Rome is a remarkable city and if you want to blow your mind to the maximum, go to Cinque Terra on the mediterranean coast. Below is an excerpt from a journal I kept during a a two month trip through Europe.
August 12th 12 something. Sitting in the hallway of a train surrounded by greasy Italians and listening to godspeed and my feet undoubtedly have some sort of fungus or worm or something. I have never seen them dirtier.
Cleanliness has taken a backseat to booze and money. The smell test used for my cloths has succumbed to the inundated stick that is my wardrobe I am carrying around.
Found a great hostel in Rome filled with people from Orange County, Finland, Canada, and god knows where else. Meet Andrea, the guy in charge of this shindig who basically tells us what to do and how to do it when it come to Rome. We choose a pub crawl for the first night which 15 euro for an hour of unlimited drinking, a shirt, a shot at each bar which numbered 4. The group was basically a bunch of Aussies that were not too much fun or much to look at either. They did embarrass Phil at drinking though.
The Mediterranean looks gorgeous from here.
Bar crawl was good but you end up in a cramped dance club that induced epileptic ceisures. Nick and I instead played some Italians some soccer in the square on cobblestone, barefoot. My foot is still sore. We ties 1-1, bullshit result. Met an Italian girl who, all be it gorgeous, would fuck anybody up in a fight thorugh some sort of Kung Fu.
Next we saw the sights and walked miles upon miles. That night we collected everybody in the hostel and went to the bars. Met a girl with a shaved head, odd.
We have lost Phil. Never came home last night. Probably in some overly determined attempt to get laid. Left Rome without him. He reminds me of Mike sometimes. Ironic since they are swarn enemies, maybe even arch nemesii.
The best sight for me had to have been the Pantheon with light shining through the top and beeming down.
Last night went to the Spanish steps after finishing off one of Justins absynth bottles. Left an incredibly sour feeling in my stomach. The kind where you puke, even though your not drunk. Still haven’t puked on this trip.
Cinque Terra is an absolutely jaw droppingly beautiful place. It truly deserves it’s world heritage site title. It is five towns spread out over some incredibly rough terrain. Each town is very unique and has no resemblance to any of the other towns. The towns are connected by a walking path which consists of huge steps about three feet high. After 200 of these steps, even the most fit individual will be feeling the pain. We arrived in Cinque Terra and planned to stay two nights but ended up staying five. Now in an attempt to practice a new technique, here is what happened in a single sentence…
We arrived in Cinque Terra and decided to camp on a secluded island, which happened to be owned by a night prowling Italian who thought it would be funny to wake us up in the middle of the night and force us to relocate to a perilous cliff edge, which was never found by Justin who woke up in the dirt face down after a crazy night of watching a man fall 200 feet into the ocean swell only to have his body pinpointed by a spot light for the whole town to see which was not what anyone should see before hiking four kilometers to a town made famous for having a slanted rock that receives a focused surge of water so we jumped in and learned that the point of this game was to wait underneath the concrete platform until a wave slammed you against the sharp crustacion covered wall and you bit scratched and crawled your way onto dry land, which Chris could never figure out although he was redeemed when he took us to this abandoned church to camp under the stars with very stimulating conversation.
And breath.