After my final Asian adventures, it was about time I headed back to Europe and get used to Western society again. Where to do that better, than in Rome! Not only is the weather nice, the food extremely delicious and the women very pretty, Rome is also filled with historic sites and of course the home of Vatican City.

My flight to Rome was a bit of a drag. I had a 10 hour flight, with loads of leg space, from Beijing to Dusseldorf, where I had to transfer for my flight to Rome. Unfortunately, in my pursuit of cheap tickets, I had decided to make this transfer a bit of a weird one. I arrived in Dusseldorf around 3 Sunday afternoon,  but my connecting flight would be Monday morning around 8 (check-in around 6). So there I was, stuck for the night at an airport.

The first thing I tried, was using the wireless network there. However, Vodafone operates the network there, and nobody seemed to know how I could connect to it. No automatic registration or anything, so internet was out of the question, go Vodafone! Luckily I did find a spot where I could use the power outlet, so I had access to all my files on my external harddrive. So, having nothing to do anyway, I ended up working on a document for Qelp, while waiting for it to become a suitable time to try and get some sleep.

I ended up sleeping, quite badly, on a bench which was part of a coffee corner. It was quite fun to eventually wake up, and see several customers sitting around you, drinking their coffee… I checked in, and off to Rome I was!

Once I arrived at the Roman airport, I first had to go to the toilet a little. I only had to take a leak, but once I got into the toilet though… I spotted something that made it damn near impossible not to take a crap… (for insiders only).

After I got my backpack, I started for the train into town. Luckily, after you’ve navigated the Tokyo railway and metro system, any station becomes a breeze to navigate through. So I quickly found the right train, and headed to Termini station.

When I arrived at my hostel, it was about 11 o’ clock and I was ready to get some serious sleep on, to get rid of my jet lag. Unfortunately, that serious sleep had to wait, since I couldn’t go into my room until 3 in the afternoon. So I pulled out my laptop and started checking my e-mail, hyves and facebook, while waiting for check-in time.

While doing so, I met a nice dude, who coincidentally is also named Rob. He’s from Chicago America and currently on a “queste” to find his family roots. Apparently he’s got some family living near Naples and he’s dying to meet them. We started chatting and he introduced my to a fine Roman pizza place, where you get delicious pizza for an affordable price.

Since then we’ve been hanging out all the time basically. The first night we had an excellent home made dinner together with his friend Vicky, who had to go home, and Alaria, who’s also staying at our hostel. Tuesday we were planning on going to the Vatican City, but woke up too late. We went around Rome instead, trying to find a nice park, but ended up just walking around the city for about 6 hours straight.

While walking around, we constantly ran into ancient structures and amazing views, so it was a very pleasant walk. In the evening we had dinner together again, after which we walked around a bit in the neighborhood. I was still tired, however, so I headed off to bed quite early in hopes of waking up nice and rested the day after.

Wednesday we tried going to the Vatican again, so we got op relatively early and took off for the Metro. Once we got there though, it turned out there was an accident and the metro wasn’t going. When we reached the bus, it was packed with people trying to get on as well, so we decided to take it as a sign and skip the Vatican for now and try for it on Thursday.

Instead, we wandered around a different part of the city a bit and even checked out the university campus. It looked like a nice place to study, with some nice areas to study, hang out, or chill in the shade.

In the evening, Rob’s friend Bryan joined us and we ended up having dinner at the worst pizza place in Italy. We couldn’t believe the actually used pre-made pizza bottoms. Frozen pizza from the supermarket is usually better quality than these.  Anyway, after dinner we hung out with Lara, who works the evening shift at our hostel.Until we called it a night around 1 A.M.

Thursday morning I met my new roommate Penny, who has just started her world tour! Sick and tired of work, she decided to travel around the globe until August next year. She’s currently going around Europe, after which she’ll go to Asia, Australia, North America and back to the UK next year. Quite a journey, and a very cool decision I must say.

We had breakfast together, after which we were joined by Rob and Bryan. Thursday we would finally go to the Vatican! Penny joined us, and luckily, the metro was working that day! So all went nice and smooth, and we reached the Vatican around 10.30 in the morning.  We first joined the queue and headed in the High Altar of St. Peter’s. This awesome hall features many statues and paintings, so it was quite nice to wander around there for a while.

After the High Altar, it was time to visit the Sistine Chapel and gawk at the glory of Michelangelo’s masterpiece. While going to the Chapel, we were quite surprised that the walk up to the place isn’t through some magnificient park area or something like that. Instead, you’re led through a stuffy museum, with corridors getting smaller at every turn.  We had to walk around the museum for a good hour to eventually reach the Chapel.

When we reached it though, all was forgiven. What a sight! So much detail and love went into this piece of art. It is unbelievable that it took him only 4 years to complete the ceiling. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take pictures inside, but I managed to sneak some in anyway, up untill the point the guard threatened to throw me out if I did it again…

After the Vatican, we went back to our hostels and rested a bit, only to meet up again around 8 for dinner. We made an excellent risotto with fish, succini (courgettes) and the best salad ever! The grated cheese was quite a success as well… Kudos to Bryan and his mad salad hussling/cheese grating skillz! However, in this picture we see Rob, just after dinner…

Around 11.30 we met up with Lara at the hostel, planning to hang out at her place for the night. However, plans changed and we ended up going to the “Beer Bottle Symphony” instead. This refers to a small square near our hostel, where every day tons of Italian youth hang out, play instruments, drink and talk.

It has a very chill atmosphere, and since no Italian can be bothered to throw away the bottles neatly, by the end of the night, the place is covered with empty beer bottles. Needless to say, these get kicked around and break all the time, so while hanging out, you hear a constant kinking and clattering of the bottles. Hence the term “Beer Bottle Symphony.”

Tonight we are planning on hanging out at Lara’s place for real this time! Tomorrow I’ll leave my hostel, only to check in at a hotel with Dennis and Marck! Time to figure out how the club life is in Roma!