A few days in Rome

So, I left you in Rome with my anticipation to see the Colosseum at night fall. We decided to take the metro in because when you come out of the station there it is in all of its glory. Jackie, was right, that was the best way to see it. I have to tell you that it took my breath away. Imagining centuries of people walking by this very site in all of its grandeur and all of its ruin. (Excuse my typing, the computer I am borrowing is a European one and the keys are not in all of the normal places). The place is magical. Especially at night when it is all lit up. So we took a stroll through the ruins of Palentine Hill and through the Roman Forum all the way until we hit Trevi fountain. Even at 10pm it was still full of people.

This is a place that I want to go back to again and again. I love the fountain with its beautiful statues and absolutely fairytale magic feel that it has to it. Being third wheel has never been an issue for me, but at this fountain I wanted to close my eyes and then open them to find some dashing european/australian/ect (preferably someone with an accent) man ready to kiss me. ( well, I take that back because I am pretty sure I could've closed my eyes and opened them to find a european man ready to kiss me... I'm just a little bit more picky). Regardless of my lack of romance you get swept up in the feeling of amore, which is perfect as well (dear readers, bear with me I'm almost done with my hopeless romantic bit). I just sat there and watched not only Jackie and Nate but other couples and friends, laugh and revel in the moment.

Ok, all done with that. The next day we went to see The Pantheaon. So, I'm not sure how to rank all of these amazing things that I have seen but I have to say that the Pantheon is breathtaking in size and its beauty. Well, its size really really really really amazes me. I can't believe that all of these huge monuments and structures were made in a time before we had heavy machinery. Besides, the point the Pantheon, Colosseum, and Trevi Fountain are my top three for the moment. We'll see where the rest of the trip lands my current favorites, and I'm only talking about favorites in Rome...

oooooooo before we go on I HAVE to tell you about one of the most amazing things that they have here, shaved ice. Now, don't start thinking, "shaved ice, they have shaved ice in the states. They sell it at the fair, ect." Becuase I have to tell you that this isn't any kind of shaved ice this is the best I have EVER had. Not only can have about 20 different flavors, even some with booze in it ;) they shave off of a huge brick of ice. It could possibly be the 90+ degree heat and 70% humidity that makes this treat so amazing, but I have never had shaved ice with sambuca flavoring!

Back to Rome. So Tahoe really does reach all different countries. Remember me telling you how Adam a friend from Tahoe met us in Sienna, well, Callie who is also a friend from Tahoe is now living in Rome and working as a cook in a great little restaurant near the Pantheon. So, we hung out with her all night, cooked dinner had some great cheap wine and all laughed at the coincedes of being in Italy together.

Now it is off to Pescara, a city on the Adriatic sea where we will be couch surfing ( I wrote it down wrong earlier, it is couchsurfing.org) with a man named francesco (sp?).

fa caldo

So i am sitting here in Rome, in Jackie's apartment... sweating like CRAZY!!! One thing I didn't realize about Italy in the summer is that it is really really hot. Not like Tahoe hot with cool nights or NW hot that is a relatively dry heat. I mean you take a shower and you start to sweat hot :) It doesn't distract from how amazing it is here. I mean absolutely amazing.

   I started my adventures a week ago, well I arrived in Rome a week ago. My adventures started, when I frantically packed up my room in Oregon and hopped on a plane to Boston! 4 or 5 action packed days later (riding a lawn mower at 10 in the morning drinking a beer, fancy dinner, countryfest, and a day in plymouth.... I could write a complete post just on my time spent there. I LOVE BOSTON and my host Christopher Zona :) and all of the great people he has surrounding him) I was on a plane to Chicago for a 5 hour layover in which I hung out with Bonnie a friend from Tahoe who has been living there for about a year. Saw the crazy metal bean and had some lunch. Made it back to my plane and settled in for the long *uncomfortable* (there are only a few ways to position yourself in those seats) over night flight to Italy. Took the train into Rome where Jackie was meeting me to take me to her apartment. We ran into each other perfectly and it was so exciting to just be here. I would like to say that I jumped right up and did a bunch of things on that first day, but I would be lying. I have never had jet lag as bad as that! So needless to say I slept and sweated that first day and amazingly enough managed to pull it together to enjoy some vino that night.... 

This leads to the first leg of my amazing week so far. Jackie (yes, the same jackie that I was going to be going to South America with last year) and Nate have managed to make some great connections out here. So we ended up staying with their friends in a quaint little village in the heart of Tuscany. We had amazing pizza, great wine, limoncello and afterwards the owners of the little restaurant hung out with us.  The next morning Claire and Dan showed us around their breath taking property. They have over 200 olive trees and a little vineyard. Talk about starting a trip off right :) 

So. I just realized that if I go into as much detail as I feel that I should, I'll be writing for days! So, I am just going to streamline it. We traveled to Florence (firenze) the next day and went and saw David (the one in the museum) stayed in a fun little hostel and made pasta (this is a budget trip) and had some great cheap wine (3 euros for a liter and a half).  Next day we went to the Uffizzi and was amazed at the "Birth of Venus" and all of the other great works. Hung out in the Piaza and people watched (2cd David) decided to stay in the same hostel ate more pasta and cheap wine and then climbed to the piaza d'michelangelo to see the city (3rd david).  Mmmmm forgive my inability to spell anything the right way! That night was spent singing, playing guitar and drinking beers with some of the other kids in the hostel. It is so great to hear so many different languages! We were all trying to find songs that we could sing together! Mom, you'll laugh, I played "stewball" and "yellow is the color" for them 'cause they were the only ones I could remember!

Next day was great as well, we took a little day trip to Sienna where the town holds the shortest horse race. The square is breath taking and we had some amazing gelatto and met a friend from Tahoe, Adam; who is caretaking a villa near Sienna. It is so crazy to run into someone who you know from home in the middle of a village in Italy. That night we met up with one of my best friend's step-cousins whose family owns a little b&b right outside of Florence, where we were going to stay that night. The hospitality of strangers never ceases to amaze me. Simone and his family have never met me, but he picked the three of us up from Florence, with his girlfriend and took us to an apretivo which is sooooo interesting (I have a great idea for a restaurant in the states!!!) 

So this meal (it is supposed to be a snack before dinner, but we treated it like a meal) was 8 euros. You get a drink and then go almost buffet style to this area that they have set up with all sorts of different pastas, rice, veggies and bread with a bunch of different sauces. You get these little mini plates with mini forks heap your plate up and dig in! It was fantastic! And to top it all off Simone bought us dinner! Yes, someone I have never met before who was letting us stay at his place just bought my dinner. I love people :) He then took us to the most amazing gelatteria...... YUM!!!!!! Then we got to sleep in the first air-conditioned place on this trip so far!! Heaven!

We have been trying to do this trip as budget as possible and there is a great little web site called couchsurfing.com where you literally stay on someone's couch or extra bed for free in all of these great places. It is a site for travelers and those who love to support traveling. Anyway, we came up with this bright idea that we would travel to the South of France on a whim, since we were so close to it up in Florence. We should've thought about it a little more and planned a little better but that is the problem with budgeting, the only way this little jaunt to Cannes would work is if we had somewhere free to stay. So all of our options fell through and we took a train back to Rome. Before getting on the train Jackie, Nate and I all went to a grocery store and picked out some bottles of Chianti, since we were in the heart of Chianti we should try the wine, right? I wish decent bottles of wine were this cheap in the states!

The next day (yesterday) we decided to make a break for the coast and lay on the beach all day. I mean if we weren't able to go to the french riviera the beach in Rome would do :) So, I swam in the Mediterranean! It was so refreshing to be near water. 

So that is where I will leave you... Tonight we plan on seeing the Colosseum when night falls and I think that we are going to do some sight seeing around Rome tomorrow. Then we plan on going to the Adriatic coast this weekend before Jackie's parents arrive. All I have to say is that I could get used to this. Traveling has been amazing and y'all were right... I don't want to leave and I'm only a week in! :) 

Amanda and Jackie take on SOUTH AMER....... errrr Hawaii!

It's amazing the little curve balls (or big) that life can throw at you sometimes. Yesterday I was just returning from Draino (Reno ) with the final touches for my grand adventure. Luna bars, little first aid kit, built in bra tanks, international phone card, travel TP ect. My credit card about to break and little butterflies of anxious excitement starting to creep up my throat.....

 I have been trying to get a hold of Jackie all day since she was on her way to Sao Paulo to fly into Bolivia. She and I were planning on meeting up when i flew into La Paz. I was sitting chatting with my roommate when my phone rang, it was an unknown number so I excitedly answered it...

      "We have a problem"

  And with those 4 words our trip to South America came to a screeching halt. Long story short, I was 20 minutes late to work, frantically trying to figure out how to salvage our trip. Through a scratchy phone connection I come to find out that Jackie's documentation of her Yellow Fever vaccine (which is required to get into Peru and Bolivia) wasn't being accepted in the airport and they wouldn't let her leave Brazil. 

