Free Style

I am exhausted. I am sitting in Free style (our hostel) listening to our friend Morten jam on his guitar and sing in his crazy Danish tongue. Laura is on the verge of sleep, but I think the smell from the kitchen is what is keeping us awake right now. This place offers pasta, soup, salad and wine each night, which is fantastic. Its definitely time to wind down, after a week of Rome, Florence, Pisa, then Rome again. We figure we probobly put in over 65 hours of walking at the least, and so sitting here with music, friends, and tasty food is quite nice. But, I figured I would capitalize on the free internet and at least put out some highlights from the past few days, and if not highlights, just things that stick out, and make me laugh.

- when a pigeon pooped on Laura
- singing the chariots of fire theme song every time we needed some motivation to climb the thousands of stairs Rome has to offer all its tourists
- giving Laura a piggyback up the last stretch of a hill. We thought she wasnt going to make it. It was a Frodo/ Samwise moment...again, accompanied by Chariots of fire.
- sitting in a random shop, drinking cheap Italian beer, and speaking Spanish with a stranger, and adding to my Italian vocabulary
- sitting on the spanish steps and listening to Enrico sing "thats Amore" and enjoying how willing he was to educate us about Italy
- locking myself in the bathroom in Florence, panicking because I have a strange fear of getting locked in bathrooms, (understandably, because it seems to happen to me a lot) and having to yell for help because Laura was out roaming the town for an internet point
- having to walk with Laura afterwards because she couldnt find the internet point after an hour of roaming
- finding it, and about 20 more, one street over from our hostel
- the very anti-climactic moment of seeing the leaning tower of Pisa... yes. It is a leaning tower.
- strolling through the ruins of the Roman Forum and finding the prison that Peter and Paul were thrown into when they were arrested by the Romans
- Tim, an Australian who showed up at freestyle. He lost his wallet, and had no money.. so as friendly as he was, Laura and I slept a little uneasily with him in the same room. Not to mention his snoring sounded like he was trying to eat himself.. trust me, that has a very distinct sound.
- Crying the entire way back from Florence to Rome because my eyeballs were on fire from some sort of crazy infection that crawled in overnight. Now, the only reason this is funny is because I was soo bent on looking out the window so I could see the Tuscan countryside, that it looked like I was having some sort of breakdown. Eventually I had to abandon this, put on shades, wrap my head in my pashmina, and let the blackness take over. LAME.
(my eyes have made a full recovery since then, in case your interested)
ok.. I could go on about Michaelangelo, the David, the Vatican, the Colosseum, the Duomo, the Sistine Chapel, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, St. Peters Basilica, the Roman Forum, the sketchy hostels, the crazy men, chocolate pastries, Italion pasta, foccaccia bread, and Nutella, but I am still exhausted. Morten has stopped playing, and dinner is just about ready.
So, Im calling this a wrap.