Saturday, June 15th Day 16
We woke up early to check out. We packed up and set longingly for more sleep. We met with Matteo and left, running into his next guests on the way out. We had cleaned but not completely. The dishes sat dirty in the machine.
We set out but Wakana was still ill and had very little sleep. Nita and I decided to leave her and go to our hostel to rest as well. A quick metro and we're here at... The comics guest house! We came a bit early and checked in. We left for food as they finished cleaning our room. We stopped for croissant panini's and some pizza and a potatoe cheese-thingy. We came back and Nita fell asleep. I am awake catching up on the diaries with a wall-sized mural of comic called Dylan Dog. It looks really cool, a throwback to a noir style story. The lobby is decked with marvel and DC posters and statues. The check desk is decked with simpsons and apparently there are other themed rooms like the mario room, betty boop room, and more.... so cool.
We slept for a lot of the day and left in the late afternoon, skipping the dead heat. We traveled immediately to the best Gelato in town by Cavour station. I had the most amazing gelato I've ever had. A scoop of cafe latte and one of a great hazelnut with nut butter flavour. Large chunks of nuts periodically met in my rapidly melting ice cream made it over the top. Nita had the snow white flavour mixed with seed-filled rasberry and rich dark chocolate.
We then left to the train station towards poor sick Wakana. At the train station we zipped to the stop right beside the station and walked up towards their hotel Along the way we realized that we have stumbled on Rome's Chinatown. small shops up the street with chinese tailors with dresses and shoes. We kept walking closer as the streets got sketchier and seedier. We got to the top of the street when we texted Hauke and Wakana. Turns out they were moved and upgraded due to rowdy spanish students. We went to the train station to stop for food before going to the new hotel Wakana was given.
Crispy McBacon! The Roman special that I sunk my teeth into voraciously. Nita snacked on spinach and smelly cheese crochettes and McPoppers? I forget the name exactly. A calorie engorged meal, we ate ourselves silly. After, I perused the book store in the train station. I pored over the large graphic novel section and soaked in the styles of art and drastically changing moods of each one. Classics translated beside apparent masterpieces as well as the titles by well known N. American writers that I didn't know existed.
It was probably much to Nita's chagrin whose feet that had been battered by the Roman street stones for days. We left with a bookmark and met with Wakana who was incapacitated in her bed for the day. We had all had our fill of Rome and sat chatting before letting her rest.
We left in the late evening and headed back for more great gelato. We followed up our previous flavours with chocolate and bush-fresh mint chocolate. Nita had chocolate and the thumbellina. I'm very glad we had this.
We went across the street to a busy pizza place and were told it was full until 10pm! Wow, that must be good pizza. Instead we wandered to find more restaurants. With pizza on our mind we stopped at a place with a wood burning oven. How could we go wrong?
I'll tell you how.
My seafood pizza came out with imitation crab and Nita's sausage looked like smashed spam. Cooked to perfection? yes, but the crispy inviting crust housed about 2 lbs too much salt. We couldn't eat it. We sat questioning if it was just us, as everyone else seemed to enjoy it. But further review confirmed it. Salt. Lots and lots of salt. We are not food snobs. We generally eat what is put in front of us. In fact, this is the only time we've ever simply walked away from a meal. No more. too many scam artists, too many rude servers, too many money-grubbing hustlers. We paid and left. No request for a new pizza, no take-out. We vowed not to return to Rome, or Itally, without a considerable amount of money, and even then? meh.
When it was good, it was great, but too many times has it been tainted by people preying so ferociously on tourists that want to simply soak in the rich culture.
We went back to sleep, not needing to pack after only one night at our graphic-filled and chic hostel room.
