Trip to Italy – Chapter 1

Hello ladies and gentlemen, this Synadakis Angelos speaking (writting actually) from Rome. The computer is Italian, so it is impossible to write in Greek, beside that greeklish is out of question, so here I offer you a great opportunity to practise your english…

Currently i am in Rome, in a hostel near Termini (the center train station of the city). I found myself here in my way to Ischia, and given that i had to spend an afternoon and a night in Rome, i decided to go for a sightseeing walk.

Well… the city is just as i left it last mai. Ok, you can add some cloudes, and 18 degrees instead of 30, but still it is hot. First of all, i would like to warn everyone that is going to come to this city… Do not trust the tourist maps. They are full of mistakes, they lack a lot of roads, and they do not point to north. As a result, they can only be read by those who do not know how to read maps, because if you know how, trust me, you will be disappointed. Fortunately, i had a little expirience of this city, so i managed to make it work!

As far as the city herself is concerned… there are a lot of things to mention. Rome is a museum herself. Every little rock is ancient here, there is no modern buildings at all, or if there are any, they are perfectly camouflaged. The architecture is unbelievable, every single building is special. Well, in order to navigate through the city, you have to be a guru, since it is like a labyrinth, but this is what makes the city special after all…

As for the rest, I would not like to live in this city. It is the perfect city for tourists, but i do not want to be a permanent citizen. Thessasloniki is far better than Rome in this domain! You can not breathein this city, there are people everywhere and almost none of them is Italian. This place is full of chinesse people… but when i say full, trust me, i mean it! They are everywhere… Even right now, at the computer next to me, there is a chinesse guy sending e-mails (i hope his is not reading what i am writting)!

Besides that, if you close your eyes, and open them after a while, i bet you will see a fiat car in your sight, and if there is no fiat at the moment two things may happen: either a fiat will pass in 5 seconds time, or there will be a lot of lancia cars instead. By the way, among the fiat car, there will be a chinesse guy as well. Actually, it is more possible to see the chineese guy, than the fiat, but anyway.

The roads are hell! Greece is nothing compared to this! But the problem here is that there are no traffic lights for pedestrians. There are zebra crossings (i am not sure if this is the correct word of “diavasi” but anyway) everywhere, but no traffic lights. So you have to count on the driver’s good will to cross the road, or you can ask the chinesse guy next to you (certainly there is one over there) for help, as he is more experienced.

The funny thing is that in this city everybody is walking with a map on his hands. There was a moment that i was very shy to open the map, because i find it a little bit embarassing (i know it is stupid, but i feel like this) but all of a sudden i realised that everyone else around was holding a map, so i took the decision to open my map as well!. Needless to say, that next to me there was a chinesse guy.

I paid only for 1 hour to use the internet (quite chip – 2 euro as in Greece), so my time willl be up in a couple of minutes. I am not sure if i will have access on the internet during the next 2 weeks, so this chapter 1 might be the last. But you can check the site regularly because you never know.

That is for now! I am going to sleep since I have a train to catch tomorrow morning. Goodbye.

P.S. I am sorry about the mistakes, but this computer is a lot of years old, and there is no dictionary (as in mine), so i can’t correct any errors. Thank you that you are still reading! Ciao.