Just to avoid any confusion, we definitely were not in France this week. But wine can make a girl think crazy things 🙂
This week has been surprisingly rainy in Rome, but I think we’re all enjoying the break from sweating (and sunburn in my case). So I spent most of the week in my studio working on my paintings… again I can’t believe this is real life. We did do a few exciting things though in preparation for our trip to CINQUE TERRE this weekend!
My roomies and I decided to have spa night!
Beauty is hard work girls.
We all doused our hair in copious amounts of olive oil, wrapped them in grocery bags, and sat around fighting with Trenitalia’s website in some effort to buy train tickets… but mostly we just sang Lion King songs. Our apartment was probably a very interesting site to see that night. But after we washed our hair out, it did in fact look luxurious (according to Kenny, and I trust what he says.)
Speaking of train tickets, I learned another European lesson this week in Rome; they really are 10 years behind us on technology. My friends and I spent the better part of 3 nights fighting with the trenitalia website, with futile results, trying to book our train tickets. Either the train times wouldn’t match up, or no one’s card would go through, or our passwords wouldn’t work. Anyway it was really a huge fiasco but eventually everyone got their tickets booked… or so we thought. Since a crazy man with no pants stole my wallet, James was nice enough to let me book my tickets on his card. No one could have foreseen the shenanigans that would result from this. First of all, Our group is going from Rome to Cinque Terre, then Cinque Terre to Siena, then Siena to Rome this weekend. As of now James and I STILL don’t know how we’re getting from Siena to Rome and until yesterday I didn’t have a ticket from Cinque Terre to Siena. And to top it all off SOMEONE (James) forgot he had a field trip the morning we leave -__-. When he told me I replied:
“Oh, that stinks I guess we’ll have to meet up with you in Cinque Terre.”
To which he replied:
“Actually, they’ll have to be meeting up with us because your ticket is stuck with mine.”
…One can only imagine the eruption that ensued from here.
After a few phone calls to my dad, a few hours on trenitalia, and one frantic trip to the local travel agency I procured my ticket and learned a valuable lesson: When in Italy, don’t shop online. Just go to the Travel Agent and let them do it for you.
Special thanks to Gianni for telling me to go there! You’re the best!
Last night my roomies and I wanted to have a fun night on the town and just unwind from our busy weeks, so what better than Rome Fashion night out?
Clearly our olive oil worked, everyone confused us for models 😛
Essentially, during Rome’s Fashion Night out, many of the stores on the main shopping strip around the Spanish Steps (Via del Corso) stay open very late, blast techno music, and hand out cocktails and food to serious shoppers (and silly window shoppers, like me). The streets were totally packed with people, noise, and alcohol. The craziest place we went to was Luis Vuitton… never felt more poor yet more luxurious in my life.
I think we transitioned from Lizzie McGuire to Sex In the City.
Romans love their fashion! (And free booze…)
Yup. I think it’s the booze.
We stopped to get some dinner, which was lovely. Hopefully someday they won’t even be able to tell we’re American! I said that to our Italian waiter and he said: “Ah… maybe in so many years.”
Like their hair?! … yea. I did that.
Clearly, native Italians.
Fettucine Al Funghi
My dinner was wonderful! However, I found a tiny red pepper in mine which I’m sure was used for a little spice. Not totally sure what it as, with my judgement mildly impaired from the cabernet, I deemed it harmless and popped it in my mouth. BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER. My mouth was on fire for like 2 minutes, and they were pretty close to the worst 2 minutes of my life. And all I had to drink was red wine…. I almost cried. Luckily, it passed. But another Italian lesson: If you find an obscure little pepper in your dinner, DO NOT EAT IT.
Well, I’m off to the train station to (hopefully) find my way to Cinque Terre, should be an interesting adventure!
Buona Giornata!
Jen