Monday, January 4, 2010

Ciao Bello

So my last New Years experience was really underwhelming. I had made a promise to myself that I would have a kick ass new year celebration for 2010.

I rang in 2010 at the Colosseum in Rome.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the trip.

Back in March my friend Chris asked me if I wanted to go to Rome for New Years. We had 4 full days in Rome planned.

Well, our flight from JFK was delayed when we left due to mechanical malfunction. We were told that we would be staying at the Holiday Inn down the street until about 2am when they would bus us back to the airport and put us on a replacement plane from Milan.
Well we walked into our room and this was what we saw. I called the front desk and asked to be moved they said they would get back to me. I was then told that we could not move rooms because it was a block of rooms for the airline. I was pissed. None the less it was only for a few hours.

Rome
We landed at about 8pm local time. Checked into our hostel and took a night walk out to Piazza del Popolo and climbed Pincian Hill and was in awe of the city at night. It was in the mid-50's that night and was just an awesome scene. My camera takes terrible pictures at night and I didn't really figure out how to take low light pictures until the end of the trip.

The scene will take your breath away. Not only was the walk from the hostel amazing with the little cobble stone alleys and beautiful architecture... the scenic view of Rome is just amazing.

New Years Eve
I'm not going to bore you with all the little sights we saw on my adventure there but wanted to share New Years Eve with you.

We started off with dinner in Campo de' Fiore. I had an amazing plate of pasta with fresh made pesto sauce.

It had been raining on and off all day and when we left the restaurant it was pouring. Earlier we had stopped and got a bottle of champagne and a couple bottles of wine to drink on the streets. Well, we jumped in a cab and headed back to our hostel. The rain would not stop.

We started drinking and being all pissy about the rain. We heard some noise on the street and I was looking out the window and noticed a group of guys one floor down across the street hanging out in their underwear. It made dealing with the rain do-able.

We headed to the common room down the hall and met some people from Texas who were not any fun at all. I went back to the room to check the weather and it was about 11:30pm and the rain had stopped.

It was as if the Roman gods answered the prayers of millions of Romans. I shared the good news with everyone and we changed out of our sweats and into jeans and took off for the Colosseum. We stopped at this store on the way to grab a bottle of champagne. While I was waiting for my friend to buy the bottle this cute Italian guy walked in and tried to get one of the shopkeepers to open a bottle of wine for him.

For whatever reason, I had a wine key in my back pocket and got his attention with it. He did not speak english and I opened the bottle for him. It was a moment that was just awesome for me.

My friends and I ran out of the store and to the Colosseum. As we ran up this hill we saw the ancient building and midnight struck. Fireworks started going off like crazy. In the air and firecrackers on he streets. People were dancing and yelling and it was just an amazing scene.

It's a new years I will never forget.

I'm home in the states now and miss being in Italy. We would be walking in the street and I would get distracted by an Italian man and my friend Chris would say, "Right click, Save as."

If any of you get the chance to go to Rome. Do it. You will never forget it,

4 comments:

  1. Glad you had a nice New Years.

    BTW, is that cum or cream?

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  2. JP
    Thanks for the new years recap. Rome for New Years is now on my life list. Good luck on 2nd interview.
    Knock em dead in Atlanta and you could end up back in NYC.
    Alex

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  3. Thanks for the report on NYE in Rome! Wow.
    I'll never make it so it's cool to hear about your experience...Glad you soaked it in and had a good time.

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