Porta di Roma

So today we decided to go to the largest mall in Rome, Porta di Roma. It is in the outskirts of the city so we took one of the local trains to get there. We actually had quite the adventure in finding it! We ended up walking about 3 miles till we ended up even seeing it! But right as we could see the mall a storm came in, thunder n' rain...the whole deal. It was so frustrating though because even though we could see it we could not find a way to get inside. One, we were facing the back end of it so we couldn't see an entrance and there was a highway and a fence between us and the mall! But the rain was forcing us to find the quickest way in, which meant running across the highway...don't worry there wasn't too much traffic ;) Then we then just kept walking around the back till we found the parking garage, which is how we entered the mall!

But after a long travel time mixed in with walking and the rain we were glad just to have found a way in! The mall was very large, clean and organized. Actually, from what I noticed very similar to American malls but without the small kiosks in the middle of circulation paths..you know the ones with all of the annoying salespeople rubbing lotion on your hands and spraying you with things! (ahem...Candice!). There were quite a few stores I was familiar with such as H&M, Puma, North Face, Swatch and McDonalds. The rest were all Italian and European 'chain' stores. Oh another prominent difference was the amount of men's clothing and tie stores- I would say almost equal to the amount of women's stores which is never seen in the US...But that's just Europe for you!

Also their idea of a food court is a little more spread out, but all of the food was in one area of the mall. That too was also an adventure because at most places you couldn't just point to what you wanted, you go up to the register first- tell them what you want, pay, then give your receipt to the next person who makes your food. So since none of us really know how to order like that we all just chose a combo..."Menu 3"...it made ordering much easier to just say that. I figured...I'm in Italy nothing I order can be too bad! So my meal ended up being a slice of pizza and a kebab; which as far as we figured out was a wrap with spicy pork meat. But it was very tasty...whatever it was!

I actually did quite well with all of my purchases today (aka self control!) for the amount of amazing stores we went into! Minus the fact that half the clothes I tried on in 'my size' probably wouldn't have fit Lisa! Ha...in most stores their concept of a Medium shirt is our X-small! But I did find a nice long sleeve shirt...it's turquoise and scoop neck (13 euro). I also got a lil' clutch from H&M which will be a nice alternative to my huge bag now. And my biggest purchase was a backpack from North Face! I need this for my fall break trip/excursion across Europe (only like 3 more weeks!!) It's nice because it doesn't look like a 'crazy' backpacker's pack...it is much more sleek. And hopefully it will fit enough for 10 days of travel!!! It was 70 euro, which was one of the cheaper ones but it is still really good quality and I can't wait to use it :) You can look at my new pack here: Modem pack...it's the red one ;)

So it was a good day for shopping due to the gross weather and I made some sweet buys! Tomorrow is more shopping as well at Porta Portese, the outdoor market. But this will be much much different than the mall and hopefully I will be able to barter some as well! So we'll see how that goes!