other had are 20 to 35 euro.  The word hostel made me think of bad things for some reason.  That fear of being robbed by shady Europeans has been completely blown away by a fear of being robbed by rich American kids. 

My 3 plane tickets included an outgoing trip from Cincinnati at noon Monday to JFK in New York with a 7 hour layover, then an overnight to London with a move from one London airport to another, then the London flight to Napoli.  My 7 hour layover let me hang out with a guy in New York I haven’t seen in like 2 years, but it’s always fun to catch up!  I learned London is cloudy and cold and I would never want to stay there long term . The bad thing is my transfer from airports combined with my luggage being an hour late made me almost late for my Napoli flight, and had to put my big bag through security.  This meant I had to throw away every liquid, including soap, shampoo, cologne, etc.   Landing in Napoli without these things sucked hard!  Within minutes of landing, my view on the world was completely shattered.  The place was a culture shock to say the least.  I immediately love the high 80’s F weather.  Taking a taxi to my B&B, the driver didn’t speak English…turns out most people in Napoli don’t.  This has been part of the shock.  My friend wrote down the address of my B&B so I handed it to the driver.  I learned that service is not an Italian thing.  This guy literally dropped me off on a loud and crazy corner but didn’t know where I was going.  He just said this is the cross street, but I don’t know where you are going and I don’t care, GET OUT!  Fucking awesome!  The Italian mindset is more of a they just can’t be bothered to give a fuck.  The best food is in the places with the least English and worst service in dirty alleyways.  I was in the Centro Storico district of Napoli, Italia.  I was told that this is one of the most densely populate areas in the world, and shit it was crowded.  It was alive with an insane energy.  I saw hot Italians everywhere and it was Tuesday at 5pm.  The streets are smaller then alleys back home with cobblestone like streets that were surrounded by 5 story buildings that go for miles.  This blocked out most of the sun unless you got into one of the hundreds of piazza’s or squares.  You will find so MANY people at the piazza’s.   I hear there are 3 million in the city of Napoli and it’s packed.  There is no parking really, and all of the cars are “smart” cars.  These are like normal but they have the trunk cut off to be shorter.  People drove like crazy people and almost never follow stop signs, lights, or traffic laws.  Scooters are EVERYWHERE.  If there is a 2 lane street, that’s like a personal challenge for the Italians to make it a 5 lane with 3 scooters between the cars.  Because of the heat I’ve found that everything happens very late and dinner is usually t 8:30. 

I have never dealt with foreign money and didn’t have time to take much money with me, so I kind of fucked myself in many ways.  I found out that just because your credit card company says you can use your card abroad does NOT mean that that country will let you.  L  Most places do NOT accept credit cards like home.  My B&B did not accept cash and that was an entirely weird story.  I randomly have been talking to anyone and everyone as I wander and if we hang out, I’m adding them on facebook.   I was lucky enough to meet 2 girls from Canada that spoke French and English at Castel Nuovo that said they were doing my trip, but in the opposite direction.  Turns out they were staying in the best hostel in Napoli, Hostel of the sun, and they took me there.  How weird is that?  I know that everyone wants me to post hundreds of pictures of the places I go, but wi-fi is hard to get a good signal here.  I have wandered Napoli for 3 days going to museums, saw 2000 year old Pompeii’s ruins, took a boat to Procida and Iskea (think Capri island), traveled the Amalfi coast (this is where you take your honeymoon), and met people from across the world….and it’s only a week into my 6 weeks. 

I will post more later, but just know that I am not the same person I was.  I have had to go up and talk to a hundred random people in 7 days just to not be alone and have conversation and learn about the world that didn’t exist to me until last Monday!  I have seen so many things while walking 10 to 12 hours a day.  There is so much more in my world now, and I know that I could go anywhere in the world and meet people and connect them.  I had dinner with 11 awesome Italian women and 2 Americans last night after I walked Roma’s Spanish Steps and rented a boat with 2 cool European girls that were just in town visiting each other.  It’s funny that I had to describe what my tattoo meant last night and many other nights.  It’s a phoenix, a symbol of not only making a change in your life, but the continued spiritual death and a rebirth not just once but over and over again.