Roma

Hiya. :) Today I got up at 4:35. Did you do that? I never do that unless absolutely necessary. The extreme oddness of this circumstance endears it to me. Also, the mountain as we walk down is surprisingly warm (we left for Venice very early also), and the moon was fascinating--it was a crescent and had just risen so was very orange.

Quick click: Today we rode on the bus a long time. I like riding because it's guaranteed down time. Then we arrived in Rome. It is very unlike Venice in that you put your life in danger to walk, especially, to cross the street. It is utter madness. However, we are all still alive. We walked around and briefly saw several churches and the Forum. We ate dinner with our compadres at the hotel and now Justin and I are enjoying not going out for the evening. :) Perhaps we will eat chocolate.

Tonight's Feature: At Justin's suggestion, the waiters in Italy, specifically, the waiters at this hotel. They are nice. They gave us extra helpings of stuff, which was nice, as we had two ravenous carnivores at our table. I was later told they probably would have given us more dessert if we had asked, which almost makes me sad as it was a dreamy dessert-- chocolate gooey ice cream blob surrounded by cakelike stuff, surrounded by awesome fluffy creamy goo with chocolate flakes in it. All this in a little ball on my plate. :) Anyway, they were nice, and also you don't really have to tip waiters very often here because it's included in your bill.

The longer version of the day... During the bus ride today, Oliver kept us in stitches (Justin and me and some other people) by his random, absurd, and sometimes sarcastic comments. We saw lots of pretty Italian scenery and the movies Troy and Gladiator. I slept some, and read some in my Europe 101 book. When we got to Rome, we were astonished at the perfectly ludicrous traffic. There aren't lanes. People do observe traffic lights, but there aren't lights at many/most intersections, and cars and scooters and motorcycles flow in big signalling, sometimes honking streams around corners and through intersections. This equates to safety in numbers for those of us on foot. People also just stop their cars to eat lunch wherever they want--not quite in the middle of traffic, but on the side of the road is perfectly normal, and they park wherever they find a parking spot (it doesn't matter which direction the car faces or if it's really parallel to the street). It's quite amazing.

And... our hotel is the bomb. That's right, the bomb. You should see the bathrooms. I'll take pictures. I also, for those interested, have met and spoken with Dr. Diana Ridgwell, for whom I am keeping the journal of my trip. The standards have slightly relaxed, so I'll be incorporating those changes soon. (like here now. :) Bye. Oh, for personal learning. I worked on relaxing when I wasn't perfectly at ease in my circumstances. It was good for me. :) 'Night.

posted by LizC @ 2/04/2005 08:01:00 AM