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Today I started the process of getting my very first passport.
Why? Because last night I booked a plane ticket to spend 13 days in Rome, Italy! American Airlines is running some specials for flights to Rome, and so after taxes, it was only $560 to fly round trip from Austin (as compared to $2000 round trip during the summer). One of my friends emailed me last week about going with a group of his friends, and so there's going to be about 10 of us going. We're going in the late winter, from February 21st to March 3rd, since that's when flights were the cheapest. But after spending January in DC and New York last year, I found that being a tourist in the cold actually isn't all that bad. You spend quite a bit of time indoors anyways, and the crowds were FAR lighter, so I never had to wait in line for anything. And I just checked to see what the temperatures would actually be, and the average high will get up to 60 so it won't be bad at all.
This will be my first time overseas, and first time in a country where I don't know the language. While I've been all over the US, my international travel only consists of a week long cruise in the Caribbean, and 12 hours in Vancouver, Canada. I've been wanting to go to Europe forever, and I still can't believe I'm actually going to be doing this, and getting to see the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, and all the other history that happened there. Plus I get to eat the amazing authentic Italian gelato that I keep hearing about! And real Italian pizza! We won't be spending the entire 2 weeks in Rome, as we plan on going around other parts of Italy, and even some of Eastern Europe as well.
And being the type of person I am, I've already started doing some research on the trip. Unfortunately even though the airfare is cheap, the exchange rate (1 dollar is only worth .69 Euro's) is going to be a killer. Also I loved this quote from Wikitravel Rome:
Traffic can be intimidating, but if you are at a crosswalk the secret to getting across is to just start walking. Cars will not slow down, but they will alter their trajectory to avoid hitting you.
Considering this is pretty much the way I treat traffic already, it sounds like I'll be quite prepared.
In completely unrelated news, I bought tickets today to see one of my favorite movies from my childhood, The Wizard, with Fred Savage, Luke Edwards (the crazy good gamer kid) and the director, live in the theater. It's actually not all that great of a movie, but I loved to watch it because it features tons of Nintendo video games, and it was the first time anyone saw footage of Super Mario Bros 3. Which a secret like that would never happen in today's Internet age, but back then that was the best way to advertise a new game. Essentially the movie was a 90 minute Nintendo advertisement, but that's why I loved it.
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