Ride To Rome

Yesterday we had the long trip from Cinque Terre to Rome.  We got on the train nice and early and arrived in the Rome in mid-afternoon.  The ride was really easy and actually pretty comfortable because we had a Harry Potter-esque cabin all to ourselves (including a food trolly that came through a couple of times!).  We passed through Pisa and contemplated stopping to look at the leaning tower but then decided to just look out the window and try to spot it.  We couldn't find it, but I'm glad we didn't end up delaying our arrival into Rome.

Once in Rome we had to try to find our way around.  We came out of the train station and then realized we had to get on the metro and go down a couple of stops.  The metro stations are not the cleanest and are dim and scary; I'm glad I'm traveling with someone because going at it alone would not have been too fun.  We made it through without any major mishaps and then had to ask around to find our hotel.  As we were walking around town I was just hoping our hotel was far away but in fact it is right in the middle of what Kenny and I consider to be the slum.  We stood outside the hotel in shock, not wanting to go inside because we were afraid of what we would find.  Finally we manned up, went in, and got all checked in.  We cautiously went upstairs to our room, opened the door, and woah...SO JANKY.  Not only is it small but there are hardly any lights and the shower/toilet/bathroom is about 6ft X 2ft.  The only positive thing about it is the fact that we are relatively close to the things we want to go see.  We've decided that we're not going to be in the room except for the time have to be there to sleep.

Once we finally snapped out of our bad moods we decided we shouldn't waste any more time so we went back out to see what we could find.  We ended up getting out at the Colesseo stop which dumped us right in front of the famous Roman Colosseum.  We instantly felt better and began taking pictures and enjoying the view.  After spending some time walking around we wandered away to try and find dinner.  We ended up at a nice little place not too far away and ate outside.  Kenny ordered a pizza and then we both had some of the most amazing minestrone-type soup.  It wasn't like minestrone I'm used to at home but it was delicious.  Gelato came after dinner which made for a nice end to the evening.  We didn't want to go back to the dingy part of town but we had to get to bed so we began walking back.  It didn't take long at all for both of us to fall asleep even though the comforter had holes and the pillows were like rocks.