calling from some city...

Today we left Santorini, something we were all sad to do. Scott made the point that Santorini was the first place we weere not ready to leave yet, and I completely agree with me. However, I knew I could spend endless days there just driving around on ATVs, going to the beach, and watching the sunset. I definitely want to return someday.

However, a trip to ROME awaited us. I was really excited to return to Rome and to see some of my favorite places again and see new sites I didn’t see before. We had a very early flight out of Santorini and luckily the villa owners were willing to drive us to the airport which made transportation very easy at 5:45 AM. We had a flight to Athens, a short layover, and then a flight to Rome. Everything went very smoothly; we flew Aegean Airlines and the planes were very clean and new and huge. They even gave us breakfast! Also on the way to Rome I had the whole row of seats to myself because the plane wasn’t full so I got to stretch out for the trip.

We landed in Rome a little after 10 am and went to get out bags.We figured out we could take a bus from the airport that was cheaper than the Leonardo Express train. The bus made two stops: at Piazza Cavour and Termini Station. I made the assumption that Piazza Cavour and the metro stop Cavour were the same place, and I knew the Cavour metro stop was one stop away from the Colloseum, which was the stop we needed. So, I made the decision we should get off at Piazza Cavour. Wrong decision. It turns out Piazza Cavour is NOT the same at the metro stop (that would make way too much sense for Italy, I should have suspected). We were nowhere near our hotel. We noticed a bus that went to the Colloseum and decided to take that after finding a newstand that sold bus tickets. I really miss having my monthly metro/bus pass, it made things so much easier. After waiting for 20 minutes, we found out that particular bus wasnt running today. Of course. We just decided to walk to the hotel, which ended up being 45 minutes.

Luckily we found the hotel and it has AC so that was a relief. They also offered us orange juice immediately upon our arrival and we got our triple room. Like I said we are right by the Colloseum, only about a 5 minute walk. That means we are pretty close to all of the major landmarks in Rome. This is also a completely different part of the city for me, because I lived in Trastevere and never venturned much over to this area except when  was sight seeing. I definitely wish we were over in Trastevere only to escape ALL of the tourists that are crowding this part of Rome, but in terms of sight seeing our location is perfect. We were tired but hungry so we found a restaurant and I had my first marinara pizza and it was excellent. We decided to take it easy because it was incredibly hot out. I love the summer heat, but I’m so glad  studied here in the winter and spring because it is brutal. We walked to the Pantheon and Trevi Fountain, then over to Piazza Navona and Campo de Fiori. Once we started walking around, I started to become refamiliarized with the streets and how to get places. I really missed this city.

After walking back to the hotel, I went to a supermarket to get some things. When I came out I decided to get a sandwich for dinner (we ate a late lunch). I was probably looking a little lost so an old man asked if I needed help. I replied that I wanted a quick sandwich and he volunteered to take me to a kebab place. We had a nice little conversation on the way, and even though he knew I was American, he said I spoke Italian very well, which I’m not sure is true but it was nice of him to say.

I ate my kebab and went back to the hotel. We were all exhausted and decided to go to bed. I was asleep before 10 pm. Three busy days of Rome awaited us.