When in Rome? (Italy)

I don't know if I mentioned that the driving in Morocco was crazy, but the taxis in Italy were even more intense. Once night our taxi almost hit a vespa, drove down the middle of the road, and screeched to a halt more than once to avoid pedestrians. I had a few drinks that night, but definitely not enough to image that kind of driving. I kept thinking to myself, when in Rome right? I don't think the phrase applies if you don't make it through the night.

When we got out off the taxi at the restaurant my three friends and I wobbled out of the cab and I looked around for the nearest church to thank God we lived to eat more pizza. That wasn't hard considering in Rome there are more churches than Starbucks. What I really wanted though was food. In Italy the nights usually started with gelato, then pizza, then pasta, and then more gelato.

I wouldn't say I ate my way through Italy, because the extra gelato weight didn't speed up my trips to Livorno, Pisa, Florence, Sienna, Rome and Civitavecchia. However, the tempting carb collaboration I smelled from the long museum lines maybe made me rush through some exhibits. Like any other girl I like a good view of David, but what I like more than David is alone time in a museum AND pizza (hungry nerd problems). Since neither of those two things were going to happen, my stomach usually won and I pushed past the thick crowd of Asian tourists to leave and find gelato. I say Asian because Italy is the first place where I can whisper "Asian Invasion" under my breath and people might actually think they are taking over. I think I saw more Asians than Italians, and I was ok with that until I met a sweet Korean girl on the bus who had better hand writing than me. She not only showed me up in her solo travel skillz, but she also owned me in my own language…..I digress.

Overall Italy was just as wonderful as Lizzie McGuire made it out to be, but I did have a few rough moments. One of them was when my startled cab driver stopped in the middle of traffic because I suddenly began bawling in the back seat when I realized I lost one of my bags (oh we all knew that would happen eventually). I managed to pull it together though and when I found my friends and bag a few hours later I celebrated….with more gelato. More importantly than lost bags was the amount of food I ate in six days. I got worried when I worked up a food baby to match my fake wedding ring, but when in Rome right? Nailed it.