Ciao from Roma! So, I completely underdescribed my hideous round two with the flu, because at the time I was still sick and I didn't want to sadden/horrify my loved ones until I knew for sure I'd be better. I was really, really sick. At one point I was shaking all over for over an hour, and at another point my temperature was like, 104 or something. It sucked even worse than Stephen Harper's medicare policy (oh yes I went there) but I'm better now, yay!
I spent another day clinging to life in Pistoia, and then the day before yesterday I was good to go, and so I did. I took a train to Firenze and transfered to another train to Roma (Rome) and got here insanely late. I'm doing a bit of couchsurfing host-hopping right now. That night I stayed with an incredibly nice Italian bloke named Antonio, and for the next two nights I'm staying with a different Italian named Giovanni, then on Monday I'm staying one more night with Antonio. The reasons for this are complicated, but they do make sense. Anyway, after crashing at Antonio's, yesterday morning (first day of sun since I've arrived in Italy) Antonio and I went to the local market to get vegetables and pasta, then back to his place where he cooked me a really yummy pasta lunch. I honestly can't get over how flavourful and delicious the olive oil is here! The olive oil in Canada is like motor oil in comparison. Right, so after lunch we did a little sight-seeing. I saw the city gates, the famous fountain of something, something, the famous statue of something, something, loads of statues actually, the old Rome-home of our good pal Muessolini (sp?), and the very famous Roman Collasseum. Holy wow! It's so big and beautiful and fairly well preserved! We got 3-flavour gellato and ate it in front of the collasseum. Pure bliss!
Then afterwards I met up with Giovanni and went the his place. He lives with 2 roommates in this giant, mansion-style flat with marble-style floors and huge gorgeousness everywhere. Giovanni drives the world's cutest car! It's this teeny Italian number from the 70s and I'm in love with it! We got in his cute little car and drove to a pizzeria to meet some of his friends for dinner. Here's how the Italian dinner breaks down. We got there around 9, but had to wait for everyone to get there until about 9:30. Then at 10 everyone was ready to order, but they won't take your dinner order until after you've eaten your appetizer (if you're getting them, which we were) so we only ordered apps first. After that, we all got our pizzas ordered by about 10:30, and we didn't finish eating and talking until well after 11. Then everyone ordered dessert, so dinner wasn't actually finished until after midnight. Then we all left the restaurant together and it was another 10 minutes so everyone could kiss everyone else goodbye on the cheeks before we all went our seperate ways. As you can imagine, this is a very, very different experience for a Canadian. To us, dinner is more like a race than a meal. After all that time eating, it wasn't long before I was ready for bed.
Today Giovanni walked around the city with me and was my own little guide for sightseeing. He studied the classics in school, so he knows loads of history, and I got to hear about all the statues, arches, monuments, and ruins we saw. We went to the collasseum, because I wanted to see it in daylight, and luckily today there was sun again. For lunch we went and got fallafels in the Jewish district of Rome. After that Giovanni had to split, and I took a bus to St. Peter's square. Now that's one heck of a square! The church is huge, and the surrounding buildings have about a million statues. Unfortunately the cue for the church was huge, so I didn't get into the church, but I did get to see the outside. More unfortunately, they charge an absolutely outrageous price for the Vatican Museum, so I'm debating whether or not to go. Although I woukld like to see the Sistine Chapel. Hm, we'll see...
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