Roman Holiday - 3 Days in Rome ~ SugarSkull Industries

There is much to be said about traveling overseas with your parents once you are in your 30's. I won't go into too much detail here, as there are probably not enough words to describe all the little moments of stress, laughter, joy, tears, minor fights, being completely lost in Venice and after an exhausting 20+ hours of flights and layovers, harmonizing with your mom to Phil Collins' Land of Confusion in totally deserted airport.

Flying over the Pyrenees Mountains.

My parents have been to Italy three times before. It's a place they love and know well, and so as their oldest child whom has never been, we saved for about a year to spend eight days in Italy, starting in Rome and working our way up to Milan.

Rome was much hotter than expected. I only packed thin cotton pants, a few t-shirts, scarves, and two long skirts. I brought my gym shoes, which were needed because, I kid you not, we busted our asses everywhere. Speed-walked off the plane, speed-walked to each hotel in the sweltering heat carrying a purse and a 20 pound gym bag, speed-walked to get the open air tour buses take the very first trip of the day, speed walked to catch the train, speed walked to catch the metro, and so on, and so on. Bet you are tired just reading that sentence. So yes, it's true, my mom likes to travel at the speed of light, and yes I looked far from cute, covered in sweat, hair pulled back, new pimples cropping up around my nose and mouth everyday, but dammit, our trip was still amazing!

As I mentioned we spent the first three days in Rome. Rome is a huge, metropolitan city. There are open running, working water fountains everywhere, a ton of tourists, locals and immigrants everywhere you turn and more churches that you ever thought were possible or necessary.

There's no place like Rome.