France To Rome

Paris was beautiful but we had to move on simply because of money - we skated down on trains for about two days until we got to Barcelona - While we were there Espana won the Euro cup and the streets were absolutley crazy - i wished i had taken pictures but because of the crowds we were afraid to taked valuables with us - The rambla was packed with people, you could barely move - we met Justo the professional tennis player from Argentina and he spoke our spanish for us and got us tickets wuick across the sea to rome- while we waited for our ferry we went down to the beach which turned out to be alot more free than american beachs which in someways is very cool but there are plenty of things that should remain tamed in my opinion...eek- we swam out to these giant rocks about three hundred meters out and bathed in the sun for a long time while Justo hung out with our stuff -
There ferry was enormous and we hung out there with Justo and then a guy named Phil who is origanlly from London who now lives in Rome over heard our English and he chatted it up with us for awhile- we became fast °mates° - he speaks perfect italian and took us straight from the port to the terminal and suggested a place for us to stay at called a °centro sociale° (Chentro Sosholly) -

it is a abandoned Roman fort, forte prenestino, that has been squatted for about 20 years and has become a center of the anti-facist movement here in Rome - it has about twenty or thirty tunnels that they rent out to different people and each tunnel provides a service to the people living here - right now we are in the media center which although it is 40° celsius out, remains as cool as an air conditioned house because it is all under ground - other tunnels have welding shops, bike shops, a movie theatre, a recording studio and then of course the dormitory where we sleep with other people, most of which are south american jewelry makers/jugglers traveling through europe selling and performing - they are really nice and they watch our stuff when we are gone and we watch their stuff when they go - this morning we had to help clean up trash and take it all out to the dumpster but that will pay for our rent for up to a week - the food here is all made/grown here and is mostly vegaterian - the restaraunt serves two meals a day one large bowl or plate is usually around 2 euros which makes it the cheapest and the best food we have eaten so far in europe -

we are going into the city tomorrow to see the °real° sites but culture here is incredible - truly one of the most unique places iàve ever known of in the world, mostly because it works -