Well it’s been a few days since I’ve been back from my vacation. In all actuality it wasn’t a vacation at all. To sum it up: had a few hours of sleep; rushing from here to there; packing in too many activities all at once. Not to mention sharing an apartment with 7 people while getting ready for a wedding at the same time. Yep. It was pretty stressful.
But there WERE some beautiful moments. Moments I will never forget. Moments I WISH I CAN FORGET. I’ve been dealing with a lot of emotions over the weekend. Overthinking as usual ( typical Gemini) and haven’t really come to a conclusion on why things turned out the way they did. I was pretty drained being around so many people, too. Needless to say, I miss traveling alone, and feel somewhat anxious about me traveling with other people in the future. Have I reached that point of just enjoying my own company and not “needing” anyone around?
The plus side of traveling with others is they sometimes bring out the best in you. And you get to share some amazing moments as a group. Feelings are “enhanced” because someone is there feeling the same thing you are. It’s nice. The downsize is, sometimes one bad mood can alter everyone else’s. It’s hard to navigate away from it when you are stuck together for the rest of the ride.
I’ll recap Day One quickly, because that’s how that day went in general. I landed in the afternoon and rode the train in from Fiumicino airport to Roma Termini station. This was the first time I have done this. I have rode to the airport before, but not the other way around. When I got out, I was completely overwhelmed. I knew our hotel was nearby, but had no idea there were going to be so many people around. Again, I’ve been to Rome before but this was something unreal. I messaged my friend who had arrived the night before from LA to come meet me because I felt I would get lost. Luckily she was up and met me in no time. The hotel wasn’t far away, but with Italy’s small signs, I wasn’t in the mood to go in circles.
Once back at the hotel I showered up and we got ready. I managed to sleep in on my flight so I was ready to start my day with everyone else. In the past, I would have terrible jet lag and would have to nap but this time I wanted to keep going. We decided to walk to sightsee which was a great idea. We found Eatly not far from the hotel and we grabbed some espresso. Then off we went again.
We made our way to the Spanish Steps because my friend wanted to check out the Louis Vuitton store. The Spanish Steps area has mostly high end retail and luckily we found the shop but they did not have the bag that she wanted. We continued to sight see.
We ended up at the Trevi Fountain (which reportedly has another Louis Vuitton shop nearby) and the crowd was insane. The amount of people here was nerve wrecking. We witnessed a heated altercation between two men, all for a photo! I really thought these two would duke it out. The energy was too much and we decided to leave the area.
By now we were growing hungry. I did some research on gluten-free restaurants since my friend has a restrictive diet. I noticed we were nearby one of them and we decided to check it out. Taverna Barberini was pretty empty, but we concluded we were walking in during siesta. Luckily they invited us in and we had the place to ourselves. The chef reassured my friend that everything is gluten-free, so we ordered a pasta for us to share. It was delish!!! I was amazed because it didn’t taste differently at all. My friend enjoyed her meal very much. It felt good knowing she could have pasta here in Rome.
We felt better after our late lunch that we decided to continue with our sightseeing. We came upon Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II (Altare della Patria) and I noticed the gate door was opened. I’ve been to this monument before but never got a chance to go inside. We quickly ran up to see if we could get in.
The view from the top is amazing! You get the panoramic view of the Piazza Venezzia and all of its hustle and bustle. We took a ton of pictures before witnessing the changing of the guards. I’m pleased we discovered this on our way to the Colosseum.
The Colosseum had some construction going on around the perimeter but it didn’t alter the view of its majestic structure. We were now catching the sunset of Rome and it looked beautiful! After taking more pictures we noticed the metro station and decided to take it back to our hotel.
We had another person that was flying in later that day and he reached out to us once I was connected to the wifi. We were all going to take the train down to the southern region of Italy. We decided we should meet up so we could introduce ourselves as well as form a plan for the morning commute. This was crucial since we luckily had tickets for the fast train. Of course we got a bit lost but we found each other and headed over to the train station to get familiar with our surroundings.
As most nights in Italy were short, we decided to get up around 6am to head out no later than 7:15am for our 8am train. Looking back, I realize that commuting is a stressful situation when you are in another country. You can’t make any mistakes. You are on your own…
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