Italy

    It's 4 o'clock in the morning. My wife woke me up and she already have taken a bath. I'm so tired because the previous night, I slept late, tinkering with my PC. Woke up, straight to the bathroom and let me tell you, 4 am in the morning, it's outrageously cold in December in Ireland. Took a dump, had a bath and all prepared to go to Arthur's Quay to grab a bus to Dublin Airport. We arrived at Dublin Airport around 7 or 8 am. Checked in and sorted. My wife was really looking forward for us to have our long waited vacation. By 11 or noon time, we've arrived in Rome.

    Rome. I've been dreaming about going to Rome, no, Italy, since I was a child playing Assassin's Creed 2 on my computer and in the December 2023, I achieved that dream. I was so excited to see the buildings, the architectures, the ambience of Italy. Not a lot of people like to go to Italy as they said that the Italians are a bit snobby and arrogant but for us, we had a craic of a time in Italy. The people are nice. Sorry, the people we met are nice people except the foreigners in Italy, they're a bit snobby as the people say. The Italians are quite nice people. It's easy to get around in Italy, if we get lost, we asked around and nobody treat us differently or bad. I don't know what kind of people they meet but the ones we met are nice people.

    Okay, coming back to Rome story. Once arrived, we straight went to our hotel to drop our bags and luggage, and freshen up a bit. 3 hours on flight and I've slept the whole way. Bought some lunch to eat at the hotel as well. I completely forget what did we buy for lunch. Anyway, had lunch, freshen up and went out. Our hotel was in an area called Roma Trastevere. Close to the train station, easy access to Rome city and other places. That's why I've picked that hotel. It's a 2 minute walk from the train station to the hotel. So, not too bad with our bags and luggage. The hotel is okay, nothing worthy to write story about. Standard hotel, okay bedroom, okay bathroom kind of situation. Walked around the train station and spot a small coffee shop at the corner of the road junction called 'Kebab Station'. I know it sounds weird, a kebab shop selling coffee but the coffee is super good and super cheap! Super cheap! I can't stress that enough. Latte costs around 70 cents. In Limerick, a latte costs around 2.50EUR. After some rest at the coffee shop, bought dinner and straight went back to the hotel. Irfan and Siti arrived sometime during night time, we couldn't stay up late to wait for them. So we decided to tuck in early and meet them the next day.

    The next day, Irfan and Siti were waiting for us at the lobby. After that, we all went to the same coffee shop before and had breakfast. After filling up on coffee, we took a train to Rome city, where all the tourist stuff. We dropped in somewhere near Colosseum and that is the first ancient building that I saw in my whole life. It was amazing. The view is superb. I was so excited at that time and I really couldn't hide my joy. We quickly walked towards Colosseum because really, I couldn't contain my own excitement. I've been climbing the Colosseum when I was playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and it was surreal in game and I got to see it right in front of me. Well, if you live in Europe, that's not a big of a deal but if you live in Asia or somewhere where travelling to Europe can costs a lot of money, that moment was huge for me. My geek/nerd meter was high up. My wife could really see the joy in my face. First of all, when we went there, I thought like I was just want to see Colosseum from the outside as I know that the ticket price is fairly expensive for us but my wife, she knew that I want to go inside. We met a tourist guide who sells us fast lane tickets including with tour guide inside Colosseum. We booked the tickets and the tour starts about an hour. So we killed time by hanging out at the coffee shop in front of the Colosseum where we sat outside and enjoy the view whilst drinking our coffee. Then, we went into Colosseum and let me tell you, it was amazing! It was nothing like I saw in the documentaries or games or anything. It was surreal. It was simply amazing. The tour guide explained to us about the structures, the events that held there, the architectures. He really knew his stuff. After the sight seeing in the Colosseum, we went out and went to more historical places. Pantheon, Foro Romano, Campo de' Fiori, Piazza Navona and lastly, Vatican City. A day in Rome is not enough actually to see all the buildings but hey maybe next time we'll be there again.

    The next day, we took a train to Florence. The birth place of Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Yes, he's fictional). In Florence, I'll be writing a different post for this place. It's too much to write Florence in this post. I'll be writing in a different post then.

    After Florence, we went to Venice. We stayed a little bit far away from the main attraction of Venice. Venice is set by the sea but we stayed like 15 minutes drive away from Venice. It's in a cute glamping area called Hu Venezia. Irfan and Siti stayed in Venice city. The glamping is complete with restaurant, laundromat, huge swimming pool area, a trekking site, and a camping area. By the lobby, it has a gift shops. The receptionist is super nice and it's easy to book a cab straight from the site to the airport. The room is a small cabin like room in a container. They have different sizes but the room we picked is enough for both of us. The bathroom is huge. The room is a simple and beautiful. I like to visit that place again just for the location. It's in the forest, quiet, peace. Woke up to the sounds of bird chirping, tranquility as people say. The food in the restaurant was amazing. I've said amazing too much now, but bear with me. Malaysians eat pastas or pizzas in the way they make them like Malaysian style. So when we had the pastas there, it was different. I mean by good different. Was tempted to order one more except I was full up with chips. Okay, enough about the food. Let's talk about Venice city.

   Venice. It's different from the others. It's a city by the sea where there are no roads for the cars, just canals which is quite interesting. I don't like the smell that much. I love the sound of the peaceful canal. There are no GPS available in the city itself. You really have to navigate your way around the city by looking at the map and pinpoint your location. This is a good place where you know if you good at navigate your way by using a map which is interesting. Like other places, you just search the name of the place on your 'Google Map' and click on direction and you just follow the line. So it's a nice adventure and nice change of pace. The food in the city is... I can't say much because we eat kebabs and lebanese pizzas as it's kind of hard to walk around in Venice city so we stopped at the first halal restaurant that we found. So I can't judge on the food. The scenery, well, the main canal which is the huge canal with the huge bridge, that place was packed. Like super packed. It's cool though to see the shops on the bridge, like a proper shop. They have Prada store, Gucci, some few stores that sell souvenirs, Rolex, and other few brands that I know that they are expensives as shit but I don't the names that much. The city was full with people, well, couldn't blame much as we went there during winter break so that should be expected but there a few places in the city that is not packed as much which is good for me. After walking around, we decided that it's best to hit the hay back at the hotel/glamping site because the next day we had to catch a flight to London and spend the rest of our vacation in London. Which is another story for another post. I'll post some pictures of the vacation in an album page that I'm going to make for this blog/journal.