Day 1: Ciao, Bella!

So... My trip to Italy and France was amazing! I loved Italy more than Paris. Rome and Florence are such neat cities. Paris is cool, but Rome has more of a non big city feel. All you have to do is walk 1 or 2 blocks off the main roads and you're in a piazza with incredible churches and fountains. All these piazzas have open air markets with food or goodies. Also, Rome is very architecturally ancient. The buildings are all very old, colorful, and still have a lot of their old world charm. We noticed a lot of buildings like this in Paris too, but overall Italy was our favorite. I'm going to do one post per day of the trip. So I'll include a description and also a few of my favorite photos from the day.

Day 1 in Rome:

Flew in to Rome on an overnight flight from JFK... ended up being able to snag our own rows to sleep on the plane since it was empty. The trip was starting off very lovely!!! I was across from a Catholic priest on the plane and when I couldn't stay asleep any longer I pulled out my Book of Mormon and started to read, so upon his noticing what I was reading, he pulled out his scriptures and read his too. I'm pretty sure he knows his better than I know mine. Also he was pretty cute and looked like he was my age. Wonder what the rules are there!? Hahaha just a joke people!

Our airport shuttle company didn't have any regular shuttles left so we got picked up in a Benz, and a guy in a suit. Not too shabby for your first taste of Italy! We also got to experience the way Italians drive, let's just say Alia and I had to stop paying attention to his driving or we'd have had a heart attack. There's no such thing as a lane in Italy. They are painted on the streets, but they make their own lanes. They also only hit their brakes at the last possible second necessary to make the stop before killing us all. Eeeeesh!

Right before arriving at the hotel we noticed a street market going on a block away from where we'd be staying. The driver told us in broken english that every Sunday all the stores are closed and that is what they do instead. We decided to quickly check in, shower, and head over to the markets. There were a bunch of odds and ends, kind of like a giant Italian yard sale. Some of the booths had some pretty cool stuff, but the only thing I bought were some funny post cards of Italian actors from the 50's. They perfected the classy creeper mustache.

At this market I got my first taste of just how much Italian men like blondes. I was warned before my trip on this fact, but I had no idea how much they really do. (I noticed later that we saw only roughly 4 or 5 other blonde women the entire time in Italy.)

This market is where I first heard the phrase that is this post's title, "Ciao, Bella!", and boy did I hear it, over and over and over... and over. Talk about a self esteem boost! It was crazy! Guys would walk past me, check me up and down without even being sneaky, and then I could hear them say the word 'Americana' while they were looking me over! They'd stare at me, and I'd have a staring contest with them to let them know I could see them. They'd never even flinch. It wasn't too disturbing though, Alia and I noticed fast just how good looking men in Rome are. They all dress incredibly well, and the majority were eye candy. So I guess I didn't mind all the attention. The other awesome thing we noticed is how everyone in Italy is very fit. The only overweight people we saw usually spoke American English.

After the market we grabbed some food.... YUM! Our first real Italian pizza. I decided to be brave and try eggplant, it's tangy, and not my favorite. Perhaps I'd like it cooked a different way. After dinner we were both so exhausted from traveling all day on the plane, but we had to keep ourselves up until dark at least. We decided to explore the neighborhood around our hotel on foot. We knew we were in the area of the Trastevere neighborhoods but we weren't sure how to get there. After about 20 minutes we turned a corner and walked right into a cobblestone antique street. We were there! After a couple streets and photos later, we found our first piazza complete with a fountain and an old church! I'm pretty sure this was the Piazza Santa Maria.

We walked around the Trastevere neighborhoods for a couple hours and the Christmas lights eventually turned on. We also ended up getting the most amazing hot chocolate, that halfway through we found melted gobs of chocolate mixed in. Then we went back to the hotel and were in bed by 6 pm. We needed a LOT of sleep!

Here are a few more pictures...

I bought some post cards each day and I wrote a small journal entry on the back of each one for each day of the trip. I'll include that here too. This one seems to be a repeat but the others might have more interesting info:

12/5/10 Rome:

Today Alia and I were so tired when we got to the hotel that we quickly changed and went out to avoid sleeping and not adjusting to Rome time. We had a delicious meal of real Italian pizza and wandered through the open air Sunday markets. Just when we were about to turn around and give up we found the Trastevere market/neighborhoods! We window shopped, took a bunch of photos and got the thickest, most delicious hot cocoa ever! It had chocolate gobs in it. Favorite part of Rome so far is the charming neighborhoods. Can't wait to explore more!