As an American in Italy

I would have to say that my train trip through the Alps from Munich to Venice had the most spectacular views of any trip in my life going anywhere. At the foothills, one small German town was split by the rail way, but each side had a matching castle off in the distance up on a hill. Lush green fields were everywhere. Once we got into the mountains we were in a valley with walls a mile high on each side of us. Everything stayed green and there was one small house at the top of this mile high wall sitting all by itself. Coming down the other side we saw a light blue river that looked fake and then with Italy came the vineyards running up and down the valley walls. Small quaint towns were also climbing the hills.

Colin and I planned to stay in Venice for 3 days because our expectations where high. Long story short, we cut it short a day. I guess I can only explain it as strong feeling being a trapped tourist. I know it was always a city of vacationers and if I had a wife there and I was an old person looking for some quiet expensive nights with a gondola ride, then this would be the place. I don't think I will ever be that person though, and Colin will never be my wife. He's a good guy, but just kind of a control freak. Plus, he has a penis. The floating city would also be a very good place to go meet a lot of Americans and maybe the occasional European. I think I saw an Italian there too. I will say that I was glad that I got to see it for a day (that's it) and I was impressed with the canals, narrow walkways, bridges, and San Marco's Cathedral. It's also the place where I learned about the honor system with buses in Europe and how to dishonor it every once in a while to save money.

Now, Florence, this is the city that I remember Italy by. I finally felt like I was in Italy. Italians guys saying "Ciao, bella" to the passing girls, pizza with the freshest of toppings, cobble stone streets, scooters everywhere, and just a vibrant feel of people enjoying life all over the city. A small river cut through the city and separated the flat city center from the steep-hilled side. The two stone bridges couldn't have been more ascetically pleasing. I thought this even though we had just walked across town with our 30 pound packs on, in under a blazing sun, and staring at the next 2 miles up hill that we had to walk to get to our camp sight. There were a lot of tourists here because of the Ufizzi and statue of David, but it felt like Italy and you could get away from them if you went to certain parts of the city. I spent my nights at the camp sight getting drunk with the group of German girls, a Frenchman, and a Finnish guy. I made out with one of the girls after a couple bottles of wine. We all hung out overlooking the city from under a copy of the statue of David and had some laughs (as people do when they're drunk).

When in Rome, I did as the tourists did. I went to all the big sights, appreciated them as much as I could, then was worn out from walking, blah blah blah. I had three bad "firsts" in the subway in Rome. While I was trying to figure out how to get a ticket out of the machine I was approached by my first ever real life gypsy. Other than her ragged out clothes, stinky breath, messed up grill, and whiney attitude, she was a decent person. Well, maybe not decent, but she was a person. I'll give her that. She tried to explain the machine, but was really just distracting me and then wanted money for doing so after I told her to go away several times. The problem ended up being that my bill was too large. Unfortunately for me, I was in a place where asking people to make change was an insult. I got turned down by a couple locals and even a cashier at a book store. I forgot how I ended up getting the change, but I'm pretty sure I blacked out from frustration and killed someone. That's my other "first." My third "first", if I may, was getting on my first subway car. As it rolled up and stopped, I couldn't help but notice that all the original paint had been covered by horribly done graffiti so that it looked like a crash-up derby bus.

A couple of roommates from my hostel in Rome told me the great story of how they were late getting to their ferry in Croatia. They left one taxi on the way to the ferry because they were pretty sure the cabbie was getting ready to take them somewhere and kill them. So with their other taxi got them to the dock the boat was already taking off for Italy, but had only just left. Everyone on the boat saw them and started encouraging them on to run and jump to make it. So they did. They bolted down the dock and threw their bags on to it. Then they jumped a good meter onto the moving ferry. Everyone cheered. The end.

My action-packed Rome story is similar. At the top of the Spanish steps Colin and I found a Pub Crawl. Pay €15 for an hour of nonstop drinking and then they take you to a few pubs to drink and playing drinking games. Yay for binge drinking! Anyway, so after I had about 3 beers, 2 mixed drinks, and 3 cups of wine, they announced their first game of the night. About 10 guys lined shoulder to shoulder and we had a girl partner across from us. They shoved the can of beer up one pant leg and down the other, opened the can of beer, and whichever guy drank it first won. Long story short, I won. The guy next to me almost won, but instead of winning he puked and everyone saw. Haha. Then they took a picture of my partner and me and put us up on their web page along with hundreds of other untalented winners. See, pretty similar action-packed stories.

Rome was also where I learned that if you hesitate and try to let cars pass while you cross the street you may cause an accident. Everyone gets confused over if a pedestrian gives a vehicle the right-away and you end up playing Red light, Green light with them a few times. Its best to just walk and not look. At first, it felt weird; like putting your right foot on the clutch, but it worked every time.

The last thing I'll say about Rome is that they have the best fountains that I've ever seen, the people were beautiful, but they were probably the least helpful and most rude to me than any other place I have visited. Most of them were not rude, but I wouldn't consider them nice either. Oh, and the huge stylish sunglasses were EVERYWHERE and it kind of gave me the impression that Paris Hilton had been through there one too many times.

Leaving Rome, Colin and I opted to bite the bullet and get stuck in Genoa train station (on our way to Nice, France) so that we could stop off and see the by Pisa and see the tower for a couple hours. The tower was nice, but better was being part of the large number of people all pretending to hold up the tower while someone took their pic. Not my proudest moment, but it had to be done.

So there it was for the most part. Colin an I stay from 10pm to 5am sitting on a cold metal seat in the train station. The whole time the gypsies were trying to make sure their midget was comfortable, the same 20 second techno elevator music song played every 2 minutes, and stinky guy next to me kept falling asleep and leaning on me. Good night, Italy, and suck it easy.