When couchsurfing in Rome

I loved everywhere in Italy but I think that Rome deserves a little extra description!

Daria and I arrived at midnight on March 4 and our host took us our to Cube, a real Italian club full of Italians dancing to popular Italian music. It was a really fun night and something we would have never done had we not couchsurfed.

Couchsurfing was really great in Rome - I really felt like I lived there! On March 5th after a fairly uneventful and rainy day, our host invited us to join him to Castelli Romani. We went on a coach bus full of Italian students from BEST (a group for students studying Engineering, Economics, Architecture, etc) to Castelli Romani. It is famous among the locals for the amazing food and homemade wine. Our group filled the small restaurant and we ate and drank until close! The meal started with bread, meat, cheese, olives, stuffed peppers, and wine. And the main dish was pasta carbonara and wine. And dessert was biscuits and wine. It was a lot of fun and a good opportunity to meet other Italian students.

Daria and I with a star from Big Brother (basically Italian survivor)

With Sofie outside of the Pantheon

Our next host, Nico, was amazing! He gave us tips on what to see and informed us that all national museums were free this weekend because it was Women's Day on March 8 (something that doesn't exist in Canada but it really should). Daria and I, along with Sofie (another couchsurfer from Malmö Sweden) went to Castel Sant'Angelo's in the morning and then to the Jewish quarter in the afternoon. We met Nico on Isola Tiberina (a little island on the Fiume Tevere) for a lunch of pizza and wine. He brought his guitar and we sang the Italian song that he taught us:

Ma che ce frega, ma che c'importa

Se nel vino c'hai messo l'acquo

E noi glei dimo

E noi glei famo

C'hai messo l'acqua non to pagamo

Pizza picnic

It was the perfect, relaxing afternoon in the sun! After lunch though we said goodbye to Sofie who had to fly home that afternoon and hurried on to see Foro Romano (the Roman ruins) before it closed...actually we got there after it closed. After a heated discussion in Italian, some begging from Daria and I, and an awesome Irish man's help, the three of us were allowed in! We laughed, took pictures, and did cartwheels.

Nico took us to see Circo Massimo afterwards which was a place for entertainers to go and for athletes to compete in the past. We decided to do a little entertaining while there.

The guys in the background are entertained.

And finally, the perfect end to a perfect day, we ate homemade panzerotti with Nico's housemate Marcones. Marcones actually couldn't speak a word of English and Daria and I not a word of Italian. That didn't stop us from having conversations though; hand movements help a lot.

Rome is beautiful. Luckily I threw a coin into the Fontana di Trevi so I'll be returning one day.