September 26-28 Rome, Italy

So I got to Rome safe and sound around about 9:30am. I walked out of the train station and followed my directions I had written out for myself earlier the day before. I got to my Hostel and dropped off my backpack and locked some of my personal stuff up in their lockers and asked the lady at the front desk what she would recommend me doing since I had the whole day to start my adventure. She advised me about the many different types of tour buses that go around the city to all the sights. I had already planned on doing it from friends I had met in Vienna had told me that is was a great way to go. So I jumped on one of the buses that she recommended with a bunch of people. They give you little ear pieces to listen to the commentary of the trip because they have them in 8 different languages so it works out pretty well. I decided that I would first go all the way around the loop which takes about 2 hours to see all the sights and to stop on and off. I sat on the top of the two story bus, which is also roofless, so that you can get great shots of all the places we pass by. I got to see all the big sites like: The Coliseum, The Vatican, and many others. After I went all the way around I stopped at the Coliseum first which I was most excited about and took a guided tour through in and the ancient ruins along with it. After going through it I decided to walk back to my Hostel to go check in. I had a 24 hour pass on my bus ticket that I could use tomorrow as well. So I went back to the Hostel Alexandor. I have to say so far though that Rome is one of the hardest cities to navigate by map because every 2 blocks you walk the street that you are on turns into a different name and the their signs aren’t really the best in letting a person know where they are. So needless to say I took a little different route back then I had planned but it worked out because I got to see a little more of the city and find a nice little park that I would go to the following day. So I got back to the Hostel checked into my 8 bedroom hostel and showered because it had been extremely warm but mostly humid in Rome that day. So I showered up and jumped online to see what to do for the night ahead. I was considering a pub crawl but when I got back to my room a few of the people in my room were headed to an MTV international concert that they had invited me to go with. So I ended up going out with 3 people all from the England, one from Canada and one from Brazil and me… So we were all quite a group. So we took the Subway to the front of a historic building where there were thousands of people. We stopped on your way to get dinner and some beer and wine. So when we got there we just found a place to sit and watch because none of us knew what they were saying but the girl from Brazil who spoke about 5-6 languages. So we sat and ate and drank and listened to the music, some of the songs they would play we knew so it was a great time.
The next morning I got up and ate breakfast at the hostel which consisted of cereal with room temperature milk and a biscuit with jam which is pretty basic breakfast, nothing like the Carpenter breakfasts that my parents do, that’s for sure…. I did my laundry because I was in the stage of reusing clothes. So for laundry in consists of my going to the sink in the bathroom and washing each article of clothing by hand and wringing it out. I hung up my clothes up afterwards and went on my way to do some more traveling. I wanted to go to the Vatican just to say I had done it, but the weekend I went was a free weekend to get in. So needless to say the line was about 3+ hours long. So I decided to just walk around and see some more sites around Rome by foot. Let’s just say Rome is a BIG city….haha I spent most of the day walking around and when I got back to my Hostel later that evening I was pretty tired of walking with some good sized blisters to go along with it. So I headed off to the park that I had found the day before to relax and read my book while my clothes dried. I wasn’t sure when I got there but there was some big party going on in the park when I got there. I think it was for “Yom Kippur” maybe, its some Jewish holiday I know, but that’s all I could think of what they were doing. So I found a quite spot and read for a few hours which was nice because I was starting to get into a sightseeing overload with everything looking the same. So that ended my day in Rome. The next day I was off to Florence.

September 28-30 Florence, Italy
After how amazing Rome had been I was excited to see what Florence in store for me. When I arrived it was a little past 2pm and the lady at the front desk advised that it would just be a little longer tell my room was ready so I dropped off my backpack and set off to a authentic italino restauranta that the front desk lady had mapped out for me. So I went and it was very good. I ended up going back a couple of times. So I checked into my hostel and went off again exploring. When I got back I met a couple that were also Americans that where in the same room as me. They were great but they had to stick me with the only Americans in all of Europe that were Vikings fans from Minnesota, right after they got lucky beating the 49ers with 2 seconds left. I told them right away I didn’t want to talk about the game, because it would instantly make me mad… (just kidding) But they were really great and we ended up going to dinner the 3 of us. They had been traveling for about 3 weeks coming back from South Korea where they had taught English for a year and saved up to travel when they were done. They were great people. The next day at 8am I headed off to the train station where I had looked up earlier that they were having a guided tour of Tuscany that went all over the place which I wanted to do. It was a little expensive but by the end of the trip it was all well worth it. The first stop we had we went to Sienna were we had a guided tour and also got to go to a church of all things if you can believe that, haha. But Sienna was really interesting learning about its yearly horse race that they have in the middle of town. After that we went to an organic winery were they showed us around there winery and also farm that they have. After the short tour we had lunch and the best part, wine tasting! So we got to try a few different versions of the different types of wine that they made on their winery. All the wine was really good and the best part was you could try as much as you wanted. Let’s just say everyone got a little more talkative on the tour after lunch. After lunch we headed over to a castle and spent some time walking around and at the castle they had a gelato ice cream store that had been the world’s best gelato for the last 2 years. I feel like I am a pretty good judge in this area and it was pretty good. Then from there we were off to the leaning tower of Pisa. It took a while so I got a good nap in which was much needed. I got some great pictures of the whole trip and will have them posted along with my new blog. After the tour of Tuscany with was a 12 hour day I headed back to the Hostel and started planning my trip back to Poland. I am headed back to Poland for a week and a half to stay with Brody and just hangout for a bit. Before I go back and hit the tourist scene again. I trip back to Poland is 25 ½ hours with 3 train changes in Vienna, Warsaw and another small town in Poland. Hope all is well and I’ll try and keep everyone up to date on my travel plans…