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! :)
