I honestly cannot believe it has taken me this long to update and write. I went to Paris and Rome from February 9th- February 15th.
I flew into Paris on Wednesday night. It was one of the scariest flights of my life. The pilot was just about to land the plane when at the last second he pulled straight up and we had to circle around and try to land again. They said it was because there was a bad tail wind(?). Regardless, I finally got there and I had to take the RER and switch over and take the Metro to Aaron's apartment. I think I can officially work the Metro system better in Paris than I can in Chicago.
Thursday, Aaron and I got to walk around Paris a little bit. I'm pretty sure we had good old McDonald's for lunch and I had a cup of coffee because now that I live in Sweden, I have to have coffee at least once a day. Then we had to catch a bus to the Beauvais airport. It's about an hour outside of Paris. I hate this airport more than any other airport. It's far away and small and boring. I hope I never have to see it again.
The flight to Rome wasn't that long. Of course, we flew with RyanAir so we had to listen to 15 different advertisements for things that I don't care about. When we finally got to Rome, we had to get on another bus to get to the center of Rome. Then, it was about 11:45PM and we were in the middle of Rome with a suitcase and everything looked closed. Fortunately, we did find a cheap pizza place. My first taste of real Italian food!
I've actually been to Italy once already. I went to Venice for a day trip when I went to Europe in 2006 with a high school music group. For some odd reason, during the 10 hours I was in Venice, the only thing I managed to eat was McDonalds and french fries from a street vendor. Total Italian food fail.
After my first taste of Italian food, I had my first taste of Italian people. Aaron and I ended up taking a cab to our hotel. Even though it was not that far away from the train station, we didn't really know where we were going and it was midnight and there were lots of sirens going off. Our cab driver couldn't speak English and for some reason yelling Italian louder at us was supposed to make us understand better.
Then, we got to the hotel and the lady at the reception desk greeted us with, "Hi, you must be the Trautman reservation. We don't have a room for you."
....What?...
It wasn't until the manager walked over and explained that we would have a temporary room at the hotel next door due to "problems with the floor" in our original room. I still don't know what that means and honestly, I was afraid to ask.
Friday morning, we made an attempt to wake up in time for the free breakfast. After breakfast, we were kicked out of our temporary room. However, when we walked over to our hotel, we still didn't have a room. So the manager promised to lock up our bags, handed us a map and told us to have fun!
Do I sound bitter yet? It was a rough start. It did get better though.
After breakfast, we started to walk towards the Colosseum. When we finally got there, there were those pesky people that kept following us and trying to sell us cheap plastic jewelry. Then we saw the line. The long, long, long line to get into the Colosseum. We heard what the price was (I don’t think there was a student discount), and looked at the line... and decided that maybe the Colosseum wouldn’t make the itinerary for that day. We thought maybe we would go back, but we never did. I’ve seen pictures of the inside of the Colosseum and while it’s really historic and interesting, I’m also a poor college student who’s not really willing to spend more than $15 on a few pictures.
That day I got... pasta soaked in goodness. Ok, so I don’t remember what it was called. It was in Italian! But, I assure you, it was amazing. We sat at the outdoor restaurant for at least an hour because for one, it was sunny and warm in Rome. After being in Sweden and seeing the sun set at 3:30 PM, it was unbelievably nice to feel the sun again. The second reason we sat there for so long was because our waiter was this cute old man that walked like a penguin and kept forgetting our table existed.
Small story:
Aaron: I’ll have a Beck’s.
Waiter: ... Bud?
A: No, Beck’s.
W: Ahhh! Bud!
A: No, a Beck’s (points to menu).
W: Buck’s? (doesn’t look at menu)
A: Beck’s (points to menu again).
W: Ahhhh! Beck’s! (with an Italian accent).
Somehow the word for Beck’s isn’t the same in Italian as it is in English.
Friday had more walking, more taking pictures of buildings older than my country, and more dodging the annoying salesmen.
But dinner was amazing. In fact, I literally still have dreams about this restaurant. We had a late start to dinner, and we didn’t really know where to go. So Aaron and I took the advice of the receptionist and just started walking. We found a small restaurant with the TV set to soccer and wine bottles lining the shelves. Not only did this restaurant have the best food, but it was cheap.
The best part? The house wine was cheap, too.
It was so cheap that we both even ordered bread for an appetizer. Then for the main course, I had penne arrabiata. It was the largest, spiciest, more wonderful bowl of pasta I’ve ever had. We ended up drinking the red wine and slowly eating our food over the course of 3 hours.
Dear Italian restaurants in the United States: you’re doing it wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment