We ( me, Jacqui and Lauren) started off our adventure in Rome, we left very early on Christmas Day, which was an adventure in itself. The night before we left we realized that it may be difficult to get a taxi at 6 30 am on Christmas, we looked online but couldn't find any numbers that would pick up so we decided to go out and look for some cabs. After walking around in the rain for an hour we finally got two cab company numbers but when we called them they said it wasn't certain we could get a cab so to call in the am and confirm. We woke up the next morning and one of the companies confirmed that they could, but when I called to cancel the other one no one picked up. Somehow at 6:30 when we went outside there were three cabs waiting for us...and started fighting over who got to take us..woops.
We flew into Rome and had no problem getting to our hostel, we were in a room for four but there were only three of us so we basically just hoped for the best with our new roomate. When we got into our rooms we found Enzo. Enzo was the most typical looking Italian man you could find, he was about 30 and traveling alone. We said Hi but I think we woke him from his nap so he wasn't very happy. We were a little anxious at first especially about leaving our things un attended with Enzo, but we soon learned that Enzo would be the highlight of our trip. There isn't really a good way to describe him except hilarious, one night we were planning to stay in when he suddenly ran out and told us he was going to get presents, twently minutes later he came running back into our room with two bottles of champange singing " I am Santa Claus, I am Santa Claus.)
Rome was very cool overall minus the fact that the weather wasn't great. We went to the Vatican one day to see St. Peters Cathedral and the sistine chapel, but only St. Peters was open so we had to come back the next day. We woke up super early to be there before everything opened and when we arrived at 7:30 there was already a line of about 400 people. Despite the long wait it was totally worth it. The art inside was amazing! We saw all the major sites, made a wish in Trevi fountain, saw the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps and the Colloseum. My favorite was probably the Colloseum at night, it had special beams of light shining through it for New Years.
After Rome we took the train to Florence. We were lucky enough to know someone who helped us get a Villa/Hotel instead of a Hostel which was beautiful. We were the only non-couples there and probably the only people under the age of 60 but thats ok. Our room was amazing, we had a towel heater and endless hot water which was pretty much all we could ask for. It rained the entire time we were in Florence so that was a big bummer, but it was still beautiful. Florence had amazing leather and I think I actually spent about 2 hours deciding which pair of leather gloves to get, ( I finally picked a bright blue because that will clearly match everything).
Obviously food is the main reason anyone goes to Italy but we actually had a bit of a hard time finding amazing Italian food, most of what we had could be done better in the North End of Boston. We finally had an amazing meal at the Za Za tratoria where Jacqui and I decided to go all out, we had a bottle of the house wine which was amazing, and I had nocci (sp?). Side note if my spelling is horrible it is because my computer is in Spanish and no longer corrects my English errors.
Barcelona!
Barcelona was my second to last destination on this big adventure, I had been there before but this experience was nothing like my last. Jacqui and I were joined by our friend Brittany as well as our two Swedish friends Lollo and Sandra. The last time Lauren was in Barcelona, the previous summer, she had made friends with a few Español hombres who became her personal tour guides on the trip. Unfortunetly, Lauren got sick in Florence and had to go home early, but her friends were still nice enough to pick us up from the airport. We had no idea what they looked like, and vise versa so we just told them to look for the, " Americanas quien parece perdidas" aka the Americans who look lost and it actually worked. The guys names were Carlos and Alian and they were awesome. They lived in a town about twenty minutes outside of the City and came in everyday/night to show us around.
Our Hostel was called the 4 Fun Hostel, but the only reason it was fun was because we were in it. It was hidden with no sign, on a back street near las Ramblas, our room was dark and cold but at least the beds were comfy. Our first night in Barcelona started off nicely, we had a delicious Paella dinner in a plaza and then decided to check out the discotecas. We had a nice time dancing and decided to make our way home around five since afterall it was a Wednesday night. On our way home there was a man who started yelling "piropos" or cat calls at us, since we live in Spain we didn't think much of it since it's a regular day occurance until he came really close to us at the door of our hostel. We started yelling at him in both English and Spanish to get away from us but he wouldn't leave us alone, until he grabbed my bag and ran away. I had my new bag that I bought in Florence, tucked tightly under my arm, he grabbed it and ran and of course I ran after him. I chased him until he went down an alley and then I decided that it was probably best to turn around. Luckily the only valuble thing that he took was my camera with all my pictures of Italy and my children at school before Christmas. I was obviously upset but decided I wouldn't let it ruin the rest of my trip.
The rest of the trip basically involved a lot of dancing. Everynight our Spanish friends took us out to amazing discotecas and salsa bars. All of the people we hung out with were in love with salsa and took classes all the time, originally they wanted to teach us but once they saw our great dance ability they decided it best to just let us watch them.
We had a very typical Spanish New Years. We brought in the new year at a bar near our apartment, since our hosts were spending time with their families and would not be able to pick us up until 2 am. We followed the Spanish tradition and at the strike of midnight we quickly ate 12 grapes; one for each month of good luck. Our friends came and got us around 2: 30 and we danced until the sun came up in a huge discoteca.
