I'm back in London, just arrived this afternoon from Rome after four days of basking in the sun and enjoying sights. Shopped a little (okay, a LOT) but hell, Rome has a million sights to see and think about. Romans have an interesting past, Julius Caesar and all that. We visited the Colosseo, the time elevator, some "ugly palace" that the old romans dubbed it as (Palazzo di Glustizia), etc. We spent only a day shopping, and that was yesterday.. after Masnur and Syer convinced Fol and I to go to Castle Romano, which is this factory outlet about 25km outside Rome (and conviniently close to Rome's Ciampiano airport, fifteen minutes ride by taxi I tell you!!!).

We arrived in Rome really late at night and didn't get to settle in until about midnight. Knocked ourselves out and slept away. I forgot what our hotel was called, but it was more like a motel then a hotel. We were barely there. Breakfast at the hotel was absoluteshite, they served two types of cereal (one was similar to corn flakes and the other was probably the bran version of it), bacon (can't eat that! lol) , breads that look like croissants but weren't (they were normal bread, only folded accordingly to trick the untrained palate and eye to look like a bloody croissant)... and about 5 different varieties of yogurt. There was milk, water, coffee, pinapple juice and orange juice. *cheeng* Anyway, like Milan and probably the rest of Italy, Rome was dirty. Half the places we went to smelled like piss or vomit. I didn't feel well most of those days, due to a muscle pain in my stomach (played football on Thursday, scored a couple. Woo hoo!)

After breakfast on our first day, the doorman at the hotel convinced us to get on a tourist bus. The hotel we stayed in was actually just across some big shot Church, St. Mary's or something. I don't know. (just checked my tourist map, it's called Santa Maria Maggiore) Will talk about it once my memory comes back.. but for now, I will try and list down the things we did for the few days we were there.

Being the "tourists" that we were, we went. €19 per person for the whole day, complete with a guide of Rome and a pair of earphones. It was the Ciao Roma bus, it was cool being on it, because you could hop on and off it at any of the 12 destinations it took you.. especially since we got to hear about Rome's history, how and who erected what buildings, which ones used the recycled marbles from the Colosseo, etcera. We got off at the Colosseo and there was a huge queue of people lining up to go inside the Colosseo. Anyway, we ran into this Indon chick who said we could jump the queue if we paid for a tour, which we did by the way, and it was, I suppose, worth the money because we did jump the queue, got in, the tour guide was hot and he walked around with a red umbrella. My guess was that he's probably italian.. but what the heck, he had this zit on his nose that I couldn't stop staring at... but never mind me and my weird obsession with acne. The actual price of going into the Colosseo without a tour (plus queuing for about an hour outside) was just €11, and the tour cost us €21 plus we got to use walkie talkies so we could hear the guide babbling on about how great the Colloseum was and the nine mistakes the US people made with Gladiator. :-P It was FACT that during the Roman times, men and women were sat SEPERATELY as they got a bit too friendly with each other and no one was ashamed of making friends very quickly. During those days, people were very very very open, if you can catch my drift ;-) Anyway, in the Gladiator, men and women were sat together. I don't really know if this is true or not since I haven't seen the movie myself.. but I will put it down as one of the movies I need to watch soon.

We also took time to visit the Vatican (Giardini del Vaticano) and I saw these two guys in colourful suits. Apparently they were from the Swiss army. FACT: You have to be Swiss and at least 174cm to join.. and the costumes were funny. It was yellow and purple and they looked more like Jesters than army guards. Got lost one or twice (thanks Mas :-P) but we found Zara (my boutique heaven) but didn't go in.. we ended up having a late lunch at Spizzico (it's this pizza chain under AutoGrill and it's like splattered all over Italy) and walked our bums to the Spanish steps. The Dior shop was located right in front of it, how convinent. Anyway, the steps were really cool because it was their way of getting their Chruch to connect to the ground floor in a straight line or something.. but I thought the steps were a beautiful idea anyway if there weren't so many tourists resting their arses on it. Seriously, you couldn't SEE the steps because everyone was sitting on it! Anyway, we didn't get back to our hotel til about 11pm because:

a) we got lost;
b) we had to retrace our steps because we somehow read the map wrong (that was Mas. I have no connection to directions or itenary);
c) the bus that was suppose to pick us up never showed up.

So we ended up having dinner at a fancy smanchy restaurant.. of which I ended up coughing €50 for my "part" of the bill and we took a taxi home. I had stomach pains (muscle...) throughout the day by the way.


The next day my stomach felt worse than it did before.. but Fol managed to convince me to go out anyway. We were initially
going to take a boat ride at the Tibet river but decided against it because:

a) the river was damn dirty;
b) it was smelly and
c) it didn't look very popular since there were no masses of queues for it.

So we took a walk and did I ever mention about how notorious the people in Italy were at selling knockoffs of branded goods? I can tell the difference between some goods now, but hell.. that Guess bag was anyone's guess. Anyway, the bridge we crossed were FULL of black men and bangladesh men (I'm not being racist, this is a full fact) selling knockoffs. I was just extremely grateful I didn't see any knockoffs of the LVs and Guess bags I had.. hahaha I've only got about, 5 nice handbags? :-) So yes, was very pleased. We walked towards the city and ended up at Piaza Navona which has these really quiant Italian restaurants. Am yet to be disappointed with "real" Italian restaurants despite their lack of imagination when it came to serving food and lack of choice (Bella Italia, Uno, Fratini's menus win by miles).

We rode on a horse coach to go to the time elevator... it was really lame but it had interesting facts in it because it told you the history of Rome for the past 3000 years in just 45 minutes. At the end of that, I just felt really sick so everyone sent me home and then they went out again (by they, I mean Mas, Syer and Fol) so I stayed in our hotel room and watched Who wants to be a Millionaire in Italian. That's another story I think I'll keep to myself.

Anyway, by Monday we learnt how to use the Metro system (and busses!!!) so we took the tube to get to Laurentina and thirty pestering questions later (to the people working at the Bus station), we were finally on our way to Castel Romano... only to be dropped out at the bloody highway and we had to litarately WALK from the motor way to the designer outlet... which took half an hour..... and I was cursing under my breath. Heck, it was worth it. :-) I bought a skort, a new top and a dress.. unfortunately, Fol didn't buy anything for some reason... but by mid-afternoon we were shopped out and wandered down to the Colosseo and walked to the Roman Forum (Areo di Tito) and also this beautiful arch which was located right in front of the Colosseo. We took lots of photos...... everyone will yet to see me in a photo alone with a scenic background (it screams "HELLO, LOOK! I'VE BEEN HERE". Seriously is not my thing). Anyway, after that whole let's take photos thing.. we took a bus to Spagna and places I didn't go to because I was not feeling well... and Fol took me to Zara and watched me shop.. and shop.. and shop. :-) We didn't get back to the hotel until about 9;30pm and we stopped by the NikeTermini and I bought us matching tops (lame aren't we?) and bought him a cook book to read :-) I love that boy. :-)


We woke up at 4am the next morning, I could hear Syer's alarm beeeeepping....she was pretty loud when she woke up. Haha, she fell asleep at the airport table. We were exhausted by the time we arrived, but at least we checked in our bags early. We had second priority seating, woo. But that's only because we checked in at 7am... but our flight wasn't until about 11am. It was pretty crazy...


Now, Mas and Syer have gone back to Loughborough..and I'm staying in London til the weekend to celebrate my 20th birthday in many many styles!

Will post photos up eventually.

love,
yasmin.
XXXX

ps. please mind my grammar and spelling.. am on an apple laptop. have no clue how to use this thing. xxx