My Trip to Italy - Day 1: Spaghetti Night, Street Performer Moonwalking?

Alright, where are we starting off from this post? Oh yeah, from the hotel, at 3:00 PM. Well, let's get started. If you haven't already read Day 0, click here!

So after settling in by putting our luggage, clothes, bathroom essentials, and other stuff away, we decided to get some food, because I'm starving, and so is my mom. I wanted fast food to fill up my stomach, but I searched up on Google Maps "fast food near me", and the only fast food restaurant that showed up was McDonalds. It was not that far from the hotel, but my parents wanted me to get some local Italian food. 

Also, we needed to buy water bottles, because we were going to need plenty of them. We searched up supermarkets nearby, and we found one named Carefour Express. I honestly didn't know what the store is, and I've never heard of it before, either.

20 minutes later, at 4:00 PM, So we went out of the hotel and walked south to explore the nearby stores, looking for food for my mom and I, and we stopped by a restaurant cafe. There was freshly baked pizza shaped in a RECTANGLE. I thought to myself, so that's how they make pizza in Italy! I got pepperoni, and my mom got tomato and mushrooms on hers. It tasted good, fresh out from the oven good.

We saw the Spanish Steps, which was basically an empty town plaza, but it wasn't really empty, as many people were walking and taking photos of themselves. (And yes, there were steps that people were sitting on.) Horses were parked in the middle for possible horse tours. There was a fountain where you can FILL UP YOUR WATER BOTTLES. I was surprised that they had such a thing. Did we ever fill up our bottles there? No, that was because my mom does not trust it, while my dad does.

We kept walking south, walking into the few stores that catch our eyes. We passed by the McDonalds that I saw earlier on Google Maps, and I saw a Mccafe restaurant. There was a souvenir shop that I planned to come back to because I needed to buy some type of souvenir for a friend of mine. My parents bought some gelato; I was going to buy some, but I just finished my pizza, so I passed on the dessert.

Also, we started to look for the supermarket. We got lost for a bit, but found it soon enough at 4:30 PM. There was one thing I always wanted to get in Europe that was cheaper, and it was Milka chocolate. It's a very good universal chocolate brand, and I only saw this in San Francisco and at the YVR Airport. It was only 1.50 Euros. We also got 2 bottles of water for the evening.

On the way back to the hotel, in the big town plaza, there was a man with a suit but no head sitting down in a chair. I have not encountered anyone like that before, so I decided to take a photo with him, doing the peace sign. Pretty cool, my mom joked that it must be hot inside, and he said yes to that. 

After that, around 5:30 PM, we went back to the hotel and wait for dinner. I decided to check out what's on TV, and almost EVERYTHING was is Italian. Besides some news and sports channels like CNBC, CNN, and Eurosport, I only recognized three TV channels: VH1 (music channel), ITV (British channel), and MTV (another music channel). We had pleasant air conditioning and the hotel stocked up the bathroom with toilet paper, soap, etc.

I went on the internet, but I was still very sleepy. I got to sleep for an hour until I had to wake up to go to dinner at a restaurant. Here's the thing. My dad told my mom and I that dinner in Italy is usually later than dinner back in North America, at around 8 PM. The restaurant that we were going to was called Cantina & Cucina, and it was about a 10 minute cab ride from the hotel.

At 7:15 PM, we reach the restaurant, and there were about 12 people standing outside, waiting to get a table. We had to wait about 20 minutes to get seated. There were lots of people eating inside. I got a restaurant card and a wine cork, and one of the waiters offered the people in line outside some wine. There was also a man selling cheap bracelets for 5 Euros. He sold one to a young couple for 4 Euros after they tried on like three or four bracelets. But at 7:30 PM, we got a table. I ordered some pasta, and it was very good. 

After dinner, we decided to walk around the neighborhood we were in, and we saw another mini town square with restaurants and shops surrounding it, with lots of things going on in the middle. There was a dancer dancing (No way, what does a dancer do?), more people selling art pieces and toys, two separate groups playing their instruments and singing, and a live toxic painter.

(There was more going on when we come back here another day. Spoiler!)

Anyways, it was very busy, with people sitting down near the statue fountain on either sides, customers eating and drinking in the restaurants surrounding the square. There were people selling green flashy lights that looked cool, and a squishy mouse that lights blue when thrown in the air. The dancer did some slick moon-walking, and it was really good, because was wearing a hat and his black and white shoes.

Meanwhile, my mom went to the shops and looked to buy small gifts, and I went around to buy some water. I had to go outside of the square to buy some bottles. Coming back, I took some pictures of the statues and monuments of this square.

We stayed in the square for a while until 9:30 PM, then took a taxi back to the hotel. I had a shower, went on my phone/laptop for 30 min, and I was sleeping by 11 PM.

That's where I'll stop for now, stay tuned for Day 2 of Rome!

My Trip to Italy - Day 0: Plane Rides!

For the past week, I was out of town for vacation! I went to Rome, Italy for 4 days, and I had a wonderful time there. I had fun eating their food and going to famous places around town. But how did I get there? Well, in this post, I will talk about the plane rides getting there. I will try to post everything I remember about my trip, as it is still fresh in my mind, and I still remember about 95% of it.

This will be split up in 6 parts: 

• The plane ride to Rome
• Italy: Day 1
• Italy: Day 2
• Italy: Day 3
• Italy: Day 4
• The plane ride back to Vancouver

Let's begin!

Day 0: Plane RIdes!

Alright. To get to Rome from Vancouver, you NEED to take at least one connecting flight, so I stopped at Toronto. My flight to Toronto was at 10 AM, so I went to Vancouver (YVR) at 8 AM. I passed security easily, and got to the gate at 8:30 AM. A bit early, I decided to charge up my laptop, my phone, and read Fairy Tail manga (on book 7 at the time). 

