18 days. 6 countries. 1 bag: Rome - Day 4 continued

Long story short: We got home at 4am the next morning.

Long story long: Remember my travel "rule" for new places?  

Spend half a day hitting the "must-sees",  a local restaurant for dinner, and do one nightlife-oriented event (bar, club, activity, etc).

Well my "activity" for our second night in Rome included bar, club, activity, AND etc... HA!  As a dancer, whenever I travel to new places, if I get the chance to teach or take a class, I always go for it.  Now I'm not gonna front, I get intimidated like any new kid starting school in a new place.  But it makes for a good experience because you get to step a little outside of the touristy realm and into more "real" people realm.  Youtube has its benefits - do a search for "hip hop dance competition italy " and you get this crew.  Break da Beat crew from Roma…they'd definitely give ABDC a run for its money.  I was able to find which studio, the choreographer, Emanuele Battista, taught at and sent him an email about classes. I was in luck because he had a class the last night i was there!  yay! So off me and Mr. P went after the Coliseum - back to the hotel so I could change into my getup and then took a cab to Maison de la Danse (Via Assisi 37 Metro: Ponte Lungo)   

I was so nervous - this crew was good. What if I sucked?  Too late to back out now…so I got there just when they were in the middle of warmup (and i was late! dangit!) 5 min into the class and I was in a groove and started to just enjoy learning someone else's style.  Emanuele asked if he should speak in english or italian and i said no, don't mind me, italian is fine.  More reason to believe Dance is a universal language - you just follow and I had no problems following.   The class was awesome - here's where I netted out with the routine (which was dope by the way)  

After class, with no time to change, I literally switched to a maxi dress and flats that I had stuffed in my purse. My sneakers (Nike Free TR Fit Winter) were awesome because they are flat and super flexible (but still look good) and took up barely any room in my purse.  I layered up over my maxi dress with a cardigan and my leather jacket, some accessories and headed to dinner at Glass Hostaria

Glass Hostaria in Trastevere

Getting there was an adventure - the cab driver dropped us off on a corner in Trastevere and just motioned into the alley like "there"  lol.  so we kinda walked in circles until after asking a few people we finally found it.  I'll keep my review nice and short: It is a gorgeous place with modern decor and design. However it's something we're accustomed to seeing in NYC. The food was good. Service: decent.  Mindblowing? no.  Italian? not so sure...I think it was a modern/fancy take of Italian cuisine.  If you had one night to do dinner in Rome - I would say skip. If you have a few nights however, I would recommend. Needless to say, we left still hungry. There were a lot of good reviews for Glass but after the day we had, I should have chosen something more local and hearty.  Out of 5 sefastars: I give it a 3.5 (I think NYC spoils me lol).  Glass Hostaria (Vicolo de' Cinque, 58  00153 Roma, Italy)

Travel tip:  I'm a loyal fan of opentable.com and happened to stumble upon a european counterpart called toptable.com that works very similar. I was able to read reviews (majority english) and book reservations.  Most had perks when booking a reservation.  Easy - no language barriers - done and done.  I recommend.

When we left Glass Hostaria, we headed to this bar that we had passed earlier that night while in search for the restaurant. They were playing hip hop (current hip hop at that) and figured why not go for a drink afterwards?  

G. D.J.-Bar in Trastevere

DJ-bar (Vicolo del cinque, 60, Roma) felt like a place college kids would hang out at but it wasn't just students in there. It was a mix of people and personalities. The vibe was very casual, fun, and celebratory.  The DJ was great - we kind of posted up right next to him and I would just make requests and he would just play them!  I wasn't surprised about him playing them - I was more surprised that he had the songs!  Travis Porter, Chris brown/weezy "Look at me now", jayz/kanye "Paris", T-pain, Ross, Drake, Wiz Khalifa, Yung Joc, Nicki,  etc  you name it he had it. I was jamming!  In an hour's time, we had made a few friends (or lets say Mr. P had made a few fans haha) and caught the attention of the owner who invited us to another spot after he closed down.  So come 2am roll around and DJ Bar shut down, we head with the owner to another club called Akab in who knows where (found out later, Testaccio) and partied it up VIP style with a few Roma futbol players. Crazy. Music good (hip hop, dancehall, house). By 4am I don't think my body was agreeing to this 24 hour party time so we finally said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel.  ahhh the good times.

Akab in Testaccio

We "woke" up 5 hours later, realizing the only damage done was that I had left the chunky infinity scarf I had purchased in London at Akab (doh! and I was slightly pissed at myself b/c I could have used this scarf in several places later in the trip). Anyhow, we woke up, quickly threw clothes into our suitcases and headed to the station to catch our train to Civitavecchia to board our cruise!  

Considering we were up at 8am the day before that's almost 24 hours of being out and about.  It's a shame I didn't take pictures on our second and last night in Rome but that's why I've got the internet to help me out*  Until next time....

*Unable to find photo credits for these but would be happy to give credit where credit is due!