efreshed on the 2nd day, my first full day in Italy. Even if I hadn't slept about 12 hours, I would have woken up anyway because it was a bit noisy in the hallway, which doubled as the breakfast area. Once I was showered I left the room to meet some of the other people staying at the B&B, always one of the fun things about traveling—the interesting people you meet. After breakfast, I made my way to the Termini train station on foot to meet up with Alex. I brought my hand held GPS unit along with a European map download—it proved to be useful more than once, especially for someone who is so bad with orienting himself in a new place, and even more so in Europe, where the cities grew up organically, rather than being planned like most US cities. No grid of streets in room, signore. It was about a mile and a half from the B&B, so I got some good exercise and saw more of Rome.
Once I found Alex in the train station, we hit the McDonalds there for a quick lunch. (Oh, I know, what a terrible travel faux pas! But I like McDonalds, and if I am going to be some place for more than a week with ample food sampling opps, I like to see if Mickey D's tastes like home; plus I'd rather save the time and see more sites than spend a few hours on lunch, which can often be the case in Europe. Just getting the check can take an hour alone...). We then made our way immediately to the Colosseum and Forum. I had visited the outsides of both the day before, but wanted to save the actual tours till I could do them with Alex. As it turned out, we got totally lucky on the week we chose to visit Italy. It was their National Cultural Week in which admission to most museums is completely free, and there are many additional cultural events. The Roma Pass people were nice enough to give us a full refund, since we had purchased the tickets (it gives discounted museum entrances) well in advance and hadn't known about the cultural week until just before the trip.Both the Colosseum (aka the Flavian Amphiteater) and the Forum are as impressive, if not more so, than I had imagined. I imagined the horror of what went on in the Colosseum (so named because a Colossus statue once stood there, but it has completely disappeared). And I also tried to imagine the maritime events that occurred there when they filled the bottom with water—legend says they actually had naval battles there! The Forum is more of a widespread area with tons of temples and ruins, and is almost completely outdoors. Both are high up on the list of things one should see in Rome, even if they are fairly touristy.
Another famous spot is the Spanish Steps, and we made our
way towards them via the Rome metro. The metro was fairly easy to figure out, though not very extensive. We made our way from the back/top of the steps down to the bottom. It was an interesting view from the top. The area was one of the most crowded I saw in Rome, with people going up and down the steps and also milling about at the bottom. It was a great place for people watching.At this point it was starting to get dark, but we made our way to the nearby Pantheon but just took a look from the outside, intending to visit again in the near future. Afterwards, we were pretty hungry, so we found a cute little cafe with outdoor seating in one of the narrow streets and had our first Italian dinner. Though neither of us are big drinkers, we had to have a glass of wine with our pasta, which was delicious. One friend told us beforehand "it's hard to find a bad meal in Italy" and he was right.
We headed back to the B&B to rest up a bit before hitting the Roman
club scene that night. It was 1am by the time we made it to the club (OK, we slept in a little too long, then had trouble finding the place). We went to Gorgeous http://outadvisor.com/content/view/5736/82/ which was the most happenin' nightclub in Rome. There were mostly gay men there, but it was a mix of lesbians and straight people as well (in fact, there was a room there that was for ladies only). They had go-go boyz (all pretty hot), and room after room of music and shows, and the place was jam packed. We made our way back via the bus (the only thing running) at 3am to finish our first day together in Rome.
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