Roma Termini

I was so relieved when I saw the sign Roma Termini. Didn’t matter if it was slightly wet that morning, I followed the directions and found myself at Yes Hotel. The lift was broken so we had to use another one located at the back of the hotel which turned out to be a vintage elevator, I like! Here’s a really bad video of  the machina in action (Mr Tatonka and I, tugging a foldable trolley thingy I bought in Rome to help me with my hand carry):

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsvGDIyro_I]

My first meal was at Trattoria I Leoni d’Abruzzo. The staff at Yes Hotel gave me a name card to this trattoria because I was absolutely famished but most places weren’t ready to serve lunch as I arrived 10-ish (I think). They probably have some referral thing going on and you get a discount if you turn up with the name card that has Yes Hotel and -10% Discount stamped on it. I lost the receipt and can’t recall how much my meal cost but I vaguely remember that the food was average.

Trattoria I Leoni d'Abruzzo

Sitting in a restaurant and swaying side to side in my head after 20 hours of train. – Me, via iPod Touch

I booked Yes Hotel through their website and it had the best directions to guide me from Termini Station to their hotel. I wasn’t really on a rough-it-out, stay-in-guesthouses kinda backpacking trip previously and spent 125.90 EUR for two nights. Will definitely recommend this hotel if you’re not on a backpacker’s budget for the excellent location, friendly staff and cozy rooms.

Can’t exactly recall what I did on my first day in Rome but thanks to digitally dated photos, I reckon I must have visited the supermarket.

Supermercato

Meat section

After exploring the area near my hotel, fatigue and first-timer’s-jitters of travelling alone when night falls (awfully early) ushered me to a nearby internet cafe where I e-mailed my friends and checked what time Mr Sun’s getting up the next day so I could catch him at the Colosseum.