We made it to Rome. After some smoothies for breakfast, made by Franco, we left for the train station. Since we didn't get to the station until a few minutes before 11, we decided it would be best to just jump on the first available train to Rome. We had to get on one of the regular trains *not high speed. It was probably one of the most uncomfortable trains we have been on. But we did have practically an entire train car to ourselves in first class. We arrived in Rome around 3 o'clock and quickly made our way to our hostel. Unfortunately, our room wasn't ready, so we had to lock up our bags and look for a quick place to grab some food while we waited. At 4 o'clock we were able to check into our room. It is a six bed room, with no air conditioning or fans. It's hot!! The hostel itself isn't bad though. We have 3 roomies from Kansas, girls, very annoying. And one guy whom we haven't spoken to yet. After we put our bags we thought it would be a good idea to explore the city a bit. However, we were told that we couldn't go to the Colesium because it closes at 5:30 and by the time we would have walked there it would have been closed. Bummer. So we walked over to the Piazza della Republica, not too terribly impressive, the statues on the fountain were falling apart, then we walked down one of the main streets until we found our way to the Trevi fountain. The fountain was very cool!! We sat there
for a little while then decided to walk around a bit more until we made our way back towards the hostel. It was dinner time, so we needed to eat. We couldn't really find any authentic restaurants around our area, so we just stepped into a, get ready, Chinese restaurant in Rome, for a quick, cheap bite to eat. It wasn't bad, and Danny had his first beer in Italy!! Peroni, it was good.

After dinner, we needed to do laundry, so that's where we are now, in a laundry mat around the corner from our hostel. We got hosed here...they charged us 10 euros to do laundry...it isn't even that much, but we needed to do it. Next time we'll find a place where we can do it ourselves.

Tomorrow we plan to wake up early and taking the walking tour of ancient Rome, and buy 48 hour bus tour tickets, hop-on, hop-off. Monday we will head to the Vatican, since it's closed tomorrow, go figure the head Catholic church closed on Sundays...who woulda known. Sorry we can't put any pictures up, we'll have to find some place where we can get wifi for the laptop...all the cafes here only let us use their computers. We'll post again tomorrow after our full day!!