In a blink of an eye, we left beautiful Venice today… and we are now in Rome, Italy! It was a mission to carry all of our luggage out of our hostel, over the bridge, on the boat, and to the train station, Tran Italia. But, with Edgar’s help we managed to get everything and everyone of us where they needed to be. Luckily, the train station was right next to a “boat stop” so we didn’t have to travel very far to get there. We waited in line for a bit before buying our ticket to Rome. I saw so many backpackers waiting around and walking through the train station! I love seeing hardcore travelers like that… it’s so inspiring. Anyway, we boarded our train and left promptly at 12:27pm. Since I bought my ticket separately from Lu, Edgar, Jinah, and Sherry (they bought the EuroRail Pass) I was placed to sit in a seat further away from them. It was okay though, I had the window seat anyway so I didn’t mind.
After about twenty minutes into our train ride, I started talking to the people that I shared my seating area with. I had the urge to start talking to them or at least say hello, so… I did! One of my most favorite things about traveling, especially in places like Europe, is that you are constantly mixing with so many different kinds of people. You either see or meet people from all over the world… it’s like all of our paths intertwine in these amazing traveling locations. Today I met an Australian girl, Rebecca, a Japanese girl, two native Italian residents, and one American who works in the movie industry! Yeah, that’s a whole other story on it’s own haha. But basically, you learn a lot when you meet people with different backgrounds and cultural lifestyles. Plus, it’s a ton of fun! I had so much fun simply having a conversation with all of them; and that very fact –the fact that we all come from completely different backgrounds— makes participating and being present in such a moment so enthralling and amazing. Rebecca the girl from Australia is extremely bubbly and friendly, the Japanese girl was a bit timid because she doesn’t know how to speak English very well, and the two native Italians were very helpful in pin-pointing the “must-see” places in Rome. It was so great! It’s crazy though because in the middle of one of my conversations with an Italian musician haha… the American guy behind me started talking to me! Now, this guy was pretty legit. He was super talkative and talked to me a lot about his experience working in the movie industry, how he used to shoot music videos for some really well-known bands of various genres in the nineties, and how he is constantly traveling and busy working on something new with a new project that is thrown at him almost every day. He said that he was born in New York, but he lives in Los Angeles… so we bonded over this point and fact and I just asked him a bunch of questions about what he does. The time passed by so quickly and melted away… that we talked all the way to Rome, up until we had to get out of our seats and get off the train. Don’t you just love meeting people spontaneously this way? It’s so crazy! (I got his email)
Anyway, after leaving the train station we found our way to our new hostel—which, by the way, is so much smaller than our hostel in Venice—ate kababs for dinner, and started exploring the streets of Rome. Since we began our day later than usual, we did the best we could to get through some good places today. Other than eating some more gelato… we took pictures, pictures, and more pictures of almost every little thing that involved columns or arches haha. The highlight of our day must be visiting Trevi Fountain… now THAT was absolutely amazing. I really can’t put into words how beautiful this fountain is… it’s so massive and INCREDIBLY detailed. I just kept staring at it in awe. We all even made a wish after throwing in some change into the water behind our shoulders… haha I hope my wishes come true!
Our evening ended with walking into a church right across from Trevi Fountain, eating a strawberry and nutella crepe, and zig-zagging through the streets all the way back to our hostel. We stopped by a super market before going back to our hostel to make sure that we have some bottled water and snacks to nibble on for tomorrow’s adventure.
Three more days of Rome for me! Lets DO THIS!
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