Upon embarking on our 9-hour flight to Rome last night, I spent the first hour of the journey listening to Vault: Def Leppard’s Greatest Hits in its entirety. All of the music on my phone got wiped somehow a few months ago, and I never got around to restoring it, so I settled for the very best 80s power ballads graciously provided by Delta Airlines free audio.
That’s not relevant to this trip at all– just thought you all should know.
The first thing that stuck out to me after arrival was the amount of English we still encountered; it was mostly in the airport, but nonetheless. I’m hoping we come across a location in our trip where there’s nothing but Italian and no English on which to fall back. I’ve been relying on five years of Spanish (a lot of similar words and grammar rules) and a few months worth of Duolingo Italian so far, and honestly it hasn’t been so bad.
It also wasn’t as alarming as I had thought hearing a foreign language constantly spoken as we passed locals on the street. That’s actually the only real and significant difference between Rome and cities in the United States (besides the architecture and the artwork, of course.)
As for the food, the meat and cheese is fresh. The gelato is outstanding. The pasta is cooked al dente– the way it’s supposed to be. I work at Olive Garden… it is going to be very difficult to continue working at Olive Garden when I return. “Italian food.” Endless soup, salad and lies. (I knew this before, but it’s painfully apparent now.)
The Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon had an overwhelming amount of tourists, but were nonetheless breathtaking. That being said, I’m eager to hit up our first media visit at the American University of Rome tomorrow to break away from those huge crowds before bracing them again at the Colosseum.
Also, the cars drive on the right side of the road here rather than the left side as most of us had always presumed, so do whatever you want with that information I guess.