I spent ten days in the Roman suburb of San Lorenzo. From what I gathered prior, San Lorenzo is known for graffiti, university students, and dive bars, which interested me more than the sort of tourist traps I had surrounded myself with while in Palermo. For several years now, Rome has been a destination on my list; my European friends had been telling me how much they love it, which surprised me, as Rome didn’t make a positive impression on me the first time I visited, on a high school trip when I was 16 years old. However, I have traveled enough since then to understand that first impressions are just that. My first impression of Rome was how much the historic center seemed to pull everything toward it. Even a few kilometers away from the Colosseum and Forum, the city still felt centered, with a slight slope towards its core. The train station, the streets I passed through, the tourist services, stores, and restaurants, all of it angled inward, as if the whole city sloped naturally toward the tourist vortex. It’s difficult to describe, but I certainly felt a gravitational pull on the streets to where the mobs of […]
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