WHILE IN ROME

WEATHER:  Beautiful Tops 25C - Lows 12C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY:  Chelsey Arrived

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of a single thing

BUYS OF THE DAY:  Gelato for 2EUR to eat at the Trevi Fountain

WORD OF THE DAY: - always written phonetically – Chow= informal good-bye

Chelsey’s here, Chelsey’s here!!!!!  Have I mentioned that Chelsey’s here.

 I had a pretty relaxed morning at The St Regis Grand.  Left the hotel for a spot of lunch, picking a café not far from the hotel, as Chelsey was due in at 1pm.  Thought I was doing really well, there were a lot of locals sitting eating at this particular café, so I took a seat.   The waiter was really sweet as the menu was only in Italian, so he ran through it with me.  After selecting a pasta dish, white wine and a tea I waited in anticipation of having my first pasta in Rome.  Well I had to hide my shock when he bought out the pasta and it was still in its microwaveable plastic plate!!!!  Too funny.  When people walked past and looked in, I felt bad I was in Rome eating a frozen pasta meal!!!!!!  It was very tasty in their defence, but it certainly wasn’t made by mama in the back kitchen.  I also paid 4EUR for the tea, so I won’t be recommending that place to anyone, especially for the tea which I could have got from Macca’s 10m down the street for 1EUR!

Chelsey got to the hotel fine and after a quick shower we headed down to the Trevi Fountain which is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel.  It was SO busy.  If you wanted to get down to the fountain to throw your coin in over your shoulder, it would have been messy with a lot of shoving and pushing with people 6 deep down there.  It was amazing to see so many people there.  I guess being Easter Thursday and the Pope has his Easter service on Sunday; there would be a lot of people in town.  We decided not to risk going down to the fountain, and just ate some Gelati and people watched for a while before heading to the Spanish Steps.  We decided not to throw a coin in the fountain, as we know we are coming back to Rome on our Contiki tour.  Why waste our Euro’s now, we will throw our coin in on the return, with the wish that we will come back again.  Needless to say the Spanish Steps were just as busy.  You could barely see them, there were that many people sitting on them!  This is Chelsey’s first time to Europe, so she learnt the hard way that nothing is for free.  When the guys walking around giving out roses for free, are not actually free when you take one from them.  He got a little upset when she gave the rose back to him, but she now knows how the programme works!

Round 2 for my Rome pasta experience.  Well I knew where NOT to take ChelC!  We walked to the Republic Piazza and found a street café along there that looked quite cute and ‘Italian’.  We ordered a bottle of Lambrusco (which was delicious) pasta (not a microwave meal) and a pizza (which was also delicious) and we shared the whole lot!  We even got a rude Italian waiter to top off the experience!  What a great way to depart Rome and we will see you in 2 weeks when we come back, albeit we won’t be staying in the lap of luxury and in the center of town, but we will be back!