To Me, Rome is a perfect mix between Paris and NYC. To be exact, Rome is not like Paris, where it is Clean, Old, and Cultured. Not like NYC where it is Dirty, New, and completely uncultured. Just in the middle of the two, Wham, there is Rome with a big fat smile on its face. Ancient Buildings, cities for that matter, Cars everywhere, People in every nook and cranny, lost beyond belief. I like it here in so many words..

The day I arrived, I got out of the train, went to the hotel, dumped my bags, and went to the ancient city ruins to read a book in the sun. The weather in Rome has been amazing, so it was around 65 degrees in the sun. I spent the night in a shitty little hotel near the train station until my sister arrived the next morning. We got into a cab and headed for the nice place she got for the few days we were there the next morning. The cab gets going, and all is good. All of the sudden the driver starts getting into a pissing match with a car in front of us. This was not your normal pissing match, from my experience, I would have called it one thing plane and simple. Road Rage. After about five minutes of the guy yelling at the top of his lungs in Italian out the window, it got quite again and we were back on track to the hotel. Abby and I did not make a sound for the rest of that cab ride. I was laughing my ass off.

Out of the cab and into the mayhem of the Spanish steps in the middle of school vacation. The steps as many of you know are a great place to chill and drink a beer or read a book. At this time of year, it is a little different. I would go there just to look at the latest fashion in hair cuts. I would have sworn that clock swung back to the late eighties. High school kids sitting around, grabbing one another's asses, smoking cigarettes, with the most hardcore mullets I have seen in a long time. These are not just mullets, these are mullets with shaved lines on the side, and enough greece in it to catch on fire. Funny.

Anyway, we had a great place right in the heart of the fashion district of Rome. From there, Abby and I walked just about the whole city. The Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, The Vatican, The Sistine Chapel, The Colosseum, the ruins, Piazza Navonna, you name it. The weather was great and we had a very good time, only getting into it with one another twice, which is good for us. On the second day, we were overcome by the Roman Marathon that was going on. The whole city was chopped up into red tape and metal fencing for the run. As you can imagine, this made for quite a obstacle to my navigation ability, but we made it around no problem.

After returning to Rome for the second time, I am still completely blown away by the architecture and sculpture scattered around the city. You can be walking down a little ally, and then out of the blue, you are standing in front of the Trevi Fountain or the Pantheon. I could never fathom a better city to have to walk to work in. If I walked by any of the many unreal monuments in this city on my way to work, I would be happy a Italian. The last day there, I got a call from my friend Keri in Greece who I was heading to see after leaving Rome, she told me that her school decided to have a trip for the students the week I was coming. She was as bummed as I was about the news, but what can you do right? The long and short of this is that I am no longer going to Greece. I will have to go on a dedicated trip later, but it leaves a lot to look forward to. I am now on my way back to Switzerland to chill with my friends for a bit.

My trip at this point is winding down, and I will be returning to the States soon. This is a bummer to me and many others, but I am just about out of money, and as I said before, my life is itching to get back on some sort of a track. I have added new images of people I have seen on my trip, as well as some epic Euro Cars and Bikes. I hope you all enjoy the Rome shots, and are doing well. Please drop me a line to tell me what you have all thought of my trip over all, and I look forward to seeing you all at some point soon.. //db