ciao roma

Valentine and his horse Rocky. He was swindeling us for money because she needs new horse shoes...I was a sucker for it. But atleast we got to pet a horse and hear a really old half drunk irish man rant about how much he hates bush!
Guinness and I are friends.
The writer's museum! Cause i'm a dork!
mmmmmmmmmmmmm Irish coffeeeeeeeeee
mmmmmmmmmmmmmm squared.

a street by our hostel!

our first proper pint of guinness...yes that is my hand and yes I drank it. you would be mad if i didn't.
hoooraaaaaaaaaay beer!
This is atop the guinness brewery, called the gravity bar. once you get to the top of the tour you get a free pint. and all over the glass they have James Joyce quotes...because....he's the shit.
gravity bar. prettttyyy. They actually give you a map to help you try to find some of the landmarks from up there. pretty sweeet.

Hi friends. Today we arrived in Rome....WITH luggage in tow. Thank god for that. the flights were super short and great...they were filled with Italians...so we got to practice brushing up on our listening/speaking skills. We actually arrived IN rome (after the train ride from the bus station and a taxi ride) at 9 pm. Immediatley once we got into our hostel we wanted to run out the door and look around. We asked some of the other kids at the hostel where some places to eat were, then began wandering. We ended up at a little...kind of fancy...but really cheap pizzeria where it cost 6 euro for a pizza the size of an American pizza that would have cost atleast 12 bucks. so that was nice. then we split a half bottle of wine. And upon recommendation of a roomate in Dublin, I will now be keeping a wine journal, which i thought was pretty brilliant. So this one was a white wine...but i really could not get over the fact it tasted like freaking roses. I'm not joking at all. take the smell of roses and make it into a taste and you have that wine. it was bizarre. After that we walked to the Trevi Foutain..which of course...was flooooooded with tourists and street vendors and men shuving roses in my face to the point which i had no choice but to take one and john had nothing but $.40...so i only snagged one. so we got plenty of pictures of the fountain, which i'm sure you have all seen. but pictures will be up soon. The thing is throwing change in it...so...i did. cause well shit, we're tourists. After that we got some gellato...because we decided that we only have a little more than 24 hours in Rome, so who gives a damn if we look like tourists. So with that in mind...on our way back to the hostel...there were a TON of street vendors selling fake prada bags. And I'm not sure who the wise person told me was, but...as I remember it, "buy a fake prada purse....they look so damn real!" and ya know, I said what the hell not. Since they are vendors, I could talk them down. And seriously, they're damn cute. And no one can tell the difference. So whatever. So i bought a HUGE green and white woven..checked...looking prada bag. he first told me 40...but...After some mingeling I got it for 20. which was pretty sweet considering its the size of my bookbag. so now I have quite the collection of purses, one from dublin that's a short of rough canvas with different gaelic words written all over it, a 2 euro bag from the writer's mueseum and my cute fake prada bag. hooray! So now we're just sitting back at the hostel in our 6 person bedroom...with no one in it but us...everyone elses shit is scattered everywhere....but they must be partying. duh. But as for us, we wanted to come back and hang out and relax a bit. I was actually really impressed at how easily we started talking in Italian to all the locals. I guess since all we've been taught for the past two years is how to have conversation, it's a damn good thing to see my college money is going toward some good use. We're just really anxious to get out tomorrow and see old Rome. That's truly all I care about anyway. yeah okay and maybe some shopping. eee! But since I couldn't finish up my blog from last night, I shall continue and insert some pictures! hooray! So last night, was a perrrrrrrrfect way to end our days in Dublin. I can't tell you how many locals thought I was either Scandanavian, from Norway, or from Ireland. It was a relief actually to see that people don't look at me and think "that damn American,"...because John got that a few times a tthe second stupppppppid busy bar we went to. But I actually was also really relieved to see a buch of locals because their faces were small like mine! it was strange. haha. One of the older guys we were hanging out with told me about how many Liddy's there are still in Country Claire, where my family is from, and how alot of them are great musicians and great poets. so I'll definently look into that. But without further lallygagging, here are some Dublin pictures. enjoyy.

now I'm dozing off again. so more tomorrow after our awesome day in Rome. <3