Digital Home of Kristoffer Strom

Wednesday 08th of September 2010

Round 13 - Rome, Italy (2004-04-26 -> 2004-05-06)

I've always loved Italy. I've never been there, but I've always loved it. So much about Italy I love that I was just overwhelmed by the "there is a God!" feeling when I found out I was going there. I also called my good half-italian friend Ricki and let hem know the good news and he got started planning how we could make this a kick ass weekend for the both of us!

Our travel arrangements were with the airline Alitalia flying down on monday afternoon and home on the wednesday, sounded safe enough. No problem going down there although we did end up on the airport that was furthest away from the city so it was a pretty long taxidrive to the hotel that was on the opposite side of Rome. So we got a very quick little tour of the place before we came to the hotel that was just next to the swedish embassy at the Piazza Ria de Janeiro. The swedish embassy is really easy to find since it's in the middle of a very old, nicely designed part of town and the embassy itself is a big square block of concrete. So very bad architecture it was sad! The hotel was a very very small hotel with very very small rooms and after I checked out the TV channels I was totally bummed out. As it turned out I'd spend so very little time there that it didn't matter at all!

The two women (both blonde) I was travelling with didn't wanna spend the evening locked in the hotel so they dragged me out on the subway over to the station called "Colosseum". And as I turned the corner going out from the station... BAM!, in your face! Quite an impressive sight to say the least!! Then we walked around there for a while, then ended up in some random bar for some beer. Turned out to be a blues/soul bar and that was my first experience listening to Nina Simone. Quite relaxing.

After that first evening it was off to work and ... well, there really isn't anything to say about it except it went perfectly. Absolutely positively flawlessly perfect. Not a single glitch anywhere. It was even so good that I got to spend 2-3 hours every day sitting out on their veranda enjoying the italian sun. Unfortunately it was a bit too much so I got a bit cindered, but what tha hell, it was Italy!

One of the girls boyfriend's had decided to go down there and join her and that's when we first heard there was a problem with the airline Alitalia. They were on strike! That sucked but he got down there anyway and he turned out to be a cool dude so we had no problems there at all. So for the next few days (especially the saturday) we walked around town without any real purpose, just wanting to see more of Rome and new places to hang out and we found new stuff all the time. It was kind of funny walking behind two blondes down the streets of Rome with basically every Italian dude turned their heads. It was kinda pathetic but funny since I know the type :)
We ended up at an Irish outdoor pub drinking irish beer (I know!!) for a few hours before taking the taxi home to the hotel at midnight. But the girls weren't ready yet so we went out to the closest open restaurant and kept them open for an hour extra by ordering some snacks and a bottle of Ferrari champagne! Then got some sleep and on the sunday got up early and got a very nice, long personal tour of the city of Rome by Ricki and his father (that lives and works in Rome). Before this we had just wondered around enjoying the view but now we actually heard what everything was and the history behind things. Made it alot easier to take in. Then we ended up at Ricki's aunts house enjoying some home-cooked food and - get this - I willingly at the sallad, and it was good. As a matter of fact, everything was good there. Don't know how they did it or if it was just me feeling so good and happy.

After that it was back to finish up the job and we got an invite home to one of the women at the embassy. Naturually I don't do those things well usually but I can't say no so off we went. As I was walking in their livingroom I noticed some plates they had on their walls. After a few minutes of study I realised they were the so called "Sorunda"-plates. That was a series of plates made in the little parish of Sorunda back in the 80's. I know that since I lived there and my parents have the plates too. As it turns out this couple lived 2 streets away from us for 8 years! Pretty small world after all, and they were mighty impressed I recognised the plates and after that it was no problem sitting talking about stuff.
I was scheduled to go back home on wednesday afternoon but on tuesday it looked like the Alitalia strike was still on so I ordered a second set of tickets with a low budget carrier from Rome for all 3 of us on the thursday. I wasn't gonna complain that I had to stay an extra day in rome without any work to do but as it turned out the strike ended and I took the scheduled flight home. The girls however took that other backup flight since that airport was closer to Rome!

I had very high expectations of this trip and it delivered - and then some! The atmosphere, the food, the people, the work, my friend Ricki that came down over the weekend, the two girls I was there with, it all resulted in awesome 2 weeks of fun! The only bad thing I had to report was that I lost my cellphone somewhere at the airport. Not sure if it was stolen or if I just misplaced it but it was just a phone...

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