We are staying with a really nice Servas host family in Rome, in the very leafy and cool area of Trastevere. We arrived in the morning, met Sergio and had a nice chat with him about ourselves and he was very interesting and helpful with things to do and see in Rome. He works for the national television network RAI, something to do with the news.

It was so very very hot in the day. Collosseo/Collosseum, 12 euros later I couldn't give a flying fark that I had spent so much money, this ancient amazing thing was so mesmerizing. It was better than what I imagined, probably becuause I never really imagined it I just saw it as this faraway things that was only real in Gladiator and even then it was just a reconstruction…This was actually real and god was it amazing. And even better was the fact that the ticket included the Ruins next to the collosseo; the Palatino and the Arco di Tito and Arco di Constantino and the roman forum and also this great exhibition on the Flavians with all this stuff on Vespa-something something, his name has left me but he was very intereting and importand nonetheless. It was pretty wonderful.

Rome is beautiful, looking at it from above up on that big wall thing oh I don't know what it was called, it looked just so perfect in its hazy splendor, it is so heavy with history and culture and art and beauty and it is easy to see the dirt but so much easier to see the glory. Walking was our religion today, we walked everywhere and nowhere in a matter of hours, we stopped for gelato and postcards and took photos of statues and arches and the trees that looked like elongated stubs of brocolli. Basilica di Sante Clemente was a highlight, such a gorgeous and understated old church recommended by Sergiom with these amazing underground tombs and corridors that were excavated ages ago, containing these amazingly old frescos and rooms and well, basically remnants of ancient rome. Amazing, absoutely amazing, I would never have known to visit this place and am so glad he recommended it. Fonte Acqua Paola, wakling along the ponte vecchio (old bridges) across to the Isola (island), San Gregario Magno, Porta San Pancrazio, la bocca della verita (the mouth of truth)….

Had a lovely night meeting Sergios partner Cinzia, who cooked us an amazing traditional central italian dish porchetta, which I adored even though I don't usually love pork; we also had bread and baby spinach and pate and eggplant and capsicum and carrots done in the most delecable of ways. Meeting their adorable little 2 and a half year old daughter Lara was so lovely, she is seriously cute to boot and I could understand her child italian and I just wanted to steal her. She blew us kisses when it was time for her to go to bed, "bacini", little kisses she called them.

AWWWWWW.

If you havent caught on, I love Rome.