Roming Around

The flight to Rome just felt like a longer flight to East Coast. After Ariving at the airport, it still didn't hit me yet that I am here. After taking the Taxi to my apartment, I still didn't feel it yet. As I was unpacking my things, still nothing. As two of my room mates finished unpacking, we went down to a local store and I pretty much didn't know any Italian except Ciao. Thank god for one of my room mates who knew enough to get around. Here I am, not even knowing the street I live on, pick a direction to go explore. This was the feeling I was waiting for, knowing that I am entering an entirely different world not knowing what to expect and to being able to be completely spontanious. We chose left and we immediately saw the giant wall surrounding the Vatican. So we just followed the wall down and we saw a group of locals walk down these stairs so we followed. It led us into a very large square with pizzerias, gelatarias, snack bars, random novelty shops, and this giant market selling fresh meats, seafood, bread, cheese, and wine. The market was a bit overwhelming because of the ridiculous amount of shops and I this was when it started to sink in that I was really in Roma. Most of these shops were family owned and one of the Deli's saw us eyeing their prosciutto they were cutting. So they cut off a slice and motioned for us to try. I slowly approached them and pinched the thinly sliced salted pork and tried it. Wow was the only word I could think of and this was the exact moment that I was sure that I was in Roma. We went back to the apt because stores close during the day like siesta. I told myself I would nap for about half an hour or an hour, but we all KOed and woke up about 5 hours after. Then, long story short, we tried finding this restaurant a local recomended but couldn't find it so we ended up getting a pizza from a hole in the wall place. It was amazing, the ingredients were so fresh that you can really taste it. Then for our final stop, we got this amazing gelato and savored it. I couldn't have asked for a better ending for my first day in Roma.