Rome wasn't built in 1 day, but here is my day 1

Days late, and euros short, but here it is:

Someone asked me tonight, "When did you get into Rome?" It took me a while, because I kept thinking that I had been there for a while, but I ended up offering the correct answer, "This morning." I arrived into the station a few minutes late, but quickly found the exit and found Alessandro. It was great to see him and I thought since we were meeting at the bus stop, but he took me then to his car. His car is an Opel, which I am used to by now considering that is the same make as Jen and Doug's dinky car, fondly known as Opie. I checked out Alessandro's aparment, which is very nice, and then quickly made use of his fold out bed while he went to work. I slept for a bit, took a shower and then learned how to use the bus system (trial by error) to get to the city center. I made it to the point a few minutes late, but had to run. Alessandro and Vittorio came and picked me up and took me to fine Italian cuisine, Mensa. For those of you who don't know, mensa is italian for the student cafeteria. But this thankfully was pretty good, relatively and I got to meet their research group. I went to see some of the robots in the lab and checked my email (was going through withdrawls since Alessandro doesn't have it at home). Then Alessandro dropped me off at the metro and I just went to the Colosseo to start my random walk. The Colosseo was great and I, the cheap bastard, even paid to go inside. From there I saw some cool ruins and it turned out that it was Foro Romano (the old roman forum where their city hall and city center was).

Walking through these areas really made think and really made me humble. I mean, what have I made that will be around for 10 years, let alone thousands? Does anything that we make these days really last? Aren't we all pretty insignificant here? But at least one of the slaves that were forced work on the Colosseo has put a brick into place and put his mark on me. It's crazy really.

But after this, I found myself at the Capitiolini which opened up into Piaza Venezia. Piaza is italian for square, but most of them end up being circles. They are the names for the place were a bunch of streets come together and there is usually a place to sit or hang out. I really like the piaza type culture, but there are really a lot of them everywhere here. Well after I had seen all of these wonderful things, I thought I would just wander the back alleys. I ended up having to cross traffic several times and learned by example to just be aggressive and cross whenever I want to, because if you let them stop for you, it will never happen. Well my random walk landed me straight into this amazing fountain, Fontana di Trevi. I took some pics and then went to an adjacent gelati shop and had some good homemade chocolate chip. Then I found my way back by taking some metros and buses. I think I have the hang of the public transportation now and I am glad that purchased a week long ticket here.

Then for dinner, a group of us went over to Giorgio's house and he cooked dinner. It was really great. Salmon sauce pasta, wine, mozarella, bread, salad, ice cream, coffee. And I just gave you a list, but you should know that order really matters in Italy. Like, we had our salad after the pasta for example, and you would never switch that here (like it is in the US). We had some good conversations and then went out for drinking and to see the piaza night life. We had a double malt beer (which is pretty good) at this location near the Tevere river, which is the main river here. Then walked around for a bit and finally came back home.

My overall comment about Rome is that there is the highest concentration that I have ever seen of beautiful architecture and historically relevant locations. All of Europe makes the 100 year old Californian buildings pale in comparison, but Roma is especially impressive.

I am kind of excited, because I will get to go to Vittorio's tomorrow night and he has internet so I will be able to post this finally :)