.:a sUdDeN sLiP:.

"The Eternal City"
Caput mundi ("capital [lit. head] of the world"),
la Città Eterna ("the Eternal City"),
Limen Apostolorum ("threshold of the Apostles"),
la città dei sette colli ("the city of the seven hills") or simply l’Urbe ("the City")

These are some few nicknames that justifiedly gave Rome, the capital city of Italy its charming character.

I could mumbling for hours telling you about the history of Rome, but I figure you can know that urself by reading Wikipedia

And I knew none of you would like to hear me chatter my skanky travel from Moscow to Rome, so suffice if I stated here that it went with little-less trouble compared to my previous travel. And while we landed at night, it prove not difficult to find the location of my hostel as it is located like, 5 minutes walk (with luggages, 10 minutes) from the Termini Central Train Station.

Hostel wasnt that bad. Its pretty nice actually, with all the helpful guides, maps, breakfast, and 3 bathrooms!!! No lining up in the morning and we made friends with a brazilian called Paolo (i think) and a Japanese (Masaki) studying in Italy. Afiq had a very serious conversation with Paolo about the future of world football, enumerting names I cant even recall, while me and Masaki had a deep conversation about multi-mix religion in Japan. (Duh………….)

Hostel..

Then there’s the historical place. The "cite histoire" (The historical city) which actually encompass central Rome, being named as one of UNESCO world heritage site. There’s the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, Roman Forum, Circus Maximus, and several other stone structures which sound romanly-beautiful, but did not actually exert their structure into an uncomprehensible structure. I mean, there’s a stone standing, and they claimed it to be a structure from a pillar of a beautiful temple dedicated to Uranus. And how am I supposed to imagine that??? Then there’s the Pantheon, which was a Roman temple, now turned into a church when Christianity reached its peaks here.

Colosseum

A visit to Rome wouldnt be complete without a tour to the St Peter’s Cathedral n Square in Vatican City. Its a lil bit paradoxical though, the biggest church located in the smallest country We had to wake up real early on Sunday morning, skipping breakfast and catching our breath while trying to get in the line for the Vatican Museum. 7.30 a.m and the line had stretched to about half kilometre!! and the door open actually only at 8.45 am!! WE’re very lucky though (alhthough I had sprained my ankle during the morning marathon earlier), since its the last Sunday of the month, we got to skip the tickets fee (thats 20 euro!! or 4 kebabs according to Afiq) , and we got to visit the legendary Sistine Chapel with its legendary drawing, the Last Judgement (usually they are closed on ordinary Sunday)…

Vatican CIty..ramainya org beratur nak masuk!!

Then there’s the St Angel castle. A fortress on the bank of a river. Looking out from the top of the tower, Rome couldnt be more breathtakingly beautiful. I cant get enough pictures there, though most of my picture is miserable since Raja wasnt that good in handling cameras. No scratch that. He’s bad with camera

St  Angle Castle

I havent planning on returning to Rome, but I do make that coin-throwing ceremony at the famous Trevi fountain, which legend tells, will ensure our return to Rome. If I’m not mistaken, they have one such fountain in Madrid and Barcelona too. Do all fountain does such magic?? If so, I’m sure as hell not going to throw a coin into one of  Volgograd dead-during-most-time-of-the-year-except-2 weeks-in-spring fountain.

Trevi Fountain…

All an all, Rome is an easy city to visit. Friendly and helpful people, halal food available by the corner, extensive Metro and Bus system, though opening schedule of certain monuments can be confusing. ( I mean, which idiot close from 4pm to 6pm ,and reopen only to close back at 7 pm???)

And obviously, Rome isnt a shopping heaven. Things arent that expensive, it just that, the high street isnt that high at all. Most of shopping boutiques and emporium are scattered throughout the city, so its got a lil; bit tiring , especially when u try to find for an appropriate size jacket for under 30 euro (yeah..thats me)

Astonishingly beautiful city, but it doesnt keep u blind from the smell of home-made pizza from the nearest Pizzeria, and numerous Gellateria (Ice cream stalls) serving Pistachio n Nutella flavoured Ice Cream !!! OMG, its a sin to skip the gellateria.

Of course there’s the bad things too:-
The free pasta from the hostel sucks, but then again, delicious is
subjective, according to Afiq, as he pick up the last macaroni from his
plate and hover over it kudos bro!!!
Dumin lost his camera AND wallet . How worse can that be?? Of course it can be worse, if he lost his ATM card and passport as well. Thank God, thats not the case
The olympic stadium where ROma and LAzzio supposed to be playing is actually off-limits for visitors!! How absurd is that!! I knew they share the stadium, but at least they can establish some mutual understandling like AC MIlan and InterMilan, instad of shooing us off.

The absurdly off-limits Olympic Stadium

Dumin and Hisham got separated from us on the second day, and thus, they havent the chance to see the street where all International Food congregated, with smells of beef briyani accompanied with chinese speaking sellers by the road offering us their cheap knockouts.

That last night, we chugged of on an Inter City train to Venice. An 5 hour trip, with a snoring old man by our (my) side, emphasizing on switching off the lamp so his sleep wouldnt get disturbed while he obviously disturbed ours….HAve u watched Eurotrip??yeah, the setting is exactly the same with the "Miscusi" scene.

I fall off asleep with my Ipod trying to block the snoring off, while all the time, my mind couldnt have a rest, thinking what Venice will have to offer for us….

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