First Impressions...

    Rome is sweet. My flight through Poland was uneventful except for how disgusting the food was. I arrived in Rome around 3:30pm Roman time (which is 6 hours ahead of USA time) The driver for my apartment picked me up just as promised, he spoke no english and my italian is very poor at best so he and i did not converse much. The first thing he did was take my big suitcase and accidentally drop it down a flight of stairs, thereby breaking my body was in a side pocket. Other than that the ride was smooth and Rene, whom I had been speakign with over the itnernet to rent the aprtment, met us on the corner of my street, Pace. I thought Rene was an italian woman, turns out its a Phillipino male, who doesn't speak english or italian particularly well. The locks to the apartment are a bit tricky and take soem finesse and patience to open. Rene had neither and threw a small temper tantrum that he could not enter the apartment but eventually it all worked out.

    The apartment is very nice and much bigger than I thought, we have 2 living rooms, 2 bed rooms, kitchen, and of course bathroom. Despite renting a two bedroom place for 2 males, they only readied one room...expecting us to share the bed I guess? It was the nicer room so i grabbed it. Mike Gruccio will be my roomate, his room smelled like an old persons house that hasn't gotten air in a while, so i opened all the windows. We literally look down on 5 cafes most having only 2-5 tables total. 1 is clearly a big tourist cafe and 2 seem quainter. My street is about as big as one lane of a road (yellow to white line) and has cars and Motorinos parked all up and down it. It does not look like you can get a car up it, but they do amazingly. I am certain I will meet my end due to being hit by a car or motorcycle. They zip up and down pedestrian areas and sidewalks like they have the complete right of way (and judging by the romans reactions, they do indeed have the irght of way..ON THE SIDEWALK) I have almost been hit well over a dozen times now.

The first night I unpacked scoped out all the treasures left behind by the former tenents (including a wine stopper in my night stand, a bottle of "midnight poison" cologne and a harry potter book in italian) Then i decided to hit the streets to find 1. a place to eat, 2 a Tabacci (kind of like a mini mart, i was hoping to buy a phone card but they no longer sell them, the book I read said they did but it was published in 1997 so alot of the data is useless) 3. some gelato 4. an internet cafe  5. some land marks and 6. a grocerie store.   I succeeded on some failed in others.
     I decided to try one of the quainter places on my street for an itlian meal. I wanted the big itlian feast where you get an antipasta, a primo e' secondare (first and second course) I must of smelled of tourist because I'm pretty sure the guy ripped me off. He charged me 40euro and I only got a primo. I got a fish of some sort and some vegetables. It was good but not 40 euro good. When I paid and got my change the waitress gave me a bunch of british pounds, completely useless so I immediately called her out and got my correct change. I won't go back there again and since I live right across the street I stare that guy down everyday. If anyone asks me about a restaurant on my street I will let them know that his business is troppo caro (too expensive).
     The Tabaccis are everywhere and they mostly carry cigarettes, souvineers and lotto tickets. I think they carry postage too but I'm not sure. For desert I found a tiny little gelato place tucked in behind a building. The businesses here are so hidden in tiny alley ways or streets, I wonder how they do any business, most dont even have names adverstining that they are a buisness and the overwhelming number of shops are art restoration centers. Most of the restaurant people speak english if you ask (Parla inglese?) Doing so flags you as a tourist though and I am tryign to use as much italian as possible. The gelato guy did not speak any english but I knew enough ital to order, "Un piccalo cone Nero gelato por favore" (a small cone of the nero flavored geloto please) The nero flavor was wine and choclate, very good.
    I had no luck on the internet cafe. We have a few grocerie stores nearby though, the big chain seems to be Di per Di, the whoel store would fit in 1 aisle of an american supermarket, but it had everything I would want. The sell liquor and wines at the store so I bought some juice, a bottle of wine and a bottle of grappa (its kinda like vodka made form the grape skins i think, the kind i got is gross and not nearly as good as all the kinds I had down at Kim & Brian's).
     As far as land marks go the streets are very tiny and confusing but I am learning I did a bunch of laps around my area for 4 hours, we live less than 1 block from Piazza Navona   it was breahtaking to emerge form tiny tighly packed streets into this huge piazza with amazing statutes. I am currently writing from school and although I have saved many good pictures on my flash drive to post, the schools computers do not seem to work with flash drives. I also stumbled upon Castle St. Angelo. At this point i realized I was lost and had to aks a polizziano for directions. I was prepared, Mi scusi, Dov'e Piazza Navona signore? Excuse me, where is piazza navona mr.? He pointed the general direction and I headed back.
    Went back inside to start writign down what I'd seen and fell asleep doing it. It was about 2pm USA time and I woke up at around 10pm usa time, which was 4 am in Rome to revelry in the street below. I don't understand where people are coming from or gonig on ym street but it seems like party central until about 5am. I fell back asleep and prepared to meet Mike the next day (as I had the only sets of keys)