Sunday, May 15, 2011

Day 1 - First Impressions

I'm writing this post just a few hours after having arrived in Rome. Lenny, who slept on and off over the entire 8-hour plane ride is having a nap, and me who slept for about an hour of the last 26 hours is higher than a kite and basking in the warm weather.
We got through customs and collected our baggage within half an hour which was Awesome considering our flight was completely full. We took the train in from the airport to Rome and had a lot of fun noticing how different the vegetation was, all the abandoned buildings, and how probably one out of every five apartments had their bedding hanging out to dry. Electricity is very expensive here so we're told.
After arriving at the train station in Rome, our first order of business was finding some filling food. After a bit of a trek and a few “no comprendo tua italiano” we came across a pizzeria with some DELICIOUS pizza. I don't know if my extreme hunger or recent air plane food experience (which wasn't bad at all, but still) played a role in how great it tasted, but it certainly hit the spot.
As we were walking to where we are staying, we discovered that alcohol is cheaper than water at the convenience stores and that Italians don't really believe in making street signs really visible. When we got to our building we got to go in an elevator from the beginning of time which was a wee bit nerve-wracking and confusing at first, but fun in the end. How often do you get the chance of manually closing your elevator cage doors in North America? The hostel we're at seems perfectly adequate considering we're not spending a lot of time here and everything appears safe and clean.
Well I'm off to pursue some of our travel books to see what we can do for the rest of our day. We left it blank because we weren't sure how'd enthusiastic we'd feel after a long flight, but so far so good! Perhaps some gelato or cappucinos are in order :)

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