From: Wednesday, June 21, 2017
To: Sunday, June 25, 2017
I was lucky enough to meet a friend, YJ, traveling solo like me from South Korea. She arrived the same day as I did, but only spent 3 days in Roma. So I traveled with her during her stay in the city. I had so much fun with her!
My first impression of Rome: How come no tall buildings?!
I was surprised at the architecture of the city, where buildings are low and traditional. All buildings looked like they have been there for at least a century. That’s different from Seoul, where it won’t be easy for you to find buildings that are even half a century old. I also noticed that the city has less digital features, which is also a stark difference from Seoul where you have huge digital screens on buildings for Ads.
On the first day in Roma, I went to the Vatican Museum early in the morning as I reserved an entrance ticket. YJ was also visiting the Museum, but with a guide tour, so we decided to meet at 1pm somewhere at the entrance and see how we should spend the rest of our day. I was planning to spend almost half a day in the Museum because of all the artworks, but got extremely tired (and even sick) so at 1pm, we just decided to go back to the hostel. The man in the above photograph is sitting next to us, as we stayed in the shade for a few mins.
At night, after resting, we joined a tip-based tour. This was our first stop—the view from the bridge to the Angels castle.. Since I had never traveled with organized tours, it was a new kind of experience for me. What stayed with me most wasn’t the buildings, but the people I walked with and the easy, pleasant conversations we shared along the way.
2nd day on! In this picture, we yet have no idea on how much fun we were going to have!
On our way to Collosseo; Opio Park. We stayed here for a good 30 mins.
After walking by Colosseo, on our way to the ‘bocca della veritas’, we stopped at a resto for lunch. It was so hot outside that we had to stop and rest. The time we spent here was so precious. We practically talked a lot here, and got so much closer! It’s such a great experience to become friends with a random person who meet while traveling. At least for now, during my stray in Rome, she is my best friend.
YJ left Rome at around 5pm. We promised to meet in Korea and we parted ways. I had nothing planned to do in the evening, so I came back to all the places we visited together in the afternoon. It was really different and that was obviously because 1) I was alone and 2) it was darker and less crowded. I’m grateful to have met YJ, she had such an active character that made my travel with her so fun and memorable!
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