By: Margyle

I’ve never been on a family skiing trip, nor have we gone on a cruise. All my travels outside of Canada have been with friends. I had the opportunity of meeting up with a friend from undergrad that I haven’t seen since then in a city that I had only been in for nine hours. Thanks to our good friend Facebook and a few threats on her end if I did not contact her, I gave her my location and we met up. Awesome.

I am not going to pretend to dazzle you with knowledge of Rome because aside from what I have done today and read about, I have no freaking idea about where anything is or any trendy cool spots that show you the ‘real’ city all the travel douches out there long for. All I can say is I am staying literally across from the Vatican Museums (I can see them from my bedroom window) and the surrounding area is kick ass. One of the reasons I wanted to meet up with Sarah (my friend) is to see some parts of the city I may not get to see without an experienced guide. Oh, and the whole catching up thing had some appeal to me as well.

But yes, I used her.

She took us to into St. Peter’s – which is astounding, particularly at night when the crowds are gone – and then to a small store for beers. 1.50 Euro for 750ml of beer? Open the bottle for you after you pay? Buh? I think I’m in love.

Then we walked down… somewhere. Yes. Somewhere. I do not know exactly where but I will attempt to revisit it tonight and hope it wasn’t just a beautiful dream. Along the river, into an area with lots of awesome stuff. We hadn’t eaten anything really for 8 or 9 hours so we decided to go for dinner, which was also top notch.

Now the real meat of the story is featured after we had some laughs said our farewells because we attempted to make our way home after a few more beers. Did I mention I wasn’t paying attention when we walked there? This was the bind I was currently in even though the directions were simple enough – follow the river to a tunnel, walk through the tunnel, walk along the Vatican walls until you reach the museum and voila you are home!

Sober Margyle may have had a different time than drunk, foot achy, 5 hours of sleep in 3 days Margyle, who got confused around the part about the Vatican. Maybe it was because he forgot to turn left and followed the archway instead of the clearly discernable Vatican structures. Maybe he was distracted by the pretty lights and tried to add one more awesome inebriated picture to his collection of dozen identical photos taken a few hours before. But probably, he wanted to take one more walk past the bum who took a dump in a box in front of him and then was kind enough to take the box with him. Stay classy, Roma.

I eventually made it back and I had a great time, but looking back on it, I probably should’ve brought the map I decided I was too cool for school to use, or at least asked one of the many police officers we passed. Oh yeah, fun fact about Rome – don’t drink on the streets after 11pm. At least not for the foreseeable future – supposedly some wanker stripped down and made an ass of himself before getting the beats and imposing a booze-curfew on all of us. Bottom line – Rome is awesome. Just… bring a map or at least pay attention when you go walking.