…i fell in love, and his name was Lamborghini.

27-28.06.2009

The day slowly draws to a close and I am hanging out here, in our nearly 15 square metre (haha) hotel room, just chillin’. I am 360 degrees of tired, but I don’t want to go to bed yet, as I’ll wake up at 3 am craving prosciutto, bocconcini and tomatoes. That’s just me, though. Anyway. Our trip started off really well, with a gloriously comfortable flight on a Boeing 767 that actually had LEG ROOM. Airbuses can suck it.

First irrelevant fact of the entry: today was the first time I had ever eaten my airplane dessert (for the record, I absolutely love airplane food).

I sat next to HawkMom, directly behind her two offspring, Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber. When we were 15 minutes from our destination, the girl asked, really loudly, if the body of water below us was the ocean, when a) that is impossible if you know ANY geography, and b) the map 15 cm from her face showed us flying over the MEDITERRANEAN SEA. The duo also said a variety of other equally stupid things throughout the flight, but nothing particularly noteworthy. The stupid quotation of the day instead came from a septuagenarian seated diagonally across the aisle from me. The sunrise over the wing was absolutely gorgeous, and like most of the people on our side of the plane, she wished to have a photo. Given the fact she was too far from the window to get a decent shot, she asked Tweedledumb to take the photo for her because, and I quote, “My friends in Nova Scotia will never believe that it was sunny here when it was near midnight over there!” Apparently, her friends were never introduced to the concept of Earth’s axial rotation…and the fact it is round. Is it Nova Scotia that has its own time zone? Maybe that’s why they’re day/night retarded. I don’t know. In any case, we landed in Leonardo da Vinci airport soon thereafter, and proceeded to try to navigate an airport designed by the bastard offspring of the creator of DDR and a hobo. There were arrows everywhere, but none of them led us to where we wanted to go, and wherever we did end up, was covered with filth. I definitely had huge expectations of the airport and was sorely disappointed. Way to name an ugly and confusing airport after one of the greatest artists of all time, douchewads. However, all our walking was not in vain! I discovered something very crucial: Italian men, contrary to popular belief, are actually good-looking. None of this greasy, furry-chested nonsense. They’re actually attractive. Christ, I love Europe.

We finally got to our hotel, after surviving 45 minutes on Roman roads. There is nothing quite like getting caught in a circus of 13 cars executing some sort of twisted three-man-weave in the middle of a turn. Did I mention there were 4 lanes of cars on a street with only 2 lanes? I’ll let your imaginations fill in the rest.

**Imagination hint: Think of the game Rush Hour, but instead of being completely stationary, it’s happening at 60 km/h with hilariously tiny cars, Vespas, honking and angry Italian men.

For lunch, we had authentic Italian pizza (So. Damn. Good) at a little pizzeria by our hotel, and then we went back to our room to pass out until dinner. After waking and bathing, we got dressed up and headed out to sightsee like good little tourists. I can’t really do any of the locations justice, no matter how hard I try to describe them, so you will have to wait for the (many) photos. All I can say is that it was breathtaking. I wandered the streets, staring up at the architecture like it was about to shower me with money, shoes and carbs. We went to il Colosseo, the Forum of Peace, la Fontana di Trevi and la Piazza de Spagna (I probably spelled these incorrectly), stopping to grab cappuccinos and paninis in between.

Sidenote: The waiter at the panini place was possibly the most entertaining man I have ever come across. He was just so lively and ridiculous that it brought me joy.

Sidenote 2: Everyone was so well-dressed.

On our way back, we came across an orange Lamborghini Gallardo (read: my dream vehicle) and took photos (in my dad’s case) and salivated (in mine). The owner came back as we were walking away, and the sound that car made while driving off made me more than a little happy in the pants. Mmm. Past the street my dream vehicle was parked on, there was a square with a large fountain in the centre. Italy, I am pretty sure, is the only place where a giant golden statue of a naked man kneeling and bathing himself with city water is considered art. After this glorious(ly alarming) sight, we headed back, as both my ankles were roughly the size of mangoes, only stopping to get some gelato at the gelateria directly across the street from our hotel. Awesome. I love Rome so far, and can’t wait to see the Vatican tomorrow! I am going to get my ass to bed now, kiddos.

I leave you with this overheard statement: “I don’t mean to stereotype, but I miss tacos and free water.”