Rome, Italy
My first time to continental Europe
I went to Rome twice during my European trip in 2010. For the sake of simplicity I’ll merge them into one post. The first trip was the first time I met Rachel Reed. A fellow American on tour, we hit it off and hung out all over the continent for a while. The first few days we stayed at Tiber Village. A small campground/hostel-ish thing a bit out of the city. It was a huge pain in the butt but very cheap. The second time we stayed at a hostel near the city center called The Yellow. That was a far better experience and location.
We did all of the usual tourist stuff, the forum, colosseum, Vatican, pantheon, etc. But one of the funnier stories was when we were walking in one of the many piazzas for lunch one day we heard a person playing guitar. They were playing the song Kids by MGMT. So we knew the song, stuck around and listened until he was finished. Then to our amazement, he handed the guitar back to the street performer and went and sat to eat lunch at a table! We walked up to him and asked what that was about and he told us that they are on vacation as well and he tells people he is in MGMT and asks to play a song for fun. The guys were hilarious and awesome and it was a really good rendition of Kids too.
Rome, like all of Italy, is a great time with some incredible food. Rome is very touristy though. For the English speaking only crowd it is great, but for the people who want a real Italian experience I would recommend somewhere a lot further from Rome.
