Rome

Rome: 8.15am, November 2, 2005

I sit with my feet perched on the cobblestones of the Colosseum entrance, having wanted to go to the Vatican but having got the wrong train. Everything is so real, so very, very real. The flight was, my mum wont like me using this word, surreal.

I studied the flight plan and it showed an arch running from Bangkok through the southern edge of the Himalayas and then straight across Iran and Iraq - not so I was told mid-flight. Instead I saw little light for 11 hours and even when I did it looked suspicious and out of place.

The trains were wonderful, until I discovered Rome's metro. Sydneysiders, never whine again, you have it wonderful {even when it's 35c and you're stopped between Redfern and Central without air conditioning.