| Cargo ships move by, tracing on the horizon line I'm writing from Rome! Spring vacation is so made for traveling. Even though the past couple of days seem to revolve around sleeping and eating (as any good vacation should), it's been pretty fun exploring the city. Plus, it's kind of awesome watching "Rome" in Rome. I find Rome very old-timer. Like just by looking all the buildings, I can imagine them being around 100 years ago. All the sites are hidden away... well, not really hidden per se, but it really is like turn the corner, and BAM there's a famous square (Campo d'... something. I'm usually pretty good at figuring out maps, but I can't understand the street names/square names for crap) There's fountains, statues, and obelisks galore. The Forum and Colosseum are pretty cool, too. Also, Rome is very touristy. Like, more than any city I've ever seen before. I'm pretty sure the Forum has a visitor population density equal to Disneyland. No joke.
Definately my favorite part of the trip thus far was visitng ancient Pompeii (you know, the city that got destroyed by Versuvius). Impressive architecture is cool and all, but I've always loved learning about how ancient civilizations lived. Now that's a class I so would take if Carnegie Mellon actually offered it. Compare and contrast how different ancient civilizations handled simple everyday tasks, like collecting water, or keeping the house warm. Man, that would be an amazing class.
You know what's funny about Italians? I think that, next to the Chinese, they're the world's worst drivers. Actually, these Romans drive a lot like Beijingers. All weave-y and completely ignoring lane dividers. It also doesn't help that there are hardly any street lights and like zero pedestrian crosswalk lights. Most of the streets I find have become unintentional pedestrian zones. People just walk in the middle of the road and cross whenever they please. The steets here are like after-thoughts, very narrow and serving only to connect squares to each other by squeezing between buildings. My sister's been dragging us everywhere for shopping (she even made a detailed list plus annotated map to figure out exactly how/when to hit what stores where --- it's a little ridiculous. I don't think I'm ever that organized for anything), but I don't really mind now that I bought a very cute Tsumori Chisato shirt-dress thing. I can't figure out when I would wear it... but it's really cute so that doesn't matter right now. But truthfully, while I'm really glad to be here, I don't really feel any incentive to come back to Rome. It's not like Florence or Edinburgh (oh man, do I want to go back to Edinburgh). Rome just seems like a city that everyone should definately come to, but once is enough. See everything you need to see, and get out. That being said, I'm probably in the minority, and it really is a nice city. Pictures coming soon... (hopefully) |
