Houston, Amsterdam, begin Rome

This trip started out with procrastination. What was happening didn’t really hit me until I was in the car on the way to the airport with my mom. My friend Tina called me to tell me goodbye and said how jealous she was of me. Then I realized...I’m going to Europe. For four months! I’d been in Austin visiting friends right up until I had to leave. I drove back to Houston and packed for almost 24 hours straight. The day I left I was feeling sick, which made me hesitant to eat any plane food, even though I was dying of hunger. I ate their rinky-dink microwave dinner and soggy croissant. I listened to a lot of music and tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep.

The Schipol airport in Amsterdam was immediately confusing to my dad and I. We couldn’t read anything. My dad eventually started making fun of the language saying it was just an exaggeration of English words with a stereotypical accent. We saw a sign for a “psycholoog” or something. We had an 8-hour layover and couldn’t get on an earlier flight so we took a train into the city.

If we’d been confused in the airport, the city was worse. We wandered around looking for a place to eat lunch. We tried to find a place with traditional Dutch food, but we weren’t exactly sure what it would be. We found a little something at a cafe and had a type of Dutch soup and breakfast with eggs, ham and bread.

For the rest of the day we just walked around, noticed people, went in a few shops an talked about our impressions of the city. You can, on occasion, faintly smell weed in the streets of Amsterdam, though it’s not really what I imagined. Most of the references to special “coffeeshops” are only in tourist shops where they sell post cards with high-looking frogs on them or something. I think I was expecting a dark place with red-lit smoke shops where clouds of smoke collected in the air. Amsterdam was actually beautiful and relatively clean. The people there were all really hip looking. The words and a lot of the furniture reminded me of IKEA. On the way to Rome in the plane I realized I could think of three songs that were called “Amsterdam”. There must be something magnetic about the city, besides the pot... On the downside it was cold, geographically monotonous (if that makes sense), and the people were rough-looking. It got really chilly towards the end of the day, like autumn in Texas. Then the monotony...it was just street after street of canal with two roads lined with shops and residences on both sides, thought it was lovely. There were a lot of bikes. Then the people...were not very attractive. Everyone was really harsh and kind of wrinkly, angular. Many of the women especially were masculine looking.

On the way back to the airport we missed our stop and had to go to the next town. Our plane was leaving in less than 1 ½ hours! Luckily some people told us how to get back. The good part: the next town had windmills! Classic Holland. We made it back to the airport in time. Starting on the train ride back from Amsterdam I started falling asleep every time I sat down. On the flight to Rome I finally got to sleep after being awake for more than 24 hours. The time difference is wacky. Even right now it’s 1:30AM here in Rome...I am looking at my computer clock, unchanged from Texas time; it’s only 6:30PM there. I started getting really grumpy after we got off the flight in Rome. I had all my luggage for four months with me. We were desperately trying to find place to store it in the airport but everything was empty-ish because it was so late at night. We finally put the luggage away then I had three heavy bags. We got to the last train departing from the airport right before it left. I was SOOO tired and my bags were really heavy and not fitting easily into the train compartment. Then my dad started talking to the people in there. (He talks to everyone, even if they don’t speak English!) I was falling asleep with my mouth hanging open...drool about to cascade down onto my sweaty hoodie. I’m sure it was an attractive sight. We got into Rome at about midnight and luckily the hostel was a “5-minute walk”. Well, we couldn’t find it ANYWHERE. We kept asking the lonely souls out on the streets for directions. The people were usually half right but we finally got to this area and people kept point us to this one street. We walked around for more than 30 minutes. I was so tired and so pissed. Then, I spotted it. It’s hard because in Europe there aren’t any street signs and the address numbers are located indiscreetly on the buildings with small tiles. There was no signage for our hostel either. Once were in, there were two flights of stairs to the floor the hostel is on. Ugh. My dad carried one of my bags. My hands were blistered. I was sweating so badly. I was about to pass out. The people at this hostel are really nice and give free wine and food whenever. I passed out so hard the first night. The room is hot and without AC and can be inhabited by four other people, but I didn’t care that night. I sleep on the top bunk next to a window that opens out to other windows across a narrow street. People hang laundry out their windows. It’s so cute. The bed sheets are like toilet paper.

Thursday we toured the city. The morning started out bad. I think I was still cranky from the night before. We walked around for almost two hours and ended up in the same place. Neither of us could get a sense of direction. We even walked off the map once. After a morning of disappointment and seeing the, frankly, shitty part of Rome we ran into a man at Termini station offering tours. We reluctantly followed him down the street to his office and got on a sightseeing tour of the city. It ended up being a really good deal. We saw all of the big sites and got off the bus for the best ones. We spent awhile at the Coliseum. My dad and I were trying to understand what it would have been like during its peak, but it was hard to get a good idea. We walked around Piazza Navona where dad dropped his Nutella gelato and everyone laughed at him. Then we spent the evening in the area of Rome where “La Dolce Vita” of the 1960s happened. We saw the Spanish Steps, Via Spagna and Trevi Fountain. Rome is absolutely beautiful. It’s not like I feel like I’m walking around in a picture or in a movie, it seems so normal, but when I think of it out of context it’s almost surreal. Everything is fascinating to look at, including Europeans. I am fascinated by them completely. We went to get coffee/beer at a cafe and wanted to find a place for a non-touristy dinner. Our waiter recommended a place further away in Trastevere. He said it was the best place he’d even eaten at in Rome and one of the best places for wine in all of Europe. We took a cab across the Tevere to Trastevere, which is a younger part of Rome across the river with many restaurants and bars. It didn’t seem like a touristy area.

We went into dinner between 8:30-9:00PM and stayed till 10:30PM. It was an excellent meal. Too fancy maybe. We split a “cheap” bottled of wine that was 30€. The lady seemed pissed we wouldn’t buy something better. Neither my dad nor I are very knowledgeable or picky about wine so we didn’t care. It was so great though...called Sum from the Puglia region of southern Italy. We had an appetizer and some entrees, pasta and fish. All served very decoratively. It was such a hip place, my dad doesn’t seem to fit in so well in modern places. He has more of a classic or traditional look. :) Either way, the food was delicious. At the end of the meal we still had some wine so we ordered a plate of hard Italian cheeses. They came out with at least five kinds and some sides of honey, berry sauce and fig sauce for dipping. I was proud of myself for liking “grown up” food. Haha. Hard cheese with fig puree and red wine. I loved it. We walked around in Trastevere for a while. There were so many young people! It made me miss Austin. Trastevere is like a 6th Street, but 100 times more European in narrow cobbled streets. Instead of bars there are sidewalk cafes with chairs outside of them and people sitting in large groups drinking wine and beer and smoking cigarettes. It was so appealing. I could only hope Barcelona would somehow be similar.

When I got home my feet hurt in a way that scared me. My shoes hold up quite well in Austin but it’s different in Europe. I stayed up for awhile at the hostel meeting some of the other travelers: Canadians, Americans, Mexicans and an Asian. They have great stories and advice.

Basically, this place is amazing. It’s still surreal that I’m actually here and this is happening. It’s hard to believe the vacation isn’t ending when I leave Italy. Though it’s great because I can see how much I love Europe and travel around knowing that I get to stay here and live here for a few months after the Italy vacation is over. I already know I need to come back here to see more stuff.