She was scrambling to try and figure out what to do, meanwhile I was frantically searching the internet for possible other South American destinations. What if we went to Chile? Or Argentina? All great options until the only flights I could find came to about 600 US dollars. What was a relatively inexpensive trip, was rapidly becoming astronomical!

This is when Jackie's phone card runs out and I have no way to get a hold of her. So, i reluctantly drive to work, constantly checking my phone for any word from her. An hour passes and I anxiously try to distract myself pouring drinks for the 5 customers that WILL NOT DRINK FAST ENOUGH! Come on people order something complicated so I can be busy and not FREAK OUT over what I am going to be doing!

Then my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket. It's Jackie's mom (whom I have never met), calling to tell me that Jackie just left her a message stating that she was jumping on a plane back to SFO and to call and tell me that. f@#$@%^s@%#^@%#@@f*ck&*@#&!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup! So the rest of my night was spent in contemplation over if I could do it alone (mom rest easy that wasn't what I decided to do, but it was almost) or if I was just going to cancel my ticket, call it a loss and find something else to do. All day today, was spent in nervous anticipation for Jackie's call that she made it home safely. I have to say that I was being a bit impatient. I called her phone several times and finally it started ringing about one o'clock in the afternoon. I was greeted with Jackie's much happier voice laughing that she had just turned it on 3 seconds before I had called. 

Long story short (again! does that mean that I really am making a short story longer?!?!?!) We both came to the conclusion that we were not about to give up and stay at home. I mean, I still had the two weeks off and she still had the budget. But, where? We could road trip it to San Diego and stay with my friends there. We could camp along the coast. We could go to San Fran. We could go to Napa. We could fly to Bermuda, Jamaica, Cabo, Hawaii, Costa Rica, ect. The only thing stopping us was, that Jackie and I would have to purchase another plane ticket, thus dipping into the limited funds that we had saved for our GRAND ADVENTURE. I still had a ticket to use but Jackie would be starting fresh. 

Not willing to give up on the opportunity to get out of town, I had sent my feelers out to see if anyone would want two fun outgoing girls to stay with them for two weeks..... and luckily my friend Ian in Hawaii took the bait! So I spent the next few hours trying to find the best fare and see if we could possibly fly out there on our limited budget. 

Thank the travel Gods and the nice women at American Airlines! We are on our way to Hawaii monday. Machu Picchu or cliff jumping in Kailua? I think both sound pretty nice. I mean I'd prefer to go to someplace that I have never been. But really, how privileged am I that I can even have to opportunity to be having this dilemma. I'll take an adventure on the beautiful beaches of Oahu over staying home and working! Also, to throw in a little extra flavor to our adventure, we plan on stopping in Napa for wine tasting and girls pillow fight night :) before we fly out...

So cheers to last minute arrangements, great friends, friendly people, and the ability to have the world literally at our fingertips. ***SIGH***** (that was a really big one in case you were wondering). South America isn't safe yet, as Jackie so aptly put it "this wasn't our only chance for South America and whatever we do is gonna be awesome" I agree this new trip will be awesome. How could it not! THE ONLY WORKING WE WILL BE DOING IS ON OUR TANS!!!!!!!!!!! (wow i am really cheesy!)

This little blog is kinda fun and as you all know I am slightly narcissistic (I did write a quite lengthy paper on narcissism, and it really is a trait that most of us have). So check back. You may get to read more amusing stories of my antics and possibly view some great photos of our crazy adventure to Hawaii via Napa and San Francisco.

So this is the beginning!

I have always wanted to travel. It has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. Maybe the gypsy in me is coming out? Maybe it is my inability to stay in one place for an extended period of time? All I know is, that it is about time!

The first leg of my year or years of travel will start in La Paz, Bolivia. I will be flying into the city and meeting Jackie, a kindred spirit and world traveler. She has already been in Brazil for the past month, and quite ready to see a familiar face. She is my savior, she not only is a dear friend but is fluent in about 4 languages (good thing because my limited french and minimal spanish are pretty pathetic). She also is the only reason that I am going to South America before going to Europe (where I don't stick out like such a sore thumb!).

So, we are meeting in Bolivia and then..... the adventure begins. I don't think that we have a specific plan. I do know that we will be trying to go to some of the touristy spots, like Lake Titicaca ( we live in tahoe so it is only natural that we go to a lake that is at 12,000 some odd feet above sea level) and then off to climb to Machu Picchu.

Hold on tight, and disregard any lack of punctuation or grammatical errors. I have been out of school for almost an entire semester! :)