First of all, special shout out to my lovely father who is turning 52 today! May the old man live on in peace and happiness.

I was thinking about my father today as I had one of the longest days ever. I never realized how hard it is to travel buy yourself. For example, you get a great seat in a terminal only to realize that you’re dying of thirst and need some water. There are two options: (1) Lug all of your heavy luggage to the store and hope no one takes your seat or (2) leave all of your luggage and take the risk that something might be taken. Clearly you can see the dilemma. However, being the proud JMU Duke that I am (and an optimistic person) I chose to leave my luggage at my seat.

Finally, after stopping in Portugal for three house – I finally made it to Rome! There I took a train from airport to the main train terminal. Here I bought a new italian phone. (Sidenote: This was quite the dilemma as I was flustered and could barely understand what was going on. I went back to the store four times. The poor man at the counter was patient with me every time, “No, no, you don’t need to charge it to use it. What you need to do is to put the battery in the phone.” Okay, so my italian might be a little rusty.) I took a taxi to Zia Renta’s to drop off my luggage and then went to the hostel.

My hostel experience was actually pretty good. Granted I was only there for about 13 hours – 8 of which I spent sleeping. haha I was in a room with 7 other girls. They were all friendly and I was surprised by how many people I met that were travelling alone. I don’t think it would have been difficult at all to make friends. However, I did learn some things for my next hostel adventure.

1. Bring a towell! I felt so sorry for the people on the train that I sat next to because I couldn’t shower without a towell at the hostel. Yikes.

2. Bring a padlock! Many hostels have lockers but you need to bring your own lock. Of course I didn’t have one so I spent a little paranoid. I tied my purse to the bedpost and slept with it under my pillow. Yes I realize that’s a tad bit extreme but I wasn’t trying to get robbed on the first night haha

That night at the hostel I met an boy from Argentina named Mateas. Together we went out for pizza and beer. We sat outside enjoying the weather and listening to the beautiful music coming from the Catholic Church down the street.

It was the first time that I have felt relaxed the entire trip. It was the perfect end of a night and the start of a journey. Tomorrow I will be going to southern Italy to truly start the beginning of my travels!