Soon enough, it was time for boarding. It was just over a 4 hour flight to Toronto (YYZ), and while we supposed to arrive there around 5:30 PM local time (2:30 PM PST), our freaking Air Canada plane left late, and we arrived at around 6:40 PM. 

What did I do on the plane? I had window seat while my parents had the 2 seats on my left. I watched four episodes of Big Bang Theory - Season 11, and half of Toy Story 3 (yup), because I actually never watched it before, and I was saving the action movies for later. 

Screw this bear.

I also played some of their games, such as Chess and a couple trivia games. One thing I was feeling as we got closer to YYZ was my hunger. Wow, my dinner was practically going to be my lunch.

Getting off the plane, I looked around the airport for food shops. I recognized a few of them, such as A&W and Vina, the Vietnamese restaurant. But I want to find a Tim Hortons! Too bad it was too far, I actually took a quick walk around the nearby area. I settled for A&W, and my parents ordered A&W and Vina respectively. My order was worth $7.90 though! That's a dollar more than the usual price in the mall. Oh well, airport prices. Also, I saw a couple "groups" at the airport. There was a Canadian Rugby team sitting nearby the table I ate dinner (my mom overheard them that they were going to a northern Europe country, I forgot which country), and many Special Olympics athletes walking around the food court area and sitting in the domestic gates, maybe waiting for a plane, going west.

After dinner, my parents and I walked to the international gates (remember, I only flew domestically) we saw that our flight to Italy was delayed by 45 minutes, from 8:45 PM to 9:30 PM, due to other planes getting delays at our gate. Our gate got moved, too. It was just a domino effect, to be honest. But this airport was buzzing around my area! Plenty of people were walking toward their gates and seats. I even walked through an "echo" area, and I only noticed when I started talking in the middle.

Hello! Hello! Hello!

Meanwhile, to pass the time, I connected to the internet on my laptop, but the internet was slow! There were many things going on in the airport though. They have seats were you can go on tablets to play games and go on the internet, you can order food and drinks from it, too. Pretty cool, but it took up a lot of space, as there wasn't many room for just seats on the side. I watched a baseball game on one of the TV's above, and read more Fairy Tail. 

Orange: Where I arrived from and ate dinner.

Red: Where our gate used to be.

Blue: Where it is now.

Purple: This area was buzzing!

Oh, and I ate a Kit Kat.

By now, I was getting tired. Fortunately, the time is now 9:10 PM, and they called us down for the boarding call. It took ANOTHER hour just to take off from Toronto, and I don't think we were in the air until 10:30 PM.

What did I do on THIS Air Canada? Well, I watched Ready Player One, and it honestly wasn't bad, I absolutely loved the first 20, 30 minutes of the movie, up to where Parzival/Wade first met Art3mis/Samantha, but it was a bit confusing near the end. Getting the three keys were fun, but it was very fast paced when it kept switching from VR world and real world. One character I liked was the young Sho/Zhou. The 11 year old seemed cool.

Overall Grade: B

I played more trivia games, and was deciding when to go to sleep. It was getting late, sure it was already 1:30 AM Toronto time, but it sure only felt like 10:30 PM. So I decided to finish off the Toy Story 3 movie. And I liked it! Many plots and many places were shown in the movie, and it flows well. That's all I got to say about it.

Overall Grade: A

Now, it's almost 12 AM (PST), but I'm still not sleepy. I watch more Big Bang Theory, but after that, I know that I need some sleep, otherwise I'll be very tired walking in Rome on the first day. I sleep for maybe 2-3 hours, and when I wake up, I was drowsy, but don't you normally feel that on the plane? Anyways, there's now about 2 hours left on the plane ride, and checking on the plane map, I saw that we are now in Europe. Breakfast (or lunch? It was already 12 PM Rome time) was served shortly, and I later brought out my laptop to watch some Italian based episodes of The Simpsons. How fitting.

Soon enough, we arrive in Italy at 1:30 PM local time, 4:30 AM Vancouver time. We get off the plane, and it actually took us a while to find passport control and the baggage area. I still don't know if we took the shortest path, or we went the long way, because my parents were saying to just follow the baggage claims sign.

Reaching passport control, there was a sign that said that if you hold a Canadian, US, South Korean, Japanese passport, you can take an express lane (EDIT: there are 2 other countries I forgot). It was pretty quick, they had an eye reader, and all I needed was a stamp from the booth that I was admitted into Italy. We got our luggage 15 minutes later, and another 5 minutes later, I was in a taxi heading to the hotel my parents booked in the city.

Our taxi driver was very nice, showing us a tour around the city, because later on I realized that he could had taken a shorter route, but he went another way. The thing is, the flat rate from the airport to downtown is 50 Euros. He was generous, and pointed out attractions along the way, such as Piazza Venezia and Park Villa Borghese.

Blue Circle: Hotel we were staying in.

Red: Possible route driver took.

Purple: Quicker route driver could have taken.

Stray observations I noticed while riding in the taxi:

• There were graffiti on the walls. Maybe it's just that neighborhood.
• Cars don't put signals to change lanes all the time.
• Parking is very tight. Many cars are parked close together.
• Most cars are small. Because they need to fit in the small parking spaces!
• Right-of-way goes to vehicles more than pedestrians. Haha.
• Most of the houses are painted light brown, peach, and pink, and tan. Some type of light color.

At 2:45 PM, we arrive at the hotel and check in. I steal a candy from the bowl that they have, and we go to our room. That's where I will stop for now, hope you enjoyed this post, there will be 5 more posts of the Rome adventure. Stay tuned!