Rome is fucking gorgeous

That's about all I have to say on the subject.

First experience of Rome and an Italian made me fear for my life.

Our cab driver, whose identity shall remain hidden, ran 3 red lights, almost hit 4 cars, 3 pedistrians, and a moped carry two passengers, straddled two lanes for the majority of the ride, drove on the wrong side of the street, and was using his cell phone the entire time.

I barely had any chance to appreciate the ridiculous landmarks we passed by because I actually thought I was going to die.

In the end we did get to the Plaza del Biscioni safely.

Seeing the Rome center absolutely blew my mind. It is surrounded by huge buildings (all of which happened to be parts of Pompeii's theatre!) and is totally filled to the brim with great frescos, art, and history.

I passed out the first day (since I was dumb and watched Valentine's Day, The Hangover, Sherlock Holmes, and Pirate Radio on my 12 hour flight) and slept more than 12 hours (would have been more had Daniel not woken me up for the tour - see below). I was awake for nearly 50 hours (a large part owing to my huge adrenaline rush from the aforementioned taxi ride)

Oh! And all this is after I wondered aimlessly with Carmen and Bennett while carrying all of Carmen's luggage the entire way. We literally toured the campo area for a good hour and half before we managed to find the right spot. Good job Shurui, another stupid and masochist move that led to absolutely no personal gain.

That was the first day. Today was much better.

At 11:00 AM today, our beautiful teacher Lisa also gave us a tour around the Campo de Fiori area. It was absolutely amazing. We had freshly baked pizza bianca, fruit, beautifully preserved meats from the Norcineria Viola (all for extremely reasonable prices).

I realized quickly that going to anywhere by myself would be a problem due to my severe ADD and my inability of following the street signs.

I shop at the despar(o) supermarket with Zinnia and Daniel. We got like a liter of EVOO for 2.50, pasta for .50, bottles of beer for .50 each, and the list continues. We thought that we could maybe get spices and produce from the gorgeous campo marketplace, but by the time we got back it was already closed (Rome apparently closes at 3PM, a fact that I find ridiculously awesome).

Lisa got us a sweet spot with a big screen TV to watch the USA v. SLEV game, but the place went out of power and we missed the latter half. 2-2, USA. It was a very good game (SLEV was 0-2 for almost all the first half).

We had dinner at some restaurant right by the Ponte Sisto. The waiters spoke English and the food was all together Cheesecake Factory-ie. I ordered the fettucine with smoked salmon. It tasted like fettucine, parmesan, smoked salmon, and orange. That's right, orange. The pasta was literally orange coloured. It was ridiculous. I will upload pictures eventually...

After dinner, we walked the night market, that was pretty cool. Very touristy and full of second hand smoke. I visited Molly's apartment and prompted walked into bathroom while xiao ma was in there. Not my fault. I was exploring and there is no sense as to why a bathroom would have a sliding door.

Nevertheless, I was extremely embarrassed, but I suppose that is my life.